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Post by X-pert74 on Oct 21, 2018 3:57:03 GMT -5
...So, yeah. I have exited the essay. And it has changed none of my opinions at all. Honestly, it felt unfocused, and as if it were focusing on the wrong things and "barking up the wrong trees," so to speak. Still a worthwhile read, but... well, you said you were curious what I would think of it. And unfortunately, the answer is... not a whole lot. Sorry! -Tom Well, I'm sorry you didn't care much for it. But I appreciate your reading it nonetheless; thank you. Sure, you can say it's not going to turn someone into a rapist or molester etc. However it's still fucking tasteless as all hell- and frankly if you are creating it or playing it for entertainment or whatever, that shouldn't really just be a case of going "oh well, it's just how they choose to express themselves/enjoy themselves". I played Resident Evil: Code X dressed as Veronica many times. Is this while in her fancy dress, or when she's all mutated and stuff? |
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Post by Bumpyroad on Oct 21, 2018 5:53:58 GMT -5
I played Resident Evil: Code X dressed as Veronica many times. Is this while in her fancy dress, or when she's all mutated and stuff? I refer to Alfred and Alexia scenario, my bad, Veronica Ashford doesn't have anything to do with it  |
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Post by X-pert74 on Oct 21, 2018 6:11:26 GMT -5
Is this while in her fancy dress, or when she's all mutated and stuff? I refer to Alfred and Alexia scenario, my bad, Veronica Ashford doesn't have anything to do with it Oh, I got the names confused as well. And I just replayed Code Veronica earlier this year! How forgetful of me. |
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Post by Bumpyroad on Oct 21, 2018 6:28:32 GMT -5
I refer to Alfred and Alexia scenario, my bad, Veronica Ashford doesn't have anything to do with it Oh, I got the names confused as well. And I just replayed Code Veronica earlier this year! How forgetful of me. Always gets me too, so yeah..a "dress" of mutated Alexia sounds really tempting, need to try that next. |
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Post by edmonddantes on Oct 22, 2018 3:14:22 GMT -5
edmonddantes No one has accused you of being a pedophile or nazi. Actual quote (from gmbison, page five of this argument): "You can get all sad that you can no longer molest your little anime girls - adios." From you, same page: "claiming that they should absolutely not be banned so a few perverts and hateful assholes can get their jollies is childish and ridiculous" you again: "No one cares about "changing the minds" of nazis and pedophiles." Okay, to be fair two of those were generalized statements. Bison's however was very specifically aimed at someone on this forum. No, I remember every word. The problem I have is I hear endless statements of "Naziism is on the rise!" whose only support seems to be "Trump is in office!" which is supported by "because Naziism is on the rise!" (this is called "circular reasoning" by the way, and its a logical fallacy). On the previous page you claimed there were countless examples of how giving "hate speech" a platform only makes it stronger... yet you never gave any examples (why not, if they're so "countless?" Or is this one of those "its obvious, I shouldn't have to back up my arguments!" things?) More like I don't have the patience to list which logical fallacy you're using after every three sentences. Seriously, nine times out of ten when I'm brought up, the response has nothing to do with what I--or anyone--actually said, and is all this hodgepodge that usually brings up some figure I've never heard of who said or did something you disagreed with and he's somehow representative of why we need censorship. Want an example? From yourself: "They're only interested in putting forth disingenuous arguments to try and convince more idiots. Richard Spencer has said on a podcast that he's not actually for freedom of speech at all; they only use it to try and advance their position, but if they ever came into power, they'd wouldn't take long to kill and imprison their opponents, as every fascist has ever done." THIS is some cogent argument I should be forced to waste my time with? I don't even know who Richard Spencer is... why am I being lopped in with him, why am I forced to answer for his stupidity? And since when does one guy speak for everybody? Its not even a president this time... its some guy on the internet. The only way your reasoning even makes sense is if you're starting from the base assumption that anyone you don't know/life/haven't heard yet is just as bad as he is... which doesn't seem like a healthy assumption, to just think everyone is an evil dictator. Or to use the argument you just made: One, false equivolency. Physical violence is not debate, it doesn't work even remotely the same way. Two, human history. I've given countless examples. There's even a name for this--its called the Streissand Effect. Sorry, but I fail to see what is "weak" about describing a historical pattern I've read about in college history books, read about online, have seen college professors (who I assume are far smarter than me) discuss, and seen play out in my own fricking life. Also see what I said earlier--this is ironic coming from someone who repeatedly claims he can back up his own beliefs with examples then consistently fails to do so. Also sorry you're offended by being called an intellectual lightweight, but... you know, that's far less heavy than being called a pedo or a nazi (and isn't there some internet rule against the latter?) not to mention, I'm fully within my right when I see arguments not only like the above where I'm somehow wrong because of some podcast I've never heard of, or where someone else pulls a feigned offence followed by "I can't believe I have to explain this to a grown man!" gambit... from the people who openly advocate censorship in the name of protecting people from "dangerous hate speech" which totally doesn't raise any red flags in and of itself, no sirree bob... Seriously dude, I was on your side until you started pulling this nonsense. I'm using "weak logic" and being dishonest? No... you're projecting. EDIT: Hey, you know what, I'm willing to give this censorship stuff a try.... let's start with this topic. Why hasn't it been locked yet? It was obvious from page three that its gone nowhere good. Honestly I would've been issuing warnings and locking things down the minute "pedophilia" started flying. Of course, I would also implement this rule immediately. Fight fire with fire, right? |
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Post by GamerL on Oct 22, 2018 4:43:50 GMT -5
I still don't understand why the culture turned to where people can't handle a little fanservice.
