For the cissies out there: you’re not a bad person for buying / playing this game if you didn’t know.
That last sentence was entirely there to accommodate cis fragility. :cissues:
Go read that post. The game is bad.
even if you did know - it's fine to enjoy problematic art. just shut the fuck up about how it's not dehumanizing or bigoted.
Just dont give the fuckers any money. Pirate, steal, copy.
Great post, per usual capitalism has no qualms profiting off our bodies yet misses an opportunity to use "cyberpunk" and transhumanist themes to be able to articulate the challenges and nuance of the trans experience in an accessible way instead they layed onto the tired trope of sexualizing the transfeminine and ignoring the trans masculine.
Missing the early days when like seemingly 70% of the users were nonbinary or trans lol
I just hate hearing about cyberpunk. I literally don’t care and any discussion of it feels like clout chasing.
Cyberpunk is bad, cyberpunk is great, gamers mad about cyber punk, trans people mad about cyberpunk, look at this reaction to this reaction to this reaction about cyberpunk.
It’s a video game made by a studio that has never had a good launch hyped up by gamers and meta commentators that only bought the game of the year edition of their third game in a series.
So is this kind of like that meme about fallout where the gamer goes "whoa cool fighting robots" at Liberty Prime or whatever as the nuance goes over their head?
I think we should all keep in mind that the marketing department is different from the dev department, and there is often a divergence between in-story messaging and marketing when it comes to games or movies. This isn't to say that you couldn't be right, you absolutely could be, just that we don't actually know that for sure. From a game-side of things exclusively, so far, I think its not that bad if you take other shit advertised within the story. It has problems but I still think trans people come off better than not having them in the game. The marketing I condemn wholeheartedly.
The point of the ad was to use fetishized trans imagery to sell a videogame. That poster was featured in IRL advertising as set dressing, and the company chose a cis woman cosplaying the poster model as a finalist in their cosplay contest. That's not an issue on its own, but the cosplay did feature a giant, glowing blue dick.
Yeah, if someone's looking at the game in a vacuum, a large part of CDP/CDPRs shitiness can be minimized, because the marketing is where they really pumped up the edginess to 11.
My
As the original post says, they use the ad in REAL LIFE to SELL THE GAME ITSELF so that defense does not work at all
why is anyone surprised
any company will be as transphobic or transphillic as they have determined is the most profitable
there are no woke brands only corporations desperately looking for a way to leech off you
no ethical consumption and all that.....
CDPR said they were pro trans in their advertising and are actually transphobic. That’s why this matters.
of course they are, im fine with pointing it out i want to be clear that none of us should be surprised by it
its always a safe bet to assume the big corporation is lying to you and trying to use your identity as a tool to get your money
people identify with the art they enjoy so criticism of elements of the art is a criticism of the self and has to be defended as such.
i agree and my comment does not imply otherwise
i welcome the post and upvoted it
So it seems like the game's romances are locked by gender, rather than the usual route of characters being into you if you say the right things, regardless of gender. So they clearly had to record different voice lines for the male and female voice, which is my bet as to why your gender identity is linked to your voice. It's a pretty baffling choice, honestly, seems like making more work for themselves (with all the extra dialogue branching etc) just to be less inclusive.
The voice thing is by far the most damning part, to me. I had no idea that was going to be a restriction until I opened up the game. Just a baffling choice.
Oh good. If I buy it again (I refunded cuz I'm on PS4) that should be a little better.
All true, but you've gotta admit, they did Claire pretty well. It only gets dropped subtly and late into a side quest path that she's trans - and it doesn't really define her as a character much at all. Just a thing she is
Yeah. I was surprised to hear people calling the game anti-trans since that was the only trans part of the game I noticed.
This is a good post/point to raise but uh let's not pretend the body of the post wasn't mildly (and playfully) inflammatory
Generally speaking tho trans realted threads do catch more downvotes than what I'd hoped I will acknowledge that
That last sentence was entirely there to accommodate cis fragility.
i would guess that bit maybe?
i don't fuckin know
I don't either, I mean that there's a lot of fragility on display.
