Fenrir007

One thing I dont understand is them saying officially that this was not vetted before (heavily implied it should have been), but would still allow it to stay anyway. This really makes no sense. Official confirmation from Obsidian further clearing this would be nice, especially now that Firedorn gave his 2 cents so there is no need to protect him or his choice (as he made it clear by now).

Actually, there was a choice. They asked me if I wanted to change in light of what happened. I chose to change it so that they can concentrate on the game instead of this PR nightmare. They weren't going to change it, they asked ME if I wanted to. I can find another platform to write my controversial crap, and I will. They, on the other hand, did the right thing and allowed me to decide the fate of the epitaph. I chose to turn into something that made fun of the bitch-bastards that were complaining. They went above and beyond what I would have expected them to do. Okay, so it was a choice. Can you confirm these talks with screenshots or something? Blank out sensitive info. I find it kind of weird that Obsidian would be 100% okay with this staying but would avoid engaging at all with their backers about it in the first place. I would like to ask you this, though: was offering this as a toggle a choice at any point? So that non-backers who didn't buy the game could remove whatever offended them and others could keep the game as it is? Also, is there a reason why Obsidian has not been upfront about this?

They don't have to explain themselves to anyone except the person affected. It does not affect the game in shape whatsoever, so why do they need to put into the patch notes? Self entitled people round here are as bad as the stupid moron on twitter who started all this. The fact that we are BACKERS and we didn't feel there was any need to remove it as demonstrated in these very forums warranted, at the very least, an honest discussion with us regarding this before the removal. They could also address why they opted to remove it instead of the many alternatives, like promoting with the means of a sticky of the user-made mod that removes it or adding a toggle to remove triggering content. It would be nice if they explained HOW that was offensive as well, considering it got past their veto process before (and its insulting to our intelligence to tell us it simply got past their checks). I don't know, being the very people who made this game a possibility makes me think they could at the very least be open with us, and establish some dialogue instead of appeasing people who are not even backers of this game (as evidenced by those twitter misandrists not even having forum accounts here). It's even more insulting that they NEVER allowed us to toggle off ALL backer content as widely requested before by people who actually owns the game, but will listen to a twitter hatemob at the drop of a hat. By the way, we were ALL affected by this. Not sure if you realize, but the patch changes the content of the game we all have installed.

"Asked". Meaning "change it or we simply remove it". There was no choice involved for the person.

You abstain from being heard by choice, but even going by your post, here is the thing: it works both ways (and dare I say, goes in double for Twitter).

Can game designers change something about their game if they want as well? Or is that not covered? They can. Sounds like they were pressured by the hate mob in this case, though.

So, you are saying that ANY group that finds ANYTHING offensive should have their whims attended, despite the fact that this is FICTION? Are you saying that a fictional character has always to be an upstanding citizen and show acceptable behavior at all times towards any and all groups? We should abolish military FPS games - war veterans with real, non-twitter induced PSTD may find them triggering. We should abolish brigh flashing patterns from games. After all, people with epilepsy could suffer from it (the warnings are certainly not enough! People could not read or heed them). Here is the thing - the minority that YOU have empathy with in detriment of the others do not get to have special treatment and a Rod of Censoring over what is acceptable content. What about the other minorities that might call for a change? Do you also put yourself in their shoes and abide to their claims, no matter what? What if this isnt a minority - should it be shunned because of strange notions of "privilege"? I subscribe to the radical notion that if you cannot control your emotions, the world shouldn't need to change to comform to your particular reality. Instead, perhaps you should seek treatment and distance yourself from content that goes against your sensibilities, like any mature person would. I mean, we have artwork in museums and galleries depicting things like rape. Should we tear those down and rip them apart? Should anything that doesn't comform to the dictatorship of the few be branded as degenerate art, and mocked / censored whenever possible? You know which group also did this in the past? Watch these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwGsOBTlhE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w Except it isn't - You've purposely misread it to fit your need to find it offensive. Man gets drunk - gets into bed with "woman". It isn't "woman" - He panics and hops off an edge, which kills him. In what way does this degrade homosexuality or transgendered people? That's right - it doesn't. Not wanting to sleep with someone is not a crime against gender or sexual orientation. I have no need to find it offensive. I find very few things offensive personally, and the joke doesn't move me one way or the other really. That said, I have this novel ability to put myself in other peoples' shoes and get a sense for what they might be feeling. It's called empathy. Imagine being a member of a marginalized and abused group who has heard crap like this your whole life and has faced a lack of acceptance at every turn. Imagine sitting down to play a computer game that has within it a joke that basically suggests a guy killed himself because he had sex with someone like you. Given that you have dealt with this kind of crap all your life, how do you not get offended when seeing this? If the joke was that he accidentally slept with a black girl and then killed himself in shame would that be okay too? Just think about that for a second.

