Skullgirls got review-bombed on Steam after some art changes

This is the team (now Future Club) which used to have some serious trouble with their previous boss, right?

First of all, we can assume that the development team have not been completely in line with the original direction to begin with, given the situation, and given that they renamed themselves (their dev team's name) afterwards.

Second and maybe most important, the game has been doing well, the player numbers are looking pretty stellar for the game, I can tell you I had no problems finding a match last year with one fifth of the player count that they have right now (probably good crossplay implementation). Plus being one of the official games in Evo kind of helped. In order to get more popular and for certain events, they have to clean their act, so this may be the way forward.

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: slaapliedjeAs far as hating on removal of racist imagery making you a racist? What if it is important to the story line that you are taking out a band of racists, but some sensitivity editor decides that shouldn't be in the game, and now you're just killing a bunch of random people? :P

a good example of that is the series "everybody hate criss" wich have a bunch of racist jokes that are intended to show how absurd racism is, it make fun, mock how ridiculuous racism is all the time, yet it feature racism to show that.
should it be censored too?

Blazing Saddles is a perfect example of this.

Blazing Saddles is a funny example indeed, too many people have always told Mel Brooks that "one could not make this movie today" so he answered "one could not make this movie back then either" :)

Pretty sure Brooks is deluding himself on that point. As someone who grew up in the 70's, the casual but prevalent racism back then took the edge off a lot of the purposefully un-casual racism in Blazing Saddles. You might still be able to make such a movie today, but it would be derided and buried under a sea of angry one-star reviews, much like toning down the panty-line in an underage female fighter in Skullgirls has had the same result.

I'm not so sure, there have been a lot of younger YT reactors reacting to Blazzing Saddles in the last years and they have all loved it, not a single comment on that it should have been banned or never made. However also lots and lots of YT comments on each and every such video on "how such a movie couldn't be made today".

So to be completely honest I think that there are far more people who believe that it couldn't be made today than people who would be upset if it was made today.

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: slaapliedjeAs far as hating on removal of racist imagery making you a racist? What if it is important to the story line that you are taking out a band of racists, but some sensitivity editor decides that shouldn't be in the game, and now you're just killing a bunch of random people? :P

a good example of that is the series "everybody hate criss" wich have a bunch of racist jokes that are intended to show how absurd racism is, it make fun, mock how ridiculuous racism is all the time, yet it feature racism to show that.
should it be censored too?

Blazing Saddles is a perfect example of this.

Blazing Saddles is a funny example indeed, too many people have always told Mel Brooks that "one could not make this movie today" so he answered "one could not make this movie back then either" :)

Pretty sure Brooks is deluding himself on that point. As someone who grew up in the 70's, the casual but prevalent racism back then took the edge off a lot of the purposefully un-casual racism in Blazing Saddles. You might still be able to make such a movie today, but it would be derided and buried under a sea of angry one-star reviews, much like toning down the panty-line in an underage female fighter in Skullgirls has had the same result.

The difference between why it couldn't be made back then vs now is that back then, the racists were pissed off that they were being made fun of and it was showing them how dumb they are.

For today; the younger generation no longer have a sense of humor and don't understand satire. Life of Brian falls under that same category. Back then all the religious people were pissed off at it (without ever watching it). And These days it's the opposite side that doesn't like it / wants to censor it.

"Where are the white women at?"

I haven't seen any one wanting to censor Life of Brian from that crowd today, what I have seen though is John Cleese claiming that a particular scene must be included and that he refuses to censor it although no one have wanted to censor it (quite the opposite infact, but those people have begun to question the scene now that JC so actively is defending it).


Last edited by F.Ultra on 5 July 2023 at 6:01 pm UTC

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: lejimsterI don't know anything about this game, but I believe the last Mortal Kombat game they decided they wanted to make the female characters less sexualized, cover them up. Made zero sense to me. The series has always been "mature" with its finishing moves etc, why are they getting upset over a bit of extra flesh.

At least in that case they told us ahead of time and you can choose not to buy the game. If a game that you enjoy gets a "woke update" that significantly alters the game you purchased in a way you hate, then we have a problem.

