FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
I hope they reverse the censorship. It may be minor censorship but it still sucks and is false advertising considering they announced that the whole game would be "uncensored" at launch.
Hmmmmm
This is really all we have to go on. The blood splatter may have had to be toned down to have the same version of the game approved globally.
Left is final game, Right is demo version.
If that's all I guess it could have been worse. I was thinking dismemberment was axed.
The question to ask other then why break your promise of "imma release an uncensored game in all regions" is why were changes made for a R18+ game?
Sounds and smells like bullshit. They indeed released an uncensored game in every region. And then patched it after release so technically they didn't lie but a lot of people aren't going to see it that way.People got this all wrong. The tweet meant parity among versions so there are no regional differences, a problem they have faced in their other mobile games, with global versions being different from Korean one. They assumed people were in the know regarding this matter but obviously, they werent.
Besides, that was about violence/gore, not sexuality. That's why the director of EA Japan complained (Dead Space was censored and this one didn't)
Why would the blood splatter be censored when there was nobody complaining about it?
The striking thing about this whole story is the way that every change has been conflated into a singular narrative with zero evidence of correlation.
The silly Hard "R" thing was about racism, which was the most trivial "fix" imaginable; just swap one repeated graffiti texture for another repeated graffiti texture. Stupid as it was, at least you could see a clear throughline of cause vs effect.
Ok then comes the costumes, which were a non-specific area of complaint - the issue was with the overall design approach not a specific costume. So the causality is questionable because the "nude" costume which was the one getting all the headlines turned out to be unchanged. A couple of others were modified, but also a load more were added in, so you actually cannot conclusively prove the motivation for the update was due to external pressure. At best you can argue, "maybe".
Then we have the gore, which wasn't a bone of contention in the reviews as far as I could tell. So umm, why was that lumped in beyond being something else to rile-up the peanut gallery with?
The giveaway for me was that this conflation was never questioned. The narrative was that one thing reinforced the others, conclusively "proving" shenanigans!
So your point is that we shouldn't believe what is tangible, real, and on the disc because of a feeling you have that "trust me bro it was probably a design iteration".Another thing that should be addressed is the notion that what's on the disc is the "real" vision for a game. That's not necessarily how it works, especially in the age of digital updates and patches. If you look at the entire development lifespan of a project, every piece of that project will likely go through dozens, hundreds, or sometimes even thousands of iterations. There comes a point where the game needs to ship and the team needs to call pencils down, but no game in the history of the medium has ever shipped EXACTLY like how the developers want. Production timelines, publisher deadlines, finite resources, and financial realities of needing a product to sell and make its budget back, etc., will all typically come before raw artistic vision. If you ask any industry professional about games they've worked on, I 100% guarantee every single one of them will have things they wish they could have changed, but for whatever reason, they weren't able to. Ultimately, just because something got pressed on a disc doesn't mean it lines up flawlessly with the artist's vision.
To use a costume as an example: if you were to dig through the repo history of Stellar Blade, you'd likely see every single costume went through countless alterations over the history of the project. From the developer's perspective, this means that there's nothing particularly sacred about the version that shipped on the disc. It's just another revision in an exceedingly long line of revisions.
The artist could have been staring at Bunny Suit revisions #1-#748 incrementally for the past two years. Bunny Suit revision #749 could have been committed on Wednesday. The game could have been submitted to the publisher on Thursday. The artist could have come into work on Friday and felt like tweaking some things, resulting in Bunny Suit revision #750, which the producer agreed they could include in a future patch.
The *hope* is that the revision submitted to the publisher is the final one, but due to the reasons listed above, sometimes this just isn't in the cards. When that happens, sometimes the studio will have the resources and the desire to patch things after the fact. Sometimes they don't.
Either way, "this is what was on the disc, so it represents what the developer really wanted" isn't the reality of the medium. It's easy to romanticize it as such from afar, and to try to look for patterns that support larger conversations we care about, but at the end of the day, these things are often much more mundane.
So your point is that we shouldn't believe what is tangible, real, and on the disc because of a feeling you have that "trust me bro it was probably a design iteration".
