Popular modding site Nexus Mods has banned the user who removed the Pride flags in the PC version of Marvel’s Spider-Man, sparking an outcry that the site has actively disengaged from.
The original mod was called “Non-Newtonian New York,” and replaced the in-game Pride flags dotted around New York City with US flags.
As today’s announcement from Nexus Mods explains, “In regards to the replacement of Pride flags in this game, or any game, our policy is thus: we are for inclusivity, we are for diversity. If we think someone is uploading a mod on our site with the intent to deliberately be against inclusivity and/or diversity then we will take action against it.”
Pride’s goal from the beginning has been liberatory politics and it’s important not to downplay that to make it more palatable. It’s political to fight to assert our right to have rights. Hell, the very concept of queerness is extremely political: it’s a political coalition of very different groups who work together because we share common political goals because we all suffer from the same oppressive norms and policies.
Where we should disagree with someone saying to keep politics outta their vidya gaemz is to say that doing so is both impossible and undesirable. AAA games are already so fucking afraid of saying anything at all, imagine how dry they’d be if they listened to the “no politics” crowd even more.
great points!