CD Projekt: "Let's Treat Gamers as Grown-ups"

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Would it be too much to open up a 2nd account with Steam or GoG to buy games I already own again? CD Projekt are the new pre-EA BioWare, only with more stubble. Can't wait for Cyberpunk, that puppy gonna get pre-ordered so hard the postal service will be begging for mercy.

 

[elvor0]

snip

Pretty much the reason I can't stand the Witcher games. When they say gamers they really mean 'men'

I won't be buying their next RPG if it doesn't have the choice of a female protag tbh.

I fully respect their sentiment about the DLC but if they have a similarly sexist setting in Lords of the Fallen I will be disappoint.

While I do agree the whole "card collection" for the women in the first game was totally just... inane pandering, The Witcher is based on a series of books, so the characters are already established, I haven't read them so I expect they're more "inspired by" than actual copies of the books, but that was the reason why they didn't have a female protagonist in the Witcher, it's about following Geralds story, not a make your own character style of game.

I suspect Cyberpunk may have more of a "make your own char" thing to it, given it's based on a table top RPG. To me, while making your own character is fun, it's difficult to make a compelling narrative if the character is just a blank slate. Bioware pulled it off, but it's very difficult most of the time.

It's why I like Shepard in Mass Effect as a concept, you can choose what you want him to say, but he's still Shepard at heart, not just a blank slate.

snip

Pretty much the reason I can't stand the Witcher games. When they say gamers they really mean 'men'

I won't be buying their next RPG if it doesn't have the choice of a female protag tbh.

I fully respect their sentiment about the DLC but if they have a similarly sexist setting in Lords of the Fallen I will be disappoint.

While I do agree the whole "card collection" for the women in the first game was totally just... inane pandering, The Witcher is based on a series of books, so the characters are already established, I haven't read them so I expect they're more "inspired by" than actual copies of the books, but that was the reason why they didn't have a female protagonist in the Witcher, it's about following Geralds story, not a make your own character style of game.

I suspect Cyberpunk may have more of a "make your own char" thing to it, given it's based on a table top RPG. To me, while making your own character is fun, it's difficult to make a compelling narrative if the character is just a blank slate. Bioware pulled it off, but it's very difficult most of the time.

It's why I like Shepard in Mass Effect as a concept, you can choose what you want him to say, but he's still Shepard at heart, not just a blank slate.

Damn, I was hoping from the headline that they were speaking in terms of gameplay.

Games like Call of Duty (actually, the vast majority of shooters and action games) treat us like small children, and most developers seem to think that we gamers couldn't maneuver or explore our way out of a box.

I was hoping for a repeat of this, but said from a developer (the relevant part starts at about 1:30:


Picture version:

Still, the developer is right. We aren't children, and we aren't (all) thieves. Some respect would be nice once in awhile.

I love that video. Plus it shows how good the design philosophy was in Mega Man X and back in the day. For the sake of getting my point across, long time gamers tend to "get" things a lot easier, and are willing to figure things out, they wont just stand there and panic if what to do is not painfully spelled out for you. The constant spoonfeeding of what you're supposed to do just makes things worse. I've seen people play Fable 3 where you have a glowing fucking trail telling you where to go. Constantly. There is never a point where tutorials and stuff aint flashing up on screen, and it just makes people un able to figure things out for themselves.

If a game is designed well (like MMX), you will be given enough knowledge to know what to do, but not be treated like a moron, and you'll figure out what to do on your own volition. The same person went from playing Fable 3 to Tomb Raider, and any time the path wasn't linear they just panicked and didn't know what to do. It's about looking, and finding links, "oh look, all the things I can grab on to are slightly cream coloured", a point she still couldn't grasp by 3 quarters of the way through the game.

"I don't know where to go!!!"

"Looks like you should jump on that ledge to me."

"How do you know that?"

"Well it looks like a grab-able ledge."

"How do you know what's grab-able and what's not?"

"Because all the ones that are grab-able....are the same colour?"

