CDPR is a transphobic company. It's time we stop making...
www.resetera.com
Preface: To avoid the usual suspects I want to start out by saying that you are not being shamed for your purchase of Cyberpunk 2077. If you feel slightly bad about buying the game as a result of...

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.

      • SerLava [he/him]
        1·
        4 years ago

        Yeah uh, 4 people is bad but anywhere else not explicitly LGBT-oriented would be 90 fucking percent downvotes

        • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
          8·
          4 years ago

          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.

          • the_river_cass [she/her]
            6·
            4 years ago

            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

            • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
              2·
              4 years ago

              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.

              • the_river_cass [she/her]
                2·
                4 years ago

                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.

                • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
                  1·
                  4 years ago

                  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.

                  • the_river_cass [she/her]
                    1·
                    4 years ago

                    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.

    • CEO_of_TrainGang [he/him]
      3·
      4 years ago

      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

      • the_river_cass [she/her]
        1·
        4 years ago

        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!

        • CEO_of_TrainGang [he/him]
          1·
          4 years ago

          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

    • the_river_cass [she/her]
      3·
      4 years ago

      :angery: cissies downvoting every mention of fragility.

      come into the thread and corncob for us. be brave. stand up for what you believe in.

    • epic_gamer_2007 [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      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)