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Volition won't back down to negative feedback on Saints Row reboot trailer - says its just a shock reaction

imissweed

Banned
Why even engage with these no life loud twitter goblins; they always think they are the majority, when in reality they are a tiny group of losers and millions will buy this.

Just make whatever the fuck you want.
I won't buy this hot garbage game. Last good saints game was the original sequel but good for you for telling the man to kick rocks hipster lol 😆
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Someone should just say "Hey, I get it that your committed to your vision. But you need to understand that you've not made a favourable first impression with the reveal, so it'd be in your best interests to reassure your fanbase via your social media interactions not antagonize them further."
 
I do feel bad for the people who've worked hard on this game and were excited to share it with the world, I don't think this reaction is what they had in mind. I do believe they should have known that in this particular climate that releasing a trailer where the only white character in the trailer was a bad guy may ruffle a few feathers. SR has always had a very diverse cast and nobody was bothered by it at all and it was never talked about as if that was a selling point, that's just how it was and each character brought their own thing to the game that had nothing to do with their skin color or heritage.

That being said the devs aren't out there telling everyone "you have to like us because diversity" there are some write ups where the author talks about that stuff and there are people online who jump to some conclusions about things because of some of the choices the marketing team has made. To be fair they really aren't screaming "we are woke" it's just the choice of character personalities the whole focusing the story on millennials who are the shallowest thinking and most self absorbed generation I've ever seen is what's a turn off to me. Never use that word when talking about your playable characters, it's a turn off to everyone but millennials and they aren't the ones buying most of the games.
 
Didn't they do similar thing with the last one they made? Agents something?

I'm wondering where the new Red Faction is given the technology evolution since RFG. What are they playing at?
 
They aren't going to change anything, the game comes out in 6 months.

I feel like the CG trailer and 3 seconds of in-game footage were a bad way to debut a reboot of an established franchise like Saints Row.
 

Javthusiast

Banned
How many scenes of them group hugging and complementing each other will there be?

"Omg, listening to your podcast helped me so much when I was robbing that store. It calmed my anxiety and made me feel warm inside when I had to hold up that old lady with a gun. I could barely breath but I made it, all thanks to you my friend."

connor franta hipster GIF
 

Mossybrew

Member
That is one character out of all of them. You can't change them and the shitty dialogue you are inevitably gonna get with a direction like this.

Yeah that's true, though I always found the Saints Row characters pretty dumb and cringeworthy, so I expect this to be just a more modern kind of cringe and just tune it out the best I can and focus on blowing fools up.
 

Javthusiast

Banned
Yeah that's true, though I always found the Saints Row characters pretty dumb and cringeworthy, so I expect this to be just a more modern kind of cringe and just tune it out the best I can and focus on blowing fools up.

At this point we need an extended demo with full missions and cutscenes shown to get a true idea of the game.
 

StormCell

Member
That being said the devs aren't out there telling everyone "you have to like us because diversity" there are some write ups where the author talks about that stuff and there are people online who jump to some conclusions about things because of some of the choices the marketing team has made. To be fair they really aren't screaming "we are woke" it's just the choice of character personalities the whole focusing the story on millennials who are the shallowest thinking and most self absorbed generation I've ever seen is what's a turn off to me. Never use that word when talking about your playable characters, it's a turn off to everyone but millennials and they aren't the ones buying most of the games.

Did you mean to say something other than millennials here? Those characters don't look like millennials to me. No, they look a bit younger like early 20s. College drop outs. Or recent graduates.

And who do you think is buying most of the games these days if not millennials? The millennial age bracket is like 24 to 39 years of age.
 

Sgt.Asher

Member
Dokev looks better as a sandbox and i bet has a smaller budget.
Fucking clowns.

Okay that looks pretty cool, i was eehhh at first.


