Support NeoGAF

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Eh I would have just turned him into a sidequest where you find out there is some fraud going on and this NPC gets turned into a boss battle and then he gets locked up in a RPG jail.

That would've been awesome and they'd actually have my respect. What is it with this shill infested, low integrity industry? Youtubers are some of the worst, most obnoxious narcissists in the world. His follow up video to being in the game was so cringe, "10/10", it made me never want to buy the game.

 

[FeralEcho]

It's a very strange world we're living in when it comes to digital media. It used to be when something shipped, regardless of format, that was that. It stayed that way.

Now creators are able to do stuff like this and it's very strange.

And the strangest part is people actually defending this practice....even in this thread...Its like people want their rights to be stripped from them, it's laughable.

Like...I don't give a shit if this guy is a pos or not,you made a product,I bought said product, I'm entitled to the experience I paid for,regardless of your feelings for the "actor" in question.What if it was the main lead? Would they delist the entire fucking game? Or what? How much power do we allow devs and publisher to have over our own paid products before we tell em to fuck off?

 

[March Climber]

And the strangest part is people actually defending this practice....even in this thread...Its like people want their rights to be stripped from them, it's laughable.

Like...I don't give a shit if this guy is a pos or not,you made a product,I bought said product, I'm entitled to the experience I paid for,regardless of your feelings for the "actor" in question.What if it was the main lead? Would they delist the entire fucking game? Or what? How much power do we allow devs and publisher to have over our own paid products before we tell em to fuck off?

We both know exactly what it is, and myself and others here have pointed it out multiple times in the past:

“I’m not okay with censorship…unless it’s someone I don’t like”

And many of the ones who do this, don't realize they are doing it, or at worse they don’t see the problem with this statement.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

And the strangest part is people actually defending this practice....even in this thread...Its like people want their rights to be stripped from them, it's laughable.

Like...I don't give a shit if this guy is a pos or not,you made a product,I bought said product, I'm entitled to the experience I paid for,regardless of your feelings for the "actor" in question.What if it was the main lead? Would they delist the entire fucking game? Or what? How much power do we allow devs and publisher to have over our own paid products before we tell em to fuck off?

This. There's very little integrity and backbone amongst devs today. From another perspective the Completionist put out a GREAT shill video for them. Great advertisement for this game. At the very least they should honor what this guy did for their benefit but hey there's no honor with today's woke industry.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

It's a very strange world we're living in when it comes to digital media. It used to be when something shipped, regardless of format, that was that. It stayed that way.

Now creators are able to do stuff like this and it's very strange.

It brings more good than bad. And when it brings the bad, there are always ways to downgrade to an earlier version.

 

[ahtlas7]

Using the likeness and name of real people = bad freaking idea

 

[Red5]

Again, I don't think the situation with Jirard was censorship, for the reasons I mentioned above.

But I can think of a situation where someone was removed from a game because they said something that offended people. They "didn't have a speech platform in the game," and were "literally a character speaking lines that were written by the devs." and they were "not being silenced."

Nevertheless, I would argue that removing him from the game was an act of censorship, because the change was made because of his speech, and based on morality, politics, or religion. And really, that's just a more detailed list of reasons, and you can probably stop at morality. Politics and religion are just variations of wanting to remove content based on morality.

That's not the case with Jirard. With Jirard we're getting into semantics a bit, and I could make an argument for either, but I don't really see it as censorship.

Sea of Stars is not a public platform, they're a product made by a private entity. They don't want to do business with the guy. Freedom of business.

 

[Filben]

I don't get why you'd include a real life person just for the sake of referencing it. I mean, if you made a historical video game and include a historical person it's one thing, like Assassin's Creed 2 having DaVinci , even fictionalised, makes sense. This, however, does not. or do they have Streamers in the Sea of Stars universe?

Just stop with the pop cultural references or at least use it to make fun of it, like the Fallout games and stick to your vision.

Also, why not making a foot note? I know some people would love to erase many books and films that are deemed offensive these days. But if you want video games to be art and taken seriously as cultural good you have to apply the same standards. You erase or change cultural items retroactively and you change history. We've had some crazy people in the past doing that you don't want to be that guy.

Let your art exist within the context it was created in and for. Add a note for educational purposes and be done.

If I'm reading Sherlock Holmes facsimile of course he's doing cocaine and Winston calls PoC negroes. That's a product of the time and also, for historians and for educational purposes, to assess what people thought about, what they wrote about and especially how.

