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Penny Arcade - Comic - Cyberdunk

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edited September 2020 in The Penny Arcade Hub
imagePenny Arcade - Comic - Cyberdunk

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

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Posts

  • Evil_MonkeysEvil_Monkeys Registered User regular
    Don't you put that evil on me Mike Racecar!

  • ProwlingmonkeyProwlingmonkey Registered User regular
    They have Neo as their secret weapon. He can manipulate the code if it isn't excellent at launch

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    I cracked up at the last panel. Of course Tycho is arguing online that horses are basically cars.

  • ironzergironzerg Registered User regular
    For my money, the gasp in the first panel sells the entire strip.

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I cracked up at the last panel. Of course Tycho is arguing online that horses are basically cars.

    I'm not sure I want actually know the context of those arguments, given his proclivities.

    steam_sig.png
  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I cracked up at the last panel. Of course Tycho is arguing online that horses are basically cars.

    4 legs, 4 wheels, "exhaust" at the back; they're topographically identical!

  • SpinelesSSpinelesS Registered User regular
    Don't even know what other games they made, just wanna play cyberpunk...
    I guess whatever game it is, involved horses?

  • PhotosaurusPhotosaurus Bay Area, CARegistered User regular
    SpinelesS wrote: »
    Don't even know what other games they made, just wanna play cyberpunk...
    I guess whatever game it is, involved horses?

    CD Projekt Red produced the much acclaimed The Witcher series of games, which very much featured a horse.

    "If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'."
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    V1m wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    I cracked up at the last panel. Of course Tycho is arguing online that horses are basically cars.

    4 legs, 4 wheels, "exhaust" at the back; they're topographically identical!

    The hardest part is figuring out how much carpower each horse puts out.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    V1m wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    I cracked up at the last panel. Of course Tycho is arguing online that horses are basically cars.

    4 legs, 4 wheels, "exhaust" at the back; they're topographically identical!

    The hardest part is figuring out how much carpower each horse puts out.

    And of course using the correct esoteric terminology.

  • Steel AngelSteel Angel Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I cracked up at the last panel. Of course Tycho is arguing online that horses are basically cars.

    If physicists can argue horses are basically frictionless spheres . . .

    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I found that tilting it doesn't work very well, and once I started jerking it, I got much better results.

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    3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
  • DarkewolfeDarkewolfe Registered User regular
    Honestly, it would be so 2020 if Cyberpunk wasn't good.

    What is this I don't even.
  • InvertinInvertin Registered User regular
    Cyberpunk was much more interesting before the developers outed themselves as raging transphobes

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    That doesn’t seem like it would make a difference

  • shadowysea07shadowysea07 Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    This feels like it should have been reversed. Especially with how gabe feels about horse games.

    "The hardest part is figuring out how much carpower each horse puts out."
    Hello new signature on other sites.

    shadowysea07 on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    That doesn’t seem like it would make a difference

    And yet, the transphobia in question is actually in the game. So in this case it's not just about what an artist does in their personal life, but how they express it in their work as well. And as the article notes, it's not the first time they were assholes. Eventually, you can grow so disgusted by a douchebag that you can't really enjoy their art anymore because it just reminds you of how you are giving money to a douchebag.

  • Friendly_ShoggothFriendly_Shoggoth Registered User new member
    dennis wrote: »
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    That doesn’t seem like it would make a difference[/quote
    So in this case it's not just about what an artist does in their personal life, but how they express it in their work as well. And as the article notes, it's not the first time they were assholes. Eventually, you can grow so disgusted by a douchebag that you can't really enjoy their art anymore because it just reminds you of how you are giving money to a douchebag.

    The artists explanation holds up, there is nothing to base further objection on. If 2077 holds to the source material at all then literally every player should have something to be offended by, some aspect of themselves that is abused for corporate greed. Imagine a world where all government entities and corporations are clones of Facebook. Someone is making money off your identity, someone else is making money off your rage.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Or maybe they're just being douchey, as they have on their real life twitter feeds as well (see the linked article).

