SquareEnix reaches a new low. (And Deck Nine's management needs to resign)

https://www.ign.com/articles/how-hidden-nazi-symbols-were-the-tip-of-a-toxic-iceberg-at-life-is-strange-developer-deck-nine

Basically, SquareEnix basically forced D9 and their Life is Strange team to crunch (and basically it seems they forced out the Remasters which were basically unfinished). This is EA level garbage. Even worse was they tried to meddle in the script, the themes of the game, and tried to bury the fact that Alex was bisexual in the marketing so that they didn't want it to be seen as a "gay game".

But D9's management absolutely needs to go. So many failures in how things were handled. It was a miracle that True Colors was a Peabody winning masterpiece. The Life is Strange team fought back and ran off Zak Garriss, and were able to shoot down his awful ideas. But the story about Nazi symbols getting into the Life is Strange game being made right now is beyond the pale and the poor reaction of management means they need to go, period.

Yeah, I skimmed read through the article. Sounds like a pretty shitty situation. Not my kind of games, but they do seem to have a fan base of some size, which I can respect. Not every games have to be made for me, and I'm happy someone finds joy in these sorts of games.

For the sake of the developers there and the fans of these games, then, I hope things improve, and I do appreciate articles like this bringing these sorts of things to light.

Trash studio that makes trash games. Square would be better off selling them.

I wonder why you think the game is trash?🤭

Square Enix doesn't own Deck 9. It's a private studio.

Hmm. How to sell something you don't even own? An intriguing paradox.

Never played Life is Strange, its narrative driven garbage.

Life Is Strange is Monkey Island if it was boring.

That's pretty funny. Would never wanna work there tho.

Except SquareEnix does not own Deck Nine.

Except they are nothing alike.

I love the life is strange series. Time to not support future sequels of the game. Hope devs cut tie with Square if this is true, and release games independently, they are not a subsidiary after all.

Though, i do need to emphasize that deck 9 is an indenpendent company. Highly likely its their own management forcing crunch to get milestone bonuses. Square enix is the owner of IP so its within their rights to pressure completions per contract but, business is build upon relationships and I just think deck 9 overpromised to Square to get the contract and burden was forced upon the staff. Very common occurrence.

Staff speaking out and the wording used its honestly not that surprising this happens in any business environment.

I can certainly say at least the first Life Is Strange Remaster had a good bit of audio issues with prerendered cutscenes that would mute the audio, the prerendered scenes themselves were low quality, weird character complexions would pop up from time to time (like ghost pale in the head but normal everywhere else), and broken object interactions that would require quitting and reloading game because I couldn't back out of object interaction. And I played this long after its release so it was long past being patched. Luckily I didn't have as many issues with Before The Storm. This is not surprising to hear in the least.

I just said that. One is good, one is boring.

Its BTS which I had more problems with, far more than the original. I had no problems, outside a couple issues that everybody had, and actually prefer the original remastered. The animation of the original was pretty poor and the remastered improves on that front bigtime.

I support future sequels, the LIS team that successfully put up resistance to those three Chads they hired and the incompetent management as well, and made a Peabody Award winning game, deserve support. And Deck Nine right now NEEDS Life is Strange, they go out of business without it. Its SquareEnix that needs to part with LIS like their other western IPs if they cannot respect it.

And no, the crunch is all on SquareEnix. This is EA and Activision level crap that should not happen. Its homophobia should not happen. No excuse whatsoever.

Life is Strange is more important than Monkey Island.

@texasgoldrush:

Sorry, gonna have to disagree with you there. If adventure games was a nation, Monkey Island would be on its dollar bill. The original games were the quintessential point-and-click adventure games.

I'm sure Life is Strange are great, but Monkey Island is gaming history.

He said more important 😁

Monkey Island is important, but it's influence is limited to gaming, and outside its genre, shout outs.

Life is Strange's influence is not felt in just adventure games, but outside its genre, the indie scene, and even outside gaming like Stranger Things.

Well, I can tell you one thing... I tried the SaGa Emerald Beyond demo and let's just say... well, Square Enix is keeping up with their "no chance I'm buying this" streak. Impressive.

How can Nazi symbols get into the game without the devs being aware? That don't make any sense.

