videogameschronicle.com

slaacaa, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

Things like these make might heart warm. They remind me of a time when video most games where about making a good experience for the users, not about endless MTX and soulless always online games that all try to be the same thing. Good to see that there are still some people in the industry, who carry own these principles.

iAvicenna,

well I guess it was because the person who spearheaded the game project was also someone who liked and knew what games were about. Now that it has become a lucrative industry, the whole dynamics has shifted to something else.

squirrel, do gaming w ‘I am sorry’: Unity partially walks back on controversial monetization plans | VGC
@squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Ars Technica has done an interview with Unity’s Marc Whitten and Whitten’s responses are very, very telling:

“It was not our intent to nickel-and-dime it, but it came across that way,” he said. […]
"A large part of the problem, Whitten said, was that Unity “didn’t communicate effectively… There were areas where there was some confusion, and we could have done a better job.” […]
“That’s on us,” he continued. “We didn’t do a good enough job… of delivering the information that would help people.”

It shows how dishonest he still is: Of course, they wanted to nickel-and-dime everything. People were not “confused”, they were outraged. No matter how much of a mess Unity’s initial explanations of the details were, the core message was pretty clear: Unity was aiming to get as much money out of developers as it can and it did neither bother to iron out the details of the changes, nor assess the potential damage their plans could do.

Rumours from inside Unity said that their own employees warned management, but managment saw a chance to make money and plowed ahead.

And going by Whitten’s statements, they still want to hide behind meaningless corpo-speak and the same people who got their business into this mess now claim that they have changed their ways.

gregorum,

Exactly. It’s a load of horseshit, and they got caught. Moving forward, there’s no reason to believe they won’t slowly add the policies back piecemeal after all of the outrage has died down.

all-knight-party,
@all-knight-party@kbin.run avatar

For a squirrel you're quite well-spoken and genteel. I applaud you, my good rodent.

squirrel,
@squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Thank you. I try to make an effort, but it is really hard to type. Humans should make smaller keyboards.

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.one avatar

At least you have paws.

squirrel,
@squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

A beak or feet work too, but I get your point. Invertebrates obviously have a hard time with typing.

agent_flounder,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.one avatar
frog,
squid,

No ww e neeed waterprooof keeyboaards tha t aree tennticaal freeinddl y

squirrel,
@squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

My sympathies. Keyboard producers are really dropping the ball for you guys.

gonta,

Is this a D:OS2 reference

all-knight-party,
@all-knight-party@kbin.run avatar

It wasn't supposed to be, but it can be if you want. Is your name a Danganronpa V3 reference?

gaael,

Sir Lora stuff ?

vivadanang,

Until JR and the board that enabled this shit show to happen are gone, I’m done with Unity.

FunnyUsername, do games w Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023's best-selling game worldwide
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

I’m playing this game right now and it’s honestly a six out of 10. The only reason to launch the game at all is because of the world design which is top notch. So top notch it scores all of those six points, because the plot characters story and gameplay are all a let down otherwise. This is the type of game that will disable the controls for your magical flying broom and then tell you that you need to climb a wall. I wish it wasn’t so successful so they didn’t think this formula was so good, because if they made the game actually good AND a Harry Potter property, that would have really been something special. But as it is now, it’s just an uninspired video game painted in a pretty coat of a popular franchise. I’m sure we’ll get a sequel.

PeterPoopshit,

I would have loved to have this game as a kid. It may be a 6 out of 10 but most of the other harry potter shovelware they shit out when the movies were coming was at best a 0.2 out of 10. The only arguably not that bad one was the prisoner of azkaban movie based game.

kusttra,

IDK. Most of the early games were actually pretty entertaining. I fairly recently played sorcerer’s stone on the gbc, and it was still pretty fantastic.

jacksilver,

I’m curious, what open world games do you rate as a 9 or 10? I’m not saying Hogwarts did anything revolutionary, but it did most things pretty solidly. It’s been a while since Ive played an open world game that does a good job on making the world actually feel alive.

orientalsniper,

Witcher 3 I’d rate 9/10.

FunnyUsername,
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

Subnautica gets a 9/10. Fallout 2 and 3, if we’re specifically going RPGs. NieR: Automata for action RPGs. Look at Persona for school influenced RPGs. I’d have geeked out so hard if we got even Persona-style class experiences in Hogwarts Legacy. Instead, all we get is completely contextless montage cutscenes.

CaptainEffort,

Yeah I wish Hogwarts Legacy had taken more inspiration from Persona. Having a schedule, working on social links, engaging in fun activities outside of school, it all lends itself incredibly well to a Hogwarts game.

Unfortunately it sounds like the creators haven’t ever even touched a Persona game. I remember before the game launched they were asked if there’d be romance options, and they seemed almost offended by the thought since the characters are kids, despite Persona doing the same for literal decades.

Going to a ball in Hogwarts Legacy, or going on a date in Hogsmeade, would’ve been so much fun too.

yamanii,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

Imagine that, teens dating… What a wild concept, they didn’t even had to play Persona, our own culture is filled with teen drama series, even DC made gotham academy.