It's contradictory too because Overwatch was a huge hit and has sexy women, friggin Bowsette has taken gaming culture by storm and usually drawn as busty, just what's the fucking problem? If these characters were such a slam against women why are there so many female fans who like to cosplay as sexy characters despite the sometimes revealing costumes? How many girls have cosplayed as characters like Cammy or Bayonetta?
So if these characters have a female following, it shouldn't be a problem and yet it's being scrubbed from western games, it's not what the fans want, there's room for characters like 2B or Bayonetta.
The only reason why that I can think of is that we live in times of social engineering think tanks and special interest groups that have gained a huge foothold in western corporate culture, as it relates to media and games what we get is basically propaganda disguised as entertainment or stuff just to get pats on the back from vocal minorities that aren't the actual fans.
It stinks, it just comes off as artificial, phoney baloney BS, there's a difference between a game that gets political like Bioshock and something preaching to the choir, wanting to de-sex everything is a political statement stemming from the sex-negative brand of feminism that is popular nowadays.
I'm sorry if this makes anyone a little uncomfortable but it's the only thing that makes any sense, this is not a grassroots, from the bottom up thing.
This isn't directly related to Senran Kagura Burst but it's the cultural context in which this is going down.
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Post by Woody Alien on Oct 22, 2018 8:47:26 GMT -5
Maybe it's not the time to contribute to this topic, but then I can say that I'm usually in the dark about this kind of stuff and yet I've noticed that there's a growing intolerance against everything that is perceived as sexist, as wyrdwad stated. And I'm not speaking about rapey stuff either.
The example: I'm currently playing The Vagrant, a Chinese game that homages the Vanillaware titles, it's pretty good but still you can guess where this is going... Basically on the Steam forums it's Dragon's Crown all over again, even if the designs are nowhere near as exaggerated as in Vanillaware's title. It's just the fact that the MC is a busty valkyrie-type beauty in a skimpy outfit that makes some people angry to the point of lashing against the game's devs.
I don't really get the complaints, since in both the gameplay and cutscenes she's never sexualised or displayed in a provocative way, she has a slight bust motion but after a while you don't notice it anymore, and her figure is commented upon ONCE in the whole game by a mostly irrelevant character. For the rest she's just represented as a tough, battle-hardened survivor, there's no innuendo or inappropriate lines, the cutscenes never linger on her figure, yet the fact that she's a scantily-dressed beauty seems to be offensive in and of itself.
It's possible that some forum users are trolls that are intentionally fanning the flames, but still as someone pointed out it seems that the concept of "fanservice" has become inappropriate in and of itself. I guess that, were the MC a barbarian in a loincloth, nobody would have cared about it.
To be honest I'm much more annoyed by games like Spike Chunsoft's "remake" of One Way Heroics, that adds an embarrassing amount of childish animesque innuendos and sexy stereotypes to make otaku happy, rather than seeing a bit of nude skin in a game.
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Post by Discoalucard on Oct 22, 2018 10:39:49 GMT -5
To be honest I'm much more annoyed by games like Spike Chunsoft's "remake" of One Way Heroics, that adds an embarrassing amount of childish animesque innuendos and sexy stereotypes to make otaku happy, rather than seeing a bit of nude skin in a game.
