Mighty No.9 - New Inafune title!

[Diogenes]

Yeah people never seem to be bothered about someone putting their own views into a work unless they disagree with those views.

You put a big breasted woman in a bikini in a game and it's "YOU CAN'T CENSOR THE ARTIST'S PURE VISION YOU PC FASCISTS!!!", you put a reasonably dressed woman in a position of power in and it's "PC POLICE ARE RUINING GAMING FOREVER!!!".

[Solly]

First of all, I did not consider you a sexist monster; I considered the framing of her expressions of desire as something negative like "pushing an agenda" is quite problematic for the argument why, which I hope you read and empathized with beyond the initial quote. 

 

And frankly, I don't understand why we need to concern ourselves with what how her expressions fall on the spectrum. Whether or not she was "giving her opinion" or "pushing an agenda" seems to be a conversation of semantics masking the fact that people clearly have a problem with her either being a feminist or expressing feminist views, because if feminist views weren't problematic in the gaming community, the argument on what her opinion would classify as probably wouldn't even exist, especially considering she didn't do anything that was particularly radical by common sense standards. 

Essentially, what she said should bother nobody. The fact that it not only bothers people, but enough people to be considered "controversial," does nothing but speak volumes about the social quagmires present in the gaming community.

Without wanting to wax philosophical here, or get back into semantics, is it a bad thing to push an agenda when the cause is agreeable? I didn't mean to frame it as something negative, I just thought it was a more accurate description for her actions at the time. 

 

I agree that it shouldn't bother anybody. There's nothing problematic with her views in my eyes (which I've been saying from the get-go), bar the fact that her suggestion during the campaign would've probably pissed off a lot of people who already donated after seeing Beck's design. I'm not trying to give validation to her critics, I'm just saying that they aren't completely removed from reality when they say that her views can influence her work, despite that likely not being the case, and it not being a big deal to begin with. 

 

Yeah people never seem to be bothered about someone putting their own views into a work unless they disagree with those views.

You put a big breasted woman in a bikini in a game and it's "YOU CAN'T CENSOR THE ARTIST'S PURE VISION YOU PC FASCISTS!!!", you put a reasonably dressed woman in a position of power in and it's "PC POLICE ARE RUINING GAMING FOREVER!!!".

Most of the time they aren't recognizing any type of problem, and immediately start seeking validation for their opinions, often through confirmation bias.

[Nepenthe]

 

Without wanting to wax philosophical here, or get back into semantics, is it a bad thing to push an agenda when the cause is agreeable? I didn't mean to frame it as something negative, I just thought it was a more accurate description for her actions at the time. 

 

I agree that it shouldn't bother anybody. There's nothing problematic with her views in my eyes (which I've been saying from the get-go), bar the fact that her suggestion during the campaign would've probably pissed off a lot of people who already donated after seeing Beck's design. I'm not trying to give validation to her critics, I'm just saying that they aren't completely removed from reality when they say that her views can influence her work, despite that likely not being the case, and it not being a big deal to begin with. 

 

Most of the time they aren't recognizing any type of problem, and immediately start seeking validation for their opinions, often through confirmation bias.

 

 

It's not bad to push an agenda nor necessarily a good thing. The agenda itself should be praised or attacked on its own merits. When we say that someone is "pushing an agenda" and that is inherently a bad thing, we're telling someone that their arguments are unwanted regardless of what they are. We are shutting out thought, which is again problematic from a social standpoint because we are actually never not living in a moment where prejudice of some form exists and is affecting everyone. 

 

Now, if the problem people have is that she can "influence the game;" of course she's going to! She was paid to be an enemy designer! But in the specific case of turning the main character female or black, that is most likely not going to happen due to the amount of red tape she'd have to cross (again, she has a specific role-- enemy designer, not character designer. There's actually a difference) and the amount of convincing she'd have to do to the rest of her team to make that happen. As such, seriously worrying about that is like worrying we're going to be killed by an asteroid in an hour.

 

Furthermore, it's really weird to target feminists as being highly likely to influence the game in a way you don't like (e.g., add cootie-ridden females to play as). As Diogenes said before, few to no adults are perfectly lacking in ideologies or political stances. The likelihood of someone shoving their views into a game are just as high if they're, say, a libertarian as if they are a feminist. But no one fears the libertarian take-over of games on the basis that libertarian game developers undoubtedly exist. But merely say you're a feminist? The tangent in this topic happens.

