Amentep

But - if someone actually is offended...will they actually care? I mean if I, for example, were to provide documents indicating that GAME ELEMENT A is actually statistically very likely to exist in the setting of the Game. And that GAME ELEMENT A is important to the story of the game, and therefore relevant to the experience created. And that after much consideration that we kept the element in knowing some people would be offended by it because the context really indicated we needed to keep it. You think that would *matter* to the offended? That they would stop their protests about the game, stop petitioning to have the sale of the game stopped because "Oh well, they explained it, we're all good"? The only way to appease the offended would be to never do anything to offend them in the first place, yes? I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation. That seems like a design level thought, this cannot exist solely at the time of localization.

Perhaps, but the idea that you need to document decisions if someone wants to complain that it was culturally insensitive...? Does anyone tell a writer to document why they wrote something in case someone complains?1 Is it just because people think books are irrelevant? This may be a knee jerk reaction to this - BUT it is IMO very important for creative endevors to not be shackled by things other than the vision of the creator. No one is sitting there telling Stephen King (or even Kingsley Stephens of Pebblebrook Missouri)2 when writing his novel he needs to be culturally sensitive. You just don't think about that with literature (even "low" literature). Why do we accept it with games? Its not like bookselling isn't a business. I dunno, this just bugs the **** out of me, I admit. Maybe its a wrong impression, but man reading that document really did feel like reading a big "We're not telling you how to make a game...but let us tell you how you should make your game." 1Its not like any of the offended cared why Salman Rushdie wrote the SATANIC VERSES back when the fatwa was issued on him. 2You could make an argument that the editor serves this function; maybe its even true. And of course the publisher is not under an obligation to publish a work just because it exists. But this conceptually feels very different to me than what this document suggests.

Emphasis mine: They actually ARE saying that. Not to the plot per se, but being a fat slob who eats and drinks in terrible ways is important to who Homer Simpson is. But here's the point: subsisting only on a diet of donuts is also a textbook example of eating in terrible ways. The characterization is not harmed by the exclusion of hot dogs. Quite the opposite, actually: because in the targeted cultural environment, "eating hot dogs and bacon" signals something different than "eats and drinks in terrible ways", I think it can be argued that authorial intent is preserved by excluding those. But it changes the fact that Homer will eat anything (and has in the show done things like ate leftover lard from a fryer) that he is, in essence, a glutton with no discrimination or self-control.

...I'm honestly confused. Is eating hot-dogs and bacon such an instrumental plot element in the Simpsons that the authorial vision is meaningfully harmed by their exclusion? Not to the plot per se, but being a fat slob who eats and drinks in terrible ways is important to who Homer Simpson is. ...And where does this line of reasoning end? Is anybody who wants to enjoy, say, a Japanese movie, but watches a subbed or dubbed version of it is, mentally, a child? Because, y'know, a fairly huge part of a translator's job is to make the movie comprehensible to as wide an audience as possible, and this, at times, means completely rewriting stuff that makes no sense in the cultural context of the West. BUT...no one is telling the Japanese film maker "Hey if you put this religious allegory in, you'll offend people in country X. So even though your story hinges on this particular take on western religions, you really shouldn't put that in because you need to consider country X which won't appreciate it". And that is what the document is asking for - putting "cultural" and "geopolitical" as 'bugs' to be 'fixed'. There's a vastly different thought process with respect to taking something that exists and trying to relay concepts (or jokes) to another culture in a way that preserves the story and relays the context of the original in an understandable way and saying that before something exists, the creators need to avoid doing certain things regardless of why they might be important to the story because someone, somewhere may be offended.

Speaking of Hotel Transylvania... https://www.youtube.com/embed/9yZEthbVpjY

I'm looking forward to Grim Dawn.

It wasn't. IIRC the WoT project was never even funded, they'd just agreed to work on it with the WoT license owners, correct?

I thought that was unpossible on the internet.

Spring break here too. Which mostly means I can find a parking place at work close to the building this week. Huzzah!

http://www.allspark.com/content/2015/03/cobra-commander-leader-of-cobra-visits-springfield-to-receive-key-to-the-city/ Its apparently a wind up to GI JoeCon 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lkjRc8lgJKo https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3Eq_FDX4nog https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JjFY3gXeQro

Social Justice Warrior As far as definition, I don't think there's one that everyone could agree with. Typically involves someone trying to argue for doing something to improve the life of some perceived oppressed group. That's a scurrilous and inaccurate description of what a SJW is A SJW is simply someone who takes the important position of addressing various SJ causes and is active in trying to ameliorate the conditions of people in society who are intentionally and unintentionally victims of bigotry and discrimination. I believe in the principle of doing the right thing irrespective if the majority disagree. And we use various mediums, like the Internet, to try to get our message across Hmm, I was trying to be neutral about the definition (since its a hot button topic). Didn't realize you could be scurrilously neutral, but hey live and learn...

Would you please cite your definitive work on the subject in a peer-reviewed journal? I'd like to read it.