Who gives a damn what's in this dumpster of a game? Like seriously.

Oh cool. Then they can just stop publishing their shitty games.

Except True Colors was very well received and won a Peabody among other things. Try again.

Because people don't notice many of them.

Outside the swastika and maybe the Siegrune, people barely know other Nazi and white supremacist symbols.

Okay. I thought the "Nazi symbols" included a swastika. There's no way devs wouldn't have noticed that during development. But if it's other lesser-known Nazi symbols, then fair enough.

But how is any of this Square's fault? They're only the publisher, not the developer.

Lol who gives a shit? Their games are niche and only celebrated among leftist games journalists.

WRONG

The first game had 20 million players and may very well be the most successful adventure game ever. And D9's own Before the Storm was pretty successful.

Hardly niche.

Most of those 20M are free players though. The last reported sales were 3M.

lol.

absolutely nowhere near in terms of gaming. outside of gaming pretty sure the writer of the cancelled monkey island movie went on to write the pirates of the caribbean series

Monkey Island was inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean in the first place.

That 3M was in the first year, way outdated.

Steam trackers have the game at 5 or 6 million units sold, the full game, not episode 1. It also did well on console and mobile. The game sold very well. It helped it was only $20.

The 5M+ number is for the free Episode 1, not the full game.

Monkey Island is way more important than Life is Strange. Monkey Island is one of the all-time most influential adventure games. Its influence can even be felt in your favourite game LIS, not to mention the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

The creators of Stranger Things cited Silent Hill, Dark Souls and The Last of Us as influences, but never mentioned LIS. There is a little easter egg referencing LIS, but its influence on the show is otherwise quite minimal.

The average playtime suggests many were sales.

Wrong.

The filmmakers actually cite older pirate stories as common tropes for both Pirates of the Caribbean, and Monkey Island. Monkey Island wasn't really that influential in this case. It was a case of the genre creating similar tropes. Monkey Island is no where near as impactful as say King's Quest and Sierra at the time.

That easter egg is not small. You do not call a major character Max Mayfield and not be influenced by the game. And there are multiple easter eggs in the second season alone including the "Max not Maxine" moment.

Life is Strange has impacted gaming as a whole, not just the genre. Its influences aren't limited to its genre. It is basically THE game of impact. Hell, even Life is Strange 2 is influential in its own way.

This is all news to me. Have there been any direct quotes from the writers that Life is Strange was an inspiration? I do see comments on the topic.

Playtime =/= Sales

Incorrect.

The POTC screenwriters Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott were working on a Monkey Island movie before they wrote the POTC movies. Monkey Island influenced POTC for sure.

As for Stranger Things, the creators never cited Life is Strange as an influence. This is entirely speculation from LIS fans. Stranger Things creators instead cited Silent Hill, Dark Souls and Last of Us as influences.

How has LIS impacted gaming? Its impact doesn't come close to Monkey Island. LIS itself probably wouldn't even exist without Monkey Island.

No, On Stranger Tides did, on both. So much so that they did some sort of adaptation of the novel with Prates of the Caribbean. Once again, they cited pirate movie and other pirate work tropes as the reason for any similarities, not Monkey Island influencing POTC itself.

The average playtime is pretty high for a game like LIS and the game has an average completion rate, if most of the numbers were just free Episode 1 players, the numbers would be a lot lower.

Except once again, too many dead ringer easter eggs and once again, Max Mayfield, Max Caulfield connection. Both called Mad Max, both say not to call her Maxine, etc. They don't have to list LIS as a reference when they by clear as day, put a huge reference into the show. This goes past speculation and into "yep".

Once again, outside of shoutouts, Monkey Island really isn't that influential. Classic, yes. But it is not as influential as say King's Quest or Myst or even Maniac Mansion.

Rossio and Elliott were screenwriters on the first POTC movie, and before that were working on a Monkey Island movie that got cancelled. So there's a clear connection there from Monkey Island to POTC.

It could be influence, or it could be coincidence. Either way, it's entirely speculation and hasn't been confirmed by the creators. Besides, Stranger Things contains references and easter eggs to a bunch of movies, games, anime and TV shows. A reference or easter egg is not a major influence. The major influences are the works cited by the creators in interviews.

