Obsidian, I feel sorry for you.

[Kimozabi]

Boy, am I glad I'm not in your shoes right now.

You made a game that you thought your backers would love (and by many accounts they do).

It got released to glowing reviews - http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/687020-pillars-of-eternity/index.html - telling us all that this type of game still has a place in the hearts of many, many people.

 

And then Twitter happened... And immediately you got roped in.

 

To put the now-removed limerick into perspective, take a look at this episode of Friends - that lovely family show we've probably all watched:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF1LSYkQ5A0#t=4m55s

They make the EXACT SAME JOKE. Chandler thinks a person is a lady, kisses "her", then finds out it's a guy and he is made fun of by all his friends.

 

We all know the limerick in question, and how it could just as well have been a good-looking gay person instead of a transgendered person. But sadly, we also know how much original intentions mean in the modern climate of taking offense at every god damn little thing on Twitter.

I suppose many of us also marvelled at the "outrage" when the US. Army used the word "****" about a piece of armor, not a person, but was still accused of racism, and the Twitter offense crowd were baffled their outraged wasn't 100% satisfied with an apology following the deletion of the Tweet:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/01/30/army-deletes-tweet-referring-to-****-in-armor-after-racism-accusations/

Or how outrage on Twitter got alternate - not mandatory - covers pulled from both Marvel and DC Comics.

Oh, and let's not forget how it took Twitter less then 24 hours to turn their outrage cannons against the upcoming Daily Show host for "antisimetic" jokes: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/237462-new-daily-show-host-faces-outrage-over-antisemitic-tweets

 

It is so simple to explain that the limerick in PoE is at the expense of they guy who killed himself and his, uh, straigthness being fooled, but it's also easy to see how little it matters when Twitter gets offended. When that happens, it's only their interpretation that is important. They are mad now, and everyone better pay attention, dammit.

 

And here we are now. Having speech and jokes suppressed are super-awesome as long as you want to suppress the "right" kind of speech. Because if you don't, you'll get a trip through to media spin. And I present the following example to show how shameless it sometimes is:

http://kotaku.com/the-trash-talk-during-microsofts-conference-was-awful-512330167

Here, Patricia Hernandez complains about trash talk on stage at a Microsoft E3 conference, where she quotes Jonathan Blow:

"'Let's bring a woman on stage and joke about how she's bad at games, and say stuff like 'relax, just let it happen, it'll be over soon'??""

But notice how her included video clip is only 1 minute long. If you watch the full presentation, the EXACT opposite happens about 2 minutes later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueq8mE5i2Ok#t=2m36s

The lady absolutely mops the floor with the guy. Which was conveniently removed from the Kotaku piece.

 

Ps: And no, I'm not a gamergater or whatever. I just think think kind of cherry-picking is terrible, because this kind of exclusion of the whole story is exactly what is allowing the personal interpretation of content to trumps it's original intent.

 

I hope you have a strategy to deal with this for your next games, because it is going to happen again. You didn't ask to be involved, and you didn't ask to have any type of political responsibility placed on you. But because you chose to react to it, and the result is following the wishes of the person complaining on Twitter, you have once more reinforced that people like her can change anything they want. She can tweet and tweet about wanting to exterminate half the human race or that she wants to put men in concentration camps, but somehow she still has a right to have her feelings dictate the creative works of other people. 

And there was nothing you could do about it.

 

I have nothing but respect for you contacting to backer about this and not just changing the limerick yourselves. And you have my deepest sympathies. You just wanted to make a fantastic game. You included an unvetted limerick from a $500 backer. Keep it, and Twitter comes after you. Change it and your backers get mad at you.

 

You are stuck between the most ridiculous rock and a hard place. Man, do I dream of the day when someone will Tweet "This video game content offends me" and everybody will respond: "And why the **** should we care?"

 

[Bollockoff]

Mods should really be given powers to ban people for being a bore.

[Posbi]

Nobody forced Obsidian to act on this. The sane choice would have been not to react and succumb to the desires of a SJW crowd not making up their core customer base. This only became an issue because Josh Sawyer made it into one.

