{"id":1585861,"date":"2026-05-22T18:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cmvnjuUsjgdFeWHYJ6mJH"},"modified":"2026-05-22T18:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:15:09","slug":"eu-politician-says-killing-games-is-bad-but-wokeness-and-the-black-samurai-yasuke-are-the-real-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/eu-politician-says-killing-games-is-bad-but-wokeness-and-the-black-samurai-yasuke-are-the-real-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"EU politician says killing games is bad, but ‘wokeness’ and the Black samurai Yasuke are the real problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Have you ever wanted to see a grown-ass man complaining to the EU parliament about having to play as a Black man or queer person in a videogame? If your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ then allow me to invite you to enjoy this video of the European Parliament’s recent debate on Stop Killing Games, during which an actual, real European politician took the podium to tell everyone what’s really killing videogames these days: The fact that he had to play as a Black samurai in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.<\/p>\n

The debate, the latest step in a process that somehow went from “YouTube guy is mad<\/a>” to “YouTube guy is making detailed and compelling presentations to the European Parliament<\/a>” in just two years, went about as you’d expect. Most speakers acknowledged that videogames are both mass media and art <\/em>with meaningful and enduring cultural impact, and expressed support (or at least sympathy) for the goals of the Stop Killing Games movement.<\/p>\n

Some were more cautious than others. Piotr M\u00fcller, an MEP (Member of the European Parliament) from Poland, for instance, said he supported the initiative but added that “we need to be cautious now to over-regulate the market. The games market in Europe still needs to be able to develop so that the European sector can continue to grow.” <\/p>\n

Czech politician Ond\u0159ej Krut\u00edlek rolled out the ol’ ‘you don’t actually own your games’<\/a> argument to more or less defend the status quo, there was a bit of hand-wringing over the impact of games on impressionable children\u2060\u2014we’re never really going to get away from that, though some games<\/a> are definitely cause for consternation\u2014and Catarina Vieira of the Dutch GroenLinks party made a GTA 6 joke, so props for that.<\/p>\n

But of course, no group chat about videogames is complete without a derailment into the weeds of right-wing conspiracy theory, and this one was provided by Milan Uhrik, a Slovak MEP and leader of the far-right Republic Movement. Striding to the microphone like a man who’s been waiting in line at a Comic Con Q&A just a little too long, Uhrik declared, “Wokeness and aggressive monetization is destroying videogames!”<\/p>\n

“You wanted to talk about what’s destroying videogames here in the European Parliament. Alright, I will say it out,” Uhrik continued. “One thing that is definitely destroying videogames is the crazy, woke ideology and political correctness which is being forced into the games.”<\/p>\n

He then went straight into comments that would get him banned from the Assassin’s Creed subreddit<\/a>: “For example, if we want to play as a samurai, obviously we want to play as a Japanese warrior and not to be forced to play as a Black person warrior or female warrior as it happened recently in Assassin’s Creed. Or to play as a queer character, without any other choice. This is an issue, really, for players.”<\/p>\n

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