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Playtonic unveils Yooka-Laylee (Banjo Kazooie successor) [Kickstarter LIVE - Funded]

Never heard the guy speak but I'm not going to let a moron ruin my game. If it's good that is. They should patch it out though, can't be that hard.
 

ItIsOkBro

Member
I'll still buy the game but I would very much prefer that they remove him. As a gesture of not condoning his racism and showing it has consequences you know?
 

slit

Member
I'm certainly not going to punish Playtonic for the minor involvement of a guy that didn't show his true colors until after the game went gold. That would be ludicrous.
 

TheMink

Member
I think that can only be Yooka itself, Unity can be used for so many things, it would not be fair to claim it causes motion sickness. However, Unity does not necessarily lead to bad framerates, take a look at Ori, for instance, which is quite fluid.

Yeah I agree, I think Unity gets unfairly blamed quite often for some dev mistakes. I think game optimization is just difficult in general especially when multiple playforms are involved.
 

maxcriden

Member
I think that can only be Yooka itself, Unity can be used for so many things, it would not be fair to claim it causes motion sickness. However, Unity does not necessarily lead to bad framerates, take a look at Ori, for instance, which is quite fluid.

Ah, I see. Thank you. I hadn't realized Ori was made in the same engine. As you said, that game is remarkably fluid. Anyway, hopefully the final framerate in YL will be sufficiently stable.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
I'll still buy the game but I would very much prefer that they remove him. As a gesture of not condoning his racism and showing it has consequences you know?

Yeah this is where I stand too. I will get the game regardless, but I'd rather not have that asshole involved in any capacity, and Playtonic keeping him comes off as an endorsement of his nonsense.

Also it's important to note that this guy has been a known asshat for like what, two years now? He ridiculed a fan who asked him not to use the word "retard", got into an argument with Tim Schaffer over female sexualization in games and misogyny in general (guess what Jon's stand was!) and it all spiraled down into this mess that happened recently.

He was always an idiot and the decision to include him in the game was always questionable, it's just that now it's near inexcusable. It's nice that so many are comfortable with him being in, but acting like having a popular known white supremacist in a game is a non-issue is... Weird.
 

mclem

Member
I think I fall in the middle ground; a statement of not endorsing his views would be very welcome, but I'm okay with them not actually changing the game because of it providing the only involvement he had with the game is via those random parps. If there's any more influence, if the character in some way reflects (and in turn, promotes and/or implicitly endorses) him other than via voicework, then that's a different matter.

Ultimately, though, in terms of what we believe his input to the game actually is currently, I find it hard to object particularly strongly.
 
This is just unfounded. They did not decide to hire a white supremacist, they decided to "hire" (it sounds to me like a freebie, not a paid job, so it put it in quotation marks) a person to do voice over that happened to hold white supremacist ideas. There is a huge, huge difference between those two and it is just dishonest to claim the former instead of the latter. That is, unless you have any evidence supporting they claim they thought "let's take a white supremacist" instead of "let's take this guy".

JonTron is a douche so fuck him. But I really wish we can all go back to when we didn't care about any minor involvement a douche had on anything.

This is the more active I've seen this topic and imo that's sad. We talk about the douche that did a voice in the game than the game itself.

We have also discussed similar stuff in off topic threads. Mel Gibson for example has said douchey stuff in the past, should I expect to have a version of Signs with a different actor to enjoy the movie.

Honestly I don't demand or expect from Playtonic to do anything.

Honestly, the more you guys argue this point, the more you make me wish I could get a refund. And that's sad, because there's no game I've been more happy and excited for.

But fuck Jontron. He has no place in games.

Your arguments don't come off the way you say they do, they just come off as people who will excuse a lot for the things they like. And yes, fuck Signs.
 

LewieP

Member
This is just unfounded. They did not decide to hire a white supremacist, they decided to "hire" (it sounds to me like a freebie, not a paid job, so it put it in quotation marks) a person to do voice over that happened to hold white supremacist ideas. There is a huge, huge difference between those two and it is just dishonest to claim the former instead of the latter. That is, unless you have any evidence supporting they claim they thought "let's take a white supremacist" instead of "let's take this guy".

I didn't say they hired him because he was a white supremacist. You entirely imagined I suggested such causality.

They did, however, hire a white supremacist.

Incidentally, JonTron was transparently terrible a long time ago.

