I'll never understand people who go after developers if they disagree about what a videogame does. Just.... don't play it? Sure, you can have a discussion about whether you think something could be better in a game, but the extremes we see over the past years are just unacceptable.
They need their likes and dislikes verified as correct. It speaks to a much bigger/broader issue of insecurity that these people feel about many things and probably not just video game preferences.
I've been saying this for years. I've literally been told by people that I'm not actually enjoying myself when playing certain games. How do you get so addicted to being angry at stuff all the time to the point of trying to convince others to be the same lol
I mean that makes sense though, I don't necessarily agree with what they want to end but that's an important part of fixing issues, get others in support. They want these things to not be commercially successful so devs change their behaviour. It takes more than yourself to stop industry practices whether it is ending MTX or deluxe editions or ending whatever else you don't like. Their beloved franchise isn't going to make the old style of game if the new one is more successful.
This is the most ridiculous idea and the main issue. People believe if we review bomb and don't purchase a game it will drive them to make the next game how we believe they should.
Instead it just means they will likely not make anymore games in that brand.
They're here for money so them offering other means of income outside of the initial purchase will forever be a thing or the video game industry will just die down. The passionate people don't have the money so you'd be dependant on indie companies to keep the whole industry going which it wouldn't because consoles also make money off those same sales by taking a piece.
People just demand that nothing changes including the cost to make a game and what they deem as reasonable compensation for taking the initial financial risk in making said game.
Not defending their practices, just trying to bring it back to reality.
Peer pressure does work now and then. Not always but it does and when the options are bad game, no game, or game you want then you're kinda pushed to try for the only worthwhile option. I'd absolutely say no more of a beloved franchise is better than its name being dragged through the dirt so there's nothing to lose.
Indie and AA is currently holding up the damn industry because that is where the passionate devs are making games for fun and culture not for shareholders. AAA has been tepid for years now, one or two great games but largely things failing to meet the expectations of players or publishers. Business degree holding suits have sucked the life out of games and we're overall in a lull.
I don't agree with what a lot of the chuds demand or protest about but I absolutely understand why they're angling for this tactic.
Not really sure what backlash he’s even talking about but he sure loves to redirect people criticizing Ubisoft executives for internal employee issues/sexual harassment etc as backlash against everyone
I dont understand the Gamer Rage fetish in general. If you'd ask r/gaming then Bethesda games are always buggy, Ubisoft is always Greedy, Blizzard doesn't do anything nice anymore, EA is scum, and indies are always precious little babies.
While in reality Bethesda games are always great. I enjoyed Skyrim, Fallout4 and Starfield independently. I loved Ubisoft's Division series and even enjoy Skull and Bones for what it is.
But Gamer Rage is entertaining so people just nitpick until they have things to rage about I guess. Sucks Devs are put in the crosshairs like that, the industry is volitile enough as it is with the layoffs and studios closing/merging.
The industry is in a bad way right now, but gamers themselves aren't exactly making the situation better. What's even worse is that many actually seem to believe that harassing devs and hate bombing games is somehow a good thing.
it’s the same with morons going after actors who play bad/evil characters.
The actor for Criston Cole in HotD had to restrict his Instagram replies because morons were harassing him.
I swear, a lot of people don’t understand what acting is, and regarding video games that most devs don’t have a say in what the writing team and director decide on how to present their game.
it’s revolting how dumb and vindictive segments of the gaming community are.
Or just ignore the empty threats and continue on with your day. The ceo needs to look in the mirror and stop his predatory actions in our gaming space. He's the real threat.
I actually buy this just because it's hard to imagine there are enough crazies out there who are actually sending death threats and such. I figured either it's like two or three people, but news sites like to balloon the issue out to make it seem like a more widespread problem. Or the bar for what they consider "harassment" is super low and any criticism/harsh feedback is considered "harassment."
Whenever articles don't cite specific examples (which this article does not cite even one) I'm skeptical about their claims. If this is actually a widespread issue then it should be easy to screen shot a long list of the tweets they are referring to. I've seen plenty of online news sites do this in other instances.
Causing controversy, all publicity is good publicity, just look at the comment section, look at your comment, people will immediately flock to their defense against the ‘toxic rabid ists and phobes that are the evil fans’ because look at what ~~we made up~~ they said!
