Is Obsidian publicly undercutting The Outer Worlds' game director, Leonard Boyarsky?

[Flouride]

4 hours ago, Quillon said:

She and "the entire team" working on TOW should be obligated to share Tim & Leo's intent for the game no? Otherwise why appoint directors/vision holders for the game? 

She can ofc have different political views etc. Everyone has.

No, they don't need to be 100% on the same page, that seems like impossible anyways as they are not robots. Directors have a vision where they want to take the game, then it is up to individuals to do their interpration of that vision. It is not open revolt, it is humans doing art, design or writing. There is no way, everything that Boyarsky intents for the game will be shared and done in exactly they way Boayrsky intents it to be, by everyone in the 80-120 team members who have worked on the game.

It is teamwork and the Leads and Project Director should be able to see if everyone is on the same page (or near enough) when it comes to actual content that makes into the game. Writing and art can be interpreted in multiple ways, so even if some artist/writer views his/her piece of art/writing expressing something, it doesn't mean everyone will pick up on that and will see it the same way. Someone might put a bit more emphasis on something that they create but in the end Boyarsky, Cain and the Leads will check whether it will stay true when compared to the rest of the game. So someone won't go totally overboard with their own ideologies in the game.

They are talking about ideologies, not that someone is making a 3rd person game when the game is 1st person and since games are seen as art, they can be interpreted in multiple ways.

 

[Gorgon]

Besides, no one who worked on the game should have to worry about whether they could express what it meant to them. That kind of atmosphere would completely stifle creativity. From the 'big picture' standpoint though, they probably have to make sure that they don't wind up in some party political corner that they never intended. 

[algroth]

12 hours ago, Gorgon said:

That's great. This kind of a game needs that, but it needs to be in service of a story.

It doesn't. I'd argue the exact opposite is more often true, if anything: a *story* needs to be in service of the work's discourse, themes and ideas, since it's these things you want to communicate, explore and develop in the first place. I wouldn't hold it as a necessity per se because I do believe games and art can be purely escapist or aesthetic and valuable as such, so other approaches exist and are perfectly viable; but if you are going to make a game with a story as deeply embedded in ideology and political commentary, where even the very jargon of characters has been reworked to reflect the ubiquity of corporations in their denizens' lives, you better think of what you're telling through your story and how you approach these subjects, otherwise you end up with the muddled politics of a Dark Knight for example. This doesn't mean a dev has to shove one's agenda down the player's throat, or force players to do certain actions in favour of some ulterior ideological motivation - but even in a medium like videogames one always configures the world to react in specific ways to player choices and challenge the player through conflicts and questions posed by the sequence of events, characters, encounters and so on, and all of this does ultimately respond to a overarching discourse. In Pillars, siding with Woedica doesn't change or eliminate the authorial intent and their position over religion's role upon humanity's development, or the push towards an Enlightenment and emancipation from the former in favour of a more humanist understanding of the world and so on; Mask of the Betrayer doesn't suddenly reconfigure its entire narrative and pat the player on the back for choosing to defend the Wall of the Faithless. In these you have both the freedom to do as you feel best, and consequences that question your decisions and thus incite a discussion or ponderation upon the same and the themes and ideas the games present. If anything, the capacity to choose and go against the intent and beliefs only presents a better chance to engage in and discuss the same, all in the configuration of a game and story. Being "political" doesn't mean chastising the player for a choice they make or outright preventing them from making them, a game can be political through several means and approaches, it all boils down to discourse, ideas, and how one engages or challenges the player with the same (and the execution of the same of course) - and again, all of this doesn't preclude the player from having a chance to talk back at the game and its intent through their own in-game actions or out-of-game meditations.

Also let's please stop using "political" like a synonym to "propagandist".

Edited July 7, 2019 by algroth

[Gorgon]

Yeah, do you really think today's discourse is subtle enough for all of that. My use of the term political is limited to the context of not running afoul of an asinine binary power struggle between two parties. 

 

It really shouldn't matter, and it's a pain that if  does, but maybe it does. 

[Quillon]

2 hours ago, Flouride said:

No, they don't need to be 100% on the same page, that seems like impossible anyways as they are not robots. Directors have a vision where they want to take the game, then it is up to individuals to do their interpration of that vision.

