After Valve says no, Dwarf Fortress and Deep Rock Galactic devs unite to get "very serious" about their very silly demand for a dwarf tag on Steam, and they want your help
https://www.gamesradar.com/after-valve-says-no-dwarf-fortress-and-deep-rock-galactic-devs-unite-to-get-very-serious-about-their-very-silly-demand-for-a-dwarf-tag-on-steam-and-they-want-your-help/Open linkView original on aussie.zone
86 replies
Aren't there community tags for situations like these?
I think the problem is that they don't get awards even tho they are very good game and really amazing devs who love their games and playerbase. Last year read dead redemption won labour of love in the same category as drg was in 🤮
The Steam awards are a total joke. RDR, a game with zero content updates won labor of love. Starfield, a paint-by-number Bethesda RPG is most innovative. But it doesn't matter because the awards don't matter.
I believe Starfield at least was brigading to prove the point that the awards are silly at best at this point.
Did the job pretty well.
Not even that. The suits at 2K publishing (and maybe on Rockstar's board of directors too tbh) just decided that it wasn't worth investing any development time in since it prints money less easily and more slowly than GTA online
RDR2 is an amazing games yes.
But it is not a game that deserves to get labour of love.
Devs don't determine when or what they work on, that's all up to management
Yeah steam awards were a joke but what does it have to do with a dwarf tag? Do they also want a dwarf category in steam awards?
Isn't Steam awards are voted by users? So if anything, should the users (or rather, troll voters) be blamed?
Certainly trolls deserve quite a bit of the blame. But Steam is also to blame for allowing people to vote on games they've never even played before, and allowing games that haven't been updated in over a year to be eligible for labor of love. When 5 games someone doesn't own are the options, it just becomes a contest of which game is best known.
It's why Pizza Pizza has a history of being voted as Toronto's best pizza chain despite selling cardboard with red paint on it as food
I mean by the nature of more popular games getting more votes, its just how this system will always play out.
Yeah I didn't understand how RDR won that award. Weird.
It made about as much sense as Starfield winning the most innovative gameplay...
I think RDR and Starfield winning were ops planned by their respective communities. Like, these games are clearly neither of these things, yet they won. It's seems intentional. Not on Valves part. I have no proof, of course. It's just baffling.
How is it baffling? Gamers are "idiots" in the sense that memes are usually more important than useful communication. This post is exactly the same type of thing, a "dwarf" tag doesn't really help communicate anything useful; am I more likely to want a "dwarf" game, or more likely to want a specific genre of game?
Starfield and RDR won their respective categories because gamers like to meme about. It's the same reason useless Steam reviews get highly upvoted, gamers like to meme about.
I really do hate those goofy ass reviews.
300 hours It’s okay I guess
Wow. So helpful in helping me decide if I want to spend my hard earned money on this game.
What's even worse is the reviews like "I'm gay" that gets a ton of "helpful" awards. They're easy to scroll past, but it's indicative of the unhelpful nature of a lot of gamers.
Not as bad as those asinine game guides that all say, "How to walk: press W lololol we're all so funny and goofy 🤪" stfu that was funny maybe once at most, now the whole community is flooded with that stupid shit.
Also: who gives a fuck?
They ofcourse because it would put them at the top of some new to be category view and they think it will bring them more name and money
If you don't rock and stone, you ain't coming home.
Rock and stone to the bone!
ROCK. AND. STONE.
For Karl!
Rock and rollin' Stone!
Rock and Stone! Yeah!
I fucking love dwarves, I'm all for a dwarf tag.
Screw layoffs, this is the actual Gaming Industry Disaster™
Let's move it a bit further and introduce tags as detailed as vndb.
WTF? Valve are you serious?
They're careful. They probably don't want a tag, about which articles will be made, saying "valve evil they make fun of dwarfism"
At that point, make it 'dwarves' so its clear its about the fantasy race, rather than making fun of dwarfs.
You think the people that write and read clickbait headline care?
I think the way tags work is that steam shows the most commonly used tags. But you can still add your own. If enough people add a dwarf tag then eventually it'll start appearing as an option for other people.
Valve knows that making a story about it will drive more sales.
I demand an "undead" tag!
I think they want to avoid the abuse potential. It could be used to make fun of little people.
Deep rock is getting serious about dwarf representation. But still thinks female characters aren't worth the effort?
It's easier to make fantasy men than literally 1 woman. I would call it a joke, but those are funny. This is just sad and infuriating.
Should have just said that it already has female dwarfs and refused to elaborate.
The Discworld way.
I mean, Cheery is one of the best characters in the series.