[Solly]

It's not bad to push an agenda nor necessarily a good thing. The agenda itself should be praised or attacked on its own merits. When we say that someone is "pushing an agenda" and that is inherently a bad thing, we're telling someone that their arguments are unwanted regardless of what they are. We are shutting out thought, which is again problematic from a social standpoint because we are actually never not living in a moment where prejudice of some form exists and is affecting everyone. 

I didn't consider the negative connotations of the phrase and simply used it because I more or less thought that's what she was doing. I didn't mean to sound dismissive of her ideas at all. 

 

Now, if the problem people have is that she can "influence the game;" of course she's going to! She was paid to be an enemy designer! But in the specific case of turning the main character female or black, that is most likely not going to happen due to the amount of red tape she'd have to cross (again, she has a specific role-- enemy designer, not character designer. There's actually a difference) and the amount of convincing she'd have to do to the rest of her team to make that happen. As such, seriously worrying about that is like worrying we're going to be killed by an asteroid in an hour.

 

Furthermore, it's really weird to target feminists as being highly likely to influence the game in a way you don't like (e.g., add cootie-ridden females to play as). As Diogenes said before, few to no adults are perfectly lacking in ideologies or political stances. The likelihood of someone shoving their views into a game are just as high if they're, say, a libertarian as if they are a feminist. But no one fears the libertarian take-over of games on the basis that libertarian game developers undoubtedly exist. But merely say you're a feminist? The tangent in this topic happens.

And I agree completely that it's unreasonable to think her views will have any real effect, and that the treatment of "feminist" as a bad word that incites rage in some people is absolutely ridiculous and counterproductive. Dangerous, even.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Retsupurae attempts to sum up the controversy.

 

 

And also, I guess /v/ invaded the comments section, and are showing the internet just how well-reasoned and behaved the members of the board really are.

[MegasonicZX]

Man that was funny and now I hope they add in a playable female beck just to see the reaction it gets from everybody. Also, I never knew fanart was considered forcing your views into a game.

[ProfessorZolo]

I know I'm glossing over the major issue at hand here, but Beck is a robot. It doesn't HAVE a gender.

What difference does it make whether they want to say it's male or female? It'd look exactly the same!

[SuperStingray]

It's not bad to push an agenda nor necessarily a good thing. The agenda itself should be praised or attacked on its own merits. When we say that someone is "pushing an agenda" and that is inherently a bad thing, we're telling someone that their arguments are unwanted regardless of what they are. We are shutting out thought, which is again problematic from a social standpoint because we are actually never not living in a moment where prejudice of some form exists and is affecting everyone.

I agree, but only to the extent that the agenda fits or can fit with the story in theme and tone.  If I was playing Final Fantasy and one of the characters starts talking about why pot (or even some fabricated in-universe version of it) should be legalized, they could present the best case ever for it but that wouldn't stop it from completely taking me out of the game and probably backfire as a result.  That being said, I wouldn't exactly call having a female protagonist taking a hard political stance or pushing an agenda.  I didn't see any backlash towards Samus being a woman.

 

I know I'm glossing over the major issue at hand here, but Beck is a robot. It doesn't HAVE a gender.

What difference does it make whether they want to say it's male or female? It'd look exactly the same!

Beck does have a gender, just not a sex.  Gender isn't "male vs. female" it's "masculine vs. feminine."  Just because a robot can't have chromosomes doesn't mean that it can't have characteristics associated with them.

[Nepenthe]

I agree, but only to the extent that the agenda fits or can fit with the story in theme and tone.  If I was playing Final Fantasy and one of the characters starts talking about why pot (or even some fabricated in-universe version of it) should be legalized, they could present the best case ever for it but that wouldn't stop it from completely taking me out of the game and probably backfire as a result.  That being said, I wouldn't exactly call having a female protagonist taking a hard political stance or pushing an agenda.  I didn't see any backlash towards Samus being a woman.

