CDPR on Cyberpunk 2077 backlash

[Erttheking]

Yeah.

Not to mention the attack helicopter, did you just assume my-, and we will not be replaced tweets that give the developer/publisher as a whole a rather bigoted appearance.

Like how is cdproject going to create a nuanced and thoughtful take on queer identities in a dystopian hellscape when they cant not look transphobic on Twitter for five minutes?

Now you're assuming that people accept this ideology in the first place. The majority of people think all that queer identity whatever whatever is nonsense. Those who do believe it are precisely the ones the majority of us want nowhere near this game's development. I hope they do not create "a nuanced and thoughtful" whatever, I don't want this nonsense in the game. It doesn't matter whether or not one even agrees with the ideology, but modern leftist propaganda does not need to be in our games.

LGBTQ mindsets are leftist propaganda?

My oh my. The truth comes out.

Be nice if people took this as seriously as someone on the internet not liking the latest bleep bloop simulator.

 

[McElroy]

That pocket rocket is too big for anything else than an augment. In a world where sexually exploitative marketing is prominent and the sexual characteristics of people don't conform as much as they do here and now I could see that as a part of a larger advertisement. Like you'd have other ads with other "mixed up" styles and one in which they're all together.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

CDPR refused to bend the knee to the social justice mafia during the Witcher 3 controversy, so the dirty, dirty smear merchants of the "games media" are coming out all guns blazing to try to do as much damage to the brand as they can.

 

[Abomination]

Yeah.

Not to mention the attack helicopter, did you just assume my-, and we will not be replaced tweets that give the developer/publisher as a whole a rather bigoted appearance.

Like how is cdproject going to create a nuanced and thoughtful take on queer identities in a dystopian hellscape when they cant not look transphobic on Twitter for five minutes?

Now you're assuming that people accept this ideology in the first place. The majority of people think all that queer identity whatever whatever is nonsense. Those who do believe it are precisely the ones the majority of us want nowhere near this game's development. I hope they do not create "a nuanced and thoughtful" whatever, I don't want this nonsense in the game. It doesn't matter whether or not one even agrees with the ideology, but modern leftist propaganda does not need to be in our games.

Christ on a cracker, I am in reference to people who claim there are "third+" genders or that they are literally animals in a human body. Not that trans ideology is nonsense. You know, when things start getting absurd is where the attack helicopters come in to play.

 

[Casual Shinji]

CDPR refused to bend the knee to the social justice mafia during the Witcher 3 controversy, so the dirty, dirty smear merchants of the "games media" are coming out all guns blazing to try to do as much damage to the brand as they can.

Where exactly are these blazing guns, because I haven't seen much of it other than the many, many YouTube videos talking about the apparent blazing guns.

You'd think with how prevelent the social justice maffia seemingly is I couldn't go a day on YouTube without bumping into one of their dirty, dirty smear videos, and yet.. nothing, like, at all.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

What I?m wondering is why there never seemed to be nearly as much complaining about The Witcher 3, which is far more white-centric and less diverse. Maybe the gaming climate wasn?t quite so sensitive yet back in 2015. But then again Gamergate was right around that time IIRC.

There was a hullabaloo about TW3 too, including a discussion on this forum. The social justice types attacked that one too, and they're trying again now. I think it's lucky that it's not an american company, or they might've pandered already.

These people complaining will go their lives never creating anything of note, just moaning about the creations of better people than them. They are the racists and bigots of our time, using a veneer of perpetual offence to display their "virtue". They only see the world thru a prism of skin colour and anything not adhering to their views they form a mob and gang up on it. Often these aren't the people who even buy games, just moan about them. Even irrelevant fossil Sarkeesian is trying to extort money from them and get her talons in. Best reply, "They've got the bloke who designed the Cyberpunk game setting in the first place, so I think they're fine." 😁

I?m really curious to see how the Witcher series on Netflix turns out, because there was a lot of racial controversy there too involving casting. Mostly with supporting characters though. I think everyone might be in agreement that Henry Cavill as Geralt was a pretty terrible choice.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

You know, when things start getting absurd is where the attack helicopters come in to play.

