In the indie game design space, as well as outward from that, there is a great deal of discussion about the importance of "diversity" in gaming and game design. I agree, so long as diversity means diverse, which by definition ignores such notions as pathologies of privilege from white / male / heterosexual / able / western / Christians, and actually is agnostic of who a game design comes from. The idea counts... not the identity of the designer. Furthermore, if a game forum claims to stand against "discrimination" while shaming people for not checking their privilege in discussions, is problematic; when discrimination is based on identity while celebrating every kind of "transgressive" idea the discrimination is both actually being practiced (sometimes very aggressively) and not applied to the right thing (the thinking). Again, it is ideas that should matter in games, not the identity of the designer.
Case in point... there is a game that is in my top shelf list of indie games called The Quiet Year. The idea is that a society in the ruins of some previous society, has a year - four seasons - to confront their situation, face the challenges, and see what they can build before a bad thing happens at the end of the year (when the game ends). This is, I think a clever and universal concept piece, both timeless and applicable to potentially any human society. Furthermore, the game is elegantly simple in the mechanics, played essentially with nothing more than a deck of cards and a shared map that continues to be elaborated on collectively as play proceeds. The cards represent different kinds of events based on suit and number, and the map provides an artifact of play.
There is a followup called The Deep Forest. This one is not so well made, and the further I read, the less I liked it. It takes the same basic framework, but makes the characters all monsters who are rebuilding a tolerant society and the bad thing that is coming, is humans. The further it goes, the sillier it gets with sentimental goblins, victimized ogres, and monsters that are anything but as they prepare for the diabolic threat of humans! This is all fine and good, if subverting the trope is done for laughs as it plays with the collision of the unexpected and the unacceptable. Only, it turns out that the author, who wrote the original The Quiet Year, is now not who he says he is as he is now a she, and as explained in "her" essay at the end of The Deep Forest is his metaphor for the plight of the "Other" who is unfairly demonized by the wicked privilege and oppression of the establishment. The game is meant to be taken seriously, not humorously, and as a social activist piece it seems.
But wait! you say... what about, for example, virtually all of White Wolf's games, which put you in the skin of the monster? Why do those get a pass? Why take those seriously?
Those games (I can't speak about the latest editions), DO address the idea of being a monster, and DO address being an outsider and a sort of other... but at the end of the day, the vampires are only as monstrous as their lack of humanity, the werewolves only as monstrous as their lack of control over the beast. Humanity is not the problem... it is the cure, or at least the stabilizing treatment for the problem which is embracing the monster too far. There is in whatever imperfect fashion, the notion that there is some transcendent right and wrong that has little to do with how the monster feels about who they are. Accelerate culture through two generations of post-modern liberal education and we find designers making games that celebrate the monster because of their feelings of victimization and revile humanity in general as the wicked oppressor because they don't feel the same.
The value of monsters in stories is to show what is... well, monstrous. The mythic function of the monster is to put a shape and a skin on the things that are (and should be) harmful, fearful, loathsome, and reprehensible to humanity. It is not about how the monster feels - that is a different kind of story. Beauty and the Beast, and Bearskin are not primarily monster stories, but rather perception stories. Postmodern political thinking has made legions unable to distinguish the difference.
Now I don't argue that games can, as an art form, provide a way to play with serious ideas at a remove that allows them to be dealt with as ideas rather than unpleasant experiences. I think that the designer of The Quiet Year is in general a good designer - I have a couple of his games in my top shelf file (The Quiet Year and Perfect). Others, not so much (Monster Hearts and The Deep Forest). I dig his designer mission statement HERE. But bad politics based on bad philosophy is likely to corrupt good game design. This is a problem with so many of the small games out in indie space, the primary goal of which is to be a communication vehicle for social justice activism. The only game that I think pulls off the feat of making a smart conversation piece for more liberal political thought is one that is at least as much classical liberalism (unwittingly I suspect) as neo-liberalism. That one is Dog Eat Dog, which is about the consequences of colonialism. Now I don't agree with the fullness of designer Liam Burke's conclusions in the essay afterward, but I think the game is both elegantly designed and has an interesting high concept.
I think the biggest problem in the indie game space is not, as so often asserted, the lack of diversity or the problem of privilege, but rather that so many of the designers are consumed with intersectional political theory which assumes that unquestioningly assumes that:
1) a matrix of oppression is institutionalized in society (especially western societies)
2) the oppression is roughly defined by the dichotomies of who is privileged and who is oppressed in any given interaction
3) only the oppressed class possesses the wisdom, character, and experience to understand the
problem
4) the privileged class is inherently incapable of understanding and thus commenting on, questioning, or critiquing the theory as that would either display ignorance or oppressive behavior
5) the nature of the oppression is to shame, demean, deprive, bully, and silence the oppressed class
6) being oppressed justifies and excuses the exact same behaviors if they are committed against the privileged class
So, Power = Privilege = Oppression = Bad
and, Oppressed = Bad = Enlightened = Justified
and thus, Oppressed = Justified in taking Power to overturn the Privileged = Good
But somehow the naked greed and envy and pride in collecting more and more victim cred to justify using power to oppress is not hypocrisy?... Haven't we seen this in France in 1789, and Russia in 1917, and Germany in 1933, and China in 1958, and on and on?... only the labels change.
(Ooops... no questions allowed here... this is a safe space from microaggressions!)
That this comes out of marxist political theory, and has been shaped by the Orwellian distopian strategies of double-speak, lies and propaganda is not surprising. It feels just like it could have been elucidated by the conspirators on Animal Farm. I'm not really of the belief that many of the bright young designers in the indie game space mean to do harm - quite the opposite. I just think they don't really get the problems of the worldview that they are endorsing, and when it comes out in their designs, it really stinks. The fact that the bloodbath is merely verbal in the social media commons does not prevent it from being repellant.
Wouldn't it be better, if indie game designers were more concerned with interesting ideas than with the phantom privilege in gaming? Like Downfall, by Caroline Hobbs. She is a great game designer, and Downfall is a really cool idea game, malleable to many many kinds of stories. I don't know what her political views are marxist, or anti-marxist, or anarchist or otherwise. But she is a cool game maker. Do I care that Caroline is in the "oppressed" class? Nope, not a whit, because I am concerned with the fact that she has a great idea. If I knew her personally and was seeking hypothetically to date her, then it would matter a lot that she was a woman. But as a thinking human who designs games, she is much cooler as far as I'm concerned.
Maybe there is a good game hack in all this... an inversion of Dog Eat Dog maybe?...
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