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CDPR: Cyberpunk 2077 "is not a political statement"

Kyuuji

Kyuuji

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Nov 8, 2017
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If you're developing a game in a country fast becoming a hellhole for LGBTQ+ folk, I don't want to hear about how it's important for people's different "political sympathies" and opinions to be in the game. Not when it's still pushing transphobic bullshit and fetishised imagery. Not while the company has repeatedly had issues with transphobic content in and outside of the games.

Fuck 'em.
 

Deleted member 46948

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LavaBadger said:
That's what baffles me. The Witcher is a game where you're literally an outcast who is treated like dirt unless you have something valuable to offer. Pogroms in which non-humans are brutally killed figure heavily in the story and among certain characters. Aristocracy is full of corruption and does terrible things to people. It's soaked in politics.

So it's either:
A) They don't want to talk about the politics because they've already been criticized for their handling of various topics, and those politics are going to end up being pretty shitty or ill thought out, so it's better to not draw any attention to it and hope that people just forget in the glow of the spectacle of the game.
or
B) They are so concerned about the politics of Poland and "gamers" that they want to make sure they don't step on any toes, and want to make sure everyone buys it. Aka; money over everything. Which would make them cowards and best.
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They're cowards. It's weird that they feel like this, having made Witcher games, which were quite political, and an adaptation of Sapkowski's books, which are political af. Most of the short stories are political too, not to mention other Sapkowski's books, like the Hussite trilogy or The Viper, which are even more so, because they're set in real world and describe RL events (albeit with his trademark magical realism flavour added).

Why they feel the need to say shit like this, I'll never understand.
 
ItIsOkBro

ItIsOkBro

Happy New Year!!
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Oct 25, 2017
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DragonQuarter said:
I have a hard time taking seriously online game publications that just Google Translate interviews.

Also

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interesting use of this image...so we can't talk about the game at all until its released then?
 
Quade

Quade

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Mar 8, 2019
1,195
Cowards! Remember back when CDPR were hailed as the studio all other studios should be aspiring to? Oh how times have changed and the mighty have fallen.
 

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The more gameplay I see for this game, and the more I hear about it, the less hype I get. I was originally planning to get it at launch, but I think I'll wait until it goes on sale. This game is setting up to be extremely underwhelming
 
ClickyCal'

ClickyCal'

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Oct 25, 2017
60,611
Kyuuji said:
If you're developing a game in a country fast becoming a hellhole for LGBTQ+ folk, I don't want to hear about how it's important for people's different "political sympathies" and opinions to be in the game. Not when it's still pushing transphobic bullshit and fetishised imagery. Not while the company has repeatedly had issues with transphobic content in and outside of the games.

Fuck 'em.
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DragonQuarter said:
I have a hard time taking seriously online game publications that just Google Translate interviews.

Also

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We are complaining based in their whole marketing strategy. If the game is not like the one they are trying to sell is not our fault their marketing fucking sucks.

The whole point of marketing is to give me reasons to buy a game not the contrary.
 
LavaBadger

LavaBadger

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Nov 14, 2017
5,040
Claven said:
Why they feel the need to say shit like this, I'll never understand.
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Even if you wanted to give the full context the most generous possible meaning and say, "What they mean is, it's a bubble telling its own story that isn't referencing current events", that still isn't the right way to approach this. Art, as they're so insistent on harping on, encounters the world and its reading is influenced by it. As such, it will have something to say.

What a piece of art has to say at any given moment shifts and changes. How people react to it shifts and changes (I just played Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and you better believe the reading of it now is very different from what it was prior to BLM). You can't avoid this. Your game won't be some kind of hermetically sealed bubble uninfluenced by the world around it.

And if they're making sure "everyone gets their say", that's certainly going to have an impact on what the game has to say.
 
Nooblet

Nooblet

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Oct 25, 2017
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Remember when CDPR used "and it even has racism" as one of the selling points about the believability of the game's world in a Witcher 3 trailer.