I'm no expert on this one so please correct me if I'm mistaken, but my understanding is that the helicopter joke is deliberately absurd in order to poke fun at the absurdity of the notion that people can claim to be anything they want and that the world must accommodate the claim, no matter how outlandish. I don't care for this kind of thing personally but I don't object to making jokes, even distasteful ones, nor for the social justice ideologies, so I'll defend people's right to make it as a matter of principle.

This issue isn't about gender identity nonsense tho, the issue is the outrage around this game originating from the perpetually offended social justice types who want to get their ideologies into games, demonise anyone and anything that doesn't conform to said ideology and, in this instance, they are the last people fans want anywhere near it. I think this one is a race thing anyway, not a gender thing.

LGBTQ mindsets are leftist propaganda?

My oh my. The truth comes out.

Be nice if people took this as seriously as someone on the internet not liking the latest bleep bloop simulator.

What?

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

"Yongyea"

And right out the gates this argument has collapsed. Forgetting how Cyberpunk's actual designer has nothing to do with CDPR game or the fact that POC can in fact be bigots. Seriously, CDPR needs to get its shit together. Doesn't give me high hopes for the game

 

[Hawki]

I think everyone might be in agreement that Henry Cavill as Geralt was a pretty terrible choice.

He's no stranger to wearing armour and holding a sword, so...there's that I guess?

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I?m really curious to see how the Witcher series on Netflix turns out, because there was a lot of racial controversy there too involving casting. Mostly with supporting characters though. I think everyone might be in agreement that Henry Cavill as Geralt was a pretty terrible choice.

The first few episodes will answer most questions. I'm less fussed about that and more interested in the other issues facing it. Personally, I'm interested in stories and storytelling and my main criticisms about any fictional work will start with issues with the story. Do things make sense, do characters behave believably, does the plot flow naturally or is it contrived?

The Witcher is a polish fantasy series and has slavic folklore-ish roots as evident as Lord of the Rings was distinctly British. Netflix is american and so are the show's producers. I don't know how much, if any, Polish or author's own help they'll get, but I wonder how much will be "lost in translation". In the same way Steve McQueen was put into The Great Escape because the american studios wanted an american star their target audiences could identify with, will some or all of the world or its lore be "americanised", or watered down, or made-for-TV? Does that make sense? Will it be PG, or will it have the violence and sex that HBO shows like GoT put on display? Will they downplay the racism towards non-humans, or paint the scoia'tael as purely the good-guy underdogs?

As for Henry Cavill...it is an odd choice. I actually don't think he was an awful Superman. He was a terrible Clark Kent, and the DC films he was in were awful, but he's a decent enough actor and should at least have the chance to see if he can pull off being a leading man. He's probably a bit too young and handsome to play a middle-aged, scarred Witcher, but I'll reserve judgement on it. I hope they don't put contemporary politics in, but we won't know until it airs. If they do, they'll lose some viewers but maybe keep enough to get a second season. Star Trek: Discovery went full social justice and is surrounded by a quagmire of controversy and hurdle after another. It got a season 3 though so someone must be watching it.

I think Henry Cavill was really trying to get off the sinking DCCU ship before it wrecked his career. I think the official line was that they were unable to agree on contract negotiations but his two films, MoS and BvS were widely hated. I blame Snyder for those tho. Apparently Aquaman did well at the box office apparently, tho when I heard there was a CGI shark fight I realised I wouldn't be buying a ticket.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

CDPR refused to bend the knee to the social justice mafia during the Witcher 3 controversy, so the dirty, dirty smear merchants of the "games media" are coming out all guns blazing to try to do as much damage to the brand as they can.

Where exactly are these blazing guns, because I haven't seen much of it other than the many, many YouTube videos talking about the apparent blazing guns.

You'd think with how prevelent the social justice maffia seemingly is I couldn't go a day on YouTube without bumping into one of their dirty, dirty smear videos, and yet.. nothing, like, at all.

I actually follow the people whomst every anti-SJW YouTuber is yelling at and yeah, they're small potatoes. It's not quite Fake Doom outrage, but it's close.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

LGBTQ mindsets are leftist propaganda?

