General Gaming Chat

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, it's Persona 5.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I've still never gotten around to playing a Persona game. I feel bad about that. It was from a gallery of 2016 games the person had been looking forward to. The other one I didn't know that looked interesting was Dreams by Media Molecule  which had totally passed under my radar. Managed to work that one out though.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=hNSH1vKOK9o

 

Not entirely sure they haven't bitten off more than they can chew there.

Edited February 25, 2017 by TheFlyingGerbil

[TheMightyEthan]

Get a Vita or PSTV and play Persona 4 Golden. That's the one that got me into the series, and I don't even like JRPGs.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I have both the P4G and a vita... The wallet is willing but the flesh is weak.

[TheMightyEthan]

[CorgiShinobi]

So I nearly forgot that Yooka-Laylee was coming out in April. I was watching Gameranx's Games of April video and I noticed a comment about how someone wasn't going to get the game because of what they did to JonTron.

 

I was like, "Wait, what happened?"

 

So a few days ago Playtonic Games, developers of Yooka-Laylee, announced they were dropping JonTron's voice role in the game. You know, the work he supplied a few years ago because he was one of their biggest supporters as a huge fan of the Banjo-Kazooie series. But given JonTron's highly controversial and possibly misspoken comments from some stream/podcast, they've taken the approach of pleasing the offended parties and disassociating themselves from him.

 

Playtonic Games ultimately have the right, but the real shitstorm is from something else. For those who disagreed with the decision to remove JonTron and wanted a refund, a.k.a. no game, they're being denied a refund and censored on the official forums and Steam forums. Compound this with people from Playtonic Games shit-talking the people demanding refunds and you've got a recipe for mediocre sales. You know, something akin to another Kickstarter game that was a spiritual successor to a prior series.

 

Lately I feel as though the Internet is entering a new age of McCarthyism. Sniffing out the secret Nazi/racists and putting an end to their career, even if there's little evidence to convict someone of being such a person. JonTron's comments were pretty bad, and I've always thought if I ever met him we'd be oil and water, but I respect the guy for the content he pushes out there for people to enjoy. I honestly don't envy the people who have made a career of being Internet famous as now you're being analyzed on a scale of SJW-to-Nazi.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Atomsk88

[toxicitizen]

To be fair, what JonTron said was completely fucking stupid and ignorant at best. He most certainly has some very problematic and racist views. Like, take the similar controversy that happened with PewDiePie a few weeks ago. I can't really stand the kind of content he makes but he seems like a fairly decent dude and I don't buy for a second that he's a "nazi" or whatever. I've seen the video that sparked the controversy and to me it seemed obvious that it was just edgy humor. I think the worst you can realistically accuse him of is showing very poor judgement in making that joke (it was) but I feel like the entire thing was taken out of context and blown way out of proportion. But when JonTron literally says "rich black people commit more crimes than poor white people", I mean... come the fuck on. There is no context where that is not an insanely racist thing to say. His views on immigration are also crazy hypocritical considering he himself is the son of immigrants.

 

I agree with you that the internet is starting to get pretty crazy about this stuff lately and labels like "literal nazi" are thrown around way too fucking quickly but, unlike PewDiePie, I don't think the reaction to JonTron's comments is blown out of proportion or even remotely unfair. He said some pretty vile stuff and when you make a living as a public figure there are consequences for voicing such problematic views. At the end of the day, any damage to his brand was of his own doing.

 

I'm curious about the part where you mention Playtonic people shit-talking those asking for refunds, though. Do you have a link for that or something? I haven't heard anything about that.

[deanb]

There's no such thing as a "refund" on a Kickstarter project though. The project is funded, completed and releasing soon. To repeat the usual mantra: Kickstarter is not a store. And it's getting advertised all over the place, I'd say it's gonna do fairly well. Especially for a new series.

 

From what I've gathered on JonTron he's not only said some pretty shitty stuff but when called out on it rather than being "oh yeah, I run a channel that has kids watching and such" he just went and did a non-apology and doubled down on it.

 

Whats funny is I've seen folks saying that Playtronic removing him from the game is against his first amendment rights...which don't exist over here and in fact our free speech laws do come with a bunch of caveats against hate speech. (also his speech, given the style of the game, is mostly gonna be gobbledygook anyway). AND HE STILL HAS A PERSONAL CHANNEL WITH 3M SUBSCRIBERS.

[Mister Jack]

Removing Jontron's contribution to the game in light of the recent controversy is an understandable decision, even if I think it's an unnecessary one, but banning everyone who complained on the steam forums and then going on twitter and mocking people who are upset about the decision is just dumb, dumb, dumb.  That sort of childish behavior just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  If they were determined to remove him from the game, they should have just put out their statement and then gone completely silent on the matter until it blew over.  There's nothing to gain from intentionally riling people up, and I'm pretty sure this will end up affecting their bottom line. The kickstarters won't get refunds, but they will get to write steam reviews, and they're probably going to nuke the game's rating to Kingdom Come.  Not everybody keeps up with gaming news.  There are bound to be people who see that the game has a negative rating and decide to pass on it without looking into it.

 

The Steam forum for the game has turned into an absolute clusterfuck, too.  All they accomplished by banning people was encourage an army of shitposters to come and take over the entire board.