Edit:
JonTron 2014: Hitler is cool. Don't be offended it's just a joke.
JonTron 2017: Hey kids, wanna hear about white supremacy?
 

Dremark

Banned
Come out and explain the issue that prevents them from removing a voice line.

If the game has a day w physical release at this point there's pretty much no way the discs aren't already produced. Granted they could still patch him out if they chose to but there is going to be a version of the game with his voice in it unless they destroy and or recall them all.
 

Camjo-Z

Member
Good grief, a voice actor threatened to fucking murder me and I wasn't as upset about that as some folks are over a two year-old deal to have JonTron make a few noises that, like most of the bizarre character voices, we probably won't even know were done by him unless told. I'm all for it if they decide to remove him (and the guys at Playtonic are good dudes so they probably will when they get the chance) but it'd be really silly to punish them for not rushing to patch a game that's already gone gold just to remove one voice.

I didn't say they hired him because he was a white supremacist. You entirely imagined I suggested such causality.

They did, however, hire a white supremacist.

Incidentally, JonTron was transparently terrible a long time ago.

Edit:
JonTron 2014: Hitler is cool. Don't be offended it's just a joke.
JonTron 2017: Hey kids, wanna hear about white supremacy?

I think this is the first time JonTron has been awful enough to get major media attention for it, especially since it's hot off the heels of PewDiePie's scandal. I listened to a fairly recent interview (though recorded before this controversy) where Grant Kirkhope was speaking positively about Jon, so I'd venture to say that the guys at Playtonic probably had no idea of his behavior before now.
 

maxcriden

Member
JonTron is a douche so fuck him. But I really wish we can all go back to when we didn't care about any minor involvement a douche had on anything.

This is the more active I've seen this topic and imo that's sad. We talk about the douche that did a voice in the game than the game itself.

We have also discussed similar stuff in off topic threads. Mel Gibson for example has said douchey stuff in the past, should I expect to have a version of Signs with a different actor to enjoy the movie.

Honestly I don't demand or expect from Playtonic to do anything.

Honestly, the more you guys argue this point, the more you make me wish I could get a refund. And that's sad, because there's no game I've been more happy and excited for.

But fuck Jontron. He has no place in games.

Your arguments don't come off the way you say they do, they just come off as people who will excuse a lot for the things they like. And yes, fuck Signs.

FWIW, I respectfully disagree with what ramparter wrote about Signs. I personally do not support Mel Gibson's movies and would feel uncomfortable watching one. Same goes for some famous bigoted creators. I also would not watch any production made by JonTron. I have an admittedly harder time separating art from artist than others may. I think to support, say, Hacksaw Ridge, is to support Gibson. However, where this line gets drawn for many of us differs greatly. A recent thread in OT, Separating the Art from the Artist, shows several varying viewpoints on the subject. It's a fascinating read and I recommend it to any who haven't read it.

Anyway, my point is simply there are different places we each draw our lines in the sand. I am personally put off that JonTron is in the game at all, and would prefer he not, but will still get the game regardless because to me it is not JonTron's work in the same way that a program he creates or is significantly (to my personal valuation of what 'significantly' means, that is) involved in. ramparter and others may feel it does not matter what the artist does, or how significantly one was involved in a production, in terms of determining whether to support it, and they are entitled to this viewpoint, it's a thorny issue and comes in large part down to ethical issues of consumption which are tricky to parse out at times and bound to differ widely. Still others feel any minor involvement of a reprehensible individual should mean the entire work is not supported, and for me personally, this is on a case by case basis. If someone I deemed to be in this category was a major producer on a movie, I would avoid that movie. If they contributed $1000 to its production, I would probably see it, with a slightly poor taste in my mouth. That slightly poor taste is present in this case, but wouldn't prevent me from supporting the vast majority who worked on this project. I hope that makes sense.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
I cannot say much about your edited in claims, because obviously, this is not a citation of what jontron has said in the past, but your contraction of that (and the first time I heard about him was in this thread about his claims recently, so I absolutely have no basis to talk about anything he said 2014). However, considering it was problematised only now, I would suppose it was not a wide-spread opinion that he is a racist that may not work on the game before recently, because otherwise this controversy would have started much earlier.

