Funny events in anti-woke world

[Dwarvenhobble]

Which goes to show how little it had going for it. Mortal Kombat toned down the sexualization and it's doing fine, because fans generally like the characters, story, setting, and violence. DOA had boob physics and naked thighs. Once that got toned down it pretty much lost its entire identity.

And people in this very thread said companies wouldn't tone down something just to get people to defend it and cover up for a game with exploitative microtransactions and other issues. LOL LOL LOL.

It's most recent scores on Steam put it at mixed, it's mostly positive overall still but I don't think it's doing that well.

The Callisto Protocal was banned in Japan because the developer refused to add the requested changes for release. The TLoU games were censored in Japan, and TLoU 2 was banned in Saudi Arabia for gay content. The Witcher 3 was censored in Japan with its nudity apparently removed completely. Russia and China have also been making work of banning videogames (or anything) with gay characters in it.

Fair point, my bad there, I should specified IN THE WEST.

 

[Ag3ma]

snip

There's lots of really interesting stuff about how a ton of the covid contrarians ended up.

Didier Raoult, as you point out.

All those guys who pushed ivermectin? They too have passed into utter crankery. Pierre Kory and the FLCCC Alliance effectively ended up as an anti-vaxx group making all sorts of other wild claims about what ivermectin can do. Their one time allies at the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development group (Tess Lawrie, etc.) ended up backing homeopathy, and are now trying to pass off ivermectin as a "silver bullet" anticancer drug. I recall lots of people talking about Dr. John Campbell (PhD in digital teaching methods for nurses; i.e. not biology), and turns out he's now spreading conspiracy theories about the vaccines and covid death rates.

I doubt these guys turned into cranks, they probably started that way.

But once reporting science is democratised into the public sphere by whoever's got the most attractive YouTube channel, they can get one hell of a lot of views trading on qualifications and the other trappings of expertise, whilst avoiding the oversight that might be applied within the field.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Here are the top fighting game franchise sales.

Note that not only does Dead or Alive come nowhere near Mortal Kombat, but is also outsold by Smash Bros. This is despite MK being banned in several countries and SB having only four entries (two less than DOA) and being a Nintendo exclusive. Tekken, which also sexualizes women considerably less than Street Fighter and DOA, is also pretty high on the list.

That really should tell you something about how "sex sells" is a strategy that works for only so long.

Which is a shame because DOA does have good gameplay and even potentially interesting characters. Too bad all that got overshadowed because it spent so much time playing up sex appeal which limited the games' audience.

You really going with cumulative sales?

If we count all the variations versions etc then DOA has 12 titles. (counting fighting games not spin offs)
If we do the same for Mortal Kombat it's 21 just counting the fighting games.

And I'm being somewhat generous here by including the various ultimate round versions etc with DOA and not the XL and arcade versions for Mortal Kombat.

And the anti-woke crowd had nothing to say about this despite whining every time an outfit in a Japanese game is altered. Gee, I wonder why.

Because we're not in Japan?
Objecting the censored content (which Japanese gamers will probably mod round anyway) in Japan is kind of for the Japanese audience to object to. Yeh I don't think it's good but kind of odd you expect me to know of every countries attempts to censor any game ever.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

You made a completely unrealistic comparison to try to pass off a completely unrealistic idea of the charges. And now you're trying to dishonestly weasel your way out of it.

No you made an assumption about what I said. I corrected it. You are now getting mad that you assumed something.

 

[BrawlMan]

Fair point, my bad there, I should specified IN THE WEST.