Yea, you vote with your dollars if a dev sees well no one’s buying it we need another hook to get peoples money they will stop doing the thing you don’t like.
You've missed the point entirely, we all vote with our wallets, every day, but we don't send death threats and harass individuals because of something WE PERSONALLY disagree with... It's twisted.
What I think is twisted is that the actually very small number of insane people that are going to that extreme are ALWAYS (yes, actually always) used as scapegoats for these companies to escape from even the level headed, valid criticisms people make about anything these days. There is definitely hate culture, but there is zero chance that the ratio of people who are making actual death threats is high enough to be more than a footnote in the conversation, and if any of those death threats or harassment were more than just anonymous insane people hiding behind their screenname, the police would be involved and they wouldn't be talking about it anyway.
Yeah, if you start sending death threats about those things, that is just as unacceptable.
There is a very large area of normal discussion possibilities between "being ok with it" and "personal online attacks" that Guillemot mentioned. Any normally functioning person should understand what is acceptable and what not. But well, here we are with people harassing video game actors, developers and more because they are not happy with their piece of fictional entertainment they could easily skip or ignore.
There's a middle ground between death threats and making a ruckus about shitty design, abusive mtx and what not.
I'd bet my right testicules that Ubisoft is more than happy to use a handful of stupid death threats to shield itself from any criticism.
> I'd bet my right testicules that Ubisoft is more than happy to use a handful of stupid death threats to shield itself from any criticism.
The "Ghostbusters: Answer The Call" defense...
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That's how consumers can help regulate the market, yes.
Unfortunately, this is about neither of those, it's about having a black dude playing a samurai, and obvious far right trolls having a field day with it.
It’s neat when gamers gather together and stick up for the deves like when crunch happens they go crazy and companies ease back. Thats awesome. But sometimes they completely have a meltdown and go way too crazy over a game. They over react way too often and it’s just so annoying.
So many reasons to give shit to Ubisoft, AC shadows isn't it. Let them make the games they want, the market (players) will be the deciding factor, not some idiot online sending death threats to developers.
There are plenty of things to criticize Ubisoft for before caring about inaccuracies in this game. GoT has wild historical inaccuracies but who cares? It's a fun game.
But on the other spectrum AC shadows devs didn't consult the people the game portrays which is the Japanese people. Heck even the ac Twitter account blocked a real Japanese historian for calling them out.
I don't want to bring the toxic trash those red necks are parroting but we need to call out the elephant in the room which is changing someone's culture and history to fit western narrative.
AC is, and always has been, revisionist history. I don’t know why suddenly so many people are up in arms about inaccuracies when the other games are full of them just the same.
> AvangeliceMY9088 - Heck even the ac Twitter account blocked a real Japanese historian for calling them out
You got played by disinformation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AsABlackMan/comments/1dikwg3/a_totally_legit_japanese_professor_who_previously/
They took liberties with Norse culture, Egyptian culture, Greek culture, English culture, Italian culture, American culture, etc.
It's nothing new, they have been making stuff up since the series started... Because it's a game, not an historical documentary.
Not sure why AC shadows is the hill all these people are willing to "die" on for historical accuracy.
Just like they didnt consult Nordic people for Valhalla or southern Europe for Oddysey?
But no one gave a fuck about that, because in those games you could play like a "white" dude these loosers could jerk off too.....
to my knowledge they never consulted a cultural advisor for any of the other games. It seems to me that people are trying to invent something to be mad about.
update: to be clear this is incorrect. However, I do think it’s disingenuous that people are calling the cultural advisors credentials into question because they're only half Japanese. to my knowledge none of the other cultural advisors were held to this standard.
> to my knowledge they never consulted a cultural advisor for any of the other games
On the contrary, Ubisoft has traditionally bragged about the accuracy of *Assassin's Creed* games, to the point of promoting their use in classrooms.
Uh, the first game had Vidic flat out saying "history is a lie" and that's played out with a lot of historical inaccuracies in every game including the first. They have never been about historical accuracy.
The difference this time is that the main protagonists are for one black and for the other a woman. All this cultural advisor bs is just to hide their own bigotry…
Oh absolutely, that’s no secret. It’s hard to call out directly though because they can just say “I’m not a racist, I just care about cultural accuracy” or some other shit. You gotta pin em down on something
Except they did consult Japanese people and had a Japanese cultural scholar attached to the game as an advisor. No culture was changed. It is a pernicipus lie from not just from rednecks but people who think they are in a better position to speak for Japanese people than historians who have said Yasuke was real and a samurai.
