• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Layna Lazar makes point about pro-sexuality art, reignites feud with insomniac dev - twitter outrage mobs

Cybrwzrd

Banned
Explain mass effect andromeda?

Unless you mean those nut job conspiracies that the female characters don’t look “attractive enough” because of sjws or some bullshit

Ignoring the far more obvious answer that the b tier BioWare crew assigned to the project can’t design or animate characters well in general

But sure. BioWare has an agenda. Lmao

Now you are just trolling.
 

kingwingin

Member
You couldn't even create a white character in their character creator. Haha. The default faces were ugly, etc. The game was trying really hard to remove any sexualization from the female characters. They ranged from plain to ugly.
you can create a white character, unless that was something they patched in after.
 

Lokimaru

Member
Imo, it was more than the unpolished engine, bad animations and jank that caused Mass Effect Andromeda to sell below expectations. If it was really because of lack of polish, animation and a few glitches, most AAA games would probably see lackluster sales then.

Bethesda games don’t have good animation and glitches galore, yet they sold well. Even games with questionable animations like Assassins Creed during combat sell well. Witcher combat wasn’t the best with some awkward movement, yet it sold very well. NetherRealm games normally have bad animations, but they sell well also.

Yeah but I can use Bijinn in Skyrim to turn Uthgerd from this:
images

into this:
72626-2-1465942006.jpg

I can't do that in other games.

Why they had her look like the top picture when her cut dialogue makes her seem a lot younger like in the bottom picture is beyond me. Bottom picture just fits her voice better imo.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
People with large followings know this will happen, and some do leverage the power this gives them. The right thing to do is to to not go after people aggressively because idiot followers WILL be idiot followers.

To be fair he wasn't really that aggressive. He spoke to his feelings in similar ways that she did to start off. If we want to hold anybody accountable, then hold those individuals accountable that harassed her. She's a big girl, she can take some criticisms of how she feels female characters should look. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion.
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
To be fair he wasn't really that aggressive. He spoke to his feelings in similar ways that she did to start off. If we want to hold anybody accountable, then hold those individuals accountable that harassed her. She's a big girl, she can take some criticisms of how she feels female characters should look. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

I should probably be a bit clearer in holding the assholes accountable, no doubt about that, people need to be more accountable for their actions online, I'm just observing a need for care in stirring up the masses in this day and age.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I should probably be a bit clearer in holding the assholes accountable, no doubt about that, people need to be more accountable for their actions online, I'm just observing a need for care in stirring up the masses in this day and age.

We all as a human society are still trying to figure out this whole social media thing. Its tentacles are long and wide. It's changing our brain chemistry and also how we interact with each other. I don't think many people "truly" understand the power social media has yet. It's like changing a nation's government from a Monarchy to a Democracy. The effects on the surface seem all positive and clear, but it'll take generations before we understand the downsides and then what to do to limit those downsides.

I doubt that Insomniac dev knew what could come later after he posted his tweets back at Layna. And at some level, after he got people on Twitter that tried to get him fired, I wonder if he then got mad at Layna and blamed her for that too. It's a terrible cycle. :(
 

CuNi

Member
I find it really sad that we reached a point in time where you can't say "I liked the character in the original. Why did it needed to be redesigned differently in the remake?" without being called out all the hate buzzwords. Like literally. I liked her older version too. The new one looks on steroids. Why do people see the urge to change the appearance of already established characters? I wouldn't mind new characters be more masculine or whatever.. But that's like taking Lara Croft and making her androgynous.. Just... Why?
 

Enygger_Tzu

Banned
So, tl;dr an artist showed the attrocity that was Lady's current design, did a quick edit to beauty her like she was and a soyboy working "professionally" on the vg industry unleashed his Twitter mob on her?

Hope this loser loses his job!

Also:

And btw, corporate commercial characters have always been designed for maximum profit. These artists are mercenaries in the employ of the global elite, not Jackson Pollocks or James Joyces or MLKs. If big tits and maximum skin drove sales, that is what they would be ‘arting’.

