While I find this statue rather distasteful and I would not buy this edtion of the game (or any other for that matter, since it's not my cup of tea), I find the fuss around it far more unsettling than the statue itself.
It feels like after at least two centuries of tradition of liberty, just when we seemed to agree that the freedom of expression should be limited only by the rights of others, we're reverting to the pre-modern model of "positive" norms being dictated by the currently dominant ideology. This is happening under the guise of "respecting others" and their feelings, but it is already applied very selectively.
For example, people who might protest against depiction of homosexual relations in publically available arts are branded as homophobes and not tolerated (and rightfully so, since their personal taste should not affect what is and what is not acceptable). However people who protest against portraying women in a sensual way and even try to force artists not to do it, are not only tolerated but outright endorsed.
This is supposedly because it "objectifies" women by focusing on the physical aspect of their attractiveness rather than their other qualities. However, dictating which qualities of a certain group should be focused on, and which should be avoided in works of art is WAY out of the line. This has nothing to do with respecting other people's rights. This is a concerted attempt at limiting the freedom of expression by soft (that is, non-legal) means in order to enforce a "correct" stance in an area that is strictly subjective.
It is nearly impossible to say or otherwise express anything meaningful without potentially hurting someone's feelings. It's depressing to see "acceptable" area of expression being more and more limited by political correctness to the point where not only politicians, but also companies or even individuals sound like robots who hide their true views behind a mask of wooden speech.
So far at least, presenting men in a way that's physically attractive seems ok, but the way it is going, I won't be surprised if soon we see calls for male characters with the "right" proportions, since young, sensitive men cannot bear the terror of broad shoulders and trained abs and feel the pressure of having to emulate unrealistic models.
At some point focusing solely on graphics and not taking any chances in design resulted in games that look nice but aren't that much fun to play anymore. Sales stagnated, as people turn towards indie or even vintage titles (there's a reason why gog.com is as popular as it is). Unfortunately the big players misread falling or stagnant sales as demand for even better graphics or they just blame it on piracy and try to force always-on DRM on us.
@ekesp93 Ah yes, I'm certain ME3 was meant from the very start to only have one new companion character who happens to be the most bland and uninteresting in the entire series. They also meant not to include Javik in the plot and it was a pure coincidence that the theme of a prothean super-weapon appeared at exactly the same time Javik does. They had the character design done, the dialogues, interactions with other crew members and cutscenes all ready to ship on the disc. They just changed their minds about it "fitting with what the game wanted to do" in the very last moment.
Then they decided to include it free with all the collector's editions as apparently it only didn't "fit with what the game wanted to do" for the regular players. Apparently their game aims to do different things depending on how much a player is willing to pay. I suppose that's one way of looking at it...
If I were you, I'd cut down on appeals for other people to use their heads man. If you actually believe that stuff, you're clearly not using yours enough.
I might not be an industry insider but I can recognize a bs when I see one. Dear Mr Hines, if you ARE capable of offering the content on the day of the game's launch, then clearly, you are able to include it in the game proper. You can't argue that you have to charge for it because you couldn't make it on time, if it's quite self-evident that you CAN make it on time. Hell, you can usually make it early enough for the said content to be on the game disc!
I really do not care whether your employees made the content while the game was already "being finished". For that matter, I strongly doubt that was the case given that day 1 DLCs appear to be an integral part of some companies' marketing strategy, so they were clearly planned in advance rather than some last minute effort to add stuff into the game.
While I don't pretend to be an industry expert, I believe that making games that require 5 or 6 million sales to turn a profit is a very risky strategy. Even for AAA games that's quite a target. I'd look at the cost side of their business rather than analysing why those game didn't sell yet another million. I mean there are devs out there that can make quality games without a 100 million budget - CD Projekt RED comes to mind.
The only thing I'm concerned about is that SE will be tempted to increase their revenue by getting into microtransactions, day 1 DLCs and all this stuff. It'd be a shame as they have been pretty decent in those areas so far.
Great dev, great approach. Not many of those left these days in the mainstream. Also, clearly not many editors old enough to understand what "RTS" stands for and why it's not a synonym to a "strategy game".
Sooo, in other words we've mades a mistake here and there but we're mostly proud of being called the worst company in America because that's due to us supporting LGBT. We're the progressive, kind-hearted people, really. It's those disgusting homophobes that make us look bad.
Seriously, how is it even possible those people are THAT inept when it comes to the communication with their own customers. It seems like they can't even apologize without pissing people off even more.
entan's comments