Monkey Island became the benchmark for point & click adventures. It became the reference point for almost every P&C adventure from a Western dev since the '90s. That includes LIS, which combines P&C adventure elements with visual novel elements... Besides, you still haven't explained how LIS has impacted gaming?

Except once again, the connection was the influence by pirate movies and stories, with the novel On Stranger Tides being the big influence.

Except the reference is with a major character who has been in the show since Season 2.

No, that would be King's Quest, which is the template of the entire point and click genre. Monkey Island falls within this.

Life is Strange opened the door for many developers that incorporates real life mature modern day themes in their games. It is more about the themes the game invokes than its game design. But hell, Tales of Arise's creator cited it as an influence.

kings quest was point, click and type.

the kq games, space quest and leisure suit larry did come first so it's fair to say they laid the groundwork for the genre and they deserve the recognition, they were fun to play but a lot of the puzzles were more like trial and error / die, crazy obtuse than logical.

lucasarts came along and absolutely smashed it out of the park with their writing, humour, puzzle design and interface. true point and click games, masterpiece after masterpiece, and monkey island was their piece de resistance

I think the article hinted it well. Square looked for a studio to handle LiS and Deck Nine signed a poor contract. Square is within it rights to control milestone targets, its Deck Nine managements that forced staff to crunch to meet target set. Idk how Square can be blamed in this situation tbh they just want their product on time. Management of Deck Nine could have expanded or request revision of contracts or time extension to help reduce crunch but didnt.

And I think the article tries to portray Square as bullies and reject Deck Nine ideas regarding script but this is delusional. Deck Nine is just a Studio, Square Enix owns the IP and should protect its IP like any other game companies outsourcing.

Honestly I really can't really blame Square.

Sorry, but setting unrealistic targets, limiting budgets, and homophobia isn't protecting the IP, quite the opposite. It is a game publisher not knowing their IPs. Life is Strange is not Final Fantasy.

SquareEnix is lucky True Colors came out the way it did.

Stranger Tides novel inspired the fourth POTC movie, not the first movie. The first POTC movie was influenced by Monkey Island:

Ted Elliott was allegedly writing a George Lucas-produced animated film adaptation of The Curse of Monkey Island, which was cancelled before its official announcement, three years prior to the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. This film was allegedly in production at Industrial Light and Magic before being cancelled. Ron Gilbert, the creator of the Monkey Island series, has jokingly expressed a bitterness towards Pirates of the Caribbean films, specifically the second film, for its similarities to his game. Gilbert has also stated that Tim Powers' 1987 novel On Stranger Tides, which was adapted into the fourth Pirates film, was the principal source of inspiration for his video games. Pirates screenwriter Terry Rossio mentioned how Disney was hit with at least six plagiarism lawsuits for the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie for supposedly stealing elements of the Monkey Island video game and stuff from the On Stranger Tides novel, despite there being a ride at Disneyland and also a first draft screenplay by other writers.

It's a minor reference, not a major influence. Stranger Things frequently makes pop culture references. The big influences on the story were the movies, games, anime and TV shows they've cited in interviews. The only games they've cited were Silent Hill, Dark Souls and Last of Us.

Monkey Island was a significant evolution over King's Quest. Monkey Island became the standard template and reference point for P&C adventures since the '90s.

Like I said, LIS combined P&C adventure and visual novel elements. Visual novels were already dealing with mature modern-day themes long before LIS. Didn't know that about Tales of Arise though, but that's just one major game it influenced. Monkey Island influenced an entire genre of games.

... and? Deck Nine signed the contract, and refused to ensure crunch is eliminated by expanding workforce or increase efficiency. How is targets unrealistic and budgets limited when Deck Nine the one agreeing to such contract. They are subcontractor to Square obviously Square will come to ask status of development. Life is Strange belongs to Square, not Deck Nine. Deck Nine able to advise but ultimately must obey whatever direction Square Enix wants to go in its story.

To be fair, the IGN article is not just about Square Enix London (the UK-based publishing arm responsible for the Life is Strange franchise, just in case it has nothing to do with Final Fantasy), but rather problems within Deck Nine that delayed development and thus caused the crunch.