I bet volition didn't expect the backlash. All signs pointed to success, positive vibes with saints row rumors, a fortnite design by committee artstyle, and a diverse messege. Then show the public, uh oh people don't like the last two points.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
No one is asking them to back down, they saying they ain't buying that shit.
And with the sales the series gets....it needs all the fans it can get.😏
 

SaucyJack

Member
I do feel bad for the people who've worked hard on this game and were excited to share it with the world, I don't think this reaction is what they had in mind. I do believe they should have known that in this particular climate that releasing a trailer where the only white character in the trailer was a bad guy may ruffle a few feathers. SR has always had a very diverse cast and nobody was bothered by it at all and it was never talked about as if that was a selling point, that's just how it was and each character brought their own thing to the game that had nothing to do with their skin color or heritage.

That being said the devs aren't out there telling everyone "you have to like us because diversity" there are some write ups where the author talks about that stuff and there are people online who jump to some conclusions about things because of some of the choices the marketing team has made. To be fair they really aren't screaming "we are woke" it's just the choice of character personalities the whole focusing the story on millennials who are the shallowest thinking and most self absorbed generation I've ever seen is what's a turn off to me. Never use that word when talking about your playable characters, it's a turn off to everyone but millennials and they aren't the ones buying most of the games.

Utter bollocks. The reaction to this has got absolutely sweet fuck all to do with the ethnicity of characters one way or the other. The issue is that it looks shit, the interview with the devs makes it sound shit, and it seems not even remotely in the same ballpark as to what we might expect from a Saints Row game.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
No reason to change their vision. The people lamenting the industry latching on to trends are themselves latching onto the look-at-me trend of bitching about things being "woke". The delicious ironing. These same knobs will end up buying the game anyway, so why even give them any consideration?

I wonder if these same people were vocal when games went through a trend of having a bunch of dudebros. Does it make any difference to enjoyment of the game? The sales figures say no. Devs should make games how they want to make them. If the product is good, the aesthetics won't matter. I hope GTA6 has a badass female lead, just to see people tie themselves in knots to explain why they'll end up buying it anyway.
 
Diversity was never the goal of games like SR. The game was about inner-city street gangs and the diversity exhibited was simply a side effect of the game trying to represent the cultural make-up of its more real-life setting.

Yeah, that is what you could say is basically natural diversity, I don't think anyone has ever had an issue with that.

Any and all discussion about diversity surrounding this series is moot, in my honest opinion. The series roots were much more diverse than the shit they just showed, and the series has progressively white-washed its cast. Whether that was all in the name of progressivism is beside the point, however, the devs themselves pose this to be true when they claim the reason they moved away from the inner city gang culture setup was because of "cultural appropriation" (which is entirely meaningless in this context).

This is actually a good point, looking back it does seem the later games had less minorities in the main cast as the series went on. That dev comment doesn't make any sense tho; it's not like there aren't white gang members in inner cities, and regardless of their color things like hip-hop culture permeate in all of them so how is it cultural appropriation to have that in the game? It would've been Volition's own fault if they were whitewashing the Saint's Row cast over time, that was their own choice.

Regardless, of whether the devs' intent was to chase a more Fortnite-like aesthetic or not, the game is irredeemably worse off for it. Fornite for one doesn't even have a distinct visual identity. It's generic as sin. So styling your game in that manner makes little to no sense at all. But it's seemingly becoming a contagion across the industry. So many new games are announced and shown with utterly shitty art that's insufferably generic, totally uninspired in every way, and entirely lacking in stylistic character, originality, or novelty.

Only Japan and now South Korea can save us.

There's still good Western devs around that are doing unique things with their art styles, although IMO most of them are from the indie scene. Replaced for example looks really good and doing some neat things visually for a 2.5D action-adventure platformer. And it's not like I lap up just anything that's non-Western for the sake of it, there's some Japanese games for example with trash art styles or IP that have seemingly fallen into trappings of Western corporate censorship (Dead or Alive).

But yeah, for some of these bigger Western AAA games these corporate-driven choices in aesthetics combined with dumb censorship of "male gaze" is really hurting them more and more with time, causing unnecessary damage to themselves. Really weird of Volition to already take a combative tone with the audience peeping this game out, if they're this overly defensive already they must be scared of what they have to show later on and know on some level more people will reject it.