That doesn't make sense. It also doesn't make sense that a bunny suit, a common theme in design across many forms of media dating back to the 1960s (and made by a woman) suddenly has a a pair of oversized briefs panties under it and something to cover the cleavage, when cleavage is arguably one of the key features of a bunny suit.
I can't believe we're on page 14 and still not willing to accept that the design change was done for censorship reasons.
There are no gore differences in patched vs unpatched. The extra blood was from the demo, which has since been changed and removed.Can someone tell me does the disc version have the full blood and gore intact? Only missing the extra costumes and NG+?
Cheers
That’s not remotely my point. My point is that “what’s on the disc” isn’t “tangible and real” from a development perspective at all. “The disc” is just another iteration in a series of thousands of iterations spanning multiple years. It feels tangible *to you* because you can hold the disc in your hands, but the developers themselves are working from a very different frame of reference.So your point is that we shouldn't believe what is tangible, real, and on the disc because of a feeling you have that "trust me bro it was probably a design iteration".
That doesn't make sense. It also doesn't make sense that a bunny suit, a common theme in design across many forms of media dating back to the 1960s (and made by a woman) suddenly has a a pair of oversized briefs panties under it and something to cover the cleavage, when cleavage is arguably one of the key features of a bunny suit.
I can't believe we're on page 14 and still not willing to accept that the design change was done for censorship reasons.
Holy moly that's quite a leap inlogic to compare this situation to a bug. Those are two entirely different things. I get what you're saying but there are just an ocean of bad faith posts in this thread and to me, your earlier post was another one of them.As an additional example: if a game ships with a bug on the disc, does that make the bug part of the developer’s definitive vision? Obviously not; it just means that bug was present on, say, last Thursday’s build, and that was the one the publisher decided to run with. Developers are well aware that we can patch things these days, and for better or for worse, that dramatically lowers internal pressure to make the disc version the final word.
It's still totally possible that they weren't. The other costumes being unaltered is the biggest thing to consider there. I'm much more confident about the blood. I'm like 90% on the blood but have fallen towards 50/50 on the outfits. Other outfits being unaltered is too big to ignore.
You’re correct that this isn’t a bug, but I’m illustrating a point that “the disc” isn’t sacred. If you’d prefer, perhaps the parry timing is a better example?Holy moly that's quite a leap inlogic to compare this situation to a bug. Those are two entirely different things. I get what you're saying but there are just an ocean of bad faith posts in this thread and to me, your earlier post was another one of them.
Not sure about the blood, all I can read here is some kind of context(and insults) about the costume aspect but I don't remember reading anything about the lack of blood. Is there any context?
There's only one picture of the blood difference and I wasn't so sure about that one, but after playing the game and remembering noticing how much blood in the demo, I think it did get cut back.
I don't think anybody is questioning at this point that things HAVE been changed, at least I fucking hope not because they'd be verifiably insane. The cause and the purpose of the change is what's being debated.Don't all the trailers say "game is subject to change" or something along those lines?
That's been a thing for ages because of precisely this reason. Things change from development from trailer footage to final, from ads to final. Happens in every industry.
I get that part. I'm talking about if anyone here ever care to provide any modicrum of explanation for the reason for why they removed the bloodly part or if is this also part of the same argument people keep repeating with costumes.
The big problem for me is that the reason people are pissed off is over "principle".
On the surface this seems perfectly right and reasonable, people are fed up with the nanny-ing and sermonizing about diversity and politics. It annoys the fuck out of me too.
BUT. If you actually stop and think about it, Stellar Blade was always a "win". All it had to do was sell really well and the point was proven that there remains a demand for games in this style.
The only thing all this bullshit internet drama is accomplishing is showing the industry that it doesn't matter whether you give the people what they want, you're always going to get battered by petitions, and boycotts, and calls for your head, for something!
Its not helping the cause.
Its also logically ass-backwards! Its easy for anyone impartial to pick holes in the whole "censorship" narrative, because with it being argued as a matter of principle its a cartoon version of a complex issue. Cultural lines are drawn differently depending on where you are in the world, some places are more sensitive about sex, others violence and dismemberment, religious and political imagery etc.
