This isn't censorship, is it? No one was forced to make this change. No demands were made. The reality is that Blizzard, of sound mind and body, decided to remove Tracer's pose. At best you can call it self censorship, but even that's ridiculous.
Am I Wrong to feel Vindicated by this 'Censorship'?
- Thread starter Angelblaze
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People rarely make statements that they believe in absolutes. For example "killing is wrong" (or stealing is wrong) and yet there are situations in which it is not. Most people reduce their arguments to easy to manage soundbits that sound good, bonus points if it automatically generates outrage as it implies that anyone that disagrees with them for whatever reason is a monster.JimB said:
It would be like asking people to admit when they are evil. Rarely anyone believes they are evil or they believe in evil things.
Then I won the lottery, what with all the people who have insisted over multiple posts of debate how absolutely they do mean it. I remember one debate where I would conjure the most ludicrous examples I could of what counts as "censorship" according to that definition, such as a person choosing not to scream "I have a bomb strapped to my chest and am going to kill you all" because of the pressure exerted on him not to do so by the consequences of his actions, and they would agree with my analysis that under their definition, the person who never screamed an illegal threat has been censored by people who had no idea he ever even wanted to say it, and the person was thus oppressed.Ryotknife said:
I agree that it's not even self censorship. The idea that someone of their own volition would change their mind about doing thing A and instead doing thing B is not self censoring, they are just making a different creative choice. Self censoring would be changing something you want or plan to say or express because you fear or wish to avoid a specific reaction from others. I mean, good lord, if I paint my dining room walls blue instead of green because I decided I liked it better would that be self censorship?Captain Marvelous said:
I'd say it's probably safe to define censorship in these contexts as changing what you actually want to say or express because some outside source is pressuring you to. Self censoring is changing what you want to say or express because you fear that you'll be pressured if you express what you want to. So unless someone flat out says that they only expressed something the way they did was because they felt pressure to, I don't think its censorship of either kind. I think censorship to have any teeth as an idea requires that one the being censored is not okay with the changes they are making to their own product. This whole thing is ridiculous.
I imagine there's some overlap. I just also haven't seen it.JimB said:
Part of the problem, as I've mentioned before, is that the meat of this discussion is so often bypassed and things go right to "censorship." Like, it's perfectly fine to not like things. It's perfectly fine to oppose a thing being included in a game, or excluded from a game. But so often I'm told all censorship is bad, and I'm not really seeing anyone stepping up and treating it that way.
Personally, I don't think this stuff is censorship in any meaningful sense. I think businesses are beholden to customers they want money from, and back in the day that was the way we treated them. And, in fact, I've been told throughout my adult years that if I don't like something, I shouldn't buy it. If enough people like me aren't going to buy something and a company wants to address that, I think it's a good thing.
How absurd. I don't use my prehensile ponytail to communicate with animals. That's what my toes are for!
If I might butt in here, this (basically). When talking about something that's inherently subjective, we should not have to qualify that it's subjective. I took years of music theory, musicianship, and performance classes, and I can tell you what I like or dislike in more flowery terms than your average Jane sixpack. I can tell you what most people are likely to like, because I know how these things are viewed by the public. I can even delve into some superficial levels of psychoacoustics, which (among other elements in acoustics) can somewhat explain why we might like certain tones more.LifeCharacter said:
But no matter how authoritatively I tell you that Creed sucks, it's still a subjective opinion. I can break down chord or lyric structure, tell you what I hate about them, but I cannot make an absolute value about the quality of their music.
It's weird, because people who know my credentials will often actually defer to my completely objective opinion. And I'm probably as finicky as they come. A song can be technically sound and soemthing about it just annoys me and I'm all "skip." If I wanted technically good music, I'd listen to Dream Theater more often. They try and cram a music theory textbook into every song. I find that to be bad musicianship.
And I shouldn't need to state "that's my opinion."
