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"I don't buy X game because person Y is in/involved in the game"
- Thread starter Aztorian
- Start date
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That kind of decision is actually pretty easy to make these days when there's tons of games available and gamers have disposable income and limited time to play everything they may like.
Some of these publicly flaunted stances would carry more moral weight if you could somehow gauge a person's true interest in a game and understand if they're actually making some sort of sacrifice by not buying a game where a shady/bad person is involved. But the truth probably is that many people "boycotting" a game weren't actually interested in that game anyway, or not enough that not buying that game truly means anything to them. Otherwise, games like Dragon Quest (any numbered entry) wouldn't have much of a discussion here.
In other words, some people adopt the "not buying, bye bitch" stand because it makes them look/feel good with very little effort.
Have JonTron or Koichi Sugiyama contribute to a big western release such as Naughty Dog games or GTA and you'll have a much more believable reaction. But of course big studios and big publishers aren't that naive and closely follow each and any online controversy to avoid such situations, which is why it's always Japanese and indie games that stir these controversies, either because they're genuinely clueless or just don't care.
Some of these publicly flaunted stances would carry more moral weight if you could somehow gauge a person's true interest in a game and understand if they're actually making some sort of sacrifice by not buying a game where a shady/bad person is involved. But the truth probably is that many people "boycotting" a game weren't actually interested in that game anyway, or not enough that not buying that game truly means anything to them. Otherwise, games like Dragon Quest (any numbered entry) wouldn't have much of a discussion here.
In other words, some people adopt the "not buying, bye bitch" stand because it makes them look/feel good with very little effort.
Have JonTron or Koichi Sugiyama contribute to a big western release such as Naughty Dog games or GTA and you'll have a much more believable reaction. But of course big studios and big publishers aren't that naive and closely follow each and any online controversy to avoid such situations, which is why it's always Japanese and indie games that stir these controversies, either because they're genuinely clueless or just don't care.
Like I said, I'm willing to wait and see what the context is in the game, and in a broader sense how the game handles intersectionality. I've heard that some of the portrayal of other cultures is also kinda of stereotypical/racist/insensitive, depending on who you ask, so I'm just gonna wait and see. I don't care as much about what CDPR says as what the worldview expressed by the actual game is, but it's hard to say before it's in people's hands.
yes, sometimes you only find out afterwards. I bought Mordhau, and i've dropped it - wish I could get my money back, but thats alright. I think whats important for me is to make the best decision based on the information available at the time. In cases where things go awry ahead of purchase, I'll just dissociate from said product and move on to something else.
please don't claim people are virtue signaling unless you have concrete proof otherwise.
Forum is all "vote with your wallets" until the issue is anything race or LGBTQ+ related and then suddenly it's "how do you people cope?". I can't take this line of questioning seriously anymore, at least from an adult. It's in every single thread on those discussions and it should be pretty vanilla as to how and why people factor in things into purchasing decisions.
It doesn't behold anyone to any continued stance, some people just prefer to factor things that they're made aware of into purchasing decisions.
It doesn't behold anyone to any continued stance, some people just prefer to factor things that they're made aware of into purchasing decisions.
OP
OP
I think you misunderstood me. I am not trying to dissemble anything, I'm trying to get different perspectives on this matter.
That's the thing: There's no "despite the history of the studio" because that history can't be undone, they haven't spoken against their transphobia, and all of their current and future actions exist in that context.
None of that recent statement about the artwork suggests they're acting in good faith because their preceding actions make it unconvincing.
Still comes off as tone deaf if all this is is another large corporation abusing people's bodies for profit; they are a large company selling a video game to make a load of money. If there doesn't pan out to be some wider nuanced theme surrounding trans and non binary people then they're literally enacting that which they claim to hate.
As they've not earned any good will - rather the opposite - and seem to have zero care in reaching out to the community to reassure them and dive into how "Gender in Cyberpunk 2077" really is. They even declined to elaborate further on the design with the trans woman writer of the Daily Dot piece, just forwarding her to the Polygon article.
If you're known for mocking a sensitive topic and then claim to care deeply about it, maybe you should actually make some effort in showing that care and how you're handling it. So this whole "we're trying to show how bad companies are" reasoning becomes a little questionable when you don't seem to be doing anything to distinguish yourself from them.
Generally people boycott stuff when it's either an influential or otherwise well-known/public person within that team (director, VAs or such) who has done (and continues to do) harm or if the company overall does something objectionable (such as GOG handwaving transphobic & otherwise questionable social media PR and not doing much about it). These influential/well-known people are often in such a position that they can abuse their power much more than some random art designer #13 and if they have social media presence, often they don't just leave their bigotry/shitty behaviour at work but spread their hateful/hurtful ideologies or use them in otherwise questionable ways. They actually have some reach. People also generally mostly boycott when they see developers/publishers not acting upon revelations & criticism. If someone at Naughty Dog starts being openly transphobic on Twitter and Sony's response was some weak-ass "we don't agree with these opinions but we won't bring any action against this person for his personal beliefs" drivel, that is the kind of thing that actually causes people to boycott. Not just the fact that there was a bigot in the dev team, but how the dev team/publisher respond to it.