Mass Effect Andromeda vs Kingdom Come Deliverance.
 

olimariOA

Banned
I don't care
I like all 3 of the designs she links

I honestly just want artists to be able to create free from social pressure or fear of getting fired because they made a female "too sexy" whatever that means. It seems like there's real support for forcing devs to self censor so the mob doesn't destroy them. That's not healthy for any artform.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
So, tl;dr an artist showed the attrocity that was Lady's current design, did a quick edit to beauty her like she was and a soyboy working "professionally" on the vg industry unleashed his Twitter mob on her?

Hope this loser loses his job!

This is NOT what happened! She made her point and then showed everyone her edit. The so-called "soyboy" disagreed with her point and retweeted a bunch of other people that disagreed with her point. There was no "UNLEASHING" his Twitter mob on anybody.

I honestly just want artists to be able to create free from social pressure or fear of getting fired because they made a female "too sexy" whatever that means. It seems like there's real support for forcing devs to self censor so the mob doesn't destroy them. That's not healthy for any artform.

Nobody is getting fired to be honest here. And there's no pressure to force anybody to self-censor female characters to not be "too sexy". Two people just disagree on what this DMC 5 character should look like. No big deal.
 
Last edited:

Enygger_Tzu

Banned
This is NOT what happened! She made her point and then showed everyone her edit. The so-called "soyboy" disagreed with her point and retweeted a bunch of other people that disagreed with her point. There was no "UNLEASHING" his Twitter mob on anybody.



Weird, a soyboy calling someone a "phobe" (or any other leftist buzzword) and NOT unleashing his followers at said someone.
That would be a first.
 

olimariOA

Banned
Nobody is getting fired to be honest here. And there's no pressure to force anybody to self-censor female characters to not be "too sexy". Two people just disagree on what this DMC 5 character should look like. No big deal.

I think there's incredible pressure to self censor in today's twitter mob climate.
'The Last Night' is just one of many examples of an artist not being able to explore an idea because of the social views of a loud minority.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives


Weird, a soyboy calling someone a "phobe" (or any other leftist buzzword) and NOT unleashing his followers at said someone.
That would be a first.


The is the one tweet of his that I didn't like. But that came well after everything blew up and got bad. He caller her Transphobic and her calling him a bully was out of line. We as a society aren't sophisticated enough to have these discussions on a public forum it seems. All people end up doing is name calling and want people to get fired for disagreeing with them.

I think there's incredible pressure to self censor in today's twitter mob climate.
'The Last Night' is just one of many examples of an artist not being able to explore an idea because of the social views of a loud minority.

That guy is free to make that game as long as he has the funding. But if you chose a terrible or flimsy premise for your work of art, many people will question you about it. And they will also be upset if that premise seems to go against the very nature of the things they've fought for or strongly believe in.

Ironicically enough the Tim Sobert guy ended up saying that the game wasn't about that "specific" premise of how feminism leads to a dystopian future. The premise of the game is specifically* about massive inequality brought by such a future (income inequality), and the resentment & bitterness it will lead to.


So I hope all the guys and girls that are pro *keep politics out of my gamez" keep that same energy and boycott this game too.
 

olimariOA

Banned
The is the one tweet of his that I didn't like. But that came well after everything blew up and got bad. He caller her Transphobic and her calling him a bully was out of line. We as a society aren't sophisticated enough to have these discussions on a public forum it seems. All people end up doing is name calling and want people to get fired for disagreeing with them.



That guy is free to make that game as long as he has the funding. But if you chose a terrible or flimsy premise for your work of art, many people will question you about it. And they will also be upset if that premise seems to go against the very nature of the things they've fought for or strongly believe in.

Ironicically enough the Tim Sobert guy ended up saying that the game wasn't about that "specific" premise of how feminism leads to a dystopian future. The premise of the game is specifically* about massive inequality brought by such a future (income inequality), and the resentment & bitterness it will lead to.


So I hope all the guys and girls that are pro *keep politics out of my gamez" keep that same energy and boycott this game too.

I don't care about politics in games. What I care about is artists being free.
 