My oh my. The truth comes out.

Be nice if people took this as seriously as someone on the internet not liking the latest bleep bloop simulator.

What?

That "modern leftist propaganda" has been a part of cyberpunk for literally 40-50 years, and largely just consists of queer people getting bodies that make them comfortable. Hell, Dirty Pair's episode with the trans lady and the revelation that sex changes were common in their world is almost as old as I am.

 

[CaitSeith]

Is Cyberpunk 2077 released yet? No? Then you all better cite your sources, because all this sounds too sketchy.

Something like this then?
https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/06/12/cyberpunk-2077-ad-controversy-response/#/slide/1

Very grateful. I just saw the in-world poster, and now I see from where both sides are coming from.

When asked to address the concerns of those offended by the poster, Redesiuk said it was never the studio's "intention to offend anyone." The ad was meant to "show how oversexualization of people is bad. And that's it."

"I think that sexy bodies are sexy. Full disclosure: I love female bodies. I love male bodies. I love bodies in between. This is who I am. However, I hate it when it's used commercially. And that's exactly what we want to show by doing this exactly, by showing how big corporations use people's bodies against them."

I also find a pinch of irony in the intended subtextual message.

As a side note. part of why some trans people took umbrage is that the game was not allowing trans player characters, and the devs worded it in a way that was like 'no trans period. SAo to be told 'you cant be in the game' and then see the ad, some got rather irked. Now trans and non binary playable characters are being implemented, which comes across as a step up, but some are a little... uncertain they'll handle the option well, not helped by a poorly worded statement on another subject.

Now, a big part of Cyberpunk in general is bionics and transhumanism - does replacing and upgrading your body with cybernetics etc make you something other than human? do you become less than human, or something more.

Cyberpunk the TTRPG represented this with Humanity - you had a humanity stat at character creation you set, and augmenting your body in any way cost humanity, with the idea you were developing mental illnesses and becoming less human as it dropped, and if it hit zero, your character was removed from your control and you made a new one. It hit the transhumanist theme, and acted as a way to keep munchkins and power gamers in check, so they couldn't just turn themselves into indestructible killing machines, though by giving transhumanism an explicitly an negative connotation.

Elegant for an 80's TTRPG, a bit unfortunate in the 21st century where you have amputees and disabled people using prosthetic limbs, hearing implants, pacemakers, etc.

An article talking about the use of nudity in the game had a CDPR rep explaining that the naked npc you were rescuing had 'profaned' her 'sacred body' with augments, and you needed to judge if she was 'too far gone' and not human anymore, indicating their bringing the humanity mechanic in unchanged, without really thinking about how it would come across in the modern day.

That PR sounds like the perfect recipe for "Yikes!" all over social media.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

These sort of critiques feel irrelevant though.

Say you have a game with a racist scene or a sexist joke...well...is that scene good though? Is the joke funny? Gimme something here. Just telling me you're offended or something is over your personal line is UTTERLY meaningless in this context cause that's just your feelings we're discussing now and how sensitive to this or that crude subjects you are.

And no, it doesn't make those scenes automatically bad if they're offensive to someone with X unspecified tolerance for those subjects. Something can be offensive to everyone and still simultaneously be a good specimen of itself, even.

It's usually the case that people calling things racist or sexist in games conduct themselves as though they're criticizing the game when in fact they're just commenting on their personal tolerance of it in not a dissimilar fashion to how someone may find a horror game too scary to finish. It's a valid reason not to finish a game but nobody would say a horror game being too scary is a bad thing just because some folks lacked the grit to deal with it. I posit to you that the grit one needs to laugh at sexist jokes and what have you is much the same. They're not for everyone and they're juuust fine being that way to boot.

By that definition any critique is irrelevant. Saying a game's graphics are terrible while someone else claims that it's how it was intended or adds to the charm. Or how a game controls clunky and stiff, but no that just makes it feel more real. But even that is at least an argument and invites conversation on the matter. What you're suggesting is that if it regards sexism or racism in fiction people should just shut up, because it's their problem being offended. And if you're offended your opinion is somehow invalid.