Again, no one expects people to look up everyone in Red Dead Redemption 2's gazillion person development team to check if there are any opnely racist bigots among them, but like, maybe the stories about the bigoted, toxic culture at Quantic Dream should make you rethink supporting their games. That's not just a "only because one person X" situation, it's a studio culture issue that has been let fester with the acceptance/willful ignorance of the higher-ups of the company.
This.
I dont even know 95% of the people/names who even work on some of my favorite games lol.
I'll try and buy second hand to not support people I dislike/disagree with. I got CoD:AW second hand because of Kevin Spacey for example
That said, one persons involvement isn't enough to make me drop something entirely, but I'll do my best not to support that person
That said, one persons involvement isn't enough to make me drop something entirely, but I'll do my best not to support that person
I haven't misunderstood anything.
Youre on ERA, I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of Vavra
You have never heard anything about anyone involved in any game enough to dislike them? I find that hard to believe.
If I went into a shop and heard an employee say something transphobic and didn't feel management particularly cared for the issue or about correcting it, I might avoid shopping there in favour of alternative stores. If I gave it a pass once, went in again and heard the same I would likely consider doing so more strongly.
Would you say to me "but if you decided to not shop in every store that.."?
All products and companies will have people just clocking in the nine-to-five. That doesn't absolve the corporate entity of any wrongdoing or repurcussion, nor should it. Factoring in a company's stance or actions on things when they're brought to light or, in this case, just put straight out there by them themselves is perfectly valid.
Someone deciding not to purchase a product because of the actions of the company isn't strange, unusual or extreme. It's the opposite, it's extremely common in all industries across both B2B and B2C. Nor does it necessitate or require the individual to then look up the linkedin and social media bios of every employee of every company they intend to purchase items from in the future.
Again though, this is all such rudimentary shit I find it extremely hard to believe it's being argued in good faith.
Would you say to me "but if you decided to not shop in every store that.."?
All products and companies will have people just clocking in the nine-to-five. That doesn't absolve the corporate entity of any wrongdoing or repurcussion, nor should it. Factoring in a company's stance or actions on things when they're brought to light or, in this case, just put straight out there by them themselves is perfectly valid.
Someone deciding not to purchase a product because of the actions of the company isn't strange, unusual or extreme. It's the opposite, it's extremely common in all industries across both B2B and B2C. Nor does it necessitate or require the individual to then look up the linkedin and social media bios of every employee of every company they intend to purchase items from in the future.
Again though, this is all such rudimentary shit I find it extremely hard to believe it's being argued in good faith.
You know what happens if I miss out on best game ever? Litteraly nothing (it probably already happened multiple times because I cannot buy every platform and every game). There are dozens games I can suport which creators aren't terrible people.
In that case I'm baffled as to how your struggling with such a simple concept as "I would feel bad if I supported this person".
A game isn't likely to be the best game you've ever played if it makes you feel gross to play.
I'm really struggling to see what the specific difference warranting a thread on this specific reason to not buy a game is. Beyond, you know, the possibility that you're just bothered by people not purchasing a product on moral grounds, but I'd at least like to try to give you the benefit of the doubt.
It's literally the same as any other reason to not purchase something. It all boils down to "I don't want to buy that". That's it. That should be the end of it. Sure, maaaayybe if they actually played the game they'd have a good time, but I could say the same thing to anybody skipping a game for any reason. And yet, no one seems to ever take issues to the same degree for those reasons.
I acknowledge that there are people who have done not great things who are also associated with a game, but it has absolutely no impact on my purchasing decisions whatsoever. I figure at some point in the value chain someone is a pos, so I'm not going to dictate things just on the basis just on if I hear about it.
It's stupid. Not buying games 20+ sometimes 200+ people worked on because of a single person. I absolutely don't agree with that.
This a good post - resonates very well with my point of view as I feel the the position of power point is mightily important and often overlooked when people say 'oh, it's just the actions/views of one person'
So if the CEO would be a known Nazi, bigot, sexist, whatever. Would you buy his/her companies games?
The amount of pride that some of you take in not giving a shit is "Invader Zim" levels of comical/edgy.
Like, are you feeling left out or something?
Like, are you feeling left out or something?
Its stupid, buying games that go to companies like THQN who tacitly approve of places that are bigoted and have child porn.
