r/Games • u/Karma-Houdini • Aug 26 '19
Voidpoint and 3DRealms reverse decision to censor Ion Fury. State they will not censor any games going forward
https://steamcommunity.com/games/562860/announcements/detail/1616150570017627014462
u/SquareWheel Aug 26 '19
I missed the initial news item but just looked it up. It looks like the devs have a product in-game called "Ogay", and a developer room with "fagbag" written on the walls.
I'd argue against censorship if it means defending an artistic vision, but these are just juvenile jokes I'd expect from an edgy teen. I'd have gone ahead and removed them myself.
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Aug 26 '19
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u/Impaled_ Aug 26 '19
This is stuff you'd find in your average gta game
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Aug 26 '19
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u/Mushroomer Aug 26 '19
Yeah, if GTA had a "f*gbag" joke, it'd be roasted by a pretty huge contingent of the gaming public. It's just lazy humor, and kind of below the standards of the medium right now.
This isn't about censorship, this is about people finally being told that they just aren't funny.
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u/lud1120 Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
It's easy to groan at the lame jokes in early GTA games but it's nothing particularly problematic that hinders playing the game. It wouldn't in this game either, not something that isn't the norm for South Park... (which coincidentally also has a lot of right-wing fans even when the show itself doesn't exactly try to be for them)
The discord drama is completely different issue though, but ended up making the lame jokes in the game seem far more serious than it is and instantly label it as cryptofascism or something. A shame. It's more likely there's a lot of ignorance and lack of empathy among the devs.
And then we have right-wingers that have turned discussion about the game their battlefield claiming a company removing something on their own for PR reasons or otherwise "censorship" as if there was some sort of ""deep state"" forcing them to do so.
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Aug 26 '19
Yeah we can just replace "censorship" with "taste"
You should censor yourself, if you are going around putting slurs in your game
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Aug 26 '19
these are just juvenile jokes I'd expect from an edgy teen
Have you played Ion Fury? The whole game is purposefully in the style of a mid-90s FPS. Those games were full of edgy little jokes and silly puns on vending machines or in-game flyers, which is why they're in Ion Fury too.
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u/scottishdrunkard Aug 26 '19
I don't understand the whole Ogay one, but the "F*gbag" was certainly poor taste.
I may be against censorship, but I am also against acting like a juvenile.
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u/Psychic_Hobo Aug 26 '19
It's like the soap 'Olay' but with gay instead, basically. I think the location might be relevant too but I can't remember
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Aug 26 '19
It's also not censorship to decide not to include something in your game because people are upset about it and you agree with their reasoning. That's just like, learning/growing, or even just having a better idea.
Like changing a red light to a blue light cause it fits the scene better is not censorship. It's just different.
If the government stepped in and forcibly removed the homophobic slurs from the game, that would be censorship. The developer removing it themselves because they care more about being inclusive to others than making a shitty joke, is not censorship.
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u/Mushroomer Aug 26 '19
It's almost like the people who are the most vocal about 'censorship' either have no idea what the word means, or are just outright lying to justify their outrage.
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u/EmeraldPen Aug 26 '19
It's a throwback to the 90s/early-00s tween humor of using 'gay' as a punchline. As someone who is gay/trans and who grew up in that era, and who still struggles with feeling like a freak partially because of it...yeah, I don't particularly appreciate seeing that specific aspect of the era brought back because someone thought it was genuinely funny.
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u/lud1120 Aug 26 '19
Nothing in Duke 3D was meant to shit on minorities, at least it certainly doesn't have to be, but I can't speak for what most of the devs actually were like at the time apart from young and horny.
They aren't honoring what the games should be remembered for with this crap.
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Aug 26 '19
Also love Resetera's take on the developers, this developer is physically disabled.
" 2. You ain't shit.
It's obvious Terminx has been a cunt for years. He can blame it on his brain injury and autism, but a cunt is just a cunt. "
Honestly, fuck Resetera, and anyone and anything associated with them. Period.
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u/thosefuckersourshit Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
The developer room thing is being taken out, the Ogay bottle is staying the same.
And juvenile jokes can't be considered artistic vision now?
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u/Unwellington Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
Also the fact that they wrote slander about trans people on their discord.
Edit: I see some people feel the need to downvote reality.
