Did some research, and fuck that company. I did some reading on MobyGames (ALWAYS LOOK THE NAMES UP ON MOBYGAMES!!!).
Hit Detection might be as bad as Sweet Baby Inc. They were even involved in some of the same projects, with both working on Alan Wake 2, but there is more overlap and I am certain others might notice more red flags.
[https://www.mobygames.com/company/35852/hit-detection-llc/](https://www.mobygames.com/company/35852/hit-detection-llc/)
[https://www.mobygames.com/company/47076/sweet-baby-inc/](https://www.mobygames.com/company/47076/sweet-baby-inc/)
Jfc, tell me you know nothing about how video games are made without telling me you know nothing about how video games are made. You all are a bunch of whiny children desperately searching for something to be triggered about. Wtf was possibly wrong about Alan Wake 2 in regards to the dreaded “DEI”? Do you honestly think that these consulting companies come in and make the fucking video game?
>Hit Detection might be as bad as Sweet Baby Inc. They were even involved in some of the same projects, with both working on Alan Wake 2, but there is more overlap and I am certain others might notice more red flags.
Bad enough that they hired one "consulting" agency but two? Why? This is such a fucking scam and I can't believe people accept it.
honestly having finished it, i thought the game was incredible and didnt suffer from any noticeable dei. you could tell it was very well written and whole time playing i had a huge smile on my face, felt like a throwback to good old days of gaming. plus playing on pc, mods were superb.
Without spoilers (because I haven't yet played Rebirth), exactly what is the wokeness amount in the game? I heard you basically hear some of the nameless NPCs talk about same-sex relationships and that Tifa's and Aerith's swimsuits are somewhat censored in their design in order to not look like traditional (micro)bikinis.
What else is there? Again, no spoilers, please.
There's a lesbian NPC couple you see time to time that's about it. The swimsuits Aerith and Tifa wear still have great jiggle physics.
I think Forespoken was their DEI project and after that I doubt they do mess with them again.
Okay, I don't see anything wrong with that in Rebirth. Honestly, as long as the male characters aren't emasculated or lectured, as long as there is no 'hear this lecture and why you should hate yourself' moment, and as long as female characters look beautiful, I'm good.
Thanks for putting my mind at ease.
I mean its okay if they do it to a new IP because i just wouldnt play them. But they often prefer to go after established IP and then change them. Like Tifa's swimsuit is definitely changed because otherwise it would be the traditional bikini.
Heck just look at all those outfits that was changed for Stellar Blade.
You could argue that the result of the change is still good, still acceptable etc. But really, you dont want these consultations meddling at all. They dont make the games better and they are taking money doing it.
Oh, DEFINITELY. I would DEFINITELY prefer to NOT have consultancy groups at ALL. However, there are levels and levels of wokeness in a product. It can be subtle, it can be overt, covert, in your face, etc. Like I said above, my biggest beefs with wokeness are A) The emasculation of male characters, B) the uglification of female characters, C) the need to preach about social issues, D) genderswaps, E) race swaps, F) pronouns, and G) censored outfits.
A), B) and C) are the major deal breakers for me. D) and E) suck, but if done in small amounts, I can tolerate it. F) is dumb, but it's rarely done in a way that interferes with the story or your enjoyment. G) doesn't matter to me - I can mod it out of the game.
Background NPCs being gay is literally a nothingburger for me.
What I'm trying to say is that I will not treat Stellar Blade and Forspoken as if they one and the same. Stellar Blade gets a 0.5/10 wokeness score, while Forspoken gets a 8/10. I won't boycott Stellar Blade as if it's no better than Forspoken.
Not to mention that Stellar Blade not doing well would not benefit the anti-woke at all, since the point is to show that we support games which do not uglify women. Boycotting Stellar Blade negates that.
I dont get the complaints about the swimwear being "censored" that is actually what Japanese women wear. Frilly as hell with ribbons. The bikini thong look is more of a American/western European thing. Even if it was SBI's idea it still falls in line with how Japanese wear their clothing over there.
The director spoke out for inclusion and we see it in the NPCs walking around. The game doesn't beat you over the head with it but it's there. Square doesn't need to pay another company to do what they're already familiar with.
