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Cyberpunk 2077: Rockerboy Keanu Silverhand

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WireWolf said:
How nice that you pretend to know my motives. -_-
"His opinion and thoughts on the subject are different so he must obviously not be debating in good faith."
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Incorrect. Your hostile attitude is what puts people of. Constant dismissal of concerns of trans representation by trans-people is not a good look. Enjoying stuff with problematic eliments is fine, trying to dismiss the existence of problematic stuff is not. The way you have done it reeks of needless tribalism and creates a hostile tone on the thread that did not need to exist. I weight the concern of the put upon minority on the subject of their representation, you are digging for any excuse to dismiss them.

Enjoy the game all you will, just don't put down others who disagree with you.
 
@FBH there's a reason I distinguished between western cyberpunk and japanese cyberpunk.
While they share a lot of the same aesthetics and themes, and obviously influenced each others to some degree, the two genres did develop in two different cultures in parallel. Saying that "Japan adopted Cyberpunk" quite misses the point because it makes it sound like Japan adopted western cyberpunk, when really they had their own genre. And Akira got released before Neuromancer.

Now yes, the sinophobia in the West, particularly in the USA, did eventually go down. How much of that was due to media, and how much of that was due to the japanese economic influence becoming less of an issue to people?
Because the latter was definetly a reason why people were so scared of japanese influence, and the economic situation of Japan did change during the 90s. Attributing the change in attitudes solely to media, and ignoring those pretty obvious factors, would be rather missing the point.

But even if you look at the influence of media: Japanese cyberpunk could be it's own thing.
Japanese artists could create their own works of art, like Akira, Bubblegum Crisis or Ghost in the Shell (and a lot more, obviously). Those works could draw inspiration from western cyberpunk - but they didn't have to, they had their whole own culture and body of cyberpunk to draw upon. And just as often, if not more so, these works inspired western art.

And to the degree that media helped combat sinophobia, it was that inspiration drawn from japanese media that enabled said media to do so. Do trans people have a culture on our own that can provide similar inspiration?
Sure, we have amazing artists like @TheOneMoiderah , or fantastic RPG writers like @open_sketchbook who make bold and innovative works. And there's millions of trans people all over the world, and a lot of us are doing art in one shape or another, and hopefully we can influence things.

But if we want to have any chance to influence people through culture, then we really can't leave it at something like this. Because things don't develop positively on their own.
 
It's just...I don't know, SV always feels really really hypercritical of like, everything. Like I think people here gave Chernobyl a harder time than some Russians.

Again though, I'm not Trans. I don't understand what Trans people go through and I'm not trying to pretend I do. I just honestly do not think that person on the ad was suppose to be Trans and getting upset over one soda machine in the game just... does not feel worth the effort or something that should condemn the entire game. It's not like the American Ghost in the Shell movie where Bato got weirded out over a trans person peeing next to them, that was horrid and tasteless. That was saying it was weird for that person to be peeing there, that ad was just a sign that Cyberpunk's world is oversexualized.

And yes I know Thermian argument and all that but this game is a project made by numerous people. This isn't like metal gear where the horniess is a direct result of Koijma. Should a whole game be condemn for one tasteless bit of art on a vending machine?
 
I suppose somebody ought to explain something very obvious. Everything that happens in a work of fiction - unless it explicitly re-tells events that took place in real life - is controlled by the creators of this work. Anything you see and experience is the result of their personal choices, deliberate or not. Therefore, you can't use an explanation given by the work itself when explaining decisions made in-universe because the creators have full control over what events happen or don't happen.

In this particular case, the decision to create enemies that are primarily shown as violent black criminals was made not by an actual gang, but by a team of authors that worked on the original tabletop game, then promptly and unquestionably replicated by a team of Polish game developers.

This ends today's lecture. I won't quiz you on this because ideally, you should have known this from the start.
 
ShyPerson said:
Incorrect. Your hostile attitude is what puts people of. Constant dismissal of concerns of trans representation by trans-people is not a good look. Enjoying stuff with problematic eliments is fine, trying to dismiss the existence of problematic stuff is not. The way you have done it reeks of needless tribalism and creates a hostile tone on the thread that did not need to exist. I weight the concern of the put upon minority on the subject of their representation, you are digging for any excuse to dismiss them.