Hence the word "intent", they should be intending to uphold their leads' vision for the game, they might not be able to stay 100% true to that but they are paid to do what their positions requires. So saying "our intents differ" is absurd in this context.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Quillon

[algroth]

6 hours ago, dlux said:

So paraphrased:

Capitalism = Good
Crony Capitalism = Not So Good

I don't see any problem with that statement, but I'm not surprised that SJWs and post-modernists once again have their panties in a bunch, because Boyarsky didn't endorse full-blown global communism and one-world government fantasies.

Projecting much? There's been no remarks from anyone mildly SJW in response to this. If anything, the only remarks I'm finding is people *claiming* SJWs and leftists are annoyed. Heck, the Hannah Kennedy tweet has all of ONE response, which is the following:

 

[uuuhhii]

5 minutes ago, Quillon said:

Hence the word "intent", they should be intending to hold up the their leads' vision for the game, they might not be able to 100% true to that but they are paid to do what their positions requires. So saying "our intents differ" is absurd in this context.

how is saying that other devs have their own ideology that doesn't necessarily the exact same with the director means they are not intending to hold up the their director's vision?

everyone have different ideology

it was just stating the obvious

have nothing to do with if the devs try to make the game exactly as director's vision or not

[Quillon]

12 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

how is saying that other devs have their own ideology that doesn't necessarily the exact same with the director means they are not intending to hold up the their director's vision?

everyone have different ideology

it was just stating the obvious

have nothing to do with if the devs try to make the game exactly as director's vision or not

Yeah it would have been stating the obvious if it was "a director's ideology does not represent the entire team or their views"(as Infinitron pointed out) or some other similar meaning word/s, but saying "intent" there suggests she and the team might have been intending something else than their director. 

If it was out of the blue, stating the obvious, not at all connected to what Leonard's been saying to press, why would some of us take issue with it?

Edited July 7, 2019 by Quillon

[uuuhhii]

1 minute ago, Quillon said:

Yeah it would have been stating the obvious if it was "a director's ideology does not represent the entire team or their views"(as Infinitron suggested) or some other similar meaning word/s, but saying "intent" there suggests she and the team might have been intending something else than their director. 

If it was out of the blue, stating the obvious, not at all connected to what Leonard's been saying to press, why would some of us take issue with it?

of course the boss doesn't represent the collective view of their employees

and the rest of the sentence are talking about personal ideology why would the intent means anything professional rather than personal?

[Quillon]

1 minute ago, uuuhhii said:

of course the boss doesn't represent the collective view of their employees

and the rest of the sentence are talking about personal ideology why would the intent means anything professional rather than personal?

Because its used for the team working on the game. Because the statement made after the director's "ideology" for the game. 

[uuuhhii]

2 minutes ago, Quillon said:

Because its used for the team working on the game. Because the statement made after the director's "ideology" for the game. 

that is a very weak conjecture about correlation between event

even if it is a direct response to what the director says

the interpretation of "it was the game director intended to make,not necessarily all the other devs(personal)"are still more logical then "because the director intended to make are not what the same as other devs,we intend not to do the job(professional)"

it reads like a disclaimer

[Quillon]

Well, see it as you see fit. Its rather obvious to me, I might be wrong but I believe I'm not

No point in debating further, my only concern was/is:

7 hours ago, Quillon said:

The only "ideology" Leonard stated is that he doesn't support pushing political agendas in his games, if someone disagrees with it, it's a red flag from me, hope they won't have the chance to push their agendas, either aligning with my own views or not, in future Obs games.

Hope its unfounded.

[dlux]

 

1 hour ago, algroth said:

Projecting much?

I'm just going by what the OP wrote:

On 7/6/2019 at 11:25 AM, Infinitron said:

Predictably, this sent the culture warriors on Twitter and ResetEra into a tizzy. Then yesterday, Obsidian concept artist Hannah Kennedy tweeted this:

I have personally not checked if this is fact, but I don't think he would lie. It would also be pretty typical behavior of the far-left communist brigade that roams those places.

Anyway, Ms. Kennedy is quite obviously an anti-Capitalist, but I am not sure if she is just another confused lefty that really means no harm or if she would truly prefer to work for a state-owned public utility, formally called Microsoft, in a hypothetical United States of Soviet America. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyhoo, respond again and maybe I'll dig some more. Undoubtedly there is more to find.

 

Edited July 7, 2019 by dlux

[algroth]

20 minutes ago, dlux said:

 

I'm just going by what the OP wrote:

I have personally not checked if this is fact, but I don't think he would lie. It would also be pretty typical behavior of the far-left communist brigade that roams those places.