A recurring conversation through out the game, extremely painful considering we were both playing through it for the first time. Now I'm not expecting everyone to be master class gamers, that would obtuse and arrogant, but if you do something repeatedly, and it consistently has the same outcome, it shouldn't be difficult to make the link, and take that knowledge on board.

It's about applying what you've been taught throughout the game and testing it in new situations, just like you do in real life. Because everyone is spoonfed too much, it just makes them freak out because its a game and NOTHING in real life can ever help you figure ANYTHING OUT!!!!111!

 

[Amaror]

The response to this will be interesting

Nah, the response was basically "The Witcher is sexist, so I'll just ignore that you very clearly said Witcher 2 three times and made it clear that you ask what was sexist about Witcher 2".

It's further up, she basically ignores that I talked about the sequel and still assumed I was defending the first game (which I am not, by the way).

A shame really.

Yeah, she says something like that or just ignores you. I asked her for examples 2 times now, no responses.

 

[zerragonoss]

ah so sexism came up I was wondering how this thread grew so quickly when I just wanted to come make a small comment about how I was hoping the next time i hear about Draconian drm its actually a game that comes with a dragon who watches you to make sure you don't upload the game to torrents.

As far as the sexism goes yes the first one was really bad, and for more than just the cards, I once slept with a women by accident in the game just because I was nice that does seem to encourage the nice guy TM idea but aside from the card their was no mention of the sex in the quest log or anything like that it was all in conversation so no it did not gameifiy it outside of that feature which they regret. The second game however is much better in just about every way and don't just take my word for it go watch the zero punctuation and read the extra punctuation on both and you will see that our own respected Yahtzee thinks they did a 180 between the two. they did in their apologies site cultural differences that seems like a classic dodge this could mean they a just immature though so we will see with the next game they make.

As a side not Bayonetta may be heavily sexualized but she is often refereed to by Susan Arendt one of this sites wonderful content creators and a leading voice on sexism in video games as a example of a good female character for the fact that she is always in cortol and owns the fact that she is sexualized. (If I am wrong on this I am very sorry and deserves some of my style of Draconian drm i mentioned earlier.)

 

[BrotherRool]

This the umpteenth time CD Projekt have said this. Does it really count as news? Surely both sides of the argument are getting tired of retreading all this every month?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I'm a woman, I read the books The Witcher games are based on. I LOVED them. It was a deconstruction of a so-called "standard fantasy setting". The games reflected the feel of the books very well, too. Go educate yourselves before you start passing judgements based on one tiny detail in an old game.

[sarcasm] Also, I'll just leave this here:

UNLEASH THE DOGS!
This is more sexist than The Witcher ever was, yet I don;t hear you complaining about it. Probably because the protagonist was a female. But that's cool, right? Not sexist. [/sarcasm]

Actually I've commented plenty on Bayonetta on these forums :| Just not in this thread...because ya know, it's not about Bayonetta...

Let me just say that I was IN NO WAY saying that having a male protagonist makes a game sexist. I was just worried that if their next RPG has a male only protagonist that it will be a thinly veiled male sex fantasy again. That is the only reason why I mentioned it. Some of my favourite games have dudes at the helm.

As an example one of the things I found skeevy about the Witcher was the fact that if there was prominent female character they would eventually want to sleep with Geralt, everytime (I just find that incredibly pandering). I loved the rest of the game and I'm actually sad about the sex issue. I didn't find Triss too bad as I figured she was supposed to be the love interest but then the game just turned into 'Geralt does Rivia' bow chika wow wow.

At the end of the day the RPG genre is massively popular with female gamers. If they don't at least recognise they exist then they are going to lose pennies.

I will distance myself from Cyberpunk and Lords of the Fallen if the have a male only protagonist only because I felt burnt by The Witcher not that the issue of the protagonist being male in itself bothers me. I'm certainly not going to stop anyone else from buying it at the end of the day.

I hope that clears some of my views up.

 

[GameMaNiAC]

CD Projekt, there's one photo that comes to mind when I think of them....