Not really. Most games aren't being "censored" in the West. That's just you lacking the thought capacity, looking in the one direction, and getting high off your farts by putting your own head up your ass, while sniffing your dingleberries on the way over to the anal hole. You still get your explicit violence in most places and there's plenty of fan service and attractive looking characters, but not to the extent of what you want, not the "true Japanese way". Because for grifter's like you, or the echo chambers/pawns of grifters like you, it's never enough or you cry when you don't get what you want. And even when you get everything you want you'll still cry about something else, because somebody else has it or you don't want anybody else having it but yourself. You didn't lose a damn thing and just crying for the sake of crying I'm not acting like you can take down the big tough corpos and bankers. Despite the fact that you're willing to let them screw over people so long it's not you or those that share your views. It takes a strong man to deny what's in front of him and be that pathetic.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

It's the whiff of "evidence" that vidicates and encourages their hatred toward women and minorities. Sorta like when the Depp v. Heard defamation trail was going, or better yet Gamergate.

Yeah but I'm curious about the specifics. Some guy was going on about how companies are woke because they want to pump up their ESG ratings. I'm involved in a project at work that has to do with ESG, and theoretically yes better ESG ratings can lead to more investment in your company, but I have yet to see anything that indicates that having gay people in your video game translates to a better ESG rating.

Although I will say, whoever is drumming up this outrage is slicker than most. Linking supposed wokeness to corporate greed rather than just general politics isn't too hard to believe.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Imagine looking at all of the problems in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League; the live service bullshit, Poison Ivy's iconic Ice Axes, etc, and all of AAA's problems in general: massive development budgets, half-decade+ development times, constant massive layoffs destroying team cohesion and institutional knowledge, trend chasing with AI and NFTs and whatever obvious scammy bullshit tech bros come up with next...

And determining that the solution to taking down Big Money is getting rid of the woke script doctors.

CEOs are laughing all the way to the goddamned bank

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I have no idea what's going on anti-woke world, but the hyper fixation on Sugar Baby Inc and making games woke is getting increasingly psychotic. I've been seeing rabid commenters on almost every gaming news video I watch.

I'm genuinely curious about what conspiracy theory they've cooked up about it, but I'm terrified what trying to look into it will do to my cookies.

Short version.

Fucking months ago now people became aware of a video game consultancy call Sweet Baby Inc, their website proudly proclaims how they worked on a number of pretty major titles and people went "WTF we've never heard of these people, this is so weird and for months before everyone has been saying a number of AAA games felt the same or like there was some hand giving roughly the same kind of instructions to all these studios" only for some of them to be listed as Sweet Baby Inc clients. And afew of those games had left sour tastes in peoples mouths round some story beats and elements.

Their Next big game they were pushing on their website was Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League.
"OK" people say, "We'll be sceptical of this game name".

Leaks happen about Batman being unceremoniously killed etc.

People think maybe it's all bullshit.

It's not.

Turns out it's worse that people thought with every league member having an unceremonious death, except Wonder Woman who gets a tragic death. Oh and when I say unceremonious I mean being pissed on, being stripped to their underwear etc. Add to this race swapping Deadshot and playing it off with "That wasn't the real Deadshot he was a fake and I killed him, Harley on about how stupid her previous outfits from the Arkham games were and followed by a narrative from some journalists about how king Shark is gay in the game.

So another game, a pretty bitter taste in the mouths of people who bought it or who had interest in it or were fans of the Arkham games.
One Brazilian dude on twitter basically goes "Enough is enough" and makes a steam curator to identify what games Sweet Baby Inc consulted on and it gets some moderate attention and success. About 50K people.

One of the CEOs of Sweet Baby Inc then called for the curator, the Steam group and the Steam account for the person to be banned




Now turns out people don't like people calling for mass reports of Steam curators and especially don't like people trying to get peoples steam accounts banned and thus all their access to games removed based on personally being offended.

So people shared this round, the group grew. Others like a certain Maya Felix Kramer (formerly of Silverstring media that was a group that was kicked to the curb by the old Escapist when it was found out their journalistic consultancy work was more about helping push certain ideas to journalists) tried to call out the curator toowhile working for Sweet Baby Inc. The curator exploded to now over 200K approaching 250K people.

because of the attention and backlash to trying to ban a person from Steam for daring to create a curator it got attention and now journalists are involved trying to argue "No no, Sweet Baby inc doesn't do what you think" *people point to their website saying they do it and videos of the ceo saying it's what they do* "Ok maybe they do but that's not the real problem in gaming it's live serviced" *people point to Suicide Squad bleeding out players on the floor* "Fuck you guys you're all Nazi conspiracy theorists because we say so".