Okay, so, this was released before and was completely okay to them. Then, a misandrist on twitter decides to summon her hatemob to start a jihad against some content that affects her personal sensibilities - an assumption based on a flawed interpretation of the text (one that Obsidian agrees with, considering they let the reworded text outright state the hatemob didn't get the joke). Only THEN, Obsidian removes it. They ignore any sort of discussion with backers to do it. They don't tell us HOW that was offensive. They try to stealthly pass it without mentioning on the patch notes (only making up a backer response AFTER they saw it wouldn't blow over). They choose not to allow the players to either toggle it or sticky the player-made mod to remove the offending text from those who felt triggered by it. And they remain gagged on the issue. No interactions at all, even with the very people that made this game financially viable in the first place. Do you really think it's that much of a stretch to consider they totally caved in?

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I found the limerick amusing. I just find the overall reaction to the situation hilariously bigoted and some of the comments here are not only irrational, but dangerously hateful and outright hurtful. That makes Obisidians decision even more stupid. It was a very very small minority who was offended by it and they gave in. Now they get the backlash much much bigger since a lot of people apparently do not like censorship. Go figure. Small minority? Says who? For all you know, you bigots could be the loud minority and there can be a silent majority. "Small minority" is your limited perception of the situation. Did you check the official forums here? Or twitter?

Of course. Fictional characters can say whatever the hell they want. They are not real people, you know. If you see someone portraying Hitler on a movie, that doesn't mean that guy is a nazi. That I even have to tell people this shows how much humanity has regressed.

1- So what? "I'm offended!" - so what? No one has the right to NOT be offended. It is especially silly to be angry at the thoughts of a FICTIONAL character, thoughts that you most likely misrepresented in the first place. 2- I wasn't aware you were the spokesperson for all homosexuals and transgenders. 3- If we start removing content because it was "offensive" to any minority, then there won't be much left to work with in well crafted works of fiction. You want sterile RPGs that don't deal with any sort of controversial theme? And don't give me the "oh its how about its handled", because people do NOT agree easily with what can be considered as handling well controversial situations. 4- You could very well have applied the user-made mod to remove the content from YOUR particular experience. Why was this not enough for you? No, really, explain to me how MY personal experience needs to be butchered to appease your particular, non-standard (as shown by the response to this outrage) sensibilities?

How can you be so sure of that? They caved in to a loud minority this time over something that was misrepresented by them (possibly maliciously). If this doesn't show a tendency (of eskewing their playerbase desire in favor of whatever hatemob minority currently demands), then I don't know what does. Perhaps an official statement reaffirming their commitment to their creative integrity would help quell the fear.

Where does it stop? Now that they know Obsidian will cave when confronted, what will they want when they come for the mile? Obsidian already gave them the inch. That is the problem. You say you are worried about the games. This WILL affect the games. Dude, listen to yourself. They changed a backer poem. In a memorial in the middle of nowhere, that serves no in-game purpose other than referencing the backers. They didn't even remove the entry, they changed it with the backer's consent and it mocks the people who wanted it removed. None of the backer content is even significant to the game, there are even people requesting mods for it to all be removed. How, in any way, is this going to affect games in the future? They were willing to change something inconsequential, that they didn't make and that had SEVERAL different interpretations, of which one ONE - the most far fetched one - was transphobia. If they did this to something this irrelevant, what do you think they will do to something that is not up to interpretation and is relevant to the game?

Just the one, as far as I can tell. But you have the know the secret SJW handshake. That, or have a convincing enough argument on why the dialogue ought to be changed. Does willful misrepresentation of what the dialogue means also counts as a good enough argument?

People are saying he willfully changed the text, but here is the thing - was he even given a choice? I think we all know the answer to that. And yes, switching the text IS removal of the content. "We didn't remove black people from our game - we just switched them for white guys". Would that fly?