The Stanley Parable Maker Promises to Change "Racist" Image

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I'm pretty sure if there are people who should be offended, it should be people whose children have been set on fire, not people who feel as if their race is being- er, discriminated against? I mean, the only real effect this kind of thing would have would be to make people laugh at a child being set on fire, I don't see how race has anything to do with it.

 

[fluxy100]

My god all the complaining in this thread is annoying, essentially everyone is saying they know better than the creator of this game.

A man found a scene offensive and in a very civil manner contacted the creator, the creator responded in a civil manner and they discussed it. The creator saw the man's point and agreed to change it without too much trouble. But NO!! we know better than the author about whats going on and know better than him about what he should do with his game "How dare he change something!!" "He saw something that could be fixed without changing the game that much BURN HIM!!!"

 

[K12]

And.... cue the whining over political correctness.

 

[grey_space]

Well the complainants in question did apparently have a dialog with the creators and explained their reasoning.

Their reasoning was apparently good enough for the creators to change their vision.

Hmmmm.... I would really like to see the reasoning behind that. As I understand the joke its kind of a reflection/parody on 50's racism and patriarchy, hence inferring that those things are...bad?

So in my opinion the races of the participants are kinda the point of the joke.

Now is there anyone here genuinely upset by the joke that could possibly explain the negative/racist connotations here?

Genuinely curious.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I don't see how that's racist. I thought it was a rather effective, darkly humorous illustration of the narrative. It's a shame that two people's knee-jerk reaction to it was "That's racist, because the child is black", and that the dev is going to neuter his creativity to appease them.

 

[Erttheking]

You know, something that's starting to bug me is that people are acting like artists should always make their first drafts infallible. People do things a lot that sounded like good ideas but when they get down on paper sometimes you feel like you messed something up. If a person puts out a work, gets criticized about it, and then he decides he wants to change it to improve it, it isn't censorship, it isn't destroying a work of art, its an artist doing what he wants with his work and actually growing from an experience and not having the mindset of a five year old and going "It's my work! I do what I want! Don't like, don't read!"

When I put up one of my stories, someone criticized a scene I did so I went back and I rewrote it. That was NOT censorship.

We seriously need to chill out. He said he was going to change it because he wanted to and he found a way to do it without changing the game much. Can someone PLEASE tell me what the big deal is?

 

[grey_space]

You know, something that's starting to bug me is that people are acting like artists should always make their first drafts infallible. People do things a lot that sounded like good ideas but when they get down on paper sometimes you feel like you messed something up. If a person puts out a work, gets criticized about it, and then he decides he wants to change it to improve it, it isn't censorship, it isn't destroying a work of art, its an artist doing what he wants with his work and actually growing from an experience and not having the mindset of a five year old and going "It's my work! I do what I want! Don't like, don't read!"

We seriously need to chill out.

Ya I agree to a point, the author apparently agreed with the reasons for the complaint, so obviously in the authors mind it's a valid complaint. That's grand, and it's totally within the power of the creator to change his work at anytime imo.

My issue is that in my understanding of the joke I don't see a problem.

However since I'm whiter than flour I'm perfectly willing to concede a certain lack of knowledge on the subject of habitual racism.

Personally I'm just wondering if there's something I'm missing here.

 

[The Lugz]

To change it would destroy the point of the image, might as well just take it out then. Thank you PC for another pointless destruction of art. Can we choose not to get the stupid update?

of-course you can, make a backup of the original files and or tell steam not to keep it up to date.

but really, is it so significant that it's ruining the game for you?

 

[Lightknight]

Ok, so the kid can't be black because using a black kid in the image is racist?

While I can certainly see why setting a black individual would be considered racist (KKK-esque, even), it's interesting to think that this means they have to use a white person in the image or not use it at all. Like our perception of it as racist is racist in and of itself.

Kind of an novel social commentary. Not sure how I actually feel about the image. I don't like the "joke" in general and I don't rightly know that it is a joke so much as a stylistic portrayal of a horrific notion. But I don't know if the intention was racism so much as just whether or not Stanley is and asshole. Heck, maybe it is calling him racist. Certainly that would make the moral divide more clear. Why can't the bad option be a racist? Certainly racism is a moral choice and if the goal is to say Stanley can be good or bad, wouldn't racism and murder be a valid entrant into the bad side?

Avoiding the topic and availability of racism isn't going to help society to curb it. I think it should be more readily available in games as something to be discussed. Like Bioshock infinite that clearly portrayed it as an evil. The contrast of this between good and evil, as long as racism is on the evil side then it's a "good message" overall.

 

[RicoADF]

To change it would destroy the point of the image, might as well just take it out then. Thank you PC for another pointless destruction of art. Can we choose not to get the stupid update?

of-course you can, make a backup of the original files and or tell steam not to keep it up to date.

but really, is it so significant that it's ruining the game for you?

That would depend on what the edit entails. From experience though PC edits don't end well. It's the principal of the matter, things are being destroyed by PC. Just need to look at modern TV (especially in Australia) god I miss full frontal etc.

