Zero Punctuation: Tomodachi Life - Nintendo Life Simulator

[Erttheking]

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/Woolseyism

If you're going to ship a game for a different country, then you need to put effort into researching the demographic of that country and change it to better fit that. Persona 4 for example had quite a few things that wouldn't make sense to a non-Japaneese gamer taken out by the translation team and even slipped in a few jokes for western gamers, such as the main character reading not-Twilight and him commenting on how painful it is. This is also why translation try to ease away from romantic relationships involving cousins and little kids, because we in the west get weirded out by that. Not to mention, a huge chunk of Nintendo's profits come from foreign countries. The Metroid series is loved in the west but gets a lukewarm reaction in their home country. Only in the past few years did they try to change up the series to appeal to the Japanese.

And I think we remember how that went.

Spoiler

http://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1329334438-00.jpg

 

[Foolery]

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Pfft, TV tropes? Really? Get outta here with that junk. That's like quoting Urban Dictionary. Furthermore, Nintendo is lazy as hell, they even stated, ?The ability for same-sex relationships to occur in the game was not part of the original game that launched in Japan, and that game is made up of the same code that was used to localize it for other regions outside of Japan,?

At least they wanted people to have a functional product, it was patched to remedy a game breaking and save-corrupting, bug.

 

[Something Amyss]

In some cases its true but in this case there's a bit more too it.

In this case, it seems like that "more to it" was superfluous.

 

[ionveau]

Lost all respect for you, It is sad that saying sodomites are sexual deviants that should not be given a public spot light especially in CHILDREN'S GAMES is now considered edgy, i have been put off by your constant whining about "racism" and now this. you jumped the shark my friend.

 

[jimmiusmaximus]

This was interesting to watch because the points were made based on a incorrect initial premise, that excluding same sex relationships was less work than adding them (wrong as it is to actually exclude the option). Anyone who actually makes games would tell you this as there are more factors to consider so more if statements and testing to deal with, and its odd to have to point this out as the person making the point makes games himself!

wait... you even said so yourself. HE makes games. Do you? I mean, I honestly have no clue what to believe at this point. Actual developers like Yahtzee seem to say different things to people on the Internet who have never made a game, or CLAIM to know how to write games. It just doesn't make sense. I have yet to see an Actual credible developer who has published games turn around and say 'it would have taken more to include this', because that doesn't make sense. Are computers strange Catholic schooled self-aware machines who a. know what a relationship is, and b. need to be told that it can heppen between not just a man and a woman? I'm not a programmer, so I honestly have no clue at this point.

 

[jimmiusmaximus]

I fail to see a problem with excluding LGBTQAQ. I'm obese. Just like 50% of americans and mexicans or 30% of the germans. How many games are there that let me play as a fat guy?
Ask any fat person how they are treated from others. I don't think LGBTQAQ are treated worse then fat people. Am i supposed to protest now until all games include fat people?

captcha: milk was a bad choice
Realy? Only if it is the milk of mice.

Well done you clever man. Have a cookie. Such clever satire beyond the levels of Yahtzee Himself. Oh wait. Fat people ARE in Tomodachi life. there's a slider when you make the Miis.

 

[Erttheking]

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Pfft, TV tropes? Really? Get outta here with that junk. That's like quoting Urban Dictionary. Furthermore, Nintendo is lazy as hell, they even stated, ?The ability for same-sex relationships to occur in the game was not part of the original game that launched in Japan, and that game is made up of the same code that was used to localize it for other regions outside of Japan,?

At least they wanted people to have a functional product, it was patched to remedy a game breaking and save-corrupting, bug.

I will "get out of here with that junk" when you disprove the legiminancy of the concept.

Well if they're just lazy, why can't people criticize them?

Making a stable game us not praise worthy, it should be the minimal standard.

 

[ionveau]

This was interesting to watch because the points were made based on a incorrect initial premise, that excluding same sex relationships was less work than adding them (wrong as it is to actually exclude the option). Anyone who actually makes games would tell you this as there are more factors to consider so more if statements and testing to deal with, and its odd to have to point this out as the person making the point makes games himself!

wait... you even said so yourself. HE makes games. Do you? I mean, I honestly have no clue what to believe at this point. Actual developers like Yahtzee seem to say different things to people on the Internet who have never made a game, or CLAIM to know how to write games. It just doesn't make sense. I have yet to see an Actual credible developer who has published games turn around and say 'it would have taken more to include this', because that doesn't make sense. Are computers strange Catholic schooled self-aware machines who a. know what a relationship is, and b. need to be told that it can heppen between not just a man and a woman? I'm not a programmer, so I honestly have no clue at this point.