Ha! Made my day. Thank you. That is certainly true.

OT: CD Projekt now officially win the 'awesomest developer' award. I'm planning on getting The Witcher 2 after finishing TW1, but their attitude makes me want to buy TW2 out of spite, even if I didn't want to play it.

 

[Bvenged]

If CD-P starts making more games other than The Witcher, and if GOG.com was offering a UK service too and not just an American one, then I'd be all over this company. They're run by smart people, not money.

You can still use their site, it's just in dollars rather than our own pounds.

I know you could do that with some sites, specifically those with digital downloads, but physical copies? Surely you have to pay international shipping costs?
...
...

Oh my GoG, GoG is digital distribution! Whaaat, how did this escape me?

Cheers dude!

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Well, they do the right thing really, DRM is all about fooling ignorant shareholders done by companies that produce DRM (those people are trash no better than patent trolls).
Myself though I've only played Witcher 1, did not really liked it, got tired and abandoned. That was back when it came out. And these days I play RPGs only on PS3, so I'm no longer interested in what they make.

 

[Bazaalmon]

I want to say how CDProjekt RED wins all the internet for treating customers like actual human beings instead of walking wallets. I'm so preordering Cyberpunk. It's strange how trusting your customer and not trying to nickel-and-dime them to death is somehow this HUGE revelation these days. If only a few more companies would act more like CDPR. Now I'm going to run away with my hands held protectively over my head before I get sucked into another sexism flame war.

 

[freakonaleash]

If they don't like DRM, why did I have to use that EA DRM thing when I got the witcher 2?

 

[DementedSheep]

I'd played a good bit of it actually.

The combat was decent but the characters and story were awful.

If you think so...
I really liked the story and in the later half exspecially some of the female characters were awesome.

Well they must have done a complete U turn from the ones I saw then.

This forum is awfully hostile to the mention that a video game may be offensive. It didn't take long for "femanazi" to be thrown out there. Because disliking actual objectification and misogyny is bad?

Be male, don't care how women are treated, or don't share your opinion -- the keys to success!

But hey, at least it's all in the name of realism, right. You can have your magic, your health bar and your monsters, but equality in medieval fantasy times? How ridiculas would that be. ;P

It not meant to be an idealistic world, it?s a crapsack world. You are not supposed to want to live in it. There is prejudice everywhere with everything in this world but it isn't ok to depict prejudice based on gender?

Contextual prejudice isn't the same as pandering to the player. A world where women are treated poorly isn't absurd, but a world where the players themselves are directly encouraged and rewarded for sexist behavior is disgusting.

If you're referring to the sex cards form the 1st game I hate those too or to be more specific I hate the fact that it?s almost every bloody female npc you could talk to that was willing to sleep with you and its one of the reason why I?m not very fond of the first game but aside from that I don't see how you are rewarded for sexist behaviour.

The cards are enough of a reason for me to never give money to them. But they were also the least of the game's troubles.

The game treats women like sex vending machines--put in enough tokens and they'll take their clothes off. There's a gameplay obstacle put in your way, such as needing to do [A] for them, or go find ten of , etc., and the reward is their body. Remember those painful "friendzone" threads? Games like The Witcher are part of the cause; they impart this horrid mentality that women are not only alien from men, but obstacles to overcome, problems to solve and formulas to work out. Do nice things, get sex. Be this type of person, get sex. Say this, get sex.

Games like The Witcher only make it worse for female gamers and they support an unhealthy and vile perception of women.

Unless it?s a romance written into the plot or without sex it?s going to boil down to do this, gets sex. The same could be said of bioware romances (aside from maybe Zevran since for once the indicator that the romance is serious is him refusing to sleep with you), there really isn't other way to have a romance mechanic in a game and in the Witchers case it isn't even a romance it?s a casual fling so they aren?t going to be building it with dialogue.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

snip

Pretty much the reason I can't stand the Witcher games. When they say gamers they really mean 'men'

I won't be buying their next RPG if it doesn't have the choice of a female protag tbh.