Even if people calling out racist or sexist elements in fiction is them revealing their own personal tolerance, what's wrong with taking their opinion into account? Sharing opinions is generally how we grow and gain new insights. Shutting people down because they dare be offended by something is how society stagnates.

The horror comparison makes no sense because fictional horror by itself doesn't create or perpetuate negative views of specific groups of people, fiction that glorifies racism, sexism, or transphobia does. But hey, let's say it makes even a shred of sense, than it's prefectly valid to criticize a piece of horror fiction for being too obnoxious, i.e. overly shocking in its depiction of its horror themes.

Ok good, this is the line I wanted to approach so I'm glad at this response.

When someone is sharing a critique of a game's gameplay or story or controls and so on, there's room to discuss things. Like say you find parrying in Sekiro too hard to time and keep dying but if you're told you can party ahead of time and just hold it to block in case you mess up or double tap it really fast you may find it easier to land so your opinion may change with new information. Same with a story, maybe you missed a part, maybe you didn't get the true ending, maybe you were tired so you skipped a side quest one day. There's room for discussion and we can potentially adjust your view with new information.

You just can't present new information like that to prove to someone that due to a thing they overlooked they were wrong to feel offended cause feelings are by definition not rational and facts don't sway them.

But do you know the best of all? All this time we're actually talking about the GAME. We're not psychoanalyzing you and trying to find why you feel this way or why you are offended. We're focusing on the game's elements and due to that our critique is valuable to games and will actually make them better. Your offense based critique is ignoring games and focusing on the larger society and is looking to fix the ills that cause society to produce offensive games. That's, again, wholly irrelevant.

Here's the difference between offense critique and other game element critique. Graphics have polygon counts and artists who have credentials working for them. Say someone doesn't like persona 5's highly acclaimed artstyle cause they just don't like anime aesthetic, it is not seen as a fault of the game, it is not seen as a blemish or a bad spot like you mentioned either. The art is just...itself and it can not be people's cup of tea without something having to be wrong about it or in need of changing.

Finally, horror games have an effect on me and that's why I picked em. I wasn't talking about jump scares or dumb gore and so on. What they do is for a lack of a better word creep me out. I jump at shadows and think paranoid thoughts and so on in real life for a while after playing a really good one like corpse party. It's prolly cause I like being immersed in my games so I enter the psychological space of the characters and end up scaring myself with weird thoughts that never occur to me normally. Now, how rational would it be to attribute that reaction to the game containing a fault within it. It's all me that's doing it. Same with things like racism and transphobia and so on. It's those people who are affected that are to blame. The game isn't doing anything.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

As a long time player and GM, I can tell you that the Humanity loss doesn't become a problem until someone starts really overloading their body with more and more and more tech. Having a hearing aid, a pacemaker, or even a single limb won't affect your psyche, but having your entire body replaced with a weapon bristling frame aside from your brain and spinal cord...that fucks with your perceptions and psychologically does mess with you.

Sort of an aside, I always thought it odd that the basic form of cyber eye, cyber ear etc had a pretty high humanity cost. It just simulates natural vision or hearing. Lose an eye, replace it with a cyber version, doesn't seem too bad. Then you get add ons of targeting scopes, thermographs etc and there's virtually no cost at all.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

These sort of critiques feel irrelevant though.

Say you have a game with a racist scene or a sexist joke...well...is that scene good though? Is the joke funny? Gimme something here. Just telling me you're offended or something is over your personal line is UTTERLY meaningless in this context cause that's just your feelings we're discussing now and how sensitive to this or that crude subjects you are.

And no, it doesn't make those scenes automatically bad if they're offensive to someone with X unspecified tolerance for those subjects. Something can be offensive to everyone and still simultaneously be a good specimen of itself, even.

