Support NeoGAF

[LordKasual]

Oh no, people are making decisions about their consumer habits. How petty of them.

Lol. It's demonstrating how ridiculously childish people can be when seeking their own personal retribution. These people gain nothing good from this incident and have everything to lose from the controversy surrounding it.

They take action, they have to replace work they already paid for, and they draw the ire of neo-nazis. They don't take action, they draw the ire of people like you, and have to deal with being branded. Which leads more people like you to generate hateful comments towards them.

JonTron runs damage control on himself and keeps on doing his thing, but now in his wake we have people who dislike him shitting on a completely different group of people that only briefly associated with him.


These people were just trying to make a fun game, and now we have assholes literally telling them that they can go get fucked because of something they had no control over.

This is actually worse than petty, i just can't think of the correct word for it right now.

 

[Ganado]

Well yes, but i meant like, supporting STEAM evened out because they also had Anti GG onboard.

Don't you think many people that worked on Hat in Time is anti-GG?

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

Boycotting a game over one voice actor is so fucking dumb. You're not punishing JonTron by doing so, you're hurting everyone else with rational views involved with the game. If you took the same stance with anything else in life, you'd never do or buy anything.

People with rational views wouldn't be okay featuring a white supremacist in their game, but clearly we're the fucking dumb ones.

 

[Mesoian]

I mean, it's good that people are strongly against racists, homophobes and any other kind of dangerous asshole, but I can't help but feel that all you guys boycotting this game on principle aren't doing the same for the other gazilions of similar cases in which some of those kinds of assholes is involded even if just for a little part.

Let's put it this way. Rap music has an image problem. A lot of the GOATs have problems with violence and women. The bitches and hoes rhetoric are pretty rife in hip-hop in general. Just because I like Biggie doesn't mean I have to be complicit with XXXtenction, a man who beat his pregnant girlfriend so badly she was permanently disfigured because he thought she was sleeping with another guy because she sang the melody of a song instead of the main chorus.

We get to choose where we make stands. Just because we turned a blind eye to something in the past doesn't mean we have to do it forever or risk being labeled hypocrites.

Boycotting a game over one voice actor is so fucking dumb. You're not punishing JonTron by doing so, you're hurting everyone else with rational views involved with the game. If you took the same stance with anything else in life, you'd never do or buy anything.

Saying you're not allowed to care about this because it happens elsewhere is how you normalize the problem. It's mean and disingenuous, opting to sweep problems under rugs so you can have another 5 hours of entertainment.

 

[Yearsoflurking]

thats not what he said at all?

and what does him being white has to do with anything? Because I am black does that make my words worth more?

wtf is going on around here?

"Thankfully I don't let a voice actor's awful opinions sway my purchasing opinions"

That is what he said. he said he is willing to put up with the actors opinions by supporting his product regardless of his "political" views.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

its just a voice. One that you can even turn off. Him having a VO for one character does not mean the devs agree w/ his bullshit.

How do we know this? They've never made a statement, that I know if, saying otherwise.

 

[L Thammy]

Don't you think many people that worked on Hat in Time is anti-GG?

Have they done anything to demonstrated one way or another? If not, how the fuck am I supposed to know?

 

[PAULINK]

sometimes you gotta weigh the risks. is it worth boycotting the game over someone with bad views on a game you really want to play? imo it's not enough for me.

 

[Machina]

Your power to fight white supremacy and institutional racism lies in the voting booth GAF, not in boycotting an indie game that would be lucky to sell 100k copies in the first place.

 

[Brazil]

He's doing the voice of a character in a game, he's a voice actor in this game

Again, not really what I was arguing about.. He's a cunt with cuntish opinions, that's undeniable

Once again though, to me that's not something that sways my purchasing intention of a good looking game

You're free to do whatever you want.

What I'm saying is that there's a big fucking difference between an actual voice actor that you cast for your game come out as a racist piece of shit and what's happening here.

JonTron's part in this game exists solely for the purpose of drawing his fans in. It could easily be removed without hurting the overall experience, unlike, say, removing Nolan North's voice from Uncharted.

The devs knew for freaking months that JonTron was a piece of shit and still decided to go with him in the final game. They took a calculated risk, and I'm going to enjoy seeing it go wrong for them.