Some feel guilty about their apathy and I think this is a potential result, just owning it hard.
I like this answer - captures my feelings well. Just like I wouldn't voluntarily by a ticket to a movie by Polanski or read a book by Trump, I see no reason why I should separate what I know about a piece of media from its context.
Not purchasing a product someone worked on isn't a punishment, it's the default.
We are talking about pretty serious public issues or misconduct, otherwise we, as game consumers, wouldn't know about it. It sounds like you're hand waving some very serious allegations...if there's one misogynist or sexual harasser or bigot in every project with more than 10 people then Lord help society because we are well and truly fucked.
I don't think the outrage is as common as people think, thousands of games release each year with only a fraction with problematic contributors. But when it appears it's usually:
1. Someone prominently involved with a project, and
2. That person is a pretty nasty individual
I make my determination only on issues brought up by Era, I don't have time to find them myself.
The CDPR issue on this matter
Breaking down the "one person" mantra for CDPR, since OP has chosen to not actually join any of the numerous discussions on these points and wants to relate to it.
- - -
This is someone choosing not to buy a game, that's it.
It's easy to envisage or act like people unhappy in this thread are red-eyed and crazed, frothing at the mouth, frantically typing their posts as they conitnue to stab needles into tiny Geralt dolls. In reality though, it's just people who are considering their purchasing decision and deciding they don't feel comfortable buying an entertainment product.
The attempt to paint people with the issue as being at an extreme, or overreacting is a common one. It's a tired tactic to win cheap points in the argument. If you can dismiss this all as someone throwing a tantrum and doing something totally unreasonable then you're golden. Look how upset this person is, they must be unstable. They're obviously just being emotional.
People blame companies for the actions over issues, that's how accountability works in the corporate world.
People blame, criticize and hold companies accountable for the actions of their employees. This really isn't anything that should need to be explained and the fact we've had people doing so is frankly bizarre. A company as it's core is a fictional entity. It literally doesn't exist. You have offices, employees, money, product, letterheaded paper and more. You have pieces of paper and legal documents that define what the company is, who owns it and more but the actual company itself is immaterial.
Which is kind of the whole point. You have this entity to challenge and criticize, or respect and follow. One purpose of this shell is very much to provide a blank form capture for the business or institution as a whole, as opposed to any singular individual. So the idea that noone should criticize a company in favour of an individual is one that's so childlike in its naivety I can't take it seriously, especially if you're growing up in any modern society. When people go on to suggest it's cowardly to criticize a company instead of directly targetting specific employees then, sorry, but this abundantly clear that your only issue with this all is that it's CDPR/CDP/GoG involved, who have happened to make some absolutely stellar video games in their past.
I highly doubt if they saw someone criticizing one of the major banks or supermarkets they'd be willing to type paragraph upon paragraph about how it's 'cowardly' to attack a company instead of individual people.
It wasn't the company though, it was a person on twitter!
Again, this level of naivety and feigned ignorance over things that are common practice in every other facet of business and industry is one that's hard to take seriously. The person didn't just fart and land on the desk in the office, primed to write a shitty tweet. They were hired, they were told the remits of their position, they may or may not have had the tweet vetted by at least one other employee before it was sent – and yes, I have worked within marketing departments of large organizations. It's rarely some spotted teen who's been allowed to run rampant with the front-facing image of the company without restriction.
That's what this is, and that's what twitter is. It's a very conscious front-face to your company that can be used to directly engage with your community. Anyone hiring for, and anyone applying for, this position would know this and understand the importance of it.
"Gut writes shitty tweet, guy gets fired" is a reduction of what happens.
Hiring for the above positions should rely on some background into the person their hiring's activity on social media, not least because this person is front-facing in a digital position where they'll actively been communicating on your behalf. It's not some NSA level nonsense, just a cursory scroll through public pages to get a sense of some of their vocal positions. It's basic due-dilligence for the role, done in minutes while assessing candidates. So it's likely it occured and nothing was raised, but it's a potential area for things like this to be caught.
So you've got your written job spec (likely written/agreed by people outside of the hiring manager). You have your hiring manager. Now you've hired the little would-be devil. You have an induction, you train him. At this point you might be congizent of the fact you've had prior twitter controversies within your family of companies, and knowing how one can affect the other perhaps you labour the point of being careful what to post. It's not comprehensive but it's key guidance on the tone your company wishes to write with, the remits of what they can and can't go for (politics, social issues, competition, the like). This is an important step as it's the bridge between their past experience within media positions, and how you would like for them to represent you. This can be as vague and as strict as it likes, but it's defined by the client/employer.
So.. guy writes shitty tweet.. From this point it's not even about the guy any more. That part of the story is locked in time, and now the only matter of meaning is how the management and wider entity react.
