I mean, from the credits, I don't think a single Japanese person from SE could have been the person in question. So it isn't that surprising there is not much overlap in perspective.
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[IGN] How Hidden Nazi Symbols Were the Tip of a Toxic Iceberg at Life Is Strange Developer Deck Nine (UP: SE didnt want the IP known as “the gay game)
- Thread starter Hazz3r
- Start date
- News Square Enix
FF7 Rebirth has multiple gay NPC relationships and there's homosexuality basically all over the game in terms of flamboyance, queer expression, etc.
I would also argue that the camera pan was done so they didn't have to try to animate two characters kissing, which is notoriously difficult and always looks awkward. Even when Squaresoft did it via CGI in FFX, it still looked off.
Also worth pointing out that this story didn't break from SE Japan.
Horrible shit and hopefully everyone involved gets what they deserve.
Also, Alex as the "first bisexual lead in a LiS game"? Did they play the other two? Literally every lead in LiS except maybe Steph (who appears to be purely attracted to women) if you count the DLC is bisexual.
Also, Alex as the "first bisexual lead in a LiS game"? Did they play the other two? Literally every lead in LiS except maybe Steph (who appears to be purely attracted to women) if you count the DLC is bisexual.
For those interested, I recommend to watch Double Fine's PsychOdyssey for workplace culture and reflecting on the Ion Fury criticism regarding questionable symbols.
Steph is a canon lesbian, her first shirt in True Colors is a Lesbian Pride shirt. Also Chloe is a lesbian, at least Deck Nine's interpretation is. (I read her as a lesbian in the OG too.) I think Max is considered player determinate (by DON'T NOD and SE) but pretty much everyone in the fandom just says she is bi.
The glaring omission is Sean for LiS2 though I can't fault Littleton, given it's a complete scene you can miss and more player determinant than how Alex is handled. Also SE doesn't really acknowledge it much, naturally.
Well, that article made my blood boil. My heart goes out to the staff affected and to any fans who feel a sense of betrayal.
I should point out that Garriss was a CCO, not a COO.
Two men kissing is much harder to animate, apparently. /shrug
Reminds me of that "female characters are hard to animate so we don't include them" excuse from developers in some games.
Yes. I thought they were part of the deal with Embracer initially.
Won't be surprised if some animation lead said something like " I don't want to animate this" and got away with it.
I rewatched the Jill and Clive romance scene; it plays out just as quickly and almost exactly as obscured as the Dion/Terrence scene is. Clive's head completely blocks out all of it (because they didn't want to animate it), and then the camera pulls back and up away from the two. The entire sequence is 10 seconds. Dion and Terrence are given an even sweeter moment, up close, literally right after; with Clive and Jill the scene fades to black.
No, it isn't because two men kissing is harder to animate. The entire concept is difficult to animate in videogames.
Very well-written article. As someone who really enjoyed True Colors, it is aggravating reading what the team had to suffer through.
Garris learned absolutely nothing from his time at Deck Nine. He denies every claim, instead doubling down on his insults and not acknowledging the actual people that put sweat and tears into the game. People like this should never be in leadership, yet here is an industry that stops at nothing to protect them.
Garris learned absolutely nothing from his time at Deck Nine. He denies every claim, instead doubling down on his insults and not acknowledging the actual people that put sweat and tears into the game. People like this should never be in leadership, yet here is an industry that stops at nothing to protect them.
I think the only time i've seen it done without looking compromised was in the last of us 2? BG3 was the last time I saw an attempt and it was (for obvious reasons) a bit awkward. Even weirder if your custom character height didn't match I think.
Yeah, the behind the scenes for the Ellie and Dina kiss went into how hard that was to mocap and animate. Possibly the highest quality kiss in a video game we will see for some time.
Of course, doesn't take away from the XVI team presumably deprioritizing a kiss between queer men and/or obscuring it.
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They didn't deprioritize the kiss or obscured it any moreso than Clive and Jill. Both are obscured to hell in different ways.
If the XVI team were ashamed of having a queer romance in the story, why would they focus back in on the two after the kiss for them to share even more intimate words with one another?
At this point, we're just reading homophobia into a scene that isn't actually there.
It would be wild to me if Square didn't see the Sora X Riku and Axel X Roxas posts, and let's be real, Sora and Riku have more of a connection than Sora and Kairi ever did.