Enjoy the game all you will, just don't put down others who disagree with you.
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I fail to see how I've been either rude or disrespectful to anybody. It's not like I've tried playing gatekeeper or telling someone to leave the thread.
 
Suzu said:
In this particular case, the decision to create enemies that are primarily shown as violent black criminals was made not by an actual gang, but by a team of authors that worked on the original tabletop game, then promptly and unquestionably replicated by a team of Polish game developers.
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Isn't main creator of cyberpunk is black?
 
Teen Spirit said:
Like I think people here gave Chernobyl a harder time than some Russians.
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Hate to break it to you, but like...

Chernobyl is in the Ukraine.

That's the sort of mistake that might end up being considered fighting works in some places and circles. Nevermind that there are a bunch of reasons why the events at Chernobyl might be negatively affected by the Ukraine's relationship with the USSR and today's Russia.
 
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Hakazin said:
Should we just have a threadbanner linking to a video on the Thermian argument?
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Nyvis said:
Thermian argument again. I'm pretty sure this is a bone thrown at the people who sexualize trans people and will buy the game, not a deep statement about sexualization in general.
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Honestly, dismissing things as "just the Thermian argument being used" doesn't seem much better to me then the people who use it to justify everything.

To me, the better(and more nuanced) approach would be "did the author decide to include this, then build up the world around it, or was this a logical consequence of the rules, setting and theme they've already established?"

Now, in this case, CDPR seems to have lifted some elements from an earlier version of the tabletop game and put them in their game deliberately, so it's likely to be the first one. In which case the Thermian argument is indeed an invalid defence.
 
WireWolf said:
CDPR isn't made out of money and they can't endlessly requisition more money from the Polish Government and there's been rumors circulating that CDPR is running with a tight belt.

Also pretty sure CP2077 does have a solid character generator and they've confirmed Bodysculpting is present in some form.

Thirdly, other then the first controversy which was definitely a problem the other two just seem to be gaffes. The second controversy is in regards to them using a hashtag incorrectly which isn't that unsual and the third just seems to roundaboutly reference gamergate. (So it's not even directly a trans issue.) In the first case the PR guy was fired and an apology sent out and the other two times the tweets we're removed and apologies issued.
In the grand scheme of things the second and third incidents don't seem to have generated the same waves as the first incident.
You'd think if the company was as problematic as people think they are they would not have removed the offending posts, apologized for them or sacked a guy and would have either ignored it or even doubled down.

And lastly, I don't see that Ad as as a joke. I think it's a damning bit of satire that digs into how corporate advertising commercializes bodies and tries to shock audiences to make them notice their ad and product
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Yeah, you aren't convincing me with that again, I suggest that lower order things can be done to reinstall faith and you are still going on about the money of one specific option. Some things are expensive, some things aren't. A single in-universe advertisement is not that expensive to make. Throw away dialogue isn't. There is a range of options that can be done. It shows your lack of reading comprehension if your response continues to be "But it takes money." The amount of cost varies pretty wildly, which is something I've already acknowledged.

It's sort of like the entirety of this thread and your responses in it. You seem incapable of understanding that there are things like middle grounds or why someone couldn't have trust in something. There is a reason I called you a stan and a shill and it seems to still not have dawned on you why, and yet your response here across the board is perfect to show. You interpret everything that someone has a complaint against CDP in the most positive light, like they could do no wrong. Take the "oops" mistake of their demo being a bunch of stereotypical black thugs. You could do the halfway meeting of even acknowledging "Hey, maybe that's bad optics." But, no you sort of just jump "No, but old lore" and don't seem to grok the basic understanding of why this is a bad look. This is like the 2nd time it's been said that what is being presented is the problem. A thermian argument doesn't excuse it.

Or let's add the social media gaffs (and basically the history of CDPR writ women and other issues). You keep saying "But this isn't an issue. They issued an apology". Despite multiple people in this thread having said "This is not actually an apology, they have repeated the behavior before, we can't trust them." You don't seem to acknowledge why others do not have trust. In fact you've been arguing "No, they are wrong." Since it doesn't bother you, how could it bother others?