I really think it makes a difference in meaning if you say "they hired a white supremacist" or if you say "they decided to hire a white supremacist". In reducing the person to being a white supremacist you very heavily imply that it was actually a decision to hire a white supremacist instead of hiring someone who happens to be one. And yes, this is a significant difference. E.g. when I hired my student workers for the next semester, I would reject the notion of me deciding to hire two women and three men, because I never made a decision based on their sex, but instead, I decided to hire five people, three of which happen to be men, two of which happen to be women. Now, analogously, if one of them were to turn out to be a racist, I would definitely demand for you to not claim that I decided to hire a racist, but that I decided to hire a person who happens to be a racist.
 
I have no problem with JonTron being in the game. That being said I have no problem separating the someone's views with the art they make. I don't follow him on anything but YouTube so I don't see any of the nonsense.
 

Dremark

Banned
I'll still buy the game but I would very much prefer that they remove him. As a gesture of not condoning his racism and showing it has consequences you know?

I can't imagine patching his voice out of the game will make any significant difference to him. Not to say they shouldn't do it, but it's hardly a significant consequence.
 

Big Nikus

Member
Not directly related but I was already disappointed when I saw this tweet from one of the leads at Playtonic, just after the Women's March:

cats3eisnk.png


"muh-my videogames !"
 

Jumeira

Banned
Seems like an easy thing to remove/patch. That cretin deserve no attention or adornment. Hes a despicable cunt.

Playtonic, you can easily remove this piece of shit from the game. Do it.
 

Jonnax

Member
Not directly related but I was already disappointed when I saw this tweet from one of the leads at Playtonic, just after the Women's March:

cats3eisnk.png


"muh-my videogames !"

oh. Well that speaks volumes.
They already have my money from the Kickstarter so it's not like I can do anything.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Not directly related but I was already disappointed when I saw this tweet from one of the leads at Playtonic, just after the Women's March:

cats3eisnk.png


"muh-my videogames !"

Uuuuh... Okay yeah that's concerning. I was already bothered by Playtonic being close to Jon and still supposedly not realizing how big of an idiot he is, but this starts to make sense.

His true colors showed back in 2014 and now they've evolved to become white supremacy, 3 years later.

This is what I was talking about, thanks for sharing.

Zoe is my hero.
 

Dremark

Banned
oh. Well that speaks volumes.
They already have my money from the Kickstarter so it's not like I can do anything.

You could ask for a refund.

I managed to get a refund back from a Kickstarter once. Granted it was the result of something which was a misstatement at best, a lie at worst. However if you request a refund you'll at least show your disapproval and the worst they could do is say no.
 
Honestly, Grant Kirkhope strikes me as someone who would complain about political correctness too, so I don't know. And it sucks to say that, because I do and want to like Grant. Though, that's entirely unfounded, unlike what Stevenson wrote.
 

jett

D-Member
Not directly related but I was already disappointed when I saw this tweet from one of the leads at Playtonic, just after the Women's March:

cats3eisnk.png


"muh-my videogames !"

Seems they're also douches.

I guess JonTron isn't getting booted from the game.
 

Big Nikus

Member
Here's the link to the tweet, his answer is not better in any way.
https://twitter.com/playtonicalMark/status/823250832456028160

So yeah that's disappointing. I hope they're not all like that at Playtonic. I'm surprised to hear Kirkhope is friend with JonTron, at least I'm pretty sure I've seen Kirkhope support the Women's March. (edit: hm no, just checked. There's some jokes making fun of Trump here and there that's it. He just got his US citizenship also, and seem to be happy to be able to vote next election)
Still, when you look at Playtonic's staff page, that's a lot of white dudes.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Not directly related but I was already disappointed when I saw this tweet from one of the leads at Playtonic, just after the Women's March:

cats3eisnk.png


"muh-my videogames !"

Well, it's his job, if my feed for work was filled with stuff that has not much to do with my job, I would not be too happy either. Of course, asking people not to post about something on Twitter is strange, but to consider one's job an politics separate issues is understandable.
 

LewieP

Member
Well, it's his job, if my feed for work was filled with stuff that has not much to do with my job, I would not be too happy either. Of course, asking people not to post about something on Twitter is strange, but to consider one's job an politics separate issues is understandable.

If only there was some way to not receive updates from someone on twitter.
 
Not directly related but I was already disappointed when I saw this tweet from one of the leads at Playtonic, just after the Women's March:

cats3eisnk.png


"muh-my videogames !"

