Cyberpunk 2077 - new CDProjekt Red - The Bear and Badger

hunk

Fuck me, a game narrative does not have to adhere to the real world.
Just like the narrative of a movie or a book does not have to adhere to the real world. It all depends on the themes the devs deem important and want to communicate to the player. People really need to grow the fuck up.

People are outraged by a limited demo of a game and their own racist presumptions. Please stop doing that and wait for the full product to hit the shelves. Then you can judge the game properly going by all its flaws and merits including stereotypical representation.

Tempy

Yes that’s precisely what’s happening when people criticise what the developers chose to show of their game, they’re having racist presumptions.

The game doesn’t exist in a vacuum as a perfectly formed object. The marketing is intent.

Minnesänger

It's been interesting to watch the changing opinions on CDPR. A lot of the dodgy shit is from their GOG social media channels, which are obviously closely associated with them, but not the same as the main dev team. A few years back I remember CDPR were being championed as particularly progressive for having gay and trans characters in The Witcher 3 and not turning them into a punchline. Before that, they were getting shit for misogyny in the first Witcher game due to the collectable soft-porn cards. It's quite a fucking yo-yo of popular opinion.

Tempy

The way I see it is this: cyberpunk is tough ground to deal with in a way that fantasy isn’t. Fantasy is regressive and gets away with a lot of things you would be criticised for more harshly elsewhere, because it’s baked into the setting.

Cyberpunk is a dystopia, but the narrative is closely aligned with the underdog. Transhumanism is a huge part of the setting, just as much as “corps are bad” and “the japanese might be better then the americans” but transhumanism is the big one. It just so happens that that means a lot of people who feel uncomfortable in their bodies, or feel outcast by society by doing things that puritanical society can deem transgressive often relate to transhuman narratives. Cyberpunk isn’t queer, but it’s queer enabling.

By choosing to make a cyberpunk game, CDPR have chosen a setting that’s close to the hearts of the few, and have to market it to the many. That means total lack of nuance, a lack of critical engagement with the material, weird views about “the profane” and body modding, and the easy fallback of “it’s a dystopia so it’s bad for everyone!” which misses the narrative of cyberpunk fiction which whilst never perfect, frequently fights against societal hegemony and has complex ideas about the individual and autonomy.

I see no issue with people reacting to and criticising what CDPR chose to show of their game, because it is indicative of their intent for the final product. Sam Greer did a good piece for RPS on why it matters to talk about what’s being shown now, rather than wait for some enshrined perfect product that’s a hypothetical.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/06/14/cyberpunk-2077s-in-game-context-doesnt-matter-if-its-marketing-contributes-to-transphobia-right-now/amp/

Also being critical of something’s portrayal doesn’t also mean you can’t be excited or interested by it. I am pretty cool on Cyberpunk right now, but that is because i know they can do great things as per The Witcher 3, but that isn’t what they’re showing me right now.

I feel the idea that people need to “grow up” instead of doing anything but get hyped about a game, and equating considering what the devs are choosing to show and how it might be bad with “outrage” is pretty lame all told.

Minnesänger

Yeah, I think those are all fair points.

I think fantasy and sci-fi dystopias have a lot in common as they both generally trade in stories about social power structures, whether it's aristocrats versus proles, or corps versus consumers, but yeah, the transhumanism aspect gives a lot more weight to the possibilities and weight of representation.

I think the "market it to the many aspect" is right on, too - I imagine for a lot of people, myself included perhaps, the big interest in the game is less that it is a cyberpunk game and more that it's a CDPR game. That instantly creates a sense of bias, as it means people like myself might tend to support CDPRs choices even if those are contrary to the fundamental themes and possibilities of the cyberpunk world. I don't really know Cyberpunk and so I tend to view it through the lens of whether it is going to deliver another Witcher 3 level experience. I tend to see it through dialogue options and RPG skill trees, and not through whether it enables a full range of identity that the setting, if done properly, should enable.

CDPR have done enough for me in the past for me to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I don't think that the criticism of what's been shown is at all unreasonable and I recognise that I'm not in a position to feel particularly alienated by any of their choices. If I was suffering with identity struggles and was a big fan of the cyberpunk mythos, I'd probably feel different.

Minnesänger

None of the above is designed to try to hand-wave or excuse any criticism. I get it, and I try not to reject this stuff out of hand.