[toxicitizen]

The kickstarters won't get refunds, but they will get to write steam reviews, and they're probably going to nuke the game's rating to Kingdom Come.  Not everybody keeps up with gaming news.  There are bound to be people who see that the game has a negative rating and decide to pass on it without looking into it.

From what I understand, Valve recently made changes so that reviews that come from family sharing, free keys and (I think) keys bought from outside of Steam don't count towards the score. Which means that even if the backers denied refunds (which, as dean pointed out, they are not entitled to) all gave negative reviews, they still wouldn't affect the game's overall score. 

 

Honestly, this is just a vocal bunch of shitty people being shitty people. It'll blow over and, if Yooka-Laylee turns out to be a quality game, I think it'll do fine in the long run.

Edited March 29, 2017 by FLD

[deanb]

On the Twitter front I've had a nosy around and tbh can't find any actual "mocking" tweets, just people saying they're mocking folks on twitter. No links, no screenshots, nothing. Seems to be just hearsay.

 

This seems to be the closest:
https://twitter.com/PlaytonicGames/status/845337144801591298

[Mr. GOH!]

The people defending JonTron are being anywhere from silly to repugnant. He's a straight-up racist.

[TheMightyEthan]

This comic pretty much sums up my thoughts.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Sad lack of sympathy and maturity on both sides as usual. Of course neither will admit it.

[CorgiShinobi]

So funny enough I was submitting this post when the forum went down. I'll keep it much shorter.

I didn't talk about this to bring up the character of JonTron. What was said is pretty self explanatory in its nature, and all of you on Twitter can find his tweet where he understands Playtonic's decision and wishes them the best of luck. I find it hyperbole to call Jon a white supremacist, but one does have to be a fool to say racist shit and ultimately he had his Kill Whitey moment. I hope he can get his act together because YouTube is not an easy career, even when you're not controversial and have adoring fans.

As for the proof of the shit-talking, I looked into it much further and it seems to be a combination of locks/blocks and people from Team 17, the publisher of Yooka-Laylee who were creating a PR nightmare. Maybe it's because Playtonic Games is a new studio, but is it normal for a publisher to be in charge of forums for a game? So really a couple of bad eggs spoiling the bunch.

The best I can find at this time, and not being on Twitter myself, is a brief segment from a YouTuber whose video had some screenshots off Twitter. For your sake end it at 8:50 because the guy gets it wrong afterwards by misunderstanding the Banjo-Kazooie method of speech.

But there-in lies the irony of this controversy and why I felt like posting this topic. If there was a vocal minority of people adamant on not having Jon's garbled speech audio in the game, why are those who want to keep the "gurble-burgle" audio the idiots? Yes, you could say there is a composition of idiots and racists who want the audio back in, but at the same time you could say there's a vocal minority who won't even be getting the game and wanted to have Jon punished for his comments. It's not like having his audio in the game changes the game for better or worse, but people are working off of "the principle" with no idea what it evens sounds like or what character was given his garbled voice.

So at the end of the day, Playtonic Games had to decide which foot to shoot off. The one that labels them as racists by an online community, or the one that labels them SJWs by an online community. If you ask me, it looked like Playtonic Games would have preferred to have Jon's audio fly under the radar, but once someone points it out, you can't stay neutral lest you incur the wrath of both sides.

 

[deanb]

Has been doing the rounds. Will need subtitles on mind.

[toxicitizen]

New video from Noclip, the guys that made that DOOM documentary a few months ago. This time it's about The Witness and Jon Blow. Spoiler warning, if you have any interest in playing The Witness and still haven't done so, the video talks about the one thing I'd say qualifies as a major spoiler.

I'm not done watching it yet but it's pretty interesting so far. One of the core ideas in the game is something he actually came up with before even making Braid and it was in a bit of a different form, so it's pretty cool to get some insight into how it became the game we played last year.

[toxicitizen]

First trailer for Code Vein from the God Eater team.

I haven't really dug into God Eater yet but I'm definitely on board with Anime Souls. More Souls imitator are always welcome, hopefully it doesn't disappoint. I don't think platforms are announced yet but given the genre and UE4, I think PS4 and PC are safe bets. Maybe X1 but you never know, Japanese devs have a tendency to skip it altogether.

Edited May 2, 2017 by FLD

[Thursday Next]

Have you played the Nioh? It is very Souls-y. Was hoping it would be more Bloodborne-y so I'm not enjoying it as much.

[toxicitizen]

Nah, it looks great but I don't have a PS4. It's Koei Tecmo, so I'm hoping it'll come to PC eventually.

[Mister Jack]

Sony is the publisher for that game so I'd say it's about as likely as Uncharted on PC.

[TheMightyEthan]

If they don't own the game itself though the developer could always get a different publisher for PC.

[toxicitizen]

They're only publishing it outside of Japan, kind of like a reverse Demon's Souls. I don't think they funded development in any way nor do they own the IP. There's always a chance some kind of permanent deal was struck but it could easily be timed. They don't own it like they do Bloodborne.

@TheMightyEthan More likely they'd just self-publish it on Steam like they do with all their non-contract games.

Edited May 3, 2017 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

[TheMightyEthan]

Paradox has announced a Mars colonization game developed by the Tropico team.

Color me interested.