Carighan,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

Not the person you asked, but for me personally to rate some open world games:

  • Hogwarts: 4-5/10. It’s pretty damn bad IMO, beyond the fan pandering.
  • Avatar Frontiers of Pandora: 5-7/10, it’s a slightly worse Far Cry (which is already damn tepid) but looks insanely pretty which makes it a good braindead time waster.
  • Cyberpunk 2077: Originally 2/10, laughably underdesigned and so buggy it felt like industry-criticizing sarcasm. Nowadays 7/10 if including the expansion, still quite buggy but not in a bad way, and the redesigned combat and character systems feel artificial but pretty fun. City still too dead and underdesigned, sadly.
  • Skyrim: 6-7/10, damn impressive at the time, but only briefly as the game was shallow as all hell, even in its best moments. Still impressive but it’s all on the mods and hence the players, not the game designers.
  • Witcher 3: 8-9/10, essentially same design flaws as modern CP2077, but given its fantasy world suffers much less from it, of course the empty countryside is, well, empty.
  • Subnautica: 10/10, amazing horror vibes, good progression, not too open and not too confined, focus on exploration.
  • Outer Wilds: 10/10, completely open and pure exploration, reductive game design done perfectly right.
yamanii,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

the redesigned combat and character systems feel artificial but pretty fun

What do you even mean by this? Artificial gameplay?

Carighan,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

No like… it feels pretty obvious they weren’t that way originally, if that makes sense? That this got changed after the game was already out for a while, this wasn’t how it was designed at first?

Flaky,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I got Subnautica for free twice (PlayStation and Epic), I should really look at giving it a proper try. I have the feeling it’d be really good in VR, played No Man’s Sky in VR recently and I immediately loved it while on flatscreen it didn’t click with me as much.

FunnyUsername,
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

Subnautica is a masterpiece.

I_Has_A_Hat,

Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 are both up there for me.

EdibleFriend, do games w Ubisoft CEO defends Skull and Bones’ $70 price despite its live service leanings, calls it ‘quadruple-A’
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

vast and complete

‘It’s so finished you guys!’ is a fucking bragging point now.

thefartographer,

“We followed through on 60% of our promises, so you should pay us 200% of the value. If you want even more premium content, we’ll give it to ya! For a premium…”

blunderworld, do games w Video game actors speak out after union announces AI voice deal

I really hope this doesnt take off. I tried out Star Trek: Infinite and the tutorial uses an AI voice. It just sounded bizarre and jarring, completely took me out of the experience.

arquebus_x,

This deal solves the problem you're encountering, because it allows game companies to use real voices to generate dialogue. It will sound a hell of a lot better than the 100% AI generated voices you dislike.

And it will protect voice actors' jobs because the deal effectively requires new contracts for each use out of scope of the previous contract (i.e., the "opt out" language), and it encourages game companies to continue to rely on voice actors rather than switch to 100% AI generated.

Without this deal, game devs will just go 100% AI (and the tech will improve dramatically), and within a year or two, game voice actors will have no jobs to contract.

This is especially important in light of the trend toward dynamically generated dialogue in RPGs, etc. Without allowing an AI to train on real voice actors, dynamically generated dialogue will have to be 100% AI generated (no human voice involvement).

Voice acting in all fields is already a diminishing market because of AI generated voices. One of my coworkers had to get a job where I work because his VA jobs basically dried up. This agreement stanches the bleeding by permitting the use of AI trained on VAs (but only allowing use on a per-contract basis). Without that permission, AI would just be trained on open source / freely available voice samples, and there would be no contracts, and VAs would just .... not exist anymore.

blunderworld, (edited )

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. Have to admit, that does sound better, at least in terms of quality

HandBreadedTools,

I disagree with it “solving” the problem. I’ve yet to hear an AI voice that actually works/sounds like an actual person. I’ve heard sentences or two that are somewhat passable at times, but never enough for actual dialogue. Regardless, your entire comment also does not address the issue presented at all, that voice actors did not agree with this deal.

XTornado,

Clearly you haven’t seen the videos of Biden, Trump and others playing Minecraft… Because man that works… And probably that wasn’t the latest technology.

HandBreadedTools,

I have. If you think those are perfect replicas then I have a bridge to sell you. Go listen to them again, they’re close-ish but there is always something a little off that sticks out when listening to it.

XTornado,

If I have to listen close-ish then they don’t stick out or they do very little so sounds good enough to me. Let again we don’t need exact replicas for gaming.

Plus probably lot of usage would be to pregenerate stuff not realtime so they can fix specific cases where it sounds weird by editing or similar.

Ilflish,

I agree. The key factor is getting this settled before some smart people get this working seemlessly. It’s stupid to hear that there wasn’t any unionised info decisions for a union though. I guess you ask the union to speak for you but it’s the unions job to speak back.

funkless_eck,

within a year or two AI actors will have no jobs

extreeeeeme doubt. The moment an AI has to inflect emotion it really fucks it up. You’ll spend 5 hours and $200 of compute costs getting it to say “Great, thanks” sarcastically, when an actor could do it in a single take as part of doing the entire script.

greenskye,

Honestly I just don’t think a lot of people will care. They’ll just get used to the lower quality. AI only has to be ‘good enough to still sell’. Do you really think that gamers are the consumers that are going to be ones to fight back against it? The same consumers that have rolled over to basically every other exploitative practice ever conceived of?

lolcatnip,

I think people will be bothered if the voice acting in their games sounds like it could have been done by Stephen Hawking (or with less exaggeration, like an actor doing their first reading of a script).

greenskye,

You aren’t up to date if you think modern AI voices sound like Stephen hawking.

funkless_eck,

at the levels we’re talking - maybe an indie studio could deliberately, stylistically, pull it off. But a AAA studio? To whom their VO budget is less than what they pay an executive. It just leaves them open to competitors making a game with good voice acting, and their own game getting panned in the press.

teejay,

Blah blah blah

And this deal was vetted and approved by which working voice actors?

arquebus_x,

Do you not understand how unions work?

