Cyberpunk Catch-All

It's pretty easy to give the cosplay prize to someone else, for starters.

I mean they could try to not be a sh*tty company for starters.

There's no value in abstracting this out into Party One and Party Two having a hypothetical disagreement.

Trans people want CDPR to stop fetishizing them and perpetuating harmful stereotypes about them.

CDPR has shown through their actions that they want to continue to stereotype and fetishize trans people, particularly trans women.

Where this ends is that either people collectively decide that harmful depictions of trans people are enough to not buy what CDPR is selling—and journalists decide to stop lavishing them with coverage and awards—or else trans people see that harm to them doesn't outweigh other people's desire for fancy video game products and they give up on trying to be safely included.

This isn't a new conflict. It's played out already multiple times with developers like Rockstar and Atlus. So far, gamers keep siding with the fancy video game products.

For me personally they are being too sh*tty. I won’t be buying there are a tonne of other games to play.

I already pre-ordered from GOG. It is one of the few games to be coming out these days that I am actively looking forward to.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

There's no value in abstracting this out into Party One and Party Two having a hypothetical disagreement.

Trans people want CDPR to stop fetishizing them and perpetuating harmful stereotypes about them.

CDPR has shown through their actions that they want to continue to stereotype and fetishize trans people, particularly trans women.

Where this ends is that either people collectively decide that harmful depictions of trans people are enough to not buy what CDPR is selling—and journalists decide to stop lavishing them with coverage and awards—or else trans people see that harm to them doesn't outweigh other people's desire for fancy video game products and they give up on trying to be safely included.

This isn't a new conflict. It's played out already multiple times with developers like Rockstar and Atlus. So far, gamers keep siding with the fancy video game products.

Agreed. Is there an olive branch that everyone can agree to latch on to? Doing this video game company by video game company, is... inefficient. So how does society move beyond this? Do we have the will and/or the means to do so?

Additionally, as my faith in humanity is low (some might say non-existent), what is after that first step (i.e. for starters) given the history/emotion/bigotry?

Believe me, people are telling CDPR they don't like this. The conversation, such as it is at this point, is happening. Obviously without the game being out it's a tough conversation to have.

Until companies f*cking listen to trans folk (or better yet employ them in positions where they can influence game development) this will continue to happen. That change won't happen while the vast majority of people continue to happily look the other way and buy their games, since it's clear most people value their own fun over supporting a persecuted minority. (And often like to loudly express how little a sh*t they give by boasting about their preorders)

And since we can't even get cis folk to listen to us when they are legislating laws that are specifically about us and affect us, I'm not holding my breath that will change anytime soon.
Especially from a company based in Poland which is currently directly engaged in 'cleansing' its population of lgbtq+ people.

Nevin73 wrote:

I already pre-ordered from GOG. It is one of the few games to be coming out these days that I am actively looking forward to.

I don't pre order anything except for $600 giant robots, games not so much. I don't even buy new games of things I love. I think this is going to big pre order seller though. I haven't watched the last couple news shows for the game but they seem to be getting people excited. On the downside some people are upset over wall running being removed. It will be interesting to see if it gets modded back in.

This is an honest question, isn't the controversy surrounding how CDPR is handling trans issues a good thing? Trust me, I'm not defending the company, but the blowback that they received for their handling of trans gender characters resulted in discussions about the issue and in additional character options, which I think may be a first in a AAA title.

The company's (and to a greater extent, the region/world's) toxic culture must go. But I think anything that brings additional attention to an oppressed group of people (and the ensuing discussion) is a good thing.

I mean... Perhaps, but since this isn't nearly the first time we've had these concerns raised about Cyberpunk and CDPR's handling of trans folk, specifically trans women, then it's downright infuriating. Clocky and Pyxi have articulated this a million times better than I ever could. CDPR is already way past the three strikes here. Okay, sure, they're getting blowback. But they've gotten some in the past for the exact same reasons. And yet they're still doing it. At this point, I'm not convinced they're in any mindset to listen and learn, and I've written them up as a lost cause. Nothing short of a massive boycott will work, at this point.

