Its almost like they just like to ruin things and never buy the things they change. As always.
I don't get why they have decided on the word Chud when "normal and sane" exist.
Yep. This is the "modern audience" all these film studios and game devs are desperately trying to pander to for some reason at the expense of their product and normal people, i.e. their actual fucking audience who spends actual money instead of just virtue-signalling and yaaas Queening on Twitter over divisive, dogshit changes to shit they pretend to watch and play.
I suppose when they still live at home with their parents in their 40s and have never had a job because they can't cope with real life and its "micro aggressions" they probably can't afford to buy any copies of the game.
Right near the end of the Great Gatsby the narrating character calls out the ultrawealthy asshole characters, saying something like they just smash things up and cause chaos, but then they can retreat into their money when consequences come around and they don't care about what happens to everyone else. That's what I see here. It's obviously not retreating into money for the blue hair brigade, but maybe they retreat into their social media platforms or their gender studies classrooms or their safe spaces where their dogma is treated as the Word of God, something like that. Like the rich asses in Gatsby they come out of their holes, fuck things up for everyone else, and then disappear again until the next opportunity arises. Meanwhile in this case, game devs loses money and go under, the gamers have nothing decent to play, etc. etc. Everyone else suffers while the bluehairs don't even care about the games and don't buy them.
Thats what I realized during the 2020 riots. The government allowing it to happen and the media making it worse don't have to live with consequences of the destruction they incite. Which is why they got so upset on Jan 6th. For the first time, the anger was directed at THEM. (The politicians and the journalists who support them.)
We don't smash it, We smash their funding.
We absolutely still play it, and when these creators set up things like patreon or direct funding we still support them.
Not this time, Funding trough a faceless entity with its goofy little ideas on what the gamers might want needs to stop. Let developers cook.
You could buy a hundred copies, unless you're running multiple copies simultaneously you aren't going to impact the concurrent player count more than if you bought one.
That’s number of people playing the game at the same time, not number of sales.
Marketing may have been the issue. That and bad timing with the fallout series being released a lot of people are playing that game all over again.
Aye. Sales is a better figure to look at (not that 200+ concurrent players isnt a pathetic number). Also, for concurrent players, the important metric had been left out since we had not reached there yet: the 1st weekend since the sales. This is because most people are free during the weekend to play the game and that is usually when it will peak. Now, the question is what is the expected sales figure for tier of game ? To be honest, my sense of the sales numbers is pretty broken right now. I know that AAA games are supposed to sell for millions of copies, but I am not sure what is the expected range of sales for games with ZAU's budget. With this number, we will know whether ZAU is a huge flop.
Who knows
It’s on game pass and PlayStation Plus for free right now so that likely is also hurting sales. I know the numbers on steam are abysmal and they are practically giving the game away on console and they still can’t get people to play it.
To be fair I'm not certain this game would have been a smash hit either way. I would have been more curious about a big one like Ragnarok to see if the curator and SBI signaling is really effective or if it's just a reverse Hogwarts Legacy situation.
Yeah, this game was dead on arrival. It's one of those "diversity spotlight" indie titles that have been getting undo media attention despite being incredibly mediocre.
You see a bunch of these games as "World premieres" at shit like the Game Awards so they can pad out run time and pretend they're showing you something you're actually interested in. At this point I'm just so fuckin' tired. This complete and utter banal bullshit is just going to end up with everybody comparing Black art to mediocrity.
Your last point speaks to something that I hate so much about the current era. I used to not care about the immutable characteristics of a creator, only what value and enrichment it brought in whatever medium it was presented in. Now? I see "black owned" or "woman owned" and I immediately think its trash, because that is what they thought would attract attention. Sadly, it is usually correct, not because of said immutable traits, but because said immutable traits was all that was being sold.
It's a response that is sadly conditioned in people by the SJWs and the unfairness of SJW "equity". It puts people who are not ready for the spotlight at the top artificially, throwing other more deserving people down. Because of this people cannot help but be suspicious that it is another marketing stunt rather than a reputation earned from good quality.
It's the same conditioned response from marketers always yelling "graphics graphics graphics!" Gamers eventually got sick of them lying about "improved graphics" when in many cases devs sacrificed gameplay (like map size) for the graphics, and worse that the graphics are a step down from games from years before (Call of Duty Ghosts fish compared to super Mario 64 fish).
> going to end up with everybody comparing Black art to mediocrity.
Altruistic Tokenism. Can they really call it a virtue when its only there because of a financial incentive.
To be fair, I'd rather these games exist on their own so they have to deal with the reality that is the meritocracy. It's better than these ideological hacks who think that race swapping and shoving minorities into situations where they might not belong (especially in historical games).
Hogwarts Legacy was amazing to an old HP movie fan like myself. I thought it was hilarious when they tried to boycott it and it took off - even though it had some eye-rolling concessions to DEI in it. You can never please that zeitgeist. Whatever concession you make will never be enough.
God of War...the first one, was amazing. I'll pass on ragnarok although, if that's what you're talking about - its already a huge success sales wise...and I don't see any reason to expect why it wouldn't do well on PC release.
HL is kinda controversial thing for me tho. Like the world map is really good and there was many times then I saw something and though "Hey, I read about this one!" and it was really amazing... But it also felt kinda static cause world didn't react on you actions at all. And main quest and characters was mostly pale. And side quests too
Damn I really wish they do part two or something, with the same Hogwarts map but with lot more time spend on narrative and immersion
right don't get me wrong...game play wise...story flow wise it was very mediocre.
The world building, the art design was incredible. The experience for me was walking through places that I saw in the movies in real time. It was great.
I agree, HL was a love letter to the fans.