For those confused, discworld dwarfs have both males and females. However, both are stocky and have beards. They also are very egalitarian regarding jobs etc. They long ago gave up correcting the surface races regarding their gender, who assume a burley minor in heavy armour, and a thick beard, is a male dwarf.
The Tolkien way, too. Remember Gimli's bit about people thinking there aren't dwarf women because they can't tell them from the men?
Did you read the article? Are you familiar with the concept of tech debt? Sounds like they would have to put the rest of the game dev on hold for months if not a year to make progress, and they're already known as a company with slow dev because they take care of their employees and don't crunch.
I mean I agree I want female dwarves in the game, but it's literally millions of dollars to implement
Except you can do it incrementally and just have a female dwarf that doesn't support everything.
Given the ableist connotation I think valve is in the right on this one
I think it's more that it's a meaningless tag. Dwarf fortress and drg are totally different games. Do all games that have any amount of dwarves get this tag? Does LOTR count for Gimli, or total war Warhammer for having a Dwarf playable race, or elder scrolls for the dwemer which are dwarves?
As a huge dwarf lover, this would be great for me. I've loved playing dwarves ever since I played Golden Axe at the arcade. Whenever there's a dwarf as a playable character I'm more interested in the game. In fact, I dislike Skyrim for having elves but no dwarves.
In Elder Scrolls lore, the dwarves are elves. So are the orcs.
Blashphemy!!
Let me upset you further. Dwarves are just short humans, elves are just skinny humans, and orcs are just green humans. Halflings are human children, and gnomes are mischievous human children. We don't talk about the aarakocra.
Such clearly incorrect information doesn't bother me. It's not like you said elves were better than dwarves. THAT would upset me.
I mean, they are better than dwarves at basketball.
There are lots of tags about themes, not gameplay. This would be one more.
Is Dwarf really a theme though? Even in theme the sci-fi drg isn't really similar to traditional fantasy dwarves in Dwarf fortress.
They diggy hole.
It doesn't have to be the main theme, just something that's present in the game. As some of the other commentors have shown, there would be people interested in tags like that, so why not?
The article even says that in a similar vein there's official vampire and werewolf tags
You're damn right it is, cloud brained Umgi.
Assuming you're asking from a place of wanting to know. "Dwarf" is a term that has been used in the past to describe little people or those suffering from dwarfism. It can be a negative word for some in that community and is tied to ableism in that way
It's also the preferred descriptor for some. I've had friends with dwarfism that thought "little people" was condescending as hell and hated it.
None of this is ever black and white. Especially when it's just interjecting into comments on the Internet talking about the fantasy race that's either Jews with battle axes or persons from Svartálfheim.
The way Tolkien-style dwarves embody stereotypes about Jews makes me really uncomfortable. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it.
It's a mostly standard view of Tolkien scholarship. They're much more a medieval view of jewishness then something straight racist like say, JK Rowling's goblins. As makes sense for an Old English scholar like Tolkein.
Ancient people, separated into familial tribes, outcast from their ancestral home, not really welcomed anywhere but tolerated some places, warrior poet tradition, noble 'in their way', beards, gold, noses.
Sprinkle on some Norse/Germanic for flavor and there you go. Though then you can get into the side conversation of Yiddish being a Germanic dialect/language.
Found the drow.
Elves are pretty much always lowkey supremacists and their tree love/fetish is obviously inferior to the industrious dwarves.
From what I've heard, I think that is the officially accepted term from the community that most prefer, or am I behind the times?
honestly couldn't they easily sidestep that whole can of worms by requesting a 'dwarves' tag instead
This kind of shit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2UgwINQVPM
The tourist attraction is based on the stories. And the stories are based on little people being ascribe magical properties, like "rubbing their head brings luck" or someshit like that. The fantastical stories live in a real context. And a lot of the stories about dwarfs come from an ableist view on short people.
yes, by valve not putting in "dwarf" as a tag to make it easier for its customers to search for games the entire fucking genre dies. Put ASoIaF fans on suicide watch lmfao
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I'm relatively short and wide in shoulders. Fuck me, I guess, for feeling represented?
You should feel represented. And so should girl gamers who the Deep rock Devs have continually said aren't worth the effort of even 1 female character.
And while we're at it they should add tall dwarves too! So anyone tall who plays it feels represented
Are tall people literally half the human population? Are they a historically marginalized group? Is there an entire body of literature and studies examining the ways they are not repented in media?
I don't think it's worth a downvote, but what's the ableist connotation? It's not a judgment of disabled people or dunking on people with dwarfism, it's just a tag for a would-be genre of games.
Agreed Valve isn’t that shortsighted.
Booo.