This is kind of one and the same though - there's an expectation in the Japanese mid-tier marketplace will have things like that shoved in there, because it helps it stand out, so it will increase sales. That's kind of true to non-Japanese markets, but there's also a pushback, primarily from people who find it alienating that it's put in constantly in places it doesn't really belong. So it's more of a case that a larger publisher stuck that in at a revision rather than up front. That's neither here nor there when it comes to Senran Kagura, it wears what it is pretty proudly. I was fine defending this series as goofy, cheesy fun but was also much happier when it didn't ask the question "is it okay to sexually assault your player characters?" EDIT: Hey, you know what, I'm willing to give this censorship stuff a try.... let's start with this topic. Why hasn't it been locked yet? It was obvious from page three that its gone nowhere good. Honestly I would've been issuing warnings and locking things down the minute "pedophilia" started flying. Of course, I would also implement this rule immediately. Fight fire with fire, right? Resetera banned discussion of this game (along with other similar games) because these threads always trend in the same direction. Someone defends "free speech", someone else says "oh yeah what about kiddie porn", the other person says "well yeah that's OK" and it casts an aura of grossness over the entire forum. I don't want to be that strict to ban talking about specific games but my finger is also much hovering over the "lock thread" button at this point. |
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 22, 2018 11:06:43 GMT -5
Maybe it's not the time to contribute to this topic, but then I can say that I'm usually in the dark about this kind of stuff and yet I've noticed that there's a growing intolerance against everything that is perceived as sexist, as wyrdwad stated. And I'm not speaking about rapey stuff either. The example: I'm currently playing The Vagrant, a Chinese game that homages the Vanillaware titles, it's pretty good but still you can guess where this is going... Basically on the Steam forums it's Dragon's Crown all over again, even if the designs are nowhere near as exaggerated as in Vanillaware's title. It's just the fact that the MC is a busty valkyrie-type beauty in a skimpy outfit that makes some people angry to the point of lashing against the game's devs. Somewhat famously, there's also "Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge," which is an indie title created as an homage to the ZX Spectrum titles "Game Over" and "Phantis." I say "somewhat" because the game isn't particularly well-known, despite even having a Jake Kaufman soundtrack -- and part of the reason it's not more well-known is because it got panned by critics. And the reason? Solely because its main heroine is busty and wears a skimpy outfit. Like, literally, that's the crux of almost every negative review leveraged against this title. She's a badass space captain fighting aliens. But she's also SEXY. And people just weren't having that. They accused the game of being unnecessarily sexist in its artistic depiction of the main heroine. And the worst part is, the whole reason she was created that way? Because Ultionus is an homage to Game Over and Phantis, which featured a super-busty scantily clad space captain main character. The problem is, outside of Europe (and more specifically the UK), no one has ever heard of Game Over or Phantis, so even though Ultionus may as well BE Phantis (seriously, it's less an homage and more a remake), the reference was lost on most critics, and thus the game received a general reputation for being childishly sexist. This had a profound effect on its creator, who more or less left the industry after the backlash he received, from what I understand. And all for having the gall to create a game in honor of some of his favorite '80s schlock sci-fi Speccy games from when he was a kid. That's the industry today. That's the kind of environment we're working with. This does tie into something else I noted, though: as sad as I am to see something like this happen, it's also a perfect example of public opinion influencing the industry without the need of censorship at all. The court of public opinion ensured this game saw little success, which in turn ensured there wouldn't be other games like it from the developer. So regardless of how I may feel about what happened, it does prove that ultimately, letting the public vote with their wallets really does work. If something is truly offensive or disturbing to others, it will not be supported, and it will naturally die away. And others will be unlikely to create games like it moving forward. Even if for all the wrong reasons, as in this case. For me, that's really the bottom line when it comes to censorship of reprehensible content (be it real or perceived): if it truly is devoid of merit, the game will fail when presented uncensored. If censored, however, it may succeed despite itself, encouraging the developer to create more games like it. Those who are offended, somewhat ironically, perpetuate the very content they're offended by simply by calling for its exclusion. -Tom |
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Post by Échalote on Oct 22, 2018 12:21:42 GMT -5