Absolute majority of people on this website agree with you and the only reason people downvote posts like this is because you are looking to get into a fight. Do you think screeching "FRAGILE CISSIES" over and over will convince people? You are just stirring shit because of perceived enemy/outgroup that doesn't even fucking exist on website. Chill out, breathe, relax. Trans folks are welcome here. There is no need to whip yourself into a frenzy over imaginary bullshit.
Don't get me wrong, I don't care about cyberpunk. Fuck this game. Fuck CDPR for being transphobic. Downvote shit opinions, report stupidpol shit, ban everyone who disagrees with validity of trans points of view. But you don't make it better by doing whatever you are doing in this thread, you are just creating /r/stupidpol content
Yes because I actually like this website and don't want my main to get banned for mild dissent (like it happened during the pronouns struggle session)
I am begging you to take the gentle ribbing of a funny emote with good humor. :cissues:
You can seethe all you want and I agree with you on all of the points. You are cool and good and you don't have to fight imaginary enemies on this website. They don't exist.
funny then how this keeps coming up
https://hexbear.net/post/58883/comment/580903
https://hexbear.net/post/64330/comment/654312
https://hexbear.net/post/63348/comment/640227
You are doing good work educating people, thank you for that. I don't think any of the comments that you've linked are transphobic though. People need to be educated and you linked good examples of how one can do that. This thread is not a good example of educating people because "FRAGILE CISSIES" is not education.
fragile cissies isn't education. it's a call out of a pattern of behavior that goes back for several months on this site. people want to assume that cis is the natural default and get mad when that notion gets challenged in even subtle ways, like with the pronoun tags. it's not "I want to murder trans people", it's "just stop reminding me trans people exist".
“just stop reminding me trans people exist”
I'm sorry but I just don't see that in comments that you've linked. As for the larger pattern of behaviour we could certainly do better, but that's beside the point.
You don't have as much enemies on the website as you think you do and I disagree with methods that you've picked for trying to educate people and change this larger pattern. I don't believe in negative reinforcement in general and your comments are antagonistic when they simply don't need to be. This isn't how I would educate allies, especially people that are already open to being educated.
-
tone policing sucks ass
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notice that I've only replied to people who are already on my side with the cis fragility stuff. if you have a problem with me venting to allies, I'm sorry but I just don't care what you think.
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you're reading tone instead of content. polite defense of cissexism is still transphobic, even when it's not of the "murder trans people" variety.
you’re reading tone instead of content
That's super true. I find that many struggles are not between the opinions that are displayed but rather the tone they are displayed in or the words that are used.
this true but civility policing is libshit, especially when it's directed at marginalized comrades. civility protects the status quo and the status quo is quite transphobic.
I'm venting to allies about how often I have to explain this shit. I've explained this patiently to every. single. person. that has brought this discussion up. you are not entitled to my educational labor nor the emotional bandwidth this shit requires.
fuck. off.
My other comment on this thread is now a lie, I have now downvoted something.
Do you think screeching “FRAGILE CISSIES” over and over will convince people?
:fidel-si:
combat liberalism
FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES FRAGILE CISSIES
😎 Liberlism Defeated 😎
Yeah just that but basically, paired with the tissue emoji? For the record, when I say inflammatory I don't mean cis people are getting bullied or anything but a red flag was waved in front of the Cis Fragility Bull and people are surprised it charged?
I will bait that bull all day every day. fuck cis fragility. if you think getting called out for it is a big deal, jfc, let's trade lives. I have literally been attacked and my life has literally been threatened because I'm trans. I've had to flee restaurants after getting chased out of bathrooms. it's not your humanity getting questioned day in and day out.
fuck. your. cis. fragility.
the fact that I even have to say this is fucking offensive on a site made for and by leftists.
I do not think it's a big deal, nor was that my point. Upvoted you to counter the clowns
No one has any qualms with this? Really? The whole argument hinges on 2 tweets made by a PR intern, how is that representative of the company as a whole? Especially when they were immediately fired. The game is entirely about corporations being awful, and like half of the ads in game use sex as a means of advertisement, naturally at least one of those ads would include a trans subject. Is it a perfect game in terms of trans representation? Obviously not, but it's not actively transphobic either. Honestly, it does a better job than most AAA games in terms of LGBT representation. CDPR is a shit company just like the rest, but the argument about them being transphobic always felt like a reach.
