The Chinese studio granted early access on the condition that topics like “feminist propaganda” and “Covid-19” go unmentioned. What followed is the Streisand effect in full force.
“I feel that it only served to bring more attention on Game Science’s culture of sexism,” linktothepabst says. “All they had to do was let the game speak for itself, but it came off, to me, like an own goal, effectively stoking the flames between the people who were using this game as weapon against ‘wokeness in games’ and those who can level-headedly either enjoy the game and criticize GS or just ignore the game altogether.”
It’s the Streisand effect in full force: Try to hide something, and it becomes all the more visible. “Nobody was going to bring up Chinese politics unprompted,” Zhong says, “but the topic was there as soon as they released those guidelines.”
China has a weird approach to misogyny. Women are both empowered and belittled, and it’s all over the media. Anybody who’s read the three body problem trilogy (especially book 3) can attest to this.
Especially book 3?? I stopped reading after the second because it was too much, it gets worse? wtf
Yes, so much worse, directed at both men for not being manly enough and women for being… well, not manly men.
I wrote off the novel when the author said that the Chinese people weren’t ready for democracy
What gets worse?
The start of this very short thread is:
China has a weird approach to misogyny.
I assume that’s what gets worse.
The video series tried so hard to downplay that aspect of the books, but it felt like their overall plan was to plaster over & repaint the stains… until the whole thing was rotted through and the mask just slid right off. 😬
I read the whole series and somehow missed this, I did chalk up a lot of things to “must be a chinese cultural thing”, like the whole idea of all nations actually working together or globally banning “escapism” and just suspended my disbelief, so maybe I glossed over that bit as well. Is there a good article that dives into this?
E: Found this article, that goes into it as well as other issues, well worth a read
I think they’re doing this on purpose at this point. Wielding Streisand effect to the fullest of its potential to promote their game.
It backfired at that with me. I had my guard up when it popped up on my Steam queue, so even though I was curious about the game, it was a let’s see that it’s about and then move on for me.
In addition to the ccp stuff, it uses denuvo, so I wouldn’t have bought it anyways, so maybe it didn’t make that much of a difference. Though who knows, maybe I only noticed that because my guard was up; sometimes I forget to check.
Such a weird move to be like “we’ve picked a side in the culture wars, by the way don’t talk politics about us”
There are two genders: male and political.
To people who want the status quo to exist forever (spoiler alert: it won’t), anything other than strict conformity to the status quo is political. But that conformity, itself, is not a political position, because it is ‘normal’.
They pick a side, then they pretend it’s not even a side at all.
This is the part that annoys me. If you want to avoid politics in a space, not “take sides,” (say, as a business owner) I totally get it. However, if you allow A to be said but somebody engaging with that is “too political” or “rocking the boat” you’re very much picking a side - You’re allowing speech A but censoring speech B. Thats the definition of taking a side lmao.
Also straight and political, white and political, etc.
Except they didn’t really pick a side - they got attacked and responded in a way that was bad for PR but honestly kinda predictable. It all got sparked off by them getting a bad review that was mostly positive but penalized the Chinese game heavily inspired by a piece of classic Chinese literature (Journey to the West) for not being diverse enough (aka not featuring many women and no black people), 6/10. What they did since (the rules for streamers seeking a key) has been a (badly chosen) reaction to that.
Unless having a game heavily inspired by a piece of classical literature that doesn’t express the racial and gender diversity of modern LA is itself choosing a side?
There’s a respectful way to do it, and they chose the heavy handed approach, and to act like they have a chip on their shoulder. If they wanted to make that point and head off any politicization, they could have lead with a simple something like “this game is highly committed to its source material, and the creative choices are solely focused on textual authenticity and fun gameplay. We value any feedback about political topics, but we respectfully wish that our game be judged purely on its creative aims”, just as a very rough first draft. There’s no need to take a contentious tone and then demand silence. It’s completely high handed, and practically demands a reaction.
That doesn’t really work either, see pre release coverage for Deliverance: Kingdom Come and aside from a few articles during early crowdfunding about how they were naughty bad people for not having black people in a game set in a few square kilometers of 15th century Bohemia and having a “female character DLC” (the game has a fixed protagonist and the DLC lets you play from the perspective of another character, framed as her telling the MC about how she managed to escape the attack on their village). After the articles about them being racist and sexist for that, there was basically radio silence until it launched and was too big a deal to ignore.
They shouldn’t have taken that lying down, but at some point you do have to hope that people can tell who’s bullshitting. If your work is genuine and you stand by it in the face of criticism, the criticism just gets people talking about you in a positive way - look at how game journalists covered BG3.
People complain like hell when you go the opposite direction and pump up the diversity for its own sake too. That’s what sucks about culture wars, nobody’s on the same page anymore. You can do either thing in a good way, but people can tell when it comes from an ethos and not just corporate interests.
Art in general comes with this struggle. Not even in a video game are you going to be able to be all things to all people without completely diluting your creative work. That’s part of why I really worry about bigger budgets in games, that higher investment comes with a lot of risk averse executives who aren’t going to be as happy with output that doesn’t hit every segment of the market. You have to be willing to take risks to make anything that has value to anyone other than shareholders.