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And in this case it doesn't even seem like they are doing The Division's "We political but for marketing purpose we'll say we're apolitical, but really we are totally political" thing and actually seem serious.
 

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*Their whole marketing is based around presenting their game as a shotybang and denying any political message the game might have*
People: Well, I'm not sure this is the Cyberpunk game I want based in what they said and showed.
Other people: WhY DonT yoU waIT unTil pLaYing IT?

Like, yeah, of course the final game might be different, but I'd rather not spend 60€ in to just see they just hid all the things I would be interested, because they are too scared of gators, when games like TLOU2 showed their cards and the middle fingers to idiots and Gamers ™ and went to sell a fuckton of copies.
 
platocplx

platocplx

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Sounding more and more this is a person in the 80s idea of the future would be kind of game that acts more like GTA than staying true to a more political dystopian cyberpunk genre smh.
 

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This is the dumbest shit ever. Cyberpunk is inherently political (see, for instance, the cyberpunk novel where my avatar comes from!). It does not work without that element. Sounds like the cyberpunk setting is just window dressing then. Absolute bullshit but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
 
jett

jett

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Oct 25, 2017
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lmao

I think some people just don't understand the meaning of being political. It's cyberpunk FFS.
 
ClickyCal'

ClickyCal'

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60,611
Apharmd said:
This is the dumbest shit ever. Cyberpunk is inherently political (see, for instance, the cyberpunk novel where my avatar comes from!). It does not work without that element. Sounds like the cyberpunk setting is just window dressing then. Absolute bullshit but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
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Unfornately it seems like they basically just took the surface of level of something like your avatar and decided that is what cyberpunk is. "Badass dudes and hot chicks with robot parts and guns! And neon lights!"
 
BarringGaffner

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Nov 11, 2017
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Sidebuster said:
I don't know why game companies are so afraid to step on toes that they go out of their way to look like jack off dumb asses.
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Uhh because everyone from the developers to the voice actors will get death threats because everything is horrible?

I'm fine with them saying it is apolitical even if that's bullshit. Let the game speak for itself and maybe the hateful morons will ignore it.
 
Sidebuster

Sidebuster

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Oct 26, 2017
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BarringGaffner said:
Uhh because everyone from the developers to the voice actors will get death threats because everything is horrible?

I'm fine with them saying it is apolitical even if that's bullshit. Let the game speak for itself and maybe the hateful morons will ignore it.
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Saying something like "we'll let the game speak for itself" is a fine answer. saying nothing at all is fine as well. Trying to act like you're boogie298 when your game is the polar opposite is clown shoes gas lighting.
 
Rendering...

Rendering...

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Oct 30, 2017
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It's fucking annoying how basic decency, and representation that reflects the actual diversity of real life, are politicized now. It's like, the minute a piece of media doesn't reinforce the boring patriarchal straight white male status quo, it's "political." Like blandness and unnatural homogeneity are somehow better. Gamers are the worst.
 
floridaguy954

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Oct 29, 2017
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Chaystic said:
"We don't care if you're a bigot or not, we want everyone's money"
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Raigor said:
Let's remember some "non political" games

www.eurogamer.net

EA "not making any political statements" about WW2 in Battlefield 5

Battlefield 5 will change the name of a new, premium German WW2 avatar, but says it isn't making any political statements with the game.
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net


www.polygon.com

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 ‘is not making any political statements’

A game about the next Civil War refuses to take a side
www.polygon.com www.polygon.com


www.gamespot.com

The Outer Worlds Is Not A "Politically Charged" Game, Co-Director Says

It's supposed to be fun and humorous, Leonard Boyarsky says; get all the details here.
www.gamespot.com www.gamespot.com


www.pcgamer.com

Infinity Ward says Modern Warfare isn't political

Developers want to examine topics like colonialism, proxy wars, and power imbalance in a totally non-political way.
www.pcgamer.com www.pcgamer.com
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Exactly, all these devs are on that bullshit "republicans buy Nikes too" energy 🙄.
metalslimer said:
Lol being apolitical is a political statement you fucking idiots. God their approach to this game has been shit all around.