Have little fucking respect for artistic integrity and human cultural record.

 

[MagiusNecros]

“I’m not okay with censorship…unless it’s someone I don’t like”

Got it in one. It's all about self image. And it's pretty obvious in their wishy washy statement of I don't want to pass judgment but fuck that guy. Which is passing judgment.

However in doing so they are removing content and if they remove content from the game regardless of the how and why you are then selling a bad product to the consumer and it is worth less then it was. Which is why I'd rather they add more then take away.

This is just as bad as when Overwatch changed McCree to Cassidy. It just proves the devs are willing to participate in Cancel Culture and I don't respect them for it.

 

[reektann]

I had no idea the building bloke in mirth was a depiction of a real person - ignorance is bliss I guess.

 

[Doomtrain]

self-cen·sor·ship
/ˌselfˈsensərˌSHip/

noun

1. the exercising of control over what one says and does, especially to avoid castigation.
   "a climate of self-censorship, fear, and hypocrisy"

 

[xrnzaaas]

Why was he in the game in the first place? Stop inserting youtubers / influencers / celebrities in videogames ffs.

 

[gaming_again]

Moral editing doesn't sit right with me. Once a creative vision is out there in public is belongs to the people who it resonates with, not the original creators.

Reminds me of the creator of Scrubs defending deleting certain episodes from syndication. He said 'it's my show. I can do what I want.' Disgusting attitude from a writer.

 

[nowhat]

The industry spent 30 odd years filling his mind with crime simulators like Grand Theft Automobile and murder simulators like Mortal Combat and Call of Duty, then it waves its toys in his face “you can’t afford me, I am so much fun nya nya nya” and you have the absolute GALL to tell me the industry didn’t lead him to scam charities?

What drugs are you on and where can I get some?

 

[balls of snow]

The correct move for Jirad was to say I'm sorry, my accountants/family fucked up, and then donate around 700k to 1 Million dollars to charity.

Donating only 600K isnt enough because while it's close to the number on the books, we know the books werent any good. And getting mad at being exposed isnt going to make the problem go away. Now they are gonna at your neck. And if you sue them the books will come out which is what they wanted lol.

Yeah common sense dictates you donate more than required to shut people up. Case close. This whole thing blows over and everyone will forget about it by 2024.
Alas...

 

[Pasta la Vista]

I don’t know why would they even put YouTubers as NPC in the first place?

This. Fuck that shit.

 

[Fart Knight]

Simple as this, don't add influencers in games.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Always funny seeing unknowing people’s reaction to Scotty W’s posts, lol.

I don’t know why would they even put YouTubers as NPC in the first place?

Because these indie devs get a huge popularity boost from their connections with YT personalities.
The absolutely ridiculous score boost their painfully average game got at release says everything.
By removing one of the faces that most assuredly contributed to the game’s acclaim in the first place, they are being pretty scummy themselves. Thanks for the free good press, now under the bus you go. See people, our hands are clean! We are the good guys!

Censorship is not a good idea. Just live with the decision to include him in the game in the first place.

I don’t know what’s sadder, that they feel they need to do this to disassociate themselves from the scammer, or that their intended audience may give them the cold shoulder just because the character is in the game. Social media and a society of hypersensitive morons that use it have turned some very simple things into a mess. But in this case the game is nothing special, so let them fight I say.

 

[Vblad88]

And here we are, praising making money on cancel culture.

I wish game patching was forbidden, so that devs have enough integrity on how to approach every single element of the game without reaching out to community kickstarter/asskissing. Snowflake reactions like that are simply unprofessional. And could've been easily avoided if they wouldn't left this kickstarted design hole in the end.
.

 

[RoadHazard]

Who and why?

 

[Wolfpact1983]

It’s good they removed him from the game. Shouldn’t be in it in the first place.

 

[The Skull]

Who and why?

Some Youtuber who scammed charities.

 

[Hudo]

I don’t know why would they even put YouTubers as NPC in the first place?

This is to only relevant question here.

 

[Tangerine]

He wanted to have his cake and eat it. The adulation and money of being a YouTube e-celeb; while also being greedy and turning into a criminal and leeching from his fans for even more money.

I guess he got away with it for 10 years but only arrogance would think this could stay hidden forever.

I'm glad they are taking his character out the game and yeah, it should never have been in there in the first place. First because things like this happen and second it is immersion breaking. Pretty narcissistic too.