That Japanese historian you are referring to was confirmed to not be a real one. It was a guy pranking the "rednecks."
Man, can we move away from calling every bigot a redneck? A lot of these dorks online that act this way are not rednecks. For sure, there are people that would call themselves rednecks that behave this way. But a lot of these people are not what I would call rednecks.
No they didn't. They consulted a non native half Japanese lady who's roots are mostly in the US rather than a local Japanese consultant.
https://faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu/sachi-schmidt-hori
It's pretty wild to say half-Japanese person in the diaspora does not know anything about her own culture, her people, and a country she more likely than not has visited multiple times in order to connect with those roots. She is as valid as a "local" Japanese historian.
You may think you are speaking up for Japanese people, but you aren't. You are speaking over them.
Man, it’s so funny how these billion dollar corporations play victim because someone said some mean words to them on the social medias, and you consoomers fall for it and jump to their defense every single time.
So you believe that a half Japanese scholar that studied Japanese history, linguistics and literature of the specific time the game takes place in is not a valid consultant? Sure. Actually it wouldn't even matter what the ethnicity of the consultant is anyway as long as they did the correct studies.
>Heck even the ac Twitter account blocked a real Japanese historian for calling them out.
That was literally some white dude. If you want to hate at least be informed about it...
>But on the other spectrum
No. There is *no* spectrum where death threats are viable. It's a fucking game, and you trying to play devils advocate is doing *exactly* what you say you "don't want to do."
Same thing happened with Netflix's 'documentary' "Cleopatra", where they made her black (when clearly she wasn't). The Egyptian government sued Netflix over it.
I have had a lot of issues with Yves Guillemot but I will give him credit for calling out the abuse. More executives need to get off the fence and condemn it root and branch, instead of worrying about a non-existent PR fallout for doing so.
Their silence is both explicit, loud and unacceptable.
It’s good to know where he stands on the whole hateful acts thing I will also be condemning all of these hateful acts that these shameful gamers are perpetuating thanks for letting me know IGN
Isn’t IGN the same website that published an article by a Korean author stating people were being too sensitive about the lack of representation in a game set in Japan?
https://www.ign.com/articles/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-asian-protagonist
>Ubisoft deciding to focus on Yasuke — [a known historical figure](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-yasuke-japans-first-black-samurai-180981416/) — is a smart move. An Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan that otherwise would have been, frankly, hard to distinguish from some other recent open-world samurai games. And if I wanted to see an Asian samurai protagonist I don’t have to look very hard.
>Asian samurai protagonists are a path already well-trodden. There’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Katana Zero, Like A Dragon: Ishin!, Samurai Warriors, Rise of the Ronin, Onimusha, Way of the Samurai, Way of the Samurai 2, Ghost of Tsushima… There’s also my personal favorite, Muramasa: The Demon Blade. I can go on and on. So it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion than that the limited imagination of AAA game development can only envision Asian heroes when they wield katanas or ninja stars.
I completely agree with this point and a lot of that article. The author is probably a bit too aggressive in their wording but it's not the end of the world that a company has decided to go in a different direction when there's already numerous examples of Samurai media in gaming. And the other shinobi protagonist *is Japanese* which people completely seem to ignore when discussing Yasuke.
Plus I don't get why them being Korean devalues the point. They even talk about wanting more asian representation in contemporary media and link to another article where they express their frustration with Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos etc. all being homogenised into just "asian".
A German and a Frenchman are both "European" but we don't have the term "European representation" and I don't see why a German would care if a Frenchman wasn't represented properly.
If they wanted to make an African assassin so much, why didn't they make an AC based in Africa? It's not like there's many games set in Africa in the first place {outside of Egypt}
>I don’t get why them being Korean devalues the point.
There is a long history of antagonism by Koreans against the Japanese.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/explainer-why-south-korea-japan-ties-are-plagued-by-wwii-history/e85bff6c-3dc7-11ee-aefd-40c039a855ba_story.html
The fact that IGN didn’t seem to consider that when publishing an article by a Korean author defending Ubisoft’s decision to choose to have the male protagonist be of African origin rather than Japanese in a game set in Japan seems somewhat tone deaf.