Social Justice Warrior As far as definition, I don't think there's one that everyone could agree with. Typically involves someone trying to argue for doing something to improve the life of some perceived oppressed group.

Not sure I would have went with a "fictional show illustrates how life was like 50 years ago" example, but maybe it'll work out for you. It may be fictional but its accurate account of a women's role in the workplace and perceived place in the home in the 1960's and earlier So you were able to study every work place there was in the 1960s and can state, categorically that Mad Men accurately - to 100% - reflects women's roles in the workplace and perceived place in the 1960s and earlier? I'm not saying that those issues weren't there at all, but I'd feel more comfortable if you were pulling the basis for this from, say, Mary Wells' A BIG LIFE IN ADVERTISING, Janice Rutherford's SELLING MRS. CONSUMER or Juliane Sivulka's SOAP, SEX AND CIGARETTES, or any other non-ficitional* source than from a TV show that is going to heighten any potential conflict for dramatic effect. *acknowledging that even non-fiction has inherent bias

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31858156

In my experience (YMMV): US's "Affirmative Action" ends up amounting to "If person 'A' and person 'B' are equally suited for a job (same degree, experience, etc) you can't hire person 'A' over person 'B' because of A's race." It doesn't mean that if you have 4 Y Race people and 3 Z Race people you have to hire a Z Race person next regardless of job knowledge, experience or other pertinent hiring factors. Title IX is against discrimination against men or women by a federally funded program. We mostly know about it from collegiate athletics in education to address high disparate spending and opportunity based on gender. A college might have, for example, a Basketball, Soccer, Lacrosse, softball, tennis and track team for gender A and a Basketball, Soccer, Tennis, Softball and volleyball team for gender b. The participation and scholarship opportunity for gender A students is disparate with gender B. This gives less access to gender B and under Title IX this can't happen in a program that receives federal funds. It has, based on some non-sports related wording, also provided a "don't sexually harrass/rape other students" rule. Not sure I would have went with a "fictional show illustrates how life was like 50 years ago" example, but maybe it'll work out for you.

Aye. You should have heard what my father called Brazil nuts. Yeah, they were sold under that name for many years (you can, occasionally, see it crop up in really old films on signs in stores and such).

"Never let another man touch your doomsday stash." - words to live (the apocalypse) by.

Bruce the Identity Thief! Its really irrespective what words use to mean, its what they symbolize now that matters What does it symbolyze? Is it related to the Atlantic slave trade? It has a long history, but generally got regarded as an "offensive" term second half of last century. Before that, it was considered a perfectly good word, the same way as slavery and racism was considered perfectly good practises. When the latter changed, the use of the word did too. Pretty sure it was considered offensive before that, but probably depended heavily on which side of saying it you were on. (Also - and I'm not defending it - but with respect to the original post, I'd suspect that pretty much any white person born before, say, 1948 or so PROBABLY has uttered something that'd be considered racist now. Not guaranteed, but highly different times)

How'd he like the tune?

^Wasn't there a killer who used that argument when they were caught? That they were a killer, admittedly, but they'd never robbed anybody because they only took things after the person they killed was dead. Or maybe it was a movie and not a historical thing.

^For sufficiently liberal interpretations of "eschewing" that may be true...

MOONRAKER (1979) - Eon skipped the previously announced FOR YOUR EYES ONLY to leap into the space craze with Moonraker. A plot that is highly similar to the previous outing (bad guy steals stuff so he can complete plan to eradicate all but his chosen people in his secret sea/space base. Bond and an agent from another country investigate. Jaws interferes). They manage to improve on one aspect of the previous film (namely that Drax is a more interesting villain than Stromberg and gets better lines "Make sure some harm befalls him"). But the rest of the story is languid and there's one set piece too many (did we need another boat chase?). Jaws makes a welcome return but as so much reminds one of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME its hard not to notice that this film isn't, ultimately, as good as that one. MINISTRY OF FEAR (1944) - Ray Milland plays a man just released from a prison for the insane who stumbles upon a spy plot by accident. A wrong man thriller based on a Grahame Green story and directed by Fritz Lang. Lots of moody lighting and good suspense. SINBAD: THE 5TH VOYAGE (2014) - while I applaud the idea of going back and doing stop motion animation adventure film (just like Ray Harryhausen did back in the day), I can't help but wonder how writer, director and star Shahin Sean Solimon would look at the Harryhausen films and make such a leaden and grim film. The Harryhausen films (even to CLASH OF THE TITANS) were direct descendants of the swashbuckling films. Derring do, excitement, humour, thrills and fun. This film lacks that, instead Sinbad is more in line with a taciturn Batman than the Sinbad of the Harryhausen films. The stop motion animation is okay, but often staged in uninteresting ways. Almost no character but Sinbad has any development and remains a cypher through the story. A real dissapointment (possibly because the intent to do a modern day Harryhausen film - even with a low budget - is an exciting prospect).

I bet you didn't like MAD MONSTER PARTY either.