Backlash has to be quite big for them to give a crap, in my experience. If they plan on fixing something, they'll make a deal about how they listened to feedback and bla bla, but if they don't it will be radio silence.Ryotknife said:are we talking about the same company, because Blizzard is quite famous for knee-jerking the eff out if there is any sort of public outlash. They have broken entire specs/classes for whole expansions in WoW due to it.Phasmal said:To be honest, I'm still tickled by the fact that people genuinely believe that Blizzard just did this because one person voiced a very polite criticism. Blizzard wouldn't be doing shit if it didn't already line up with what they wanted.
I bought it up in the news thread about this but it was overlooked- me and plenty others moaned our collective asses off when the female worgen were made to look like Chihuahuas being stepped on. But Blizzard kept the derphounds. Because Blizzard does what Blizzard wants to do.
But yes I also remember the FF Mobius thing and I remember nobody giving a crap then but hey apparently ladies asses in video games are sacred because... ethics?
Hell, the female trolls didn't blink for years. Years.
I'm pretty sure there's still a bonfire in the Ghostlands that says Orc_doodad_1 if you hover over it.
(Speaking of breaking classes, Paladin tanks were so OP for almost a year that they could tank, heal themselves, and still come top of the damage charts- took Blizz ages to nerf)
And fugly worgen.
If one polite criticism was enough, all that shit would have been fixed much faster.
I dunno, maybe our experiences are just different, but I've been playing WoW for 7 years and my dude has been playing since vanilla, and that's our general experience of Blizzard.
When even negative comments from 'SJWs' can be considered censorship what isnt censorship? Literally any artistic decision influenced by outside events could be considered censorship... Not putting Jar Jar binks in the other two prequels was censorship guys!
Ok, a few points to make here.
1. This isn't censorship. The Mobius Final Fantasy thing wasn't censorship. Blizzard changing the name of a ship in Warlords of Draenor 6.2 from Tyrande's Silence to something else (mostly as a response to accusations of misogyny) also wasn't censorship.
2. I agree that some people are taking it too far. But if you exaggerate and try to make it look like everyone is, you're no better than them.
3. The Tracer debacle goes beyond censorship and into issues of bowing down to social pressure from everyone's favorite moral crusaders. It's not "wrong" to fire back against that. If the silent majority doesn't speak out against the vocal minority, the vocal minority wins.
4. The earlier it is in a game's life cycle, the more understanding we should be of any changes the devs want to make. I don't think it's always the case that a dev's first idea is their ultimate artistic vision.
1. This isn't censorship. The Mobius Final Fantasy thing wasn't censorship. Blizzard changing the name of a ship in Warlords of Draenor 6.2 from Tyrande's Silence to something else (mostly as a response to accusations of misogyny) also wasn't censorship.
2. I agree that some people are taking it too far. But if you exaggerate and try to make it look like everyone is, you're no better than them.
3. The Tracer debacle goes beyond censorship and into issues of bowing down to social pressure from everyone's favorite moral crusaders. It's not "wrong" to fire back against that. If the silent majority doesn't speak out against the vocal minority, the vocal minority wins.
4. The earlier it is in a game's life cycle, the more understanding we should be of any changes the devs want to make. I don't think it's always the case that a dev's first idea is their ultimate artistic vision.
Yup. Welcome to the truth. Enjoy your stay.Angelblaze said:
Developer responds to criticism gamer agrees with - "Good developer! You listened to intelligent and legitimate feedback from your wonderful enlightened audience and saw the wisdom in their words. Now shut up and take my money!"
Developer responds to criticism gamer does not agree with - "Terrible developer! You caved to censorship from vile bullies who secretly control the industry but probably don't even play the game! Game ruined, pre-order cancelled!"
Everyone complained about D3 being always online and being completely unplayable if you were offline and they did nothing to the game but one person complains about a butt of a fictional character being pointed towards the screen and they take it out. That pisses me off.
That was certainly the argument against their race's inclusion as a whole (so both male and female), but I was speaking strictly of the backlash the male belfs received. That said, I also remember people saying the female belfs were too pretty compared to the other Horde races, so the complaints were multi-dimensional I guess. No one is ever happy with Blizzard, especially when it comes to WoW.Ryotknife said:
I honestly think half the frustration this time is you have, say, the best e-sports players in the world suggesting changes blizzard make to SC2's balance for years on end and then they just fuck off and do whatever they want (and we end up with Legacy of the Void).