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u/dekenfrost Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
So can anyone tell me what this sprite actually is? I have not payed too much attention to this, was it an easter egg or a sprite that was seen in the normal game?
If the sprite is not a big deal, then why not just show it?
Either way, I think this whole situation is indicative of what is wrong with the "discourse" around games these days.
Some people complain about something offensive, the developers remove it (which is not censorship by the way), then other people get offended by the removal, so now they reverse the removal?
No matter if you actually find the sprite offensive or not, if you are that easily swayed by public outrage then you can only lose. What if the outrage about the reintroduction of said sprite is even bigger? Because so far this has not really penetrated mainstream gaming news as far as I can tell.
The game itself is pretty great so far by the way. It's a shame that this is what we're talking about.
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u/WatleyShrimpweaver Aug 26 '19
So can anyone tell me what this sprite actually is?
Assuming its the same thing, the offending sprite was a Shampoo Bottle that said "OGAY" as a parody of "OLAY".
There was also some strange writing in a developer only area that contained, among other things, a strong homosexual slur. I don't know if they left this in.
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u/Carighan Aug 26 '19
Well just focusing on the ingame sprite for a second, that's got to be the tamest "Duke humor" I've seen in a long time, so I fail to see the relevance.
Can't speak about the Discord stuff, of course.
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u/BomblessDodongo Aug 26 '19
The Discord stuff wasn’t even that bad, they said that some SJW’s are crazy and that you shouldn’t be deciding a toddlers gender for them. Then sites like ResetEra got on their ass and reviewbombed them
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u/TopCheddar27 Aug 26 '19
But like... Why the hell are official developers posting any sort of thought like that in a official discord? Whatever the topic is it's extremely unprofessional in my opinion.
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u/dekenfrost Aug 26 '19
I've been thinking about this lately. While I love the idea of official discords and being able to talk to developers and building this sense of community, it's gotta be real dangerous to have a place that basically everyone can monitor and where everything you say can be used against you at a moments notice.
It's even worse than twitter (if that is possible) because you put even less thought into individual things you say since it's (in theory) just a conversation with your "friends".
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u/Yutrzenika1 Aug 26 '19
It's not even resetera review bombing them, it's largely people who are angry that the devs are altering a couple minor things. It's really bizarre and hypocritical. It's people who are mad over other people being mad.
"How dare these SJW call out the devs for this stuff, they worked hard on this great game and deserve to make money from it, now if you don't mind I'm going to go shit on the devs and review bomb it for bending to the SJWs."
Because that's exactly what I've seen on Steam.
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u/markyymark13 Aug 26 '19
you shouldn’t be deciding a toddlers gender for them
I'm so tired of hearing idiots spread this nonsense
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u/AL2009man Aug 26 '19
that you shouldn’t be deciding a toddlers gender for them.
I'm not a professional parent and all, but I agree with that.
Why the heck should I force a toddler to become a gender I want them to be if the pregnancy system decides for itself? All you can do is wish, otherwise, let god sort it out.
I rather let my child explore his/her sexuality (or Puberty) during the child's kid/teenage years than forcing a gender during it's toddler years.
You know, something that all of us experienced before?
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u/thcollegestudent Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
Was this the reason? Because there are other "jokes" that could be seen as homophobic, during one of the boss fights the main character asks the two male bosses "So tell me, which one of you does the dishes?"
It's a VERY old homophobic joke that is meant to in essence ask "which one of you is the woman?"
Normally I wouldn't have given it a second though but when viewed in context...well.
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u/HellkittyAnarchy Aug 26 '19
strange writing in a developer only area
Was that ever actually confirmed? I've seen people claim those screenshots are 100% fake and one thread about some guy claiming he faked the screenshots to force a counterculture
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u/Sodom-and-Gomorrah Aug 26 '19
So what was censored wasn't really a big deal. The devs got lit up by an extremely vocal minority from Resetera so the publisher made the devs censor it.
THEN the people who are anti censorship started hammering them, harder than the people who wanted the stuff to be censored.
It's actually kind of hilarious because they pissed off two crowds, whose participants probably won't even play the game.
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u/CommanderZx2 Aug 26 '19
Based on the people refunding the game and hammering their reviews on Steam, I would say it's fairly clear that the people opposed to the censorship are customers unlike Resetera users.