Yeah uh, 4 people is bad but anywhere else not explicitly LGBT-oriented would be 90 fucking percent downvotes
we've come down from 33% downvotes to 25% downvotes. it's improvement, and this isn't reddit, but it's not good, either.
oh jeez actually yeah, for some reason I thought it had more upvotes. That's really bad for this website.
L M A O
There were 10 downvotes before you said this, now there are 8
RUN COWARDS
I'm trans and I'm downvoting this because the post is bad and the entire Discourse around Cyberpunk is an absurd circlejerk born from twitter long before the game came out, built entirely upon people speculating the worst things they could imagine and then repeating them until they became gospel truths. It's absolutely insufferable, and coming from someone who played the game instead of just listening to people be wrong on twitter it's completely detached from reality.
Like what are the resetera post's arguments? They fired the social media guy who was handling their twitter account for transphobia, and there's an in-game ad featuring a sexualized nb transfem person (and for context, literally every ad in the game is dehumanizing and sexualized). It's grasping at straws in an attempt to retroactively justify their premise. Can one argue that a cis woman shouldn't be making sexualized art of trans people in the first place? I guess, but that's drawing a line that even my "distrusts and actively avoids interacting with cis people as much as possible" ass is hesitant about.
Is the game lacking in some respects? Sure, but mostly in that it doesn't explicitly engage with sexuality or gender at all positively or negatively (and seeing as it was written by cis people, I don't exactly want them to try to weigh in on and elaborate on experiences that they have absolutely no context for or understanding of), despite featuring characters that are explicitly LGBT in a matter of fact way. To be honest, I'd much rather have a character like Claire who just offhandedly mentions transitioning as a point of reference in a story than some character whose entire purpose in the story is to be trans in an unrealistic what-cis-people-imagine-trans-people-are way and to be displayed in that way, like the character in ME:A, plus the whole "I can be a woman with a dick and no one cares or mentions it at all" aspect is a nice bit of escapist fantasy both for myself and every one of my friends who've played it.
chasery tr*p memes are never okay.
these things don’t exist in a vacuum. the poster exoticizes her body, ensuring that you, the viewer, are taking the frame of reference of a chaser, not an empathetic position that highlights her discomfort. you the viewer are presumed to be cis, male, and attracted to women while the game simulates an ad - at what point does the game do anything to make you uncomfortable with this depiction, other than because you, the cishet male, are attracted to a trans woman? live on the edge, indeed. moreover, it juxtaposes her with a reference to the manticore - a man-eating beast. this is a tr*p meme, not an anticapitalist critique of commodification.
https://hexbear.net/post/64330/comment/654312
I don't entirely disagree with some of that: I definitely think that, in general, the ads in the game (despite overwhelmingly being extremely sexualized for the most banal products possible) aren't excessive enough to make for effective commentary or actually even approach the level of intrusiveness, banality, and unpleasantness of real ads, but I also don't think that particularly one is unique in that regard. They pull their punches too often, and that is a distinct problem here, whether that comes from a fear of controversy, a lack of drive to really make a message about it, or just the simple fact that their art department couldn't spend even the smallest fraction as much time finding new ways to be utterly horrible as real marketing department do.
it's because the outrage cycle drives further sales so it pays to pull their punches (that, as the OP argues, they were never actually willing to throw in the first place).
my point is that this goes past mere hypersexualization. it's the dehumanization, trivialization of trans gender, chaser framing, and the dehumanization through juxtaposition with a man-eating beast that makes this a real problem. this game and this company are not worth defending.
it’s the dehumanization, trivialization of trans gender, chaser framing
I'm not really sure how portraying commodification of human bodies for even the most banal reasons can be done without portraying dehumanization and fetishization of the model. I personally believe the artist was genuine in her analysis of her work, if only because it lined up with my own attempt at analyzing the intent without starting from a position of assuming the worst the day before she did that interview, but I will agree that the game never goes beyond portraying commodification of not just human bodies (both figuratively and literally), but also their identities and experiences (also both figuratively and literally).
