I’ll be honest. I don’t really care if Concord is a good game. I was never going to play it anyway. I am notorious for my ability to get lost in video games, which only gets worse in first person; I lack the reflexes to pull off shooters with any competency; and multiplayer gives me anxiety. So if it’s a good game, that’s great for the people who want to play it. And if it’s a bad game, that sucks for the people who wanted to play it; but either way, it doesn’t affect me.
But here’s the thing: I think most people don’t care if Concord is a good game or not. Because frankly, I don’t think most people talking about Concord are actually talking about it at all. I think Concord has become the proxy by which a very different battle is fought. I also don’t think the people fighting in that battle are benefiting from it in any way.
There are No Rules
Let’s talk about character design. Because somehow, there’s a deadly word floating around. Or a deadly number. I’m talking, of course, about 34. Rule 34, to be precise.
Rule 34 is the bane of discussion ostensibly surrounding the topic of Concord. Half the Internet invokes it to say the character design is bad; the other half of the Internet invokes it as proof that the first half just wants to fap to something. I look at both, then look at the characters, and think everyone is missing the point. Sure, some people are using rule 34 for its original meaning. Some people also genuinely mean it when they say Flandre Scarlet is actually super old so it’s not creepy. Some people, basically, suck.
But here’s the truth about Concord’s character designs: they’re, well… kind of boring. Perfect for selling skins for, probably, maybe, if the game even lives that long–but boring on their own. They’re like if a middle school was doing a superhero spirit day and no licensed characters were allowed. And that might be an insult to the creativity of middle schoolers.
I think that’s what people are saying when they invoke Rule 34. I don’t think most people are trying to figure out how to jerk off to the giant yellow robot. I think most people are asking why the characters are so bland. And let’s be honest, bland characters do make it harder to market. That’s why the higher rarity characters in gacha games always have elaborate, detailed designs. Does it change the gameplay? No. But it can change how the game feels.
Which is to say, whether you invoke Rule 34 as a downside to the game or as a gotcha for the other side, you’re wrong.
There are No Sides
The lie of Rule 34–the idea that either Concord fails to meet it or that people who say that just want to jerk off–is a symptom of what has infected the discussion around this entire game: a pernicious, insidious, all-or-nothing, us-vs.-them mentality that does nothing but compound stress and rage for anyone who treads these rhetorical grounds.
“But they’re wrong!” I hear you say. And well… I mean, probably? You’re probably wrong too. About something. But this is a game. This is a discussion of opinion. Even my rather pointed description of the character design is just an opinion. About a hobby. Is a hobby really worth pushing up your blood pressure?
Before you finish taking in that breath to yell Yes!, answer me this: Who are you yelling at?
Before you start answering, talking about the people who want to rate Concord a 3/10 without playing it, or the people who are insisting that this clearly DEI-riddled garbage game is a 7/10 or even an 8/10–before you start in on that, humor me and answer me another question. So what?
There is No Goal
I mentioned that this is a proxy for a different fight. I’m confident in this because this isn’t the first or last time the fight will or has been had. It happens every few months, and it never gets less exhausting to spectate.
The truth is, though, I’m not sure people actually know what the real fight is about.
People will tell you what they think it’s about. It’s a push back against DEI. It’s an attempt to stop progressiveness and inclusivity in games. (These sound like they mean the same thing, but they don’t.) It’s about oversaturation in the market. It’s about buying a game outright versus a subscription model.
I don’t believe any of those “abouts.”
So what is it about?
Nothing. Not really.
At the end of the day, this fight is about nothing more than lines drawn in the sand over things that may or may not have mattered significantly more, that are now being used as arrows pointing to things that definitely matter significantly less. Because, at the end of the day, Concord is just a game. Not a particularly popular one, but (according to people whose opinions I trust) a substantially better one than it was expected to be. And even if it was worse (I’m not sure the bar goes low enough for that, given some of the internet vitriol, but still), so what? It’s just a game.
There is No Point
When I rage at a game, or stress about finishing one, or in any way allow gaming to become anything other than a hobby, there’s a thing my boyfriend reminds me of:
We play games to have fun.
And when it’s not fun anymore, we stop playing.
For me, talking about games is a similar process. I talk about things I love because I want to share that joy and hear other people share in that joy. Especially in escapist hobbies like video games. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s plenty of objectively stressful shit happening in the real world. I don’t understand the impulse so many people seem to have to try to force added stress and rage into a hobby. A for-fun activity. A game. I don’t get it. And at the heart of it, I don’t think even the people participating in it get it either.
Garbage