The Stanley Parable Maker Promises to Change "Racist" Image

[Ipsen]

Oh noes, two hole people were offended out of the thousands that played it, hurry to fix it so TWO FUCKING PEOPLE will feel comfortable.

Well I was planning on buying this game when I got my paycheck but I think I will try to support devs who arent pathetic.

How to over-react on the internet I don't think that one small change to a game to dampen potential backlash is world-ending. A bit peeve-inducing, sure, but uh... I don't know.

Over-racting would be demanding a refund. Deciding to spend my money on people I respect more is hardly an over-reaction. Not quite sure how not giving my money to people who fall over themselves to appease two people is over reacting...

Also changing part of the game becuase two people are whiny idiots is a bit of an over-reaction as well.

Nah, you over reacted. You retract your 'respect' for a developer you were planning to support (and many others happily have done so before you), all over a move you knee-jerk don't agree with. Not to mention that it's over perceived 'political correctness', not the real, quite nuanced issue at hand.

All is fine, should you simply not value your 'respect', though.

In a few minutes, it could be tasteful.

Is it bad that I thought this was a horrible thing to say at first, then hilarious 4 seconds later?

 

[nickpy]

Welp, I just set my copy of Stanley Parable to NOT automatically update.

I genuinely do not believe this is racist: if anything, it's a satire of casual 50s racism in the US which points out the utter absurdity of the whole concept. How is that a bad thing? In any case, This is the experience that the author originally intended, so I shall preserve it for myself. Though I believe that the developer probably thinks they are doing the right thing in altering it, I think it would have been better for them to explain the point of the image because the people who complained clearly missed it... Ah, the beauty of context.

 

[Ipsen]

Let this be a lesson to you, Internet: if you want something changed, the key point is claiming to be offended (preferably on behalf of minorities or women).

When thousands of people were ranting and raving pages long about the ending of Mass Effect 3, the complaints were about the game's failings as an interactive story: "inconsistent with the rest of the trilogy", "doesn't provide closure", "makes the player's prior decisions irrelevant". In response, the gaming media came down on them with universal scorn and ridicule, calling them "entitled whiny babies" and claiming that if Bioware changed their supposed artistic decision, the credibility of the entire medium would be RUINED FOREVER. Bioware itself clammed up for months, and only after it was impossible to ignore the crowd did it announce a DLC that would paint over the most glaring problems.

With The Stanley Parable, a single person tweeted about the perceived racism of a joke, and the developer was immediately willing to listen and change the game. (To be fair, a small or one-man team is always easier to communicate with and persuade than a large company.) The gaming media seems to have no problem with this, and if commenters bring up the issue of artistic expression, they'll likely be characterized as "just a bunch of racists".

(I should probably note that I haven't played either game myself, I'm just fascinated by the way these discussions go.)

Or maybe because many more thousands of people have been affected by real, second-class-citizen racism than the integrity of the Mass Effect 3 ending?

Seriously, how does this fly over so many heads in these forums? It's getting a tad disturbing now.

 

[Grabehn]

To be honest I've never understood the fixation of some people with "racist" stuff, I didn't like this therefore you must change/fix the situation. Why? are some people that mentally weak that they cannot make the connection between the material and the setting?

How about including this(at the very bottom) option in any future game:

Spoiler

[/spoiler]
Thus everyone would be happy.[/QUOTE] Can I set it all the way up and make a LP afterwards? The comments would be hilarious.

 

[Bug MuIdoon]

How about including this(at the very bottom) option in any future game:

Spoiler

[/spoiler]
Thus everyone would be happy.[/QUOTE]

I think I've seen that avatar before....

OT: I'm hoping it gets changed for something that makes changes questionable.

 

[MarcellusMagnus]

Or maybe because many more thousands of people have been affected by real, second-class-citizen racism than the integrity of the Mass Effect 3 ending?

Well, it's a good thing I'm not arguing against that then! I'm drawing a comparison between People Reacting To Game A and People Reacting To Game B, not between People Reacting To Game A and People Affected By Social Injustice X.

 

[GoaThief]

But no, let's close our eyes and ears, pretend the problem doesn't exist, hold on to the laughable notion that art is objectively above this kind of serious criticism and scream 'POLITIKAL CORRECTNESS' if anyone says otherwise! YAY!

FUCK!

