Cyberpunk 2077: Personal Respawns Ability

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Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Relin posted:

they're polish

they have trans people in poland too

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 08:05

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 05:10

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Relin posted:

from what i understand of polish politics they are not treated well

edit: oh nice theyve passed a number of laws for gays and trans in the past few months now that i'm double checking

https://www.equaldex.com/region/poland

im glad of it but im not sure what that really has to do with them saying a lovely thing since, a lovely thing is a lovely thing to say regardless of your country's beliefs on it. we live in an international society, its not that unreasonable to expect people to have some base level awareness, especially when your entire job is marketing the game to as broad a range of people as possible.

Wicked Them Beats posted:

Welp they now have a parade of excited bigots lining up in the replies promising to buy their game and oh by the way trans people are mentally ill people who mutilate themselves etc etc etc

And its been up for 24 hours so they obviously aren't in a hurry to fix it.

I was excited for this game but if it turns out that the devs are happy to ignore this sort of bigoted poo poo in their official PR channels then I'll have to bow out of purchasing their product. Bummer.

cd projekt red also criminally underpays and overworks their employees so

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 08:55

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Glenn Quebec posted:

Someone post the joke or I'll assume it's being blown out of proportion

Fair Bear Maiden posted:

It was an unprompted DID YOU JUST ASSUME GENDER? joke.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 13:41

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Glenn Quebec posted:

Lol. If thats it, jesus people calm down

quote:

Tonetta's transition fueled hormone rage and meltdown has been a real highlight in this thread.

hm i wonder if you might have a bias in this conversation

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 14:10

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Chalks posted:

It's right for people to express the fact that they've taken offence at something, but it seems pretty unreasonable to boycott a company because an unknown person made a dumb joke and then deleted it as soon as they realised their mistake.

Why?

It's a consumer product. If something happens that causes you to lose faith or interest in that product, then you don't buy that product. CD Projekt Red isn't owed anyone's money, it's something people give to them in exchange for the thing they made. If their marketing leads someone to develop a distaste for that product, that's on them, not the people who didn't buy it.

Glenn Quebec posted:

Two separate things and searching someone's posting is pretty creepy. Yeah, what they said was tone deaf and lame but I don't think it warrants outrage.

Imagine if they'd said 'we don't think trans people are people,' because, to a lot of people, that's basically what they said. Because it's a lame dogwhistle-y joke way of saying that, when you boil it down. It's not a wish of harm on anyone and it's not an active slur but the sentiment is there. And maybe whatever intern tweeted that out didn't really think that hard about what the funny meme meant, but they still put it out there.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Aug 21, 2018

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 14:27

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

DoctorGonzo posted:

i hope this game isnt part of the loving culture war and cdpr do their vision 100% regardeless of social media idiots, thank you.

Personally, I hope it is part of the culture war, and that the entire game is erased and replaced with a seventeen hour analysis of the film Glen or Glenda by Ed Wood through the perspective of modern understandings of transsexuality.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 14:35

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Chalks posted:

I'm not sure that the fact that you're able to do it has much to do with whether it seems reasonable to me. Obviously it's just my opinion as to whether it's a reasonable reaction to use your nuclear option immediately as soon as an intern unintentionally offends you and the company immediately retracts it.

It leaves you with little room to do things like show appreciation to the company for taking action on your behalf by removing the offending statement, for example.

You're totally free to instantly jump to the most extreme course of action at any provocation, obviously. That is a thing you can do.

The nuclear option of 'not buying a video game'

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 14:39

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

I don't think that guy speaks for literally every member of cd projekt red, but like, yeah, I do think whoever was at the controls of that PR account is probably a jackass? Why would working for a company that disagrees with him prevent him from being a shithead? And even if he didn't think it meant anything, it's not like just going 'oh popular meme' changes the meaning of the words. And also, it's not like there's some massive coalition of 'good people' on one side and 'bad people' on the other, it's totally possible to denounce gamergate and alt-right types and also hate trans people. Which, again, I am not accusing literally every member of cdpr of, but the one guy who typed that stupid meme into the word box? Yeah, maybe.

I'm not saying it's the worst crime ever visited upon that segment of society, just that it's a lovely thing to put out there and it probably made a lot of people feel crappy, especially people who put a lot of faith in CDPR, which, well, there are a lot of people who've put a lot of faith in CDPR. Deleting the tweet and issuing an apology is the extent of what CDPR can do at this point, really, but it isn't going to fix that change in perception. And again, I don't think every employee of CDPR or CDPR itself endorses that messaging at all, just that, well, someone with the keys to their PR account decided to make it look like they did.

I'm also not saying that CDPR should be burned to the ground, that any other employees should be insulted or fired or whatever besides the one guy who decided it was a good look. But people's frustration and annoyance and desire to just go 'gently caress it' is totally understandable.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 14:54

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Chalks posted:

I'm sorry to say but not buying a thing is the worst thing you can do to a company who wants you to buy a thing.