 

[Glaice]

They should keep it and not bow to PC pressure.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

::Turns on his Sarcasm warning light::

I understand this complaint, see if you think about it, every race, creed, sexual orientation, and religion has probably inflicted every form of atrocity on each other, therefore seeing anyone do ANYTHING to someone of another race, creed, sexual orientation, or religion runs the risk of drudging up memories of those historical tragedies.

The best way to avoid this is to take any game with any form of violence or conflict in it, and make sure that every character in the game is the same race, creed, sexual orientation, and religion. That way no one will ever offend anyone ever again.

In fact we should also extend the same policies to other things as well. Perhaps to avoid offending people by harming the health of others we should seperate things that could cause the exchange of germs such as water fountains, and seating on public transportation.

Once we're all very aware that we're all different and separated from each other so that we can be sure no one is ever offended I'm sure the world will be a better place.

Wait a second.....

 

[Silk_Sk]

I don't agree with the complaint in any way. I personally thought that segment was hilarious (and a little creepy since my name is Stephen). That said, a dev responding respectfully towards a minor complaint and altering the content without affecting the game in a major way? Hear Hear. More of this please.

 

[Canadish]

Topic aside a moment, folks may want to try cut back on the strawman here. No one is screaming like a buffoon, pretending they are just makes you look like an idiot.

Don't agree with the choice myself. I think the person who contacted the creator let the joke go over his/her head. I'm sure something suitable will be used to replace it, but there really wasn't anything wrong with it to begin with. You can't just keep asking for humor/art (or anything really) to be changed/censored because you can construe something offensive from it when viewed out of context. In-context, theirs nothing even racist about it, it's about extreme poverty and violence.
Choosing to remove that from you mind and only look at the imagery and draw another conclusion is just...that's just mad. No one is ever going to be able to say, create or do anything because someone is always going to find something to be upset about at all times.

I understand that needs to be tempered without going stupidly in the other direction as well, but this one is a massive stretch.
Totally ridiculous.

Fixed for offensive content now. We gamers aren't going to let anyone call our child-burnings racist.


EDIT: I should note, mad props to the creator himself for taking on feedback and doing extra work, even if I'm opposed to the reasoning behind the change and change itself in question.

 

[Erttheking]

They should keep it and not bow to PC pressure.

Bowing towards it? Someone made a calm, collected complaint, he listened to it, and he decided he wanted to change his product. I know we all don't like censorship but we all seriously need to calm down about this.

 

[Schadrach]

I'm not sure the joke will work with a white kid. Or without the immolation. I just can't see a way to change the joke without lessening its effectiveness.

I dunno, I think it could work if Steven were also black. Literally change nothing else in the image but Steven's skin color. Which breaks the whole "idealized 50s" feel of the joke a bit, but is probably less damaging than other changes.

Of course, I suspect that this may be a "Stanley Parable creators wants to fuck with the playerbase" thing, like a variant of the whole Raphael trailer and he's waiting to see who is in on the joke. Rather like how there's a 17 page thread on the Steam forums trying to figure out if you can continue the confusion ending after the 5th cycle (when you see the schedule) or not.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

If this guy had any credibility he would literally change the two people's races. Either that or create a "Creator's Choice" edition where the entire game is just blank textures with the words "REMOVED DUE TO OFFENSIVENESS" and nothing else.

 

[deathbydeath]

Must this be so difficult to understand?

It is called a joke.

I don't understand how it's racist. Is it because a white guy is setting a black person on fire? There's no racial tension in the incident (it's ageist, classicist, and discriminating against orphans if anything), and the image isn't glorified in any way, let alone "it is correct to immolate black people because they are inferior".

Conclusion: Racism is now shorthand for "being offended by a minority depiction" and therefore the word (which used to mean a real and tangible problem that's disturbingly present today) means nothing.

If Wreden goes through with this, then the next thing you know the Fire Department is going to show up to a library and raze the damn place.

 

[medv4380]

Who is honestly offended by this picture? And explain to me why?

Given that you're from Canada you might be unfamiliar with the actions of racists in the US.

When it says that he could spend his life "helping" it show him giving a kid a Cigarette. Yea, giving kids cigarettes in 3rd world counties is "helping" improve their lives. That kind of "help" sounds a bit like Margaret Sanger.

The second option is a non sequitur, and is unrelated to the first since the first dealt with the 3rd world and the second deals with people within 30 miles of him. It's also far too close to what the KKK has actually done, and are still [http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/23/14646977-louisiana-woman-set-on-fire-kkk-smeared-on-her-car-police-say] doing.

It is little more than a tasteless, racist, joke. I can see how someone who thinks cigarettes are good, and has little to no knowledge of racism in america, but you have to live a fairly insular life not to see how this is offensive.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Edit: Setting children on fire is a-ok. Just as long as the child is white.

I am troubled by this double standard crammed society. Raped by a man? *Shock, awe, ect*.

Raped by a woman... get over it.

The fuck is wrong with us.