It's satire, the majority of the humour stems from the unspoken statement regarding the exact same thing you just mentioned. Without it the joke is virtually nothing except moderate random humour.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Wow, it only takes TWO complaints to get this guy to change his game? Anyone want to join my crusade of blind rage against the creator for the game not dispensing real ice-cream every two minutes? I only need one other person apparently and the lack of ice-cream equality is...dairy-ist! Hell, maybe if we get THREE people to complain we could get him to change Stanley in to a parrot. Because animal rights or something.

 

[seditary]

Since we're changing the game based on complaints from the community, can I get in on this?

Can we make Stanley black? I mean, all the other characters in the game, including both Narrators, are white. This offends me.

Send him a mail with your complaint and explain it to him, he seems to be taking requests:

Spoiler

Oh god its worse than I thought.

Is he seriously listening to every random person who messages him about removing something from his game?

 

[Victim of Progress]

What if the image depicted a transgendered child being lit on fire? People would probably nuke the creator from orbit. It's kind of crazy how far PC can go.

 

[Caiphus]

So, let me get this straight...

Mr. Wreden created a game that had an image somebody was particularly upset with. They then decided to contact him and let him know of their issue, and Mr. Wreden, not wanting to upset anybody in the extreme, decided to change it. After all, he's the creator of the work! Therefore, it's his right to change something if he also feels it's an issue, and he doesn't just live in an elitist bubble that's somehow above criticism! The image can easily be replaced with one that has no racial connotations, which would probably be better in the long run anyway as the image of the downtrodden black male being overpowered by the well dressed white male is still heavily burdened by racist symbolism. One day, it won't be, but that day is not today.

But no, let's close our eyes and ears, pretend the problem doesn't exist, hold on to the laughable notion that art is objectively above this kind of serious criticism and scream 'POLITIKAL CORRECTNESS' if anyone says otherwise! YAY!

FUCK!

Yeah, I'm with you on this one.

You have to feel for the devs who get themselves into these situations. If anything, it seems marginally hypocritical to throw a tantrum to try and get the guy to change it back.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

I certainly hope that he will change it from white guy setting fire to the dark orphan to the reverse just mess with people.

 

[Silvianoshei]

It's not racist, it's a legitimate problem. The first world burned the third world out for resources.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Eh, if he thinks it can be changed without it compromising the ending I trust his judgement.

But it seems like just a harmless joke to me.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Since we're changing the game based on complaints from the community, can I get in on this?

Can we make Stanley black? I mean, all the other characters in the game, including both Narrators, are white. This offends me.

Send him a mail with your complaint and explain it to him, he seems to be taking requests:

Spoiler

Oh god its worse than I thought.

Is he seriously listening to every random person who messages him about removing something from his game?

I expect his tweet box is flooded by hilarious requests from "offended" people, by now.

I think I've seen that avatar before....

Well, it's from a damn good game. Shame i don't see avatars referring to it more often. Anyway, i'm planning to change it after Halloween, so feel free to treat it like it's aaall yours.

 

[jackpipsam]

I am kind of annoyed he changed it.

I thought it was fantastic, showing that white people (possibly a metaphor of the West) "helping" the black child (possibly a metaphor of places like Vietnam or Iraq), that's clever!

I can't believe this is being removed

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

I really think people are missing the point here.
The offensive part isn't merely that it depicts white-on-black violence or has racist undertones, but that it's making light of something that actually happened less than a century ago. Just google "African colonial violence."

If it showed a British soldier beating an Irish Catholic, or a Nazi gassing a Jew, or a Jihadist hijacking a plane, I'm sure there'd be a lot more people from the Escapist upset about that. It's just that we have so few members of the black community kicking around that you all lack insight.

 

[RJ 17]

Bioshock Infinite was an entire game based around racism and I didn't see people crying about that.

I dunno, this seems as silly as the guy who got upset because of GLaDOS making fun of adopted children. Because the opinions of fictional characters are really something we should all be concerned with. >.>

 

[hexFrank202]

Ehhhh yeah this is pretty lame. It wasn't racist; it was violent. If the creator wanted to make it less violent, and THAT was his stated reason, it wouldn't make him seem no annoying.

 

[hentropy]

The staff of the Stanley Parable deserve it for taking what was a cool indie game, enhancing it a tad, and then asking money for it. Stay indie and free, burn as many orphans you want regardless of race. Go commercial, pay the commercial price of having to worry about PR.

Yes. I'm being that guy.