Using your logic he does not have a right to say anything until he makes a 3D game, 2D games are incredibly simple to make without engines, as for your point, if the math behind the game expects something to happen but it wont the game will crash, for example if two Sodomites form a union and for example if the mother of the sodomite wants to send his bride a gift the game may crash due to not having the female sex in the union

Computer software is very fragile, the slightest mistake on the side of the programmer will crash the game, Also i would never buy my child anything that promotes un-natural sexuality, especially sodomy, dont think only Christians dislike this trend of propaganda jews and Muslims are all shunning those that promote sodomy especially to their children, only the atheists are foolish enough to take everything they hear on TV at face value

 

[DrOswald]

This was interesting to watch because the points were made based on a incorrect initial premise, that excluding same sex relationships was less work than adding them (wrong as it is to actually exclude the option). Anyone who actually makes games would tell you this as there are more factors to consider so more if statements and testing to deal with, and its odd to have to point this out as the person making the point makes games himself!

wait... you even said so yourself. HE makes games. Do you? I mean, I honestly have no clue what to believe at this point. Actual developers like Yahtzee seem to say different things to people on the Internet who have never made a game, or CLAIM to know how to write games. It just doesn't make sense. I have yet to see an Actual credible developer who has published games turn around and say 'it would have taken more to include this', because that doesn't make sense. Are computers strange Catholic schooled self-aware machines who a. know what a relationship is, and b. need to be told that it can heppen between not just a man and a woman? I'm not a programmer, so I honestly have no clue at this point.

Actual programmer here. Not a professional game maker (I am an amateur game maker), but an actual programmer who has created software that has actually been published.

It would have, without a doubt, been harder to include homosexuality than not. This is because of the nature of the game. The problem is not in allowing homosexuality, but in limiting sexuality to a preference. This is important because the characters are not directly controlled by the player. They basically go around and do their own thing. They decide who they shack up with. So you would have to put limiting checks in the game to prevent a gay person from shacking up with the opposite sex and a strait person from shacking up with the same sex. This means extra variables, extra checks, extra menu items to select sexuality, etc.

From a coding perspective this would be a significant increase in complexity of code but not prohibitively so if it was planned from the very start. Going back and putting it in later would probably be next to impossible. It is unlikely that a simple patch could fix it, some of the relationship code would most likely have to be rewritten extensively, along with any gender specific code in the game, and I am sure the event tree planning code would have to be rewritten from scratch.

From a game design perspective adding homosexuality and bisexuality is far more problematic. If you go the "everyone is strait" option then you can make certain assumptions about gender. You can base events purely on gender because there is only 1 sexuality pool that everyone is part of. With homosexuality you now have 3 sexuality pools, and in some cases people can belong to more than one pool (bisexuality).

This makes the plan the event trees far more complex. Working around 3 sexuality pools with blurred lines is far more difficult than working around 1 sexuality pool.

Adding homosexuality to Tomodachi Life would certainly not have been trivial.

 

[Oskuro]

It would have, without a doubt, been harder to include homosexuality than not. This is because of the nature of the game. The problem is not in allowing homosexuality, but in limiting sexuality to a preference.

Unless you just let everyone hook up with everyone, which means you just take away the "gender" variable and all the code relating to sorting characters by it, which I suspect is what is being suggested.


I think the whole issue has probably more to do with the acceptance (or more precisely, lack of) of homosexuality in japan, than with Nintendo itself.



Also.... X is black?

I don't know why, but when reading books I tend to always miss something about character descriptions and imagine them on my own, hence why I'm surprised by this, as I was surprised by Snape not being a gnarly old man (I originally imagined him like the wizard from Fantasia, the one to whom Mickey is an apprentice)

Oh, I imagined X as a tall well-built redhead in a suit. Beats me why.

 

[Ikaruga33]

They had homosexual relationships but they screwed up peoples save data. I wish that people would actually do some further research when it comes to this sort of stuff.

 

[DrOswald]

It would have, without a doubt, been harder to include homosexuality than not. This is because of the nature of the game. The problem is not in allowing homosexuality, but in limiting sexuality to a preference.

Unless you just let everyone hook up with everyone, which means you just take away the "gender" variable and all the code relating to sorting characters by it, which I suspect is what is being suggested.

Which might be the only solution to the issue that is stupider than excluding homosexuality. Then you are just making everyone omnisexual which, frankly, is going to put off too many people. There are plenty of people out their who don't care if there is homosexuality in a game. They can just not choose the homosexual option and it's good. But I can guarantee they would not appreciate homosexuality forced on to them.

And this still would not solve the problem of forcing heterosexuality on homosexual people. You solve nothing and everyone walks away mad. Except for the omnisexuals, I guess.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

one of the funniest ZP's i've seen in awhile. i always sorta LQTM, but i was actually laughing out loud at this one.

 

[Toblo1]

They had homosexual relationships but they screwed up peoples save data. I wish that people would actually do some further research when it comes to this sort of stuff.

It's a bit more complicated than that. What actually happened was that Nintendo was fixing a data transfer issue that rendered the game unplayable when transferring Mii characters from the Japan-only Nintendo DS installment to the 3DS one. The gay marriages are due to people creating Miis that look male and assigning them female.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I now want to make a 'gay' sock puppet for my kid. That looks hilarious.