Its amazing that the medium that wants itself to be taken seriously as being art basically wants no analysis
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Say it louder for those in the back.
 

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cabelhigh said:
Never read anything else Sprawl related outside Neuromancer (Case wasn't a main character, and I guess I was Case-or-bust back then). Thought they were all disconnected, had no idea that Neuromancer was actually that important to them.
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Yeah. Not to say there were not other themes or story but the through line is Neuromancer was a story of an A.I. Becoming self aware and then manipulating events for itself to be unshackled and released into the net and the wider world. A lot of the themes and the background story is what effects would this have on the larger world in time, from politics and corporate interests on down to street culture and influence on mainstream pop culture. The best part for me was the blurring of science and mysticism as some of the A.I. Start selfstyling themselves after Voudon entities.
 
ClickyCal'

ClickyCal'

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Oct 25, 2017
60,611
Rendering... said:
It's fucking annoying how basic decency, and representation that reflects the actual diversity of real life, are politicized now. It's like, the minute a piece of media doesn't reinforce the boring patriarchal straight white male status quo, it's "political." Like blandness and unnatural homogeneity are somehow better. Gamers are the worst.
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Gamers want to play as badass straight white guys, kills bad guys, and just be pure badasses and nothing else.
 
Yog-Sothoth

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Oct 1, 2018
3,227
Nooblet said:
Remember when CDPR used "and it even has racism" as one of the selling points about the believability of the game's world in a Witcher 3 trailer.

giphy.gif


And in this case it doesn't even seem like they are doing The Division's "We political but for marketing purpose we'll say we're apolitical, but really we are totally political" thing and actually seem serious.
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Hahaha how I ended up buying games from these shits is beyond me.
 
absoluteMadLad

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May 1, 2020
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They're working with Mike Pondsmith, the creator of Cyberpunk 2020 which is the source material and is political if I'm not mistaken. How's being apolitical gonna work then? I doubt it, honestly. If the politics side is handled even remotely close to The Witcher, it's political. They just don't want to admit it.
 
Tovarisc

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Oct 25, 2017
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I really like how OP took single sentence out of answer divided into 5 individual "paragraphs" in the interview, which was posted earlier in the thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/cd...litical-statement.255558/page-2#post-40759326

Does full answer really make answer that much difference? I can't tell, not definitely.

He seems to talk around game / quests being political quite a bit, but same time he does quite a bit raise up aspects that are inherently considered political that they are taking in the count when designing content for the game. To me that weird fence sitting in the answer leaves the answer itself very vague and non committal.

Personally I do think that 77 will be very political and because of that controversial game no matter what your world views are. There has been other interviews where developers and Pondsmith himself have said cyberpunk as genre is inherently political and that 77 in itself doesn't avoid political issues and diving into them.

Will they succeed in it in meaningful ways?
 
ClickyCal'

ClickyCal'

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Oct 25, 2017
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absoluteMadLad said:
They're working with Mike Pondsmith, the creator of Cyberpunk 2020 which is the source material and is political if I'm not mistaken. How's being apolitical gonna work then? I doubt it, honestly. If the politics side is handled even remotely close to The Witcher, it's political. They just don't want to admit it.
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Isn't he even now sounding iffy about how it turned out? Maybe he didn't have a lot of say.
 
Tovarisc

Tovarisc

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yuoke said:
Isn't he even now sounding iffy about how it turned out? Maybe he didn't have a lot of say.
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Every time I have seen interview or read one with him he has praised 77 basically as near perfect adaptation of his work, stuff he has dreamed about. Also brings up a lot how much he is consulted on and and how involved he has gotten to be with the project.
 
jaymzi

jaymzi

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Jul 22, 2019
6,684
They obviously know it is political, they are just saying this to make "Gamers" happy and prevent review bombing.

Those idiots will play the game with all the politics flying over their heads and say "Yep, take notes other developers, keep politics and agendas out of videogames like Cyberpunk".
 
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