And that's how we got here. A small curator blew up because people from a company got so pissy they were allowed to exist they tried to get not just the curator but the guy who made it banned from Steam.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

It's the whiff of "evidence" that vidicates and encourages their hatred toward women and minorities. Sorta like when the Depp v. Heard defamation trail was going, or better yet Gamergate.

Depp won that trial and Heard was proved to be a liar.
The people who were posting stuff going "This claim doesn't add up" and showing evidence that you or at least those you agree with were calling them woman hating conspiracy theorists were right.
Many of the people supporting Depp, were women BTW lol

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

All the more ironic in that these self described rebels tend to politically support the parties trying to keep ''the little guy'' down. Most anti woke grifters are firmly on board with schemes from the upper class such as Brexit or Republican policies in general.

I mean I was actually pro remain for my own reasons but the whole "Brexit was just racists" argument falls apart in the face of stuff like this



The UK being the 2nd highest net contributor (that's with the rebate) and the EU wanted to remove the rebate and tighten up import / export rules (which the UK was actually hugely exploiting at the time because it allowed companies to export to the EU (from the UK) without the import taxes but also not have to have any company assets tied to the, at the time very volatile Euro which wasn't seen (and still isn't as much) as a safe currency compared to the Pound.

 

[BrawlMan]

CEOs are laughing all the way to the goddamned bank

And these fools are too stupid to realize it or so full of themselves that they don't notice that they're getting screwed over no matter what. And even if they do notice, they go into in denial or try to lik themselves for the better good and their echo chamber.

 

[Hades]

I mean I was actually pro remain for my own reasons but the whole "Brexit was just racists" argument falls apart in the face of stuff like this

My post was referring to the ''Singapore on the Thames'' scheme where the upper class plotted to use Brexit to lower taxes for themselves and remove as much regulations as possible. A scheme that can only benefit the very richest and backfire on everyone else.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Imagine looking at all of the problems in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League; the live service bullshit, Poison Ivy's iconic Ice Axes, etc, and all of AAA's problems in general: massive development budgets, half-decade+ development times, constant massive layoffs destroying team cohesion and institutional knowledge, trend chasing with AI and NFTs and whatever obvious scammy bullshit tech bros come up with next...

And determining that the solution to taking down Big Money is getting rid of the woke script doctors.

CEOs are laughing all the way to the goddamned bank

Oh Sweet Baby Inc consults on all kinds of things

https://sweetbabyinc.com/approach/

From cinematics to barks and everything in-between, we tackle every type of writing for any type of game. We bring excitement, emotion, and character to the forefront, and aren’t afraid of breaking something down to build it back up.

We do: Cinematics, Dialogue, UI/UX writing, Barks, Copywriting, Etc.

That's right complaints about User Interface clutter and poor User experience like silly loot etc being the issue? If only they had consultants in who offered that design service.................

Oh and BTW pushing for Mass Appeal Media (AKA Michael Bay Transformers) is a part of the issue with AAA games (see the Perfect Pasta Sauce Jimquisiation I linked before).

 

[Hades]

Their Next big game they were pushing on their website was Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League.
"OK" people say, "We'll be sceptical of this game name".

Leaks happen about Batman being unceremoniously killed etc.

People think maybe it's all bullshit.

It's not.

Turns out it's worse that people thought with every league member having an unceremonious death, except Wonder Woman who gets a tragic death. Oh and when I say unceremonious I mean being pissed on, being stripped to their underwear etc. Add to this race swapping Deadshot and playing it off with "That wasn't the real Deadshot he was a fake and I killed him, Harley on about how stupid her previous outfits from the Arkham games were and followed by a narrative from some journalists about how king Shark is gay in the game.