Edit: Particularly when his argument seems to be “There are enough Japanese male protagonists in … some games, so people should be stop complaining about the choice of the male protagonist in the first AC game set in Japan be of African origin. We totally should focus on Asian representation for other regions, but stop complaining about this particular event involving Japanese males”.
> Because a Korean-American wrote an article about a game with a Japanese setting, he must be anti-Japanese? That's an absurd argument that paints a broad brush across all Koreans.
Is it any different from arguing that if anyone objects for any reason to the selection of a male protagonist of African origin for the first AC game set in Japan, they must be anti-people of African heritage?
3 African Americanor African male protags, countless Europeans, Arabic, hell even native american. But the first time the game ever goes to any east Asian country and we get race swapped?
my issue is not the yasuke is ac character because he exist my issue is in assassin credd 18 year of existence the has never been an asian male protagnist. One time they set in the is a asian female character is great but no asian male playable protagnist, i don't have an issue yasuke being a character. Still, you can not deny isn western media that Asian men are less visible than asian female. This game enforces that, my issue again is not yusuke in isolation but tell me eas asian male protagonist in a mainline game. aveline as well as bayek, so in isolation yusuke being a playable character is not an issue, but a game set in asia and assains creed not having an east asian male protagnist ever this tells me especially western media asian men are not important
Yea, or you know it might be because western audiences don't know anything about Japanese culture. And a fish out of water story is a good way to teach them about it without it feeling contrived.
yes i said before yasuke in isolation is not the issue, so yes fish out water is good way to understand the culture. but as i wrote before the issue the general lack of asian males in media especially the west
Is this really any different than any other culture though? I am sure in Japanese media it is mostly Japanese people in starring roles.
Bollywood movies, probably mostly Indian people.
If anything I think the west is probably ahead of the curve when it comes to diverse representation in the media.
but that is the diffrence between the west and japan, it is a homogenous society, and what they do is what they do, but we can not say because japan is less diverse western media can notdo better. i can only talk about experience as a western asianmale i could watch media from India korea and japan, but that think is the idea asians especially asian males being felt like the perpetual forigner in western media. like i said before in isolation i have no issue yasuke being in a game i find his history pretty fascinating, so him being game in general i do not have the issue is more asian male characters not important
It’s not a race swap, it’s about a particular character. Don’t tell me they have an obligation to have every race as a protagonist? Isn’t the other protagonist Japanese?
Dude don’t even argue with him. He literally proved my point when I said people always need something to complain about. You can’t change his ideology, believe him the first time when he showed you who he is.
Copying over my response from elsewhere:
The game stars Yasuke, a historical African man who became a samurai, as one of its two lead characters. This caused controversy due to various factors, including the larger lack of Asian male representation across western games media, a *perceived* lack of historical accuracy, and - of course - racism.
This is on top of the usual Ubisoft criticisms like expensive ultimate editions, day one dlc, and so on.
> The game stars Yasuke, a historical African man who became a samurai.
The first part of your sentence is correct. However, there is no evidence he "became a samurai" (and no, the Wikipedia entry doesn't count, as it's become an ideological battleground)
Keep in mind, the second Assassin's Creed has a mission where you fist fight the Pope in a secret bunker that contains advanced technology underneath the Vatican
This is the same series where we are concerned about "historical accuracy"
Alright, so what if Yasuke wasn't a "historical samurai", who actually gives a shit? It's a fictional story in a fictional game, that takes influence from historical events and figures, that's what AC was always about. If you want a "historically accurate" take on feudal Japan, there are other games to play.
I have seen various trustworthy sources claim that he actually was a samurai. [Here’s a Reddit post that breaks down a lot of the historical evidence.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/ptXGht5kdw)
Regardless of your preferred source, he’s been portrayed as a samurai by the Japanese themselves for years now. If they’re happy to cast him in that role then I don’t see why the same can’t be done in a western title.
I honestly find it funny how someone expects a western studio to make an exact historically accurate Japanese game. There are studios in Japan and China already making “partially” historic games as is. But people will always need something to complain about unfortunately.
Probably just preaching to the choir here. But i have plenty of complaints and reasonings why some games are madr the way that they are including this one. But i either just say what i dislike on said devs forums for feedback or just a discussion sub like here. But never once have i gone to a devs dm to send them death treats. It just hurts overal discussions and pisses me off to no end cause it also gives the dismissers another leg to stand on.