CCP brainrot goes deep
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Looking at your replies in that thread, I suspect that your comment did break rules.
You don’t need to suspect you can check for yourself, modlog exists.
Just checked it myself. Turned out to be a load of Gamergate bullshit. Not surprised it got removed.
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Do you know what gamer gate refers to? It doesn’t have anything to do with gatekeeping is why I mention it.
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It was called Gamergate because of The Watergate Scandal. It was a fad for almost 40 years in US media to add “gate” to the end of whatever scandal was going on. Any gatekeeping meaning was added well after the fact
That was a false allegation made by her ex boyfriend as revenge.
No, it’s called gamer gate because every major scandal is just called blah gate after watergate. It was not called gamer gate because of gatekeeping.
Dumb question: how do you check the modlog?
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You comments are probably not sexist, but they are likely misinformation. The comments in IGN are likely not mis-translation, since the Mandarin-spwaking community also had pretty big reactions to the comments and histories of game science. See: https://m.douban.com/note/776087909/ and https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/710811.html?amp (you can try to use google translate to read the article).
The screenshot in the IGN article, to the best of my knowledge, is correctly translated. The comments listed has as much sexual implication as the translation.
I use both Mandarin and English on a daily bases, and can translate between them pretty well. It would be great for me and others, if you can be more specific on which parts of the developer’s posts are mistranslated.
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It is in between, getting licked is the figurative speech for “unjust praises” with a hint of submission in the tone.
English also have a similar expression like “licking one’s boots”, but in Chinese it is more sexual, as it typically refers to licking something else. An alternative is “跪舔”, which means “kneel and lick”.
There are other comments in the article I linked:
杨奇于2013年扬言游戏“不需要女性玩家的反向带动”，“有些东西就是做给爷们的”，“当真喜欢软娘腐的东西，换下个产品，哥天天穿丝袜吊打上班”
Qi Yang (lead artist) has publically stated in 2013: “we don’t need female player”, “something are for guys only”, and "if we truely love soft female or gay stuff, we would change our product, I would wear stocking to work everyday.
“游戏科学”技术美术师戴巍于2023年8月20日在知乎社区中扬言：《黑神话》中的女蛇妖“再多看看就能冲了。虽然蛇脖子暂时不习惯，但也不是不能培养”。
On August 20, 2023, the technical artist of Game Science, Wei Dai, claimed on Zhihu (Chinese Quora): “[the players] will be able to masturbate to” the female snake monster in Black Myth. “Although she has the neck of a snake, which might not be the conventional aesthetic [for masturbation], but people can eventually get used to it”
That being said, I do not claim that the dev still holds this view point now. China is a rapidly developing country, and its ideology and culture can shift just as fast.
But I am very dishearten that they would mention “feminist propaganda” in their review bans. It seems like they are still not accepting of feminism.
That is a good question, I know where the button is for the website (it’s in the sidebar, in my UI it’s green) but the app im using doesn’t have an obvious button
If you have a question about a moderation decision, you can msg any member of the moderation team for review/explanation. I have reviewed the removed comment and found that it was not removed in error. If anything, it should also have been removed for misinformation as well.
In the future, any comments about individual moderation actions that are not addressed to the mod team through an appropriate channel will be removed. This is to avoid derailing legitimate, topical conversations.
Typical mod on an ego trip.
If it’s the mod I think it is, prepare for a 30d ban …
Based on their comments in this thread they may have earned that much of a ban
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Easiest to list which ones weren’t. You’re escalated replies aren’t helping you either
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All of them then. Amazing you haven’t been banned for how uncivil you are
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Oh great mod abuse is happening here as well?
Check the user’s modlog and judge for yourself.
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How could it not happen anywhere where mods are? It is in the nature of the thing.
Mod abuse is universal. Power corrupts.
Every instance has its bias. Mods squash deviation from their consensus.
What is the purpose of moderating if not enforcing your personal opinion on everyone
It happens everywhere. Just Jannies doing janny things. Sweep it up, janny!
Just keep in mind: he does it for free
That makes it worse
That’s the point
No it did not. Wukong is a bestseller: https://lemmy.ml/post/19657183
https://steamdb.info/app/2358720/charts/
Yeah. It clearly killed their sales.
I’m sure the Game Science folks are re-evaluating their life choices and wondering where they went wrong.
When the story broke, my wife and I discussed it a bit, and I mentioned that I hadn’t even heard of the game before all this.
If it was deliberate marketing, it was really well done.
Could be.
A plan like that would be pretty risky. I suspect they just didn’t think it through much. I think their sales are mostly driven by people who didn’t care about anything besides a AAA Monkey King game.
Most people in the US have no idea how much pent up demand there was for this game. Monkey King is an insanely popular character. Imagine if Star Wars was a 500 year old franchise and nobody had ever made a decent video game about it. All your life you grow up with weird foreign characters you’ve never heard of and then someone comes along and says, “We’re going to make it and we’re pulling out all the stops on the graphics.”