It's here where people galvanise their long lasting opinions, not the actual act.
Employees have done shit things in abundance, it's a tricky thing for a company to handle granted but if done right it can almost completely reverse the tide of good-will. This is because we largely recognise that yes, any employee of a company can go rogue and do whatever so it can be hard to not have such an event occur within a large organization over the span of many years. Instead it shifts to how this event is handled, whether similar events have occured recently, how swiftly a response is made, what that response is and whether ongoing any shift or change. It varies from situation from situation but you get the gist of it.
In this case it's where most people feel GOG and CDP have let the ball drop.
Firing the person isn't the start and end of this, nor is it particularly worthy of praise (nor scorn either). You would expect any major company to fire someone over transphobic tweets. There's poorly worded tweets and then there's mocking the entire notion of gender identity. We've established there's internal scrutiny to be cast on the hiring and training process, but now it shifts to how they were fired and how that was communicated with those hurt.
"It's gotten too much" as the sole reason for firing someone for the above is pathetic, and – with that we have – honestly doesn't point to much more than "you've become more hassle than you're worth to us".
Firing the person certainly shows they understand that there was a negative reaction to their actions, but in isolation it doesn't indicate much more. You have a very real financial and business incentive to fire them, even outside of any concern for LGBTQ+ rights. So further clarification is needed at that stage, to see whether CDP/GOG understand the ramifications of the tweet within the community and how it's hurt players. You'd want a statement put out pretty prompty to reassure that, to which we got:
Which, as with the above, misses the mark again. "Sorry to all those offended" is not an apology for the action. It's an apology solely if it offended you, when it should be an apology regardless because the issue is the mocking in the tweet not the reaction to it. Harming somoene is rarely anyone's intention, so again – nothing really much here. No outreach toward the trans and NB community, just a "sorry for the offense".
So it's felt that nothing was really understood in what was actually wrong in the scenario, despite a corrective action (the firing) being made. Then you have this pop up:
Which is responded to with this:
Even less understanding and zero apology. Which will lead onto..
GOG, CDP and CDPR are all separate!
In the wake of the GOG tweet the fired community manager said this:
Naturally they want all of the good will from The Witcher 3 and the CDPR brand to splash over onto GOG and it has. However you can't try and have that be a one way street. If you're congizent of the fact that your brands are associated and you're leveraging good will from that, then you need to accept that if one is stained by something like a PR mishap then it is likely to have consequences for the wider group. Certainly if you're having repeat issues on social media, there should be a focus on ensuring group-wide communications are consistent and managed.
So when you find a situation where two parts of this connected group are getting in hot water about mocking the exact same topic, and when apologies or no-apology is given in the wake are unsatisfactory you might land on not wishing to support any aspect of CDP until they make strides toward changing that attitude, and actually understanding the impact the actions have had within the community. Frankly, if they don't show much regard for the community in the wake of it being mocked when why should the community follow them blindly into the next purchase?
Vote with your wallets!
Ah yes, the long-repeated mantra that's brought out and vigirously waved around when microtransactions, loot boxes, sub-60fps performance and the like are found in games. We must vote with our wallets to discourage these actions so that they might alter them in the future!
Except when it comes to trans and NB rights when met against CDPR. If it was loot boxes and The Witcher 4, there'd be an uproar and voting of wallets. If there were transphobic comments put out by an EA social media account for which little was done to remedy the issue, people would cry to vote with our wallets.
This combination though; we have a minority group that's commonly not taken seriously against one of the most beloved developers this generation, with legions of people who feel emotionally invested because these are the people that made their game of the generation. This becomes a little different. It shouldn't, but it does and it's something that's obvious in a number of interactions in the thread.
Still not done?
That's all to say that choosing to not buy a product from a company because of their actions, and how that's affected you, is nothing new. It's nothing extreme. It happens in every B2C and B2B industry and it's certainly nothing worthy of rebuke. It's an incredibly harmless action that the majority here promote unless it's within a certain few set of circumstances.
- - -
This is someone choosing not to buy a game, that's it.
It's easy to envisage or act like people unhappy in this thread are red-eyed and crazed, frothing at the mouth, frantically typing their posts as they conitnue to stab needles into tiny Geralt dolls. In reality though, it's just people who are considering their purchasing decision and deciding they don't feel comfortable buying an entertainment product.
The attempt to paint people with the issue as being at an extreme, or overreacting is a common one. It's a tired tactic to win cheap points in the argument. If you can dismiss this all as someone throwing a tantrum and doing something totally unreasonable then you're golden. Look how upset this person is, they must be unstable. They're obviously just being emotional.
People blame companies for the actions over issues, that's how accountability works in the corporate world.
People blame, criticize and hold companies accountable for the actions of their employees. This really isn't anything that should need to be explained and the fact we've had people doing so is frankly bizarre. A company as it's core is a fictional entity. It literally doesn't exist. You have offices, employees, money, product, letterheaded paper and more. You have pieces of paper and legal documents that define what the company is, who owns it and more but the actual company itself is immaterial.
Which is kind of the whole point. You have this entity to challenge and criticize, or respect and follow. One purpose of this shell is very much to provide a blank form capture for the business or institution as a whole, as opposed to any singular individual. So the idea that noone should criticize a company in favour of an individual is one that's so childlike in its naivety I can't take it seriously, especially if you're growing up in any modern society. When people go on to suggest it's cowardly to criticize a company instead of directly targetting specific employees then, sorry, but this abundantly clear that your only issue with this all is that it's CDPR/CDP/GoG involved, who have happened to make some absolutely stellar video games in their past.
I highly doubt if they saw someone criticizing one of the major banks or supermarkets they'd be willing to type paragraph upon paragraph about how it's 'cowardly' to attack a company instead of individual people.
It wasn't the company though, it was a person on twitter!
Again, this level of naivety and feigned ignorance over things that are common practice in every other facet of business and industry is one that's hard to take seriously. The person didn't just fart and land on the desk in the office, primed to write a shitty tweet. They were hired, they were told the remits of their position, they may or may not have had the tweet vetted by at least one other employee before it was sent – and yes, I have worked within marketing departments of large organizations. It's rarely some spotted teen who's been allowed to run rampant with the front-facing image of the company without restriction.
That's what this is, and that's what twitter is. It's a very conscious front-face to your company that can be used to directly engage with your community. Anyone hiring for, and anyone applying for, this position would know this and understand the importance of it.
"Gut writes shitty tweet, guy gets fired" is a reduction of what happens.
Hiring for the above positions should rely on some background into the person their hiring's activity on social media, not least because this person is front-facing in a digital position where they'll actively been communicating on your behalf. It's not some NSA level nonsense, just a cursory scroll through public pages to get a sense of some of their vocal positions. It's basic due-dilligence for the role, done in minutes while assessing candidates. So it's likely it occured and nothing was raised, but it's a potential area for things like this to be caught.
So you've got your written job spec (likely written/agreed by people outside of the hiring manager). You have your hiring manager. Now you've hired the little would-be devil. You have an induction, you train him. At this point you might be congizent of the fact you've had prior twitter controversies within your family of companies, and knowing how one can affect the other perhaps you labour the point of being careful what to post. It's not comprehensive but it's key guidance on the tone your company wishes to write with, the remits of what they can and can't go for (politics, social issues, competition, the like). This is an important step as it's the bridge between their past experience within media positions, and how you would like for them to represent you. This can be as vague and as strict as it likes, but it's defined by the client/employer.
So.. guy writes shitty tweet.. From this point it's not even about the guy any more. That part of the story is locked in time, and now the only matter of meaning is how the management and wider entity react.
It's here where people galvanise their long lasting opinions, not the actual act.
Employees have done shit things in abundance, it's a tricky thing for a company to handle granted but if done right it can almost completely reverse the tide of good-will. This is because we largely recognise that yes, any employee of a company can go rogue and do whatever so it can be hard to not have such an event occur within a large organization over the span of many years. Instead it shifts to how this event is handled, whether similar events have occured recently, how swiftly a response is made, what that response is and whether ongoing any shift or change. It varies from situation from situation but you get the gist of it.
In this case it's where most people feel GOG and CDP have let the ball drop.
Firing the person isn't the start and end of this, nor is it particularly worthy of praise (nor scorn either). You would expect any major company to fire someone over transphobic tweets. There's poorly worded tweets and then there's mocking the entire notion of gender identity. We've established there's internal scrutiny to be cast on the hiring and training process, but now it shifts to how they were fired and how that was communicated with those hurt.
"It's gotten too much" as the sole reason for firing someone for the above is pathetic, and – with that we have – honestly doesn't point to much more than "you've become more hassle than you're worth to us".
Firing the person certainly shows they understand that there was a negative reaction to their actions, but in isolation it doesn't indicate much more. You have a very real financial and business incentive to fire them, even outside of any concern for LGBTQ+ rights. So further clarification is needed at that stage, to see whether CDP/GOG understand the ramifications of the tweet within the community and how it's hurt players. You'd want a statement put out pretty prompty to reassure that, to which we got:
Which, as with the above, misses the mark again. "Sorry to all those offended" is not an apology for the action. It's an apology solely if it offended you, when it should be an apology regardless because the issue is the mocking in the tweet not the reaction to it. Harming somoene is rarely anyone's intention, so again – nothing really much here. No outreach toward the trans and NB community, just a "sorry for the offense".
So it's felt that nothing was really understood in what was actually wrong in the scenario, despite a corrective action (the firing) being made. Then you have this pop up:
Which is responded to with this:
Even less understanding and zero apology. Which will lead onto..
GOG, CDP and CDPR are all separate!
In the wake of the GOG tweet the fired community manager said this:
..because that's exactly what it was. CDP aren't stupid, they're more than aware that people interlink the three entities and they were always going to when they never shied away, or attempted to distinguish themselves from, the association.
Naturally they want all of the good will from The Witcher 3 and the CDPR brand to splash over onto GOG and it has. However you can't try and have that be a one way street. If you're congizent of the fact that your brands are associated and you're leveraging good will from that, then you need to accept that if one is stained by something like a PR mishap then it is likely to have consequences for the wider group. Certainly if you're having repeat issues on social media, there should be a focus on ensuring group-wide communications are consistent and managed.
So when you find a situation where two parts of this connected group are getting in hot water about mocking the exact same topic, and when apologies or no-apology is given in the wake are unsatisfactory you might land on not wishing to support any aspect of CDP until they make strides toward changing that attitude, and actually understanding the impact the actions have had within the community. Frankly, if they don't show much regard for the community in the wake of it being mocked when why should the community follow them blindly into the next purchase?
Vote with your wallets!
Ah yes, the long-repeated mantra that's brought out and vigirously waved around when microtransactions, loot boxes, sub-60fps performance and the like are found in games. We must vote with our wallets to discourage these actions so that they might alter them in the future!
Except when it comes to trans and NB rights when met against CDPR. If it was loot boxes and The Witcher 4, there'd be an uproar and voting of wallets. If there were transphobic comments put out by an EA social media account for which little was done to remedy the issue, people would cry to vote with our wallets.
This combination though; we have a minority group that's commonly not taken seriously against one of the most beloved developers this generation, with legions of people who feel emotionally invested because these are the people that made their game of the generation. This becomes a little different. It shouldn't, but it does and it's something that's obvious in a number of interactions in the thread.
Still not done?
That's all to say that choosing to not buy a product from a company because of their actions, and how that's affected you, is nothing new. It's nothing extreme. It happens in every B2C and B2B industry and it's certainly nothing worthy of rebuke. It's an incredibly harmless action that the majority here promote unless it's within a certain few set of circumstances.
No one is owed your money. The default shouldn't be here's my money, give me a reason for me to take it back.
That's a good point—people often attempt to frame these situations as "it's just one/some bad apple(s)" but when the internal response is weak or nonexistent, hat reflects on the company.
few will bat an eye when someone on here wishes there was a Super Mario Bros. 2 theme in Mario Maker (even though that's logistically complicated), but make a thread about wanting a woman or racial minority as a lead playable character and watch all of the concerned posts flood in.
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We don't need to consume every piece of entertainment just because it got a good review score. The world would be a better place if there wasn't a constant media blitz to buy something and people were more critical about their purchases. Why give your money to a horrible person when there is a line of great people behind them that are far more deserving of your support?
OP
OP
I'm not in that struggle, but some people are and that's why I brought up the discussion.
Ofcourse there are many other reasons to purchase or not purchase games, for some I talk about with friends too.If they come up with reasons I myself have never thought about, I would talk with them about it. None have ever come up with reasons linked to the discussion in this thread so I am trying to get different perspectives.
Not touching QD game because of obvious reasons, League of Legends also got the short stick for same reasons. Boycotted a popular platform for over 10 months because they refuse to remove openly racist, homophobic and misogynic game.. Also havnt bought a THQ game since the 8chan fiasco. Will probably buy again at some point.. I want to believe they have learnt from their absolute misstep.
I'm souring for some time, but I guess I'm too weak to do it forever.
Not sure if a single person has made me not buy a game yet.
I'm souring for some time, but I guess I'm too weak to do it forever.
Not sure if a single person has made me not buy a game yet.
It gets complicated when you have positive and negative factors- for example, the CEO being a shithead politically, but his studio's one of the better ones at not having crunch/ not screwing over customers being an example.
There are plenty of companies who don't have unabashed bigots at the top level, that I can buy my video games from.
Not wanting to financially or otherwise support bigots shouldn't be such a hard concept to understand.
Not wanting to financially or otherwise support bigots shouldn't be such a hard concept to understand.
I refuse to buy any Nintendo hardware because are always priced too higher and specs wise are so disappointing. I'm not sure however if we can consider OT.
Breaking down the "one person" mantra for CDPR, since OP has chosen to not actually join any of the numerous discussions on these points and wants to relate to it.
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This is someone choosing not to buy a game, that's it.
It's easy to envisage or act like people unhappy in this thread are red-eyed and crazed, frothing at the mouth, frantically typing their posts as they conitnue to stab needles into tiny Geralt dolls. In reality though, it's just people who are considering their purchasing decision and deciding they don't feel comfortable buying an entertainment product.
The attempt to paint people with the issue as being at an extreme, or overreacting is a common one. It's a tired tactic to win cheap points in the argument. If you can dismiss this all as someone throwing a tantrum and doing something totally unreasonable then you're golden. Look how upset this person is, they must be unstable. They're obviously just being emotional.
People blame companies for the actions over issues, that's how accountability works in the corporate world.
People blame, criticize and hold companies accountable for the actions of their employees. This really isn't anything that should need to be explained and the fact we've had people doing so is frankly bizarre. A company as it's core is a fictional entity. It literally doesn't exist. You have offices, employees, money, product, letterheaded paper and more. You have pieces of paper and legal documents that define what the company is, who owns it and more but the actual company itself is immaterial.
Which is kind of the whole point. You have this entity to challenge and criticize, or respect and follow. One purpose of this shell is very much to provide a blank form capture for the business or institution as a whole, as opposed to any singular individual. So the idea that noone should criticize a company in favour of an individual is one that's so childlike in its naivety I can't take it seriously, especially if you're growing up in any modern society. When people go on to suggest it's cowardly to criticize a company instead of directly targetting specific employees then, sorry, but this abundantly clear that your only issue with this all is that it's CDPR/CDP/GoG involved, who have happened to make some absolutely stellar video games in their past.
I highly doubt if they saw someone criticizing one of the major banks or supermarkets they'd be willing to type paragraph upon paragraph about how it's 'cowardly' to attack a company instead of individual people.
It wasn't the company though, it was a person on twitter!
Again, this level of naivety and feigned ignorance over things that are common practice in every other facet of business and industry is one that's hard to take seriously. The person didn't just fart and land on the desk in the office, primed to write a shitty tweet. They were hired, they were told the remits of their position, they may or may not have had the tweet vetted by at least one other employee before it was sent – and yes, I have worked within marketing departments of large organizations. It's rarely some spotted teen who's been allowed to run rampant with the front-facing image of the company without restriction.
That's what this is, and that's what twitter is. It's a very conscious front-face to your company that can be used to directly engage with your community. Anyone hiring for, and anyone applying for, this position would know this and understand the importance of it.
"Gut writes shitty tweet, guy gets fired" is a reduction of what happens.
Hiring for the above positions should rely on some background into the person their hiring's activity on social media, not least because this person is front-facing in a digital position where they'll actively been communicating on your behalf. It's not some NSA level nonsense, just a cursory scroll through public pages to get a sense of some of their vocal positions. It's basic due-dilligence for the role, done in minutes while assessing candidates. So it's likely it occured and nothing was raised, but it's a potential area for things like this to be caught.
So you've got your written job spec (likely written/agreed by people outside of the hiring manager). You have your hiring manager. Now you've hired the little would-be devil. You have an induction, you train him. At this point you might be congizent of the fact you've had prior twitter controversies within your family of companies, and knowing how one can affect the other perhaps you labour the point of being careful what to post. It's not comprehensive but it's key guidance on the tone your company wishes to write with, the remits of what they can and can't go for (politics, social issues, competition, the like). This is an important step as it's the bridge between their past experience within media positions, and how you would like for them to represent you. This can be as vague and as strict as it likes, but it's defined by the client/employer.
So.. guy writes shitty tweet.. From this point it's not even about the guy any more. That part of the story is locked in time, and now the only matter of meaning is how the management and wider entity react.
It's here where people galvanise their long lasting opinions, not the actual act.
Employees have done shit things in abundance, it's a tricky thing for a company to handle granted but if done right it can almost completely reverse the tide of good-will. This is because we largely recognise that yes, any employee of a company can go rogue and do whatever so it can be hard to not have such an event occur within a large organization over the span of many years. Instead it shifts to how this event is handled, whether similar events have occured recently, how swiftly a response is made, what that response is and whether ongoing any shift or change. It varies from situation from situation but you get the gist of it.
In this case it's where most people feel GOG and CDP have let the ball drop.
Firing the person isn't the start and end of this, nor is it particularly worthy of praise (nor scorn either). You would expect any major company to fire someone over transphobic tweets. There's poorly worded tweets and then there's mocking the entire notion of gender identity. We've established there's internal scrutiny to be cast on the hiring and training process, but now it shifts to how they were fired and how that was communicated with those hurt.
"It's gotten too much" as the sole reason for firing someone for the above is pathetic, and – with that we have – honestly doesn't point to much more than "you've become more hassle than you're worth to us".
Firing the person certainly shows they understand that there was a negative reaction to their actions, but in isolation it doesn't indicate much more. You have a very real financial and business incentive to fire them, even outside of any concern for LGBTQ+ rights. So further clarification is needed at that stage, to see whether CDP/GOG understand the ramifications of the tweet within the community and how it's hurt players. You'd want a statement put out pretty prompty to reassure that, to which we got:
Which, as with the above, misses the mark again. "Sorry to all those offended" is not an apology for the action. It's an apology solely if it offended you, when it should be an apology regardless because the issue is the mocking in the tweet not the reaction to it. Harming somoene is rarely anyone's intention, so again – nothing really much here. No outreach toward the trans and NB community, just a "sorry for the offense".
So it's felt that nothing was really understood in what was actually wrong in the scenario, despite a corrective action (the firing) being made. Then you have this pop up:
Which is responded to with this:
Even less understanding and zero apology. Which will lead onto..
GOG, CDP and CDPR are all separate!
In the wake of the GOG tweet the fired community manager said this:
..because that's exactly what it was. CDP aren't stupid, they're more than aware that people interlink the three entities and they were always going to when they never shied away, or attempted to distinguish themselves from, the association.
Naturally they want all of the good will from The Witcher 3 and the CDPR brand to splash over onto GOG and it has. However you can't try and have that be a one way street. If you're congizent of the fact that your brands are associated and you're leveraging good will from that, then you need to accept that if one is stained by something like a PR mishap then it is likely to have consequences for the wider group. Certainly if you're having repeat issues on social media, there should be a focus on ensuring group-wide communications are consistent and managed.
So when you find a situation where two parts of this connected group are getting in hot water about mocking the exact same topic, and when apologies or no-apology is given in the wake are unsatisfactory you might land on not wishing to support any aspect of CDP until they make strides toward changing that attitude, and actually understanding the impact the actions have had within the community. Frankly, if they don't show much regard for the community in the wake of it being mocked when why should the community follow them blindly into the next purchase?
Vote with your wallets!
Ah yes, the long-repeated mantra that's brought out and vigirously waved around when microtransactions, loot boxes, sub-60fps performance and the like are found in games. We must vote with our wallets to discourage these actions so that they might alter them in the future!
Except when it comes to trans and NB rights when met against CDPR. If it was loot boxes and The Witcher 4, there'd be an uproar and voting of wallets. If there were transphobic comments put out by an EA social media account for which little was done to remedy the issue, people would cry to vote with our wallets.
This combination though; we have a minority group that's commonly not taken seriously against one of the most beloved developers this generation, with legions of people who feel emotionally invested because these are the people that made their game of the generation. This becomes a little different. It shouldn't, but it does and it's something that's obvious in a number of interactions in the thread.
Still not done?
That's all to say that choosing to not buy a product from a company because of their actions, and how that's affected you, is nothing new. It's nothing extreme. It happens in every B2C and B2B industry and it's certainly nothing worthy of rebuke. It's an incredibly harmless action that the majority here promote unless it's within a certain few set of circumstances.
GodDAMN, this is a fantastic post.
Games are not made by 1 person alone, and often decisions on cast/whatever are not even made by who worked actively on the game itself.
This is why I just buy and play what I like to, I dont' care about anything else.
Also I disagree about the argument agains the "its not about 1 person!!!111! and I find that often people are overly exagerated about some things like declarations/tweets/etc...
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Actually there can be some extreme cases where I could consider this... in these cases I wait for big discounts (I buy only digital so used is not an option)
This is why I just buy and play what I like to, I dont' care about anything else.
Also I disagree about the argument agains the "its not about 1 person!!!111! and I find that often people are overly exagerated about some things like declarations/tweets/etc...
EDIT:
Actually there can be some extreme cases where I could consider this... in these cases I wait for big discounts (I buy only digital so used is not an option)
You should add the above post by Kyuuji into the OP and/bookmark it since it comprehensively addresses all your concerns and provides the perspective you're looking for. Anyone with your same concerns would be better served that way.
The notion that "I can't do X 100% perfectly/consistently, so I won't do it at all" doesn't make much sense. Just because I can't exercise every day or do so exactly the way I should doesn't mean I just abandon it entirely.
It's the same with supporting and propping up bad people—people will avoid doing it if and when they're aware.
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Ok, so at this point I just fully don't believe you, but if you really are still struggling, go read Kyuuji's post.
I hate arguments like this. So in some cases you'd rather put money in pockets of bigots (someone like Sugiyama) who are actively fighting/harming LGBTQ people because you think it's punishing the devs otherwise? Why is it just the devs you're thinking of? If the Devs end up paying for it, put the pressure on the publisher/parent company to take action rather than the consumers who don't want to support the bigots.
I don't care about anything surrounding the game. As long as the game is good and properly optimized and has a non predatory progression scheme (looking at you mkxi)
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