Tempy

I think the article by Sam is pretty good, as her favourite game is without a shadow of a doubt The Witcher 3, and it’s precisely that investment which feeds into the criticisms that she has of what they’re choosing to show right now.

hunk

I understand people's concerns about portrayals of themes and representation of groups.
Videogames are notoriously shit at both and it's not often a game manages to succesfully nail both or even just one. If it weren't for the Witcher3 I'd probably doubt cdpr too.

I don't mind criticism either, it's just the weird internet hysteria that seems 'off'?
But yeah, it's good and necessary to have discussions like these. Taboos need to be broken if videogame content is to mature.

Tempy

It’s not hysteria though

hunk

It is 'internet hysteria' if people are dismissing a game due to an in game poster or gang name?
Why not reach out to the devs for commentary first?

But admittedly, I haven't delved into the case and only stumbled onto Yong's video by accident.
It's probably misscommunication from cdpr to the public/gaming press too as they're covering sensitive issues and themes not realising they can be misinterpreted in a short demo. Obvious learning moment.

Tempy

It isn’t, they’re criticising the game based on the context behind the poster, and the gang being shown as vicious haitians called “Animals”.

I think Yongyea knows exactly what he’s courting here.

hunk

I'd agree with you if cyberpunk2077 wasn't already an established ip. Not the case here and that includes the haitian gang calling themselves animals. The rps journo clearly wasn't aware of the game's tabletop rpg origins. Yong isn't being controversial here imo.

CDPR can learn something from this incident too. They should've given more attention and info on the themes and groups on display instead of just assuming the audience is already 'in the know'.

Tempy

Greer totally knows about the tabletop origins. Being slavish to the source as a shield for criticism doesn’t hold up. Pondsmith is just a guy, the decisions he makes aren’t free from criticism just cos he made them and he’s black. I don’t get how you square this up with your read on stuff like Quilette employing young black conservatives as an attempt to shield them from criticism, because you know people can have outmoded, uncritical and poor judgement regardless of race or sex.

And that’s what this is, this is people criticising something. Not calling for censorship, or for banning, or saying they want it changed or they’ll boycott it, it’s people saying that it seems like a poor choice, that representation matters, that we can have a commentary on an cultural object. Maybe what Pondsmith wrote for his dystopian fiction flew in the 80s, but it isn’t free from the context it now exists in.

hunk

Fair points, I hear ye Tempy.
We'll have to wait and see if cdpr got the message too.

Tempy

The thing is they’re totally free to ignore it, and that’s fine. People are allowed to criticise them too!

Armitage_Shankburn

I hope they do ignore it. Fuck all that shit. It's a goddamn videogame, it is a fantasy setting, written by a man who probably liv d through an era of black identitarianism (which most of these millennials don't even know about) and who knows what the take away is. I trust the writers to convey it. A story is a journey. The red baron was a wife eating oaf, and yet, we saw his humanity, and the tragedy of his and his wife's story. Fuck off with the bandwagon riding. White man plays game, feels uncomfortable, says game plays on stereotypes. I'd like to know where this white man lives, how much contact he has with migrants. Does he know, or can he imagine, what happens in a dystopia to ghettoised migrants? I mean, Haitian US ghettos are an actual thing. Their country was utterly destroyed, by US imperialism. The result is misery. Misery doesn't make people good, it makes them desperate. Migration is tough, it doesn't make people good. It makes them tough and often, incentives them to look after themselves and their kin.

Roujin

Fuck yea! Pwn them libs!

Armitage_Shankburn

Yep, that's definitely what I have said.

Minnesänger

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

I hope they do ignore it. Fuck all that shit. It's a goddamn videogame, it is a fantasy setting, written by a man who probably liv d through an era of black identitarianism (which most of these millennials don't even know about) and who knows what the take away is. I trust the writers to convey it. A story is a journey. The red baron was a wife eating oaf, and yet, we saw his humanity, and the tragedy of his and his wife's story. Fuck off with the bandwagon riding. White man plays game, feels uncomfortable, says game plays on stereotypes. I'd like to know where this white man lives, how much contact he has with migrants. Does he know, or can he imagine, what happens in a dystopia to ghettoised migrants? I mean, Haitian US ghettos are an actual thing. Their country was utterly destroyed, by US imperialism. The result is misery. Misery doesn't make people good, it makes them desperate. Migration is tough, it doesn't make people good. It makes them tough and often, incentives them to look after themselves and their kin.