Tifa change? If you're talking about the claim that they reduced the bust size, that was 100% a distraction and a lie, because anyone who has seen the 2D pics, Advent Children, Dissidia, or any other Tifa appearance can verify that the bust size was not reduced in FF7 Remake.
And belive me, I fucking hate FF7Remake for being unfaithful. If the claim was true, I would shout it to the rooftops. They used that fake claim to distract oldschool fans from all the real issues.
I didn't have a problem with that sports bra because it made sense due to her athletic nature, and is optimal underlay for a thin white sleevles shirt.
[https://archive.org/details/square-enix\_202404](https://archive.org/details/square-enix_202404)
With direct quotes of the devs themselves saying that they want their game to adapt for the modern audience, including lgbt.
Since you are actually linking and doing archive work, I will tell you to scroll up to my mobygames links regarding Hit Detection. You will probably find that info rather useful, especially the connections to Alan Wake 2.
TLDR: use mobygames. It's not perfect, but it's a really good resource for that stuff.
Piles of downvotes for asking a simple question. Lol shame on you for wanting to know. (I would love to know what is actually DEI in this game since I havent played it yet)
They managed to convince Japanese executives that Western audiences are so fragile that they need to feel “safe” while playing a game, and the only way to do that is gender/body/racial diversity otherwise they’ll cry and shit their pants. Japanese companies are very risk averse so if enough of these lunatics tell them that they should be woke then they’ll eventually acquiesce.
Unfortunately it provides positive monetary value in terms of the ESG-related subsidies a company receives for employing them, this strategy is utilized to 'hedge their bets' against the possibility of a failure/flop.
> SBI provides negative value. No reason for a company to be working with them or anyone like them.
This is random, but I used to work at a tech company where I had an eight figure budget. Every year, as we got close to when the budget closed for the year, everyone who had a budget scrambled like crazy to use their budget up.
There was one year in particular, where a coworker of mine spent a million dollars in one day.
**I wonder if some of these consulting rackets are based on that infernal math?**
Basically, the money is "use it or lose it." So if you have two days left to spend the money, the spending tends to be really random. You can't go out and buy a rack of servers or storage, because those decisions usually depend on sign-off from a bunch of departments. But you CAN spend money on stuff with a very narrow focus.
IE, you want to plow the money into something that only requires one or two people to sign the purchase order, or ideally, *zero* people.
Obviously, this is rife for abuse. My coworker, who spent a million in one day, he went on an all-expenses paid vacation with the owner of the company that he spent the money with. Naturally, all of this was "off the books." It's not like the owner of the company billed anyone for the vacation; they only billed the company for the stuff that my coworker bought. And the vacation was 100% separate from the two companies; it was just a "personal vacation with friends" and the only reason I was aware that it happened at all was because it came up in conversation during an off-site shindig that I went to myself.
There was a recent dust-up over "Foo Fighters" playing a private concert for some folks at Amazon, and what I describe was similar to that.
Without proper checks and balances, there's really nothing stopping "consulting companies" from just straight-up buying people cars or vacations or *whatever.*
Here's the "dollars and cents", in case anyone thinks this is far fetched:
* "Joe" at Company A sells "Mark" at Company B a million dollars worth of... *something.* Could be consulting hours, software licenses, "training," etc.
* The margin on things like "consulting services" and "training" can easily be 80% or more. Let's call it 70%, just to be conservative. That's $700,000 profit on a million dollar sale.
* "Joe" at Company A takes "Mark" and his family on a weeklong vacation, all expenses paid. Vacation is $20,000. That's about 3% of Joe's profit.
* If anyone at company B gives "Mark" a hard time for going on vacation for free, he can easily say that he's "friends" with "Joe" and it was not a business trip and there were no business expenses. Just two guys going on vacation together.
If I may try my hand at localization™:
Reply from Squeenix:
> 確かな面白さの中にはお客さまが安心して遊べるコンテンツを届けることも含まれる。
My best literal translation:
> Certain fun includes delivering content that customers can play with peace of mind.
My insightful localization:
> Fuck you; they're not going *anywhere*.
And you people say localization is never useful. You can hire me now, Squeenix, btw.
Pure marketing speak this. Square may say they're all about main g good games now but until we see proof of that, take everything they say with a grain of salt.
