23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:
That's just my point though: the game was clearly never intending to be historically accurate. You can see it in pretty much every aspect of the trailer. And again, Battlefield has been extremely far from historically accurate since it's inception.
I think at this point the devs themselves twittering probably has become the bigger problem than anything else. Of course one of the devs had to virtue signal. While I personally simply found the twitter message only slightly cringy, probably will send the signal to the anti-SJWs that the whole thing isn't blown out of proportion (which it probably still isn't, there is always someone who posts crap on twitter...), or give them the justification in their own eyes at least to keep attacking the game.
Yeah... if I was Dice, or EA, I probably would tell devs to either stay off twitter or social media, post as anon or have them go through PR and legal with every post to get approvement. Especially when posting from an official account... but even so, if its a name people recognise, probably would want them to only post pre-approved stuff.
At this point, EVERY communication which goes into social issues territory, attacks part of the fanbase (or the trolls), or can else somehow misconstrued as provocation probably will only make matters worse.
But then lets see where this goes... Battlefield will probably still sell no matter the dislikes, so I don't expect much to come out of this anyway. Compared to the "CoD goes to space" game the reason for the dislikes, and the twitter nonsense it sparked is very much "nerd drama", whereas even the normie players of CoD probably where not that much into CoD becoming a space shooter.
23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:
b): But why shouldn't IPs evolve? Look at James Bond (as an example, since my dad is a huge fan and I'm really familiar with the series): it's almost unrecognizable at this point compared to the older versions (I mean a blonde Bond, omg, people had meltdowns over that when Casino Royale first came out 
). Within gaming, look at how different the new God of War is from the older ones. The point is that IPs change: they have to change to keep pace with changing cultural and economic realities. The old God of War was a game essentially catered towards testosterone in an era when games were about non stop action with little reason or thought given to why. These days are different. The new one is much different. It's about a journey of a dad. The point is that things change. Like I said earlier, we shouldn't really ignore the fact that things have changed. And devs realize that things change so they try to keep franchises possible by changing up things.
IPs should evolve, but stay true to their roots.
James Bond is a bad example: the newer Bonds shed lots of old fans (me included) because its no longer a Bond movie.
1) James Bond actors always looked similar. Which gave the series a nice continuity throughout its long runtime. Not the most important complaint, but for me, Bond has black hair and looks like Sean Connery or Roger Moore.
2) James Bond Movies where always filled with witty humour and never took themselves very serious. The new ones don't do that for me, really. They are way too much "gritty military shooter", and don't even try to be witty or funny.
3) Daniel Craig is not a british gentleman. At least not in that role. It looks like they wanted to break with the old Bond with all their might, and achieved that.
The resulting movies would be passable as 009 (or whatever other 00-number you want to give this new agent) movies. I still would think they would probably be better of without trying to have anything to do with the 007 movies, because of the stark contrast in tone.
Again, the new movies aren't for me, but they are not terrible movies (at least some of them are actually not that bad)... and agreed, after the bad turn the series took after Golden Eye, something had to be done. I still don't think this is how an IP should evolve. Loosing what made it great is a good way to kill an IP in the long run... and it wasn't just violence and the british secret service stuff that made Bond great... other series have done that in the meantime. It was the unique combination of violence, agent shenanigans, and witty humour sparkled with a little bit of gadgets (just not the big serving we got with the 90's movies) that made Bond movies Bond movies.
The newer Bond movies are a dime in a dozen compared with movies like the Bourne series, for example.
I am still a little bit torn about the new God of War. Sure, it looks gorgeous, and must be a blast to play. Don't know if I want to babysit another sidekick character for hours, but then must be one of the less annoying sidekicks.
But it just feels like a game that tries to sell itself on a name it does no longer really deserves to carry, given how far it has evolved away from the originals. Just like the Bond movies. The original God of War games were cartoony, brutal, and in your face. This seems to be much more serious, and less mindless fun.
And given the quality of at least the new god of war, its kind of a shame it couldn't stand on its own two feet with a new protagonist, and a new IP. But then I guess that is the industries reaction to any risk nowadays... slap a recognizable name on the product and hope this alone will make up for any shortcomings it might have, and sell extra copies if it turns out good.
Again, not wanting to trash on God of War... probably will pick that one up, and I say this as someone who didn't own the originals as I wasn't that interested in the mindless Hack'n'slash it seemed to be.
23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:
c): Well 10 years ago there was also less prevalence of the Internet. I barely used it circa 2005, and most people didn't use it nearly as much as now. And around that time the pace of change was different. It's now 2018. A lot can change in approximately 10 years, and a lot has changed. I'm not sure that it's people have 'become more toxic and are just attacking one another more' that's the issue there. That seems more like a symptom and not an issue.
I was using the internet pretty often since 95, and have seen it grow. It has always been toxic. And that has only become an issue when more and more normal people joined the internets. But I digress.
I was more talking about some of the events going on in the gaming space in the last few years. I am happy I didn't pay too much attention to some of the drama back then, but still, I believe what we see today is still the aftereffect of that.
There is a clear trace of provocations (some clearly not meant as such) and toxic reactions over the years. These 'symptoms' have become the cause by now, like in any feud.
23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:
My own reading into it seems to portray that some people pointed out that the game could've had more non-whites that aren't just enemies. Then people dug into it a bit more, and were like 'yea maybe there could be some more' and the dev, a prominent Gamergate supporter, responded rather harshly, sparking a ton of fighting. My guess is that this had more to do with Gamergate than with anything else, which is itself a massively controversial subject. The Witcher 3 isn't exactly super diverse in any way and was wildly successful, and a great game imo. I'm not very familiar with history in that era, nor am I familiar with the game at all. But Gamergate anything will lead to fighting.
Again, its a hen and egg question. Did they dig when they complained (why dig in the first place?), or did the complained because they already knew him? Anyway, that is not really that interesting.
I think important to note is eastern europe. These people usually are not the most progressive minded (not meant in a bad way, and not all of course), they are attack hamsters sometimes (well, if you had to endure oppression by a superpower for 40 years and keep quiet, you'd probably wouldn't sit on your mouth now that your country gives you some freedom of expression), and sure enough, it isn't a region with a ton of PoC....
So many people come to these games with a different mindset and don't seem to understand that national pecularities can and will influence how a dev develops games and markets them, even when he tries to go global.
23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:
You seem to be of the belief that this will 'die' if we let it 'die'. And that's just what I'm saying: it won't. There wasn't anything in this trailer that was all that provocative. It looked to be a cartoony arcadey WW2 game. This isn't controversy worthy and to most people it isn't.
There's an assumption that the fuel to the fire is 'the other side' and really, I'm not sure that's true. I'd be willing to bet that it will continue to become a larger issue either way, even if we start going out of our way to not offend the other 'side'. I don't really think it is about reactions.
Yes. But again, there is now a history of bad blood for 4 years at least on both sides. This will not end in a year or two, even if we try to let it die.
Do you have a better approach though? I am willing to listen and change my opinion. I don't see any other option, but then, I am not claiming to be all knowing