I think it's a fair critique. It's not people demanding a change or there will be hell to pay, there's people just pointing out that, without context, it looks a bit icky.

The game world of Cyberpunk may well present a fantastically nuanced look at the way people's identities and bodies are exploited for commercial gain. Indeed, given the track record of CDPR and some of the stories in Witcher 3 especially, I'd argue that is likely the case.

But this image is being used by itself, outside of all context, as a marketing tool to sell NVIDIA graphics cards. It's, at best, tone deaf. That doesn't mean I expect them to go rewrite the whole game as a result of that, it just means that pretty much the only trans representation seen in a game about trans-humanism has evidently been a satirical ad about corporate exploitation being used...by a corporation to promote their ray tracing capabilities.

Minnesänger

Roujin wrote:

Fuck yea! Pwn them libs!

Man...that's not fair.

Roujin

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

Yep, that's definitely what I have said.

Well originally your post ended at the fuck off with the bandwagoning line.

But also it wasn't meant seriously, was very much tongue in cheek, don't worry gonz.

Roujin

Minnesänger wrote:

Roujin wrote:

Fuck yea! Pwn them libs!

Man...that's not fair.

Yes, pwn all of our shirts!

Blocks100

In other news, they have also recently confirmed that your car will drive itself to you, when you summon it. How cool is that?!

Armitage_Shankburn

Minnesänger wrote:

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

I hope they do ignore it. Fuck all that shit. It's a goddamn videogame, it is a fantasy setting, written by a man who probably liv d through an era of black identitarianism (which most of these millennials don't even know about) and who knows what the take away is. I trust the writers to convey it. A story is a journey. The red baron was a wife eating oaf, and yet, we saw his humanity, and the tragedy of his and his wife's story. Fuck off with the bandwagon riding. White man plays game, feels uncomfortable, says game plays on stereotypes. I'd like to know where this white man lives, how much contact he has with migrants. Does he know, or can he imagine, what happens in a dystopia to ghettoised migrants? I mean, Haitian US ghettos are an actual thing. Their country was utterly destroyed, by US imperialism. The result is misery. Misery doesn't make people good, it makes them desperate. Migration is tough, it doesn't make people good. It makes them tough and often, incentives them to look after themselves and their kin.

I think it's a fair critique. It's not people demanding a change or there will be hell to pay, there's people just pointing out that, without context, it looks a bit icky.

The game world of Cyberpunk may well present a fantastically nuanced look at the way people's identities and bodies are exploited for commercial gain. Indeed, given the track record of CDPR and some of the stories in Witcher 3 especially, I'd argue that is likely the case.

But this image is being used by itself, outside of all context, as a marketing tool to sell NVIDIA graphics cards. It's, at best, tone deaf. That doesn't mean I expect them to go rewrite the whole game as a result of that, it just means that pretty much the only trans representation seen in a game about trans-humanism has evidently been a satirical ad about corporate exploitation being used...by a corporation to promote their ray tracing capabilities.

I should say I don't even know what image we are talking about

Blocks100

The one with the chick with the dick.

hunk

Apt summary minnesanger!

Blocks100 wrote:

In other news, they have also recently confirmed that your car will drive itself to you, when you summon it. How cool is that?!

Selfdriving and flying cars, yes please.

Other suggestions:
More factions/gangs/corporations/government types backstabbing one another. It's a dog eat dog post-capitalism world. Is everyone still dreaming the American dream?
The body/humanism/transhumanism/ transsexual theme sounds....interesting. Needs expanding on obviously.
Internet, Sex and Cybersex in 2077.
Human like Automatons and AI. Obviously links back to the human/transhumanism theme.

And that's just for starters. So much potential to this ip. Let's hope cdpr doesn't drop the ball and turns this into a meaningless open world fetch quest. If they nail this the genre can finally move on from 1999's seminal Deus Ex.

Dark Soldier

best game ever

Armitage_Shankburn

Blocks100 wrote:

The one with the chick with the dick.

Pm me it pls

Blocks100

To be honest, I didn't even see his/her gigantic member. In the unmagnified shot, it just looks like part of the costume. Trivlisation of transgenderism?, I care not.

Screenshot_2019_06_11_23.02.16.png

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