If the developers did anything short of kicking puppies in public, people would still line up to throw money at them.
Enslaved was a great game based off Journey to the West. Unfortunately it sold poorly.
I wonder if Game Science meant avoid politics like “western identity politics” or “critique of the CCP”? Perhaps both?
No idea.
It’s hard to tell what their sales would have been had they left those terms out.
Most studios can only dream of having their marketing backfire that successfully.
Wired Magazine - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Wired Magazine:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.wired.com/story/black-myth-wukong-streaming-controversy/
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whenever someone mentions sweet baby inc i immediately think of them as that angry thumb screaming PRÖNOUNS because they saw a word in the character creation screen
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provide sources for all of that and ill bounce and moan on it with you
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your sources are hilarious. i cannot imagine the wrong turn over would have to make in the creepy forest to end up in this hellhole. best of luck to you. i just hope you’re 13 and will grow up to cringe at the memory of this but at least be in a better state of mind.
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The lack of evidence here is my evidence.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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As a Chinese, I could tell you it is not mistranslation. Some alt right user on Twitter use ChatGPT translate these pictures and even make up some translation to prove the “mistranslation”.
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I can’t help but notice that she isn’t disagreeing with the translation. Just that the intention is somewhat disguised behind cultural barriers.
The infamous “I want to expand my circle and hire more people, get licked until can’t get an erection.” she describes as “crude” meaning it isn’t a completely off base translation (which honestly surprised me). It’s clear she has a bias, and is upfront about it, so I think she’s being more forgiving than a Western audience would be if a Western dev said similarly crude things.
I think a lot of the context is helpful, particularly about Chinese devs using female players as part of their own marketing. So “pandering to female players” is more directly associated with exploiting female players.
Clearly the studio has some statements the West would consider iffy, even with cultural context in mind. So the accusations of sexism don’t seem as cut and dry as either side is making it out to be
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Totally agree, I interpret it in the same way as saying that people are blowing/fellating you. Not saying that is/isn’t sexist, but it is crude, especially as a public statement from a company. I’m just trying to get the facts straight
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I like how your comment assumes women can’t exist on the internet
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It Backfired
So much, they have 2 million concurrent players.
Someone here is salty because game is successful. I guess this is related to the IGN article
I don’t think this post said anything about ‘The Game’ backfiring.
It specifically calls out that streamers spoke about exactly what they didn’t want spoken. That’s what the Streisand Effect is.
Congratulations to Game Science for a good game, but it’s business as usual for the C-Suite being completely disconnected to how the social world works.
I would have thought that it was a “CCP interests” boilerplate. That is to say, maybe game science were just following what instructions they needed to by the CCP? It just seems so Chinese government to mention COVID-19 when this game has nothing to do with that.
I have yet to watch a video where anything mentioned in this “article” was brought up. The only place I have seen any of this is on Lemmy (and I would assume other social media if I used it), and I saw people questioning if this list of topics even went out to anyone.
This article seems like more “both sides” story telling trying to get clicks from the “woke” pitchfork brigade trying to find more things to clutch their pearls about.
Edit - Just to make my position clear. I 100% believe that the accusations against those in charge at Game Science, and since I do not easily separate the art from the artist I have not bought the game. My comments above were in regards to this click bait article bringing nothing new and taking a “both sides” approach to a topic that was thoroughly covered over a week ago when the game released. As an article like this that is void of details, and adds nothing new to the discourse, is posted for the sole purpose of getting clicks from the upset toxic anti-woke crowd. I have also yet to watch a video where any of this has even gotten a mention beyond an acknowledgement from one creator that there was a “controversy” surrounding the game. I have also not seen a US content creator who got an early access copy, so none of them would have gotten this “do/don’t” list to begin with. I have also not read any reporting on if this actually went to everyone from the studio itself, or if whatever PR company was handling each region for release was the one creating/sending out this list.
If anyone actually cares, the IGN article actually covered the issues with this studio and the culture of China as a whole.
Woke pitchfork brigade
Nothing you say is ever worth paying attention to if you use phrases like this
give the document a read yourself
Published by https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YVuo-oqw2EU
https://videogames.si.com/news/black-myth-wukong-streamers-feminist-propaganda
Thanks for the additional sources! And for the discipline.
I have read that “document”, how does that change anything I said? Have you not seen this toxic “anti-woke” bile that has been popping up for every new game release now? Like we get that they hate woman, are super racist, and think that being gay or trans makes people not human, but I think they are a minority that should go back to living in the swap.
And my comment getting a -40 makes me sad for the future if that many people are choosing to side with hate and discrimination.
Have you not seen this toxic “anti-woke” bile that has been popping up for every new game release now? Like we get that they hate woman, are super racist, and think that being gay or trans makes people not human, but I think they are a minority that should go back to living in the swap.
They might be a statistical minority where you live, but that doesn’t mean they can’t assert political power and discriminate against scapegoated outgroups.
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