Cyberpunk 2077 - CDProjekt's New Joint

Any print or YT video game “journos” that use the terms “SJW” or “virtue signaling” get an unsubscribe and ignore from me. Unfortunately some IRL friends have recently fallen down the racist shitbole that consists of Ezra Levant, Faith Goldy and Ben Shapiro and have become ex-friends. Also super weird since they’re Asian.

Forgetting the game for a moment, you have to appreciate the pure marketing genius move.

You search for random E3 videos, and it seems most people have put the Keanu reveal as cover. He is the face of E3 2019, and by extension Cyberpunk also is.

For me a comparison with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is instructive. In that game I sometimes go out looking for scraps because the combat is intrinsically fun. In Witcher 3 I would fight stuff if I had to.

Witcher 3 is the better game, because like many CRPGs, it’s more than the sum of its parts and can survive weaknesses in its “crunchy core” (see also: Ultima series).

The latest Netrunner game had wonderfully inclusive and thoughtful art and world-building. There are about two cards I’d consider to let the side down on that front, and that’s a pretty amazing track record.

They had a cast that covered all sorts of demographics without making their demographic their defining feature. It was great. I hope CDProjekt do half as well. Maybe the demo was unrepresentative.

It’s a very real issue, but it’s also a very complex one that isn’t made any less messy with a product sold in so many markets of so many different cultures. It’s also in a genre that was forgotten for a while and may have issues getting adapted to modern views.
At the end of the day, what matters is that creators try to do right and for critics to have an honest discussion about it. Twitter and a small preview aren’t enough to say anything one way or the other.

lol I’m a registered dem but OKAY. That’s exactly the attitude I’m talking about.

So is that attitude that she, me, and many others don’t want to bother with, that is not “OKAY”.

Wow. This entire post is a foreign language to me. I’ve never heard any of the terms. The only name vaguely familiar is Ben Shapiro, but I have no idea what he does. I thought about educating myself with a few Google searches, but seeing the replies I’m guessing it is yet more P and R ugliness on the internet.

Shame that it’s cropping up in the Cyberpunk thread, but considering the mainstream popularity, I suppose unavoidable.

God knows the original Cyberpunk pen & paper RPG, Mike Pondsmith, the designer, and the Gibson books that spawned the genre had nothing political to say.

No doubt games are plenty political. Just were not taken seriously enough to get bent about it for the longest time, aside from extreme examples.

Was nice while it lasted. Those days are done. When you see an Overwatch tournament on antenna ABC in the middle of a Saturday afternoon you know times have changed.

It is good that RPS is offended on behalf of the poor minorities since the darn minorities just won’t be offended themselves

Listened to a podcast (waypoint) and they asked a mid-level dev about the ad as well, and their answer matched up almost exactly with what the artist said in the polygon interview. If nothing else, it strikes me as a pretty consistent explanation/philosophy.

Seems like they are saying the gameworld is so broken and commercialized that body modding is wholly cynical, brought about by social/commercial pressures, not something someone does to remake themselves in a way to self-validate or self-actualize. A TLDR summary of what TurinTur initially posted

It’s a pretty dark take. And an interesting one. We’ll see if this is a consistent theme, or a one-off.

My post expressed frustration with representation issues, and racial stereotyping as a too-easy fallback position for most game devs. Conversations about controversial issues can be productive. It very often isn’t because of the way twitter/The Internet works. Just bringing up a topic is always fraught because people are going to feel attacked for whatever reason. I was a bit surprised some people on these forums were willing to go so hard in pushing back against any discussion of fraught representation issues.

Encouraged to see posts with different and thoughtful viewpoints (dismissive posts not included, obv).

I don’t think users here were against there being a discussion, or think that race and transgender issues are irrelevant to games (at least not me), but in this case we don’t have enough information to judge the game in this way and the arguments were logically quite absurd.

The ad is a great example. An ad appearing in a videogame that says or implies something offensive does not mean that the developers wish to portray that sentiment as correct or harmless. Did anyone watch the trailer for 12 years a slave and wonder why the filmmakers were advocating for chattel slavery and the horrific treatment of people from Africa? At least, that’s how I saw it, my 2c, willing to hear out other perspectives, etc.

This happens because very often, they actually are attacked. Instead of going “I wonder what this ad means, can’t wait to play the game and find out!” we get “Transphobic company is transphobic!” Granted I am mostly taking about resetera and twitter here, fortunately QT3 is way less crazy.

No, it’s not an either or. Boddy Modding can be both something someone does to remake themselves in a way to self-validate and self-actualize and something that has a cynical/commercial side. Like pretty much everything else.

I mean, it’s the genre.

I think a better example (although yours is fine) is: sex and oversexualization are used to sell things in our reality all the time, right now. In a cyberpunk future, this will be true moreso, because that’s the genre. That a trans person who is a girl up top and a boy down below (and whose gender identity could be anything, but that’s not really the purpose of the actual ad) being used in an oversexualized way to sell something is (1) exactly what one would expect in a cyberpunk future where trans/gender non conforming/etc persons are an accept part of society (2) a natural outgrowth of a dystopian future that magnifies current issues like oversexualization and cynicism inl corporate dealings.

It takes about 30 seconds to stop and think about the add a bit and see all of this. For a variety of reasons, some people can’t do this (and CDPR have shot themselves in the foot here and there and that’s part of those reasons).

I was referring to Austin Walker’s take on the Waypoint podcast (informed by a QA with a dev). His take (which I was summarizing) is that CDPR/Cyberpunk’s view of body modding is on the darker, more cynical side, not on the self-actualization side (which the source material also apparently took, you would lose your “humanity” if you modded yourself too much).

It’s impossible for either of us (or Austin Walker) to know for sure until we see the entire game, and how these issues play out.

My point stands.

Are we arguing? haha. I was just trying to add a bit more context to my post ; )

Interview with Mike Pondsmith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9_rjQYByrA