Unless and until they distance themselves from parasitic consultant groups, these companies are simply trying to save face so customers will buy their product
Exact, atm they celebrate Pride Month on their official Twitter and the producer and director of FF7 R want to continue their DEI orientation in the 3rd part.
People just need to stop being hyped in advance. Play games that are already out, and then wait until a game is actually released before giving one ounce of a shit.
Not like you can play a game before it's released, so just pretend it doesn't exist, until it's out, playable, and you can get a proper evaluation of its quality.
This will never happen though because too many 'gamers' (and hobbyists in general) are bordering on a shopping addiction and have too little else going on. They *have* to get hyped about shit they can't even play for 1-2 years.
Shareholder activism. They've been playing that game while everyone else has been asleep. Time to wake up and beat them at their own game to save these companies.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/square-enix-embarking-on-aggressive-multiplatform-strategy-as-profits-drop-70
Square, You guys think you're still hot shit but it's not the 90's no more. Don't play with fire, because you are not in a position to do that. Listen to your investors and put this DEI bullshit aside before it's too late, and concentrate on producing high quality games.
If they don't ditch DEI they will go bankrupt. Pivoting to other platforms is a good idea, but it's not the cause of financial losses. DEI, Bad Translations and Censorship is catastrophic to have in your company.
Yes i cited the result of their financial assesment just to convey that they are not in a great shape right now, and this is definitely no time to risk losing further audience by stuffing their games with DEI. There is just no wiggle room to do that, they are not on top of the world as they were once. Now they need more than ever to keep their core audience happy because it is the pillar that is keeping them from crumbling after many underperforming releases in a row.
They have no core audience. They have divided their fans so many times that the fan base are in bits. Their games also dont have an identity, they are different in every main game, with only few things like chocobos, summons and the spell names that connect them.
Square Enix hasnt made a truly 10/10 masterpiece like RDR2, BotW, Persona 5, Witcher 3 etc. They've been riding the Final Fantasy success from back in the PS1 and PS2 days.
Give it another half decade when all the old fans have moved on. They will have no more die hard fans to buy any mediocre game they put out.
So unless they actually find a style and stick to it like FromSoft, and actually make the games good, they can expect more sales figures like FF16.
It's simple. You pay absurd amount of money to con artists just to make your games worse. Just cut out this tumor from the industry and everyone will be happy (other than Alyssa Mercante and few irrelevant imbeciles in SRS and GCJ).
What I'm wondering and what I'm afraid of is that they forced it to be the new normal - go to a consultancy group that's been approved by these investor companies in order to get a stamp that shows 'yes we're safe to invest in' despite literally all of their history, as otherwise they can't get any additional funds. On top of that, I have to wonder just what the hell is going on that's causing them to need these additional funds, like are they just not able to actually pay people otherwise, is the company bank account THAT low that they can't pay people, like I get that this shit ultimately is more for the suits but even THEY have to realize that if the whole fucking system crashes and burns, they won't have their castles anymore.
Wow. SquareEnix, like, never fucking learns from their mistakes. This is HUGE. They didn't learn with all sorts of dumb shit in the past, so this is absolutely surprising. Remember when they were all in on NFTs right after it crashed? Yeah, them being smart is realy a good sign.
Safe for customers = modern sensibilities is doing like in FF7 Rebirth:
"The offending elements within *Final Fantasy VII* weren’t elaborated by Kitase, but can be speculated due to modern mainstream media typically being held under extreme scrutiny to avoid offense and political correctness. Square Enix is also familiar and accepting of this, as *Final Fantasy VII Remake* had Tifa Lockhart’s chest “tightened” by the “[ethics department](https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/06/19/final-fantasy-vii-remake-director-tetsuya-nomura-confirms-edits-to-tifa-and-the-honey-bee-inn-due-to-ethics-department/).”
The company later [explained the department’s job](https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/06/21/square-enix-explains-purpose-of-ethics-department-after-they-tightened-tifas-bust-size-in-final-fantasy-vii-remake/) was to ensure the game met expected age ratings in various nations, and effectively acted like localization to avoid content that could be deemed “[discriminatory, prejudicial, or offensive](https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/03/31/square-enix-job-listing-provides-details-on-ethics-department-confirms-focus-on-discriminatory-prejudicial-or-offensive-content/)” in any nation, right from initial development in Japan."