Hope shovel knight Devs throw him under the bus next. I'm sure many people are contacting them, his sponsors, anyone he associates with etc. the usual internet vigilante behaviour.

I'm not getting involved personally. Just in case there's some minor chance he's innocent. That chance is 1% or 2% likely, in my mind.

 

[nowhat]

He wanted to have his cake and eat it.

Have you seen the guy? I'm pretty sure he ate the cake as well.

 

[Calling 911 Melts Beams]

He is 100%ing americas cake supply

 

[SCB3]

Replace him with DSP, at least he's upfront about his begging

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Who?

 

[MiguelItUp]

Using real likenesses is a bad move for reasons like this. People can be awful, so why make potential future work for yourself if you're a dev and they do something shitty or stupid? Create a fictional character and be done with it.

 

[calistan]

I don’t know why would they even put YouTubers as NPC in the first place?

Now I know they did that, there’s zero chance of me ever playing this game.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Censorship is not a good idea. Just live with the decision to include him in the game in the first place.

This is one of the very few cases where I'm okay with it; Fuck that POS scammer.

 

[Vyse]

I’m actually playing Sea or Stars right now and just got to the point where he shows up. Great game btw.

I guess my thought is they added him when they knew it would create awareness to the game. Now they remove him and everyone is talking about the game. Pretty smart if you think about it. He really serves no purpose in the game.

 

[SuperBabyMethod]

I had no idea who this guy was when I played the game; when I saw his NPC portrait I was like, who the fuck is this guy? He looked so different from the other characters in the game with his big head and large beard, and the weird wide smile thanking (or asking?) for donations in the game.

 

[nkarafo]

It's a very strange world we're living in when it comes to digital media. It used to be when something shipped, regardless of format, that was that. It stayed that way.

Now creators are able to do stuff like this and it's very strange.

I said it a lot of times in this forum but i will always keep saying it.

The digital era gave the publishers/developers a stupid amount of control. You now have a library of games on whatever platform and you never know if they get changed after some sneaky automatic update. And those changes can be anything. Content that gets removed (like songs from soundtracks due to licensing issues), censorship (look at Skullgirls) and other small changes like this one.

I still remember original Portal case. For some years the game had a certain ending but during the Portal 2 hype they changed it so they can better connect it with the sequel (among other changes). Now, i do like what they did but what about the original ending? Is that now "lost media"? What if i feel nostalgic and want to see the ending i was used to after beating the game 20 times or so back in the day?

Regardless of changes being good or bad, i really don't like how a piece of artistic media i own and spend time with can be changed without my control. This is the only type of media where this happens. If i own a song or a movie, they will never change it. Sure, they may do a new version, a remaster or whatever but the original version i purchased will be intact. It's only games that you have to keep your eyes on. I guess you can always just disable automatic updates but i do remember being unable to play some games if i did that. You can also probably delete the updates if you have the original physical releases on a console, offline. But for how long will we have that option?

Nowadays most of my digital purchases are from GOG. DRM free file archives where i can easily backup and keep whatever version of the game i want. I rarely buy games on STEAM or anywhere else.

 

[The Skull]

This pos used his mum's death to scam charities out of donations. This isn't some cancel culture bs because someone made an off colour joke. Devs want to remove a criminal from their game who doesn't deserve to be in it and that's fine.

 

[John Bilbo]

This is one of the very few cases where I'm okay with it; Fuck that POS scammer.

Saunan taakse ja niskalaukaus. Mahtuupahan saunaan paremmin.

 

[Rran]

Developers need to just stop putting random YouTubers directly in their games already. Even ignoring all the possible fallout like this scenario, it just feels cheap and immersion-breaking.

 

[nkarafo]

Err, it's their game.

Not after it's in my library, no.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

All I've got to say is that, given the rogue gallery we already have:

Kevin ViewBot Pererererera (or whatever)

TheRea(Sexist)Hokage

Adam White Knight (and nose) Liberal Sessler.

Jirard The Conpletionist Khalul

And Froskurine, the Destroyer of channels

....I'm fully expecting to hear about Morgan Webb being a slave trafficker or some shit.

 

[rkofan87]

The industry spent 30 odd years filling his mind with crime simulators like Grand Theft Automobile and murder simulators like Mortal Combat and Call of Duty, then it waves its toys in his face “you can’t afford me, I am so much fun nya nya nya” and you have the absolute GALL to tell me the industry didn’t lead him to scam charities?

are you ok man?