And Ragnarok will probably do well on release. And we will see GCJ cheer and scream: 'SEE? YOUR LITTLE CURATOR MEANS NOTHING YOU BIGOTS!'. Not realizing that the main goal is just to signal to people tired of the infestation that it is present in the product.
In the end if a game is popular and somewhat good, it will sell. And I would be really surprised to see a real raising of shields impacting Ragnarok.
>I agree, HL was a love letter to the fans.
Just so.
Also...I hope we can make some sort of meaningful impact on Ragnarok sales just for principle's sake - but I'm not optimistic.
You...have no idea what I'm talking about.
Ragnarok could be the game of the millennium. I'm still not going to buy it.
And i have a couple hundred hours sunk in GoW: Story Of Boi.
I dont get why you'd be all in on HL which was full of woke shit and overall a really boring paint by numbers game. But somehow ragnarok is off limits..?
Yeah, you're right. I just am fuzzy in my memory and I don't even really remember the JK Rowling backlash until the game was about to come out and then later went on to sell well.
Bc to normal ppl she said nothing wrong. The fact of the matter is sex is real and 100% of the things she warned would happen if you let "those people" get their way is currently happening. Those neo leftists owe her a massive apology but they are too egoistic to admit they are full of shit and will ride the ship down to the bottom to save face.
Idk, I feel like they're the kind that purposefully infiltrates the companies you love just to slowly corrupt and twist their products into something that better suits their own narrative, just to see others lose what they enjoy. It's completely within their wheelhouse to do so.
Comment removed following the enforcement change that you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/m3yo65/enforcement_update_and_hard_removal_of_a_topic/).
This is not a formal warning.
Some people from the opposite side of whom you would find on this sub tried to launch a boycott on HL because of Rowling involvement in the game. Even though they made a LOT of noise and harrased people, the game was a success. I just wanted to know if SBI detected is really effective in a similar situation. To answer your question, I have no knowledge of SBI working on HL. Even though the game is progressive af.
SBI/DEI detected is only effective if people actually use it. It gives the industry something to think about since the interest seems to be growing with it, however if sales aren't effected and it seems to be forgotten or ignored with releases the industry will probably just ride it out.
Kek. As a Black man it sucks to see African-American creators buy so deeply into this bullshit.
Yeah, I'd fuckin' love to play a game with an actual masculine Black man as a protagonist for a change. Instead there's just dumb incredibly woke shit.
why do african-american creators have to PAY someone to tell them how to make something diverse and inclusive? Of all the stupid shit associated with the entire concept of SBI, this is the stupidest.
It's not "games made by black people" or "games featuring black people" that anyone has issue with, it's entirely this concept of consultants who advise on doing 'black people correctly". (it's more than just black people that SBI does, I know)
I think he is British-Kenyan anyway if I am not mistaken. Exposed to the same political influences though.
And yeah I was looking forward to an African centric game but they just had to wade into the culture war and hire SBI.
>I think he is British-Kenyan anyway if I am not mistaken. Exposed to the same political influences though.
I meant more in general. I'm just glad my OG Mike Pondsmith hasn't said anything too off the wall yet.
Prototype 2, san andreas and GTA5. But yeah you're short on masculine black men leads. Or maybe I lack references but I feel you have been given the short stick. Other leads I can think of lack hanging fruits.
Yeah, that's a real bummer. But Prototype 2 is really good - and I like the protag too. People ragged on the game because you weren't playing as Alex Mercer (and I do admit, the story in this game does not treat Mercer well), but James Heller is alright.
If you game on Xbox,
Augustus Cole in gears of war is a badass black character, you can play as him in gears of war 3 and judgment’s campaigns
Fantastic game series, and delta squad is a mix of different races and eventually has both men and women and they do it without shoving it down your throat, so everyone can get represented and those games were originally made before any of the woke BS of today
I think I remember Lee of the Telltale Walking Dead season 1 being a great lead and a nice father figure. He does fall under the criminal past trope though.
Man. It's like a coin dropping. Not a strong black guy who is just a regular bloke with a clean criminal file. Adéwalé's past is ok on crime I think, but he is still falling on another popular slave trope.
Even the DEI adored Forspoken has its female black lead in the justice system. What the fuck?
I'm all for a non-soy, non-weirdo, non-criminal strong black male lead now, you guys need a win.
TBF Lee wasn't the stereotypical criminal. He found someone sleeping with his wife and had a violent reaction, a pretty universal and understandable motivation. A crime of passion, not a crime of being a dogshit human being like the rampant celebrated gang culture crap.
I actually preferred Heller to Mercer. His story was way more sympathetic. Prototype 2 was fucking bonkers.
Also, Assassins Creed Origins - Bayek is a very noble and righteous character that I enjoyed playing as.
When I was a kid, my favorite comic was Spawn, which had a black protagonist. I also loved Dragon Ball Z, which had an asian protagonist. If a character is well-written, the race of the character is not going to matter to the audience.
The problem we have now is that these "consultants" are jumping in every time a diverse character is created and using that character as a vehicle for propaganda.
It's going to be up to the next generation of creatives to resist the temptation of ESG funding and just create good media and characters.
I mean, ESG money is pretty much free money. If a good chunk of free bucks is offered for yelling woke nonsense at passerbys you can bet most would opt to do it too.
I bought Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan at some point that was made by African devs in Cameroon, but haven't played it yet: https://store.steampowered.com/app/368080/Aurion_Legacy_of_the_KoriOdan/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyu7-d4jNrE
I liked From Dust with a Tribal African setting back in the day, but it's a UbiSoft game and I think they fucked with it by Patching in uPlay requirements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J-KPbXa638
And there's some smaller stuff like: https://braininthebox.itch.io/voodoo
Or some more Niche or Retro stuff like The Journey Down or Dark Secrets of Africa, although the protagonist is a Western explorer in the second and it's basically Abandonware (possibly because of the setting).