    Also, fix your quotes.

    dennis on
  • H3KnucklesH3Knuckles But we decide which is right and which is an illusion.Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I haven't been following Cyberpunk 2077 so I don't know about that situation. But this kind of thing keeps coming up in the industry and the enthusiast community, so I'd like to take this moment to just write out my general thoughts:
    • If you don't want to address a political issue, don't present it in the game. If you do bring it up in the game, then you need to also present the other side or you're tacitly taking the stance of the side you did present.
    • If the issue is that people want more character creation & roleplaying options to represent other identities or lifestyles, you'd better have a strong argument why they're absent, and a squeaky-clean online history with regards to the issue in question, or people will be well within their rights to doubt your real motivations. Just saying that it would take more time & money by itself isn't very compelling, if that's the sole factor then you need to go into detail about the scale of what they're asking for and why it's too much. Even then it'd still be fair for them to complain as long as they're not making accusations. Remember, if you choose to only provide the option to play a certain kind of protagonist, there's two complaints people can make: why only one, and why that one rather than another? You need to be able to answer both, and while the former is often straightforward (pun not intended) the latter can be pretty tricky. 'We wanted to appeal to the largest portion of our audience' sounds reasonable, but it's actually a double-edged sword because you are admitting to choosing to be part of the larger problem with a lack of representation.
    • Most of all, how you respond to criticism on these kinds of things will, in many cases, communicate more than the thing you are being criticized for. If you make a contrite explanation about why it wasn't within the scope of your project and leave it at that, far more people will give you a pass than if you deride the people raising the complaints. The former looks like an innocent oversight or unfortunate compromise, the latter looks like bigotry. Be very careful about publicly responding to the worst of your detractors (that is to say that it is usually better not to), because it's all too easy to look like you're mischaracterizing everyone who disagrees as being that extreme.

    Of course, you could also just avoid most of this by making efforts to be more inclusive and mindful of the messages your work is sending in the first place.

    H3Knuckles on
    If you're curious about my icon; it's an update of the early Lego Castle theme's "Black Falcons" faction.
    camo_sig2-400.png
  • Friendly_ShoggothFriendly_Shoggoth Registered User new member
    Sorry about the bad quotes, i don’t see an edit button. I won’t post anymore until I find that.

  • H3KnucklesH3Knuckles But we decide which is right and which is an illusion.Registered User regular
    @Friendly_Shoggoth If you hover your pointer over the top right corner of the 'box' your post is in, you'll see a gear appear. Click that to get a drop-down of options for your post; in a reply to a thread, it'll only include 'edit' (IIRC, if you're the person who started the thread, it also has an option to change the thread title). The gear is always visible if you're on the main Penny Arcade site and just 'viewing comments' for the comic (it's the same as the forum thread, just a different way to see it).

    I don't know how it works on the mobile version though, sorry.

    If you're curious about my icon; it's an update of the early Lego Castle theme's "Black Falcons" faction.
    camo_sig2-400.png
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Sorry about the bad quotes, i don’t see an edit button. I won’t post anymore until I find that.

    Same as full, on mobile there's a gear icon in the top-right of your post.

    Should open a blue Edit button to the bottom of your screen. Tap on that to edit.

    I recall there may be no editing for a set time/number of posts for new users? Not sure, but if you can, it's in the top-right.

    MichaelLC on
  • InvertinInvertin Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    And yet, the transphobia in question is actually in the game. So in this case it's not just about what an artist does in their personal life, but how they express it in their work as well. And as the article notes, it's not the first time they were assholes. Eventually, you can grow so disgusted by a douchebag that you can't really enjoy their art anymore because it just reminds you of how you are giving money to a douchebag.

    Extremely well put.

    At the end of the day if I want to play a game in the cyberpunk genre I have many options to choose from that are not transphobic, and while everyone should be offended by transphobia, I also happen to be trans so I'm even less inclined to engage with a fictional universe that claims that transitioning makes you less human and is written by people who think my identity is a joke.

  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    H3Knuckles wrote: »
    I haven't been following Cyberpunk 2077 so I don't know about that situation. But this kind of thing keeps coming up in the industry and the enthusiast community, so I'd like to take this moment to just write out my general thoughts:
    • If you don't want to address a political issue, don't present it in the game. If you do bring it up in the game, then you need to also present the other side or you're tacitly taking the stance of the side you did present.