 

True, but I'm not suggesting that a creator's or artist's agenda be implemented in a way that would be detrimental to the final product's presentation. You can address drug legalization in a multitude of ways than having a character turn to a camera and give a PSA. Ultimately, I'm saying that if someone expresses the desire for the industry to address the disparity in minority representation by doing the obvious and asking more minorities in games, backlash against the very act of asking just reinforces the idea that gaming is a straight white boys club. If people really are fine with more gender/racial/sexual minorities in games, we don't need to foam at the mouth every single time a self-proclaimed feminist or a woman says something people apparently agree with.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

So let's see what the YouTube comment collective has to say on the matter. I'm bringing this one up because everyone seems to echo it there:

 

 

 

You seem to have missed the entire point, she's a DESIGNER too. She was hired due to NEPOTISM and she is SEVERELY UNDERQUALIFIED TO BE WORKING AT THIS PLACE

It has NOTHING TO DO WITH HER BEING A GIRL

 

Which is a weird stance to take, admittedly, because plenty of other people in the games industry got jobs because they know people, e.g. Grant Kirkhope.

[Space☆Tomoki]

*walks in*

>Woman who happens to be an "Extreme" feminist working on a game

>got job working on indie game through connections despite lacking experience because that's what a lot of people have to do to get a job and get their foot in the door these days

>game is start of brand new indie series inspired by and pays homage to Mega Man

 

Not really seeing the problem here. Regardless of her views, a rookie's gotta get a start somehow, I suppose. *shrugs* As long as the game is good in the end, that's all that matters to me.

 

*leaves*

[MegasonicZX]

Wouldn't it technically be a good thing that she is doing enemy designs? I mean I know the fans want this to be as close to megaman as possible but since this designer doesn't have any experience with megaman she'll have fresh new enemy designs and not be fighting with an enemy style that she use to use.

[goku262002]

I don't care if you guys don't like cross-posting from other forums, its allowed techinally and I need to make this issue shut up, I brought it up after all:

http://www.mightyno9.com/en/node/826 (Can't visit unless you are a backer)

 

12/11/2013 - 23:46

Hey guys n gals—Mark from 8-4 here!

First of all, thank you to everyone who has been participating on the forums! Everyone on the team is SUPER happy to see so many made the jump over, even as we continue to refine and improve the functionality and speed. We also want to apologize that the lack of certain features (private messaging, the reply system, thread locking, etc.) can make finding the discussions you want to take part in a bit challenging, but rest assured we are working on improvements and watching the suggestion threads closely to help set priorities.

One thing that has really highlighted the shortcomings of the current forum setup (especially the fact we can't lock threads to consolidate them) has been the biggest topic of the last couple days: the introduction of our official community manager, Dina. Along with plenty of congrats and well-wishes (thanks to all those folks!), some backers have expressed perfectly understandable concerns about exactly how their voice would be represented to the team, and have been discussing (in a mostly-civil manner, though sadly with a few loud exceptions) what they might imagine the implications of this new role could be on the community and the project.

Will the community manager be skewing things the way they would personally like to see the game? Will the community manager ignore views that don’t match with their own personal ideals? Will the community manager lose the community’s desires due to unfamiliarity with the type of game we are making? Will the community manager be creating their own robots and levels and programming, or changing the game in any way, from what the core creative team wants?! A lot of these or similar questions have been raised.

The good news is that the answer, in all cases, is no.

The job of the community manager is to act as a conduit between the community and the team – basically help keep the team filled in on what all of you are talking about, and help keep all of you filled in on what’s going on with the team internally. A community manager who filtered this process to further any personal agenda would not, by definition, be a community manager! and the fact that they were doing so would be immediately obvious to the team, who is plugged into the community in more ways than one.

When it comes to feedback, a Community Manager needs to be detached and impartial, and rest assured, Dina is and will be (in fact, one of the first bits of feedback she passed along were the concerns some had about how she would work in her new role, which is why I’m posting this here, today.

As far as affecting the game in other ways, rest assured all direction and decisions are still in the hands of all the same people they have been from the start. Everyone should know that choosing a community manager is not something the team took lightly -- all the key players at Comcept were involved in the selection and hiring process, all the way up to and including Inafune himself. We are supremely confident we made a great choice, as we think you will all agree as you get to know Dina and see her work.

