Lyle 🇹🇼👍

It’s almost poetic that the tagline of this article decries movements for “ethics in games journalism” before the article itself proceeds to spit in the face of the principles outlined in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics: -"Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarising a story": By omitting all mention of Thomas Lockley’s questionable status as an accurate historical source, as well as Ubisoft’s blatant use of plagiarism and mistranslations in the game and its promotional material, the article removes crucial information that contextualises the underlying criticism that people have been levelling against the game this whole time - that Ubisoft doesn’t actually care about Japanese culture, history or people, and is only claiming to by disingenuously venerating Yasuke as a ‘historical’ figure. -"Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable. Give voice to the voiceless": The article is written with the underlying premise that Ubisoft is synonymous with (or at least aligned with) voiceless ‘minorities’ who have now been silenced once again by the powers of the “reactionary right wing movement.” This is ass-backwards. Ubisoft is a billion-dollar company that is currently meat-puppeting the culture and history of a (non-English speaking) nation for the purposes of marketing an upcoming game under the guise of inclusivity & cultural sensitivity. If anyone can be said to be ‘voiceless’ in this situation, it is by definition the Japanese whose opinions are, by default, excluded from Western media by virtue of the fact that they simply don’t speak English. -"Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant": The fact that the article grossly oversimplifies & mischaracterises all criticisms levelled against the game as blanket “racism,” before condemning those levelling these criticisms wholesale, is needlessly polarising and blatantly sensationalist. It is no wonder the majority of people both within and without the gaming sphere dismiss contemporary journalism as nothing more than propaganda and tabloids. -"Provide access to source material when it is relevant and appropriate": This ties in with a principle outlined in the American Press Association’s Statement of Principles which states that journalism has a duty to “make the significant interesting and relevant.” The article references “countless studies and stories proving that the radicalization of male youth has been…perpetuated by the internet.” However, instead of summarising those findings for the ease of readers, the article then shirks this responsibility by saying “go read them, as they’ll convince you far more effectively than I can.” Not only that - but the linked sources aren’t referencing any kind of scientific study, just more articles written by other journalists. I’ve yet to see a piece of gaming journalism properly summarise and reference source material for a ‘study’ or ‘story’ that isn’t this self-referencial, auto-fellatory, ouroboric loop of taking the reader to another article written by another games journalist. -"Expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within their organisations": The article had a chance to do this when it referenced an IGN article that claimed to report on the ‘sexist’ work environment behind the scenes of “Black Myth: Wukong’s” development. The article in question was panned across the Internet for brazenly mischaracterizing statements made by one of the co-founders of the development studio (Gamescience), and using mistranslations of said statements as the basis for the story. Kotaku seems to have a penchant for excusing disingenuous mistranslation and misrepresentation, especially when it comes to non-English speaking cultures and languages - so to see this, while disappointing, is not surprising. Game journalism is on life support and this is why.

@RealHypnotic1 Share an archive instead archive.is/LDu4F

Do not fall for this clickbait ass shit. Wait for your youtubers to respond to this. Giving kotaku clicks for this is exactly what this dying brand wants from you. They are desperate. They are trying to get another big win like they got with the SBI article.

Did the article reference stolen artwork? Did the article reference copyright infringement in claiming the one piece Zoro Cosplay sword was called a "replica"? Did the article mention the problem wasn't Yasuke himself, but ubisoft's presentation of him with their words? Did the article talk about the sexual harassment claims and poor monetization practices of ubisoft? Or it being owned by a chinese company, Tencent? In the year of 2024, with the money and resources that ubisoft has, it is absolutely appalling to think they would hire a "consultant" obsessed with "transgenerational attraction" (monks SB'ing little boys) who couldn't tell them "hey...the seasonal depiction is wrong...so are the buildings...and the use of the gates......" Anyway, when is kotaku going to ask why the target audience didn't show up for Concord or flintlock or Zau? When is kotaku going to stop blaming everyone else for their problems?

@Brad_Glasgow Yeah, if the games companies start getting involved in these journos' online slapfights, shit TOTALLY isn't gonna hit the fan...

It's the same crap they were saying 10 years ago: begging "for the games industry to stand up to it" when 99% of "it" is the BS that comes from these stupid op-eds.

@Grummz link btw businessinsider.com/sony-metoo-cen….

@Lyde15 It totally was and is.

Something big happened yesterday and most people missed it. Every theory we had about the uglification of women in AAA gaming turned out to be true. Look at what happened to Jean Grey from @insomniacgames Marvel's Wolverine from these leaked early screenshots of the first, beautiful model, to the masculine, world weary version we have today. They are ruining @Marvel And yes, Marvel's Wolverine is a Sweet Baby Inc. game. We were told it was the difficulty of scanning actors, or just tricks of light and bad screencaps. We were told we were incels for even questioning it. As a game dev, I knew this was BS. As gamers, YOU knew it was BS from comparisons with Asian games. Yesterday, we found out. A Principle Artist (read this as lead) at major studios including Naughty Dog, Rocksteady and Respawn told the truth... (con't) 🧵

I'm not sure what Harvey Weinstein and friends being evil, molesting fucks has to do with fictional characters in fictional scenarios, but hey.

@Grummz People like to pretend that this isn't actually a thing.