SonGoku

Member


Weird, a soyboy calling someone a "phobe" (or any other leftist buzzword) and NOT unleashing his followers at said someone.
That would be a first.

This fucking soyboy, i hope insomniac warns this clown
Its heart breaking to realize people like him have infected beloved studios
 
Last edited:
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
We all as a human society are still trying to figure out this whole social media thing. Its tentacles are long and wide. It's changing our brain chemistry and also how we interact with each other. I don't think many people "truly" understand the power social media has yet. It's like changing a nation's government from a Monarchy to a Democracy. The effects on the surface seem all positive and clear, but it'll take generations before we understand the downsides and then what to do to limit those downsides.

I doubt that Insomniac dev knew what could come later after he posted his tweets back at Layna. And at some level, after he got people on Twitter that tried to get him fired, I wonder if he then got mad at Layna and blamed her for that too. It's a terrible cycle. :(

I feel there may be a decent thread to be had, separately, on the impact of social media and the morality of its use by influencers as there's a hell of a lot to unpick there, and some very bright people in here who may be able to offer useful input from the worlds of philosophy and psychology. In terms of the insomniac dev, I'd say it's possible the intent wasn't there, but I do really feel that anyone who has a position of influence on Twitter ought to be aware that if they have a public spat with someone, some section of their followers will wade in, and a disagreement between two people will escalate into 1000 people spamming the shit out of one and 2000 the other, in accordance with the size of the followings of each. In that regard a private message over some other channel to discuss the matter would have been more sensible than using twitter, where everything is public.
 

Chiggs

Gold Member
Reading about this spat—and reading this thread—has made me yearn for a stray comet more than even SonicFox’s acceptance speech at TGA.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
I feel there may be a decent thread to be had, separately, on the impact of social media and the morality of its use by influencers as there's a hell of a lot to unpick there, and some very bright people in here who may be able to offer useful input from the worlds of philosophy and psychology.

What do you mean? Like punching down? Like in this case, Xavier equated the artists work with Hentai and said artStation shouldn't be hosting it? Therefore it might become 'valid' and artStation might suddenly stop taking submissions of that nature?
 

CatCouch

Member
I feel there may be a decent thread to be had, separately, on the impact of social media and the morality of its use by influencers as there's a hell of a lot to unpick there, and some very bright people in here who may be able to offer useful input from the worlds of philosophy and psychology. In terms of the insomniac dev, I'd say it's possible the intent wasn't there, but I do really feel that anyone who has a position of influence on Twitter ought to be aware that if they have a public spat with someone, some section of their followers will wade in, and a disagreement between two people will escalate into 1000 people spamming the shit out of one and 2000 the other, in accordance with the size of the followings of each. In that regard a private message over some other channel to discuss the matter would have been more sensible than using twitter, where everything is public.
Totally agree. I'd love to see this stuff debated with people who have a much better understanding of human psychology than I do~

I really feel there is a culture issue here that should be talked about in more depth. I've watched being snarky and sarcastic become common in more traditionally professional settings like journalism over the last decade. I get that it feels more natural and makes a connection with a desired audience feel more "real" but it's spiraled beyond snark and into outright bullying in the last couple of years. Debate is often pushed aside in favor of snarky, self righteousness and indignation.

I bet that big Twitter fight could of been avoided if the Insomniac developer wasn't so abrasive and dismissive. He's entitled to an opinion like all of us but I do think he was fishing for a fight by arguing that nude anime style art should be filtered out on Artstation (nude art is filtered, btw) or not be allowed on the site at all (This fight has been going for months so I apologize if I don't have all the facts correct). That's a pretty big fight he's starting since he is, in essence, saying that nude anime art isn't acceptable for portfolio or possibly commercial work, since that's what Artstation is for. He doesn't seem to take issue with nude art that's not anime. That's pretty close to home for me as I work commercially with nude art, though not necessarily anime style.

I'd say it's unprofessional to call the art "trashy" when defending his side, especially since he has all these tweets just before encouraging game dev students to persevere and saying they can make it. Encouraging people to try hard to make it in an industry he's simultaneously trying to gate keep doesn't sit well with me. I really want to see people stop accusing others of being transphobes or something similar to end a debate, too. That's just such a weak and overused argument.