 

[jholmes]

you keep saying this despite being told this wasn't the case at all. They said they would like to have a Wii U version but never made it a stretch goal...and then the Wii U died....

this feels weirdly personal on your end

First off, I backed the game, I know very well how Gears for Breakfast has handled criticism in the past (i.e. they ignore it and everyone lets them do it) so I'm not about to hesitate to bring up the context. It's telling that you think saying "the Wii U died" excuses the behaviour I brought up.

Second, how "personal" does this have to be for me to not be justified in saying I'm unimpressed with the presence of an avowed racist in a video game?

 

[Lucent]

Lol. It's demonstrating how ridiculously childish people can be when seeking their own personal retribution. These people gain nothing good from this incident and have everything to lose from the controversy surrounding it.

They take action, they have to replace work they already paid for, and they draw the ire of neo-nazis. They don't take action, they draw the ire of people like you, and have to deal with being branded. Which leads more people like you to generate hateful comments towards them.

JonTron runs damage control on himself and keeps on doing his thing, but now in his wake we have people who dislike him shitting on a completely different group of people that only briefly associated with him.


These people were just trying to make a fun game, and now we have assholes literally telling them that they can go get fucked because of something they had no control over.

This is actually worse than petty, i just can't think of the correct word for it right now.

I actually think this sums up my thoughts pretty well.

 

[Mesoian]

Don't you think many people that worked on Hat in Time is anti-GG?

We don't know, THEY HAVEN'T RELEASED A STATEMENT.

Your power to fight white supremacy and institutional racism lies in the voting booth GAF, not in boycotting an indie game that would be lucky to sell 100k copies in the first place.

It lies in your wallet.

If you're not okay with having white supremacists in your game, don't buy this.

Hard stop.

 

[CannonFodder52]

It's just frustrating.

Playtonic paved a path for them to follow. They would have even received far less backlash from the racists, if they had followed suit relatively soon after. Instead they look like awful keeping him in and ruining the precedent that Playtonic set.

Also people here keep conflating VA with celebrity endorsement.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Your power to fight white supremacy and institutional racism lies in the voting booth GAF, not in boycotting an indie game that would be lucky to sell 100k copies in the first place.

There's really never a bad time and place to fight white supremacy.

 

[Maelstorm1226]

I'm buying the game because the game looks fun and just the type of game I want to play right now.

 

[MKIL65]

Him having a VO for one character does not mean the devs agree w/ his bullshit.

If that's the case, they could have further proven this by putting out a statement beforehand.

It seems they were incapable of doing so. Therefore, I'm not convinced.

 

[EMT0]

Honestly, can we please just agree that it's not the the Devs' fault for any of this?

Personally, I can distance Jon the entertainer from Jon the politician. I understand that may be hard for some people, but that's just my opinion. Gears For Breakfast put Jon into the game, without knowing about his political views. To most people outside then Youtube drama community, Jon is just a harmless entertainer. If a child, or impressionable person went onto his channel, there is clearly know racist or harmful statements. Jon has kept his channel clean, and has tried his best to distance his political beliefs from his show.

Gears for Breakfast were faced with a decision: to either remove him, and face the backlash from those who wanted Jon in the game, or to keep him in, and face backlash from those annoyed by his presence. As someone who doesn't care either way, I believe that the logical decision was made. It was already known that Jon was in AHiT, and people were promised his inclusion. It isn't known whether Jon was being paid or not, but from his previous records, he hasn't charged for cameos such as this. Even if he was paid, voice actors are never paid on a royalty basis, and would have already been paid. This means that for those worried about their money going to Jon, there would be no direct cash flow from such sales. On top of this, since Jon has distanced his channel from his political views, those who find Jon through the game will not be harmed by finding his channel. Because of this, it was a rather logical decision to keep him in the game, as they could have faced a large backlash from removing him, and no-one would be harmed from keeping him in.

A divided fanbase is a very hard thing to deal with, and both sides are extremely vocal. I think we can all agree that GFB had a hard choice to make, no matter what you think was the right decision. There are fair arguments on both sides, but I think we should keep civil, and not blame the devs for being put into such a hard choice.

This is a parody, right? 'John the politician'? 'Separate his offscreen and onscreen personas'? This reads like every bad parody of apologist posts on GAF.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

Oh another game to avoid.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

we have people who dislike him shitting on a completely different group of people that only briefly associated with him.

This conversation would be a lot easier to have if you didn't keep completely misrepresenting the words of those replying to you.

