However, I would like to say no one is forced to play games with different political values than their own, or with values they don't like. There are plenty of games out there, and if something is a dealbreaker, it is advisable to go play a different game, rather than put down artists for incorporating their own views into their work. While games are mass-consumed products, they are also art pieces, complete with an expression of self. Now, that self may be 400 selves, but it's still a perspective of its own, with a legitimacy to its views in its own way.
Well that is all well and good to say, but I would note that there is a very large divergence between the sensibilities of almost any large media organisation (of which game devs are a subset) and what views are actually popular amongst the public. Try finding a game which reflects what most people thing about the death penalty, trans issues, immigration etc. You would be hard pressed to find a steelman representation of such positions, never mind a game which was genuinely sympathetic to them. For all large modern corporations purport to care about diversity, its diversity of identity, not of viewpoint, that they are focussed on.
Do you think artists are under an obligation to share the views of any population, let alone the majority, and to incorporate those specific views into their work? Do you think artists ought to steelman any issue they seek to incorporate in their work? It's fine for you to say yes, but I think shackling creatives does more harm than good.
I was specifically responding to your point that you aren't forced to play games which express such views. OK, well what games can I play then? And its hardly an issue limited to just video games. You increasingly cannot find a banking service that is willing to accommodate people with widely held views on such matters if they express them publicly. I would like there to be politics free zones and for people providing goods and services that are not intrinsically political to stop crowbarring politics into their goods and services.
Personally, I would prefer it if game devs did not strike consciously political stances on contentious issues. BG1 and 2 had themes that you could describe as political, but lets be honest, its content was almost entirely uncontroversial. This is increasingly less and less the case these days. The two largest RPG releases in recent months, BG3 and Starfield, appear to take a decidedly left leaning stance on currently contentious issues. I don't want to feel like I am being given a ham fisted lecture which I don't agree with by a dev who cannot even represent my disagreement in a vaguely accurate way. If they aren't prepared to give a fair hearing to both sides of a discussion - and they aren't - I would prefer they not have the discussion and let entertainment be just that, not ham fisted political propaganda.
But yes, if you are going to broach the matter, you should actually represent the opposing position reasonably, not come up with a stupid caricature.
I think you'll find that most games, if not all, released before 2016 do not broach most of the contemporary issues that annoy you in particular.
I like Paradox games like Crusader Kings and Stellaris. They allow for political gameplay without focusing on the contemporary hot-button issues that bother you.
If you are looking for modern RPG releases, consider Elden Ring, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Mount and Blade II, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Dark Souls III, or Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.
Look, when I wrote that original post, I was mostly thinking of how I have zero desire to play Disco Elysium because I don't think being lectured by Marxists for 50 hours on material I'm already familiar with makes for a particularly interesting week. Thus, I do not intend to play the alleged "greatest RPG of all time" Disco Elysium. I also don't feel the need to demand my views be accounted for in the work.