There's something that feels self-destructive about the way our public discourse is going and I miss being able to see level-headed responses to issues like this one. It's a much bigger topic than just the people involved here's opinions. It's not uncommon to see people getting fired from good jobs due to their inability to stop being hostile online. What drives people to risk their careers over small things like this?

Social media is in such a weird place now. It's a lot more hostile that I thought it would be and it seems there's not much being done to address it. It's like a lot of people just want to hide the issues by banning and censoring things they deem toxic instead of figuring out how to bring people together, which is the point of social media. Artists need to be able to showcase their art for work, censoring it and removing it from portfolio sites is frightenng for artists who have put their lives into their work. It's surprising to see a someone that works at Insomniac stand against these artists because he doesn't personally like the art style.

Wow, there really is a lot to unpack here!
 

CatCouch

Member
What do you mean? Like punching down? Like in this case, Xavier equated the artists work with Hentai and said artStation shouldn't be hosting it? Therefore it might become 'valid' and artStation might suddenly stop taking submissions of that nature?
Xavier isn't the only one pressuring Artsation to drop some art, there was a pretty big Twitter debate with a Ubisoft artist back in July or so who wanted Artstation to block Asian artists work due to how often professional Asian artists had sexy women in their portfolios. The problem was the art wasn't nude and didn't require mature content filters but they didn't want the sexy art showing up next to their portfolio art in trending sections and such.

The Artstation App was pulled from the Google Play store last month for sexual content. Artstation doesn't seem to want to censor art but it appears there is a lot of pressure to just screw over artists with sexy art now. I'm an artist with sexy art so I'm pretty worried as I've already been impacted by Tumblr banning adult content.

There's a real big debate going on about art right now, though it might not be entirely relevant to gaming here but there is some overlap as game devs like Xavier have chimed in.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Xavier isn't the only one pressuring Artsation to drop some art, there was a pretty big Twitter debate with a Ubisoft artist back in July or so who wanted Artstation to block Asian artists work due to how often professional Asian artists had sexy women in their portfolios. The problem was the art wasn't nude and didn't require mature content filters but they didn't want the sexy art showing up next to their portfolio art in trending sections and such.

The Artstation App was pulled from the Google Play store last month for sexual content. Artstation doesn't seem to want to censor art but it appears there is a lot of pressure to just screw over artists with sexy art now. I'm an artist with sexy art so I'm pretty worried as I've already been impacted by Tumblr banning adult content.

There's a real big debate going on about art right now, though it might not be entirely relevant to gaming here but there is some overlap as game devs like Xavier have chimed in.

You seem to have a firm grasp of the situation, maybe make an OT? I'd love to contribute and read
 

CatCouch

Member
You seem to have a firm grasp of the situation, maybe make an OT? I'd love to contribute and read
There's definitely a lot to talk about but I'm not sure I want to open myself up to a big art fight here, especially considering how bad discussions about Sony censoring games tend to go. It's exhasting. I've spent the last 6 months defending my art and contacting sites like DA who have deleted some of my work. Maybe I will create a OT if anything new happens, people have been worried sites like Twitter could follow Tumblr and ban adult content but I see no indication of that.
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Sex is part of the human condition. Nudity is not necessarily sexual, but in the west is generally considered so. The simple solution is to provide users with a filter to enable or disable content tagged by the artist as sexy or naked. Let the users decide for themselves.
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Xavier isn't the only one pressuring Artsation to drop some art, there was a pretty big Twitter debate with a Ubisoft artist back in July or so who wanted Artstation to block Asian artists work due to how often professional Asian artists had sexy women in their portfolios. The problem was the art wasn't nude and didn't require mature content filters but they didn't want the sexy art showing up next to their portfolio art in trending sections and such.

The Artstation App was pulled from the Google Play store last month for sexual content. Artstation doesn't seem to want to censor art but it appears there is a lot of pressure to just screw over artists with sexy art now. I'm an artist with sexy art so I'm pretty worried as I've already been impacted by Tumblr banning adult content.