 

[rkofan87]

All I've got to say is that, given the rogue gallery we already have:

Kevin ViewBot Pererererera (or whatever)

TheRea(Sexist)Hokage

Adam White Knight (and nose) Liberal Sessler.

Jirard The Conpletionist Khalul

And Froskurine, the Destroyer of channels

....I'm fully expecting to hear about Morgan Webb being a slave trafficker or some shit.

what did are boy kp do??

 

[Filben]

You now have a library of games on whatever platform and you never know if they get changed after some sneaky automatic update.

Purely anecdotic and related to another game:
Last year Epic bought Brazilian developer Aquiris, makers of Horizon Chase Turbo, a pretty fun arcade racer with up to 4 players local multiplayer mode. Since then I suspect, totally unproven though, some Epic data/server update ran in the background, because now the local coop mode is completely botched.

Spoiler: Only for people interested in the game and in what actually does not work anymore

The ingame profile name that has usually been the same as the PlayStation network name is now a generic one, "HorizonChaser", for every local player. Now the game still works with several players, list them seperately after a race (so you a four players all with the same name), but calculation thinks it's the same racer, so it adds up all points gained in a race by all human drivers and gives them each one. So after one race, player 1-4 on position 1-4 have all identical points and more than you could achieve in three races alone if you won every single one. Issue number two, because the game itself is so confused with it, it soft locks after each race so you have to close it, restart it and continue the season. If you start the game, however, with not exactly the same profiles you started the local multiplayer mode, it's going to crash, even if you don't intend to play the multiplayer mode. Only option to make it work again is to log in with the exact same profiles and either continue the multiplayer season or abandon it and then play the singleplayer mode.

Last year it worked perfectly and we had so much fun playing with two and even four players. Now it's almost completely useless. Thanks for fucking nothing. Fucking sneaky auto updates.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

what did are boy kp do??

Iirc he got caught red handed and admitted to inflating views of his streams on twitch or some shit. It's the least lulzy of the list, but not everyone is the Joker, some people are stuck at like Clay face level.

 

[rkofan87]

Iirc he got caught red handed and admitted to inflating views of his streams on twitch or some shit. It's the least lulzy of the list, but not everyone is the Joker, some people are stuck at like Clay face level.

kp noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

[Roronoa Zoro]

I remember when Yooka-Laylee removed JonTron after he said some dumb stuff. Final case: eh

I have no idea if Jirad is a fucker or just dumb. Still, removing from the game won't change that much - at least for now

What did JonTron say? If I just use an unupdated version on disc can I still see what he did in game?

 

[Shake Your Rump]

And the strangest part is people actually defending this practice....even in this thread...Its like people want their rights to be stripped from them, it's laughable.

Like...I don't give a shit if this guy is a pos or not,you made a product,I bought said product, I'm entitled to the experience I paid for,regardless of your feelings for the "actor" in question.What if it was the main lead? Would they delist the entire fucking game? Or what? How much power do we allow devs and publisher to have over our own paid products before we tell em to fuck off?

I feel this is part of a larger issue with the industry. We accept major changes to games after purchase. All platforms should require significant changes to games to be opt-in, with the original release still being supported. GOG essentially does this by having a version roll-back system, and providing pre-patch full installs for download. Steam needs to add the ability to disable updates, or a version selection.

An extreme example is Overwatch. I was just thinking about it this morning. I bought that game at full price, and now I cannot play the game due to the publisher forcing everyone to migrate to Overwatch 2. Skyrim Special Edition had Creation Club content as a mandatory update, with no way to disable it, and the original Skyrim is de-listed.

edit: missed the post by nkarafo who shares my sentiments in a more eloquent manner.

 

[DeadMansParty]

Cool, replace him with Mutahar.

 

[Lord Panda]

The right way to solve this, instead of just sweeping the issue under the rug and patching the guy out, should be adding gameplay/quests related, and have the player donating to the NPC something and the NPC not doing the promised stuff, pile on the laughs and make the issue clear for everyone out of the loop, the guy is a thief.

Yep, feels like a missed opportunity for sure. And make it so that as time goes on, Mirth's character portrait becomes more grotesque each time you engage with him during certain points of the quest - his face gets more bloated, and his Allah Ackbar beard gets larger and larger. It would have been legendary.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

What did this guy do to warrant removing him from the game?

 

[Kupfer]

Is it "Karl the Annihilationist" now with a new textbox now?

Hello you absolute legends!
Nothing to see here no more.

What did this guy do to warrant removing him from the game?

Take some time and enjoy: