I read till the complaint about voice.
So many words till then without any substance, and the voice complaint is ridiculous.
Many emancipations movements develop an overzealous faction to which nobody is holy enough unless he/she/it is of 100% ideological purity.
This is such a bullshit. It’s how emancipation movements stall short of their targets; they allow overzealous idiots among their ranks to annoy the rest of mankind with bullshit.
I read this till the point of saying that the lack of concern for the feelings of their oppressors is the key to disadvantaged groups winning equality. Views must be challenged if they’re ever to be changed.
That’s like calling Disney’s Song of the South not “racism.”
Those were just animation decisions! /s
I wonder, honestly - if the game would have been lauded as making efforts had it not been for the actual real world transphobia the developers displayed openly prior to launch.
I couldn’t find - prior to this - where the developer was seen a transphobic - and it was shortly after this that it seemed like everything about the game was put through a microscope to find things it did wrong - which is ok, but I still wonder if the game wouldn’t be getting a ‘so much progress - but ultimately fails for these reasons’ instead of the anger that we currently see if not for that bad actor.
Seeing as they went with blatant “Slutty Girl With A Dick” advertising I’m calling bullshit on that whether you personally believe it or not.
I’m fairly sure trans folk like me get to say what is transphobic and what isn’t.
Yeah, well…
…here’s my two-bits, as if they matter.
The criticism is fine and the game is fine (but could be better, and, given CDPRs history
probably will be). They earned huge goodwill with their actions improving every aspect
of their first game for free, I’m still feeling it.
However, as some may remember that game included fetch quests to win the favor
of random women who would then consent to sexual interaction with the player character
who would then earn their sex-card. They never did that again.
I won’t be surprised if they don’t address some of the criticisms in game through patches
this time.
Time, as they say, marches on.
Huh. While I was making my character, the “pronouns tied to voice” thing jumped out as a strangely limiting choice that will probably be patched.
Wow, this thread has been overrun with men who think their ignorance is equal in value and authority to the lived experience of trans folks. Absolutely stunning.
Yes, CDPR is a company that engages in transphobia. While it has made exactly TWO nods towards positive inclusion (decoupling genitals from character identity, including one random trans character in a random encounter) these positive steps are outweighed by all the negative listed in the original post.
Welp… wish I could say I was shocked…
Probably relevant
i hope so. it would show they’re trying to be responsive. the only way to get there though is to call it out.
this is why the focus on a “genital customizer” is such a weird thing ( to this cis person at least ) to include as a thing. that doesn’t ( to me ) seem to be supportive of trans people - it seems to be supportive of bros who like dick jokes. same with the so called “bug” about penises sticking through clothing. it’s all media hype catered to gamer gate men ( so far as i can see )
[ eta: i some how hit reply, why i was trying to scroll. sorry about that ]
Some of it could be seen as “trans-clueless” like tying your pronouns to the depth of your voice.
A very sexual ad featuring a trans girl telling you to “mix it up” is more questionable.
Making a “Did you just assume their gender?!” joke on Twitter not so much.
Nor CDPR’s sister company, GOG, hijacking a hashtag relevant to the admin’s attempt to legally make it so that trans people don’t exist.
I’m a professional software developer and do gamedev for fun. When loading voice lines for an NPC doing
if ConversationState.getOtherParticipant().getVoiceDepth() == VoiceDepthDeep:
PronounFlag(HeHimPronouns)
Is harder than
PronounFlag(ConversationState.getOtherParticipant().getPronouns())
My personal guess (given the twitter stuff, and that it’s more work to make it so that your character creator doesn’t let you give your male character a pussy,) is that much of the trans inclusiveness was edgy marketing that they had to roll back to attempt to be inclusiveness once they started getting called out hard on it. I don’t think they necessarily started out with “let’s make a game that hates trans people” but as others have pointed out it reflects the transphobia in society atm.
You know one way to fix that? If you’re creating characters that are not like you, seek out people from that community to give you some feedback. How hard is that?
Oh yeah, to be clear there’s no excuse for the “trans clueless” stuff either. I was meaning to point out that the stuff around CP2077 goes above that as well.
Sure. But as @DukeTrout, it’s not just about ignorance, it’s about the larger society in which this work is created, reflecting transphobic attitudes in our society.
It’s a feedback loop, in effect, isn’t it? One feeds the other and if it goes unquestioned and unchallenged - well, let’s not go there, eh?
When a product of any type is marketed with such clear negative attitudes, deliberate or not, it needs calling out. “It’s just a game” is no excuse.
It’s disturbing to see how some people are okay with antisocial and bigoted attitudes as long they are not negatively affected.
So much this. This is why we have criticism, so we can look at what our cultural output says about our society, and then work to improve it!
Right? It’s like they can’t see others at all, only themselves and their relationship to a particular issue that might not hurt them directly. But I guess it’s not surprising, given how much we’re socialized to think of things in terms of individualism. Too many people bought into that bullshit Thatcherite idea that there is not society, only individuals and families.