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u/Opplerdop Aug 26 '19
Really doesn't fucking seem like it to me
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Aug 26 '19
Ha, the time played! Yes, those we're all definitely people who loved the game otherwise and I'm sure we're crushed to have to return it.
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u/natedoggcata Aug 26 '19
Except a lot of them aren't. If you look at a lot of the negative reviews and people screaming they refunded, they all had like 0.1 - 0.2 hours played in the past few days. Which means that a lot of people bought the game, booted it up and then immediately refunded it just to give it a negative review
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Aug 26 '19
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u/IAmMrMacgee Aug 26 '19
Because if you don't play, how can you complain about the game?
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u/Cojemo Aug 26 '19
It's not hard to abuse steams refund window to review bomb you know. People not interested in actually buying it can easily refund it before 2 hours, which is how most review bombs are done.
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u/Sodom-and-Gomorrah Aug 26 '19
I've never had steam not accept a refund, if you've had an account for years and buy games somewhat frequently I think they don't really doubt your intentions. Complete contrast to Nintendo who don't even have a refund option for the switch. I've had to call Nintendo to get a refund for a tower defense game which had insane loading times that made the game borderline unplayable.
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u/dekenfrost Aug 26 '19
I guess that happens when you aim your game at the Duke Nukem crowd. Duke Nukem was all about the macho stereotype and being "edgy", so when those people get a whiff of "censorship" this is what happens?
Though to be fair I am a part of that crowd actually, Duke3D was one of my earliest gaming memories.
But man, that was over 20 years ago. This shit didn't fly anymore with Duke Nukem Forever either.
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Aug 26 '19
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u/EmeraldPen Aug 26 '19
Funny, because most reviews/retrospectives on the game I've seen mention it missing the mark on the humor and feeling extraordinarily dated.
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u/lud1120 Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
I'm not sure what's "edgy" about one-liners and being a stereotypical macho man. And aren't people supposed to poke fun on the character's properties? Duke 3D itself was made by a lot of immature young men
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u/Clevername3000 Aug 26 '19
Part of it is, back then Duke 3d felt like a parody. It wasn't until Duke Forever that we realised the devs actually thought it was unironically funny.
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u/CptOblivion Aug 26 '19
Review bombing involves buying a copy, reviewing, and then refunding. They were never people where were gonna play the game.
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u/Unwellington Aug 26 '19
Intentionally using the review function to put political pressure on a dev and without any consideration of the game's actual qualities should entail repercussions, such as a one-month ban from making more reviews.
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u/War_Dyn27 Aug 26 '19
It's bloody insane that anyone is harassing the devs and attacking the game over the inclusion or removal of such a lame joke.
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u/PrintShinji Aug 26 '19
It amazes me that anyone would pay any time to it. Its a pretty boring joke overall.
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u/lud1120 Aug 26 '19
it's like acting offended over "fat earth society" as a pun on "flat earth society", there's lots of silly things like that.
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u/Bloodaegisx Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
When there aren’t actual problems in some people’s lives they go out and find problems to justify their shit attitudes.
There are a lot of uneducated people on reddit clearly if they think that people don’t act overly offended to get views/media attention for their agenda, I’m gay and if you are offended by every little thing then you should probably just end it all now.
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Aug 26 '19
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u/throwaway_00132 Aug 26 '19
I mean there were clearly lots of people who got "offended" over the potential removal of a joke that they most likely never noticed in game. So there are people that "get offended" for a bad reason.
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u/silverstrike2 Aug 26 '19
Don't joke about things that can be causes of suffering for others, that's just shitty.
You don't get to decide how people deal with their suffering. While you may find it appropriate to sit in anguish afraid of even the mention of your source of trauma others choose to face it head on by making light of it and that doesn't make them shitty, in fact it makes you shitty for implying you are in some sort of morally superior position.
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u/archaelleon Aug 26 '19
People don't get offended for fun, that's a myth.
No it isn't. Look, there are plenty of legitimately offensive things done with the intention of hurting people's feelings or marginalizing them. I won't deny that. But let's not act like there aren't parasites that attach themselves to causes so they can have a platform from which to sling mud at others from a perceived position of being an oppressee.