Man, it would be great to see Scorpion baring his chest, right? Maybe tone down those long, baggy trousers and get those rippling thighs into shot? Get some crotch physics on display?

Or, wait. Is it only the women we're allowed to sexualise because gaming remains a male dominant industry? And why is it male dominant?

Oh.

Plenty of male characters in Mortal Kombat show a lot of flesh. The boss' from the original game were very flesh heavy. Ok maybe they went even more extreme with some of the future games (I will admit I haven't played every iteration of MK), my point being is it's a mature, graphic fighting game. You have characters doing extremely over the top violent things in the game and nobody is complaining. Make a character too sexy and all hell breaks loose.

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapulbut most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapulbut most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

Things have always been censored, in fact it could be argued that fewer things are censored these days considering the amount of media content generated by the average joe instead of a large media corporation.

For example, an episode of Star Trek TNG was not aired/edited in the UK (back when it was originally released) as it proclaimed the reunification of Ireland by 2024. You can now watch it on Netflix in its full unedited glory.

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapulbut most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

yes it is a conspiracy theory. Just look at this very game, you keep on saying that it was censored for "another audience" which is just a dog-whistle for "woke left feminists" and now it suddenly is "oh the ones that bought it isn't happy so it must be for a new audience", well to begin with you have not asked 100% of the people who bought it and secondly a game is always sold to new people (it's not like the same person is buying the game twice), so this explanation does not make sense.

And this is not censuring, this is simply a company not wanting to be associated with nazi-symbology and panty shots of underage characters. Censuring would be a 3rd party forcing the company to make these changes (and by strict definition that 3d part would have to be the government), a company changing their mind is a whole different story.

Like with Star Wars, Han no longer shooting first is not censuring, that is Lucas changing his mind. Now we might not like his change (I know that I don't) but not liking it does not make it censuring. Stephen King decided to withdraw Rage after the 1997 Heath High School shooting, his own decision as a creator and owner and not censorship.

Quoting: kit89

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapulbut most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

Things have always been censored, in fact it could be argued that fewer things are censored these days considering the amount of media content generated by the average joe instead of a large media corporation.

For example, an episode of Star Trek TNG was not aired/edited in the UK (back when it was originally released) as it proclaimed the reunification of Ireland by 2024. You can now watch it on Netflix in its full unedited glory.

nowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

nowadays the backslash is imediatly but still not enough to convince companies to not do this anymore in most cases so what is the point?
the only case i know about were an company gave up on censoring due to the backslash was back to the future.

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: elmapulbut most of the time the changes arent trying to censor something for another audience that is bothered by this type of content

The SICs always makes this claim but is there any evidence what so ever that the devs made this change for "another audience" and not just because they themselves begun to feel uncomfortable with the original design?

i dont know what SIC means, but the staff changed completely afaik, the new staff have 0 respect for what came before then or the original target audience.

Appears to be exactly the same team minus one guy that where accused of sexual abuse at the work place by the staff. Still see no evidence that they are trying to cater to "a new audience", and honestly this line of reasoning is fast becoming old, that "other audience" that SICs keep on talking about are just some small group of marginalized women with strange hair colours that have zero power and zero reach yet we are somehow to believe that they in secret are "taking away our games, movies and comics". Stop falling for SIC (Social Injustice Crusader) propaganda, that is all that it is.

the public that purchased the game as it was liked it as it was, so yes, changing it is catering to a new audience.
the fact that a lot of things are geting censored nowadays is not an conspiration theory.

yes it is a conspiracy theory. Just look at this very game, you keep on saying that it was censored for "another audience" which is just a dog-whistle for "woke left feminists" and now it suddenly is "oh the ones that bought it isn't happy so it must be for a new audience", well to begin with you have not asked 100% of the people who bought it and secondly a game is always sold to new people (it's not like the same person is buying the game twice), so this explanation does not make sense.

And this is not censuring, this is simply a company not wanting to be associated with nazi-symbology and panty shots of underage characters. Censuring would be a 3rd party forcing the company to make these changes (and by strict definition that 3d part would have to be the government), a company changing their mind is a whole different story.