This matters because there's no indication -as far as I know- that Stellar Blade has any regional variants, so their claim of it being uncensored in all areas is probably true, but in reality is about something else than making culture-warriors in anglo countries happy. There's not a version with Pride flags and one without sort of thing.
Above all else though, is it actually that inconceivable for a developer to want to tweak back things like blood-splatter or some costume designs because they prefer it that way? Does it absolutely have to be something they were forced into under duress?
Confirmation bias is a real thing.
One last point; I doubt this was planned, but you could look at the whole "Hard R" thing as a masterful piece of trolling. Its perfect bait, people get mad and then more people get mad about people getting mad... 4-Chan would be proud of that shit! Its so perfectly stupid yet its managed to goad the whole internet community into uproar.
I don't think anybody is questioning at this point that things HAVE been changed, at least I fucking hope not because they'd be verifiably insane. The cause and the purpose of the change is what's being debated.
I have long since blocked the bad faith posters. All they do is push strawman arguments, insult, gaslight, and dismiss anything they disagree with.Holy moly that's quite a leap inlogic to compare this situation to a bug. Those are two entirely different things. I get what you're saying but there are just an ocean of bad faith posts in this thread and to me, your earlier post was another one of them.
Bro, the game's creator rejected his own answer directly when he gave it. Apparently he doesn't believe in the persuasiveness of his own reply. Why would anyone with a good head on their shoulders put any kind of value in it then? How is it at all surprising that it's being rejected?The problem is a reason was given snd its being rejected.
What was his answer? I don't think I saw that.Bro, the game's creator rejected his own answer directly when he gave it. Apparently he doesn't believe in the persuasiveness of his own reply. Why would anyone with a good head on their shoulders put any kind of value in it then? How is it at all surprising that it's being rejected?
Do people just leave critical thinking at the door when they enter this thread?
It's in the video in the OP. A direct quote: "I know this answer is not enough to convince our user."What was his answer? I don't think I saw that.
Bro, the game's creator rejected his own answer directly when he gave it. Apparently he doesn't believe in the persuasiveness of his own reply. Why would anyone with a good head on their shoulders put any kind of value in it then? How is it at all surprising that it's being rejected?
Do people just leave critical thinking at the door when they enter this thread?
This is funny. If it's true of course.
It's been said before by you and others, but this is another thing that makes me hesitant to attribute this purely to censorship. Given that the game contains much worse -- I mean, you START with the Skin Suit -- why would Sony or anyone else demand these specific outfits be toned down?If those legs are bare, that makes three versions of that outfit. And I would be kind of surprised if having bare legs was an issue given what else is in the game.
This is wrong on the assumption that Censorship is a documented regulation or a science or something. I mentioned this earlier in the thread, at its core, it's an action taken by a feeling/reaction about something. There is rarely consistency or sensical reasoning behind what gets censored, specifically in video games.It's been said before by you and others, but this is another thing that makes me hesitant to attribute this purely to censorship. Given that the game contains much worse -- I mean, you START with the Skin Suit -- why would Sony or anyone else demand these specific outfits be toned down?
The best argument I can think of in favor of that is if Sony said something like, "You can have X number of outfits that show X amount of skin, but no more." I suppose that's possible, but it feels strange. Is there any other situation where this would make sense?
Not everyone within Sony might have been happy they were involved with this game. We know Sony has people checking content and censoring it. What if they threw their weight around to make their mark on this game? Maybe these measly changes were all they could muster. In other words: Workplace politics.It's been said before by you and others, but this is another thing that makes me hesitant to attribute this purely to censorship. Given that the game contains much worse -- I mean, you START with the Skin Suit -- why would Sony or anyone else demand these specific outfits be toned down?
The best argument I can think of in favor of that is if Sony said something like, "You can have X number of outfits that show X amount of skin, but no more." I suppose that's possible, but it feels strange. Is there any other situation where this would make sense?