Mr Cockface: He has a 'normal' face down there right? What else could it be?

 

[Halla Burrica]

Oh Yathzee, you poor misinformed former husk of a human being. Like so many others, you have no idea about what you're talking about because all you did was take a quick look at some Internet pages that thought they "called out" Nintendo being homophobic and let that be it, no deeper look into the case or anything. And thus, you reached a horribly misinformed conclusion.

Here's what actually happened: Tomodachi Life was an installment in a franchise popular in Japan but not released anywhere else. Nintendo thought: "Hey, maybe the kids and some adults will have fun with this too! Let's port it!" and decided to do just that. All was going fine and well, until a certain report popped up that made the "white knights of social justice" mount their horses and cry for Nintendo's head on a stake. The report apparently said that the Japanese version allowed same-sex marriage and that it would be an excluded option for the rest of the world, and that sparked huge controversy and rightfully so. Except the report DIDN'T say that, there was a translation issue. There was A BUG in the Japanese version that made it possible to have people of the same gender marry, but which would also make the game crash, THAT IS WHY THEY CHANGED IT. PEOPLE DON'T LIKE HAVING THEIR GAME CRASH.

But the damage was already done. The Internet cried out in anger, they demanded the includusion of same sex marriage for a game that was already done and was just getting some tweaks so other audiences could play it. It was way too late to make that change, so it wasn't done because it couldn't be done not because Nintendo is homophobic like SOME people like to assume. And before SOME people ask why same sex marriage wasn't included in the series before, and claim not including that makes them homophobic, it's more likely a matter of demand. If the Japenese audiences (those who the games in the series were made for to begin with)had wanted same-sex marriage in the Tomodachi games, it would probably be there already.

 

[Rpground]

So...what was the point of mentioning all the homosexual things? Did I miss some huge convergence of stupid somewhere on the internet saying something about this game "restricting" homosexuality?

 

[juchmis]

I stopped watching the video less then 2 min in.

I just can't take this anymore. The escapist isn't a video game or a review site anymore, it has simply devolved into a place where a bunch of liberals come together to whine and cry either about how super evil corporations (ok, mainly gaming or media corporations, but still corporations) are the worst thing ever or about some inconsequential bullshit like how your role-playing character in your video game can't be female or gay.

I am seriously considering leaving the escapist. I have been reading news and watching videos on this site for years but over that time this preachy and whiny bullshit has slowly become worse and is not at a point where I have simply lost my patience with the site. I originally came here to listen to news and reviews about the state of video games and other similar culture, not to listen to a bunch of liberals hold a political lecture. But whatever, it's your site escapist. If this is the course you have decided to take than I can't tell you that you can't, just don't expect me to keep seeing this place.

What the absolute hell is wrong with you?

Literally everything is political. Everything you say, everything you do - it reflects your politics. Personally, thanks to the Escapist's continued support of equality, I made the decision to upgrade to their Publisher's Club in the very near future. So the penny they would have earned from ads syndicated to you over the course of years will be handily offset by the 20 dollars I'll be handing them. Assuming you weren't using adblock and they were actually earning revenue on you that is.

You seem to have some sort of complex about what is ok to discuss and when. Nothing wrong with that, just means you come from an inferior country. Either Saudi Arabia, the US, Australia, or UK if I had to guess.

 

[Blackpapa]

Disturbingly, Tomodachi Life is missing something far more important and widespread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNMq8XS4LhE

 

[FriendlyFyre]

I stopped watching the video less then 2 min in.

I just can't take this anymore. The escapist isn't a video game or a review site anymore, it has simply devolved into a place where a bunch of liberals come together to whine and cry either about how super evil corporations (ok, mainly gaming or media corporations, but still corporations) are the worst thing ever or about some inconsequential bullshit like how your role-playing character in your video game can't be female or gay.

I am seriously considering leaving the escapist. I have been reading news and watching videos on this site for years but over that time this preachy and whiny bullshit has slowly become worse and is not at a point where I have simply lost my patience with the site. I originally came here to listen to news and reviews about the state of video games and other similar culture, not to listen to a bunch of liberals hold a political lecture. But whatever, it's your site escapist. If this is the course you have decided to take than I can't tell you that you can't, just don't expect me to keep seeing this place.

Which is your right Feel free to leave this part of the internet if you don't want to have your personal view catered to any and all times.
Just remember all the people who's views AREN'T common topics of conversation, and how they wish we'd maybe stop talking about your views and give theirs a change, k?

But if you honestly see the recent trend (and I'm not even sure how prevalent it is, really. Is there a threat EVERY SINGLE DAY, or just a couple a week?) as bad because YOU don't want to deal with someone else bringing up their issues, maybe you should take a second and think about how self-centered that makes you sound. This isn't just a review site, it's a forum for gamers of all types, and you're sounding awful like you're not interested in contributing.

In more relevant things, I had no idea that the protagonist of Yahtzee's book was named X. Might want to try that one just because of the picture...