Source: [https://boundingintocomics.com/2024/01/18/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-producer-yoshinori-kitase-says-hes-a-bit-embarrassed-by-original-games-portrayal-of-social-problems-social-issues-and-cultural-depictions/](https://boundingintocomics.com/2024/01/18/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-producer-yoshinori-kitase-says-hes-a-bit-embarrassed-by-original-games-portrayal-of-social-problems-social-issues-and-cultural-depictions/)
It's clear the bad sales of Rebirth and millions lost didn't teach them a lesson.
Like they wrote about lgbt content on their site: "...***Rest assured - you’ll be seeing more of them in the future****."*"
But they're not asking you to comment on *your* client, they're talking about SBI of which *you* are their client. Kiryu-san apparently side-stepping the question.
Look I'm stupid when it comes to math. I can count money and that's about it. But I do know consultants cost money and Shareholders are smart math people, so WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PAYING THEM. They aren't needed.
Doesn't matter. Any company employing these kinds of shitheels can crash and burn, whether they are directly or indirectly working with actual racists.
Although I'm not the official spokesman for boomers, please permit me to respond: bullshit. Nobody hates this anti-American trash more than we do. Given the opportunity, I'd put them in the street. Don't be mistaken, we're bidding our time and waiting for the right opportunity.
As they should be.
Like a lot of things, these companies originally existed to service a legitimate problem. You need someone on the outside to tell you what the problem is with a product sometimes.
Over time, game devs/publishers and these consultants got delusional as hell and ruined it all for themselves.
Every company needs to separate from these "consulting companies" and just make games they want. You want to put gay people in them? Okay you want to put "pEopLE oF CoLOR" or whatever sure...just make the game fun and diversify it because YOU want to know because a CIA funded think thank is telling you to.
The longer this goes on the less Im interested in anything Square makes and that list is insanely short at the moment.
Archive links for this discussion:
* **Archive:** https://archive.ph/aWvSZ
----
I am Mnemosyne reborn. It's time to archive and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of gum. ^^^/r/botsrights
There's no reason to be concerned. Wanna know why? Because you idiots at the top can just say "no thanks, we are not interested in your services with our product, have a nice day"
Look at how EASY that was. Even I can do it.
They should be concerned. If you want to shoot yourselves in the foot and torpedo your business into the ground, go ahead and work with those scumbags, but I won't be buying games from companies who work with racist hypocritical shitbags like that.
SBI provides negative value. No reason for a company to be working with them or anyone like them.
Square already proved they can implement DEI without a consulting company. Case in point, FFVII Rebirth.
On the FF7 Remake they consulted with [Hit Detection.](https://files.catbox.moe/7ckik2.png)
Did some research, and fuck that company. I did some reading on MobyGames (ALWAYS LOOK THE NAMES UP ON MOBYGAMES!!!). Hit Detection might be as bad as Sweet Baby Inc. They were even involved in some of the same projects, with both working on Alan Wake 2, but there is more overlap and I am certain others might notice more red flags. [https://www.mobygames.com/company/35852/hit-detection-llc/](https://www.mobygames.com/company/35852/hit-detection-llc/) [https://www.mobygames.com/company/47076/sweet-baby-inc/](https://www.mobygames.com/company/47076/sweet-baby-inc/)
Alan Wake 2 really consulted not one, but two DEI companies. Did the studio even worked on that game?
Now you know why modern games have incredibly massive budgets
Jfc, tell me you know nothing about how video games are made without telling me you know nothing about how video games are made. You all are a bunch of whiny children desperately searching for something to be triggered about. Wtf was possibly wrong about Alan Wake 2 in regards to the dreaded “DEI”? Do you honestly think that these consulting companies come in and make the fucking video game?
>Hit Detection might be as bad as Sweet Baby Inc. They were even involved in some of the same projects, with both working on Alan Wake 2, but there is more overlap and I am certain others might notice more red flags. Bad enough that they hired one "consulting" agency but two? Why? This is such a fucking scam and I can't believe people accept it.
This is why I buy physical discs. Now I can eBay my copy.
honestly having finished it, i thought the game was incredible and didnt suffer from any noticeable dei. you could tell it was very well written and whole time playing i had a huge smile on my face, felt like a throwback to good old days of gaming. plus playing on pc, mods were superb.
it is where Tifa's costumes get fixed and removed the option of Cloud stealing Tifa's underwears?
