The Chinese studio granted early access on the condition that topics like “feminist propaganda” and “Covid-19” go unmentioned. What followed is the Streisand effect in full force.

“I feel that it only served to bring more attention on Game Science’s culture of sexism,” linktothepabst says. “All they had to do was let the game speak for itself, but it came off, to me, like an own goal, effectively stoking the flames between the people who were using this game as weapon against ‘wokeness in games’ and those who can level-headedly either enjoy the game and criticize GS or just ignore the game altogether.”

It’s the Streisand effect in full force: Try to hide something, and it becomes all the more visible. “Nobody was going to bring up Chinese politics unprompted,” Zhong says, “but the topic was there as soon as they released those guidelines.”

  • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)A
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    18 days ago

    I have yet to watch a video where anything mentioned in this “article” was brought up. The only place I have seen any of this is on Lemmy (and I would assume other social media if I used it), and I saw people questioning if this list of topics even went out to anyone.

    This article seems like more “both sides” story telling trying to get clicks from the “woke” pitchfork brigade trying to find more things to clutch their pearls about.

    Edit - Just to make my position clear. I 100% believe that the accusations against those in charge at Game Science, and since I do not easily separate the art from the artist I have not bought the game. My comments above were in regards to this click bait article bringing nothing new and taking a “both sides” approach to a topic that was thoroughly covered over a week ago when the game released. As an article like this that is void of details, and adds nothing new to the discourse, is posted for the sole purpose of getting clicks from the upset toxic anti-woke crowd. I have also yet to watch a video where any of this has even gotten a mention beyond an acknowledgement from one creator that there was a “controversy” surrounding the game. I have also not seen a US content creator who got an early access copy, so none of them would have gotten this “do/don’t” list to begin with. I have also not read any reporting on if this actually went to everyone from the studio itself, or if whatever PR company was handling each region for release was the one creating/sending out this list.

    If anyone actually cares, the IGN article actually covered the issues with this studio and the culture of China as a whole.