In addition to harassment, aggression, and sexism among Deck Nine's senior staff, the studio was chronically understaffed, underpaid, and undergoing layoffs. It also has problems with hate speech (it has been noted that the intentional inclusion of Nazi symbols in the game and the high number of them are not coincidental), Zach Garris's (COO, Lead Writer, Game Director of Life is Strange: True Colors) abusive behavior toward female employees, conflicts with the writing team, and management's failure to properly address these issues.

It would be hypocritical to place all the blame for the delay/crunch in the game's schedule caused by these things on Square Enix London, who demanded that the game be developed as contracted. Deck Nine is clearly a troubled studio that has indeed broken with other publishers. Square Enix London should reconsider working with them in the future.

@st_monica: See my thread topic. I have called for D9's main management to resign.

BOTH SquareEnix and D9's management are being raked over the coals by the fanbase right now.

And no, SquareEnix's shift from homophobia to rainbow capitalism and being another studio than enforcing crunch needs to be called out. SquareEnix really needs to sell the IP. There is a reason why Don't Nod walked away from their own series they made. SquareEnix bullies the studios to make money with little effort.

@Jag85: Once again, the makers of the POTC movies cite common pirate story tropes as the reason for any similarities between their movies and Monkey Island, and once again Monkey Island was influenced by POTC and On Stranger Tides.

No, it wasn't. Sierra evolved their games on their own and they were the ones who led the genre. While LucasArts games were classic, they were less innovative than Sierra at the time. And when the adventure game genre tanked in the late 90's because of the loss in quality or the conclusion of Sierra's game series, LucasArts's adventure titles went down with them.

And Life is Strange's influence is not its gameplay elements, but its thematic ones, which were storytelling elements, the risks they took, as well as the series being a LGBT keystone. The feel and look of the game also is influential. This is why it has influence outside the genre and even the medium.

@texasgoldrush: The writers of the POTC movies were literally working on a Monkey Island movie before they made the POTC movies. This can't be dismissed as coincidence, since it involves the same writers. This is a clear cut case of Monkey Island influencing POTC. Monkey Island having earlier pirate influences doesn't cancel out its influence on the POTC movies.

Sierra's games were influential in the '80s, but stopped being influential in the '90s. It was LucasArts who produced the most influential P&C adventures in the '90s, with Monkey Island being the most influential P&C adventure that decade. So much so that its influence extends to LIS itself.

I can see how LIS could've been somewhat influential within the LGBT gaming community, but LGBT themes were already being popularized by Last of Us prior to LIS. Its influence on Stranger Things was quite minimal, mainly just a character's name referencing it. And the only major game it seems to have influenced substantially is Tales of Arise. Its influence doesn't come close to Monkey Island.

Except once again, the directors said it had much to do with common tropes and less to do with Monkey Island and that hey did not reuse the script.

WRONG. Sierra delivered several classics in the 90's, and stayed very influential in the early 90's. Sierra's games were more innovative and riskier than LucasArts. The only real innovation LucasArts truly brought was the players for the most part, could not be killed and avoided fail states more often. In this case, the first Life is Strange game is more like Sierra's games, with player deaths and fail states, but Max rewinds out of them.

And you are not getting what I am saying. Life is considered THE LGBT series, which is what makes SquareEnix's actions so offensive. The LGBT content, even in its DLC, for the Last of Us, is nowhere near as strong as it is in Life is Strange. Next, its all the little things that the series does is what influences others, not just one gameplay innovation; from the themes, to the art, to story elements, to the music and its music direction. It is also THE game of impact as well. Monkey Island's influence is limited to shout outs, it wasn't the door opener Life is Strange is.

I also credit Life is Strange having the more traditional adventure genre (not movie style games like Until Dawn or Quantic Dream games) avoid a second major crash after Telltale really started struggling.

@texasgoldrush: Sure, there are common pirate tropes used by both Monkey Island and POTC. But there are too many similarities between them for it to be mere coincidence, especially now that we know the POTC writers were previously involved with the cancelled Monkey Island movie.

