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Body of assassinated Russian diplomat used in Telltale's Batman game.
- Thread starter Demoskinos
- Start date
This is the standard in the industry.
"Placeholder," "FPO," "NOT FINAL ART," or some variant is how professionals handle it. There is no issue with using random art as internal placeholders. The problem is when you publish with it.
Not sure why people keep bringing up BioWare as a "bad" example.
Unlike the ND issue, BioWare actually paid for the rights to the image it used. BioWare did things the correct way.
This. Or imagine the reaction in the US if an image of Gabby Giffords (right after being show) or another politician was used. Just because the deceased is not from your country doesn't mean that his death doesn't matter to those of his country.
Designers and artists taking shortcuts. Or, to use a trope, "lazy devs."
It's not likely intentionally malicious, but it is a case of someone not taking the correct steps to ensure that the entire art pipeline is properly cleared.
Yes, but you would probably mark it as placeholder art before dropping it into a scene. No one is going to mistake placeholder as final if it is marked. And if someone really likes a specific piece of placeholder art, they can call it out and get it cleared for use.
It's not an issue that placeholder art was used during development. It's that the art wasn't marked/cleared and made it into production.
stan423321
Member
Your take on it is very unusual, and I'm coming from the position that GAF's (America's?) fixation on avoiding pictures of dead people in context of reports on said people dying while the pictures aren't particularly drastic is nonsensical. Unless I have no idea how Telltale games work now, this picture has no particular gameplay value, it always appears as a whole illustrating the fictional robbery results; so putting a realistic cadaver on it during the placeholder generation phase is a huge waste of effort. The whole texture is one overkill of a placeholder if any, while at the same time lacking placeholder markings.
An alternative is that it's a WIP take on the final texture, which is a great difference from a starting placeholder. Why did artist need that body there? Did they plan to just retouch it more? It would still offend most of the same people. And if it was supposed to be an inspiration for the feel of rest of the scene, well I'm not buying it as the actual photos clearly show that the actual context is completely different, so it had to be retouched somewhat already. And frankly, regardless of that, if they knew what they were doing they would use a temporary mark anyway. Capcom's leftover portraits from 3DS Ace Attorney have these all over everything despite the only changes compared to final being minor costume stuff, and I'm talking about Capcom here.
My take on it, subject to change, is that artist thought they could get away with using a stock image without clearing the rights, and used something that was too recognizable, not imagining it was an actual photo due to the rather unusual setting and atmosphere. Without clearing the rights, because it would obviously arise what that is during the right clearing.
Because dummies like to hate and mock Bioware for any imaginary reason. It's bit like Ubisoft, but not quite as bad.
So you just assume they're awful people with no morals because they make video games you don't like?
Well duh, this is Neogaf. Game developers are our enemies.
Sygma
Member
they're on your ignore list but you still read their posts
In a batman thread, i guess we re full circle lmao
Chuck Norris
Banned
Artistically bankrupt but finding it hard to care too much if the Russian Government is offended
HueyFreeman
Banned
Nope, 36 and a physician. Despite that I dont think I place a higher value on human life than anyone else, and I dont think that changes anything that this is super fucked up. If you need an image of a dead person, why could you not just use any of what must be hundreds of thousands of images from film and television that dont involve actual deceased people? The argument holds no water and if youre doing it, you should fucking stop.
Taking an element out of a photo and putting it in to the asset is the easiest thing in the world. That "huge waste of effort" probably took 30 seconds at most if he had to coax the quick select a bit?
benicillin
Banned
So I just got an update for the game. Have they said anything? Im replaying Ep 1 currently so idk if they removed it.
MugiwaraCole
Member
Um. Holy shit.
Dreamwriter
Member
Back in the day, when I needed a placeholder, I did this:
Ain't no way the game would ship with that
Ain't no way the game would ship with that
GlamFM
Banned
Back in the day, when I needed a placeholder, I did this:
Ain't no way the game would ship with that
Did you work on Uncharted 2!?!?!
_Aaron_
Member
Well they issued a statement saying it will removed but didn't explain how it happened in the first place.
Source: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/307188/Telltales_Batman_seemingly_shows_real_image_of_assassinated_ambassador.php
Source: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/307188/Telltales_Batman_seemingly_shows_real_image_of_assassinated_ambassador.php
NHarmonic.
Member
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
An asset oversight that should have been picked up before publishing but wasn't. Insensitive in the context of the photo and resulting situation but not as horrific or malicious as people would make up.
Just another excuse for the torches, like the Bungie one.
Just another excuse for the torches, like the Bungie one.
stan423321
Member
Nope. You have to even consider to put it there, and more importantly you have to have something to put it on, this not a cut out on a flat background or something like that. Given that the entire function of this thing appears to be visual with little effect on rest of functions, this is clearly not a todo type placeholder, this was work in progress.
Anyone has a shot of the new version?
Chittagong
Gold Member
Telltale said:
Dreams-Visions
Member
I can't help but be impressed by the boldness, brazenness, and tastelessness.
It's quite breathtaking. You have to be a real sociopath to do this and think it's okay.
It's quite breathtaking. You have to be a real sociopath to do this and think it's okay.
benicillin
Banned
Would've liked to see a Bungie style dissection of how exactly that made it into the game, but Bungie also did an unusual amount of work removing and explaining the alt-right thing so I guess I can't fault Telltale for defaulting to the usual game industry response.
Still, wow, someone is definitely getting disciplined internally.
plagiarize
Banned
Pretty much. I haven't bought a tell tale game since The Walking Dead, and I used to buy every title they put out.
Because of a bug.
That they never fixed in that game.
That carried over into other tell tale games.
Northernlights
Member
Ummm wtf telltale
Back in the day, when I needed a placeholder, I did this:
Ain't no way the game would ship with that
Reminds me of an article Riot published about placeholder splash images for LoL after accidentally they shipped a character with the place holder image so after that they made it a rule to, until the final art is done, calling a member of the team with no artistic ability to draw something intentionally crappy in MS paint that could not possibly be mistaken for finished art.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
Holy shit I just saw this. Unbelievably tasteless.
Did you work on Uncharted 2!?!?!
I lol'ed
Labrynian Rebel
Member
That was the joke on the internet when it happened. The assassination happened during an event at a museum with really good lighting and really good cameras recording it, plus the entire thing was very "hollywood looking".
It's tragic and horrific, but it is still the most photogenic assassination.
Humor is my coping mechanism
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Gamers™
It's good that they created submitted a patch to fix a placeholder. Very unfortunate that it was left in the game.
eyeball_kid
Member
The photographer who took these just happened to go to an art gallery showing where this ambassador was speaking. He put himself in great danger to get in a position to get these shots and had nerves of steel to take them with a gunman a few feet away.
I think that's part of what gets under my skin about this. This photo captured a horrific event, taken by a guy who put his life on the line for it, and ended up as placeholder art (giving them the benefit of the doubt) in a Batman game by a studio who put out a trite and meaningless apology when they got caught. No explanation, no intent to donate a portion of the game's proceeds towards a relevant charity, just some empty words and a hope that it will all blow over.
Prepare for
why?
What's the difference between a placeholder and a work in progress? Both are supposed to be replaced by the time the game ships.
"I'll paint the background, and get to painting a human in later. For now I'll put a placeholder image in that spot" <- not an unreasonable line of thinking.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Why would dev as successful as telltale need negative publicity.
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