MaxVoltage,
@MaxVoltage@lemmy.world avatar

Cant wait to have the voices removed after 3 years due to copyright issues

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Speaking of Star Trek and AI voices… Majel Barrett supposedly recorded her voice so that it could be used in the future by software to make her talk again.

So fuck Google Assistant or whatever. Where’s my Enterprise Computer app for me to talk to?

delitomatoes,

Can’t even configure assistants to call them “Computer”

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I believe you can with Alexa, but I don’t plan to find out.

Evotech,

The finals uses ai voices for announcers and I could not tell the difference so there’s definitely something there. I think it works in that setting because the inflections is so set.

But as a emotional character maybe not so much

Etterra, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

It’s especially weird to have all that time dedicated to something nobody cares about. Who goes looking to see if a game or movie was made using Dolby?

Potatos_are_not_friends,
Telodzrum,

Anyone with good media equipment cares.

tacosplease,

You were down voted, yet here I am. A person who cares about surround sound options.

GeekFTW,

But do you as that person need to know that fact every time you launch the game or is finding out about it before you buy it from it’s technical information sufficient?

You can care about surround sound options, but a non skippable splash screen on every launch gives you zero information or use.

tacosplease,

Nobody is advocating for the sound to play at startup. The comment that started this conversation specifically uses the word “looking”. We’re just saying people do pay attention to what kind of surround sound something has.

h3mlocke,

It must be weird to care about being reminded of what surround sound the game is using everytime u play it? Nobody’s saying they don’t care about sound quality, nor options. Idk how u can read this thread and that be your takeaway. It should be on the box/product description, no need for a splash screen in the game is what the argument is about…

tacosplease,

I was originally responding to the comment about looking for surround sound options and was not trying to defend the sounds. Obviously, the info on the box is usually the best way to tell.

But as we discuss it, some use cases for the sound come to mind.

If the media is just a file on a hard drive or if the original packaging is lost or damaged, I might appreciate having the sound to indicate what settings to use on the receiver.

And honestly beyond all that… Who cares if somebody does like having the sound play every time? We all do weird shit.

SeattleRain,

You don’t need to be reminded about sound encoding every time you boot the game even if you do care.

Telodzrum,

Dolby (and others) have determined that it is in the best interest of their brand to put this alongside developers, producers, publishers, and others. It is now part of their license agreement.

SeattleRain,

Okay, and their ego maniacs for thinking they’re that big of a part of the game to be credited everytime. That’s why most people in the thread applaud the move.

Telodzrum,

I don’t agree, but it’s good that you always have the option of not buying a game with a brief splash screen.

SeattleRain,

It’s good that creators have the ability to boot parasitic vendors like Dolby when their licensing agreements are insanely greedy too.

Telodzrum,

Ok boss, sure

aksdb,

That information belongs in the specs/feature list on the encasing, not in the fucking splash screen as dedicated video.

For the buyer that would be too late and for the one who bought it already and now wants to play it’s utterly pointless.

Telodzrum,

It’s on the box. In order to license it the grantor requires screen time.

ricdeh,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

No, the grantor requires fees. Screen time is just a bonus

h3mlocke,

Wow

summerof69,

Anyone with good media equipment cares when they consider purchasing a game. Nobody needs this info every time they launch it.

JasonDJ,

Playstation 1 boot up sequence plays in background

Telodzrum,

The two go hand in hand. Want DolbyVision? The logo comes with that.

h3mlocke,

Wow

Smokeless7048,

yea, ill go looking for great movies and games which have good Dolby Atmos… but once i buy it, i dont need to see a splash screen every time.

Wish we could have a single splash screen with all the bits of tech. then its only one, instead of screen after screen…

kandoh, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo

That’s what integrity looks like

PiJiNWiNg,

Now if they can just spread that to the rest of Nintendo…

KingThrillgore, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

Fucking based

meant2live218, do games w The upcoming Crazy Taxi reboot is a triple-A game, according to Sega

You realize that AAA is used to refer to the budget, scale, and expectations of the game, right? And that it’s more of a reboot than a remake, meaning it’s probably not going to be an arcade style game. They’re talking about their aims for the game, and trying to justify charging $60-70 for it beforehand.

inclementimmigrant, (edited )

Whatever you need to tell yourself that ‘This is fine’ is fine by me.

ETA: insider-gaming.com/new-crazy-taxi-game-live-servi…

If the leaks are true, well that’s going to be a lot of copium being taken.

IronKrill,

If Rockstar made a fully-fledged open world Crazy Taxi game with the scale and quality of Red Dead or GTA, that is quite indisputably deserving of the “triple A” label. Putting aside where you draw the line for it to be considered AAA, they clearly mean that their goal is an AAA experience. It’s not that deep.

fsxylo,

They clearly mean whatever the fuck they want and fuck you pay us $70.

yamanii,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

I wouldn’t trust those clowns with it anyway, they killed Midnight Club to make a worse version of it in GTA online.

Plume, do gaming w Denuvo security is now on Switch, including new tech to block PC Switch emulation

And like every other DRM, it’s just going to be something that the people who bought the game and play it unaltered will be forced to deal with in one way or another… while those who modify the game, emulate or pirate it, won’t. I love DRMs. Nothing like feeling like a sucker for actually buying the game and not cracking it.

NightOwl,

Like Resident Evil Village before they fixed it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXZGCwAJpbM

It shouldn’t be a problem if it’s properly implemented, but games are so broken these days and take months to fix if lucky that it’s insulting to paying customers. Properly implemented DRM is not a guarantee when games have been unoptimized even without it.

conciselyverbose,

Even perfectly implemented DRM steals cycles that can't possibly benefit any gamer ever in any way.