It's almost as if gaming has a toxic, misogynistic, white supremacist, queerphobic culture which spreads within the leadership of the corporations making products for the perceived target audience of straight, white, cisgendered men. 🤔
Fuck Square Enix but fuck the other companies such as CDPR for being scummy turds too. It's a systemic problem that white, cis, straight people within the community have to start addressing and pushing for change. It can't just be up to minorities and intersectional minorities to change within white majority countries. It needs allies more than ever to amplify voices that are too much easily dismissed. Because this shit seems commonplace. And it's getting to the point where I feel like giving up this hobby.
Fuck Square Enix but fuck the other companies such as CDPR for being scummy turds too. It's a systemic problem that white, cis, straight people within the community have to start addressing and pushing for change. It can't just be up to minorities and intersectional minorities to change within white majority countries. It needs allies more than ever to amplify voices that are too much easily dismissed. Because this shit seems commonplace. And it's getting to the point where I feel like giving up this hobby.
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It's usually not that simple with art. Doing diffs and keeping track of changes in code is trivial. For art, not so much and they would tend to reside in a different system altogether (like Jfrog artifactory) and get pulled at build time.
Exactly. Dion and Terrence are great, some of the reactions to them on here have been so out of nowhere.
That explains the weird regional sale restrictions that Square imposed on themselves - LiS Remastered and True Colors both aren't available for sale in some Middle East regions on Steam, although LiS1 (and 2) released with no issue. Truly amazing to see a publisher hate the very thing they sell, but here we are.
Square Enix Japan have been making excellent strides in LGBT representation in their games; they gotta do something about SE Europe's bullshit with this news story circulating, though.
Yeah, but everything else around it helps elevate it. My point is more that just reducing it to solely that -which obviously was the main appeal of the game- seems unfair, as mostly everything in the game itself worked really together and made for a such a memorable experience, you know?
At least for me it's one of those games, more than LiS2 or True Colours, where even the little things made it good/fun. The devs really hit gold with that one, for me.
It was me, was busy yesterday and didn't keep up with the thread. Just going to go back and edit the correct information in as I'd obviously misremembered it.
As a casual observer of the Life is Strabge IP, I always thought it's entire point was to be progressive and tell stories that other games typically wouldn't bother with. It seems extremely strange to me that SE don;t seem to understand the appeal and selling point of an IP they chose to retain after offloading other western studious.
I hope working conditions can improve and if leadership drags theor heals then I hope the talented team can find work making games that they love somewhere else. Good luck to them all.
I hope working conditions can improve and if leadership drags theor heals then I hope the talented team can find work making games that they love somewhere else. Good luck to them all.
I think usually game companies in Japan are way more conservative about this sort of stuff. I dunno', maybe I'm alone in that sentiment?
Agreed. Riku and Sora actually have a story spanning all the games, even games with only the 2 of them (like DDD). Kairi was a bit redeemed in 3 Remix, but still no where as near characterization and interactions with Sora as Riku has.
It's really damning when KH3 Remind and MOM also wrote Kairi out of the search for Sora and that Riku has been the one with the reality-crossing dreams connecting him to Sora across time, space, and death lol
Not to mention this is the same guy who:
1) got so jealous of his best friends being close that he destroyed his own home, and tried to take Sora without Kairi lol
2) sacrificed his own happiness and freedom from the darkness to watch over Sora for a yeat
3) sacrificed his physical form to embody the form of his gaslighting bodysnatcher to continue to protect and save Sora
4) followed Sora from a distance and did things in secret to help Sora on his journey in KH2
5) would have stayed in darkness with Sora forever at the end of KH2 had Kairi's letter not arrived
6) became a literal guardian dream eater thing by diving into Sora's heart instinctually because he sensed danger at the beginning of KH3D
7) when his and Sora's hearts are in tune, it is the literal "Dearly Beloved" theme
8) they make a rainbow Keyblade with a literal rainbow behind them when they fight together
9) idk every other thing I failed to mention
I couldn't even begin to make a list of why Sora and Kairi have chemistry even if the games try to sell the idea. I know it's there but it all seems awkward.
And after FFVII Remake and Rebirth I know for certain that Nomura must know what romance actually looks like.
Just checked Rob Tomlinson's Twitter likes and yikes, you weren't exaggerating about the problematic interactions. Here a tweet he liked:
The artist liked the tweet by the blue check mark "#Pureblood" bigot.
Nope, but its slowly coming there as well. I think SE might actually be the one with the most LGBTQ themes in their big proejcts? Which makes this whole thing even weirder.
Companies are not monolithic entities, especially not multinational companies with various different subdivisions. This was people from the London branch being specifically shitty.
Why would a London-based management office be part of a deal that only included North America based studios?