    I think over-explanation is equally as bad. If you have to justify everything you put in a game, then nobody is inclined to tackle certain subjects. A good story also leaves room for interpretation and the players fantasy - this gets lost if you have to explain every single thing you put there as gamedev.
    [*] If the issue is that people want more character creation & roleplaying options to represent other identities or lifestyles, you'd better have a strong argument why they're absent, and a squeaky-clean online history with regards to the issue in question, or people will be well within their rights to doubt your real motivations. Just saying that it would take more time & money by itself isn't very compelling, if that's the sole factor then you need to go into detail about the scale of what they're asking for and why it's too much. Even then it'd still be fair for them to complain as long as they're not making accusations. Remember, if you choose to only provide the option to play a certain kind of protagonist, there's two complaints people can make: why only one, and why that one rather than another? You need to be able to answer both, and while the former is often straightforward (pun not intended) the latter can be pretty tricky. 'We wanted to appeal to the largest portion of our audience' sounds reasonable, but it's actually a double-edged sword because you are admitting to choosing to be part of the larger problem with a lack of representation.

    This is a "The Wife, the Man, the Donkey and the Critics" situation. You can't please everyone and quite frankly you shouldn't. People nowadays have thousands of ways to inform themselves before making a purchase. Product doesn't fit your agenda or livestyle - go buy another one that does. While it would be nice to cater to everybody, it is not feasible.
    [*] Most of all, how you respond to criticism on these kinds of things will, in many cases, communicate more than the thing you are being criticized for. If you make a contrite explanation about why it wasn't within the scope of your project and leave it at that, far more people will give you a pass than if you deride the people raising the complaints. The former looks like an innocent oversight or unfortunate compromise, the latter looks like bigotry. Be very careful about publicly responding to the worst of your detractors (that is to say that it is usually better not to), because it's all too easy to look like you're mischaracterizing everyone who disagrees as being that extreme.


    Of course, you could also just avoid most of this by making efforts to be more inclusive and mindful of the messages your work is sending in the first place.

    My opinion is that people get offended over every single tiny thing and should simply move on, regarding certain occurrences. Maybe the twitter guy @ CDPR had a bad day. Ofc it would be nice if the company conducted themselves more professional.

    The balance to strike as enterprise or community rep. is not easy, especially if the company is successfull. Being to much in-touch with your fans often looks "dishonest", on the other hand I also hate standard corporate business responses like "We are sorry, that you feel this way" (but we won't do anything about the issue).

    Dratatoo on
  • InvertinInvertin Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    My opinion is that people get offended over every single tiny thing and should simply move on, regarding certain occurrences. Maybe the twitter guy @ CDPR had a bad day.

    This person you don't know had a hypothetical bad day therefore their actions are beyond criticism?

    Offense isn't a thing that generates from a vacuum it's a response to offensive actions. The fact is that the transphobic rhetoric that these people are COMPLETELY happy to parrot has been used to take rights away from people for hundreds of years and if someone is an asshole then I'm allowed to respond with "hey you're being an asshole", and I'm not going to reward people with my money if they are willing to REPEATEDLY tell the world that a fundamental piece of my identity is something worth mockery.

    Invertin on
  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    My opinion is that people get offended over every single tiny thing and should simply move on, regarding certain occurrences. Maybe the twitter guy @ CDPR had a bad day. Ofc it would be nice if the company conducted themselves more professional.

    Having a bad day doesn't preclude making a sincere apology (not a nonapology) afterwards.

    And putting a joke in your game using a trans person as a punchline isn't a "tiny thing" and didn't just happen by accident. Imagine if instead they'd drawn a picture of a black person eating watermelon and fried chicken. And then said, "See, it's okay because in the fantasy world we've created, they think that's acceptable imagery, so nobody should be offended by it and we're totally innocent here." It's not okay, and it was entirely their choice to do it. And they defended that choice, repeatedly. They don't care that some people - whether their potential customers or not - find it incredibly offensive and part of an overall pattern of mockery. They've given themselves a pass on it.