Gears for Breakfast will be fine, this isn't an organized boycott and at most they've lost a handful of sales from people who have enough games to play without buying one more based on a fairly easy moral stand to take. Failure to reward is not punishment and it's certainly not 'shitting on' a developer who makes video games.

 

[Machina]

There's really never a bad time and place to fight white supremacy.

No but there is a time and a place to make a real and tangible difference, instead of seeking something that really only provides moral gratification

 

[LordKasual]

Let's put it this way. Rap music has an image problem. A lot of the GOATs have problems with violence and women. The bitches and hoes rhetoric are pretty rife in hip-hop in general. Just because I like Biggie doesn't mean I have to be complicit with XXXtenction, a man who beat his pregnant girlfriend so badly she was permanently disfigured because he thought she was sleeping with another guy because she sang the melody of a song instead of the main chorus.

We get to choose where we make stands. Just because we turned a blind eye to something in the past doesn't mean we have to do it forever or risk being labeled hypocrites.



Saying you're not allowed to care about this because it happens elsewhere is how you normalize the problem. It's mean and disingenuous, opting to sweep problems under rugs so you can have another 5 hours of entertainment.

except this is like boycotting a completely different artist because XXXTentacion wrote a verse in a song months before he beat his girlfriend.

Sure, go shit on XXX all you want. But this other random artist is supposed to scrap part of the whole track beacuse he was involved?

 

[balladofwindfishes]

So how hard would it have been for them to say

"We do not agree with JonTron's views and they do not express the views held by the development team, but we are unable to remove him, as we are a small studio and do not have the resources to hire additional voice actors to replace him at this late point in development"

Like, that doesn't seem very hard, does it?

So why hasn't it happened yet?

 

[Dyson Industries]

Makes this game easy to ignore. Hell, I'd put money towards Shadow of War before this.

Fuck JonTron, and fuck his racist apologists.

 

[Ragelink26]

Oh no. A racist in my vidyagaemz? Gosh diggity darn it.

Time to start background checking everyone that's involved in the creation of an entertainment product you consume. I bet there's a lot worse shit out there than JonTron.

This is unfortunately true. I can just imagine what would happen if more people realized that Shawn Layden has been liking Trump tweets

 

[Blues1990]

In case if you guys wanted to know, Jon voices an NPC in the form of a mobster penguin that snaps his 'fingers' and speak a few out-of-place voice lines. As far as I know, that NPC had only appeared in the Mafia level from the beta.

 

[Brazil]

Lol. It's demonstrating how ridiculously childish people can be when seeking their own personal retribution. These people gain nothing good from this incident and have everything to lose from the controversy surrounding it.

They take action, they have to replace work they already paid for, and they draw the ire of neo-nazis. They don't take action, they draw the ire of people like you, and have to deal with being branded. Which leads more people like you to generate hateful comments towards them.

JonTron runs damage control on himself and keeps on doing his thing, but now in his wake we have people who dislike him shitting on a completely different group of people that only briefly associated with him.


These people were just trying to make a fun game, and now we have assholes literally telling them that they can go get fucked because of something they had no control over.

This is actually worse than petty, i just can't think of the correct word for it right now.

They have no control over their own game?

I guess everyone who's skipping this game due to this mess is dodging one hell of a bullet, then.

 

[Carl]

You're free to do whatever you want.

What I'm saying is that there's a big fucking difference between an actual voice actor that you cast for your game come out as a racist piece of shit and what's happening here.

JonTron's part in this game exists solely for the purpose of drawing his fans in. It could easily be removed without hurting the overall experience, unlike, say, removing Nolan North's voice from Uncharted.

The devs knew for freaking months that JonTron was a piece of shit and still decided to go with him in the final game. They took a calculated risk, and I'm going to enjoy seeing it go wrong for them.

But is it worth removing him? Do enough people care? If he had a big part in it, fully voiced, it could be a big job to remove him. I doubt most people care what he thinks as long as the game is good

And also the guy probably still has fans, so his voice probably still brings people in

 

[brinstar]

Your power to fight white supremacy and institutional racism lies in the voting booth GAF, not in boycotting an indie game that would be lucky to sell 100k copies in the first place.

I'll do both, thanks

 

[Mesoian]

except this is like boycotting a completely different artist because XXXTentacion wrote a verse in a song months before he beat his girlfriend.

Sure, go shit on XXX all you want. But this other random artist is supposed to scrap part of the whole track beacuse he was involved?