The Eidos management has been god-awful, I'm pretty sure they were the ones behind the "mechanical appartheid" marketing angle for Mankind Divided as well.
Howdy all, author here. Just wanted to say I didn't get the sense the "gay game" comment was emblematic of some all-encompassing Square Enix creed. Square is made up of a lot of different people and a lot of moving parts, and post-True Colors I've heard a mixture of good and bad stories about working with them on stuff like this. I'm not saying absolve them, but I don't think the massive publisher Square Enix has some blanket "do not put gay in games" global philosophy or anything.
I'd also note this was a relevant but also smaller part of the overall piece, so I feel a little strange seeing it dominate the conversation the way it has, but that's how it goes sometimes!
Thanks for all the kind words, everyone. Means a lot that this resonated with folks. <3
I'd also note this was a relevant but also smaller part of the overall piece, so I feel a little strange seeing it dominate the conversation the way it has, but that's how it goes sometimes!
Thanks for all the kind words, everyone. Means a lot that this resonated with folks. <3
Appreciate it, thank you! Although I will say that irregardless of it not being some company wide philosophy (it usually never is), they're still the ones to blame just like every other publisher/dev gets blamed when shit like this happens in the company. They're the ones that need to go in and internally fix their London branch.
It was rather good reporting and thank you for the follow up post as it were. Much appreciated. Fwiw I did take the SE portion as a smaller part of the overall reporting, but hopefully it's at least now, an issue on SE's radar to fix/address.
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Thanks for the clarification! From the article, that was my interpretation that it was an issue with a few execs rather than SE as a whole. At least on the Final Fantasy side, I find a lot of Square to be relatively queer friendly.
Thanks for popping in with additional information. Your articles have been great🙂
Yeah, I've figured as much. It's probably one person they had contact with, and I've emphasized that at other places where I shared this. Thanks for the clarification. :)
Thank you for your in-depth reporting. To me it's obvious there is conflict within SE London or at least there was. Titan Comics who is also U.K. based was given the Life is Strange license for comics and novels, with the latter being newer. Both thus far have embraced the queer aspect of the IP, particularly love between queer women. Stuff like that doesn't happen without someone within SE signing off on it.
Yeah, I don't understand the sole fixation on Square-Enix management, when the leadership of Deck Nine was actively trying to bring back Zak Garriss:
That, combined with their reaction to the entire Nazi symbols thing, is a pretty damning indictment of the leadership. The core takeaway of the article -- that marginalized people had to fight like hell to make True Colors come out the way it did -- does not inspire confidence that Deck Nine's future titles will continue to be that way, because the leadership does not represent them or take their concerns seriously.
There's a conversation that's been happening since GamerGate, about whether or not it's a good idea to suggest that marginalized people work in this industry. And the answer, going on for years now, is that it's largely not, if you aren't giving them the resources to succeed, or to even feel safe doing their jobs. Because without explicit support and enforcement of protective policies, all you're doing is setting people up to be abused and burned out. On a certain level, sending people in who you know will be chewed up and spit out by the machine is kind of unethical. But at the same time, that's the price we keep asking marginalized people to pay, in order to make products that (sometimes) reflect their viewpoints.
That, combined with their reaction to the entire Nazi symbols thing, is a pretty damning indictment of the leadership. The core takeaway of the article -- that marginalized people had to fight like hell to make True Colors come out the way it did -- does not inspire confidence that Deck Nine's future titles will continue to be that way, because the leadership does not represent them or take their concerns seriously.
There's a conversation that's been happening since GamerGate, about whether or not it's a good idea to suggest that marginalized people work in this industry. And the answer, going on for years now, is that it's largely not, if you aren't giving them the resources to succeed, or to even feel safe doing their jobs. Because without explicit support and enforcement of protective policies, all you're doing is setting people up to be abused and burned out. On a certain level, sending people in who you know will be chewed up and spit out by the machine is kind of unethical. But at the same time, that's the price we keep asking marginalized people to pay, in order to make products that (sometimes) reflect their viewpoints.
Just coming here to say that that was an amazingly good article!
7R is definitely on a better track, and I was very pleased with the couple in Cosmo Canyon talking about their honeymoon, checking into the hotel. Just felt like 16 had a much bigger opportunity with a main character, and stymied it.
Sure, I don't argue that. As a gay man, I think they're doing more than a lot of other developers are doing right now, and Dion is one of my favorite characters in the franchise. Him not being playable was the worst crime they committed, being factual here.
That said, S-E could take more inspiration from Naughty Dog games in that area if they want to do another M-rated Final Fantasy in the future.