I fully respect their sentiment about the DLC but if they have a similarly sexist setting in Lords of the Fallen I will be disappoint.

Sex is fine (I love sex). Nudity is fine (the human body is normal and beautiful). A man having sex with a lot of women is fine (consensual acts). But when you actually reduce women to sex objects to be conquered via multiple choice dialog options, with the correct pattern resulting in them dropping their panties and turning into a sex card?

I'd sooner give money to a group that directly spits in my face.

Indeed, I love RPG's but playing The Witcher just made me want to vomit. The fact that it was just non stop pandering to guys bothered me too. I hope to god their cyberpunk rpg isn't like that.

They have no excuse to make people as sexist in a futuristic setting and they have been super evasive about whether you will be able to play as a woman.

Moonlight, we did it! We finally agreed on something lol

We must have unlocked some sort of achivement.

I have no problem with sex in games but in The Witcher it just felt so skeevy and one sided like the male version of Twilight or something. I hope that makes sense.

[HEADING=2] Achievement Get: Friendship![/HEADING]

I get ya. Sex and skin for their own sake, not from any real story or character development. "Press B to naked. Press A to sex."

What really upset me were the cards. Shallow, pointless sex to seem "mature" and to appeal to a male audience, I can live with. But to actually, no joke, turn women into an object and their body into a reward... I can't even... UGH. It's exactly what causes the inane "friendzone" thing; guys get brainwashed into thinking doing things for a woman unlocks their pants. "Oh you did this quest? Here, you may now have a look at her sex organs."

The term 'friendzone' usually describes the place in a relationship where a woman considers you to be a friend and is unlikely to develop romantic interest. According to the convention, the longer you remain in this 'friendzone' the less likely your romantic interest will be reciprocated. It can also describe a more specific situation, literal or perceived, when the emotional intimacy of the relationship is lopsided, and a woman takes much but gives nothing back emotionally, or her emotional intimacy is not as highly valued because the man's interest is romantic. This is an extremely hurtful situation for the man. It's nothing like what you described. We have feelings too, you know. You're description seems awfully cold. I mean what is a greater agony than unrequited love? Nothing, that's what.

EDIT:I find your argument about The Witcher turning women and their bodies into rewards convincing, Boudica. I haven't played it myself, so I can't really judge. My only hesitation is I don't feel ready to say that relating women or romance to certain in-game mechanics or rewards must always be harmful to women. I think a holistic view of the overall work, it's message and it's impact, is essential.

Additionally, based on that card and other things I have heard, the sexuality in this game seems rather juvenile and obnoxious, whether or not it sends a bad message about women or gender.

 

[Dendio]

I find it funny that the only thing people can complain about is an optional side quest on a game they made almost 6 years ago

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I'm a bit torn here. The Witcher was fucking horrible but the company wants nothing to do with DRM? I'm not entirely sure about this incongruous behavior.

 

[Greni]

CD Projekt, there's one photo that comes to mind when I think of them....

You see that? I am okay with it.

Also, what's up with the flaming homofags spamming the thread with accusations of sexism like they are fucking Spiderman?

There's only one fucking Spiderman.

1. Take it to another thread.
2. Pull your dicks out of your vaginas and find some real misogynists to practice your new found feminism, and not a video game that overall showes women in a pretty descent light (except for a few collector cards that's just a bad gameplay choice), considering it's a fucking video game, the all time champions of exploitation of female characters

 

[jackinmydaniels]

Oh Projekt, if you were a woman I'd marry you...it's a real shame I didn't enjoy the Witcher series much, but at this point I'm tempted to buy anything they make just to give my support.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

If they don't like DRM, why did I have to use that EA DRM thing when I got the witcher 2?

'EA DRM thing'? The what now?

Anyway, while CD Projekt/CDP RED/GoG.com hate DRM other distributors fucking LOVE DRM... and CD Projekt only handled distribution in Poland and digitally via GoG.com