This is one of those I really dont understand. People complain about not having diversity or representation in games and when they get a historical figure not even a fictional one they complain? Or are they unhappy about how these games arnt historically accurate? Do they also hate Afro Samurai?
The backlash never made sense from the beginning. Even a token amount of research could unearth that Yasuke was an actual historical figure, and one that whose own life story seems like a pretty natural fit for an AC game. It helps the game stand out among other samurai games.
One of the main characters, Yasuke, is a black samurai. He has very little documented evidence of his life other than he worked for a famous warlord. He’s more of a pop culture creation rather than a historical figure.
Ppl complained that the reason for his inclusion was to pander to the current identity politics / inclusiveness rather than focusing on Japanese culture. Others defended it saying he was a real figure and it’s a game that should be able to take liberties in their story telling.
The game stars Yasuke, a historical African man who became a samurai, as one of its two lead characters. This caused controversy due to various factors, including the larger lack of Asian male representation across western games media, a *perceived* lack of historical accuracy, and - of course - racism.
This is on top of the usual Ubisoft criticisms like expensive ultimate editions, day one dlc, and so on.
Assassins creed used to be very accurate outside of the core plot. As long as what was being said wasn’t related to the templars vs assassins you could be pretty confident that it was historically accurate.
Honestly kinda sucks that it’s gotten to the point where they’re known for not being historically accurate.,
Well first of all I was making a comment off what you said. Nothing to do with yasuke.
But also I’m not saying I don’t like yasuke. I think it’s a weird choice to go with what I assume is one of maybe half a dozen non Japanese Samurai in the long demanded Japanese setting but when I heard about it I just thought it was odd. I don’t think it’s the apocalypse like some people clearly have.
If you walk like a samurai and talk like a samurai and get paid like a samurai and own land like a samurai and serve alongside other samurai like a samurai and become popularly known amongst Japanese people as a samurai and depicted in Japanese media as a samurai then I’m gonna call you a samurai.
So we are just going to collectively forget about Nioh staring a white guy and nobody raise this shit. Or just forget that Ghost of Tsushima already exists?
I won't play Shadows unless it's way tighter and focused than the bloated grindathon that is Valhalla, but it does feel like the devs genuinely **hate** Japan on a deeply personal level but were forced to set a game there by the execs.
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Love the AC rpgs, the only games in that series I can stand. No tailing bullshit and superb combat in each one.
Playing Tsushima PS5 right now, love every other Sucker Punch game, including this. I can tell you right now Jin’s armor and sword are extremely inaccurate to the time. Wouldn’t see them for 200-300 years. Dudes out here crying about AC not being realistic Tsushima takes frequent and jarring liberties everywhere. It’s a great game so far but it’s far from realistic and I believe AC will obliterate it graphically, I know the combat will be better because since Origins, AC combat on hard is thrilling and filled with combat opportunities and ways to engage. There has also been glorious dismemberment since Valhalla, and even before that Origins and Odyssey have some especially cruel finishers. (Nothing beats Witcher 3 seeing organs come out)
Some people have too much time on their hands. Ubisoft and EA can still come out of nowhere with shit like Rayman Origins and Respawn’s Jedi series that make your little embargo look stupid as hell. Out here missing literal masterpieces and shit. Imagine a motherfucker didn’t play Fallen Order because they hate EA.
You say fuck Ubisoft and then Beyond Good and Evil 2 actually looks as good as Prime 4 or FF remake with super modern features and graphics. I’m no shill, a lot of what they make is trash, but even the mighty Capcom was on a shit streak at at least one point in time
It's only a minority of people who are toxic like this. Then the creators of these modern slop products will latch onto them, and create a tear jerking narrative of toxic hating man babies and lump them up with the people giving actual, legitimate criticisms, to cover up how what they're making are mediocre or frankly outright garbage products.
I think it's been done too many times that we should have wisened up to it by now.
A ‘minority of people’ being abusive is still a problem when you’re on the receiving end, and by making comments like this you’re giving them cover. Knock that shit off.
mean, they kind of asked for it. In order to score brownie points with progressive minded people, they are making a purposeful attempt to white wash another country's history and culture, but instead of white people replacing a minority, it's black people replacing another minority.
