Not sure if anyone who don't play Pillars of Eternity heard of it : http://www.themarysue.com/pillars-of-eternity-joke-removal/ Pillars Of Eternity Makers Change Fan-Made Text After Player Complaints TL;DR The game was funded in kickstarter and people who gave 500$+ could get an in-game memorial with their own text on it. A transgender woman on twitter noted that shes offended by one of the texts and asked Obsidian to remove. They did remove it in yesterday patch, actually they CHANGED it after discussing it with the creator. The sad part for me is that most of the game community raged because they removed it. They say Obsidian "bent" or lost their "integrity" ... and they get so worked up on the game forums just because of one stupid memorial out of thusands, which btw, they also complained that those memorial exist in the first place because it breaks imersion. I fail to understand their rage can anyone explain that to me ? whats their problem that an offensive memorial will be removed, it wasn't written by the game producers and it hurt a certain group of people and its not part of the game story anyway, so why they rage so much instead of playing the game ?? :eusa_doh:
Playing this game right now, and to be honest, I don't even notice. These messages are not required to play the game, and only exists in a few cemeteries/burial places in the game. I just skip them since I am more busy with the game, and as you said, it breaks immersion. My opinion though? Both sides overreacted. The transwoman was offended, rightly. But looking at it from the game's role play perspective, this is merely a character existing in a homophobic society in the game world - the place is cursed with children born without soul, and so it is implied that women has a "responsibility" to bear children in hope that by sheer chance there will be one with a soul, hence a lot of enforcement of traditional gender role. It could entirely be possible that the author was writing an epitaph about such a homophobic/transphobic character. Considering that the author is fine with the removal of message, maybe that was the idea. For the people that rage, they are like those people in "gamergate" event, instantly rage over anything they deemed to be encroaching upon their games. They, once again, knee jerk react and blame everything to "social justice warrior" (which, by the way, has already lost all its insulting connotation due to overuse by these people. It sounds almost like a good thing now.) Sometimes it is hard, to just be a decent person on the internet without being called it. You don't like mocking and ridicule people due to their race? "SJW." You find that there is a lack of women in game industry "SJW." You think it is worth it to consider the view of disadvantage groups, of discriminated people in a game? "SJW." *throws hand up* just...whatever with them. We are giving them more care than they deserve.
Honestly, I think she overreacted ; the joke isn't necessarily about a trans woman, and it mocks the guy who killed himself over it. Obsidian should have just asked the backer if it was OK to remove the joke. He did pay a lot of money to contribute to the game, after all.
Obsidian did ask the backer before they do anything. In the official statement they made regarding this, they says:
^OK, fair enough. I did some more research ; thanks for informing me, though. I had only heard about this incidentrecently. Still, I don't think it was a particularly transphobic or offensive joke. Either way, it's not a big deal. I'm not really involved in GG, but I usually side with them. In this case, though, as long as the backer (the consumer in this case) is happy with the decision then it's their choice. Here's what the backer said (on the Obsidian forums)about the joke: "Actually, there was a choice. They asked me if I wanted to change in light of what happened. I chose to change it so that they can concentrate on the game instead of this PR nightmare. They weren't going to change it, they asked ME if I wanted to. I can find another platform to write my controversial crap, and I will. They, on the other hand, did the right thing and allowed me to decide the fate of the epitaph. I chose to turn into something that made fun of the bitch-bastards that were complaining. They went above and beyond what I would have expected them to do." Now that I've done some more research: I think Obsidian made the right choice in response to being pressured like that. I am a little upset that they had to remove the joke in the first place, but Obsidian asked the backer and let him decide, which is a good thing. ---------- Post added 4th Apr 2015 at 01:33 PM ---------- http://i.imgur.com/steLWWN.png In fact, he even says that it wasn't targeted at trans people.