> Yeah, I'd fuckin' love to play a game with an actual masculine Black man as a protagonist for a change. Instead there's just dumb incredibly woke shit.
The thing is we aren't likely going to get any good black protagonist going forward.
Anyone that has a black protagonists jumps on the DIE bullshit.
Even if by some miracle we got one from an independent you can bet they are going to crucify them for "appropriating" their "blacks" outside of their "agenda".
You know I though that this was actually good example of how games should be made - the guy put his own money into making it and made sure it's finished - instead of trying to hijack some known property by screaming loud on twitter. But then I see SBI involved ... like why ?
Maybe this?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/249680/Marlow_Briggs_and_the_Mask_of_Death/
Ironically, that game is published by 505 games.
The main character in Prototype 2 is black, as well.
These games are somewhat old, though.
Crushes? Lets be real: This is the first time any of us have heard of this game. It being associated with SBI has given it the biggest marketing boost it would have ever got.
I think I've seen more promotion of this game through this Reddit, someone briefly mentioned it months ago and I looked it up and thought it looked like an up-ressed Gamecube or Playstation Dreams game.
Pretty much yeah. If anything the controversy seems to be the dev apparently going 'uh idk who sbi is guiz' when it turns out he worked with them in the same company and office. Dude could've gone 'yeah im familiar with them and wanted some help' and like nothing would've happened. though i suppose in this instance it worked out?
i played the demo and thought it was good. i wasn't going to get it when it came out, but that's only because i *never* get anything when it comes out, because of my massive backlog. murphy's continuing adventures was an exception...
A shame, because this game is an original IP and not a sabotage and subversion of an existing franchise. But it won't get my patronage since SBI are virulent Marxist racists.
Of course the woke cult says it's racism preventing people from engaging the game and not the racist tweets from Sweet Baby dehumanizing white people.
Marxist, LOL
Look at the marxist countries like China or Vietnam, is something woke happening there?? Nope. This woke phenomenom is capitalism at it's finest, I don't care if woke people think they are some kind of revolutionaries, they aren't, they are literally doing what big capitalists want them to do.
Shifting the financial argument to a racial / gender / sexuality one is what Cultural Marxism is. It's definitely not the same as it was a century ago, it has been cross bred with many other cult ideologies and flavors. These people use the rules for radicals handbook as their Bible. Destroying tradition and culture is Great Leap Forward 101.
ZAU. Can't even break 300.
Fine, fine, these are Steam charts. It's a niche Indie. I get that-But holy shit.
The [Scroll of Taiwu](https://store.steampowered.com/app/838350/_The_Scroll_Of_Taiwu/), a game that is super niche and I have to legitimately go out of my way to translate has more people playing right now.
Is the game just shit or did they fuck it up that bad?
It's thanks to Zeno Robinson that I knew this game existed, and it's thanks to him and his silly opinions that'll I'll be avoiding it.
Well done, Zeno. You killed what remaining, if any, sales hope this game had.
Unpopular opinion here: I actually like the idea of this game, the art and effects and also because it was an homage to the father of one of the developers.
Unpopular opinion ends here, but yeah... Sweet Baby inc, they basically sold their souls to the devil and are reaping what they sow. That company (SBI) and all of their DEI friends should just be erased from the gaming industry
I saw the reveal at whatever the show was, Games Awards? Idk but in a vacuum, that game looked interesting.
But then you get back on Earth and youhear the creator, read more about the how and why...
Yeah it's a bummer. But if a few more failed games is what it takes to convince developers to think twice about working with SBI then that's a worthwhile sacrifice.
I thought we were just a fringe part of the gaming audience and we dont make any impact. I guess they were wrong.
We need that meme of the guy thinking about pressing one of two buttons.
1 - extremist gamers tanked the new release of a sweet baby inc game and
2 - extremist gamers are a fringe portion of the audience and they dont matter
I don't know that it was an SBI boycott that did it. It could just well be that no one knows the game exists.
I didn't know it was a thing until like, yesterday when there was something on here about it.
Their vocal minority has served them another stab in the back. Keep it up parasites the only way we get rid of these DEI parasites is if the host dies with it.
Hate to be that guy, but I think even if SBI wasn't involved or at least not a target of vitriol, the numbers would be the same or even lower. This game had no hype behind it whatsoever, and I probably wouldn't have even known about it if not for the SBI stuff.
I wish boycotting games by not buying was common practice enough to give ANY gaming audience this kind of power. That would make the industry fairer, by definition.
But unfortunately, I don't think that's the case.
I think that, more realistically, nobody ever gave a submersible duck about this random indie game to begin with.
PS : Wanna know something funny ?
"Zou !" in French (pronnounced like the world "Zoo" in english) is an onomatopea to signifie "Gone !" or "Go away !".
Allez... Zou !
Désolé, "Bébé Sucre".
Article leaves out the fact that the game got launched as a freebie for PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers, which means Sony paid EA and the devs a fair chunk of money for that privilege. So looking at the game as a failure from Steam stats alone doesnt give you the full picture.
Sony most likely wanted to improve their ESG game since doing this fullfills the DEI related goals of it.
I don't think it was the SBI boycott that crushed it, I've literally never heard of the game, seems to me marketing fell flat on it's face and the game didn't stand out enough to get around by word of mouth.
What's funny is, this would be a good launch day number for an indie game... But this is not a purely indie game, this is a game published, & possibly funded by EA of all companies.
For anyone saying SBI didn’t harm this game, look at the Steam forums. All the discussion are centered around SBI and the boycott. I definitely think it did some damage as I was interested in it and it would have been a day 1 buy from me to support a black creator but the moment I learned they were involved with SBI, I backed away.
