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Black Myth: Wukong Devs Told Streamers to Avoid Politics in Their Playthroughs

31 points by jicea 2y ago

flerchin 2y ago
My favorite streamer shuts down politics chat immediately. "Let's talk about videogames instead." It's nice, you all can discuss politics literally anywhere else.
thritj73 2y ago
[flagged]
everdrive 2y ago
As opposed as I am to the constant infusion of politics into media (and I'm quite opposed to it) this also seems pretty bad. Why restrict the streamers? More importantly, why would any streamer listen to a video game developer? Literally nothing is at stake.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  > More importantly, why would any streamer listen to a video game developer? Literally nothing is at stake. Getting early access to the next game is at stake. It's the same "access journalism" playbook gaming companies have always run.
- KingMob 2y ago
  What's at stake is the reputation of developer Game Science, which isn't great atm. There was an exposé a year ago (https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black-myth-wukong-developers-history-of-sexism-is-complicating-its-journey-to-the-west https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black-myth-wukong-developer...) for leaked documents revealing sexism, misogyny, talking about genitals, etc. Apparently the lead creator is prone to saying stuff on social media, like "I want to expand my circle and hire more people, get licked until I can’t get an erection."
  - mjburgess 2y ago
    Those are gross mistranslations, and that article has been widely pilloried as yellow journalism. The "reputation" of games companies is something these games journalists use as "protection racket" strategy -- whereby they obtain access/credibility/etc. by "protecting" the reputation of the companies for which they otherwise concoct accusations. The strategy is a common media tactic today: 1) find some way of drumming up an accusation; 2) demand an apology "on behalf of" some group involved in your attack; 3) thereby centre yourself as the important arbiter of online drama; 4) profit from views/access journalism/etc. The only counter-strategy to this is to ignore it.
    - falcolas 2y ago
      Widely pilloried by Mark Kern, and really only Mark. Every followup article points back to them, or the single reddit comment he uses as his source. Mark is not someone I'd trust to be even handed when it comes to people being sexist or not. There have been China based news outlets who have remarked how sexist the statements were. Plus, he conveniently ignores the statement which isn't so easily misconstrued, where the developer claims Black Myth Wukong isn't for women, since they aren't good enough and should stick to sims games.
  - bitcharmer 2y ago
    You're either doing this in bad faith or allowed yourself to be played by gaming "journalists". This is a gross mistranslation of Chinese idioms.
- multimoon 2y ago
  Politics and forced messaging has wormed its way into every aspect of life - I’ll never not be okay with removing it from one of those aspects.
- Spivak 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - everdrive 2y ago
    There's a pretty clear distinction between the following scenarios: - A work of art contains political and social messages, not in the least because it's impossible for any author to wholly avoid coloring their work with political or social viewpoints. The author's experience and ideas do not exist in a vacuum, and will necessarily be a product of their time and environment. vs. - A work of art was primarily conceived to push specific political messages, and the actual "art" takes a clear back seat to the specific moral, political, or social messages being conveyed. vs. - A work of art cannot get funding unless it bends the knee to an outside group of ideologues who modify the work of art so that it specially conforms to the "correct" social values.
    - fuzzbazz 2y ago
      Please can we rollback everything to scenario #1 already? I'm starting to think that #2 and #3 are actively counter-productive and the pendulum is going to swing back too hard.
      - zer8k 2y ago
        2 and 3 are and always have been counter-productive. You’re some kind of -cist or -phobe if you don’t want to listen. Normal people have normal people problems. Normal well-adjusted people don’t want to go to the movies, play video games, go to work, go outside and be constantly bombarded with what the “correct” viewpoint should be. The group preaching tolerance seems to always tend towards moral panic and intolerance. The ship on changing the pendulum back to the average has sailed. A lot of people who’d normally be amicable to listening have been run off by the impossible constantly changing moral standards of the group pushing 3. It’s gone from “good to know” to propagandizing. People just want entertainment that doesn’t make them feel horrible. People want to be entertained without the feeling certain aspects of some movie/video game/music only exist to “convey the message”.
- nzach 2y ago
  This only applies to streamers who got the game for free. I think this is a bad practice, but it's an already well established practice with 'review outlets'. I remember seeing a yt video a while ago where a reviewer talked about the review embargo they received for some tech gadget(phone?) and how ridiculous it was. But in the end if they wanted to publish a video on lauch day the only option they had was to play ball with these rules.
- bathtub365 2y ago
  Streamers may receive the game for free, early, or be paid by publishers in exchange for coverage
Ekaros 2y ago