Like with Star Wars, Han no longer shooting first is not censuring, that is Lucas changing his mind. Now we might not like his change (I know that I don't) but not liking it does not make it censuring. Stephen King decided to withdraw Rage after the 1997 Heath High School shooting, his own decision as a creator and owner and not censorship.

wh would purchase this game if they didnt like the content from it? hell, we had 10 years of this game being sold and now they decide to change it?
why would this thirdy party have to be an government? sony changed their terms and enforced censorship in thirdy party content and many companies cant afford to give up an huge market like playstation and still survive so they were forced to self censor to comply.
sony purchased Evo btw.
its easy to say the company chose to self censor without external pressure from other companies, but who can guarantee they arent being censored in saying how they really feel about having to do that?
a lot of companies self censoring must be an gigantic coincidence right? or maybe some external pressure from bigger companies , what make more sense?
what is next, rockstar will make an patch so you cant kill any one anymore in GTA? and you will say that is not censorship?

of course people dont buy the same game twice (lets ignore nintendo, they arent an relevant company...)
irony aside, of course they want to sell to new people, but you know what companies do when they cant sell any more copies of an game? relase an new game, an sequel, another franchise, and no one get pissed off.
they dont remove content from existing games.
now you have all the right in the world to think "this content isnt moraly acceptable and should be there to begin with" but if you think that about an product and still purchase it anyway, that says a lot about you.
so yes, they are trying to target an new audience, not the ones who purchased this game in the last 10 years.


Last edited by elmapul on 5 July 2023 at 11:44 pm UTC

Quoting: elmapulnowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

*Sigh* it had to be a Brazilian...

A few season 1 episodes got censored here, and that is a popular bit of anime/Pokémon trivia on the internet, so it's silly to think that your average young anime fan doesn't know about it. But you think they don't know about it just because they don't know about the singer of endings that only aired in Japan? Dude.

And to make it worse you are comparing that to censorship? You really need to pick up a dictionary, dude. The Pokémon that aired here is (or was? I don't watch it anymore) the 4Kids version. They censored a bunch of crap in every anime you could imagine, everybody knows that, but replacing the Japanese themes with localized ones is definitely not censorship.

Quoting: Metallinatus

Quoting: elmapulnowadays companies are mora acountable when they censor stuff because we have internet and can get informed about it, but still, most people dont know about censorship that happened in the past, for example i went to one of the biggest anime conventions from Brasil called "Anime Friends" , there was going to happen an show from the artist "Rica Matusmoto" who many openings, endings from pokemon and other animes, and dub the main character satoshi (ash), there were people there cosplaying pokemon characters... you probably would guess that those people who went to the event knew her right? or knew about the censorship that hapened in this anime, the soundtrack replacement etc right? nope, most didnt, to this day.

*Sigh* it had to be a Brazilian...

A few season 1 episodes got censored here, and that is a popular bit of anime/Pokémon trivia on the internet, so it's silly to think that your average young anime fan doesn't know about it. But you think they don't know about it just because they don't know about the singer of endings that only aired in Japan? Dude.

And to make it worse you are comparing that to censorship? You really need to pick up a dictionary, dude. The Pokémon that aired here is (or was? I don't watch it anymore) the 4Kids version. They censored a bunch of crap in every anime you could imagine, everybody knows that, but replacing the Japanese themes with localized ones is definitely not censorship.

i count as censorship, they didnt believed the original songs would make an success and didnt give it a chance to show its potential.
but regardless, that was not the only change they made.
for example, in they cut "violence" when kasumi (mist) slaps the main character, among other things, replaced all the dialouges from the first movie and many dialougues in other episodes, censored an pen because it was an real product among other things.
i wont list all the changes, there is the webpage dogasu for that, take a look at the kangaskhan episode for example.
or the first movie where they replaced everything.


what is censorship in your opinion? censoring political opinion?


Last edited by elmapul on 6 July 2023 at 12:13 pm UTC