NightOwl,

At the very least even if it runs beautifully it ends up being an annoyance on Steam Deck and offline play interrupting your game session as though you are the pirate as opposed to an actual customer who paid. While the pirates laugh at the experience you should be getting.

Copernican, do games w Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered has a warning about racial and ethnic stereotypes

But when will Nintendo start issuing those warnings for Mario games?

aeronmelon,

cries in spaghetti

chemical_cutthroat,
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

So long, gay Bowser!

UprisingVoltage,

Top line in gaming

electrogamerman,

isnt Bowser constantly trying to bang peach?

Badeendje, do games w Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023's best-selling game worldwide
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

I guess all the twitter drama around the author matters less to the real world. It’s impressive to see how a vocal minority can completely distort what is happening offline.

Aielman15,
@Aielman15@lemmy.world avatar

It happens every time. Pokémon Sword/Shield and Scarlett/Violet had the biggest launch in the franchise’s history despite being (justifiably so) heavily criticized by pretty much everyone online.

People shit on microtransactions and always-online games but the top charts always show online multiplayer games are among the most played.

It doesn’t make the criticisms any less valid; it just means that the general public is usually ignorant of them.

Kusimulkku,

Or just don’t care that much

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Hogwarts came out a quarter of a year earlier and released on every platform compared to Zelda only being on one.

I wouldn't take that as a indictment that J.K.'s terf bullshit didn't have an impact on sales.

Badeendje,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Echo… Echo… echo…

muse,
@muse@kbin.social avatar

Bigot...Bigot...bigot...

Maalus,

Why, because they point out that the entire thing was a lound minority running in their own echochamber?

Badeendje,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Sure call me a bigot. The point I was making is this is an echo chamber issue for people who want to eat others because they are not pure enough. And on that you come out swing with the same incessive echo put stuff I was pointing to.

No matter how much you hurt the people you say you are fighting for. Go ahead, run your inquisition on people to see if they match your purity standards, don’t be surprised if one day you end up in front of the inquisition yourself accused of being impure.

You spend time fighting with someone who might disagree with you in this fringe of society but still takes on the biggest fights out there… and you would rather burn them than focus on better, easier, more impactful targets.

rab,
@rab@lemmy.ca avatar

And how’s your moral compass?

You didn’t play Harry Potter, but are you a vegan? You know animals have feelings right?

Have you volunteered this week? You have time to bullshit with randoms on lemmy, why not use the time to make the world better?

What other games do you play, do you like Blizzard games?

Maybe you have an Xbox, you know what Bill Gates is up to right?

Do you use Amazon? Ever heard of their CEO?

I can go on and on and on. Get over yourself.

gAlienLifeform,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, and the fact that people basically can’t talk about this game without mentioning it got boycotted because one of the people who makes money from it is a massive piece of transphobic shit is a small step forward all on its own

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

In that sense, it worked. Let’s face it: The people who don’t care about the author’s raging bigotry were never going to be convinced regardless, but there were a lot of us who didn’t even consider playing it because of the TERF.

ramble81, (edited )

Anecdotally, everyone I’ve talked to about it doesn’t care. They don’t like she’s a TERF and some even condemn her for it, but every single person I’ve talked to separates the world of Harry Potter from her. It basically has a life of its own and they couldn’t care less about JKR now, that’s what I’ve been able to surmise of people’s view of it now. It’s like having racist parents but not being labeled as one because you’re a separate entity.

Osa-Eris-Xero512,

Death of the author only applies if she's dead.

So unless there's been some good news in the last day, those people are just coping

DadVolante,
@DadVolante@sh.itjust.works avatar

This happens a lot more than you think. It isn’t just coping.

How many movies were produced by Weinstein? How many comics were published by bigots that still re-sell in droves today?

How many celebrated tv shows were made by pieces of garbage?

Wrestlemania season is here. THAT company is completely vile from the ground up.

Sometimes, people just pick and choose their fiction and legitimately separate the artist from the art. The Harry Potter franchise has outgrown it’s original author, just like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, WWE or almost any franchise.

If you think the world truly is so black and white, you haven’t gone out and experienced enough of it.

wildginger,

Thats not death of the author, thats you covering your eyes while handing them money.

Death of the author does not exist while the author makes money off the product.

If you pirated the hogwarts game? Then you have room to speak on death of the author. But jkr has a hefty royalties deal on hp products. If you paid for it, the author is living well.

Im sorry you apparently cant face that truth, but that doesnt change it.

DadVolante,
@DadVolante@sh.itjust.works avatar

Bruh, if you are going to try and pretend your consumption under capitalism is better than the other, that’s cool.

I’m sure you are the most morally sound person you’ve ever met 🤣

wildginger,

The phrase “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” does not mean “therefore, death of the author always exists for all art the second it is made.”

For starters, you will not die if you dont experience all art made. Its not food. Its not shelter. You will be okay if you dont watch some movies, dont read some books, and dont play some games. I promise.

But, more specifically, death of the author means to separate an author and their life from the work they create. If your purchase directly funds the author? You didnt separate the author from the work.

Death of the author is when you accept and understand that reading a story written by a shitheel from the 18th century is not supporting their shitheel opinions. That you can study the work and its influence on culture without that study or consumption being explicit or implicit support of the creators thoughts and opinions.

But when you pay an author for their work, you have supported the author. Period, thats what the word means.

Now you can fibble or quibble about morality of putting money into someones pocket all you like, but if the author is literally benefiting from your purchase, they are not dead. There has been no death of author.

yamanii,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

You also don’t need an iphone or mac since there are plenty of other smartphones and PCs available, but nobody stopped buying them because foxxcon used slave labor.