 

"Transmysoginy." Yeah, right.^^

 

But it's not even about transgenders in the first place! For ****s sake! It's a mix of the old RPGs clichees of "people in drag" and "people drunk as piss". That's. All. There. Is. To. This. I still don't understand the mental gymnastics you need to put yourself through to look at the simple limerick and arrive at "transmysoginy". The only reason people get there is because they really, really want to get there.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Posbi

[ddillon]

TotalBiscuit addresses the topic:

 

https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/pillars-of-transphobia

[PrimeJunta]

The nice thing is, though, that Obsidian and probably a good many other studios are going to be very careful not to let this kind of thing happen again. 

 

So, thank you, O Social Injustice Warriors, for the huge poopiestorm you raised over the changing of the limerick. That turned a barely-noticeable event into a great victory for the cause of better gaming culture. Keep up the work!

[chengda85]

TLDR please

[Ekaros]

I don't feel sorry for them, after all they dug their own grave. Now it's question if they climb up or if we bury them. They still have chance to redeem themselves...

[Posbi]

The nice thing is, though, that Obsidian and probably a good many other studios are going to be very careful not to let this kind of thing happen again...

...by pre-censoring themselves. Yay, great.^^ Because that's how this usually works.

[Sakai]

I don't feel sorry for them, after all they dug their own grave. Now it's question if they climb up or if we bury them. They still have chance to redeem themselves...

You know, when you complain about people outraged over nothing, being ridiculous yourself doesn't really help the argument.

[SeekDWay]

In the mean time in the EU (at least where I live) nobody gives a bloody ****. It's a joke, you get it and move on. I got a gay friend who jokes (constantly) about "not-gay" (moogles ) people, so what? It's a joke. This whole gamergate thing is completely alien to me.

 

This whole thing began with people saying this is stupid to begin with. Just ignore it and move on, it's the best way to deal with it.

 

There is also a mod being released to make the game more up-to-date politically correct. Here is a preview.

Edited April 4, 2015 by SeekDWay

[ChipMHazard]

So, thank you, O Social Injustice Warriors, for the huge poopiestorm you raised over the changing of the limerick. That turned a barely-noticeable event into a great victory for the cause of better gaming culture. Keep up the work!

 

Really? Having developers feel like they have to perform more self-censorship is a good thing? 

[Nosmirc]

Kimozabi, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:01 AM, said:

You just wanted to make a fantastic game. You included an unvetted limerick from a $500 backer. Keep it, and Twitter comes after you. Change it and your backers get mad at you.

 

The lesson to be learned here is that Twitter users are largely insane and should be considered carefully before interacting with. The person who Tweeted at JE tweets crazy stuff all the time, and makes no effort to hide the fact that they're a hardcore misandrist, and seems to be consistently offended at stuff. This is not the sort that you should be listening to. Twitter, man, I don't know what it is, but it makes people post crazy stuff all the time, with their real names no less! Truly a strange thing to behold.

 

Anyways, this nonsense shouldn't have left Twitter. It should have stayed there, and died there. Not to mention most of the posts here were in support of the original limerick. If they had to pick between Twitterers and backers, the answers should be obvious: Backers all the way.

 

The truly stupid thing was it was already dying off before they made the change. The change lit off this powder keg. In terms of screwing up, this is a pretty big one on Obsidians part, IMO. At very least, they should've been putting out an official response that clearly laid out how the dealio went down when the patch went live, rather then reacting to peoples outrage then making the response.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Nosmirc

[Maviarab]

 

Kimozabi, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:01 AM, said:

You just wanted to make a fantastic game. You included an unvetted limerick from a $500 backer. Keep it, and Twitter comes after you. Change it and your backers get mad at you.

 

The lesson to be learned here is that Twitter users are largely insane and should be considered carefully before interacting with.

 

Judging by the subsequent immature, heated and self entitled attitudes we got here yesterday....

 

One could say the same about gamers Nosmirc.

[Longknife]

 

 

I'm very conflicted.

 

On one hand I too was disappointed to see the route they took.

 

On the other hand, I think they took that route in the best way possible by letting the backer ultimately decide if the limerick would even be changed or left as is. Only thing they could've improved upon is warning us in advance, not after the change is made. That would've done loads to calm the storm; they handled the issue itself perfectly, but not the presentation and the communication aspect of it, which was handled terribly.

 

On a much more dramatic end of things, I've seen myself how people are practically feeding themselves excuses to be mad at Obsidian. Many of the responses to Firedorn (the backer) having authority over if it was changed or not have been "he's lying" or "Obsidian is wrong for even TRYING to appease all sides in the first place." This I find nothing short of ridiculous, because I think any company would've acted EXACTLY the same in their shoes, and to act as if that's not the case is...it's just childish. It's an excuse to remain mad rather than assess the facts and react accordingly.

