I'm assuming these credits are from the ToyBox? If anyone here has access to the credits and can get a screenshot of his name there then that would be verification.
That should surprise no one.
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Playtonic unveils Yooka-Laylee (Banjo Kazooie successor) [Kickstarter LIVE - Funded]
- Thread starter Regulus Tera
- Start date
I'm assuming these credits are from the ToyBox? If anyone here has access to the credits and can get a screenshot of his name there then that would be verification.
That should surprise no one.
I'm really confused why people keep citing politics in relation to someone being a literal white supremacist.
But your post is the most accurate one in terms of likely scenarios.
CortexVortex
Banned
So you are not watching any Gibson/ Polanski movies then either?
It's just a small cameo and it's even unpaid. There is a chance that you don't even need to talk to this NPC, so just enjoy the game.
CannonFodder52
Member
I dunno man, I personally don't want to pay for a product only to hear the voice of a guy who rants about immigrants diluting the gene pool. Especially a title as upbeat and cheery as this one.
I'm sure I wont skip this game, but I'm way less motivated to buy this day 1 now.
Thanks, I'd love if you could pm me but if not that's fine and just post them in here?
Admiral Woofington
Member
Jontron and Arin met Grant kirkhope when he came to guest star on Game Grumps during a playthrough of banjo Kazooie. Jon has always been a massive banjo Kazooie fan. Way before any of this controversy happened he was asked to come do a voice for a minor role/cameo in the game after he learned grant and previous rare guys were making the game. He tweeted at them and they invited him over.
He also voiced a character in a hat in time, at least in the beta.
I can understand not wanting to support Jon, but a game where he has a minor role that was done months before any of this shit happened and now someone is going to take it out on the indie developer because of it is a bit extreme. You can make it clear to them you would rather he not appear and they can make the decision, but I can't fault them for keeping the small role he has in there.
I think what people want is a statement from Playtonic on where they stand and whether or not they intend to keep JonTron and for what reasons if so. No one wishes bad things upon Playtonic.
That is a very strange way to characterize a request for clarification.
You can fault them, it's entirely their choice. That's the whole point of being indie, nobody is forcing you to do anything you don't want to.
If one of the VA in my game was a horrible racist and I knew before the game out you can be damn sure I'd change it. Not saying I will or won't choose to play the game based on what's happening here, but it's not unreasonable for someone to use this information to make a decision about how they spend their money and time.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
The Toy Box has no credits if I did not miss anything.
Well, I would say "too much considering the context". He was not selected as a voice actor after the comments he made, he had no influence on the overall game design as far as we know and no racist cause will (assuming no one else on the team is a racist, which I don't think is too likely with the Playtonic staff) have any monetary or conceptual gain out of the game, so why is this so important as to put the whole team under the bus as well?
I saw excerpts of what he said in the original post of the thread about that, I don't think I need to watch the Youtube interview, I am not too keen on hearing more racist drivel. The full extent of this I do not know, of course, but considering how minor his involvement is, I feel this is a total overreaction, in particular considering how late in the game it is (after the game was already finished). Also, taking into account how many people voted for Trump last year, if you want to avoid all games where someone with racist views has worked in any capacity on, chances are, you need to avoid all US-made reasonably big productions. Looking at LePen in France, AfD in Germany, SVP in Switzerland, FPÖ in Austria and PiS in Poland, for instance, you can add the majority of European countries as well.
A statement from them will only make things worse unless they say that they're going to remove him from the game.
Not comparable.
Braveheart would not exist without Gibson and The Pianist would not exist without Polanski. Some people can take the work over the artist. Also, movies are not so connected with the internet.
But Playtonic can change the Jontron voice work in a work day, and niche games sales are soooo connected with the internet reactions. Go figure.
Don't ever listen to anything with John Lennon then otherwise you are a woman beating supporter.
You're making way too big of a deal out of this. I would understand if it was Jontron himself who was making this game. Now that makes much more sense and I would agree with you there. The developers obviously had no idea he was that kind of person at the time.
Do we know what the FPS is for consoles yet? I kind of assumed it would be 60. If it's not 60 on PS4 then it won't be on the Switch which is where I was debating getting it, looks like PC it is.
It can't possibly be that hard to strip his voice out and hire someone else.
The smaller the involvement, the easier it is to solve the problem. When a problem of easy solution is not solved, people can complain with more reasons.
So to be clear, your position is that you would rather not know where they stand on JonTron and you don't believe anyone else should know either.
yeah if its not 60fps on switch then i wont be getting it.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Wrong. Anything except for a statement saying he's out of the game and they do not support what he stands for would make things worse.
All there is to it.
Exactly, people are like "condemn him or you are the same".
Let's hope I'm proven wrong.
Admiral Woofington
Member
It's a damned if they do point now. If you publicly say you don't support his views you are possibly alienating sales from the hardcore fans and people who support his supposed stance. Say you will not remove the voice and you lose sales from people who are tweeting at you saying they will not get the game if Jon is involved in any way shape or form even a minor one.
The game has gone gold and they are likely focusing their effort on bugs and further optimization for patches, not to mention the switch version. Their smartest move would be to not say anything on the matter and hope it blows over with people who are demanding a change, because it will. Either that or stealth replace it.
Maybe they have morals and don't need money from racists and white supremacists.