Of course, the proof will be in the doing -- we look forward to hearing what you all think as we start to roll out different aspects of our community involvement over the next few months, starting next week with the second round of the Call vote! (And maybe some smaller tidbits sprinkled here and there we have planned semi-regularly to get you glimpses behind the action, posted here to the forums from time to time). In the meantime, you can learn more about Dina and see her in action (or ask a question yourself!) in her Ask Me Anything thread in Off-Topic.

http://mightyno9.com/en/node/734 or http://www.mightyno9.com/en/node/734

Speaking of which, as a point of order we will be moving all threads having to do with Dina and the community manager role in general (except this one! Feel free to sound off here) into the Off Topic section, since, at this point, they are largely about personnel, personal views or politics. We also know there are many redundant and overlapping threads on this and others topics, but without a lock feature (where we could post a link to the one thread to use for any similar topic), we will just let them keep going for now, to err on the side of transparency. Hopefully the web team can get the lock feature soon so we can consolidate threads on the same topic – BIG apologies to the vast majority of folks who are just here to actually talk about the game!

EDIT: Update -- while I was working on this today, the team figured out how to lock threads!! Huzzah! Look for similar threads to be locked and redirected so that we have less duplicate threads about the same stuff! Yay! ;D

Finally, and importantly, I wanted to give HUGE thanks once again to all the Beckers who have been helping point others to info on this topic, clarify misunderstandings, and generally been helpful to their fellow Beckers. You impress us everyday with your generosity and positive energy – thank you thank you thank you!

Sincerely,

Mark (Mighty No. 84)

p.s. – sorry in advance if I can’t respond to your reply here; it doesn’t mean I don’t care or don’t see your message!

There, status quo. nothings gonna happen.

Now unless this members vs. mods debate about Sexism, feminism and whatnot in the games industry wants to continue in a seperate thread, lets go make it hell it looks like their is discussion value.

But we should get back to what this thread is about and let the issue end here. agreed?

[Blitz 'n Burst]

I bet this does absolutely nothing to stop people from complaining, though

[goku262002]

 

I bet this does absolutely nothing to stop people from complaining, though

 

Actually it has, the forum has quieted down now that she has her own dedicated topic and they are learning how to use their own board.

Seriously, whats with that comment about not being able to lock topics until now? what is this board software and why would they jump into it without knowing how it works?!

[Solkia]

Wait

 

hold the phone

 

People actually use that shitty forum?

[Milo]

I bet this does absolutely nothing to stop people from complaining, though

 

Don't imply anything said on the internet doesn't stop people from complaining.

[Gabz Girl]

All this drama just because a supposedly extremely feminist woman is working on the game. *sighs* What is wrong here? I feel like I'm missing something cos I don't see what the big problem is. And it's not like she's leading the whole damn team.

[Sean]

Now unless this members vs. mods debate about Sexism, feminism and whatnot in the games industry wants to continue in a seperate thread, lets go make it hell it looks like their is discussion value.

But we should get back to what this thread is about and let the issue end here. agreed?

Okay, knock this shit off. You are not a moderator and you have absolutely no right to redirect conversation whatsoever. People can talk about this issue in this thread and it is not your call to dictate when a conversation begins or ends. I am so fucking sick of your backseat moderating and your overall attitude, so if I see you do this one more god damn time, I will personally make sure you are never able to do it again. I wouldn't even be saying anything right now if you weren't already constantly doing this shit your entire time on the boards, don't think the staff hasn't noticed this sort of behavior from you.

[Diogenes]

Seems like the final Call vote is starting up; here's the finalized designs:

 

 

Don't forget to vote (for Call E)!

[Soniman]

Yeah, E all the way

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

E or F are both good choices, so I'm happy here.

[Solly]

I voted E because she looks like a little flight attendant and that's amusing. She's also got a pretty unique design overall and she fits the "support robot" theme well. All of the choices are pretty good, but the main reason I didn't choose F was because it looks just a bit too much like Roll for my tastes.

[Candescence]

GODDAMN IT. I'm honestly not sure, I like all three, H reminds me of Penny from Inspector Gadget, which I think is neat.

[Solkia]

F, I'm a sucker for long hair and striped sleeves.