    The twitter history is just more evidence of the pattern of douchebaggery.

    dennis on
  • DemonStaceyDemonStacey TTODewback's Daughter In love with the TaySwayRegistered User regular
    Just want to take a moment to say this exact debate has driven folks from being able to visit the forums for a time when it went around the first time. Some of the same folks people are trying to be allies of. It's not as cut and dry as some people see it.

  • dennisdennis aka bingley Registered User regular
    Just want to take a moment to say this exact debate has driven folks from being able to visit the forums for a time when it went around the first time. Some of the same folks people are trying to be allies of. It's not as cut and dry as some people see it.

    But what's the solution? Just don't talk about it? Sweep it under the rug? Would other trans folks who visit the forum be happy about that?

    Serious question, not just rhetorical. The topic was first brought up in the thread by a member of the community who is trans.

  • DemonStaceyDemonStacey TTODewback's Daughter In love with the TaySwayRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    better for PMs

    DemonStacey on
  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    I think a lot of trouble comes from assuming there is only one correct level of offense to take at a given stimulus, and that failing to match your exact same level of response is a failing of character.

    People who shrug off what you don't are too callous or selfish or bigoted, and that those who are offended when you are not are thin-skinned and dramatic.

    And sure, sometimes those judgments hold true.

    But sometimes people don't match your level of offense/non-offense and it has nothing to do with some vague quality of character, good or bad.

    And in all circumstances, people shouldn't hesitate to voice their opinions about something that offends them, in particular if they feel they're the target of the offense. I don't really get why anyone would ever feel like they should silence complainers. Disagree, sure, but being mad at someone for feeling bad about a thing is just bizarre to me?

    If nothing else vocal complaints creates a situation where you can be sure the offending creator is making a conscious informed decision, knowing that X or Y thing is offensive to part of their audience, and clarify, or improve, or decide to do it anyway because they don't care (for good or bad reasons).

  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    @dennis your quote tags got screwed up, h3knuckles is not the poster who wrote that, it was Dratatoo

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • InvertinInvertin Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    All I said to "start" this debate is that Cyberpunk 2077 is transphobic (which it is) and that as a result I have less than zero interest in it (which is true)

    Invertin on
  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    dennis wrote: »
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    My opinion is that people get offended over every single tiny thing and should simply move on, regarding certain occurrences. Maybe the twitter guy @ CDPR had a bad day. Ofc it would be nice if the company conducted themselves more professional.

    Having a bad day doesn't preclude making a sincere apology (not a nonapology) afterwards.

    And putting a joke in your game using a trans person as a punchline isn't a "tiny thing" and didn't just happen by accident. Imagine if instead they'd drawn a picture of a black person eating watermelon and fried chicken. And then said, "See, it's okay because in the fantasy world we've created, they think that's acceptable imagery, so nobody should be offended by it and we're totally innocent here." It's not okay, and it was entirely their choice to do it. And they defended that choice, repeatedly. They don't care that some people - whether their potential customers or not - find it incredibly offensive and part of an overall pattern of mockery. They've given themselves a pass on it.

    The twitter history is just more evidence of the pattern of douchebaggery.

    You shouldn't jump to conclusion because of one twitter post (its among the worst of all the terrible social media plattforms out there) and one single fictional ingame ad. But we can agree, as a company I wouldn't touch memes or anything which pokes fun at or redicule race, sex, groups with a 5m pole in my official communication channels.

    For the picture itself. Its fine in its fictional context, IMO. The point of science fiction is to put you in a place where the norms have changed drastically (dystopian or idealized) and often is meant to catch you off guard or startle you.
    If one had the option to exchange any body parts, of course there would be more open gender diversity and a whole industry which try to capitalize on it.
    Speaking of stereotype, the prologue of Bioshock Infinite encurages you throw a baseball on a black person which is ridiculed in front of an audience (the choice to throw the ball or not doesn't matter, because the whole sequence gets interrupted anyway) and I heard no outcry, or people painting the gamedevs as racist because of it.

  • InvertinInvertin Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Absolutely nothing you said in that post was correct. I am finished interacting with you.

    Invertin on
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