Anyway, Ms. Kennedy is quite obviously an anti-Capitalist, but I am not sure if she is just another confused lefty that really means no harm or if she would truly prefer to work for a state-owned public utility, formally called Microsoft, in a hypothetical United States of Soviet America. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Anyhoo, respond again and maybe I'll dig some more. Undoubtedly there is more to find.

Ah, so you are one of those nutters. Gotcha.

And do dig a little deeper. I have, because I've seen a lot of outrage at alleged SJWs in the past that was entirely fictitious, and far as I've seen it's the same case here.

[Lamppost in Winter]

33 minutes ago, dlux said:

 

 

 

thank you following her now

[Blodhemn]

Use of the word "intent" is pretty careless and egotistical for a concept artist or are they known for that?

Boyarsky's point of view is right on point. I have no time for preachy, one-sided, straw man arguments and especially don't want it in a game I intend to play. Can't see how it actually offends anyone to even say that. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, algroth said:

Ah, so you are one of those nutters. Gotcha.

And do dig a little deeper. I have, because I've seen a lot of outrage at alleged SJWs in the past that was entirely fictitious, and far as I've seen it's the same case here.

Listen here buckaroo, it starts with liking a few tweets and ends with Sawyer sending half the office into labor camps. What else would you expect from a guy who believes in balance? Don't say I didn't warn you when the far-left communist brigade comes to throw you into Chairman Stallman's GNUlag.

[injurai]

Life is all about choice. Modern society especially. Reflected in our economy through a global supply chain and all the emergent implications. Though choice is not equally distributed, and if it were we aren't ever in the same situation to give us equal experience of our choice within a given choice. We find ourselves pulled through optimal paths or mistaken optimal paths from the subset of choices we happen into.

Rpgs are the fictions choice. To craft a true (or simulacrum of a true) choice it has to be somewhat sincere and impactful. It has to be more than a facade. To reflect life in a game is the reflect the politics that come with to. Thus to create choice is to try to get under, behind, above, or beyond politics. To give up demonstrating the right choice by force, to instead empower the player even to fault. But you never really leave politics, as anything can be made political. The shift to abstraction is even political, the limiting factor of potential options is political.

A large component of modern politics revolves around semantics, and the short comings of language make endless hills upon which to die on. I find it both necessary to be political in rpgs, but also be apolitical. Seems like a semantic impasse... What do I mean by that? Well clearly I'm using those terms in a non-exclusive way which you might semantically disagree with. But I trust those reading understand what is meant by that at this point. They aren't inverses but are in fact referring to complementary things. To get topical, In Boyarsky's case I believe he understands the demands of defining player agency, I also believe games like Deus Ex, the upcoming Cyberpunk (which has cited itself as being political) and more also understand the demands of making meaningful choice in a recognizable world. They are each speaking to two different components of choice being embedded in a constructed world crafted from the vestiges of our own. Lastly, to truly paint a living world you have to dilute any particular political thing against the broader sea of politics. The goal in any ambitious rpg is to come ever closer to crafting a more fully realized world. So is it any wonder than that a truly political game full of choice would also become increasingly apolitical? Talk about being political huh? Or is it?

 

[Gfted1]

Nevermind, Google to the rescue!

Edited July 8, 2019 by Gfted1

[Gfted1]

@Ethics Gradient: I had asked what TERFS meant but just decided to look it up instead.

[Gorgon]

 

Is this the point where we slam them for only making 'safe choices' ?

[Ethics Gradient]

3 hours ago, Gorgon said:

Is this the point where we slam them for only making 'safe choices' ?

[pulls out internet outrage checklist]

Nope.  This discussion is still in the "Making assumptions about other assumptions" phase.  With any luck, we might be able to pull together a cogent hypothesis in... [looks at watch] about eighteen months.

Anyhow, we still know relatively little about the game other than everyone at E3 seemed to enjoy their demos.  Mashing a couple out-of-context statements together until it generates traction seems to be all we've got to work with until more extensive pre-release reviews hit the press.

[misterjimmy]

I'm glad Leonard Boyarsky understand this. Those SJW is really annoying, I never forget what they did with Cyberpunk 2077.

 

[213374U]

Oh boy.

Pretty sure we don't need more YT nontroversy/he-said-she-said Twitter ballyhoo. Especially when it pertains to other games. It's bad enough that the general gaming news is already chock full of that kind of "content". Echoing them elsewhere only increases their exposition.

Edited July 10, 2019 by 213374U
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Gorgon]

All this soap opera stuff is par for the course these days isn't it.