Ellen Page Nudity in Beyond: Two Souls Triggers Aggressive Sony Response

[kenu12345]

Bloody heck people. Why is this getting so much publicity? Its nothing new as many people before me has said many people model the body naked and work from there. Not to mention god forbid someone be naked in a shower. If I learned anything from Ned Flanders is that I should always wear something to cover my bits even when taking a shower

 

[Brainpaint]

This gives me serious chills. I'm not advocating the purge of all nudity from games (I'm an ARTIST for Christ's sake. I've drawn naked people!) but it's the weird, twisted situation playing out here. Something that may happen more often with the more common use of mo-cap and using real actor's faces and bodies to model from.

They took Ellen Page's likeness, gave the likeness a set of "virtual stunt parts" and, according to some considering I can't find any pictures of the offending details, put them in (or left them on a base model) without her consent.

Now, readers not knowing what the problem here was:

Spoiler

Imagine yourself being a reference for a life-drawing class. You're clothed and you expect to be painted clothed or maybe in a classical style with a drape over your crotch.
You don't wanna be sitting there on a hard stool, naked and cold with everybody staring at your pasty, flabby arse. That's why you didn't choose to be a reference for a NUDE life-drawing class.
But after the session is over, you take a look at the work the artists have been doing...

Most of them are fine except for one. In this picture you're naked and being attacked by a tentacle rape monster.

Take note that these pictures are going to be put on display for everybody to see.
Your friends could see it, your boss or future boss could see it, your FAMILY could see it. And while you know you weren't naked and that's not what you look like naked (you've got moles and scars and crap like that and ain't that under/over-endowed) the people that don't know what you look like under clothes are going to think that's what you look like. People that know you are gonna talk behind your back about it like you knew what was going on and you consented. But you didn't. The worst thing you thought could happen was that somebody could paint a really shitty picture of you. Not this. And you didn't sign up for that.

Now everybody knows you as "the tentacle rape painting" guy/girl. You get mad, they deride you for either "not knowing what you were getting into", "being a crybaby", "being an idiot" or "not appreciating art". They weren't there when you applied/volunteered to stand up in front of the artists so how would they know what went down? They don't. But there's nothing else you can do but get mad at the person that decided to paint a picture of you being threatened with tentacles and the people that allowed it to be put up on the walls despite it not being in your contract.

I'm not claiming to know how Ellen Page feels, but this is just my way of trying to explain that she and Sony are totally in the right in freaking out over it and that there's a chance it's not a publicity stunt.

Quantic Dream made the game and maybe a couple of things were outsourced to smaller firms. Not Sony.
They've found out about something that slipped past the radar and don't want their reputation with any future celebrities in their published games to be tarnished or even with their consumers that take offense to what's going on. Doesn't mean they ARE going to do what they say but it shows that they certainly don't approve of what's happened.

Anyway, nipples needing to be kept on models to model clothing over? Dafuq? The only times that would work was if they were either cold or aroused and the women weren't wearing thick enough bras. That's an even more redundant use of unnecessary details! And what's the point of using them for clothes modeling if there's not going to be any clothing at all?

Sure you need breast and testicle physics but those could easily be created without modelling everything underneath. In a shower scene with a woman you could use barbie boobs no problem!

I like David Cage's games. They're not fantastic, artistic experiences but they're still pretty good and can have some damn amazing parts in them that put them above mediocre. I usually find myself yelling about the inconsistencies at the screen for all of the ones I've played so far and avoided most of the nudity in Heavy Rain considering it was only put in places where the player could see it if they wanted it.

I've only watched someone play a demo of B:TS (it looks like it has the same highs and lows that the last two games did. The one thing they all seem to get spot on is dramatic pacing and minimal dialogue scenes) so I have no idea if the shower scene is avoidable. Hope it is otherwise it's a reduced-price purchase for me as a music student with a limited budget sharing a TV with four other people.

Just because Cage seems like a creeper (the uncool kind that doesn't blow up) doesn't mean I shouldn't line his wallet even if I really don't want to right now. I still listen to Front Line Assembly, Nine Inch Nails and Combichrist but they wouldn't like me playing the erhu or shamisen(traditionally made with python skin, tortoiseshell and dog/cat skin respectively even though both mine will be synthetic. Still doesn't make my sister happy that I'm paying people that use the real stuff, too and I'd imagine PETA supporters to have a field day with it).

Good music be good music, good games be good games. Sometimes the process doesn't matter but I take exception to this weird scenario.


Sorry about the long post. This just ain't something I can hold back my thoughts about.