It's usually the case that people calling things racist or sexist in games conduct themselves as though they're criticizing the game when in fact they're just commenting on their personal tolerance of it in not a dissimilar fashion to how someone may find a horror game too scary to finish. It's a valid reason not to finish a game but nobody would say a horror game being too scary is a bad thing just because some folks lacked the grit to deal with it. I posit to you that the grit one needs to laugh at sexist jokes and what have you is much the same. They're not for everyone and they're juuust fine being that way to boot.

By that definition any critique is irrelevant. Saying a game's graphics are terrible while someone else claims that it's how it was intended or adds to the charm. Or how a game controls clunky and stiff, but no that just makes it feel more real. But even that is at least an argument and invites conversation on the matter. What you're suggesting is that if it regards sexism or racism in fiction people should just shut up, because it's their problem being offended. And if you're offended your opinion is somehow invalid.

Even if people calling out racist or sexist elements in fiction is them revealing their own personal tolerance, what's wrong with taking their opinion into account? Sharing opinions is generally how we grow and gain new insights. Shutting people down because they dare be offended by something is how society stagnates.

The horror comparison makes no sense because fictional horror by itself doesn't create or perpetuate negative views of specific groups of people, fiction that glorifies racism, sexism, or transphobia does. But hey, let's say it makes even a shred of sense, than it's prefectly valid to criticize a piece of horror fiction for being too obnoxious, i.e. overly shocking in its depiction of its horror themes.

Ok good, this is the line I wanted to approach so I'm glad at this response.

When someone is sharing a critique of a game's gameplay or story or controls and so on, there's room to discuss things. Like say you find parrying in Sekiro too hard to time and keep dying but if you're told you can party ahead of time and just hold it to block in case you mess up or double tap it really fast you may find it easier to land so your opinion may change with new information. Same with a story, maybe you missed a part, maybe you didn't get the true ending, maybe you were tired so you skipped a side quest one day. There's room for discussion and we can potentially adjust your view with new information.

You just can't present new information like that to prove to someone that due to a thing they overlooked they were wrong to feel offended cause feelings are by definition not rational and facts don't sway them.

But do you know the best of all? All this time we're actually talking about the GAME. We're not psychoanalyzing you and trying to find why you feel this way or why you are offended. We're focusing on the game's elements and due to that our critique is valuable to games and will actually make them better. Your offense based critique is ignoring games and focusing on the larger society and is looking to fix the ills that cause society to produce offensive games. That's, again, wholly irrelevant.

Here's the difference between offense critique and other game element critique. Graphics have polygon counts and artists who have credentials working for them. Say someone doesn't like persona 5's highly acclaimed artstyle cause they just don't like anime aesthetic, it is not seen as a fault of the game, it is not seen as a blemish or a bad spot like you mentioned either. The art is just...itself and it can not be people's cup of tea without something having to be wrong about it or in need of changing.

Finally, horror games have an effect on me and that's why I picked em. I wasn't talking about jump scares or dumb gore and so on. What they do is for a lack of a better word creep me out. I jump at shadows and think paranoid thoughts and so on in real life for a while after playing a really good one like corpse party. It's prolly cause I like being immersed in my games so I enter the psychological space of the characters and end up scaring myself with weird thoughts that never occur to me normally. Now, how rational would it be to attribute that reaction to the game containing a fault within it. It's all me that's doing it. Same with things like racism and transphobia and so on. It's those people who are affected that are to blame. The game isn't doing anything.

Honestly, this is kinda funny considering how utterly unremarkable games like say, Witcher 3 are in the gameplay and graphics department

Literally nobody is praising it's combat or game mechanics. Witcher 3 gets held up on a pedestal for it's writing, bith dialog and stories


So clearly non-game stuff mattered back then. And Witcher 3's story was by and large, a cultural critique in fantasy drapings. What changed

I actually consider the story as a core part of most non-competitive games. Love stuff like VNs and so on. Thing is, people try to apply things from outside the game's story to it, which is what is non-game. If we're talking about the in world lore we can discuss anything and it'll be about the game so in that context it'll also be useful but the moment you jump from that context into that of the real world you've corrupted the discussion and lost the magic it once had, permanently.