I don't think I've ever seen such a negative response to a rebooted series. Did Sonic 2006 get this much hate?

Not at its reveal no, reveal response was very positive. It's when the game came out when it became a joke, and later a meme.

However Sonic '06's issue were due to technical failures and questionable artistic choices but nothing inherently "political" as in driven by hyper-partisan Western political culture war circus antics (mainly because that didn't exist at the time)

Muh-norities is my guess. It's usually the common thread between all the games that evoke this kind of reaction. That's gender and ethnic minorities, to be exact. But some will try to convince us that this is only coincidental.

Again, though, Saint's Row as a franchise has always been diverse, and I'd like to think the majority of the backlash is from fans who don't like the Fortnite-like, super Gen-Z aesthetic.

While I'm sure there are some extreme anti-SJW/alt-right infiltrator types trying to gin it up as "woke diversity", that is but a small fragment of it, at least for now. Give it a couple of weeks to see where the online discourse goes and if we start seeing some usual spots and talking heads playing up the game being bad now because of "wokeness" or diversity or stuff like that, then we can start saying the backlash has turned into politicized toxicity.
 
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Did you mean to say something other than millennials here? Those characters don't look like millennials to me. No, they look a bit younger like early 20s. College drop outs. Or recent graduates.

And who do you think is buying most of the games these days if not millennials? The millennial age bracket is like 24 to 39 years of age.
The devs are talking about millennials so that's where I'm picking it up from. The average console gamer is 35, that's at the outer edge of millennials and generally they aren't the type most people think of when they talk about millennials.
 

FunkMiller

Member
What is it with the trend that game trailers now showcase playable characters from every ethnicity/sexuality under the sun - except white males?

The temptation from some quarters is to exclusively lean on the whole 'woke' thing, but in a lot of ways it's much more simple than that:

The Triple AAA video games industry is creatively fucking bankrupt, and will follow the same dickhead bandwagon, no matter what it is.
 

oagboghi2

Member
Muh-norities is my guess. It's usually the common thread between all the games that evoke this kind of reaction. That's gender and ethnic minorities, to be exact. But some will try to convince us that this is only coincidental.
Yeah, Saint Row which has always had minority characters, is totally upsetting Saint Row fans over that. This is especially stupid, even for you.

This is how pathetic people are when they defend this woke shit corporations do. Instead of just dealing with what these people are saying(in this case, they don't like the tone/art direction change) they just make up some bullshit like "everyone is racist". It fucking tiresome.
 

StormCell

Member
The devs are talking about millennials so that's where I'm picking it up from. The average console gamer is 35, that's at the outer edge of millennials and generally they aren't the type most people think of when they talk about millennials.

Well I'm over 35 and am definitely a millennial. I can relate some with Gen X but they're a little before my time in most things Gen X. My class was definitely the ones who kicked off the Millennial "age" as we soared through learning HTML, sending email, using the internet to do research papers, and such. We were the first ones to sign up for MySpace and the first ones to mock it as we left in droves for some year book sounding thing called Facebook. We quickly adapted from copying music CDs to ripping mp3's from them for sharing and downloading. We were graduating college at the height of the recession, working crazy hours as newly minted graduates-turned-interns, and basically working hard for pennies while our boomer bosses and parents got rich or richer.

I would be shocked if I saw sales data proving that Millennials don't make up the largest percentage of people buying games. It can't be Zoomers, and the earliest of Gen X probably isn't as interested in games as the late Gen X'ers who basically got to play any and all NES and SNES/Genesis games they wanted.
 
It is such a shame

I disliked everything I saw. 1 and 2 came out and were competition with GTA. They went the goofy way and said they would be back to the grit. They are not

It is Fortnite, it is Watch_Dogs, it is GotG, it isn't Saints Row. Really should have just given it a different name at this point. It is only Saints Row in name, to tag onto the franchise.

I'll play it when it is free in Game Pass
It is all really so very sad. I too expected a proper reboot, but this is like a game made specificaly for LGTBBQ community, which is what 0,1% of population. I mean good luck selling this.
 

carlosrox

Banned
Fan reactions can be really toxic and shitty sometimes so I can get them wanting to defend themselves from that HOWEVER in this case it's like...responding back in smart ass ways isn't gonna help you.