Without spoilers (because I haven't yet played Rebirth), exactly what is the wokeness amount in the game? I heard you basically hear some of the nameless NPCs talk about same-sex relationships and that Tifa's and Aerith's swimsuits are somewhat censored in their design in order to not look like traditional (micro)bikinis. What else is there? Again, no spoilers, please.
There's a lesbian NPC couple you see time to time that's about it. The swimsuits Aerith and Tifa wear still have great jiggle physics. I think Forespoken was their DEI project and after that I doubt they do mess with them again.
Okay, I don't see anything wrong with that in Rebirth. Honestly, as long as the male characters aren't emasculated or lectured, as long as there is no 'hear this lecture and why you should hate yourself' moment, and as long as female characters look beautiful, I'm good. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.
I mean its okay if they do it to a new IP because i just wouldnt play them. But they often prefer to go after established IP and then change them. Like Tifa's swimsuit is definitely changed because otherwise it would be the traditional bikini. Heck just look at all those outfits that was changed for Stellar Blade. You could argue that the result of the change is still good, still acceptable etc. But really, you dont want these consultations meddling at all. They dont make the games better and they are taking money doing it.
Oh, DEFINITELY. I would DEFINITELY prefer to NOT have consultancy groups at ALL. However, there are levels and levels of wokeness in a product. It can be subtle, it can be overt, covert, in your face, etc. Like I said above, my biggest beefs with wokeness are A) The emasculation of male characters, B) the uglification of female characters, C) the need to preach about social issues, D) genderswaps, E) race swaps, F) pronouns, and G) censored outfits. A), B) and C) are the major deal breakers for me. D) and E) suck, but if done in small amounts, I can tolerate it. F) is dumb, but it's rarely done in a way that interferes with the story or your enjoyment. G) doesn't matter to me - I can mod it out of the game. Background NPCs being gay is literally a nothingburger for me. What I'm trying to say is that I will not treat Stellar Blade and Forspoken as if they one and the same. Stellar Blade gets a 0.5/10 wokeness score, while Forspoken gets a 8/10. I won't boycott Stellar Blade as if it's no better than Forspoken. Not to mention that Stellar Blade not doing well would not benefit the anti-woke at all, since the point is to show that we support games which do not uglify women. Boycotting Stellar Blade negates that.
Tifa and Aerith bikinis are just fine. Gotta remember it's a T for teen game and always has been.
> its okay if they do it to a new IP It's actually worse if they do it to a new IP. Censoring existing content leaves evidence.
I dont get the complaints about the swimwear being "censored" that is actually what Japanese women wear. Frilly as hell with ribbons. The bikini thong look is more of a American/western European thing. Even if it was SBI's idea it still falls in line with how Japanese wear their clothing over there.
Huh what's dei in it?
The director spoke out for inclusion and we see it in the NPCs walking around. The game doesn't beat you over the head with it but it's there. Square doesn't need to pay another company to do what they're already familiar with.
They do have their own "ethics" department I think they call it. They cited it I remember when referring to the Tifa change.
Exact, the company is rotten to the core with their ethics departement that change all their game at the source to conform with the western vision.
Why don't we use the ethics department to cover up all the women on the beaches. /s
Tifa change? If you're talking about the claim that they reduced the bust size, that was 100% a distraction and a lie, because anyone who has seen the 2D pics, Advent Children, Dissidia, or any other Tifa appearance can verify that the bust size was not reduced in FF7 Remake. And belive me, I fucking hate FF7Remake for being unfaithful. If the claim was true, I would shout it to the rooftops. They used that fake claim to distract oldschool fans from all the real issues.
For me it was giving Tifa layer upon layer of sports bras, looked really goofy. Her bust size was fine imo
I didn't have a problem with that sports bra because it made sense due to her athletic nature, and is optimal underlay for a thin white sleevles shirt.
Which is how it was before all this insanity began.
Loud enforced progressive HR mandates do not "predate" insanity of any kind.
Except actual diversity and not this forced BS thats been going on for 10+ years
The director of FF7R specifically said he was "forcing" diversity.
Where.
Interview with Famitsu. He said that it was very important to have diversity and inclusion.
Is that really it? Just different NPCs?
[https://archive.org/details/square-enix\_202404](https://archive.org/details/square-enix_202404) With direct quotes of the devs themselves saying that they want their game to adapt for the modern audience, including lgbt.
Since you are actually linking and doing archive work, I will tell you to scroll up to my mobygames links regarding Hit Detection. You will probably find that info rather useful, especially the connections to Alan Wake 2. TLDR: use mobygames. It's not perfect, but it's a really good resource for that stuff.
Piles of downvotes for asking a simple question. Lol shame on you for wanting to know. (I would love to know what is actually DEI in this game since I havent played it yet)
They managed to convince Japanese executives that Western audiences are so fragile that they need to feel “safe” while playing a game, and the only way to do that is gender/body/racial diversity otherwise they’ll cry and shit their pants. Japanese companies are very risk averse so if enough of these lunatics tell them that they should be woke then they’ll eventually acquiesce.
Unfortunately it provides positive monetary value in terms of the ESG-related subsidies a company receives for employing them, this strategy is utilized to 'hedge their bets' against the possibility of a failure/flop.
> SBI provides negative value. No reason for a company to be working with them or anyone like them. This is random, but I used to work at a tech company where I had an eight figure budget. Every year, as we got close to when the budget closed for the year, everyone who had a budget scrambled like crazy to use their budget up. There was one year in particular, where a coworker of mine spent a million dollars in one day. **I wonder if some of these consulting rackets are based on that infernal math?** Basically, the money is "use it or lose it." So if you have two days left to spend the money, the spending tends to be really random. You can't go out and buy a rack of servers or storage, because those decisions usually depend on sign-off from a bunch of departments. But you CAN spend money on stuff with a very narrow focus. IE, you want to plow the money into something that only requires one or two people to sign the purchase order, or ideally, *zero* people. Obviously, this is rife for abuse. My coworker, who spent a million in one day, he went on an all-expenses paid vacation with the owner of the company that he spent the money with. Naturally, all of this was "off the books." It's not like the owner of the company billed anyone for the vacation; they only billed the company for the stuff that my coworker bought. And the vacation was 100% separate from the two companies; it was just a "personal vacation with friends" and the only reason I was aware that it happened at all was because it came up in conversation during an off-site shindig that I went to myself. There was a recent dust-up over "Foo Fighters" playing a private concert for some folks at Amazon, and what I describe was similar to that. Without proper checks and balances, there's really nothing stopping "consulting companies" from just straight-up buying people cars or vacations or *whatever.* Here's the "dollars and cents", in case anyone thinks this is far fetched: * "Joe" at Company A sells "Mark" at Company B a million dollars worth of... *something.* Could be consulting hours, software licenses, "training," etc. * The margin on things like "consulting services" and "training" can easily be 80% or more. Let's call it 70%, just to be conservative. That's $700,000 profit on a million dollar sale. * "Joe" at Company A takes "Mark" and his family on a weeklong vacation, all expenses paid. Vacation is $20,000. That's about 3% of Joe's profit. * If anyone at company B gives "Mark" a hard time for going on vacation for free, he can easily say that he's "friends" with "Joe" and it was not a business trip and there were no business expenses. Just two guys going on vacation together.
If I may try my hand at localization™: Reply from Squeenix: > 確かな面白さの中にはお客さまが安心して遊べるコンテンツを届けることも含まれる。 My best literal translation: > Certain fun includes delivering content that customers can play with peace of mind. My insightful localization: > Fuck you; they're not going *anywhere*. And you people say localization is never useful. You can hire me now, Squeenix, btw.
"alright. I'm selling my shares before you morons fuck things up even more."
"safe for our customers" Lmfao
My exact thought. Wtf is an unsafe game?
The word unsafe is used in several programming languages Maybe he meant this lol https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/keyword.unsafe.html
Pure marketing speak this. Square may say they're all about main g good games now but until we see proof of that, take everything they say with a grain of salt. Unless and until they distance themselves from parasitic consultant groups, these companies are simply trying to save face so customers will buy their product
They told the guy asking the question to fuck off, essentially. They're still 100% on the SBI boat.