There's a real big debate going on about art right now, though it might not be entirely relevant to gaming here but there is some overlap as game devs like Xavier have chimed in.
Unbelievable how these moronic puritans are no better than the overzealous zealots from times past and they are too brainwashed to see it.

I’ve said it before. If we leave it up to these crazies, the only art left to peruse would be Leave it to Beaver episodes and singing Kumbaya. What a boring world.

This regressive movement is worse than any that has come before it. Idiots, the lot of them.
 

wzy

Member
Social media is in such a weird place now. It's a lot more hostile that I thought it would be and it seems there's not much being done to address it. It's like a lot of people just want to hide the issues by banning and censoring things they deem toxic instead of figuring out how to bring people together, which is the point of social media.

I think you have a very optimistic view of corporate surveillance networks. The point of social media is not to "bring people together", it's to launder advertising--i.e., the thing that made you believe social media was about bringing people together. It's not really all that much of a mystery how an all-encompassing online environment built on filtering people into demographic boxes to design more potent lifestyle brands wound up turning its entire user base into neurotic, navel-gazing weirdos enmeshed in a permanent crisis of authenticity. I think the real question is why people volunteer to go out and explore this nightmare hellscape, and in the case of the pudgy nerd who refers to himself as "feminist terrorist" I can only guess that it's the same ancient ploy that motivates every other loser with nothing but contempt for women--he thinks can leverage the cred into sex. As long he's fine with underage Twitter users, historically speaking he's probably not wrong.
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
I think you have a very optimistic view of corporate surveillance networks. The point of social media is not to "bring people together", it's to launder advertising--i.e., the thing that made you believe social media was about bringing people together. It's not really all that much of a mystery how an all-encompassing online environment built on filtering people into demographic boxes to design more potent lifestyle brands wound up turning its entire user base into neurotic, navel-gazing weirdos enmeshed in a permanent crisis of authenticity. I think the real question is why people volunteer to go out and explore this nightmare hellscape, and in the case of the pudgy nerd who refers to himself as "feminist terrorist" I can only guess that it's the same ancient ploy that motivates every other loser with nothing but contempt for women--he thinks can leverage the cred into sex. As long he's fine with underage Twitter users, historically speaking he's probably not wrong.

I think the point where it became super-obvious what the social media companies were up to was when they started abandoning chronological timelines in favour of randomised ones. That was when it became clear that the user experience was secondary to the drive for addiction, as the change made the user experience fundamentally useless.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Xavier isn't the only one pressuring Artsation to drop some art, there was a pretty big Twitter debate with a Ubisoft artist back in July or so who wanted Artstation to block Asian artists work due to how often professional Asian artists had sexy women in their portfolios. The problem was the art wasn't nude and didn't require mature content filters but they didn't want the sexy art showing up next to their portfolio art in trending sections and such.

The Artstation App was pulled from the Google Play store last month for sexual content. Artstation doesn't seem to want to censor art but it appears there is a lot of pressure to just screw over artists with sexy art now. I'm an artist with sexy art so I'm pretty worried as I've already been impacted by Tumblr banning adult content.

There's a real big debate going on about art right now, though it might not be entirely relevant to gaming here but there is some overlap as game devs like Xavier have chimed in.

I'm so happy we have great people that understand the deeper meaning of what's been said here with your posts. Agree or disagree with Xavier, it's not like he's some weird outlier that has his viewpoints. Being that the Artstation app was pulled from the Google Play store, there seems to be a lot of momentum for ushering out Sexy "Anime" art. Funny enough you also see Sony doing similar things to Japanse games with games and censorship with Anime characters that have that same "look".

There's a big thing changing here and I don't think many of us understand why. It's happening really fast too and I can't quite get a mental handle on why this is happening so fast. There hasn't been enough public talk about how we as a society should view sexy Anime art.

I think the point where it became super-obvious what the social media companies were up to was when they started abandoning chronological timelines in favour of randomised ones. That was when it became clear that the user experience was secondary to the drive for addiction, as the change made the user experience fundamentally useless.

The GREATEST quote I've read so far this year.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom