Hey Kyuuji, just wanted to thank you for all the work and effort you put into informing people and managing this whole situation. I'm honestly exhausted just thinking about it especially considering you probably have bunch of irl shit going on too. Huge respect tbh.
Regarding the current circumstances with the (mainly) two threads I also feel like this is kind of weird. The stickied thread seems more like a concession and a place to vent when it should be the focus until the game comes out. There are clearly a lot of members in the trans community that are bothered by the hype and marketing, so if you absolutely do want to allow discussion of the game, opening one OT when the game is actually released should be enough. Additionally, I don't know if there are members of the trans community that intend to play Cyberpunk but that would be the perspective I'm most interested in hearing about. Maybe highlighting critical analyses of the game, whether they come from ERA members or certain journalistic outlets might be a good idea too.
I also do think a larger discussion around how issues like intolerable working conditions, sexual harassment etc. should be treated is probably necessary but this is something that affects an important part of the community NOW. As such I don't see why we have to solve everything in one go, there is a reason why this issue in particular has provoked a more severe reaction than we typically see. Framing it in a larger context is important but improving this particular situation should take precedent for now imo. Just my two cents.
Hey Altairre, thank you for that, I appreciate those words. I don't disagree on the first point but it is what it is. It was always going to be a compromise between two sides and though I don't really see the need for more than two (Spoiler/Non-Spoiler), something like tech specs I can at least see the discussion it offers as a distinct topic. The only game I've argued in favour of not hosting discussion for is the upcoming Harry Potter release and that was less an argument centred around the game itself, than hosting and platforming discussion of things related to the Harry Potter IP. Cyberpunk/CDPR are harmful in what they do, but it's more around a media property or output than someone campaigning and succeeding in stripping rights from people and harming children. So I've always grounded it around an expectation, or hope, that even those excited for the game could feed back to CDPR that enjoyment with a caveat that they dislike the company/game's treatment of trans topics/people/bodies.
As you mentioned, there are other trans posters here who do intend to play the game and all the power to them. Honestly, in among this all it's also frustrating for
me in part as it was, from the outset, a game I was very interested in. People sometimes forget that a lot of those not jumping in would much rather not have these issues and feel content to jump into the mix with everyone else. If other trans people want to dodge whatever questionable stuff there is to continue past it, I can't fault them and wouldn't wish to. Especially when I know most doing so are those I don't exactly need to persuade in being vocal around its issues or those of the company.
I agree on the last paragraph too, and to what
Lamptramp,
Kyrona and
Claven were saying in that whenever discussions on trans issues arise it's almost always greeted with a thousand instances of "what about x". In addition to other aspects like suggesting our desire to not interact with transphobic media should be open cause for guilting us into thinking of devs sleeping on the streets as a result. So it would be nice to keep grounding the conversation here, in these threads, around the issue in question. Which wasn't really a thing and, as I said in a former post, seems to be pretty clear as to what the situation is now. It just gets kicked up again when someone makes a thread solely about how many views a youtube video has or an advert that's a few seconds long and then acts shocked/appalled when that's locked. Then suddenly it's taken from something that seems relatively straightforward into this binary forcing of the issue.
Appreciate those two cents.