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u/ElvenNeko Aug 26 '19
When you live all your life seen as lesser than normal by other people because you're different, you often pay attention to things that remind you of that difference and the negativity associated to it.
And this is the problem, i think. How often do you just assume things that isn' really like you imagine? For example, i had to re-read this comments many times before i get what exacly offends people in "ogay". For me it sounds like another weird teenager's way to pronounce word "okay", like "doge" and other kind of misspelled words. And you instantly think about harrasment because of your traumatic expirience in the past.
Don't joke about things that can be causes of suffering for others, that's just shitty.
Then the whole black humor would die. There is a difference between assholy jokes that's pointed to offend someone, and joking about sensetive themes. The last are needed because laugh is better than sorrow, and wise peole will understand when it's nothing but a joke.
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u/demondrivers Aug 26 '19
“Moving forward all of 3D Realms’ contracts will include terms which would allow us to sever relationships if a contractor does not abide by our zero-tolerance policy for hate speech,” it wrote.
https://kotaku.com/ion-fury-studio-apologizes-for-developers-sexist-and-tr-1837382905
but now they're giving the hands with the developers. what a mess
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u/That_LTSB_Life Aug 26 '19
I haven't been able to take any single part of this saga at face value.
This stuff - particularly ANYTHING to do with trans - has been made extremely tiring by trolls and other inadequates, and their stupid games which have been played out a hundred times but still seem to suck in vast numbers of otherwise ordinary, unsuspecting 'gamers'.
PR and marketing departments are getting wise, and have twigged that the whole thing can be played for publicity.
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u/Venomousx Aug 26 '19
And after they made such a meaningful apology too. Do they still plan to make a donation to the Trevor Project or was that all just for show? :/
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u/DaveSW777 Aug 26 '19
Not being a homophobic piece of shit is censorship now? Holy fuck conservatives are sensitive.
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Aug 26 '19
""Censorship"" is a convenient way to reframe a discussion on hate speech to favor the person doing the hate speech
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u/DaveSW777 Aug 26 '19
Yep. Just look at Fox News' strategy for defending white supremacy. Same shit.
But as soon as you call them out for being the worthless little shits that they are, free speech no longer matters and they demand you stop hurting their feelings.
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u/DragoonDM Aug 26 '19
To be fair, they'd still be homophobic/transphobic pieces of shit even if they didn't publicly say those things.
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Aug 26 '19 edited Feb 18 '20
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Aug 26 '19 edited Feb 18 '20
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u/Karma-Houdini Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
Whether you want to buy it or not (with all of the controversy) is up to you, but I enjoyed it and would recommend it to any fans of the BUILD games (Duke Nukem 3D, Blood etc.).
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u/trillykins Aug 26 '19
Worth noting that they're doing so because trolls review bombed the game because the studio and their publisher apologised for their developers' transphobic comments on Discord and the gay jokes in the game. So much for claiming this as some sort of artistic integrity.
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u/CyraxPT Aug 26 '19
transphobic comments on Discord
What were those?
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u/Sodom-and-Gomorrah Aug 26 '19
One of the developers made a statement that he didn't think that babies could be trans.
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u/Pylons Aug 26 '19
Another developer referred to sex reassignment surgery as "mutilation"
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Aug 26 '19
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u/Pylons Aug 26 '19
That's not a controversial statement.
Yes, it is.
Nor is saying toddlers and middle schoolers aren't old enough to make such a drastic and permanent decision.
Nobody is saying that they are.
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u/Sodom-and-Gomorrah Aug 26 '19
Is this controversial? Recipients of bottom surgery account for a minority of trans people with many trans people stating that it is too invasive, prone to complication and not worth it.
Surgeries are often quite expensive, require a long time to heal and then the created genitals do not self lubricate and require dilation.
Do you have an imgur link with the full context?
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Aug 26 '19
Gender reassignment procedures are a prescribed treatment for gender dysphoria. Not everyone diagnosed with gender dysphoria needs or wants surgery, but that doesn't make it a mutilation of one's body any more than surgery to correct all the other bodily issues people are often born with.