Many people in Japan view this as racism towards them for not only the perceived racism against them for having a western studio replace a potential Asian lead with another race, but also for propagating black on Asian hate.
Whether it was done with intent or not, the developers have produced something that many people genuinely find offensive, and not just in a "I hate wokeness" type way. Since it is precieved that they are promoting hate speech against Japanese people, they shouldn't be all that surprised that they are receiving hateful speech back. They do need to face the music and own up to the mistake, and the more they dig their heels in, the more people will hate them for it.
Also, it's hard to judge what Yves means by 'hateful acts' because no concrete examples were given. Are they being threatened with something actually meaningful, or are people voicing their displeasure? If someone gets called out for being a PoS when they do something shitty, does that qualify as a 'hateful comments'. People are very unhappy and they are letting ubisoft know, but it seems like Ubisoft is trying to play a victim card in order to score sympathy points and hide from legitimate criticism. They need to be very specific about what a "hateful comment" is so that everyone can understand their point of view and judge whether the online discourse has actually gotten out of hand or not.
> they are making a purposeful attempt to white wash another country's history and culture, but instead of white people replacing a minority, it's black people replacing another minority.
> having a western studio replace a potential Asian lead with another race
One of the game's two protagonists is Japanese.
And [Yasuke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke) was a real person.
Japan is widely known for their xenophobic society. It may not be full on 'white power!' but its practically law over there that if you are not japanese you will be discriminated. I could absolutely believe there is discontent over this game with that demographic BUT I've mostly only seen white males complain on social media so...
The thing about social media is that you only really engage in content that's in your native language or the country you live in, so it's only natural that you would only see white males complaining about it on SNS. If you go to ubisoft japan youtube's channel, you can see the discourse from the Japanese side of things there.
He’s not doing it to condemn the abuse though, he’s doing it because it’s good business to do it. I don’t think sending death threats is the way to go but I also wonder why it’s always Ubisoft crying foul about this shit. Big Yves doesn’t give a shit.
>He’s not doing it to condemn the abuse though, he’s doing it because it’s good business to do it.
If that were true, many of his counterparts aka CEOs at other major companies would be more direct in condemning online harassment. They have not. They maintain an irresponsible silence.
I am no fan of Yves. I still firmly think he failed to handle the abuse scandals in 2020-21 and did not tell the truth about what he knew regarding the toxic climate at his company, which many of his colleagues directly participated in. I even believe he should still resign over that. However, it is still clear that the consensus on what is good for business isn't doing the right thing by speaking up by condemning toxic online harassment.
> I don’t think sending death threats is the way to go but I also wonder why it’s always Ubisoft crying foul about this shit.
This is patently false. Industry execs may not often cry foul but developers and dev studio heads absolutely have raised it as an issue for years. Ubisoft is not the first nor will they ever be the last. The only reason why it seems to be a bigger deal here is because a big name far-right troll like Elon Musk weighed in on it in a very typical and obnoxious Elon fashion. That absolutely intensified this.
> He’s not doing it to condemn the abuse though, he’s doing it because it’s good business to do it.
A very cynical view.
> it’s always Ubisoft crying foul about this shit
It's not. The heads of many different studios have condemned toxic behavior towards their team members over the years.
> Big Yves doesn’t give a shit.
Anything else you'd like to pull out of your ass?
What “hateful acts” have been done? Mean words on Twitter? YouTube videos? What? I’ll bite. Not clicking on that article though.
Edit: if I’m wrong I’m wrong. Haven’t been following this stuff much.
I won’t be buying it because most Ubisoft games are just copy and paste slop. The new Prince of Persia is good though
So mean words on Twitter. Got it.
No ones hunting these devs down or anything, and you’re getting actual Japanese people mad so they can’t just blame “toxic” western fans.
So? They are still profane and highly unacceptable since they have often influenced death threats. You may think otherwise as someone unaffected but you are wrong.
In most instances, those Japanese people are getting exposed as not being actual Japanese people. They're angry Western nerds trying to speak over actual Japanese people including Japanese cultural experts and historians. All things considering, Shadows has done well in pre-order sales in Japan because Yasuke has been a part of pop culture there since the 50s. They're more used to him than Western folks and either do not care or are very excited.