Plus this looks nothing like Saint's Row, not even the wacky as fuck last few entries.

Personally I only played the first two and lost most of my interest when it really went off the deep end. I was kinda curious to try em but not enough to spend money on em.
 

Kuranghi

Member
Will all those who decide to not buy this game be classed as anti-feminist, racist, homophobic pieces of shit?

Uhhhh going to go out on a limb here and say yes.

You can almost guarantee it, MastaKiiLA MastaKiiLA in this very thread has already insinuated that we're all just racists/sexists/gender... ists, who are afraid of said groups and thats why we are haranguing the tone/characters. As others have said its clear there are a tiny minority of arseholes who actually hate said groups in these situations, and a slightly larger minority of ballbags who just scream sjw/woke/etc when they see any minorities/modern genders/"not averagely lifestyled people" because they are morons but most likely not in the former group, just tired of having this stuff forced into everything and don't know what the concept of a poe is.

I mean only if you talk about not buying it through official channels ofc, if it still appears to be what I believe it is after a proper preview then I just won't buy it and probably won't bring it up again.
 
Shitty character design and a general woke characters are not a shock reaction.

Nobody asked for this Watch Dogs2/Destruction Allstars rip off.

They should listen to their fanbase.
I still think the Game will sell well because there won't be any GTA alternatives in the next few months.
 

carlosrox

Banned
K some of the reactions people have are definitely shit and worthy of being called out (by the devs or anyone).

"Cancel the game" type reactions are shit and they make way more normal negative reactions suffer because then they wanna paint us all with the same brush.

It's like those fucking idiots thinking all gamers are racist or misogynist just because 0.1% of them are. Stupid fucks on both sides really.
 
You'll have a great future as a ResetEra poster, but you're going to be a lousy worldwide sales manager.
Oh I would suck at that job because of many of my other views, but they aren't allowed here. Any post against capitalism gets me banned for politics.
Please tell us what you think the beliefs of people in those places are? I think you've misunderstood the comment you replied to.
My post was directed at the person I replied to, and the beliefs and views they gave them. I try not to generalize especially cultures I don't know much about. With that out of the way if a gay, female or diverse character is a huge turn off like they said then my comment stands. There is such a thing as wrong opinions and views.
 
Saints Row has always come across as a cheap knockoff GTA geared toward a younger audience. I mean didn't you play as the president in one of them fighting off an alien invasion with super powers?

Of course they are taking on a Fortnite aesthetic, that's where the audience they have always appealed to is right now.

This has always been like a B-tier game, I'm amazed people are getting so worked up over this.
 
Saints Row has always come across as a cheap knockoff GTA geared toward a younger audience. I mean didn't you play as the president in one of them fighting off an alien invasion with super powers?

Of course they are taking on a Fortnite aesthetic, that's where the audience they have always appealed to is right now.

This has always been like a B-tier game, I'm amazed people are getting so worked up over this.
It's cute you think gta is mature lol

Everyone in my elementary school wanted to play vice city

Gameplay and fun factor SR has always been better
 
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Kuranghi

Member
Oh I would suck at that job because of many of my other views, but they aren't allowed here. Any post against capitalism gets me banned for politics.

My post was directed at the person I replied to, and the beliefs and views they gave them. I try not to generalize especially cultures I don't know much about. With that out of the way if a gay, female or diverse character is a huge turn off like they said then my comment stands. There is such a thing as wrong opinions and views.

If the reason they are turned off is because they live in a society where no one cares what race you are and what lifestyle you have (as long as it doesn't hurt others) but they view it as pushing an agenda to overcompensate for a perceived past lack of representation, would you consider that a valid reason to be turned off by it?

I don't know why people can't see the difference between, "I hate X race outright" and "they've put lots of X race in this to push an agenda rather than because that race has anything to do with the character", ie pandering.

Anyway, I'd like to hear your reply but probably best to leave it there after that since this conversation is getting too political for GAF probably.
 
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