It's like they never listen to anyone in the community ... except them some random mom comes along, bitching about how her daughter (who is too young to play the game) will be tainted by Tracer's booty they immediately respond and dictate they'll jump to action.
It's like they never listen to anyone in the community ... except them some random mom comes along, bitching about how her daughter (who is too young to play the game) will be tainted by Tracer's booty they immediately respond and dictate they'll jump to action.
While I do believe an internet mob can effectively censor content in ways we couldn't previously do thanks to the shitstorm the internet can provide, I do not think this case in particular was that sort of scenario. It was just some bad father (8 year old playing a shooter likely to be rated well above her age) complaining in a forum somewhere about how Tracer has a nice ass and that makes his dick hard and conversations with his daughter awkward unlike the cleavage seen elsewhere. Not a hundred people spamming blizzard to bully their way of thinking through.
Generally speaking, you should not take glee in content being taken away from the many in the name of the few.
Generally speaking, you should not take glee in content being taken away from the many in the name of the few.
Then people should've brought that up. All this focus on censorship made me lose sympathy for those against the change rather quickly.Weaver said:
To be fair, social pressure IS a thing. So is it Censorship in the literal definition? No, because the government hasn't made what Tracer's ass illegal nor brought anyone up on charges. But social media and video game outlets have created a new form of Controversy Edited Content.Captain Marvelous said:
So its censorship in the same way the Fine Bros world shit was censored. Simply a massive public outcry, negative coverage and endless social media traffic that they really had no choice but to change directions, but distinctly without a legal mandate.
Except in this case, the FBs were being greedy bastards. Blizzard just had a toned and thin young woman with an ass.
Ok, I have to interrupt with a little side issue, but censorship is not the word you are looking for. Censorship implies an organization or government agency imposing their ideals in a group of people. Making a change in a product after complains by a person/group of people is not censorship. Criticizing a product is not advocating censorship, and changing a product due to criticism from individuals is not breaking up to censorship. It would be if their were forced to from an external organization, but that is hardly the case here and in many other examples of people crying out censorship.
If a writer decides he should change a chapter of his book because he is unhappy with the content, it is not censorship. If an editor asks a writer to change a chapter because he is unhappy with the content (otherwise he may not want to publish the book as is), it is not censorship. If a reader asks a writer to change a chapter because he is unhappy with the content (otherwise he may not want to buy or read the book as is), it is not censorship. If a government agency/books corporation asks a writer to change a chapter because they are unhappy with the content (otherwise they may take legal or economic actions against him), NOW we are dealing with censorship. The same applies to the developers/publishers/players/retailers relations.
You may thing I am discussing semantics here, but I am not. Ascribing this to censorship makes it look like is part of a much bigger issue when its really not. It is just someone making a decision about an asset of a game (hardly a feature), based on his personal beliefs. Guess what, some people are paid to make those decisions dozens of times, over hundreds of days... it is their job. This was just put a light on because it was revealed to the community and some members don't share those beliefs.
If a writer decides he should change a chapter of his book because he is unhappy with the content, it is not censorship. If an editor asks a writer to change a chapter because he is unhappy with the content (otherwise he may not want to publish the book as is), it is not censorship. If a reader asks a writer to change a chapter because he is unhappy with the content (otherwise he may not want to buy or read the book as is), it is not censorship. If a government agency/books corporation asks a writer to change a chapter because they are unhappy with the content (otherwise they may take legal or economic actions against him), NOW we are dealing with censorship. The same applies to the developers/publishers/players/retailers relations.
You may thing I am discussing semantics here, but I am not. Ascribing this to censorship makes it look like is part of a much bigger issue when its really not. It is just someone making a decision about an asset of a game (hardly a feature), based on his personal beliefs. Guess what, some people are paid to make those decisions dozens of times, over hundreds of days... it is their job. This was just put a light on because it was revealed to the community and some members don't share those beliefs.