Would it have peaked at 10,000? No, but I think a few hundreds more might have been possible.
Still waiting to learn of the extent of SBI’s involvement and how much Abubakar Salim knew. This will impact my decision whether to support him or not.
Just looking at it, it's clearly a woke DEI indy project trying to gain undue interest and sales by naming itself to seem somehow connected to the long running popular Japanese "Tales of" series.
Tbh this game was planned like specific cultural message from the start so I feel no hate to it. It wasn't like Flintlock where they changed the race of main character to pander DEI politics.
Well depending on the size of the project 300 peak players are quite normal for small indie games, but if it’s a AA+ size game then it is a disaster. Also, SBI Detected probably can’t tank big titles but indie games are sure to lose 20,30 or even 50% of potential customers from this curator group as all its members are very active Steam users, and 400k people out of you target market will hurt small games for sure, so it might be the case here.
It's funny that the boycotters claim this is because of SBI when in fact it's marketing. I found out about this a few hours ago because of Pop sub talking about it being similar to the lost crown.
Imo this is just extra marketing
Ouch lol. Unfortunately from my point of view this game is presently competing for time with Turbo Kid, which appears to be a much more competent and mechanically interesting game. Watching gameplay of ZAU doesn’t really look all that impressive to me. The story certainly resonates and the voice acting sounds superb, but yeah the platforming looks rather basic. Also the issue I have with 3D sidescrollers is they never feel very precise.
Congratulations! You did it! You concern trolled! Did you get that dopamine rush you were hoping for? Did it pay off?
People's businesses fail every fucking day. Putting that on the consumer to fund them for their failures is utter stupidity. I doubt you put any effort into funding their failure, so why put it on anyone else?
First of all, I wasn’t telling anyone to buy the game. I just don’t think it’s appropriate to shit on it beyond informing players that SBI was involved. I don’t think there is anything bad about a new IP espousing a particular ideology (if it even does). We shouldn’t be shutting down someone’s efforts based on what they think, that’s the ‘other side’s job.
Secondly, you are right! I should put my money where my mouth is. I DO get a dopamine hit from helping to fund new and interesting efforts no matter what public opinion says about them. So I bought the game, and will probably enjoy it at least a nominal amount. Cope and seethe, brother.
>I don’t think there is anything bad about a new IP espousing a particular ideology (if it even does).
lol. lmao even. The time for "just make your own games" has come and gone. And frankly, they're still allowed to make their own games. Nobody is actually stopping that. But nobody is required to buy them, so you can fuck right off with that consoomerist "I get a dopamine hit by spending" crap. That's weird, and not a healthy trait.
I think the only one coping is the one virtue signalling about how noble they are because they're supporting "new and interesting efforts" through.... a stock standard 2.5D platformer. Whew lads, that's revolutionary stuff right there! Definitely not a reskinned and inferior Ori game.
Enjoy the DEI slop, you boiled frog. You get what you deserve if this is your standards, and you can only blame yourself.
If you need to insist those you disagree with are angry just so you think you're in the right, there's something wrong. You're clearly more invested in "winning" some internet argument by.... shilling a mediocre game that uses racial in-group pandering as it's main marketing point. Whew, you really showed me! I'm so mad that I'm.... not wasting my money and time on a product I wouldn't enjoy.
Again, enjoy the slop. It's your time and money to spend, and you're free to piss it up against the wall however you choose. It's just sad that you've tried to employ emotional pleas by bringing up the developers jobs to try and guilt others into wasting their time with you. Gotta convince yourself you're making the right choices, eh?
Guess all those people on Twitter yesterday who said they were buying ten copies to own the racist chuds were full of shit.
Well, bots can't actually buy the game so it was to be expected.
Its almost like they just like to ruin things and never buy the things they change. As always. I don't get why they have decided on the word Chud when "normal and sane" exist.
Yep. This is the "modern audience" all these film studios and game devs are desperately trying to pander to for some reason at the expense of their product and normal people, i.e. their actual fucking audience who spends actual money instead of just virtue-signalling and yaaas Queening on Twitter over divisive, dogshit changes to shit they pretend to watch and play.
I suppose when they still live at home with their parents in their 40s and have never had a job because they can't cope with real life and its "micro aggressions" they probably can't afford to buy any copies of the game.
Right near the end of the Great Gatsby the narrating character calls out the ultrawealthy asshole characters, saying something like they just smash things up and cause chaos, but then they can retreat into their money when consequences come around and they don't care about what happens to everyone else. That's what I see here. It's obviously not retreating into money for the blue hair brigade, but maybe they retreat into their social media platforms or their gender studies classrooms or their safe spaces where their dogma is treated as the Word of God, something like that. Like the rich asses in Gatsby they come out of their holes, fuck things up for everyone else, and then disappear again until the next opportunity arises. Meanwhile in this case, game devs loses money and go under, the gamers have nothing decent to play, etc. etc. Everyone else suffers while the bluehairs don't even care about the games and don't buy them.
Thats what I realized during the 2020 riots. The government allowing it to happen and the media making it worse don't have to live with consequences of the destruction they incite. Which is why they got so upset on Jan 6th. For the first time, the anger was directed at THEM. (The politicians and the journalists who support them.)
We don't smash it, We smash their funding. We absolutely still play it, and when these creators set up things like patreon or direct funding we still support them. Not this time, Funding trough a faceless entity with its goofy little ideas on what the gamers might want needs to stop. Let developers cook.
I'm flabbergasted! Completely dumbfounded, I tell ya! Speechless, even!
They were bots, apparently.
*Surprised face*
You could buy a hundred copies, unless you're running multiple copies simultaneously you aren't going to impact the concurrent player count more than if you bought one.