Seems entirely reasonable. And something that more media companies should do. If you want to yell politics don't do it while showing someone else's product.
- mjburgess 2y ago
  I think this is probably the right take. Streaming a video game is a legal grey area, and effectively the video game developer giving you the right to show copyrighted material for free -- a benefit with enormous value (given how many millions flow into streaming). It seems a reasonable limitation that the game developer can require people profiting from their copyrighted works to do so with some limitations. These should not apply to fair use situations, eg., parody/review/etc. But it seems highly plausible that streaming a video game is outside of fair use, and enabled by video game companies as a marketing strategy. For many video games, a stream of them replaces the point of playing them, so anti-fair use. Any sense of entitlement streamers have to this IP I think is misplaced.
AlexandrB 2y ago
This feels like an inflection point where the Chinese gaming industry might start to dominate. The game is certainly popular and there's a lot of positive buzz around the gameplay. A lot of people are tired of hamfisted messaging in their entertainment so I don't think the publisher's ban on the topics mentioned in the article is going to dissuade many of the target audience.
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  The Chinese gaming industry seem to make games for gamers, while the western gaming industry seems obsessed with unsuccessfully "converting" people that don't play games, as if they are some kind of untapped market.
  - kobalsky 2y ago
    Well King and Blizzard are in Activision, and at least some years ago in their balance sheets we saw that King has a similar operating income as Blizzard. Those silly mobile games rake in some cash.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      One can also ask how Tencent and NetEase is buying up stakes in everyone if they were not making money. There cannot be that much free money from CCP...
  - bitcharmer 2y ago
    The western studios are focusing on making games for "modern audiences" which amounts to around a hundred people. I kid you not. https://steamdb.info/app/721180/charts/ https://steamdb.info/app/721180/charts/
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      What first-party(Sony) title for 150 million buys: https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/ https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/
cscurmudgeon 2y ago
Here is a thought: by banning some but not all politically charged topics, you actually are introducing politics.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  Most of the people I see posting about "politics" (not actual politics like elections and legislation) mean "anything I personally disagree with is political and should be shut down because I don't like it". This applies equally to both sides before someone calls me a partisan hack.
  - cscurmudgeon 2y ago
    Well said. Imagine if the Nazi regime had a "no politics" clause that they used to censor things that went against them. This is what is happening here.
nerdjon 2y ago
[flagged]
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Representing of community at large? Like maybe take two recent high enough production value games that have done extremely great doing this. Dustborn and Concord. Massive number of players of this large community representation. Dozens and hundreds.
  - nerdjon 2y ago
    > done extremely great doing this. Doing what exactly? It isn't clear to me if you are advocating for recognizing a diverse group of players or to focus on a narrow definition of what a gamer is.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Sell copies and have players? Isn't that reasonable metric for entertainment product? My point is that two contemporary examples of games targeting and recognizing these new diverse groups of players have utterly failed. Indicating that either they totally failed in their marketing in informing that finally there is game for not gamers. Or there simply is no demand...
      - nerdjon 2y ago
        > Sell copies and have players? Isn't that reasonable metric for entertainment product? What your argument was, was unclear. Not everyone knows what is going on with every game at every time. I personally have not payed any attention to either of these games so had no idea what your point mentioning was. Counter Point: Boulders Gate 3. Overwatch. Mass Effect. Dragon Age. Apex Legends. Life is strange. The list goes on The fact is that there are a ton of games that introduce "politics" (diversity) into their video games that do just fine and trying to choose 2 as "failing" isn't proving your point. They could just be bad games with basically zero hype or marketing, I knew they existed but barely knew they even came out.
dagaci 2y ago
I only became aware of all the bruha about "Black Myth: Wukong" after i'd already bought it and my first thought was OMG is tripitaka missing ????(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_bNY_4VF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_bNY_4VF4) Anyhow the politics and commotion only exists if you follow twitter.
baboy 2y ago
[flagged]

31 points by jicea 2y ago

My favorite streamer shuts down politics chat immediately. "Let's talk about videogames instead." It's nice, you all can discuss politics literally anywhere else.

thritj73 2y ago

[flagged]

everdrive 2y ago

As opposed as I am to the constant infusion of politics into media (and I'm quite opposed to it) this also seems pretty bad. Why restrict the streamers? More importantly, why would any streamer listen to a video game developer? Literally nothing is at stake.

