Why my videogame chooses your character’s race and gender for you | Garry Newman
Russian and transgender players of Rust are unhappy, but the decision to randomise race and gender is all about better gameplay, not imposing ideologyI am the lead developer on a multiplayer survival game named Rust. Last week, we made a change to the game that upset a lot of people: we made half of our players, picked at random, play as women. We also made some of them black. The response has been extreme.
Rust is not a game about identity. The objective in Rust is to survive. This is made difficult by things such as starvation, dehydration, radiation, exposure and bear attacks. The biggest threat in the game comes from other players who are trying to survive in the same conditions. You will survive better if you're a part of a group, but this takes a lot of mutual trust. If you kill someone you'll be able to loot their corpse and take all their food, medicine and weapons. This makes the game very interesting socially, since players struggle with trust and slowly build up relationships with one another.
Continue reading...