Though that being said I enjoy the fantasy hunter themes and contextual dismemberment gameplay of the witcher 3 and the game's world is full of visually stunning areas and a lot of topographical details that feel handmade. Basically the opposite of skyrim's cookie cutter dungeons. It's kinda unfair to overlook this stuff just because the story is also great.


Take cyberpunk, to me any ill social or otherwise is explained by it being dystopic. Of course in a dystopia you'll have discrimination and bigotry and authoritarianism and a million other ills. Bad things happen in dystopias, it's why stories about them are compelling.

Complaining about these things is like complaining people fighting in a kungfu movie because clearly violence is abhorrent and what about the million ills that come from fighting in society and so on. You're kinda missing the point of the movie if you go down that reasoning path.

 

[Erttheking]

What?

Your talk about how queer identity is left-leaning propaganda. It puts things into context. And this claim made in the middle of pride month.

Also, the classic case of "most people think it's nonsense." Citation: I say so.

These sort of critiques feel irrelevant though.

They're not irrelevant just because you don't care. So I'd advise getting used to it. It's not going anywhere.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

What?

Your talk about how queer identity is left-leaning propaganda. It puts things into context. And this claim made in the middle of pride month.

Also, the classic case of "most people think it's nonsense." Citation: I say so.

These sort of critiques feel irrelevant though.

They're not irrelevant just because you don't care. So I'd advise getting used to it. It's not going anywhere.

Not an issue of caring, it's just talking about a separate subject but going on as though it's about the original one hence irrelevant.

I'm all for having a conversation about these things when not talking about games. It just shouldn't usurp the conversation that was being had and suck out all the oxygen that ought to go to other components of the gaming experience simply because someone can't help but attach political significance to everything they encounter.

Complaining about these things is like complaining people fighting in a kungfu movie because clearly violence is abhorrent and what about the million ills that come from fighting in society and so on. You're kinda missing the point of the movie if you go down that reasoning path.

There's complaining about bad things in a dystopia, and there's rightfully pointing out that bigotry for shock value is nothing but literary empty calories

Cdprojekt red is doing nothing more with cyberpunk than ubisoft does with their games. Taking a boiler plate bland story and tacking on ripped from the headlines inch deep sensationalism they don't have to back up.

Yes, and the thing we call that is being lazy, not bigoted. I'm fine with calling games lazy but when you try to ascribe hate to them you've lost the plot.

 

[Erttheking]

Not an issue of caring, it's just talking about a separate subject but going on as though it's about the original one hence irrelevant.

I'm all for having a conversation about these things when not talking about games. It just shouldn't usurp the conversation that was being had and suck out all the oxygen that ought to go to other components of the gaming experience simply because someone can't help but attach political significance to everything they encounter.

You and I both know you dismiss any conversations like this out of hand. Because you seem determined to shield games you like from critical thinking.

Also, make a different thread if you don't like talking about 2077 politics instead of posting in every thread about politics to talk about how much you don't want to talk about politics. Also I find it kind of funny that you accuse this of dominating the conversation when anti-SJW reactionaries reliably rant ten times longer than Ess Jay Double-us do, and with about ten times as much numbers.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

As a long time player and GM, I can tell you that the Humanity loss doesn't become a problem until someone starts really overloading their body with more and more and more tech. Having a hearing aid, a pacemaker, or even a single limb won't affect your psyche, but having your entire body replaced with a weapon bristling frame aside from your brain and spinal cord...that fucks with your perceptions and psychologically does mess with you.

Sort of an aside, I always thought it odd that the basic form of cyber eye, cyber ear etc had a pretty high humanity cost. It just simulates natural vision or hearing. Lose an eye, replace it with a cyber version, doesn't seem too bad. Then you get add ons of targeting scopes, thermographs etc and there's virtually no cost at all.

A lot of Cyberpunk is good at ideas but bad at execution.

Because yeah, a cybereye that just simulates normal vision that you installed because your normal eye got fucked up should barely have any cost at all, if any.

A cybereye that sees heat, included a targeting reticle for your gun, has a constant text encrypted feed from the home office, and was installed over a perfectly functional eye because your employer wanted you to be 10% better at shooting people, now *that* is some humanity loss.