So another game, a pretty bitter taste in the mouths of people who bought it or who had interest in it or were fans of the Arkham games.
One Brazilian dude on twitter basically goes "Enough is enough" and makes a steam curator to identify what games Sweet Baby Inc consulted on and it gets some moderate attention and success. About 50K people.

One of the CEOs of Sweet Baby Inc then called for the curator, the Steam group and the Steam account for the person to be banned

That's nice and all but SBI didn't write the script for that game. They're a consultant company. Not a script writing one so the blame seems rather miscast. Someone here already pointed out the lead writers are exactly the same as the main Arkam games.

I suppose Wonder Woman being the only one who gets treated with some dignity isn't great. That said....its the suicide squad. Is killing their enemies in the most humiliating ways possible not exactly the thing they would do?

Also its not like being wOkE was what killed off Suicide Squad. Its a Mass Effect Andromeda all over again where the fall of the game clearly, obviously and glaringly lies in other factor but the far right still insists its bad because its woke.

 

[thebobmaster]

That's nice and all but SBI didn't write the script for that game. They're a consultant company. Not a script writing one so the blame seems rather miscast. Someone here already pointed out the lead writers are exactly the same as the main Arkam games.

I suppose Wonder Woman being the only one who gets treated with some dignity isn't great. That said....its the suicide squad. Is killing their enemies in the most humiliating ways possible not exactly the thing they would do?

Also its not like being wOkE was what killed off Suicide Squad. Its a Mass Effect Andromeda all over again where the fall of the game clearly, obviously and glaringly lies in other factor but the far right still insists its bad because its woke.

But don't you know? All the problems with Andromeda were caused by being woke! The facial animations were done badly on purpose to make the women ugly, because WOKE!

 

[BrawlMan]

Oh Sweet Baby Inc consults on all kinds of things

https://sweetbabyinc.com/approach/

That's right complaints about User Interface clutter and poor User experience like silly loot etc being the issue? If only they had consultants in who offered that design service.................

Oh and BTW pushing for Mass Appeal Media (AKA Michael Bay Transformers) is a part of the issue with AAA games (see the Perfect Pasta Sauce Jimquisiation I linked before).

Man you're really off the deep end drinking all that kool-aid. Glad I don't feel sorry for you.

@Bob_McMillan, I know you already know this, but don't listen to him. He's full of it and never has a point.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Not really. Most games aren't being "censored" in the West. That's just you lacking the thought capacity, looking in the one direction, and getting high off your farts by putting your own head up your ass, while sniffing your dingleberries on the way over to the anal hole. You still get your explicit violence in most places and there's plenty of fan service and attractive looking characters, but not to the extent of what you want, not the "true Japanese way". Because for grifter's like you, or the echo chambers/pawns of grifters like you, it's never enough or you cry when you don't get what you want. And even when you get everything you want you'll still cry about something else, because somebody else has it or you don't want anybody else having it but yourself. You didn't lose a damn thing and just crying for the sake of crying I'm not acting like you can take down the big tough corpos and bankers. Despite the fact that you're willing to let them screw over people so long it's not you or those that share your views. It takes a strong man to deny what's in front of him and be that pathetic.

See now I was happy to let you harp on from the sidelines this time like the old men from the muppets show.

But as you're now addressing me directly I shall address you directly.

Your argument is utter bovine excrement, your argument about me lacking though capacity is hilarious in the face of the fact you're pushing the highly stupid "It's only censorship if the government does it" argument which completely negates your own actual argument here because the position of "the creators willingly made those changes themselves" can be applied to all those games who changed content for say Russia or Japan. The creators had the choice to do it as did, thus by your own logic it's not censorship.



But to further elaborate my position. I say it is censorship even if done by the original creators (or owners) because I the idiot know nothing am apparently aware of something you are not. The council of Trent and the fig leaf campaigns

Fig leaf - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

oh and things like how come the film a Clockwork Orange was "banned" in the UK as such, I'll leave you to look up the full tale round that and the threats that happened.