AlexandrB 2y ago
> More importantly, why would any streamer listen to a video game developer? Literally nothing is at stake. Getting early access to the next game is at stake. It's the same "access journalism" playbook gaming companies have always run.
KingMob 2y ago
What's at stake is the reputation of developer Game Science, which isn't great atm. There was an exposé a year ago (https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black-myth-wukong-developers-history-of-sexism-is-complicating-its-journey-to-the-west https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black-myth-wukong-developer...) for leaked documents revealing sexism, misogyny, talking about genitals, etc. Apparently the lead creator is prone to saying stuff on social media, like "I want to expand my circle and hire more people, get licked until I can’t get an erection."
- mjburgess 2y ago
  Those are gross mistranslations, and that article has been widely pilloried as yellow journalism. The "reputation" of games companies is something these games journalists use as "protection racket" strategy -- whereby they obtain access/credibility/etc. by "protecting" the reputation of the companies for which they otherwise concoct accusations. The strategy is a common media tactic today: 1) find some way of drumming up an accusation; 2) demand an apology "on behalf of" some group involved in your attack; 3) thereby centre yourself as the important arbiter of online drama; 4) profit from views/access journalism/etc. The only counter-strategy to this is to ignore it.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    Widely pilloried by Mark Kern, and really only Mark. Every followup article points back to them, or the single reddit comment he uses as his source. Mark is not someone I'd trust to be even handed when it comes to people being sexist or not. There have been China based news outlets who have remarked how sexist the statements were. Plus, he conveniently ignores the statement which isn't so easily misconstrued, where the developer claims Black Myth Wukong isn't for women, since they aren't good enough and should stick to sims games.
- bitcharmer 2y ago
  You're either doing this in bad faith or allowed yourself to be played by gaming "journalists". This is a gross mistranslation of Chinese idioms.
multimoon 2y ago
Politics and forced messaging has wormed its way into every aspect of life - I’ll never not be okay with removing it from one of those aspects.
Spivak 2y ago
[flagged]
- everdrive 2y ago
  There's a pretty clear distinction between the following scenarios: - A work of art contains political and social messages, not in the least because it's impossible for any author to wholly avoid coloring their work with political or social viewpoints. The author's experience and ideas do not exist in a vacuum, and will necessarily be a product of their time and environment. vs. - A work of art was primarily conceived to push specific political messages, and the actual "art" takes a clear back seat to the specific moral, political, or social messages being conveyed. vs. - A work of art cannot get funding unless it bends the knee to an outside group of ideologues who modify the work of art so that it specially conforms to the "correct" social values.
  - fuzzbazz 2y ago
    Please can we rollback everything to scenario #1 already? I'm starting to think that #2 and #3 are actively counter-productive and the pendulum is going to swing back too hard.
    - zer8k 2y ago
      2 and 3 are and always have been counter-productive. You’re some kind of -cist or -phobe if you don’t want to listen. Normal people have normal people problems. Normal well-adjusted people don’t want to go to the movies, play video games, go to work, go outside and be constantly bombarded with what the “correct” viewpoint should be. The group preaching tolerance seems to always tend towards moral panic and intolerance. The ship on changing the pendulum back to the average has sailed. A lot of people who’d normally be amicable to listening have been run off by the impossible constantly changing moral standards of the group pushing 3. It’s gone from “good to know” to propagandizing. People just want entertainment that doesn’t make them feel horrible. People want to be entertained without the feeling certain aspects of some movie/video game/music only exist to “convey the message”.
nzach 2y ago
This only applies to streamers who got the game for free. I think this is a bad practice, but it's an already well established practice with 'review outlets'. I remember seeing a yt video a while ago where a reviewer talked about the review embargo they received for some tech gadget(phone?) and how ridiculous it was. But in the end if they wanted to publish a video on lauch day the only option they had was to play ball with these rules.
bathtub365 2y ago
Streamers may receive the game for free, early, or be paid by publishers in exchange for coverage