Yes. Artists remove verses for less serious reasons all the time. Fuck Tommy Matola made millions by removing rap tracks from pop songs.

 

[Baraka Obama]

Why does this matter so much? Do you remember his role in Yooka Laylee that they removed? No I don't because it was an insanely minimal role.

I think it's all right to not want a bigot in your media.

 

[wrowa]

I can sort of understand why they remain silent on this, considering how bad the shitstorm was when Playtonic announced their decision to remove JonTron. A lot of people were happy about their decision — and they earned my utmost respect with that move — but sadly these people tend not to review bomb a game with great reviews, while the idiots among us spread the hate in every channel accessible to them.

From the point of view of small studio that’s about to release their first game, well, I can relate why you’d rather want to remain silent on such a matter. The success of the game is crucial to their future and I understand why you’d prefer to avoid controversy —and come to the conclusion that staying silent on the matter will cause the least amount of controversy.

However, JonTron is a racist prick of the worst sort. It’s not the kind of thing you can sweep under the rug while saying “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion”. It’s pure, unfiltered hatred. There’s no exuse, no justification for that. It’s the sort of thing you have to distance yourself from, otherwise you’ll leave a really bitter taste behind. Are you not distancing yourself because you don’t want to stir the hornet’s nest? Or do you think his statements were of the “not that bad” kind?

I, personally, wouldn’t be able to play the game currently without thinking about this, so for the time being I’ll avoid it. Which, to be honest, isn’t all that difficult since the upcoming weeks and months are packed with great games. (Not to discredit A Hat in Time: It’s a gorgeous looking game).

 

[Anung]

I far from agree with Boogie's empty comments about the moderate middle but I also remember a time when the Left wasn't dominated by a "With us or against us" attitude. I thought that point of view was exclusively the realm of the Republicans and the Loony Right

It's almost like recent political events have made compromise untenable.

 

[ramoisdead]

So how hard would it have been for them to say

"We do not agree with JonTron's views and they do not express the views held by the development team, but we are unable to remove him, as we are a small studio and do not have the resources to hire additional voice actors to replace him at this late point in development"

Like, that doesn't seem very hard, does it?

So why hasn't it happened yet?

Who knows. You'd think it'll be something so simple to do. Even for an indie studio.

 

[Yearsoflurking]

But is it worth removing him? Do enough people care? If he had a big part in it, fully voiced, it could be a big job to remove him. I doubt most people care what he thinks as long as the game is good

And also the guy probably still has fans, so his voice probably still brings people in

Yes if the matter is important to them, obviously it isn't which is why I'm not supporting the game. They had 6 months to make changes to a minor voice.


Devs haven't even commented on it

 

[PSqueak]

Don't you think many people that worked on Hat in Time is anti-GG?

Likely, but this is not an issue about GG, this is an issue of Jontron's racist views which the devs have not made a comment on.

Sure, Baldwin was a GG piece of shit, if people tell me "how can you support CN STEAM if it has Baldwin in it who is a GG", i could argue that "Well, Wil Wheaton, the notorious anti GG who called his shit is also in the game".

Coincidentally, i didn't actually buy Code name STEAM, but found interesting that these two actors in it had such opposite views.

But going back to a Hat in time, i had no proof the devs don't endorse jon's views, they havent made a comment, i don't have a wil wheaton to argue that people who oppose jon's views exist among the dev team, so what defense is there for it?

 

[ScaryShark]

Boycotting a game over one voice actor is so fucking dumb. You're not punishing JonTron by doing so, you're hurting everyone else with rational views involved with the game. If you took the same stance with anything else in life, you'd never do or buy anything.

If I worked on this game, there's zero chance I'd want my work associated with someone who is openly racist.

 

[Brazil]

Your power to fight white supremacy and institutional racism lies in the voting booth GAF, not in boycotting an indie game that would be lucky to sell 100k copies in the first place.

Actually, it lies in every single aspect of your existence. Don't berate people for actually having political consistency in their lives.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

So how hard would it have been for them to say

"We do not agree with JonTron's views and they do not express the views held by the development team, but we are unable to remove him, as we are a small studio and do not have the resources to hire additional voice actors to replace him at this late point in development"

Like, that doesn't seem very hard, does it?

So why hasn't it happened yet?

You know why

No but there is a time and a place to make a real and tangible difference, instead of seeking something that really only provides moral gratification

lmao there's time for both.