We know that Sweet Baby Inc. is involved with Marvel's Wolverine. We know this because of Sweet Baby's own tweets, and because a Narrative Director for Insomniac's Wolverine game ran to the defense of SBI. SBI does 2 things well talked about. They assist with dialog and story, and they also assist with character design. By now, everyone knows SBI's public mission to insert DEI sensitivity into all games. This is their sole purpose and pitch as a consulting company. And this explains why Jean Grey went from great to "Grocery store auntie." We see this every where in AAA Gaming, why was it necessary to reduce Firecracker's butt size in COD? That cost time and money to do for a skin that was already completed. It made no sense. The only reason, the only reason at all, is politics. After MeToo, there was a great call to reduce the sexualization of women. This horrible incident slammed into the Entertainment industry. Everyone overcorrected. Now, you can't have ANY female traits in gaming at all. Not even a butt. Ridiculously, the butts have to be smaller than even the male characters. Censorship ran rampant on outfits, with Asian games being targetted the most. The second reason was the political imperative to place women equal to men, even in places where it made no sense. Girl Bosses. To prove women equal to men, they focused on the masculine traits...they had to beat men at their own strengths. This mean beefing up the women models, giving them thicker bodies, having them beat up multiple men in physical fights in movies, acting stoic and above all, suppressing their feminine features and strengths. They call this "making women more realistic" but it's really just making them the opposite. They are completely unrealistic now. Cheap stand-ins for male tropes that display none of the natural strength of women and how they are strong in their own right. The last reason, is the trans movement. We've had a couple of internal leaks, including Naughty Dog, that have told us that female characters must be changed to appeal to the trans community. The trans community that transitions to female wants to pass as female and feel included. Studios are bending over backwards to LOWER THE BAR for femininity in order to make this easier. Square jaw, removal of hips (pokemon go), reduction of bust size...all of this fits. But is all this really helping? (con't)

@SmashJT @Vara_Dark @RealHypnotic1 Kotaku UK. She used to be the editor. I'm pretty sure this nonsense was allowed to happen on her watch. cm30.medium.com/kotaku-laura-k…

@Lyde15 @Vara_Dark @RealHypnotic1 EVERY. DAMN. TIME.

Looks like the Guardian is running defense for IGN and going after Youtubers. Woman card. Played. archive.is/UMRmD @Vara_Dark @RealHypnotic1 @SmashJT

It’s not about “giving gamer gate men” fuel. This die hard need of people to remain loyal to sides is wild. The only “sides” that there are in all of this: Anti-censorship vs pro-censorship Truth vs lies Love vs intimidation If you are for genuine creative expression for all, you are beautiful. If you do your best to wade through the murky waters to find the truth of things, you are beautiful. If you encourage people to tell stories, respect that there are different cultures in this world even if they challenge your own views, and use words to express yourself instead of resorting to fear and intimidation, you are beautiful. What you want is what I want. It’s what many people want. I believe most people are inherently beautiful. So this idea that things need to be watered down for an imaginary problem that doesn’t exist is baffling. But this shift in character design is a reflection of the people making these choices……and it’s concerning. Both should exist but in America and Canada why does only one ever make it to market lately? It creates a pattern, a behavioral trend, and it shows nothing is genuine in AAA right now. Check boxes stifle creativity. You should be able to create whatever character you want without being told no, you can’t represent that type of person like that. The free market should decide what will sell certainly but no one should be forced to avoid or adhere to things. This is why I don’t like using the words gamergate or woke…why I try to only use left/right as a demographic qualifier. There are more specific problems and everything else is a distraction.

replies disabled - of course

Don't those things cost like $5000+ plus? I really doubt that they'll ever be ubiquitous.

@pukingguile I suspect that the story mode is gonna end up getting neglected in favor of online too...

The industry hasn't earned the right to survive.

@SmashJT I thought she was scared of you and planning to sue you or something?

Can someone check her in please

Let's entertain this. If we've got the "representation", and women were buying games in this split this whole time, why do existing franchises need to change? They were clearly inclusive towards women regardless of the game type, genre, character cast, etc. Games were already appealing to both men and women this whole time- otherwise, if women were offended or didn't like the existing content, they wouldn't be buying and playing games, correct? We'd see the trend reverse where there were less women in games but that is not the case. Existing franchises since 2006 were clearly split very nicely between men and women, why aren't new franchises being made? Why are existing ones problematic? According to this information right here, women have always been around in gaming and got more into gaming, liking the way the market was. Why did journos say 'it's a man's space! there is no women!'?? This graph very elegantly debunks that claim long before they came around in 2016. According to this, there were women and they were content because they didn't leave. In fact, the market only expanded. So why not let existing franchises be and instead create new ones to capture even more audiences? Clearly, everything was indeed fine, according to this person and their graphs. the point: You can't have it both ways. You cant claim a market needs to change to include women while also stating women were included the whole time.

I'd laugh my ass off if someone actually interviewed @Sebban_E about this x.com/Sebban_E/statu…

for real - it's from a badly translated anime episode knowyourmeme.com/memes/vagina-b…

I said this the other day. It's been something like 8 years and the people who are constantly out there trying to own the gamers(tm) still haven't realized that the vagina bones guy was joking around and referencing an even older meme.