 

 

 

 

In that sense I'm just...mad. But it's a very melancholy sort of mad where I'm upset with everyone.

 

I'm upset with Obsidian for not thinking things through more; why not tell people upfront about the change? Or leave it in but explicitly plan a transgender NPC in an upcoming expansion or game so as to appeal to both the anti-censorship camp but also show that it's not a matter of transphobia?

 

I'm upset with the (in my opinion) delusional assessment of how "poor" it is Obsidian handled this, as if an attempt to appease all sides is not a standard practice that ANY company would go through.

 

I'm upset with the amount of people who acted like freaking children on these forums, both people for and against the limerick, just sitting about pointing fingers at each other and never daring to think critically about accusations pointed at themselves instead of just pointing fingers.

 

I'm upset about how in my efforts to bring facts about the situation to a certain GamerGate subreddit, I consistently found my posts downvoted faster than I could hit the refresh button simply because my facts put a bit of a damper on the trendy narrative at the time. These are supposed to be the people who accuse the guy on twitter of overreacting...? WTF guys you're doing the same....



I'M UPSET. That's all I know.

[drummen]

I hope you guys are aware that Obsidian didn't change the poem on their own terms.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/74461-controversial-limerick-discussion/page-25?do=findComment&comment=1631723

 

As you can see the original author of the poem was asked and was given a choice. 

I think its hard to find a flaw in what Obsidian was doing. They were recieving a complaint and instead of doing anything as the mighty ruler they asked the person responsible how it should be handled.

 

Let me ask you this: If the author wanted the poem to get removed or changed and Obsidian didnt do so: Would you complain too?

[Sleazebag]

Both sides of this outrage are extremely annoying, as they clutch onto buzz words and use any social media "war" as an excuse to voice their opinions in a loud and obnoxious manner, because they know they are ignored in the real world and nobody ultimately cares at all. One side just has added irony to it as they are essentially outraged over an outrage, and write on how the other side is going too far, yet they take that step to go too far themselves as quick as they can. 

 

Ultimately this is not about artistic integrity, this is not about self-entitlement, it was a comedic poem in an optional piece of content inside a video game that some people could deem offensive. Obsidian asked the backer if they wanted to do something about it, the backer chose to change his poem to something else that mocks the whole situation. He did not lose money, he was not forced to change it. He chose to change it himself.

 

Luckily this will all die down in like a few days or a week and nobody will barely remember anything because that's how these things go in these dumb internet squabbles.

[Longknife]

IMAGINE for a moment that you know for a fact that someone within your community (Obsidian) is guilty of petty theft, and you believe they should face consequences for it. However, the moment you're ready to turn that person in, you realize that the town has an interest in taking this petty thief and charging them with COLD-BLOODED MURDER, something you consider outrageous and totally unjustified. You are then hesitant to bring the petty thief to the police and turn them in at all, because while they do need to face some level of justice, you have a sinking feeling there won't be anything justified about the punishment that will come.

 

 

That's how I feel about this.

And no it's not a perfect analogy as Obsidian didn't really commit a crime to begin with so "facing justice" is not the best for this analogy. My beef with them is more that again more communication would've done wonders to calm this down and I also get the sense Obsidian had perhaps a very....uneducated insight into what would actually happen if the limerick were pulled, to a degree that I almost consider to be negligent.

[Nosmirc]

Maviarab, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:33 AM, said:

 

Nosmirc, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:27 AM, said:

 

Kimozabi, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:01 AM, said:Kimozabi, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:01 AM, said:

You just wanted to make a fantastic game. You included an unvetted limerick from a $500 backer. Keep it, and Twitter comes after you. Change it and your backers get mad at you.

 

The lesson to be learned here is that Twitter users are largely insane and should be considered carefully before interacting with.

 

Judging by the subsequent immature, heated and self entitled attitudes we got here yesterday....

 

One could say the same about gamers Nosmirc.

 

 

Not really. The posts here have nothing on some of the insane Twitter users out there. One of my personal favourites was the guy joking about hanging white men being used as pinatas, right after Robin Williams hung himself. Who even thinks that, let alone posts it on Twitter?