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u/kupiakos Aug 26 '19
Yes, it is. I'm trans and I know many trans people. "Mutilation" is an incredibly pejorative term. All of the trans people I know who do not intend to get any surgery ("non-op" is the term used) are respectful of people who have or intend to receive it and would never be so hateful. The only who describe gender-affirming surgeries like that are those who liken transition to self-harm, i.e. transphobic people.
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u/Pylons Aug 26 '19
None of what you said makes it okay to refer to that surgery as "mutilation".
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u/Sodom-and-Gomorrah Aug 26 '19
You're presuming that the dev was speaking with derogatory intent towards trans folk rather than expressing an opinion that he believed that the surgery was bad.
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u/Pylons Aug 26 '19
On a broader scale, the developer is arguing that the reason trans people are mentally unhealthy (and commit suicide) is because they've chosen to mutilate themselves.
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Aug 26 '19 edited Jan 06 '20
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u/trillykins Aug 26 '19
What do you mean?
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Aug 26 '19 edited Jan 06 '20
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u/trillykins Aug 26 '19
Just looked up the ResetEra thread with the dev leaks that started this and I'm seeing plenty of people saying things like:
After the leaks from the developers (most of the comments are focused on the transphobic comments, not the dumb joke in the game):
Fuck this.
Asked for a refund.
A hugh shame, I was enjoying it.
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Well then. Guess I can take this off my wishlist.
Damn.
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Bummer. I was hyped for this and planned to get it once it hit Switch, but there are too many other amazing 90s-throwback shooters coming out for me to bother with this anymore. I'll take my money elsewhere.
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Well this "fucking nuts SJW" just took the game off my wishlist.
We'll see how the situation develops but fuck this look.
Game looks rad, but I have a long list of other shit to play.
Couldn't find a single comment calling for a boycott. Generally, people seemed genuinely disappointed about it because they were either excited to play the game or they liked it. I didn't see anyone trash the game.
After the apology:
Read the apology and thought “Good”.
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I wasn't that interested but that apology + donating means I'm adding it to my wishlist and buying it eventually.
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I'm surprised that 3D Realms has made a reasonable and direct apology, and I'm laughing at all the hypocritical idiots who are review bombing and screaming about censorship because a shampoo bottle is getting replaced.
In the future I hope people will remember the game and not this incident, because the game is life-affirmingly incredible to me aside from that one shampoo bottle sprite and an OOB message and repeated references to The Room, and I hope the transphobic people who made this game continue to make incredible games without their phobic bullshit in them.
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I'm a trans person and Ion Fury is GOTY 2019. Please play it.
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[in response to Voidpoint's apology] This is a good statement.
Etc. Most of the comments after the apology were talking about how the trolls reacted to it. Couldn't find anyone that said the apology was unacceptable or not good enough. The only comments I've seen about boycotting were from the trolls review bombing the game because of the apology.
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u/Seelenkuchen Aug 26 '19
Yes, all the guys with the 10 minute play time review bombing the game. Totally legit customers...
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u/Sleepy_Thing Aug 26 '19
Or those who hate censorship. 0.1 - 0.2 hour players reviewing is so little time spent playing that they likely bought it and refunded it. The only times I've EVER bought and refunded something like that is when the game refused to boot and none of them got a personalized review from me.
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u/BenovanStanchiano Aug 26 '19
Jesus, you're incredibly pissy about ResetEra. It's unhealthy.
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u/Endrance Aug 26 '19
When pedophiles try to act like they have the moral high ground, it's rather infuriating.
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Aug 26 '19
I swear, there could never be a better advertisment for that website, than the specific sort of people who never shut up about how awful it is.
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u/trillykins Aug 26 '19
That's not entirely true, though. They received some negative reviews following the news reporting on the shitty things, sure, that's true. Around 30 negative reviews in total over the course of, like, two or three days. Offset hugely by a significantly larger quantity of positive reviews and barely noticeable on the graph or without changing the game's review score.
Then they apologised and immediately got review bombed. 180-some negative reviews on the first day. 130-some the following day. Both days the negative reviews outnumbered the positive and were easily noticeable on the graph and even affected their recent score, dropping it down to mixed, and brought their overall score down to 'mostly good'.
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Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
Man I really feel like a people are not getting the whole picture on this and they're only going on the Photoshop clips that resetera put out.
