The Gamer Babies are at it again
Total War: Rome II is currently getting review bombed on Steam. Despite positive reviews since launch, its suddenly had a huge influx of negative reviews in the last couple days. 
Must be in response to something that Creative Assembly recently changed, right? Nope!
It’s all about an update that added more female generals to the game, all the way back in *March*. No one seemed to care much then - just some polite discussions about historical accuracy on the Steam forums
totalwar.com/blog/desert-ki…
totalwar.com/blog/desert-ki…
Shit started getting heated and argumentative, though. Especially when someone posted this screenshot, seemingly showing every single general being a woman.
CA’s community manager Ella had to step in - issuing bans, closing threads, and telling a few noisy arseholes…
“Total War games are historically authentic, not historically accurate - if having female units upsets you that much you can either mod them out or just not play.”
“Total War games are historically authentic, not historically accurate - if having female units upsets you that much you can either mod them out or just not play.”
Oh fuck! Female representation, and an assertive woman in power? That’s woman squared! That’s numberwang!!
This all got picked up by the usual subjects - like a GamerGate friendly blog called OneAngryGamer. Which then got referenced on, drum roll please!, the neo nazi site Daily Stormer. No links, these sites don’t need oxygen
Hold on I gotta catch a train. Back in a bit.
Choo choo. So anyway, NOW suddenly it’s a big deal. It’s only now after the articles were published that the review bombing began. And the Steam forums become a complete shit show.
A lot of the hate is directed towards Ella and calling for her to make a public apology video, or be fired. I don’t need to remind you of the history of Gamers campaigning to get women fired from the games industry, do I.
But the whole thing is so dumb! Someone on Steam extracted the code that decided how frequently female generals pop up, for each factions. For some it’s impossible. Most have a very low (11-16%) chance. Only the Kush has a high chance, at 50% female.
steamcommunity.com/app/214950/dis…
steamcommunity.com/app/214950/dis…
And so that screenshot? Well it’s probably just a really low probability outcome to have so many women. And it doesn’t show that there are more generals to pick from (there are arrows). So one dumb screenshot leads to a manic hate campaign, involving actual nazis.
And the annoying this is that this is a perfectly reasonable thing to discuss. Maybe those numbers are a bit off? How accurate do we expect historical games to be? But the whole thing just becomes a huge fight against assholes who get told who to review bomb by, again, nazis.
In conclusion - *loud, slow fart noise*
To end this thread on a happier note, CA have issued a statement that basically just reads “suck it, Gamer Babies”