Do tell what possible motivation anyone would have to not condemn someone like JonTron, unless they're spineless cowards who think they can tap into the alt-right market by pretending to be ignorant.
Again, my point is that the involvement was so minor, than a fast fix and public explanation from Playtonic could be a big good advertising movement but keeping quiet as if there were no problems and leaving things as they are can have a negative impact on sales.
Are those really the people they should be concerned about?
That's not where I stand at all, I don't stand for what Jon has said recently but I honestly don't think any other statement from Playtonic would appease the people that are saying they're not buying the game because Jon's voice is in it.
That's just my opinion, I might be wrong but I'm not trying to force it on anyone.
EDIT: Just to make it clear, I'm not trying to judge anyone that decides not to buy the game based on this in any way.
Or he'll unironically ask why minority species in the game always want to live like the better respected ones.
"He's not in our game anymore and we do not condone his views" is what they want. It's simple. Shit like this has happened before in the production of video games, and studios who aren't stupid deal with it like so.
Being silent and keeping him in the game is an absolutely nuts PR move that will backfire on them spectacularly.
Such mature reactions to Jontron being in the game.
You wouldn't play ANY games if you knew what the developers of games with 300+ people think/support.
Jontron is a dick, wow big news, that's not gonna make me punish all the rest of the team for it or stop me from having fun with the game.
You wouldn't play ANY games if you knew what the developers of games with 300+ people think/support.
Jontron is a dick, wow big news, that's not gonna make me punish all the rest of the team for it or stop me from having fun with the game.
You're right, staying silent might backfire on them. Might be worth tweeting Playtonic about it.
CannonFodder52
Member
I'll be honest. I don't think they will have that big of a repercussion if they leave him in.
Also I don't know anything about game design, but how difficult would it be to update in a setting to toggle his voice/audio on or off. So each side of this will be content.
Several of us have done so. The account just made a few new retweets but no response yet. I think it would help if more people asked.
Well I don't watch many films.
And i don't think I've seen any Gibson or Polanski films.
But sure. I won't watch a Gibson film because he's a racist.
And I sure as hell won't watch a Polanski film because he raped a 13 year old. Fled the country, got away with it by living in "exile" in France.
Then gets fucking standing ovations because apparently he has lived a hard life.
I honestly don't give a damn if Pianist the best movie ever or whatever other film he has made.
Jon Tron having a voice in this game leaves me with a sour taste for sure.
That was in A Hat in Time, I believe.
CortexVortex
Banned
It won't affect the sales at all. Some people won't buy the game if he's in there and some won't buy it if they remove him. But to be honest most people won't care and will buy the game regardless whatever happens.
I wonder if voice acting contracts have a "If you bring your name into disrepute, this contract is severed" clause in them... and if they *need* to have that in the future.
(Same would go for other forms of production contracts, of course, although VA is probably the most noticeable work-for-hire job involved in VG production)
(Same would go for other forms of production contracts, of course, although VA is probably the most noticeable work-for-hire job involved in VG production)
Oh cool. Has anyone bumped the Jontron thread with this information regarding Yooka-Laylee? I very much doubt this movement will gain much traction otherwise.
Yeah, so if you found out that a UE4 engine programmer is a racist you will boycott all games made with the engine unless his code is removed?
I wouldn't think developers are contractually obligated to include recorded voice work. It's not entirely uncommon for actors to have all of their scenes cut from a film, for example.
The fuck?
Jontron is not the developer. He is a famous face/voice that have to work as additional marketing plus for the game. The current situation means that will have a negative impact instead of positive.
April 11th. So very soon!
The Giant
Banned
I hope this will be time they will reveal the switch date.
And? The game is releasing in two weeks i doubt they will make any changes to it now. Its a stupid reason to boycott the game because there is a voice actor in it that they had no idea what his world views are.
I would imagine that the issue people have isn't so much that his voice is present - as has been indicated, we're talking about buh-bap-barp sort of stuff - as the implication that he was paid for that work - the remuneration being more for the value of the cameo than the actual performance.
If there's a reasonable argument that his actions since have reduced the value of the cameo, then I'd argue that that changes matters, but given I'd be surprised if such a notion was enshrined in the contract. Maybe it should be? Or would that be an unreasonable level of extra legalese for a legal battle I suspect no-one would actually want to go to the trouble of fighting?
Kotaku or some other site will look for clicks talking about jontron in the game. Wait for it.
I honestly think that right now the developers might not be aware of the JonTron controversy and/or don't have his role on their mind right now. I'm personally convinced that if attention is drawn to the issue, they will correct it and remove his voice. I think it's very premature to talk about boycotts, and I think it's also premature to speculate about reasons they might keep him on when I don't think they will.
I'm pretty sure the Playtonic guys are cool. There's no reason to believe otherwise.
Towards that end, I think all of us agree that it would be good to get a statement from them on the issue. That's why I ask that people tweet at them requesting clarification and comment.
This is really all it would take and I don't think it would be a tortured process.
I'm pretty sure the Playtonic guys are cool. There's no reason to believe otherwise.
Towards that end, I think all of us agree that it would be good to get a statement from them on the issue. That's why I ask that people tweet at them requesting clarification and comment.
This is really all it would take and I don't think it would be a tortured process.