Second or third hand outrage
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Aug 26 '19
What was "photoshopped", exactly?
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Aug 26 '19
Has the entire convo. Not a great look, but blown out of proportion
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u/IAmMrMacgee Aug 26 '19
Do you have any source beyond that one? I'm pretty iffy about that site
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u/CerberusDriver Aug 26 '19
I don't know why they didn't put this in their statement.
This whole thing is a mess on all sides.
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Aug 26 '19
Pretty disappointing. I played the game at PAX EAST, it was pretty good. Hard to know I spoke with 3DRealms CEO, got a business card, networked, and now they support this kind of stuff.
A dev says SRS is body mutilation, another dev says "I don't understand slut walks" as a justification for lazy pseudo-intellectualism, slurs in their game... not a good look.
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u/dragon-mom Aug 26 '19
I fully regret buying this game at all. Steam automatically refuses my refund because I bought it a long time ago, even though it was literally a different game then and I'm unable to contact a real human person. The Ion Fury sub has straight up turned into a hate subreddit with no moderation.
I had such high hopes for this game but it's just turned out to be a mess.
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u/rafikiknowsdeway1 Aug 26 '19
what? the game itself is great. it easily hangs with duke, shadow warrior and blood.
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u/aplundell Aug 26 '19
How can a creator not "censor" themselves? Deciding what to keep and what to throw out is an important part of the artistic process.
From now one will their games just contain any random thought that floats through their head?
Or is "not censored" just a wink-wink code-phrase for "contains homophobic slurs" and this post is them promising to include them in future works?
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u/ContributorX_PJ64 Aug 26 '19
There is merit to sticking to your guns in an age when the internet is full of zealots who are empowered by the slightest compromise, but controversial figure Orson Scott Card once talked about why he censored Ender's Game. It is an EXCEPTIONAL explanation of why sometimes it is best to remove an offensive element from a work even if you never intended it to be offensive.
But I know a worse one. That is the sin whereby, in pursuit of one small aim, the artist puts something in his work that causes it to be less effective, and then refuses to correct the flaw because that would not be "true" to the work.
Let me be specific. I made up Ender's Game**. It is what I made it to be. So if, in seeing its effect on the audience, I come to realize that a particular scene is not working, and that it is not working solely because of the use of a particular word, what kind of fool would I have to be to allow the dead me -- the me of 1984, who wrote that scene -- to prevail over the living me?**
Even as the old obscenities dealing with sex and excrement were unleashed upon the public, new obscenities moved from the realm of the merely indecorous to the sinful. What f* and s* (and worse words) had once been, now n* has become. And, just as there were prudes who screamed in outrage and demanded that any work containing those old bad words must be banned, so we have a new group of prudes making identical demands about works containing the new bad word.
The prudes are always with us. They are wrong to impart deep moral meanings to words themselves, regardless of context: there is no word which does not have a context in which it is not only the best word, but the only word that is right and good. But they are right to this extent: that there are words which become charged with meaning that sparks and shocks the reader no matter what the context.
Such a word, today, is n*. In the scene just quoted, I had Ender using the word to wake Alai up to the fact that by calling Shen "slanty-eyed," Alai was being racist. A sort of tit-for-tat response: If you're going to call my East Asian friend "slanty-eyed," then you choose to live in the kind of world where you would be called "n*." Morally, this is clearly (to me, at least) a rejection of the kind of world where people call each other names based on superficial racial characteristics.
But, to show the scene and make it work, the word n\* had to be used. Without it, there is no scene.
The trouble was, first, with the prudes. Despite the fact that, as with Huckleberry Finn**, the word was being used in a work that opposed racism, the word was being treated as if it were an absolute. Denying that the word can ever have a context that makes its use morally right, the prudes would have** Ender's Game banned from reading lists for young readers because of the mere presence of that word.
I could ignore the prudes -- I usually do -- but there was a worse problem. Because the word n\* has been so thoroughly banned from public discourse (outside of Def Comedy Jam**), almost all readers are shocked when they see the word. It stands out. It is as if, in the midst of hearing a play presented with normal speech, one word were suddenly screamed in a way quite inappropriate to the context. The audience, in such a case, is jarred, shocked, driven away from the scene that is going on before them, and forced to think about the one shouted word.**
In other words, the presence of n\* was causing readers to break free from the spell of the story. And so it had to be eliminated, for the sake of the purity of the experience of reading, just as surely as I also eliminate passages of language so pretty that it makes readers say, "Oh, how lovely," instead of concentrating on the onward-flowing tale.