 

[Dyson Industries]

I'll do both, thanks

Bloody right.

 

[benbeaux]

I won't lie, I liked Jon's body of work a lot. I gave him the benefit of the doubt TWICE, that's more than I give most.

But shit dude...come on.

I'm not really give Jon the benefit of the doubt here. He's a terrible human being and should be treated as such.

I'm just trying gather up my thoughts and emotions about this particular game I guess. A Hat in Time was a game I was pretty interested in when I first heard about it on Kickstarter, and the idea of throwing it away because of one incredibly racist asshole's voice kind of stings for me.

The ideal situation for me would be a Playtonic-esque response where he's removed from the game completely, certainly.

 

[Vimes]

So how hard would it have been for them to say

"We do not agree with JonTron's views and they do not express the views held by the development team, but we are unable to remove him, as we are a small studio and do not have the resources to hire additional voice actors to replace him at this late point in development"

Like, that doesn't seem very hard, does it?

So why hasn't it happened yet?

Yup, this would be enough for me. I'm a backer so Gears for Breakfast already have my money.

I don't give a flying fuck that JonTron is in the game itself, I care about what it implies about the devs. If they're fine normalizing hateful views they don't get further support from me. Until they make a statement I'm assuming the worst.

Their position isn't easy, but some shit you just gotta do.

 

[Ampersands]

All you people handwaving this know that that a precedent has been set by Playtonic right? As far as we know, the devs of A Hat in Time are aware of what happened and are making the decision not to remove him from the game. So there is absolutely a statement being made and people are justified in boycotting the game if they'd like.

 

[Hot Coldman]

I think the devs were weighing up this bad PR around launch from a white supremacist being featured in this game vs long-term ire from the speedrunning community who has a penchant for attracting absolute wasters to spew venom in Twitch chats and Steam forums. The long-term sales of this game are absolutely reliant on the former - this was a game clearly born from the popularity of the devs' own love of 3D Mario, and the popularity of SM64 speedruns and the like earlier this decade and beyond.

Problem is that choice was ultimately unnecessary, because the things about these kind of dipshits is they buy and play the game anyway. They can't help themselves. I think they should have had the courage a while ago to kick his racist arse out the game, but Pandora's Box is well and truly open now that the game is almost out and this discourse will fuck them sideways for a good while. So, you know, this will go down as a lesson for future projects.

 

[L Thammy]

I feel like if the developers made a statement along the lines of "we do not wish to endorse JonTron's views, we were not aware of JonTron's views when we recorded his lines, but as a small studio is difficult for us to replace the dialogue", most people here would be satisfied. I think most people can understand that they're in a position they didn't plan to be in.

Mind you, that's if they made that statement. If they don't say anything, that silence is the statement.

 

[Mesoian]

But is it worth removing him? Do enough people care? If he had a big part in it, fully voiced, it could be a big job to remove him. I doubt most people care what he thinks as long as the game is good

And also the guy probably still has fans, so his voice probably still brings people in

Considering this game seems to have two voice tracks, rare-esque gibberish speak and fully voiced, I'd assume they actually have 0 risk in removing Jontron from the game.

But that's my assumption and I don't have all the facts.

I'm not really give Jon the benefit of the doubt here. He's a terrible human being and should be treated as such.

Oh no, you shouldn't at this point. Jon Jafari has shown his true colors.

 

[Carl]

Yes if the matter is important to them, obviously it isn't which is why I'm not supporting the game. They had 6 months to make changes to a minor voice.


Devs haven't even commented on it

I meant in terms of cost.

 

[Ganado]

We don't know, THEY HAVEN'T RELEASED A STATEMENT.

Have they done anything to demonstrated one way or another? If not, how the fuck am I supposed to know?

I meant individual developers. I can take a stance on something without letting the whole world know what I like and don't like.

 

[Rhete]

In case if you guys wanted to know, Jon voices an NPC in the form of a mobster penguin that snaps his 'fingers' and speak a few out-of-place voice lines. As far as I know, that NPC had only appeared in the Mafia level from the beta.

Looks like he might be more than one character then? https://youtu.be/Q7TG3I5t1Gw?t=6m26s

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Actually, it lies in every single aspect of your existence. Don't berate people for actually having political consistency in their lives.

Word.

I'm not sure what "get out and vote!" has to do with this game. But, I have time in my life for both that and not financially supporting racists.