Star Wars Battlefront wouldnt be as good if Star Wars wasnt in it, and other nonsense

We need to talk about one of the stupidest things in gaming at the moment. Not THE stupidest, nor even particularly the most dangerous or pernicious. It's not GamerGate, nor is it the industry's incredibly shitty attitude to anyone who isn't a white man in an oversized shirt. But it is something so outrageously stupid that articulating it in any way should form part of the pre-acceptance initiation for winning a Darwin Award. Yes, I'm talking about the age-old argument, howled in the sort of tone which in GIF form is a pair of condescending eyes rolling forever, which goes something like: 'This game wouldn't be as good if X wasn't in it.'

This argument – generally applied to licensed games, although not strictly limited to just that section of the market – gets wheeled out on forums every now and then, usually by those who simply cannot fathom that games are built with at least some kind of a plan attached to them. It is most commonly found whenever a new Batman game comes out, and it's as absolutely bovine now as it was when Arkham Asylum came out. The latest game it's been applied to is Star Wars Battlefront. The argument goes thus: this game, which is about Star Wars, wouldn't be as good if it wasn't, in fact, a Star Wars game.

Just quietly, what the fuck are you talking about? It IS a Star Wars game! That is its sole reason for existence: to be like Star Wars. At the design meeting at DICE, do you think the producers and execs and whoever else sat around the table went 'guys, shall we make a large scale online shooting game with vehicles and infantry?' and then the tea boy, as he laid down his wares, avoiding eye contact and with a hint of trepidation in his stupid voice, went 'you know, you should make this a Star Wars game' and everyone looked at each other incredulously and went 'FUCK YEAH, WE NEVER EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT THAT!' Of course they didn't.

Sure, some games have been converted from original material to licensed fodder, as well as the other way around. Projects change over time, all the time. Some elements of the final game may have come from happy accidents (say, Street Fighter II's combos) or pure luck. Guess what: it doesn't even matter! The final game DOES have Star Wars in it. It's right there! It wasn't an accident! Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir didn't rock up to Skywalker Ranch one day on a sightseeing tour she won in a box of Shreddies and accidentally leave with the final rendered assets for a good swathe of the Original Trilogy, perhaps in a hilarious mixup involving briefcases, did she?

Can you imagine the sheer mind-boggling amount of busywork it takes to actually get clearance to use these characters and this world? The insane amount of legal to-ing and fro-ing? Let me give you an insight: the credits to Battlefront go on for about half an hour, and every single person that's ever even heard of EA, DICE, Disney, or Lucasfilm is listed in there. It's so ridiculous that the voice talent is listed after the receptionists. The RECEPTIONISTS. Now I'm not saying receptionists are worthless, but the talent, the people whose job it is to bring some sort of life to these characters – including Anthony Daniels – are billed below the people that answer the phones. (I could be mistaken, of course, and perhaps they're merely ranked in order of importance to the project. This, presumably, explains why the voice acting is so bad.)

Now, I understand where this all comes from, as there is a little reptilian voice in everyone's head which sees people having fun with something they simply can't enjoy and gets all defensive. But there's also a little voice in everyone's heads which tells us to rob a bank or shoot our boss with a fucking sawn-off shotgun, but very few people listen to these thoughts, and for good reason: they are stupid and dangerous and silly. This tired old bullshit gets said a lot whenever a big new game launches, even by so-called professional games journalists, most of whom need to catch the next flight directly into the fucking sun. 'This wouldn't be as good if Batman wasn't in it', they say. Well yes, that is true. But – crucially – he is in it.

You could say that about literally anything where the main component – or one of its cores – is removed. This ice cream wouldn't be as good if ice cream wasn't in it. This car wouldn't be as good if wheels weren't on it. This canvas painting wouldn't be as good if paint wasn't on the canvas. This internet wouldn't be as good at connecting devices if it wasn't the internet and instead was a sandwich. Listen to yourselves.

Perhaps the most irritating aspect of the whole thing is that it simplifies criticism, dividing quality, intent, execution, etc into present/not present checklists, as if dropping Bond or Batman or Sharky and George in is some sort of quality-heightening cheat. As mentioned, the Batman games get this a lot, and not only is it utterly irrelevant, it's an easy way to lessen the accomplishments of Rocksteady and its team. After all, it's not like it's particularly easy to make a good Batman game: most of them over the years have been absolute shite.

Rocksteady made the character work as an integral part of the world, and not just as a guy walking around throwing punches. If anything, you could argue that 'Batman wouldn't be as good if Batman wasn't in it' makes even less sense here than any other example, because you don't always play as fucking Batman, and the game is still pretty fucking good. It's an easy way to knock points off something for a perceived leg up, when in actual fact licenses can be an incredible burden, and it takes years of iterating on these games to even get close to replicating the appeal of the source material.

Anyway, that's that over with. Next up: people who say 'could care less' instead of 'couldn't care less'. I'm coming for you.