Ekaros 2y ago

Seems entirely reasonable. And something that more media companies should do. If you want to yell politics don't do it while showing someone else's product.

mjburgess 2y ago
I think this is probably the right take. Streaming a video game is a legal grey area, and effectively the video game developer giving you the right to show copyrighted material for free -- a benefit with enormous value (given how many millions flow into streaming). It seems a reasonable limitation that the game developer can require people profiting from their copyrighted works to do so with some limitations. These should not apply to fair use situations, eg., parody/review/etc. But it seems highly plausible that streaming a video game is outside of fair use, and enabled by video game companies as a marketing strategy. For many video games, a stream of them replaces the point of playing them, so anti-fair use. Any sense of entitlement streamers have to this IP I think is misplaced.

AlexandrB 2y ago

This feels like an inflection point where the Chinese gaming industry might start to dominate. The game is certainly popular and there's a lot of positive buzz around the gameplay. A lot of people are tired of hamfisted messaging in their entertainment so I don't think the publisher's ban on the topics mentioned in the article is going to dissuade many of the target audience.

RobotToaster 2y ago
The Chinese gaming industry seem to make games for gamers, while the western gaming industry seems obsessed with unsuccessfully "converting" people that don't play games, as if they are some kind of untapped market.
- kobalsky 2y ago
  Well King and Blizzard are in Activision, and at least some years ago in their balance sheets we saw that King has a similar operating income as Blizzard. Those silly mobile games rake in some cash.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    One can also ask how Tencent and NetEase is buying up stakes in everyone if they were not making money. There cannot be that much free money from CCP...
- bitcharmer 2y ago
  The western studios are focusing on making games for "modern audiences" which amounts to around a hundred people. I kid you not. https://steamdb.info/app/721180/charts/ https://steamdb.info/app/721180/charts/
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    What first-party(Sony) title for 150 million buys: https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/ https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/

cscurmudgeon 2y ago

Here is a thought: by banning some but not all politically charged topics, you actually are introducing politics.

DrillShopper 2y ago
Most of the people I see posting about "politics" (not actual politics like elections and legislation) mean "anything I personally disagree with is political and should be shut down because I don't like it". This applies equally to both sides before someone calls me a partisan hack.
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  Well said. Imagine if the Nazi regime had a "no politics" clause that they used to censor things that went against them. This is what is happening here.

nerdjon 2y ago

[flagged]

Ekaros 2y ago
Representing of community at large? Like maybe take two recent high enough production value games that have done extremely great doing this. Dustborn and Concord. Massive number of players of this large community representation. Dozens and hundreds.
- nerdjon 2y ago
  > done extremely great doing this. Doing what exactly? It isn't clear to me if you are advocating for recognizing a diverse group of players or to focus on a narrow definition of what a gamer is.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Sell copies and have players? Isn't that reasonable metric for entertainment product? My point is that two contemporary examples of games targeting and recognizing these new diverse groups of players have utterly failed. Indicating that either they totally failed in their marketing in informing that finally there is game for not gamers. Or there simply is no demand...
    - nerdjon 2y ago
      > Sell copies and have players? Isn't that reasonable metric for entertainment product? What your argument was, was unclear. Not everyone knows what is going on with every game at every time. I personally have not payed any attention to either of these games so had no idea what your point mentioning was. Counter Point: Boulders Gate 3. Overwatch. Mass Effect. Dragon Age. Apex Legends. Life is strange. The list goes on The fact is that there are a ton of games that introduce "politics" (diversity) into their video games that do just fine and trying to choose 2 as "failing" isn't proving your point. They could just be bad games with basically zero hype or marketing, I knew they existed but barely knew they even came out.

dagaci 2y ago

I only became aware of all the bruha about "Black Myth: Wukong" after i'd already bought it and my first thought was OMG is tripitaka missing ????(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_bNY_4VF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_bNY_4VF4) Anyhow the politics and commotion only exists if you follow twitter.

baboy 2y ago

[flagged]