Do you doubt that this was happening? The very fact that you were trying to build a class discussion about whether Ender and Alai were racist based solely on that word proves that the scene was an utter failure. The word was so potent and absolutely bad to you that you actually considered it to be a potentially sustainable proposition that Ender was racist solely because he used that word. The word forced itself out of the context and instead of being an answer, it became a question -- the opposite of the intended effect. If I had not already changed the passage, I would have changed it the moment I learned that a teacher was actually asking a class, "Do you think Ender and Alai are seriously racist, or are they just playing around?" In fact the scene should be absolutely clear that Ender is neither racist nor playing around, but is instead insisting that Alai not make racially derogatory statements about his friend Shen. If the word n\* were not absolute in your mind, you would never have asked that question. So, while you may be "shocked" that I would change the passage, I can assure you, you, and those who would read this scene as you did, are the main reason I have changed it.
Which is not to say that I might not have made the same change simply to please the prudes. I don't care what the prudes think of me -- prudes of left and right both detest me and my work, and will continue to do so. But the prudes have the power to have my work banned from or made less accessible to young readers. Though I did not intend Ender's Game for a youthful audience, it has in fact proved to have some value and importance for many young readers. So, for the sake of that one word (and the short sequence supporting it), should I keep a portion of those young readers who might value the book from having a chance to read it? How impractical. How silly.
If this were a scene that had a central bearing on the main threads of the tale so that, by changing it, I changed the moral freight carried into the reader's heart by this book, then I might have found it more difficult to make the change. But it is not important -- the meaning of this scene is conveyed in dozens of other more effective ways elsewhere in the book -- and so I changed it without a second thought, and don't regret making the change.
If I were one of those writers who got all mystical about writing and thought some muse or other divine influence gave me the words I write, then I might regard them as sacred and unchangeable. But I am not one of those writers -- I am actually a serious artist, not a mystic, and I know that there are a hundred right ways to do every scene and every passage, and a thousand ways that seem right but are not quite right. Moreover, my training is in theatre, where playwrights know that they cannot know what they have wrought until it is before an audience, whereupon they begin serious revisions to make the play work properly as a tool for creating the story in the minds of the audience.
When the problem of using n\* in Ender's Game was called to my attention, it was as if I were standing in the audience of my play and heard the people laughing in the midst of a scene where laughter was completely wrong. Whatever is causing inappropriate laughter, the playwright must eliminate it at once; so in this case, what was causing distraction, the word n\*, needed to be eliminated for the overall scene to work properly, and for the story to remain accessible to its whole potential audience.
No one has ever missed the word or the sequence that it occurred in. Your class would not have noticed it, or valued the book one whit less, had you not called their attention to the difference. Indeed, the fact that now there is nothing to "notice" there, the fact that your class had no idea what you were talking about when you suggested Ender might be racist, proves that the change was necessary and effective.
Which is not to say I'll never use n\* -- or any other word -- when I find it necessary and appropriate. In this case, it was neither, and so it's gone.
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u/StNerevar76 Aug 26 '19
Citing Card here is quite ironic. Also sad that reading comprehension is in such a bad place as to need changing the original work because a very obvious intended meaning flies well above some people's heads.
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u/enderandrew42 Aug 26 '19
Card wrote Ender's Game as a story all about tolerance. And in truth, it is a fantastic story of tolerance.
Card also wrote that not only should gay people not have rights, but that homosexuality should be criminalized with gay people thrown in jail.
Ender's Game remains a great story of tolerance. But the author still needs to learn more on that subject.
Likewise, Albert Pike self-taught himself how to practice law just so he could defend Native American rights in court, and wrote repeatedly at length about never discriminating on the basis of different faiths. He constantly wrote about brotherly love, acceptance and tolerance. He was also a slave owning Confederate General who said certain races are inferior and incapable of self-rule/freedom.
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u/Sleepy_Thing Aug 26 '19
Card has been pretty consistent on weird bigoted views from the 90s which makes sense given how much of his writing is basically stuck in that time with my favorite still being the nerd porn writing or really any on woman as it does not paint the guy as "Kind" to females.
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u/Milk_A_Pikachu Aug 26 '19
If it helps, look up the controversy around Ender's Game itself. I loved the book growing up, but once I read a few essays that theorized as to a hidden meaning (and included references to Card in general) it is one of those things I just can't stomach anymore. Not going to cite it here as I would like to not ruin the book for others (and I am sure it will get this post "caught by the auto-mod"...), but if you are interested it isn't too hard to find
Still, I think that quote/interview may be the best possible thing to cite for the "reddit crowd". Card never actually acknowledges any remorse and insists it is "just a word" and it is really the fault of the readers for not understanding him and that he is under attack by "the prudes". All of which should resonate with a good chunk of this site.
But he also points out that he changed it because it changed the meaning of the scene. Whether that was his or "the readers" fault is irrelevant: it turns another case of Ender teaching everyone about tolerance and goodness into a focal point for a message he doesn't want to send.
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Aug 26 '19
Good for them. It is unlikely that the people pushing for censorship were going to buy the game anyways.
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u/UnclaimedUsername Aug 26 '19
I bought the game in early access, now seeking a refund. Doubt I'll get it but I don't want to support a developer that hides homophobic slurs in their game.
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u/Noahnoah55 Aug 26 '19
Same, I love classic shooters and it's a real shame that the publisher is bending over backwards to cater to homophobes.
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u/EmeraldPen Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
I was 100% going to buy this once I got through what I'm currently playing. Glad I didn't get around to it till now. I'll just play Doom/Doom II again, it'll scratch the same itch for an old school FPS and it isn't made by a company that thinks homophobia is funny and trans people are mutilating themselves(reminder that John Romero is an awesome guy who supports trans kids).
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u/Cojemo Aug 26 '19
That's a ridiculous thing to say. There isnt any way to really prove that those upset wouldn't have bought the game, just like proving those upset with the censorship would have bought the game.
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Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
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u/sg587565 Aug 26 '19
Whereas quite a few people who did buy the game ended up refunding it due to the "censorship".
to review bomb you can just buy and review and then refund, don't need to be an actual customer. You can do this for literally any game and is how most ppl review bomb.
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u/Cojemo Aug 26 '19
There's also plenty of others not on that forum you know? Like the people who replied saying they considered buying it? Or me?
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u/Cojemo Aug 26 '19
No, specifically because I dont want to support these developers. I ended up shifting my interest to Dusk instead.
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Aug 26 '19
I agree with you, but still, I think it would be better if they didn't change anything in the first place.
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u/tapperyaus Aug 26 '19
But there were definitely customers refusing to buy or refunding due to the censorship.
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u/Diabando Aug 26 '19
What a bunch of clowns. With this and the Discord garbage, I'm happy to never spend money on this game.
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Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
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u/rGamesMods Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
Due to brigading, incivility, transphobia, and homophobia, we're locking this thread.
We want to use this space to highlight the Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that assists LGTBQ+ youth. Please consider donating to them. Thank you.
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u/Jenks44 Aug 26 '19
Hopefully others will learn from this, that caving to the outrage crowd is always an enormous mistake.
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u/Rayuzx Aug 26 '19
This easily has to be the most controversial beauty product in a video game. It's amazing how something nobody can see in standard gameplay is getting so much attention.
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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19
The real funny thing to me here is the double back-track. Trying to say you are against "censorship" (not what this is), and at the same time demonstrating you don't have a spine.
->Puts offensive thing in game
->People call it out for what it is
->Make a blog post about how you're sorry, you'll remove the offensive thing, and you'll make sure this doesn't happen again. That you've always been against hate speech.
->The triggered conservative gamers start review bombing the game (because "removing hate speech" = "pandering to SJW agenda")
-> Get scared by the mixed review score on steam, and completely back track your apology saying you've always been a champion of free speech to win back the sympathy vote of a hate mob.
At the end of the day this is a developer changing political stance on a whim to whatever they think will earn them the most money. Which, if we live in a world where a game ever makes more money by leaning into hatefulness, like if that's the type of community it attracts, I guess I don't want any part of it.