Everyone draws the line where they want, this controversy only exists because people were trying to guilty trip streamers and anyone online from playing it, do not try to rewrite what happened.

wildginger, (edited )

You mean you didnt stop buying apple products? Lots of people, myself included, avoid slave labor brands.

(And also most jobs and housing do require a phone, and its better to buy a used phone second hand than a brand new phone every time. Utility devices are far more nuanced and intricate about “ethical” choices than a video game.)

E: also, this thread specifically is about death of the author, which I dont think anyone would apply to iphones at any point regradless

ramble81,

(Thought experiment time) So at what point, if ever, does a universe separate from its creator? Think about Star Wars. There have been a large number of derivative works by multiple authors. However if George Lucas came out against gays and trans people, would you taint the entire franchise? At what point are the two separated, if ever?

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

However if George Lucas came out against gays and trans people, would you taint the entire franchise?

Yes. I would immediately lose ibr interest in Star Wars and go do something else. There’s plenty of entertainment out there that’s not made by shitty bigots.

Vespair,

Fr, why are we acting like this is hard? Or acting like any of these aggressively mid media franchises are so sacred as to be unassailable?

Even if JKR was a literal saint Harry Potter would still be Baby’s First Fantasy Series, at best, so the idea that so many people are willing to continually enrich one of the world’s most influential TERFs for it honestly blows my fucking mind.

Like just pick and follow literally any other fantasy series folks, jesus.

Devccoon,
@Devccoon@lemmy.world avatar

Star Wars is an awkward example because it’s already pretty well tainted itself with mediocre films.

But yes, unironically I would actively stop looking for the shreds of good among the carnage that is the once-beloved franchise if I knew its creator, whose name is still tied to it and who financially benefits at least from the propagation of successful entries under that IP, would be just a little bit more able to get their awful views out there thanks to that success.

wildginger,

When it stops making them rich as fuck

TwilightVulpine,

So very true.

HP Lovecraft was horribly racist, but his works are in the Public Domain. Neither him, his estate or any causes he supported get any money by engaging with his works. His opinions are still part of his works, but that can be criticized and modified in adaptations and derivative works.

The same can’t be said of living creators who still own and profit from those works. Even if some team deliberately tries to gloss over or alter concerning aspects, the money the author gets might still be directed towards concerning movements.

In all fairness there are concerning aspects in many industries and a lot that we consume, and each person has a lot of other issues to worry about, so while disappointing, it’s inevitable that people won’t care about everything. But I definitely don’t feel confortable giving money to someone who’s spreading hate about people I care for. I used to be a big HP fan but this situation completely spoiled any interest I had in that world… and also helped me realize it was never that good anyway.

Sage_the_Lawyer,

I’m a big gamer, and was a massive HP fan. I did not buy the game, or even consider it, specifically because of JKR’s bullshit.

I may be in the minority, but I guarantee I’m not the only one in this boat. So now you’ve talked to someone who cares, if you count this as talking.

And just to say a little more, no I didn’t crusade against the game, nor do I villainize people who bought it and enjoyed it. I do think it’s possible to enjoy art without liking the artist. Hell, my favorite book series of all time is the Ender’s Game series, and Orson Scott Card is probably just as bad as JKR, though maybe not quite as famous/public about it.

But I can’t bring myself to buy it. I’m trans, and her rhetoric, and how public it is, has been specifically harmful to me, directly. But that’s just me. I won’t tell other people how to live their lives or enjoy their free time, so long as they’re not actively hurting others. And no, I don’t consider buying a game where one person who is profiting from it might spend a sliver of that profit on anti-trans BS to be actively harming others, especially when she already has enough money to do whatever the hell she wants anyways.

This doesn’t make a dent, and ethical consumption under capitalism is impossible anyways. I just hope that some portion of people who bought the game heard about the protests and maybe donated a fraction of what they paid for the game to some pro-LGBTQ groups. I have to believe there’s at least a handful of people like that. I do believe that people are mostly good, and want to do good.

Yeesh, I wrote a lot more than I planned to here. I’ll stop now lol.

Jakeroxs,

Lol I said the same thing a bit ago and was down voted for it.

JusticeForPorygon,
@JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, I didn’t consider playing it because I’ve never been a fan of Harry Potter, but Rowling’s ramblings definitely didn’t do anything to change my mind.

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I was a moderately engaged HP fan before I learned what a colossally awful human the author is, but her TERF ramblings also made me realize there’s quite a lot of racial and ethnic stereotypes baked into the franchise. It’s probably the fastest I’ve ever totally abandoned an interest in a series. Even if we do separate the works from the author like so many fanbois suggest, they’re still awful.

TwilightVulpine,

The whole situation with house elves, goblins and other intelligent magical creatures treated as inferior doesn’t make the story feel to good. It might even be understandable if the heroes realized the deeper problems that couldn’t be solved simply by fighting, but the protagonist ultimately just inherits a slave and becomes an enforcer for the status quo.

In retrospect it makes a lot of words about good and love and doing what’s right feel like going through the motions rather than any real values.

Kusimulkku,

Doesn’t seem to have had a big impact I’d say

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

You csn say all you like, we literally have zero idea how many lost sales they had.

Kusimulkku,

We know it didn’t prevent it from becoming the year’s most sold game, so whatever the impact it’s pretty easy to shrug off

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Buddy, its the worlds 5 largest IP, id be shocked if it didnt sell millions of copies regardless.

For all we know it could have lost out on 20 million sales, but its an untrackable metric.

