How Relooted, A Game About Reclaiming African Artifacts From Western Museums, Ended Up Being Shown By A White Guy At Summer Game Fest (aftermath.site)
from alyaza@beehaw.org to gaming@beehaw.org on 13 Jun 20:09
https://beehaw.org/post/20556659

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Relooted, which made its debut last week during the Summer Game Fest-adjacent Day of the Devs showcase, immediately turned heads. Its Killmonger-approved premise confronts one of the most uncomfortable truths undergirding Western society: We stole a lot of stuff! Land and lives, mainly, but as an extension of that, artifacts — precious pieces of the histories empires like the US and UK snuffed out. In Relooted, your crack team of liberators from a plethora of different African countries heists them back.

The game’s dev team is composed of people from African countries like Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, but during Summer Game Fest’s multi-day, demo-centric Play Days event, creative director Ben Myres, who is white and was raised in South Africa, manned the booth alone. This was not always the plan: Myres was originally going to be accompanied by another developer from South-Africa-based studio Nyamakop, whom Aftermath has granted anonymity due to their concerns that speaking out might exacerbate the challenges they’ve already faced entering the United States.

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Zoop@beehaw.org on 13 Jun 20:43 next collapse

I’m so disappointed, but not at all surprised. I feel for them. :( Thank you for sharing this here. The game sounds awesome. I hope they’re successful with it and it gets really popular and helps educate people.

terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 14 Jun 15:08 collapse

I’m not saying it’s right, or fixes past evils…but can we stop pretending the modern US have been the only ones that have ever done evil shit? At this point it feels more like crying wolf for the sins of our fathers. Every country, every era has dirty laundry.

araneae@beehaw.org on 14 Jun 16:26 next collapse

Okay, well, here’s a video game about that and you don’t have to play it if you don’t want. Heisting back your cultural heirlooms is a great premise I could get behind for any culture.

Vodulas@beehaw.org on 14 Jun 18:52 next collapse

This isn’t dirty laundry, this is current events. This event happened last week.

If you are referring to the game, the article calls out the US and UK, but the game description itself just says western, which probably means several locations. But even if it is just the US and UK, who cares? The US and UK have a fuckton of dirty laundry that is still being aired out, and this South African dev has the right to address concerns with those two countries that have had direct harm to their culture

amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 16 Jun 04:45 collapse

if the shoe doesn’t fit then stop acting like your name is Cinderella