[Sakai]

Not really. The posts here have nothing on some of the insane Twitter users out there. One of my personal favourites was the guy joking about hanging white men being used as pinatas, right after Robin Williams hung himself. Who even thinks that, let alone posts it on Twitter?

Just because someone is more insane, doens't mean it's ok to be slightly less insane. I am disappointed too with the whole thing, but if this is all it takes for some people to go ballistic on Obsidian, well then how they are better than the people who started it?

[ChipMHazard]

 

 

Kimozabi, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:01 AM, said:

You just wanted to make a fantastic game. You included an unvetted limerick from a $500 backer. Keep it, and Twitter comes after you. Change it and your backers get mad at you.

 

The lesson to be learned here is that Twitter users are largely insane and should be considered carefully before interacting with.

 

Judging by the subsequent immature, heated and self entitled attitudes we got here yesterday....

 

One could say the same about gamers Nosmirc.

 

 

Oh how I detest that term... There is no such thing as gamers (at least not in the way that it has been used the last year or so), but there is such a thing as people whom play video games. 

People can and will behave like **** no matter where you go, it's simply easier to do so on the internet. 

[Longknife]

 

Not really. The posts here have nothing on some of the insane Twitter users out there. One of my personal favourites was the guy joking about hanging white men being used as pinatas, right after Robin Williams hung himself. Who even thinks that, let alone posts it on Twitter?

Just because someone is more insane, doens't mean it's ok to be slightly less insane. I am disappointed too with the whole thing, but if this is all it takes for some people to go ballistic on Obsidian, well then how they are better than the people who started it?

 

 

Exactly this. I saw the "trust but verify" mantra go out the window as people clung to the stupidest **** to be mad about. Did you know it was a thing to claim BAdler lied to us (on reddit anyways)? How? He has a post somewhere where he essentially said something like "the grave wasn't removed. It seems to have moved to the Woodland gravesite (we have limited control over where it ends up or moves). We spoke with the backer about it." People focused on the "the grave wasn't removed" part and argued this is a lie because they did infact remove the limerick, and they showed absolutely ZERO willingness to try and make sense of what BAdler meant, even when the latter half of the post about talking to the backer heavily implied he meant the limerick was changed.

 

 

 

It's like wtf is this nitpicky bullcrap and why are the people claiming the twitter rant was ridiculous the ones RESPONSIBLE for this nitpicky bullcrap? If you want to actually be critical of Obsidian, why not just highlight how they should've announced the change in advance? Why not just repeatedly ask them why they felt the removal was warranted to begin with? Inventing non-issues and spending time on those doesn't help further ones agenda, it just distracts from instances where people actually do have legitimate reasons to complain about how things were handled.

[Legbiter]

I'm disappointed in Obsidian but on the other hand the SJW's who showed up here to defend the censorship were so repulsive they do more to disgust normies and discredit socjus sociopathy than anything one might say.

 

Oh, and remember, this is the SJW Obsidian caved in for.

 

[Base7]

 The guys I have been looking up to for years, have given in to the whims of insane people.

 

Western culture is on a collision course with history.

[Nosmirc]

Sakai, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:51 AM, said:Sakai, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:51 AM, said:

 

Nosmirc, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:45 AM, said:Nosmirc, on 04 Apr 2015 - 04:45 AM, said:

Not really. The posts here have nothing on some of the insane Twitter users out there. One of my personal favourites was the guy joking about hanging white men being used as pinatas, right after Robin Williams hung himself. Who even thinks that, let alone posts it on Twitter?

Just because someone is more insane, doens't mean it's ok to be slightly less insane. I am disappointed too with the whole thing, but if this is all it takes for some people to go ballistic on Obsidian, well then how they are better than the people who started it?

 

 

This is rather detracting from my point: Twitter users are often crazy and post crazy things, and one should look before jumping in feet first. This was a critical mistake on Sawyers part, IMO.

 

EDIT: As you can see in post 20, those are the sort of things the person who complained to Sawyer posts. Not the sort really worth listening to.

 

This matter was already on it's way out the door until they made the change. If they had done nothing, very little was likely to come of it. The mess of topics here didn't need to happen. The easily offended would've eventually find something new to be offended at.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Nosmirc

[Shake Appeal]

You're all being very boring. I'm sorry your ideology is flawed and your worldview is crumbling in the face of actual social progress on issues like this, but at least try to be dignified about it.