Kusimulkku,

I mean I’m sure it’s a lot more cheerful for the to imagine the number as really high, but the fact of the matter is that in the end it still sold really well, becoming the top seller of that year.

A bit of a ¯⁠\⁠⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠⁠/⁠¯ situation

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Its nothing to do with cheerful, its to do with not knowing how effective a boycott was.

No one in their right mind would expect it to sell zero copies.

Tell me, how do you tell if a boycott was successful?

Kusimulkku,

I’d expect it to meaningfully affect the sales and the maker/seller/whoever behind it. Being the most sold game of the year and presumably making a fat profit, I don’t think it really did either.

So again, ¯⁠\⁠⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠⁠/⁠¯

wildginger,

So, the fact that it took all year on all 4 major platforms to outsell one game from a much smaller but recognized IP thats restricted to one platform doesnt sound like a meaningful effect on its sales to you?

Because thats a very weird thing. It should not have taken so long to reach this point, given the size of hp as a franchise.

Kusimulkku,

That’s the cheerful way to look at it. It sure could’ve, hypothetically, sold two gazillions instead of one. Take that, game, the boycott must’ve worked! Yeah…

wildginger,

What exactly do you think detriment to sales means dude

Kusimulkku,

I guess a single person boycotting it would be a detriment but when you’re selling a boatload and making a hefty profit you aren’t all that bothered by that one lost sale.

wildginger,

Lol youre delusional dude

Kusimulkku,

Do you know what a hyperbole is

wildginger,

Jesus, that wasnt even the part I was calling you delusional for

Kusimulkku,

What was the part?

wildginger,

… Youre joking right? Are you so clueless that you cant even follow the conversation youre 50% of?

Kusimulkku,

Friend, the issue is that I have no idea what you thought was delusional. It was a simple question.

wildginger,

You have to be joking, how do you not know what we have been talking about

Kusimulkku,

Is it really that difficult just tell me what was the thing you meant? I’m not sure if you’re being childish or what but obviously I don’t think I’ve said anything delusional, so I’d like you to explain what you thought was delusional. I’m sorry but it’s not much of an ask.

wildginger,

Do you want me to copy and paste your comments? Lile what the fuck do you mean, did you forget this whole thread? Baby do too much meth this morning? What the fuck are you talking about

Kusimulkku,

Do you want me to copy and paste your comments?

Sure, that’s one way to explain what you thought was delusional. There’s really no need to be this difficult and childish about it. I’m literally just asking you to explain or elaborate on what you mean.

wildginger,

Then you can scroll the thread or your own account just fine. If you cannot grok that your point is delusional, there is nothing I can say to help you

Kusimulkku,

I’m asking what part of it you thought was delusional in your opinion. Jeez.

wildginger,

How dumb are you dude, you only had a single point

Kusimulkku,

We’ve had a pretty long convo with many different things said. Are you afraid it’s some sort of “gotcha” and that’s why you can’t just say it?

wildginger,

Do you not know your own point? That tracks, honestly

Kusimulkku,

I’m not sure you know it because you think it’s delusional. That’s one reason I’m asking. Honestly if you’re afraid to answer, just tell me and I promise to drop it. I don’t mind. But if you’re unsure and that’s why you’re not answering then please tell me, I can try to explain it. I just need your help to continue the actual conversation.

wildginger,

… Hey, no joke. Are you high right now? You only made one point. Its the topic of the entire post. This isnt hard.

Did you forget what the post was about? Click up.

Kusimulkku,

You’re throwing a huge fit over saying or just copy pasting what you thought was delusional. I really don’t get it.

Did you think it was delusional to say this didn’t have a big/meaningful effect? Did you think it was delusional to say it made a hefty profit? I’m really trying to help you out here.

wildginger,

Chopping up the delusion doesnt make you sound less delusional.

Tbh youre starting to sound worse

Kusimulkku,

I don’t even know what you thought the delusion was and now you’re saying I chopped it up. If I chopped it up what was the whole thing??

Tbh youre starting to sound worse

You are sounding the same

wildginger,

Its literally the post, stop eating glue and read the title my guy

Kusimulkku,

Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023’s best-selling game worldwide

Not only does that not sound delusional, it’s not posted by me nor written by me??

wildginger,

You cannot be this stupid

Kusimulkku,

I don’t know why you are having such a hard time believing someone might not understand what you’re saying.

wildginger,

Im having a hard time believing you dont remember your own point

But I dont really have time for you to sober up, so unless you can get your shit together Im probably bored of babysitting you

Kusimulkku,

I don’t know what you thought was my point. That’s why I’m asking!

I_Has_A_Hat,

Did any of the other HP games ever top the charts?

If not, then there must be something special about this one other than IP. Especially since most of the other HP games came out before there was any JKR controversy.

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Other than mobile games or Lego versions, there hasnt been a proper Harry Potter game since 13 years ago and from memory they were extremely average movie tie in games.

Its not a series like Pokemon or Zelda that sees frequent releases. It being the first real game, and done beautifully (graphics/ recreation wise) is certainly the biggest selling point.

aew360,

The game has a minor character who is trans too. It uses the world she invented but does not borrow her real world views

betheydocrime,

Just because a minority is depicted in a work of art does not mean that depiction was made in good faith. Americans are familiar with that concept because of our dark history of minstrel shows and blackface performances.

When the trans woman character’s name is Sirona Ryan, it calls into question whether she is meant to be a character or a caricature.