I think they overall did a good job with showing dehumanizing commodification, or at least a better job than media generally does, but they do the usual liberal thing of just showing things being realistically bad and that's it, they don't analyze it or propose solutions or have the courtesy to beat the viewer over the head and yell "you see this shit? this is bad and also how basically how things really are, this has to be fixed" because subtle critiques are genuinely bad and get lost on most people (although I will say that the Witcher 3 did have the courtesy to have the narrator basically beat the player over the head and explicitly yell "racism is bad, actually" over and over on the loading screens).
a man-eating beast
Barely related but it only just now clicked for me that chromanticore is probably supposed to be a Monster Energy Drink expy.
it has to feature actual criticism, not merely depict the commodification and dehumanization. on transphobia, the game unambiguously does not do that.
yes, it's diagetically about an energy drink. no, that does not excuse the juxtaposition in an already transphobic work of art, by a company that has repeatedly engaged in transphobia.
I keep going back over and reanalyzing it, but I keep coming to the same conclusion that in the context of the in-universe ads, the chromanticore one doesn't stand out from the others (featuring more normatively cis bodies, or heavily modified ones) in style or sexualization. Its failing is the same as theirs: that it's racy but mundane at the same time, like I could unironically see a real major brand making basically the same ad in the next five years, except because instead of a single artist throwing together a "good enough" facsimile of an ad it'll be the product of a full marketing team working overtime at being awful with enthusiasm matched only by blue-checkmarks on twitter it'll somehow be even worse, like it'll be fucking Pepsi and it'll involve a gross visual pun about a can of soda or something and they'll find a way to then also put their foot in their mouth with whatever narration or dialogue they add to it.
In the overall worldbuilding and narrative they don't engage with or include transphobia at all (or in-universe bigotry of any sort, apart from Johny's self-centered, chauvinist bullshit - oh fuck I just realized he's an on-point caricature of the old online left from before gamergate made most guys like that either go full fash, reform into a better person, or at least try to pretend not to be such a piece of shit in public), even to attack it, and where there are LGBT characters (as in actual characters with names and stories, rather than models on a billboard or vending machine) they're normalized to the point of being completely mundane with there being no conflict over their existence or sexuality, and I really can't find fault with that because even if it were deconstructed, refuted, or even just immediately punished with extreme violence I really don't want to have to witness or be reminded of actual transphobia when playing a game. Like, for example, the fact that when an NPC in GTA: Online screams transphobic slurs at my character they're less than a second away from being turned into a fine mist by a rocket or a car traveling at over 100 mph doesn't change the fact that I don't want to hear them screaming slurs at me in the first place.
The way you explain the ad thing I understand and I agree with. If it was just the ad, I understand it, it's kind of a common trope of the dystopian genre to have ugly ads like that to satirize or subtly criticize something. I am also reminded of Starship Troopers and Robocop. But what I think makes it worse is how they used it in merch and even did a whole cosplay competition around it which makes me think that there's something more to this, like the company intentionally stirring shit to make more people talking about it and to pander to angry gamers.
my reaction to the first time I saw that image was shock and disgust. I absolutely found it triggering.
And my reaction as a non-op trans woman was "cool, I unironically hope I can make my character look like that too, but I'm not gonna hold my breath" followed almost immediately by exasperation at the first wave of discourse as it kicked up. Like I get some people are super dysphoric and touchy about that sort of thing, hell I was too eight years ago and I still don't quite know how that changed for me since it seems it usually goes the other way instead, but that's not everyone's experience and I don't really like the implication that art portraying a non-op trans woman who's sexualized in any way is inherently problematic - like I'm a little uncomfortable with it coming from a cis person, even a cis woman who can clearly articulate a trans-positive and feminist critique of how human bodies are commodified, but certainly not enough to decide on the spot that it's an attack on my identity.
I don't want to be hostile, cause I know this is getting to a topic that seems kind of a split in the broader trans community, but it's also a kind of sore spot for me on account of old conflicts and, I'll admit, the sense of sort of alienation that ending up at a point where I'm both done transitioning and'll still never really be done with it leaves me with.
I'm not saying the sexualization of a non-op trans woman is the problem! reread my original quoted post. I'm very clearly pointing to the framing, the manticore bit (seriously, do you know how often they compare us to beasts?), and the grody "mix it up" language that really seals it as chaser shit.
I’m not saying the sexualization of a non-op trans woman is the problem!