This is unfortunate

Well, it's his job, if my feed for work was filled with stuff that has not much to do with my job, I would not be too happy either. Of course, asking people not to post about something on Twitter is strange, but to consider one's job an politics separate issues is understandable.
In trying to dismiss politics on Twitter (for some reason?) he's brought politics to his own Twitter. We know exactly where he stands just by making a tweet like that, where had he just been quiet, nobody would have cared.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
If only there was some way to not receive updates from someone on twitter.

Which is why I said it is strange to ask people to stop talking about it. I can understand the frustration, but if someone overdoes it from his point of view, he could just stop following them. Playtonic people are not completely apolitical in their tweets anyway, I found out about Richard Dawkins being active on Twitter via Platonic people (Kirkhope I think).

EDIT: You know his political views because of that tweet? I don't, actually.
 
Will this game launch on Switch same day it releases on other platforms?

I am worried that the Switch version may not run as well as the rest on account of it being added to pile later in development.
 
Which is why I said it is strange to ask people to stop talking about it. I can understand the frustration, but if someone overdoes it from his point of view, he could just stop following them. Playtonic people are not completely apolitical in their tweets anyway, I found out about Richard Dawkins being active on Twitter via Platonic people (Kirkhope I think).

EDIT: You know his political views because of that tweet? I don't, actually.

There's only one political mindset that makes Tweets about how much they hate political discussion during a worldwide march for women's rights.
 

Seik

Banned
His true colors showed back in 2014 and now they've evolved to become white supremacy, 3 years later.

TBH if you're not on GAF or following news daily it was easy to miss.

Even as a GAF member since longer than that I only realized what kind of guy JT really was and unsubbed last week. I totally missed these news in 2014, or even if I did not, I honestly totally forgot, blame my shitty memory.

I will not skip YL for that though, even if there's a modified version of his voice saying ''BLUD-BURD-BOYD'' from an NPC, I won't mind because he was on record way before last week's shit happened and the game is two weeks from coming out, I cannot blame Playtonic in this context.

A valid point to mention for those who are skipping this game for this very specific reason, do you check the background of every single people in a game's credits before committing to buy it? Because there's a lot of chances that there's a lot of dudes and dudettes in every studios with similar mindsets.

Disclaimer: I'm not excusing his behavior in any ways though, it's just that I won't miss one of the games I'm waiting for since years because this douche has a voice in it during a few seconds.
 

Tregard

Soothsayer
Seems they're also douches.

It's not a great idea to make blanket statements about the whole team based on a tweet one of the team members made.

I disagree with what Mark said, but that's not the view of the entirety of Playtonic.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
There's only one political mindset that makes Tweets about how much they hate political discussion during a worldwide march for women's rights.

He's specifically talking about the outrage because of Brexit and Trump, not a march. You can be annoyed about postings that you in principle agree with, as well. To decude from this tweet alone that he is pro Brexit, pro Trump or against a worldwide march for women's rights is presumptuous.
 

ramparter

Banned
Will this game launch on Switch same day it releases on other platforms?

I am worried that the Switch version may not run as well as the rest on account of it being added to pile later in development.

No, we don't even know when it's gonna release on Switch. That's why I went for Xbox One even though I'd rather have it on Switch.
 

Dremark

Banned
TBH if you're not on GAF or following news daily it was easy to miss.

Even as a GAF member since longer than that I only realized what kind of guy JT really was and unsubbed last week. I totally missed these news in 2014, or even if I did not, I honestly totally forgot, blame my shitty memory.

I will not skip YL for that though, even if there's a modified version of his voice saying ''BLUD-BURD-BOYD'' from an NPC, I won't mind because he was on record way before last week's shit happened.

A valid point to mention for those who are skipping this game for this very specific reason, do you check the background of every single people in a game's credits before committing to buy it? Because there's a lot of chances that there's a lot of dudes and dudettes in every studios with similar mindsets.

Disclaimer: I'm not excusing his behavior in any ways though, it's just that I won't miss one of the games I'm waiting for since years because this douche is in it during a few seconds.

Ultimately it's a personal decision for everyone if they still want to support the game. I can understand why it may make people no longer want to play or own the game.

If people no longer want the game and have a copy coming through the Kickstarter I'd recommend denying them a sale by giving the copy to someone else who didn't fund the game but was going to buy it to prevent a sale.

Anyone reading this feel free to PM me if you're no longer interested in your copy and want to give it away.

I'm just kidding.