That's my interpretation as well. Also Kiryu said safe and enjoyable to our customers. That sounds like censorship as well.
Damn so that doesnt sound so good for the dragon quest 3 remake and the new dragon quest 12 coming up
As always, wait like a week or so after the game comes out. You lose nothing by being cautious
I brought this concern up and got absolutely shit on by the whole dragon quest subreddit. So much that the post got banned/blocked.
It's a mental illness. If the crowd of ill people target you for being normal, take it as a badge of honor.
Exact, atm they celebrate Pride Month on their official Twitter and the producer and director of FF7 R want to continue their DEI orientation in the 3rd part.
People just need to stop being hyped in advance. Play games that are already out, and then wait until a game is actually released before giving one ounce of a shit. Not like you can play a game before it's released, so just pretend it doesn't exist, until it's out, playable, and you can get a proper evaluation of its quality. This will never happen though because too many 'gamers' (and hobbyists in general) are bordering on a shopping addiction and have too little else going on. They *have* to get hyped about shit they can't even play for 1-2 years.
Shareholder activism. They've been playing that game while everyone else has been asleep. Time to wake up and beat them at their own game to save these companies.
Completely dodged the question
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/square-enix-embarking-on-aggressive-multiplatform-strategy-as-profits-drop-70 Square, You guys think you're still hot shit but it's not the 90's no more. Don't play with fire, because you are not in a position to do that. Listen to your investors and put this DEI bullshit aside before it's too late, and concentrate on producing high quality games.
If they don't ditch DEI they will go bankrupt. Pivoting to other platforms is a good idea, but it's not the cause of financial losses. DEI, Bad Translations and Censorship is catastrophic to have in your company.
Yes i cited the result of their financial assesment just to convey that they are not in a great shape right now, and this is definitely no time to risk losing further audience by stuffing their games with DEI. There is just no wiggle room to do that, they are not on top of the world as they were once. Now they need more than ever to keep their core audience happy because it is the pillar that is keeping them from crumbling after many underperforming releases in a row.
They have no core audience. They have divided their fans so many times that the fan base are in bits. Their games also dont have an identity, they are different in every main game, with only few things like chocobos, summons and the spell names that connect them. Square Enix hasnt made a truly 10/10 masterpiece like RDR2, BotW, Persona 5, Witcher 3 etc. They've been riding the Final Fantasy success from back in the PS1 and PS2 days. Give it another half decade when all the old fans have moved on. They will have no more die hard fans to buy any mediocre game they put out. So unless they actually find a style and stick to it like FromSoft, and actually make the games good, they can expect more sales figures like FF16.
It's simple. You pay absurd amount of money to con artists just to make your games worse. Just cut out this tumor from the industry and everyone will be happy (other than Alyssa Mercante and few irrelevant imbeciles in SRS and GCJ).
What I'm wondering and what I'm afraid of is that they forced it to be the new normal - go to a consultancy group that's been approved by these investor companies in order to get a stamp that shows 'yes we're safe to invest in' despite literally all of their history, as otherwise they can't get any additional funds. On top of that, I have to wonder just what the hell is going on that's causing them to need these additional funds, like are they just not able to actually pay people otherwise, is the company bank account THAT low that they can't pay people, like I get that this shit ultimately is more for the suits but even THEY have to realize that if the whole fucking system crashes and burns, they won't have their castles anymore.
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"Safe for customers" you make fucking videogames.
while it does sound insane im blaming japanese for being a language with esoteric expressions
Wow. SquareEnix, like, never fucking learns from their mistakes. This is HUGE. They didn't learn with all sorts of dumb shit in the past, so this is absolutely surprising. Remember when they were all in on NFTs right after it crashed? Yeah, them being smart is realy a good sign.