Or let's take the ad. Yes, we know you will interpret the ad in the most positive light. It's clearly a satire of cyberpunk aesthetic advertising and how bodies can be part of products. Deep. Yet we have so many other insights on it along with apprehension. Is it really parody if it never gets addressed or noticed? Could it just be pastiche? It's a quick art asset to make and perfectly fitting with CDPR's libertarian game culture as a quick one off. All of which you seem to ignore. No, it's gotta be something fully intentioned and well thought out from your view? How could a dev possibly just make a quick piece of filler and not think about how it looks? You can't even seem to acknowledge the bad optics.

Does that make it clear to you why you are getting lambasted?
 
Na7eY said:
Okay, so what do you want in regards to these gangs? What would be okay for you?
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Not portraying them as a racial stereotype? You can have gangs, and even have them not be moral, upstanding citizens without leaning on stereotypes.

Like, just so we're clarifying about 'accuracy'/'realism' I'd also object (rather strongly) to a game set in 2019 where you play a cop (or a PI, or whatever) shooting through stereotypical hordes with the names of actual, real life gangs.
 
Teen Spirit said:
It's just...I don't know, SV always feels really really hypercritical of like, everything. Like I think people here gave Chernobyl a harder time than some Russians.

Again though, I'm not Trans. I don't understand what Trans people go through and I'm not trying to pretend I do. I just honestly do not think that person on the ad was suppose to be Trans and getting upset over one soda machine in the game just... does not feel worth the effort or something that should condemn the entire game. It's not like the American Ghost in the Shell movie where Bato got weirded out over a trans person peeing next to them, that was horrid and tasteless. That was saying it was weird for that person to be peeing there, that ad was just a sign that Cyberpunk's world is oversexualized.

And yes I know Thermian argument and all that but this game is a project made by numerous people. This isn't like metal gear where the horniess is a direct result of Koijma. Should a whole game be condemn for one tasteless bit of art on a vending machine?
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See, it's not just one in-game ad that may or may not depict a trans woman, but certainly depicts a gender non-conforming person and thus almost certainly some form of trans person (non-binary, genderless, etc.)
It's also by a company who had several transphobic incidents on Twitter about this very game.
And, as we're just discussing, is apparently treating the subject of race in a very, let's say heavy-handed way.
And who previously made statements that made it sound like altering your body is always bad and makes you "unclean".

That, together with each of those incidents being defended heavily by fans of this game (that isn't even out yet), who often escalate to transphobic comments, understandably makes people sensitive.

But ultimately, it's about the pattern of things.
It's not just one in-game ad.
It's a in-game ad in a game that won't have the option to play trans characters (despite body-modding being a thing in this setting, and the setting having canon trans characters), that may have transphobic themes if the game makers statements are to be believed, by a company that previously did transphobic stuff.
And sure, for each of these incidents you could give them the benefit of the doubt. But once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times starts to look like a pattern.
Sure maybe we're still wrong. But what should we base that on, other than happy wishes and british sunshine?
 
Fernandel said:
Hate to break it to you, but like...

Chernobyl is in the Ukraine.

That's the sort of mistake that might end up being considered fighting works in some places and circles. Nevermind that there are a bunch of reasons why the events at Chernobyl might be negatively affected by the Ukraine's relationship with the USSR and today's Russia.
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Forget it, Fern. It's Soviettown.
 
The Laurent said:
Not portraying them as a racial stereotype? You can have gangs, and even have them not be moral, upstanding citizens without leaning on stereotypes.

Like, just so we're clarifying about 'accuracy'/'realism' I'd also object (rather strongly) to a game set in 2019 where you play a cop (or a PI, or whatever) shooting through stereotypical hordes with the names of actual, real life gangs.
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...There's a Gang that Roleplays as the Bradi Bunch and another whose leaders sculpted themselves to look like Mad Max and Aunty Entity and everyone dresses up as Mad Max extras.
Why is it so impossible for one gang to appropriate Voodoo/Houdon religion and twist it to serve their own violent needs to scare and intimidate people?
 
LSkullD said:
Why?

No, seriously, why is that bit on the gangs (outside of the women bit) lazy writing?
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It's the tired old cliche of taking what's happening right now - gang violence among the black population - and making it bigger, worse and with double fries, because it's the future. It doesn't explore the racial dynamics and the way they might develop in the future, they don't offer anything insightful beyond the basic fact of "gangs are bad."

It's lazy writing.
 
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