That's the same image that was posted in the first post on Friday. What's the third version of that outfit? The patched and unpatched are the same for that as far as I know. There's completely bare legs in the bikini so would be pretty daft to add stocking for anything other than asthetics. They made the right call with modelling stockings. I remember she looked weird and lanky from the side without it because the side of that dress was open and she pointed that side to the camera a lot. I think I even made a comment about it somewhere on a preview build video last year if some neogaf detective can find the posted video.If those legs are bare, that makes three versions of that outfit. And I would be kind of surprised if having bare legs was an issue given what else is in the game.
Not everyone within Sony might have been happy they were involved with this game. We know Sony has people checking content and censoring it. What if they threw their weight around to make their mark on this game? Maybe these measly changes were all they could muster. In other words: Workplace politics.
Apparently Shift Up fired two women who disagreed with the game's direction. It's not unheard of.
Like Pejo said, censorship does't have to make sense. Completely innocent conversations have been censored in games before because localizers wanted to make a joke and didn't value the source material. And since we don't get a whole lot of transparency in the gaming industry, it's quite likely we'll never know exactly what happened.
Don't all the trailers say "game is subject to change" or something along those lines?
That's been a thing for ages because of precisely this reason. Things change from development from trailer footage to final, from ads to final. Happens in every industry.
I love that he said that lol. Basically "I gave my corpo, NDA'd, PR response to the situation, but my fans aren't stupid enough to actually believe that nonsense".Bro, the game's creator rejected his own answer directly when he gave it. Apparently he doesn't believe in the persuasiveness of his own reply. Why would anyone with a good head on their shoulders put any kind of value in it then? How is it at all surprising that it's being rejected?
Do people just leave critical thinking at the door when they enter this thread?
It's in the video in the OP. A direct quote: "I know this answer is not enough to convince our user."
Well, 'lo and behold, users were not convinced, yet somehow folks in this thread keep stressing that we totally should. If someone hands me a sandwich and immediately tells me it probably tastes like shit, I'm not taking a bite. His statement does nothing to take away any suspicions and actually legitimizes them.
That's the same image that was posted in the first post on Friday. What's the third version of that outfit? The patched and unpatched are the same for that as far as I know. There's completely bare legs in the bikini so would be pretty daft to add stocking for anything other than asthetics. They made the right call with modelling stockings. I remember she looked weird and lanky from the side without it because the side of that dress was open and she pointed that side to the camera a lot. I think I even made a comment about it somewhere on a preview build video last year if some neogaf detective can find the posted video.
It's been said before by you and others, but this is another thing that makes me hesitant to attribute this purely to censorship. Given that the game contains much worse -- I mean, you START with the Skin Suit -- why would Sony or anyone else demand these specific outfits be toned down?
The best argument I can think of in favor of that is if Sony said something like, "You can have X number of outfits that show X amount of skin, but no more." I suppose that's possible, but it feels strange. Is there any other situation where this would make sense?
ption that Censorship is a documented regulation or a science or something. I mentioned this earlier in the thread, at its core, it's an action taken by a feeling/reaction about something. There is r
Not everyone within Sony might have been happy they were involved with this game. We know Sony has people checking content and censoring it. What if they threw their weight around to make their mark on this game? Maybe these measly changes were all they could muster. In other words: Workplace politics.
Apparently Shift Up fired two women who disagreed with the game's direction. It's not unheard of.
Like Pejo said, censorship does't have to make sense. Completely innocent conversations have been censored in games before because localizers wanted to make a joke and didn't value the source material. And since we don't get a whole lot of transparency in the gaming industry, it's quite likely we'll never know exactly what happened.
Fishnet? Are you talking about the strange Aliasing from the off TV screen photo or am I being stupid and not seeing a fishnet?He said he anticipates that the people who have a problem won't believe him. You were just lamenting some lack of critical thinking. Sounds more like he called it.
They op shows one with fishnets and one with stockings. This one looked like bare legs but the pic is blurry so I'm not sure.
Fishnet? Are you talking about the strange Aliasing from the off TV screen photo or am I being stupid and not seeing a fishnet?
You're talking about this image right?Fishnet stockings. Like the hookers wear!
You're talking about this image right?
Why don't I see hooker stocking?