Monkey Island's key innovation lies in its streamlined interface, which was more accessible and user-friendly than earlier P&C adventures. This helped adventure games reach a wider audience and Monkey Island subsequently became the template for P&C adventures in the '90s. This is comparable to how Dragon Quest's interface made RPGs more accessible. We can see the influence of Monkey Island's interface in your favourite game LIS, which probably wouldn't exist without Monkey Island. The only Sierra classic in the '90s was Phantasmagoria, which was nowhere as influential as Monkey Island.

Sure, LIS improved on TLOU's LGBT themes, but it was TLOU that previously popularized LGBT themes in the first place. So TLOU deserves more credit for that than LIS. As for the other stuff you've mentioned, I've rarely seen developers cite LIS as an influence. The only major one you've cited is Tales of Arise, and that's pretty much it.

@Jag85: A Monkey Island is based on what? The Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride. So if anything, its the other away around. Some scenes in the games allude to the scenes in the ride.

Kings Quest V also streamlined its interface and was more user friendly than past titles and it was released only a month later, so no, Monkey Island really did not innovate here. And King's Quest V was actually the more popular game, especially in the US. And Sierra's games routinely outsold LucasArts games, to the point where Gilbert said that "Sierra was still kicking our asses". And when Sierra fell, LucasArts adventure titles went down with them.

No, Bioware did it before TLOU, so TLOU did not innovate in that area. The reason why LIS gets credit as the "gay game" is that its relationship was the most fleshed out and was central to the experience. TLOU and even its DLC wasn't this. Without LIS we do not see games like Goodbye Volcano High and We Are OFK. And really, you do not need creators to cite it as an influence to see the influence.

Here is a novel that came out last week.

Holly Jackson does not have to cite Life is Strange as an influence herself to see the very clear LIS influence here.

@texasgoldrush: A theme park ride is just a ride, not a narrative medium. You're comparing apples to oranges. Monkey Island being influenced by the POTC ride doesn't negate Monkey Island influencing the POTC movies.

King's Quest V didn't use the SCUMM engine, which was popularized by Monkey Island and revolutionized adventure games. After Monkey Island, SCUMM became the standard engine for P&C adventures. While King's Quest V outsold Secret of Monkey Island, The Curse of Monkey Island later went on to outsell every King's Quest game. Curse of Monkey Island's interface was further streamlined from Secret of Monkey Island.

If you want to go further back, Persona had LGBT themes before BioWare. But that's besides the point. LGBT themes weren't anything new when LIS came out. It just improved on what came before. That doesn't mean it influenced later LGBT-themed games.

I've never heard of that novel before, but it's a huge reach to claim LIS influenced it without the author ever citing it as an influence anywhere.

Except it kinda was, enough for it to inspire Monkey Island. And once again, some scenes from the game are homages from the ride like the iconic dog holding the jail key.

Moving the goalposts are we? SCUMM was first used in Maniac Mansion, in itself was a classic and a well known game, with its sequel also being well known. Second, while Curse of Monkey Island outsold King's Quest games, it itself sold less than Phantasmagoria as well as LucasArts own Full Throttle and showed signs of the decline of the genre when Escape From Monkey Island sold even less.

And it's improvement of LGBT themes set the standard, the bar that newer games have to meet. Tell Me Why, same company, different team, raised the bar even higher for trans characters, clearly is influenced by Life is Strange.

Ok, so what is Chloe's last name? Who is Chloe's friend that disappeared? And didn't a Life is Strange game cover a reappearance of a mother? Sounds like a dead ringer to me. it is so obvious you don't need a creator stating the influence.

@texasgoldrush: Being influenced by something earlier doesn't negate Monkey Island influencing the POTC movies.

Monkey Island improved the SCUMM engine to make it more accessible and user-friendly, leading to its popularization. The Curse of Monkey Island (800,000 units) outsold Phantasmagoria (600,000 units). Escape from Monkey Island was a disappointing 3D sequel, so no wonder it sold less.

Raising the standards doesn't mean later LGBT-themed games were influenced by it. Pop culture in general has become more LGBT-friendly in the last decade, so you can't credit LIS for influencing LGBT-themed games. It was games like Persona, Mass Effect and The Last of Us that opened the doors for LGBT-themed games.

I don't know the plot details of the novel. But similarities alone does not mean influence. You need to establish a background connection beyond mere similarities.