About the claim that was going to buy it, I'll still take a free copy of the game if you don't want it.
 

Big Nikus

Member
It's not a great idea to make blanket statements about the whole team based on a tweet one of the team members made.

I disagree with what Mark said, but that's not the view of the entirety of Playtonic.
Yeah... I mean it's really disappointing but I've loved the work of these guys all my life so I want to hope they're decent people and this tweet only reflects the person who posted it.
 
He's specifically talking about the outrage because of Brexit and Trump, not a march. You can be annoyed about postings that you in principle agree with, as well. To decude from this tweet alone that he is pro Brexit, pro Trump or against a worldwide march for women's rights is presumptuous.

So he Tweeted he's annoyed people are talking about how much they hate Trump and Brexit and this is apparently supposed to be better than going against the woman's march?

There really is only one political ideology that makes Tweets telling people to quit talking about politics. And it's not the one this company should keep close to them.
 
Well, it's his job, if my feed for work was filled with stuff that has not much to do with my job, I would not be too happy either. Of course, asking people not to post about something on Twitter is strange, but to consider one's job an politics separate issues is understandable.

Funny thing about twitter is that you can control what you see instead of just whining about it.
 

jett

D-Member
It's not a great idea to make blanket statements about the whole team based on a tweet one of the team members made.

I disagree with what Mark said, but that's not the view of the entirety of Playtonic.

They can change my mind by publicly stating JonTron is no longer part of the game.
 

Tregard

Soothsayer
Yeah... I mean it's really disappointing but I've loved the work of these guys all my life so I want to hope they're decent people and this tweet only reflects the person who posted it.

It's only a personal anecdote, but all the members of the team I've ever interacted with have been lovely. I just like you have grown up with the games these folks have made, and it would sadden me to find out we have conflicting ideologies, but I hope most people here would realise there is a great deal of jumping to conclusions being made right now.

People are currently rejecting this game based off of a single line of dialogue made by someone outside of the company prior to a major controversy (which they have yet to respond to), and a single tweet made by a company member.

They can change my mind by publicly stating JonTron is no longer part of the game.

Let's hope they do then.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
So he Tweeted he's annoyed people are talking about how much they hate Trump and Brexit and this is apparently supposed to be better than going against the woman's march?

There really is only one political ideology that makes Tweets telling people to quit talking about politics. And it's not the one this company should keep close to them.

Maybe if it is the exprerssion of a political ideology. But if it is not the expression of an ideology, but just of a person annoyed that a sort of personalised newsfeed (which some people use Twitter as) he uses for work is filled with stuff irrelevant for work, then it is compatible with a wide range of political ideologies.
 
The only reason they likely added JonTron to the game was to appeal to his considerable fanbase and reach. You take the good with the bad. You can't have it both ways. You can't now just ask people to ignore the hateful shit your popular YouTube Internet personality said when the only reason you hired him was because he is a popular YouTube Internet personality. People are absolutely right to turned off by the fact that a reprehensible piece of shit like JonTron is going to involved in this game.
 
Maybe if it is the exprerssion of a political ideology. But if it is not the expression of an ideology, but just of a person annoyed that a sort of personalised newsfeed (which some people use Twitter as) he uses for work is filled with stuff irrelevant for work, then it is compatible with a wide range of political ideologies.

Making that tweet IS expressing a political ideology.

He has two choices

- He disagrees with the Woman's March, and disagrees with the hate Trump and Brexit were getting and is annoyed people are talking about stuff he doesn't like
- He doesn't care and believes video games are more important than human rights, and everyone should just be quiet about human rights.

Either way he doesn't exactly come across as a good person.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
C'mon that tweet is definitely telling, let's not kid ourselves.

The only reason they likely added JonTron to the game was to appeal to his considerable fanbase and reach. You take the good with the bad. You can't have it both ways. You can't now just ask people to ignore the hateful shit your popular YouTube Internet personality said when the only reason you hired him was because he is a popular YouTube Internet personality. People are absolutely right to turned off by the fact that a reprehensible piece of shit like JonTron is going to involved in this game.

He's heavily associated with Banjo Kazooie too, and seemed relative close to a couple of folks involved in YL so it was a no brainer, really.

Also it'd be great to know how many of the people calling others hyperbolic aren't white, because it sure sounds fairly easy to ignore a popular internet celebrity who's a known racist in your game when his shitty views aren't against you or don't affect you in any way.
 
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