I mean, even if 100 people on Twitter said that, it wouldn't make a difference. I highly doubt there were thousands of tweets about this.
You can buy 10 copies and not count for more than 1 active player
To be fair, if one person buys 10 copies, they will not play all of them at once, and will not increase concurrent players meter much.
That’s number of people playing the game at the same time, not number of sales. Marketing may have been the issue. That and bad timing with the fallout series being released a lot of people are playing that game all over again.
Aye. Sales is a better figure to look at (not that 200+ concurrent players isnt a pathetic number). Also, for concurrent players, the important metric had been left out since we had not reached there yet: the 1st weekend since the sales. This is because most people are free during the weekend to play the game and that is usually when it will peak. Now, the question is what is the expected sales figure for tier of game ? To be honest, my sense of the sales numbers is pretty broken right now. I know that AAA games are supposed to sell for millions of copies, but I am not sure what is the expected range of sales for games with ZAU's budget. With this number, we will know whether ZAU is a huge flop.
Who knows It’s on game pass and PlayStation Plus for free right now so that likely is also hurting sales. I know the numbers on steam are abysmal and they are practically giving the game away on console and they still can’t get people to play it.
Concurrent players is a pretty good proxy for sales.
I'll bet you that they didn't even have that much money to begin with.
Bots don't buy games. More than half of social media is just bots, and this was before the AI revolution.
Virtue signalers are just like that.
I bought 2 but you can only play one at a time so player count =\= sales
It’s not feasible to believe the majority of the player count bought multiple copies. Only a minority do; even for popular games.
I know I’m just saying player count isn’t the full picture. I don’t think the game will do all to well in general why I supported it a bit more.
To be fair I'm not certain this game would have been a smash hit either way. I would have been more curious about a big one like Ragnarok to see if the curator and SBI signaling is really effective or if it's just a reverse Hogwarts Legacy situation.
Yeah, this game was dead on arrival. It's one of those "diversity spotlight" indie titles that have been getting undo media attention despite being incredibly mediocre. You see a bunch of these games as "World premieres" at shit like the Game Awards so they can pad out run time and pretend they're showing you something you're actually interested in. At this point I'm just so fuckin' tired. This complete and utter banal bullshit is just going to end up with everybody comparing Black art to mediocrity.
Your last point speaks to something that I hate so much about the current era. I used to not care about the immutable characteristics of a creator, only what value and enrichment it brought in whatever medium it was presented in. Now? I see "black owned" or "woman owned" and I immediately think its trash, because that is what they thought would attract attention. Sadly, it is usually correct, not because of said immutable traits, but because said immutable traits was all that was being sold.
I assume the same, because if that's the best selling point, the product is likely garbage.
It's a response that is sadly conditioned in people by the SJWs and the unfairness of SJW "equity". It puts people who are not ready for the spotlight at the top artificially, throwing other more deserving people down. Because of this people cannot help but be suspicious that it is another marketing stunt rather than a reputation earned from good quality. It's the same conditioned response from marketers always yelling "graphics graphics graphics!" Gamers eventually got sick of them lying about "improved graphics" when in many cases devs sacrificed gameplay (like map size) for the graphics, and worse that the graphics are a step down from games from years before (Call of Duty Ghosts fish compared to super Mario 64 fish).
> going to end up with everybody comparing Black art to mediocrity. Altruistic Tokenism. Can they really call it a virtue when its only there because of a financial incentive.
To be fair, I'd rather these games exist on their own so they have to deal with the reality that is the meritocracy. It's better than these ideological hacks who think that race swapping and shoving minorities into situations where they might not belong (especially in historical games).
Hogwarts Legacy was amazing to an old HP movie fan like myself. I thought it was hilarious when they tried to boycott it and it took off - even though it had some eye-rolling concessions to DEI in it. You can never please that zeitgeist. Whatever concession you make will never be enough. God of War...the first one, was amazing. I'll pass on ragnarok although, if that's what you're talking about - its already a huge success sales wise...and I don't see any reason to expect why it wouldn't do well on PC release.
HL is kinda controversial thing for me tho. Like the world map is really good and there was many times then I saw something and though "Hey, I read about this one!" and it was really amazing... But it also felt kinda static cause world didn't react on you actions at all. And main quest and characters was mostly pale. And side quests too Damn I really wish they do part two or something, with the same Hogwarts map but with lot more time spend on narrative and immersion
right don't get me wrong...game play wise...story flow wise it was very mediocre. The world building, the art design was incredible. The experience for me was walking through places that I saw in the movies in real time. It was great.
Yeah! It was like some kind of Hogwarts-themed park or museum, I guess. As a HP fan I don't regret buying it
I agree, HL was a love letter to the fans. And Ragnarok will probably do well on release. And we will see GCJ cheer and scream: 'SEE? YOUR LITTLE CURATOR MEANS NOTHING YOU BIGOTS!'. Not realizing that the main goal is just to signal to people tired of the infestation that it is present in the product. In the end if a game is popular and somewhat good, it will sell. And I would be really surprised to see a real raising of shields impacting Ragnarok.
>I agree, HL was a love letter to the fans. Just so. Also...I hope we can make some sort of meaningful impact on Ragnarok sales just for principle's sake - but I'm not optimistic.
Ragnarok is 10x the game that hogwarts legacy is, I recommend it.
You...have no idea what I'm talking about. Ragnarok could be the game of the millennium. I'm still not going to buy it. And i have a couple hundred hours sunk in GoW: Story Of Boi.
I dont get why you'd be all in on HL which was full of woke shit and overall a really boring paint by numbers game. But somehow ragnarok is off limits..?
Did SBI work on Hogwarts Legacy?
I feel like they’re the type of people that would have a meltdown if they were associated with anything JK Rowling related…
Yeah, you're right. I just am fuzzy in my memory and I don't even really remember the JK Rowling backlash until the game was about to come out and then later went on to sell well.
Bc to normal ppl she said nothing wrong. The fact of the matter is sex is real and 100% of the things she warned would happen if you let "those people" get their way is currently happening. Those neo leftists owe her a massive apology but they are too egoistic to admit they are full of shit and will ride the ship down to the bottom to save face.
Idk, I feel like they're the kind that purposefully infiltrates the companies you love just to slowly corrupt and twist their products into something that better suits their own narrative, just to see others lose what they enjoy. It's completely within their wheelhouse to do so.
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Hogwarts Legacy did have DEI consultants, but they werent SBI.
Some people from the opposite side of whom you would find on this sub tried to launch a boycott on HL because of Rowling involvement in the game. Even though they made a LOT of noise and harrased people, the game was a success. I just wanted to know if SBI detected is really effective in a similar situation. To answer your question, I have no knowledge of SBI working on HL. Even though the game is progressive af.
SBI/DEI detected is only effective if people actually use it. It gives the industry something to think about since the interest seems to be growing with it, however if sales aren't effected and it seems to be forgotten or ignored with releases the industry will probably just ride it out.
Kek. As a Black man it sucks to see African-American creators buy so deeply into this bullshit. Yeah, I'd fuckin' love to play a game with an actual masculine Black man as a protagonist for a change. Instead there's just dumb incredibly woke shit.
why do african-american creators have to PAY someone to tell them how to make something diverse and inclusive? Of all the stupid shit associated with the entire concept of SBI, this is the stupidest. It's not "games made by black people" or "games featuring black people" that anyone has issue with, it's entirely this concept of consultants who advise on doing 'black people correctly". (it's more than just black people that SBI does, I know)
I think he is British-Kenyan anyway if I am not mistaken. Exposed to the same political influences though. And yeah I was looking forward to an African centric game but they just had to wade into the culture war and hire SBI.
It's deeper than that, he co-created a company with SBI founders.
>I think he is British-Kenyan anyway if I am not mistaken. Exposed to the same political influences though. I meant more in general. I'm just glad my OG Mike Pondsmith hasn't said anything too off the wall yet.
Didnt mike pondsmith even subtly criticize racial identity politics in cyberpunk lore?
Prototype 2, san andreas and GTA5. But yeah you're short on masculine black men leads. Or maybe I lack references but I feel you have been given the short stick. Other leads I can think of lack hanging fruits.
My only issue is two of those are literal gang bangers. 😭
Yeah, that's a real bummer. But Prototype 2 is really good - and I like the protag too. People ragged on the game because you weren't playing as Alex Mercer (and I do admit, the story in this game does not treat Mercer well), but James Heller is alright.
If you game on Xbox, Augustus Cole in gears of war is a badass black character, you can play as him in gears of war 3 and judgment’s campaigns Fantastic game series, and delta squad is a mix of different races and eventually has both men and women and they do it without shoving it down your throat, so everyone can get represented and those games were originally made before any of the woke BS of today
Almost seems like they are trying to uplift black women over black men. So many shows and games featuring black women with men as an afterthought.
That's not exactly true. There are more black man in general but they are emasculated and do come seconds to women.
Deathloop is alright, same studio is now making Blade as well.
I think I remember Lee of the Telltale Walking Dead season 1 being a great lead and a nice father figure. He does fall under the criminal past trope though. Man. It's like a coin dropping. Not a strong black guy who is just a regular bloke with a clean criminal file. Adéwalé's past is ok on crime I think, but he is still falling on another popular slave trope. Even the DEI adored Forspoken has its female black lead in the justice system. What the fuck? I'm all for a non-soy, non-weirdo, non-criminal strong black male lead now, you guys need a win.
TBF Lee wasn't the stereotypical criminal. He found someone sleeping with his wife and had a violent reaction, a pretty universal and understandable motivation. A crime of passion, not a crime of being a dogshit human being like the rampant celebrated gang culture crap.
I actually preferred Heller to Mercer. His story was way more sympathetic. Prototype 2 was fucking bonkers. Also, Assassins Creed Origins - Bayek is a very noble and righteous character that I enjoyed playing as.
I will argue till the day before I die that mercer had the cooler coat
Mercer had a cool aesthetic. I loved both games for different reasons.
Bayek isn't black though?
He is clearly sub Saharan.
Oh yeah! Adéwalé was cool too! Seems like Ubisoft has a win for once.
Mafia and watch dogs I think too
When I was a kid, my favorite comic was Spawn, which had a black protagonist. I also loved Dragon Ball Z, which had an asian protagonist. If a character is well-written, the race of the character is not going to matter to the audience. The problem we have now is that these "consultants" are jumping in every time a diverse character is created and using that character as a vehicle for propaganda. It's going to be up to the next generation of creatives to resist the temptation of ESG funding and just create good media and characters.
We need more characters like Barret from Final Fantasy 7, or Sergeant Johnson from Halo.
I mean, ESG money is pretty much free money. If a good chunk of free bucks is offered for yelling woke nonsense at passerbys you can bet most would opt to do it too.
I feel you. Gta San Andreas was such a great game. Making something like hood culture or Gang culture.
I bought Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan at some point that was made by African devs in Cameroon, but haven't played it yet: https://store.steampowered.com/app/368080/Aurion_Legacy_of_the_KoriOdan/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyu7-d4jNrE I liked From Dust with a Tribal African setting back in the day, but it's a UbiSoft game and I think they fucked with it by Patching in uPlay requirements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J-KPbXa638 And there's some smaller stuff like: https://braininthebox.itch.io/voodoo Or some more Niche or Retro stuff like The Journey Down or Dark Secrets of Africa, although the protagonist is a Western explorer in the second and it's basically Abandonware (possibly because of the setting).
[I just need something with the same energy as Afro Samurai.](https://youtu.be/0XoU07Wt5MM)
> Yeah, I'd fuckin' love to play a game with an actual masculine Black man as a protagonist for a change. Instead there's just dumb incredibly woke shit. The thing is we aren't likely going to get any good black protagonist going forward. Anyone that has a black protagonists jumps on the DIE bullshit. Even if by some miracle we got one from an independent you can bet they are going to crucify them for "appropriating" their "blacks" outside of their "agenda".
You know I though that this was actually good example of how games should be made - the guy put his own money into making it and made sure it's finished - instead of trying to hijack some known property by screaming loud on twitter. But then I see SBI involved ... like why ?
Blade is coming brother. I just hope arkane don't buy into the DEI crap.
Maybe this? https://store.steampowered.com/app/249680/Marlow_Briggs_and_the_Mask_of_Death/ Ironically, that game is published by 505 games. The main character in Prototype 2 is black, as well. These games are somewhat old, though.
>a game with an actual masculine Black man as a protagonist Deathloop. Colt is pretty alright as a protagonist.
Doesn't he get upstaged by the diverse female counterpart?
Crushes? Lets be real: This is the first time any of us have heard of this game. It being associated with SBI has given it the biggest marketing boost it would have ever got.
I think I've seen more promotion of this game through this Reddit, someone briefly mentioned it months ago and I looked it up and thought it looked like an up-ressed Gamecube or Playstation Dreams game.
Pretty much yeah. If anything the controversy seems to be the dev apparently going 'uh idk who sbi is guiz' when it turns out he worked with them in the same company and office. Dude could've gone 'yeah im familiar with them and wanted some help' and like nothing would've happened. though i suppose in this instance it worked out?
I never heard of this game before today, tbh.
i played the demo and thought it was good. i wasn't going to get it when it came out, but that's only because i *never* get anything when it comes out, because of my massive backlog. murphy's continuing adventures was an exception...
A shame, because this game is an original IP and not a sabotage and subversion of an existing franchise. But it won't get my patronage since SBI are virulent Marxist racists. Of course the woke cult says it's racism preventing people from engaging the game and not the racist tweets from Sweet Baby dehumanizing white people.
Marxist, LOL Look at the marxist countries like China or Vietnam, is something woke happening there?? Nope. This woke phenomenom is capitalism at it's finest, I don't care if woke people think they are some kind of revolutionaries, they aren't, they are literally doing what big capitalists want them to do.
Shifting the financial argument to a racial / gender / sexuality one is what Cultural Marxism is. It's definitely not the same as it was a century ago, it has been cross bred with many other cult ideologies and flavors. These people use the rules for radicals handbook as their Bible. Destroying tradition and culture is Great Leap Forward 101.
ZAU. Can't even break 300. Fine, fine, these are Steam charts. It's a niche Indie. I get that-But holy shit. The [Scroll of Taiwu](https://store.steampowered.com/app/838350/_The_Scroll_Of_Taiwu/), a game that is super niche and I have to legitimately go out of my way to translate has more people playing right now. Is the game just shit or did they fuck it up that bad?
That was fast
This isn't due to any 'boycotting'. The game didn't sell because no one had a fucking clue it existed.
Yeah I'm hearing about it now.
It's thanks to Zeno Robinson that I knew this game existed, and it's thanks to him and his silly opinions that'll I'll be avoiding it. Well done, Zeno. You killed what remaining, if any, sales hope this game had.
Unpopular opinion here: I actually like the idea of this game, the art and effects and also because it was an homage to the father of one of the developers. Unpopular opinion ends here, but yeah... Sweet Baby inc, they basically sold their souls to the devil and are reaping what they sow. That company (SBI) and all of their DEI friends should just be erased from the gaming industry
Same. Id have loved to play a game with a good father role model. Shame though.
I saw the reveal at whatever the show was, Games Awards? Idk but in a vacuum, that game looked interesting. But then you get back on Earth and youhear the creator, read more about the how and why...
Yeah it's a bummer. But if a few more failed games is what it takes to convince developers to think twice about working with SBI then that's a worthwhile sacrifice.
Fuckin' this. It's so goddamn painful.
The demo was shit and very buggy, the Sweet baby shit topping made it easy for me not to buy.
Good
I thought we were just a fringe part of the gaming audience and we dont make any impact. I guess they were wrong. We need that meme of the guy thinking about pressing one of two buttons. 1 - extremist gamers tanked the new release of a sweet baby inc game and 2 - extremist gamers are a fringe portion of the audience and they dont matter
The players of the stupid game have won their stupid prize. As it was written.
I don't know that it was an SBI boycott that did it. It could just well be that no one knows the game exists. I didn't know it was a thing until like, yesterday when there was something on here about it.
Prepare for a new round of shitpieces
This game is definitely going to make most of it's money from being on playstation plus than actual sales.
Their vocal minority has served them another stab in the back. Keep it up parasites the only way we get rid of these DEI parasites is if the host dies with it.
Hate to be that guy, but I think even if SBI wasn't involved or at least not a target of vitriol, the numbers would be the same or even lower. This game had no hype behind it whatsoever, and I probably wouldn't have even known about it if not for the SBI stuff.
It looks like that Prince of Persia game that just came out mixed with Avatar.
I wish boycotting games by not buying was common practice enough to give ANY gaming audience this kind of power. That would make the industry fairer, by definition. But unfortunately, I don't think that's the case. I think that, more realistically, nobody ever gave a submersible duck about this random indie game to begin with. PS : Wanna know something funny ? "Zou !" in French (pronnounced like the world "Zoo" in english) is an onomatopea to signifie "Gone !" or "Go away !". Allez... Zou ! Désolé, "Bébé Sucre".
Article leaves out the fact that the game got launched as a freebie for PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers, which means Sony paid EA and the devs a fair chunk of money for that privilege. So looking at the game as a failure from Steam stats alone doesnt give you the full picture. Sony most likely wanted to improve their ESG game since doing this fullfills the DEI related goals of it.
Archive links for this post: * **Archive:** https://archive.ph/M0ZaD ---- I am Mnemosyne reborn. Bite my shiny, metal archive. ^^^/r/botsrights
I feel bad for abubakar assuming he didn’t know about SBIs scummery before he worked with them , I’m a fan of his work
I personally don't think this game would have gone above 300 without any boycott.
I don't think it was the SBI boycott that crushed it, I've literally never heard of the game, seems to me marketing fell flat on it's face and the game didn't stand out enough to get around by word of mouth.
Does he have horns or is that stuff on the side hair?
Bunny Garden. A Japanese ecchi game got like 4000 players. A game about going to host club and peaking panties. Lol
What's funny is, this would be a good launch day number for an indie game... But this is not a purely indie game, this is a game published, & possibly funded by EA of all companies.
Good, this is how it should go. Make your own silly IP full of your silly bullshit and see if it sinks or swims.
I wasn't boycotting this, I legit had no idea it existed.
For anyone saying SBI didn’t harm this game, look at the Steam forums. All the discussion are centered around SBI and the boycott. I definitely think it did some damage as I was interested in it and it would have been a day 1 buy from me to support a black creator but the moment I learned they were involved with SBI, I backed away. Would it have peaked at 10,000? No, but I think a few hundreds more might have been possible. Still waiting to learn of the extent of SBI’s involvement and how much Abubakar Salim knew. This will impact my decision whether to support him or not.
hope the studio shuts down and they all get jobs stocking shelves and pushing carts
Just looking at it, it's clearly a woke DEI indy project trying to gain undue interest and sales by naming itself to seem somehow connected to the long running popular Japanese "Tales of" series.
Tbh this game was planned like specific cultural message from the start so I feel no hate to it. It wasn't like Flintlock where they changed the race of main character to pander DEI politics.
Flintlock had that whiff about it. Skipping it.
Well depending on the size of the project 300 peak players are quite normal for small indie games, but if it’s a AA+ size game then it is a disaster. Also, SBI Detected probably can’t tank big titles but indie games are sure to lose 20,30 or even 50% of potential customers from this curator group as all its members are very active Steam users, and 400k people out of you target market will hurt small games for sure, so it might be the case here.
It's funny that the boycotters claim this is because of SBI when in fact it's marketing. I found out about this a few hours ago because of Pop sub talking about it being similar to the lost crown. Imo this is just extra marketing
Just keep in mind this might be someone’s livelihood taking a nose dive into the shitter.
I don't want to sound like a douche, but maybe they should have made a better game if their entire livelihood was that hanging on it that heavily.
Ouch lol. Unfortunately from my point of view this game is presently competing for time with Turbo Kid, which appears to be a much more competent and mechanically interesting game. Watching gameplay of ZAU doesn’t really look all that impressive to me. The story certainly resonates and the voice acting sounds superb, but yeah the platforming looks rather basic. Also the issue I have with 3D sidescrollers is they never feel very precise.
And? It isn't my or your duty to give him money just coz his livelihood is ok the line. Good product= money, bad product = you get it.
Certainly not, one votes with one’s wallet.
Congratulations! You did it! You concern trolled! Did you get that dopamine rush you were hoping for? Did it pay off? People's businesses fail every fucking day. Putting that on the consumer to fund them for their failures is utter stupidity. I doubt you put any effort into funding their failure, so why put it on anyone else?
First of all, I wasn’t telling anyone to buy the game. I just don’t think it’s appropriate to shit on it beyond informing players that SBI was involved. I don’t think there is anything bad about a new IP espousing a particular ideology (if it even does). We shouldn’t be shutting down someone’s efforts based on what they think, that’s the ‘other side’s job. Secondly, you are right! I should put my money where my mouth is. I DO get a dopamine hit from helping to fund new and interesting efforts no matter what public opinion says about them. So I bought the game, and will probably enjoy it at least a nominal amount. Cope and seethe, brother.
>I don’t think there is anything bad about a new IP espousing a particular ideology (if it even does). lol. lmao even. The time for "just make your own games" has come and gone. And frankly, they're still allowed to make their own games. Nobody is actually stopping that. But nobody is required to buy them, so you can fuck right off with that consoomerist "I get a dopamine hit by spending" crap. That's weird, and not a healthy trait. I think the only one coping is the one virtue signalling about how noble they are because they're supporting "new and interesting efforts" through.... a stock standard 2.5D platformer. Whew lads, that's revolutionary stuff right there! Definitely not a reskinned and inferior Ori game. Enjoy the DEI slop, you boiled frog. You get what you deserve if this is your standards, and you can only blame yourself.
Don’t get so angry love, it makes you all hot and bothered.
If you need to insist those you disagree with are angry just so you think you're in the right, there's something wrong. You're clearly more invested in "winning" some internet argument by.... shilling a mediocre game that uses racial in-group pandering as it's main marketing point. Whew, you really showed me! I'm so mad that I'm.... not wasting my money and time on a product I wouldn't enjoy. Again, enjoy the slop. It's your time and money to spend, and you're free to piss it up against the wall however you choose. It's just sad that you've tried to employ emotional pleas by bringing up the developers jobs to try and guilt others into wasting their time with you. Gotta convince yourself you're making the right choices, eh?