TORFdot0,

I think that the masses are mostly disengaged with terminally-online type discourse. The only reason I knew JK Rowling was TERF was because of reading it on here, so if you are only on social media to follow your old high school classmates on facebook, you’d probably never find out

TwilightVulpine,

The masses are largely disengaged with LGBT rights in general, but the declining rights of transgender people in the UK (and the US) shows this is not just a “terminally-online” kind of issue. She is not the only one responsible, of course, but her outspoken antagonism towards transgender people is influencing people.

It concerns me when people can’t differentiate “this issue does not affect me” from “this issue does not exist”. Even calling matters “terminally-online” in general is a bit questionable when whole ass presidents get elected by meme campaigns these days.

xkforce, (edited )

JKR is a very vocal TERF that basically wants trans people to dissappear. A lot of people dont want to financially support her because of that. That most people seemingly either dont care about trans erasure or even worse, bought the game specifically because theyre the type to do shit just because people with a conscience told them they shouldn’t, says more about most people than it does that “vocal minority”

Badeendje,
@Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

Oh pipe down, I read the entire thing when it was recent and in no way does she want what you claim. She has an open letter on her own website outlining her views.

Over the course of the years since this happened it has grown, morphed and people are now probably also saying she would be the one herding the trans people into the gas Chambers.

xkforce,

deleted_by_moderator

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  • rab,
    @rab@lemmy.ca avatar

    I’m out of the loop on this whole thing because JK is a writer and doesn’t know anything about gender.

    Can you specifically quote something she has said to prove your claim or is it really hearsay like the guy above claims?

    xkforce,

    jkrowling.com/…/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reas…

    Thats just one example. There are many others but I feel like if the point isn’t made it never will be.

    She makes a number of claims about transitioning and detransitioning that are straight up lies, tries to conflate trans women with predators that must be denied entry to womens’ bathrooms, claims that the change in societal views toward trans issues threatens to erase women etc.

    The reality is that JKR seems to have never dealt with the trauma of her rape and abuse so she denigrates trans women as being little more than predatory men in skirts. Thats why she brings that up in her post. She’s explaining why she is so concerned with trans issues and those reasons go back to that trauma never being processed in a healthier way.

    rab, (edited )
    @rab@lemmy.ca avatar

    I read that today already, it is a lot milder than “wanting trans people to disappear”. Where are all the hateful tweets I have heard about?

    Edit: nothing? Anyone?

    olmec,

    I hadn’t read this before, and I am honestly shocked that this is the what the uproar is over. This isn’t a call to action to hurt anyone. It is basically a statement that there is a difference between a transwoman and a woman, that distinction needs to be made, and this is mainly due to society rushing to a solution without due diligence. This is not 1/100th of what it has been made out to be. If this is all it takes for someone to never want to associate with someone else, then I don’t think he should associate with anyone. Everyone is going to differ from your opinion on one topic or another, you can’t escape it.

    rab,
    @rab@lemmy.ca avatar

    Yeah I have to say what she says made a surprising amount of sense after what I was led to believe.

    I still think she has no authority on the topic though and should stick to her domain.

    Aielman15, (edited )
    @Aielman15@lemmy.world avatar

    I mean, she lied about liking transphobic tweets:

    On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series […].
    When I started taking an interest in gender identity and transgender matters, I began screenshotting comments that interested me, as a way of reminding myself what I might want to research later. On one occasion, I absent-mindedly ‘liked’ instead of screenshotting. That single ‘like’ was deemed evidence of wrongthink, and a persistent low level of harassment began.

    Sure, Joanne. “My interest in this was only professional, because I was writing a book where the serial killer is a man cross-dressing as a woman that kills other women”. We know how it ended.

    She then proceeded with a very weird anti-trans statement:

    When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. […].
    As I didn’t have a realistic possibility of becoming a man back in the 1980s, it had to be books and music that got me through both my mental health issues and the sexualised scrutiny and judgement that sets so many girls to war against their bodies in their teens. Fortunately for me, I found my own sense of otherness, and my ambivalence about being a woman […]; it’s OK to feel confused, dark, both sexual and non-sexual, unsure of what or who you are.
    I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria.

    “I felt non-binary too, but I’m not trans, so you aren’t either!”.

    For reference, desistance is a real term that refers to people who changes their mind about their gender dysphoria, and, although further research is still needed, she is probably citing real sources. It’s also strange to insert that knowledge in a post where she’s supposedly trying to convince people that she’s not a TERF, among the “five reasons she’s worried about the new trans activism”, whatever that means. “I don’t hate trans people, but anyway, they aren’t real and you are preying on children”.

    She then ended her wall of text by alluding that all trans women are actually men who want to prey on women (never mind that, if a man wanted to become a sexual predator, he could just… Do that, instead of faking gender dysphoria? Like, a man who wants to sexually harass someone isn’t stopping at the “girls only” sign. He’s not a vampire). But hey, before that she said that she cares about trans women, so I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.

    So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.

    That’s the simple truth of a person who should really talk to their therapist about her trauma instead of writing bullshit online.

    If agreeing with known transphobes, erasing trans identity, and putting trans women and sexual predators on the same level isn’t transphobic, I really don’t know what is.

    Badeendje, (edited )
    @Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

    No This is it, after a relatively lengthy twitter conversation she ended up writing this blog post.

    And the anger and vitriol boils down to “why do animal rights activists throw paint on rich ladies wearing fur, because bikers in leather jackets will punch you in the mouth”.

    I_Has_A_Hat,

    This right here is why Lemmy is often a shitshow. You’re absolutely right, but since you’re going against the hive mind it’s nothing but downvotes. No one’s even bothered to reply because there’s nothing to argue against in good faith. Just angry downvotes because your facts are getting in the way of fake outrage.