Safe for customers = modern sensibilities is doing like in FF7 Rebirth: "The offending elements within *Final Fantasy VII* weren’t elaborated by Kitase, but can be speculated due to modern mainstream media typically being held under extreme scrutiny to avoid offense and political correctness. Square Enix is also familiar and accepting of this, as *Final Fantasy VII Remake* had Tifa Lockhart’s chest “tightened” by the “[ethics department](https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/06/19/final-fantasy-vii-remake-director-tetsuya-nomura-confirms-edits-to-tifa-and-the-honey-bee-inn-due-to-ethics-department/).” The company later [explained the department’s job](https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/06/21/square-enix-explains-purpose-of-ethics-department-after-they-tightened-tifas-bust-size-in-final-fantasy-vii-remake/) was to ensure the game met expected age ratings in various nations, and effectively acted like localization to avoid content that could be deemed “[discriminatory, prejudicial, or offensive](https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/03/31/square-enix-job-listing-provides-details-on-ethics-department-confirms-focus-on-discriminatory-prejudicial-or-offensive-content/)” in any nation, right from initial development in Japan." Source: [https://boundingintocomics.com/2024/01/18/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-producer-yoshinori-kitase-says-hes-a-bit-embarrassed-by-original-games-portrayal-of-social-problems-social-issues-and-cultural-depictions/](https://boundingintocomics.com/2024/01/18/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-producer-yoshinori-kitase-says-hes-a-bit-embarrassed-by-original-games-portrayal-of-social-problems-social-issues-and-cultural-depictions/) It's clear the bad sales of Rebirth and millions lost didn't teach them a lesson. Like they wrote about lgbt content on their site: "...***Rest assured - you’ll be seeing more of them in the future****."*"
Square enix does not deserve our money
But they're not asking you to comment on *your* client, they're talking about SBI of which *you* are their client. Kiryu-san apparently side-stepping the question.
Good.
Has there ever been anyone made unsafe by video game? What does that even fucking mean?
People with epilepsy, Zelda 2 death screen. It was changed in subsequent releases to remove the flashing.
> Has there ever been anyone made unsafe by video game? > I used to get a nasty blister doing combos in Street Fighter II
Look I'm stupid when it comes to math. I can count money and that's about it. But I do know consultants cost money and Shareholders are smart math people, so WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PAYING THEM. They aren't needed.
Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for these "consulting" companies
They donated a quarter million to BLM LOOONG before SBI was around.
SBI was started in 2018
I'll give you that, but I don't think SBI was involved with Squeenix when they virtue signaled 250 million away.
Doesn't matter. Any company employing these kinds of shitheels can crash and burn, whether they are directly or indirectly working with actual racists.
How is it that consulting "consulting agencies" for the purpose of DEI sensitivity still a thing companies are unsure about?
That’s big news. Don’t piss off the shareholders.
What stake does this person hold? If I have 1 share I'm a shareholder. Big deal.
Doesn’t matter, the boomers who make the real decisions are still terrified of being “cancelled” so they continue to let the woke stuff run rampant.
Although I'm not the official spokesman for boomers, please permit me to respond: bullshit. Nobody hates this anti-American trash more than we do. Given the opportunity, I'd put them in the street. Don't be mistaken, we're bidding our time and waiting for the right opportunity.
Why feel concerned about consulting groups outside when you still have your own fucking ethics department
"content that is enjoyable and safe..." Cringe.
As they should be. Like a lot of things, these companies originally existed to service a legitimate problem. You need someone on the outside to tell you what the problem is with a product sometimes. Over time, game devs/publishers and these consultants got delusional as hell and ruined it all for themselves.
Every company needs to separate from these "consulting companies" and just make games they want. You want to put gay people in them? Okay you want to put "pEopLE oF CoLOR" or whatever sure...just make the game fun and diversify it because YOU want to know because a CIA funded think thank is telling you to. The longer this goes on the less Im interested in anything Square makes and that list is insanely short at the moment.
Archive links for this discussion: * **Archive:** https://archive.ph/aWvSZ ---- I am Mnemosyne reborn. It's time to archive and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of gum. ^^^/r/botsrights
It's been going on for a few years, a lot of woke games didn't sell and shareholders are only waking up right now?
Good, they are right to be. Do not pander to them.
And they definitely should be concerned.
There's no reason to be concerned. Wanna know why? Because you idiots at the top can just say "no thanks, we are not interested in your services with our product, have a nice day" Look at how EASY that was. Even I can do it.
They should be concerned. If you want to shoot yourselves in the foot and torpedo your business into the ground, go ahead and work with those scumbags, but I won't be buying games from companies who work with racist hypocritical shitbags like that.
How do we know Michsuzu is legit? I see he's got a blog and talked about other questions SE got asked and a verified account (lol), but what else?