I’ve always hated that argument that “all art is political, because the existence of the art, the freedom to create it, the ability to share it, etc is all political”, because it fails to acknowledge anything specific about the artwork in question being political. By the same logic literally anything existing is political because its ability to exist, or to be destroyed is political. But some random rock 78 miles off the shores of California in the Pacific isn’t going to be meaningfully political in any way that matters to almost anyone ever. Therefore I think it’s fine to consider some things (such as some works of art) not meaningfully political, also often just called “not political”.

I think some silly pieces of art can be reasonably interpreted as political in some regards (drawing dicks around potholes), but sometimes it’s just there because someone thought it would be funny/look nice/was a mistake.

Truth be told, that actually might be a neat thing to do. Imagine trying to think up really scummy ways to inject advertising into games, create new forms of mtx, etc. just to patent them and sit on those patents.

I feel like it would do a bit of the Streisand effect since by patenting them you’re making them known, but that could be a bit better than letting someone else figure it out and get exclusive use of that patent for years. Either way anyone checking gaming patents can learn about it, but in one situation it’s used for the duration of the patent and in the other its not.

I don’t have a screenshot handy, but I still vividly remember Fallout 3 stepping out of Vault 101 for the first time and feeling the awe of talking my first steps into a fresh new world and also immediately afterwards seeing how destroyed it really is.

For something like the fourth “Fable” game in a row, and it’s definitely going to work this time.