Review: "Deus Ex dev doesn't take kindly to criticism of 'Mechanical Apartheid' marketing term" by Andrew Eisen, Gamepolitics.com

Original article found here.

This may be the worst article on the entire "apartheid" idiocy I've seen so far. Read my previous analysis of the articles, if you want, it's not required reading to understand this post.

Let's begin with the opening statements:

"Apartheid," like "holocaust," is a noun with a specific meaning.  It is also, like "holocaust," very heavily tied to a specific part of our world's history.  Holocaust may mean "loss of life through fire" but when we hear the word we can't help but think of the millions of Jews exterminated by Nazis during World War II.  Likewise, "apartheid" directs our brains to the legally enforced political and economic inequality non-whites suffered in South Africa from the late 40s to early 90s.

People use both terms all the time when referring to things other than the historical holocaust and South African apartheid. I don't see where you're coming from. You haven't made an argument against the usage of the term "mechanical apartheid" to describe the game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. In fact, you've only said that a general "we" and "our brains" thinks of bad things when those bad words are used. So obviously we shouldn't ever use those words to refer to bad things?

So let's look at the next section:

Both events those words inevitably make us think of are some of the most horrible parts of our recent history so perhaps it's not too surprising that a few would find "Mechanical Apartheid," the marketing term Square Enix is using for its upcoming game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, to be eyebrow raising enough to tweet about the appropriateness of its use.

Okay. I see what you're doing. By saying it's a "marketing term" you're conflating the ideas of profit or business with the use of mature terms to explain mature themes. Because it's a "marketing term" it's not okay to use. However, that's not all this is. This is the theme of the game. The game is about this subject of mechanical apartheid, in which the augmented humans are treated as second-class citizens and herded into ghettos. It's a horrible situation, and Deus Ex is exploring it. Aren't you always complaining that games aren't being taken seriously? Here's a serious issue for games to tackle, and you're complaining about it.

A couple days ago, Gilles Matouba, who identifies himself as the former game director of Mankind Divided at Eidos Montreal, took to the Kotaku in Action subreddit to explain the genesis and intent behind the term which he (a black and French man) and Deus Ex brand director Andre Vu (an Asian and French man) created a few years ago and Square Enix subsequently trademarked.  It's an interesting read but that's not the part that seems to have captured most's attention.

So the game developer comes forward and explains that he's not a white guy like people on Twitter were saying and complaining about, but apparently it's not okay. Do you still think he shouldn't have used the term "apartheid"?

And that's not even the problem here. The problem is that the author then goes through and paints it as if the developer was being petty in responding to those complaints. See for yourself:

I honestly couldn't figure out who these "bloggers and tweeters" were.  My Google fu came up with no articles opining on the appropriateness of the "Mechanical Apartheid" marketing term and my search of Matouba, Edios and Square Enix's Twitter mentions came up with nothing that struck me as meriting such an indignant response.

This is insanity. He then posts a long list of tweets that the developer could have been replying to. Going through and saying you can't figure out who he's replying to, then posting a bunch of tweets that could be what he was replying to is self-contradictory. But worse, as I mentioned above, it paints the developer as being petty for replying to these complaints. And then after all the examples the author lays out, he makes himself seem petty by complaining about

And that's it.  So far as I've been able to determine, these are the messages that Matouba felt were "beyond mere insults" that "degraded" and "erased" his "identity as a black developer."

I feel it's worth noting that none of the above tweets copied Matouba, Eidos or Square Enix (although one tweet did use a #SquareEnix hashtag) and so far as I've seen, no one has felt strongly enough about "Mechanical Apartheid" as a marketing term to do anything more than tweet about it.

I'm sure these tweets aren't the sum total of everything said criticizing the term but I don't think it's unfair to assume that these are the most inflammatory examples.

And there you have it. Because the author couldn't find any bloggers who said anything, clearly the developer was wrong to reply to the tweeters and mention bloggers. Forget the argument he made, forget that he's black, there's no bloggers so he's wrong.

I just... I can't believe this. Sure, the term "apartheid" has some baggage with it, but to argue a point like this one is complete madness. I like Gamepolitics.com, and I expect better from them.