Is it good that they're being made aware of the hurtful things they're doing? Sure, though as Eleima notes, this ain't the first time they've heard it.

The bigger problem is that it's incredibly unfair for their learning process to involve repeatedly doing things that hurt marginalized people, and puts the burden of calling them out on those same people. Learning by failing is perfectly good if you're the one falling on your face and getting hurt. Learning that punching people is bad by way of punching people repeatedly and thinking "if people don't like me punching them, they can tell me to stop" is an incredibly bad way to learn if you're older than 4.

That is a very good analogy.

whispa wrote:

Delayed until Dec 10 :(

Huh. I thought they had announced that it had "gone gold".

Coming in real hot, this one is.

polq37 wrote:
whispa wrote:

Delayed until Dec 10 :(

Huh. I thought they had announced that it had "gone gold".

Coming in real hot, this one is.

Yeah I'm disappointed. Changed my vacation days now

polq37 wrote:

Huh. I thought they had announced that it had "gone gold".

Did a big ad buy for it and everything. I got banner ads about the gaming going gold in all kinds of places.

Push back from the mandatory crunch going public probably factored in.

As per that obnoxiously yellow image, for anyone who can't read its tiny font: "Going Gold" only means that the game has passed platform certification, can be completed, and has all content in it. The claim is that the team drastically underestimated how much time would need to go into the "Day 0" patch.

It seems odd that there has been a gold master that has passed certification but they are delaying the game. That would imply that either their "gold" version had some bugs that were big enough that they didn't want it to come out or that there is a problem with manufaturing/distribution.

I wonder if this will be another situation where reviewers are stuck with a subpar build for whatever their review period is, and any glitches and performance issues they find are largely cleared up on release day.

Just a big mess all around, really.

merphle wrote:

As per that obnoxiously yellow image, for anyone who can't read its tiny font: "Going Gold" only means that the game has passed platform certification, can be completed, and has all content in it. The claim is that the team drastically underestimated how much time would need to go into the "Day 0" patch.

Thanks, still learning the message options and posting links

Ugh. Not thrilled. Was really looking forward to playing this over Thanksgiving week. I know it’s for the better, but it really just stinks for those of us that have planned PTO that may need to be adjusted.

whispa wrote:
merphle wrote:

As per that obnoxiously yellow image, for anyone who can't read its tiny font: "Going Gold" only means that the game has passed platform certification, can be completed, and has all content in it. The claim is that the team drastically underestimated how much time would need to go into the "Day 0" patch.

Thanks, still learning the message options and posting links

It's cool, you did nothing wrong.

trueheart78 wrote:

Ugh. Not thrilled. Was really looking forward to playing this over Thanksgiving week. I know it’s for the better, but it really just stinks for those of us that have planned PTO that may need to be adjusted.

I was off for this and CoD so now i don't have to choose what i play on my time off

Waiting for the news that CD Project was bought by Valve and release will be delayed indefinitely in favor of a bite-sized, multiplayer VR experience. Or that they were bought by Disney and the game will be retooled to fit in the Star Wars universe. Or that they were bought by Ubisoft and more map icons and copy protection needed to be added.

So it sounds like their marketing team was using some creative license with the definition of "gone gold" making a bet that the team could actually finish the game on time... and couldn't.

IMAGE(https://martech.zone/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/you-keep-using-that-word.jpg)

The should delay it to January and announce that all holiday vacations have been cancelled and that their teams will be working triple time to make sure that gamers have the best and most polished experience possible. Gamers will rejoice!

What I'm concluding from the constantly-sliding release date is that they're still finding tons of bugs. I think I'm going to avoid this as a Day One buy, although I'm sure I'll get it eventually.

Early buyers, it seems to me, may be in for a rough time.

Malor wrote:

Early buyers, it seems to me, may be in for a rough time.

They're just trying to get all the Alpha Protocol out of it.