Ooo, a reviewer specifically called out that they gathered "a group of [their] whitest friends" and then complained that Pasión de las Pasiones is racist because it made her white friends worried they would be racist when they played it. https://twitter.com/gengelstein/status/1337375711280181248

They decided before they started that they weren't going to use all the rules, they didn't pick players actually interested in play, and they only did two scenes of play, but they did a great job of getting their negative review on the front page of the Google Search Results.

There were a couple of reasonable points in the article, some of which I changed and some of which I addressed, but it was a clear bad faith attack. Whenever I think about it, I get briefly frustrated it SEOs so well, then I give a fully wolf-smile that they didn't stop me.

What it ultimately taught me is that you can't design for bad faith and there's no point in doing it. Every Latine that I've shown the game to has been like, "Oh dang! That's SO telenovela!" I'm not gonna make the game less Latinx because racists might use it to do racist stuff.

If you write media where your primary goal is to not let hateful people do hateful stuff, you will not show marginalized people. You cannot bow to the shitty people who will use anything you make to continue their hate.

If your primary goal is to let people of the culture you are celebrating come in and celebrate with you, then you'll pull in them AND people who want to celebrate. Frankly, full on wild eyed racists aren't gonna buy Pasión de las Pasiones.

And if they were? Eh, they can buy a copy and put money in some Latino wallets before they do racist stuff.
They were gonna do racist stuff anyway and I'm fine getting a little cash before they do.
But they won't, I won't get their money, and PdlP didn't turn anyone racist.

Oh, to be clear, I'm not calling the author of the review a racist. I think she's falling into a trap that POCs frequently do that feels like imperfect media harms the cause. That's a common, but ultimately harmful way to approach creation.

If our media is only worthwhile if it's perfect, then we choke off any chance of making media. It's important to have many lenses showing Latinidad and if we insist upon Latinidad that blends in fully with white culture, we have failed.

This is why I say Pasión de las Pasiones can't be THE Latinx game. It need to exist among a library of other representations.
That lowers the pressure on PdlP AND gives more experiences, and that's better than blending.

I didn't mean to write this much, hahaha!
But if you'd like to try out this racist Latinx nightmare, come check out the free quickstart over here!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/303784

... low key though like LOWEST of keys, the article explains that it would have been impossible to have Latinx friends because they live in the south and that's a lot to unpack. I hope they've found some Latinx friends because that diaspora will make you say some WILD shit.