As for crying?
way to miss me pointing out a game in this very thread I had no objection to existing and it's very much not for me.

but hey maybe you didn't bother to look it up so I should more prominently shill its' existence here for those who might be the demographic even if I'm not


I know of plenty of games not for me and support them existing and hell I actually pushed for Robert Yang's games to be allowed on Steam. So maybe you have a point, maybe I do cry about stuff that's not for me, because I actually want other people to have stuff specifically for them and don't want the issue were said content couldn't get onto Steam (it's there now BTW for those who care).

I don't remember seeing you about yelling about Robert Yang's games being prevented from being on Steam though.

To finish off I guess I must concede you are truly the "strongest" here.

 

[Casual Shinji]

But don't you know? All the problems with Andromeda were caused by being woke! The facial animations were done badly on purpose to make the women ugly, because WOKE!

The artifacting and frame dips, too. Sweet Baby Inc actually invented them.

 

[Cicada 5]

No that's the reality of what will happen not what's used to get executives on board.

Except this is what Asmongold thinks will happen, not what the SBI CEO says. I suspect the full clip provides a lot more context this video doesn't cover.

Harry Potter was wildly successful in spite of the woke boycott. Important context there really lol

And how many anti-woke boycotts have worked?

Ah yes the1 trap, the good fortune of her dog and mostly just beating on the thing

Yeah, you're not actually paying attention. Almost every time she fights the thing up close, she gets ragdolled. She has to use her small size to evade, uses its weapon against it to do serious damage, relies on a partner for help (the dog), lures it into the bog, uses herbs to mask her body heat and knocks off the mask which it uses to direct its spear.

Not entirely ineffective

So there is precedence for human technology hurting Predators. Glad we can agree.

Come on you can do better than that, you got to throw in something about the previous Ms Marvel too really go for the full on "The League of Evil hates her because she's not a sexy arian like the last Ms Marvel"

Your words, your bretheren.

True, just not normally those who have also tried to kill him.

His first wife Vanessa suggests otherwise. He's also currently married to Typhoid Mary, an unstable woman who has undermined him at least once in the past.

Yeh, when she proved unpopular.

The sales suggest otherwise.

Still doesn't explain the extra powers she gained either

What extra powers? Jane didn't do anything Thor wasn't capable of.

No because again, double billed with Hercules

Hercules wasn't a main character on Xena's show.

We see the potential for Joxer to be a hero in season 2 episode 16 where a spell is put on him such that when he hears a bell his true heroic potential in revealed, until he hears a bell again and reverts.

So we have one episode where he gets to act like something other than the buffoon he is for the rest of the show.

Not really, I linked pretty high profile websites showing how some of your examples didn't ring true. Because if they did whey did that success you claimed they had show?

I list movies that were successes, you mention ones that failed and you think this proves you right?

And because they weren't actually that high budgeted plus fans of the game hated the concept of the character as such because of the whole T-Virus super powers angle to it really.

An RE character having superpowers wasn't an issue for fans of Jake Muller and Ethan Winters.

And had massive re-shoots, re-writes and came after that trilogy which had soured most people on Star Wars to start with.

I wouldn't call a film with a 91% RT score and 1.334 billion profit a movie that soured most people on Star Wars, but believe what you want.

Well either an infinite failure or infinite success depending on how you look at it, as the Daily Mail has never made one

Daily Mail - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Were you perhaps thinking of some other outlet?

Yeah, I meant the Daily Wire. My mistake.

 

[Cicada 5]

You really going with cumulative sales?

Why shouldn't I?

Because we're not in Japan?
Objecting the censored content (which Japanese gamers will probably mod round anyway) in Japan is kind of for the Japanese audience to object to. Yeh I don't think it's good but kind of odd you expect me to know of every countries attempts to censor any game ever.

I thought censorship was a big deal to you? Plus your type is obsessed with all things related to Japan.