Somewhat famously, there's also "Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge," which is an indie title created as an homage to the ZX Spectrum titles "Game Over" and "Phantis." I say "somewhat" because the game isn't particularly well-known, despite even having a Jake Kaufman soundtrack -- and part of the reason it's not more well-known is because it got panned by critics. And the reason? Solely because its main heroine is busty and wears a skimpy outfit. Like, literally, that's the crux of almost every negative review leveraged against this title. That's actually complete BS, nearly every single negative review complains mostly about the controls. But sure, Ultionus clearly flopped, in an era where rail shooters where you must shoot pheromones at underaged girls to make them "euphoric" gets worldwide release on nintendo consoles and visual novels about girls getting tied up receives prices for narrative excellence, because the heroine had big bazongas. |
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 22, 2018 12:32:39 GMT -5
Somewhat famously, there's also "Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge," which is an indie title created as an homage to the ZX Spectrum titles "Game Over" and "Phantis." I say "somewhat" because the game isn't particularly well-known, despite even having a Jake Kaufman soundtrack -- and part of the reason it's not more well-known is because it got panned by critics. And the reason? Solely because its main heroine is busty and wears a skimpy outfit. Like, literally, that's the crux of almost every negative review leveraged against this title. That's actually complete BS, nearly every single negative review complains mostly about the controls. But sure, Ultionus clearly flopped, in an era where rail shooters where you must shoot pheromones at underaged girls to make them "euphoric" gets worldwide release on nintendo consoles and visual novels about girls getting tied up receives prices for narrative excellence, because the heroine had big bazongas. I should have been clearer: Ultionus' negative reviews were largely from people who had never played Game Over and Phantis, and thus weren't expecting Ultionus to literally play EXACTLY like them, controls and all. Like I said, it's less an homage and more a remake. The control complaints aren't what did the developer in, though; he was OK with those. It was the people who dismissed the game for the size of its heroine's breasts and the skimpiness of her outfit that really bothered him, since as far as he was concerned, those complaints came completely out of left field -- he was just trying to replicate what some of his favorite childhood games did. And while critical reviews only mentioned these "issues" in passing, player reviews absolutely DEMOLISHED him for it. Forum posts about the game in particular were quite merciless. And yes, it is a double standard, thanks to games such as the ones you referenced. The difference is, Ultionus is an indie game, and indie games are "supposed" to be held to a "higher standard." -Tom |
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Post by Échalote on Oct 22, 2018 12:45:26 GMT -5
But where did people "destroyed" him, unless he purged his steam forums from it, I really can't find any trace of it, save for a few polite comments about the game over screen.
And how the hell is that a "double standard" for indie games when one of the games I referenced is itself indie.
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 22, 2018 13:18:56 GMT -5
Oh, I guess I'm not familiar with the game you're referencing, then. My mistake, there.
Also, I can try to dig up the exact info about this after work, if you're actually interested. This was quite a few years ago, so it might be tough to find, and it is possible some of it's been deleted -- but there should still be a record of it somewhere.
-Tom
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Post by Discoalucard on Oct 22, 2018 13:23:13 GMT -5
I've talked to the developer of Ultionus before (we covered this and his other game in the Retro Indie Game book). He had a specific style of game in mind, and that's what informed both the character design and the game itself...but it's also patterned very heavily after a style of European game that very few people, especially Americans, have nostalgia for, and therefore have a harder time tolerating. Plus, broadly speaking, in any media, if a heavily sexualized character is at the front and center, it's usually indicative of a poor quality product that's used to titillate above everything else. If the game itself is good, that's usually excused to some extent, but Ultionus doesn't quite have the quality to back that up. When you do something like that, you're always going to draw a certain audience in and then alienate a different audience. It's what he wanted to create and that's fine, but that doesn't mean people are going to want to buy it.
Anyway, he didn't leave the dev scene after Ultionus, he created Mystik Belle, which was released last year on the PS4. It's much less overt on the sexualization but ultimately had similar criticisms - it's patterned after a very specific European computer design that's not really very popular outside of that very specific niche (in this case, Spectrum games a la Dizzy). It's a cute game, though.
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Post by wyrdwad on Oct 22, 2018 14:05:56 GMT -5
Whoa, holy crap, he's the guy who created Mystik Belle?! OK, yeah, my info was definitely off, then.
I loved Mystik Belle! Picked it up on sale, and thought it was a really neat fusion of Metroidvania + Maniac Mansion-like adventure, with a bit of a Harry Potter universe spin to it. Excellent game, though I can understand those who didn't much care for it, as its pacing certainly makes it an oddity.
Glad to hear he's still around, and apologies for the misinformation. I guess that's what I get for believing second-hand sources.
-Tom
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