    Badeendje,
    @Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s OK, people can read the content themselves. I have a lot of (maybe misplaced) confidence in most people.

    And I personally don’t see a lot of hivemind but plurality of opinion luckily. The angry downvotes without response is usually telling enough, although someone did reply to tell me to “fuck off” this time.

    TwilightVulpine,

    Nah. Both of you just haven’t kept up with her history of equating trans women with sexual predators and trans men with poor brainwashed little girls, some of which was hinted, if disguised in polite words, in the article where she talked about the situation and defended how she totally didn’t mean any harm to anybody.

    Did you see when she said she’d march with trans people if they truly were persecuted? Their rights have been challenged and undermined many times since, and she didn’t show any sign of that.

    Because, you know, sometimes people aren’t completely honest and taking them at their word is not the ultimate measure of their characters.

    So don’t confuse disagreeing with people here and getting downvoted with being the one clear-minded contrarian. However much internet bandwagons are a thing, you won’t get the clear picture unless you go look into it. Sometimes you might get that reaction because you are wrong and that’s it.

    Psychodelic,

    Seriously! If I say something stupid, others are supposed to show up and educate me on why what I said is stupid! That is how public discourse is supposed to works!

    Wait, why aren’t the people tired of my ignorant shit jumping to help me learn? Oh I know, that means I’m actually super smart, totally correct and fully informed. Everyone else is just being stupid and mean to me for no valid reason.

    Honest feedback (for honest ppl): there are ways to ask people what they think so they’ll be inclined to reply earnestly. Starting with “pipe down” ain’t it… ya fuckin dingus. lol

    SmoothLiquidation, do games w Video game actors speak out after union announces AI voice deal

    This is one sector where I am actually happy for AI to be available. I want to play a game where the NPC’s can say my character name.

    That being said, I also want the voice actors to be compensated fairly. Maybe the guilds can set up a deal where using someone’s voice for training data is included.

    Tetra,
    @Tetra@kbin.social avatar

    I feel like the solution is pretty simple: if you want to AI copy someone's voice and put it in your project, you have to hire them and pay them as normal, and they have to give consent to let the AI use their likeness.

    Otherwise it's theft.

    deweydecibel,

    And this has to be on a per-game basis, to. Studios licensing a voice in perpetuity will eventually come back to the same issues.

    For AI to truly be a net benefit to our society, it should be used as a tool by the artists to augment the output from the artists. It shouldn’t be a way of replacing them.

    If a voice actors job goes from recording each and every line to recording samples for AI and helping to tweak the output, that’s fine. But the compensation stays the same.

    That’s how it improves our world. Makes the human’s job easier without replacing them or affecting their compensation.

    The way it’s currently on track to be used is how it improves the lives of the wealthiest at the expense of everyone else. No amount of futurist techno-jerking should distract from that. These are not tools for us to benefit from in any significant sense.

    Tetra,
    @Tetra@kbin.social avatar

    Agreed.

    Wolf_359,

    Right, and it still saves the studio time and money on other recording costs. That would be the way to do it.

    arquebus_x,

    That's... what this agreement proposes.

    Rolder,

    I’ve been trying to find the actual text of the deal to see if it fucks over the actors or not, but I can’t find the actual deal, just articles referencing it

    snooggums,
    @snooggums@kbin.social avatar

    They don't need AI to say your character's name, text to speech works for that.

    SmoothLiquidation,

    Yeah, but matching TTS to a character’s voice is where you would need it.

    TheQuietCroc,

    You don’t need AI to do that, that kind of system can be made independent of AI. It’s just not worth doing for this one use case vs using it for a whole voice.

    SmoothLiquidation,

    Honestly, the problem is that “AI” is a dumb term that is way over used in these situations. Outside of Science Fiction, AI has generally been used to describe what “the next big thing” computers can do.

    Using a term like “Large Language Model” to refer to ChatGPT explains what it actually does. Or Deep-Learning Text to image models for the image generation.

    I remember playing around with TTS on a Apple ][ plus as a kid, there is nothing new about that, but using statistical models to have them imitate a voice is new, but just lumping them all in with Artificial Intelligence, is just dumb.

    wildginger,

    Making the text to speech program sound like the voice actor who voiced the character who is trying to say your name is the part that requires AI.

    c0mbatbag3l,
    @c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

    Sure, it’s just that this specific text to speech voice is created by an AI via training data via voice samples.

    AI is more than just ChatGPT, it’s an algorithm that can be applied to a lot of different things.

    yamanii, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
    @yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

    I am so glad when a PC game just has the intro videos as separate file, always go there to delete them, I do it with every game.

    deafboy, do games w Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo
    @deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

    The only thing worse than unskipable ads are the waiting screens (press a button to continue) in front of the loading screens.

    I mean, the machine is capable of billions of operations per second. Why is it waiting for ME to push a button?

    rushaction,

    But however will it determine the player one controller … on a desktop computer?

    Stardust,

    Dunno if you want a serious answer, but 'press start' titlescreens that start up an animation if you leave it unpressed too long are a throwback to when if a screen showed the same image for too long, it would fry the image on to the screen and leave a little ghost image, so screensavers were a screen saver. This allowed one to demo software and just leave it running without worrying about damaging the product hardware.
    These days however it is totally unnecessary.

    dev_null,

    So that if you leave the room to make yourself a tea or something while the game is loading, your won’t miss the cut scene / beginning of the action / lose the game because it started without you present.

    arin,

    It’s just an arcade feature that got brought over

    aksdb,

    At least some games parallelize this. The game then already loads assets, caches shaders etc while the intro rolls.

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