I frankly don’t care whether changes to ingame art ‘help women’ or not (I think they probably make a positive impact but whatever). They make the game less childish and male-gaze-y and that appeals to me. If you wanna look at tits there’s websites with so many you couldn’t see them all in your life.
Also this shit where you spend entire grafs telling us how much you don’t care? It’s 2021 my dude, that moved is thoroughly played
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
+1
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
The people making these changes are not the ones who have any power to do something about the abuse, this is not an either/or situation or a zero sum game, this is a few devs using their very limited power to do anything at all.
+6
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
like are y'all seriously out here thinking Bobby Kotick came down and demanded these changes and plans to offer them to the court in lieu of other action or something
+1
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Well... I don't think you can quite let them off the hook with that. There's almost certainly a mandate from upper management to remove gross shit from the game, and I think we all understand those decisions are about damage control and not goodness.
But the individual decisions are being made by ICs looking at content, going "ew", and proposing a replacement.
Yeah if it was solely management micromanaging everything to try and get good press, well, the targets would not be "a dungeon journal entry that no one's read in 8 years"
I wasn't going to comment on any of this because I have no strong feelings about them taking out innuendo I'd either roll my eyes at or not notice, but the weird aggro twitter takes drive me nuts when they turn up here.
It feels like the thing where you couldn't not like TLJ for like a year without being being a Nazi because that was the Nazi side, duh, and if you wrote a whole lot to explain it duh, proof you're a Nazi, why would anyone care enough to write that much (more like copy paste is from some other CHUD list of talking points amirite) unless they were trying to trick me.
Disagreeing on the value of removing innuendo from a video game not marketing for young children doesn't indicate some sort of a moral failing.
I wasn't going to comment on any of this because I have no strong feelings about them taking out innuendo I'd either roll my eyes at or not notice, but the weird aggro twitter takes drive me nuts when they turn up here.
It feels like the thing where you couldn't not like TLJ for like a year without being being a Nazi because that was the Nazi side, duh, and if you wrote a whole lot to explain it duh, proof you're a Nazi, why would anyone care enough to write that much (more like copy paste is from some other CHUD list of talking points amirite) unless they were trying to trick me.
Disagreeing on the value of removing innuendo from a video game not marketing for young children doesn't indicate some sort of a moral failing.
When the argument starts with someone calling removing it "censorship", they are already making statements about moral failings, and it is not surprising to see people react to that with an "oh come on". You cannot invoke the concept of "sexual censorship" about video games without invoking the culture of movements like gamergate. You cannot be surprised that people bristle at that language and distrust people trying to use it.
It is equally annoying to be treated like a moral puritan who is slavishly going "oh thank you blizzard! thank you for this wonderful change!" just because I do not think it is some great transgression by Blizzard to have altered two paintings, a mount name, and an 8 year old raid fight.
it's been a fairly consistent pattern for years in gaming that any time women characters' appearances are noted as being sexualized, are changed to be less sexualized, or even just aren't sufficiently sexualized in the first place (e.g. Mei in overwatch) a certain cohort emerges that decries this as evidence of some sort of nefarious, creeping censorship
the implication is that not only is it *okay* that women characters' appearance be geared toward titillating men, but that it is *right* and that any deviation needs to be met with condemnation. And then, when it turns out that game developers tend to have office/corporate cultures where women employees are treated terribly for the entertainment of their male colleagues, everybody acts like the whole culture of enabling that kind of thing is some sort of fucking mystery. As though we should be surprised that a bunch of dudes who grew up on media that treat women as objects get into the adult world and think it's appropriate to treat women as objects.
if we want an environment where this kinda thing is considered unacceptable, then it needs to be made unacceptable. That doesn't mean games can never deal with sex or even that they can never feature sexy ladies or cheesecake types of images, but the semi-random tits-out outfits and jokes targeted seemingly exclusively at adolescent boys can be done away with posthaste
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The only thing that will really worry me is if they take away actual player options.
Lots of people, women included, very much enjoy dressing their characters up in sexy outfits. I don’t want to see things get too reactionary to the point where those things are removed as well.
But I don’t want to panic about a slippery slope scenario that isn’t happening yet. In the end I don’t really think a painting on a wall of a pretty lady is something that needs to be removed, but I also don’t really think removing it is a problem, either.
Alternatively, Blizzard could stop censoring every harmless bit of cleavage and innuendo.
It's not censorship if it's a change you make, yourself, to your own game, because you wanted to make it. It is very, very, very specifically not censorship.
Alternatively, Blizzard could stop censoring every harmless bit of cleavage and innuendo.
It's not censorship if it's a change you make, yourself, to your own game, because you wanted to make it. It is very, very, very specifically not censorship.
Did you not click the link? I mean it's right in the opening paragraph:
Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority. Self-censorship is often practiced by film producers, film directors, publishers, news anchors, journalists, musicians, and other kinds of authors including individuals who use social media.
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
edited September 2021
Linking a wikipedia article (and this is editorializing, especially one rife with alt-right talking points and that describes Africa [famously monolithic culture Africa] in less than a sentence) is not making an argument. Especially when all you've done is quote the definition, as if my grievance was that I didn't understand what you meant or something.
If you think the argument can be made, make the argument. Argue your point. Don't just throw a wikipedia article at people and go "see, right there. Says so on wikipedia." Wikipedia's full of misinformation, unreliable information, outright biased articles, it does not constitute an argument. It is, at best, a summary of a particular topic.
Make your argument that Blizzard is self-censoring. How are you determining it's self-censorship and not a genuine push to change the culture of their game a bit? If it is self-censorship, what are the outside pressures causing it?
I might have used the word 'censoring' without much thought if I were describing what they were doing. Surely some of you have described yourself as 'censoring yourself' at some point in reference to watching what you say around kids/grandma/the boss.
This 'you used the naughty word so I know you're a bad guy' shit is absurd.
Linking a wikipedia article (and this is editorializing, especially one rife with alt-right talking points and that describes Africa [famously monolithic culture Africa] in less than a sentence) is not making an argument. Especially when all you've done is quote the definition, as if my grievance was that I didn't understand what you meant or something.
If you think the argument can be made, make the argument. Argue your point. Don't just throw a wikipedia article at people and go "see, right there. Says so on wikipedia." Wikipedia's full of misinformation, unreliable information, outright biased articles, it does not constitute an argument. It is, at best, a summary of a particular topic.
Make your argument that Blizzard is self-censoring. How are you determining it's self-censorship and not a genuine push to change the culture of their game a bit? If it is self-censorship, what are the outside pressures causing it?
The bulk of the article is largely immaterial since I was linking it mostly for the term and definition, which seem upon reading seem like a pretty self-evident description of what is possibly going on with the recent game changes all related to real-life events surrounding the company. If you're aghast at the appearance of an "alt-right" wikipedia link (:rotate:), any of the dictionary definitions you can find online state essentially the same thing:
control of what you say or do in order to avoid annoying or offending others, but without being told officially that such control is necessary
And yeah, it actually did seem like you didn't understand what I meant. You asked "who's censoring Blizzard and how?" like I'm expected to retort with some notorious third party or finger-wagging internet group, which seems to demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "self-censorship."
Personally something that frustrates me about discussion about "oh this is CENSORSHIP" or not is that it treats the concept of the edit as something that doesn't exist.
It's funny that we're talking about the mogu and MoP actually because I remember there was a questline in MoP where after being imprisoned, a mogu commander tells his guards that they can "have their way with you". This quote was removed like a month in because when it had been put in, they had not realized "Oh whoops, the connotation of this quote for most people is not 'they get to beat you up', it's something very different." It wasn't conveying what they wanted it to, it got edited. It was changed so that it no longer miscommunicated.
Likewise, in this thread, people have decried the removal of the "bitch" line from a conversation between Garrosh and Sylvanas. There's been arguments that that should be preserved warts and all, that villains should be villains, all that kind of rhetoric. But at the end of the day when that happened, it was an edit. It was people going "This doesn't communicate what we wanted in the way we wanted. We think it's better if it's gone."
There's an attempt to demonize this thinking on the part of a creative team that I find fundamentally absurd. There are a lot of reasons to do this shit. If for example, a character was named Coronavirus, there would probably be decisions made to change that, to edit it, because the connotations around that name would be significantly different now than they had been when it was first added. I don't think that would be unreasonable. And I also don't think that people would call that "censorship".
I only ever seem to have to talk about the concept of "censorship" when it comes to breasts, or phalluses, or harems. I think it's very telling that people don't consider other changes that happen to the game or plot points to be that. And also, frankly, I repeat my initial point.
i wish people would stop reacting to every single wowhead post about a datamined change they found to some sex or innuendo thing or whatever. everyone treats it like each one is a blizzard press release going "AND HERE'S OUR LATEST CHANGE" and it's literally just people slowly going through the game patch
Posts
Which....what?
But go ahead and continue to put words in my mouth and intentionally misinterpret my post. That’s cool too.
Also this shit where you spend entire grafs telling us how much you don’t care? It’s 2021 my dude, that moved is thoroughly played
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
But the individual decisions are being made by ICs looking at content, going "ew", and proposing a replacement.
It feels like the thing where you couldn't not like TLJ for like a year without being being a Nazi because that was the Nazi side, duh, and if you wrote a whole lot to explain it duh, proof you're a Nazi, why would anyone care enough to write that much (more like copy paste is from some other CHUD list of talking points amirite) unless they were trying to trick me.
Disagreeing on the value of removing innuendo from a video game not marketing for young children doesn't indicate some sort of a moral failing.
When the argument starts with someone calling removing it "censorship", they are already making statements about moral failings, and it is not surprising to see people react to that with an "oh come on". You cannot invoke the concept of "sexual censorship" about video games without invoking the culture of movements like gamergate. You cannot be surprised that people bristle at that language and distrust people trying to use it.
It is equally annoying to be treated like a moral puritan who is slavishly going "oh thank you blizzard! thank you for this wonderful change!" just because I do not think it is some great transgression by Blizzard to have altered two paintings, a mount name, and an 8 year old raid fight.
the implication is that not only is it *okay* that women characters' appearance be geared toward titillating men, but that it is *right* and that any deviation needs to be met with condemnation. And then, when it turns out that game developers tend to have office/corporate cultures where women employees are treated terribly for the entertainment of their male colleagues, everybody acts like the whole culture of enabling that kind of thing is some sort of fucking mystery. As though we should be surprised that a bunch of dudes who grew up on media that treat women as objects get into the adult world and think it's appropriate to treat women as objects.
if we want an environment where this kinda thing is considered unacceptable, then it needs to be made unacceptable. That doesn't mean games can never deal with sex or even that they can never feature sexy ladies or cheesecake types of images, but the semi-random tits-out outfits and jokes targeted seemingly exclusively at adolescent boys can be done away with posthaste
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Lots of people, women included, very much enjoy dressing their characters up in sexy outfits. I don’t want to see things get too reactionary to the point where those things are removed as well.
But I don’t want to panic about a slippery slope scenario that isn’t happening yet. In the end I don’t really think a painting on a wall of a pretty lady is something that needs to be removed, but I also don’t really think removing it is a problem, either.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Okay, make the argument. Who's censoring Blizzard and how?
If you think the argument can be made, make the argument. Argue your point. Don't just throw a wikipedia article at people and go "see, right there. Says so on wikipedia." Wikipedia's full of misinformation, unreliable information, outright biased articles, it does not constitute an argument. It is, at best, a summary of a particular topic.
Make your argument that Blizzard is self-censoring. How are you determining it's self-censorship and not a genuine push to change the culture of their game a bit? If it is self-censorship, what are the outside pressures causing it?
This 'you used the naughty word so I know you're a bad guy' shit is absurd.
And yeah, it actually did seem like you didn't understand what I meant. You asked "who's censoring Blizzard and how?" like I'm expected to retort with some notorious third party or finger-wagging internet group, which seems to demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "self-censorship."
It's funny that we're talking about the mogu and MoP actually because I remember there was a questline in MoP where after being imprisoned, a mogu commander tells his guards that they can "have their way with you". This quote was removed like a month in because when it had been put in, they had not realized "Oh whoops, the connotation of this quote for most people is not 'they get to beat you up', it's something very different." It wasn't conveying what they wanted it to, it got edited. It was changed so that it no longer miscommunicated.
Likewise, in this thread, people have decried the removal of the "bitch" line from a conversation between Garrosh and Sylvanas. There's been arguments that that should be preserved warts and all, that villains should be villains, all that kind of rhetoric. But at the end of the day when that happened, it was an edit. It was people going "This doesn't communicate what we wanted in the way we wanted. We think it's better if it's gone."
There's an attempt to demonize this thinking on the part of a creative team that I find fundamentally absurd. There are a lot of reasons to do this shit. If for example, a character was named Coronavirus, there would probably be decisions made to change that, to edit it, because the connotations around that name would be significantly different now than they had been when it was first added. I don't think that would be unreasonable. And I also don't think that people would call that "censorship".
I only ever seem to have to talk about the concept of "censorship" when it comes to breasts, or phalluses, or harems. I think it's very telling that people don't consider other changes that happen to the game or plot points to be that. And also, frankly, I repeat my initial point.