Sorry if I jumped to conclusions, I don't know if you saw the edit but like I said there, it's a bit of a sore spot.
I’m very clearly pointing to the framing, the manticore bit (seriously, do you know how often they compare us to beasts?), and the grody “mix it up” language that really seals it as chaser shit.
I don't know, I guess I'm just not as put off by that as I once was, as long as there aren't slurs being thrown around and I don't have to see any cis guys doing that hornyposting thing where they're borderline incoherent because they're distracted, that fucking makes my skin crawl no matter who it's aimed at. Maybe I'm just desensitized, maybe I've just insulated myself from having to deal with cis people like that for long enough that I've lost the visceral reaction I once would have had, or maybe at some point my brain just snapped and I stopped caring without realizing it.
Either way, I'm too tired to keep arguing the point. I understand your point even if I don't agree with it, and I'm perfectly willing to admit that may just be on account of me being too desensitized in general.
People just don’t like getting told something they like is problematic even if it may be true cause it’s easier to ignore it and pretend there’s nothing wrong than to have to think about anything with any amount of nuance
I like the game but the fact that you can install a rocket launcher in your wrist but still can’t be a woman with a masculine voice or vice versa is very cringe, it’s not difficult to understand lol
fuck, if it weren't for the manticore ad, the voice thing would be uncomfortable but at least it's a step towards humanization. but the game literally dehumanizes trans women via a tr*p meme!
You can have a masculine voice with a female body or vice versa but you’ll be referred to with the pronouns of whatever voice you chose, implying that that’s your gender identity even if it’s not
:angery: cissies downvoting every mention of fragility.
come into the thread and corncob for us. be brave. stand up for what you believe in.
It’s up to 9 and the same 9 downvoted you for pointing it out lmao
There might be some people downvoting just from seeing cyberpunk in the title and being annoyed with how many posts have been made about it (even one commenter above mentioned originally downvoting it)
Imagine calling other people fragile when you're complaining about a few downvotes lmao
Am I a bad person for not reading most of that and just assuming a big games corporation is bad by default?
Like, yes they are bad about LGBTQ stuff, of course they are. But it's a symptom and not the disease. I would prefer it so much if people would buy in less into the identity politics side of...everything.
Yes, I know it matters. Heck I am pansexual. I only get any representation in games because having a gay option for sex is a way for a game to have more content with little extra work. We made the sex scene anyway and not adding any restrictions to who can access it actually saves time!
Yes, it matters .But what matters more is that every single programmer they employ had to crunch for months and months to make this game. I's okay to have this laser focus on trans issues. It's a necessary voice. But I really wish there was more then a one sentence mention of crunch in this entire thing. Can we maybe half and half the criticism? Like, how they forced all of them to do all this extra above and beyond work, only to make for us a transphobic pile of a game? How about that?
No this matters just as much as that.
Anti-bigotry is not identity politics.
Fair enough. I stand by what i said though, because you can fight anti-bigotry all day long and it will never lead to an equal society. Because an equal society requires more then being equal in terms of how we treat sexuality.
I guess the subset of us fighting that battle isn't actually as large as it appears, but because articles like this will rile up the chuds like clockwork they end up getting circulated more.
Can people just actually play the fucking game? Transphobiaor not, I just want to discuss the game with people who have actually played it rather than just see the same Twitter takes over and over again :agony-deep:
I am SHOCKED that my crunch gaemes aren't transpositive
Maybe they shouldn’t market their game as being about trans rights next time.
Damn dude, starting to think that bourgeois appeals to "trans rights" such as Joe Biden's are a sham.
wait what is gog's relationship to cdpr
i don't really give a shit about 2077 cuz i find these open world rpg fps games boring af and always have always will but i'm just curious
Well no, not exactly. CD Projekt is their parent company. GOG and CD Projekt Red (a video game distributor and video game developer, respectively) are both owned by CD Projekt.
It's a small but important distinction.
yea nevermind i asked before i actually looked at the article lol
edit:i like playing old school games kind of a lot cuz they're cheap and i'm broke and i like that gog includes manuals and soundtracks and shit. i only buy games from them when they're dirt cheap and on sale so i don't really feel bad about continuing to do so
Luckily GOG installation files are very easy to pirate. No cracks needed.