Yeah but it's not like it really, hurts, anything. I would bet my life savings that this game turns an at least decent profit no matter what they decide to tweet or say about it. it's a big release by a big company with one of the most popular games of the past decade in their portfolio. And it will probably be a good game, but I doubt it'll be so good that someone who doesn't play it will be missing out on anything besides a good video game. It isn't going to be a transcendental experience that reshapes humanity's view of the world.

So if the company still makes a profit, and you can totally live your life not playing it, it doesn't hurt anything or anyone to go 'yeah, gently caress this,' and not buy it. So I'd really hesitate to call that a nuclear option or an extreme reaction. And even if the game doesn't turn a profit, somehow, it's not like that's a moral failing on your part for not buying it. Corporations aren't charities.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 15:08

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Megazver posted:

https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1031930291772899329

lol

# ¿ Aug 21, 2018 17:09

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Dude with seventeen billion probations for calling obama the n-word: oh? So you think all countries subscribe to the imperialist american dogma of thinking transpeople are human?

Videogames: lets probate this guy for five minutes and send an apology letter for doing that to his grandma, because im sure she thinks hes a very sweet boy

# ¿ Jun 12, 2019 23:42

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

dead gay comedy forums posted:

I, for one, look forward for peak "phoneshitposting, but too much" as the only form of cultural engagement with a product becomes critique and nothing but critique as we implode towards cultural postmodern armageddon

That said, some complaints here are very similar to when the second blade runner movie got released, and I think that cyberpunk is a setting perfectly designed to cause shitstorms in our days exactly because the cultural framing is pulp and exploitative on purpose, since the very essence of the genre is all about "Peak Late-Stage Cyborg Capitalism Thrashing Itself and May Drag the World With It: What Would YOU Do?", and to do that without pulp/exploitation is... kinda misses the point, imo?

Let's take a less heated example: dialogue. If you have read Neuromancer, a lot of the conversations, if decontextualized, would be hilariously bad. However, for cyberpunk, it works really well because the genre has very, very strong aesthetics that feel completely natural in such a world: terms like Voight-Kampff tests, cyberjacking, razorwalking, icing (as in ICE), etc are a natural vocabulary that emerge exactly because this society has reached peak Spectacle. Molly Millions has to talk, look and act in a certain way otherwise she isn't a razorgirl, which is her identity. Case has to talk, look and act in a certain way otherwise he isn't a cowboy mercenary hacker. There is no "what Case is outside the job": Case is the job.

And therein lies some horrors.

The dystopia eats all personal, individual substance away. They are not Molly or Case as persons first (and ffs Molly's real name is Rose Kolodny but that isn't Molly Millions - those identities cannot cohabit). They are the aesthetics and functions of those individuals first and foremost.

You might think that "hey, not a big deal, this happens in our time and place too". No, it doesn't. Sure, things are poo poo, but You Dear Goon Reader has other things besides a job and your style: gently caress, you are a goon, that comes with a lot of baggage that hopefully doesn't have anything to do with you professionally. You might be a mom or a dad. You might have pets. You have hobbies (besides videogames of course come the gently caress on), you have tastes in art, the bands and sounds that you like and dislike, what do you go for netflix and chill, the type of friends you like to hang out with, what kinks work or do not for you, etc etc etc.

In cyberpunk? Tastes? Preferences? That is tantamount to "Why don't you go gently caress yourself, idiot?" when pointed out. You don't get to have those.

If you have a corporate white collar job, you cannot diverge in what you like from what is demanded from that aesthetic: the anarchist fringe electropunk band might sound really good to you, but there is no internalization whatsoever of that. Why, because you are a corporate worker, and no corporate worker listens to that. This isn't even a process of cognitive dissonance, because the self is completely dissociated from the social role in such a society: there is no rebellion or conflict possible here because otherwise you would not be in a corporation.

Further emphasis might be needed to really grasp the nuance: this isn't like Morgan Chase or some other traditional finance behemoth letting their staff have tattoos or "casual fridays" or whatever likewise bullshit. This is only possible because we still have notions that people go beyond their aesthetic and economic function, and even monster corporations recognize that. In Cyberpunk, that is not the case: the aesthetic-function are rolled into one and they are you, and you are they. There is no possibility of divergence.

"But, what about gender? Race? Sexuality?"

(some potentially hard/triggering language follows below this)

Guess the gently caress what. Again, you are in "Peak Late-Stage Cyborg Capitalism Thrashing Itself and May Drag the World With It: What Would YOU Do?"

In cyberpunk settings, social acceptance is taken as far greater than in our society, but at the cost of such acceptance coming for purely economic and utilitarian market reasons: your relevance as a homosexual person is derived from a consumer and useful worker, nothing more. The moment you stop being either of those, the boot comes to your neck with the police calling you "what a loving fag". Transpersons are the same. The society doesn't have any automatic displeasure towards transsexuals, but their aesthetics might be very interesting for a variety of reasons: why, there is market value in sex, after all. Of course that they can be useful, but they are especially useful in some circumstances. Thus, their sexual exploitation might be encouraged purely for market reasons: if the transperson consents, their integrity is assured. Otherwise, well, have we mentioned that this is a dystopia already?

Given all that, how that society can be portrayed without content that we find cringy, exploitative, etc? I don't think it is possible, for what is relevant to what would we call "cyberpunk".