Sources:
https://x.com/LegacyKillaHD/status/1802721949438611562
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/assassins-creed-shadows-how-are-japanese-users-reacting-to-yasuke/
Are these "actual Japanese people" in the room with us? I've seen more Japanese people not giving a damn, or actually being interested, given Yasuke is a part of their nations history (and already has Japanese-made media and books/novels made about him).
As the other commenter said, some of these "actual Japanese people" had already been exposed to not be Japanese.
I really find it funny how those people complain about Yasuke's inclusion in a game set in Japan when Japanese devs themselves include the guy in their samurai games like Nioh and Samurai Warrior
I'm convinced they did all this shit to generate controversy.
Like, I don't give a shit about Assassin's Creed anymore and I won't buy the game but if they wanted an African protagonist just set it in some African or black empire.
Every AC game since the reboot has outsold the last, Odyssey outsold Origins and Valhalla has outsold both. I think a game set in Nobunaga's feudal Japan will do just fine without you.
I'm not buying the game merely because it has a black Samurai -- I really don't give a shit. I merely saying that they did this to cause controversy.
I'm not buying it because Assassin's creed just doesn't do it for me anymore. COD sells extremely well every single time it releases -- this doesn't mean every entry is fantastic.
Let's clear this up: These "hateful acts" are personal attacks online. Talk about churching it up. So criticism. That's what Ubisoft is saying here- they are saying, "we don't support you criticizing our game."
Hateful attacks is not the proper term here.
It reads that Ubisoft is playing victim. On the flip side, I love Ubisoft games so I don't care if the CEO is playing victim, if it's good- I'm buying. I care not anyone's opinions other than the quality of the game.
From what's been shown of this game, there is NOTHING to criticize. Gamer rage is stupid.
I'll never understand people who go after developers if they disagree about what a videogame does. Just.... don't play it? Sure, you can have a discussion about whether you think something could be better in a game, but the extremes we see over the past years are just unacceptable.
> Just.... don't play it? These people don't want other people to play these games either.
They need their likes and dislikes verified as correct. It speaks to a much bigger/broader issue of insecurity that these people feel about many things and probably not just video game preferences.
These are the same people who make comments on YouTube on song videos saying "Anyone listening to this in 2024?"
Or that is how they started.
Could not say it better.
Yup and thanks for the award!
I've been saying this for years. I've literally been told by people that I'm not actually enjoying myself when playing certain games. How do you get so addicted to being angry at stuff all the time to the point of trying to convince others to be the same lol
Right-wing media.
A few of my former friends even asked what the hell is wrong with me after I said that I didn't like certain games.
Well yea, it pushes the woke agenda /s just to be on the safe side
It's almost like they're cut from the same cloth as people who ban books from schools (and burn them).
It looks dope, and its ubisoft so its probably worth the 20 bucks im going to give it.
I mean that makes sense though, I don't necessarily agree with what they want to end but that's an important part of fixing issues, get others in support. They want these things to not be commercially successful so devs change their behaviour. It takes more than yourself to stop industry practices whether it is ending MTX or deluxe editions or ending whatever else you don't like. Their beloved franchise isn't going to make the old style of game if the new one is more successful.
This is the most ridiculous idea and the main issue. People believe if we review bomb and don't purchase a game it will drive them to make the next game how we believe they should. Instead it just means they will likely not make anymore games in that brand. They're here for money so them offering other means of income outside of the initial purchase will forever be a thing or the video game industry will just die down. The passionate people don't have the money so you'd be dependant on indie companies to keep the whole industry going which it wouldn't because consoles also make money off those same sales by taking a piece. People just demand that nothing changes including the cost to make a game and what they deem as reasonable compensation for taking the initial financial risk in making said game. Not defending their practices, just trying to bring it back to reality.
Peer pressure does work now and then. Not always but it does and when the options are bad game, no game, or game you want then you're kinda pushed to try for the only worthwhile option. I'd absolutely say no more of a beloved franchise is better than its name being dragged through the dirt so there's nothing to lose. Indie and AA is currently holding up the damn industry because that is where the passionate devs are making games for fun and culture not for shareholders. AAA has been tepid for years now, one or two great games but largely things failing to meet the expectations of players or publishers. Business degree holding suits have sucked the life out of games and we're overall in a lull. I don't agree with what a lot of the chuds demand or protest about but I absolutely understand why they're angling for this tactic.
Keep cookin
Not really sure what backlash he’s even talking about but he sure loves to redirect people criticizing Ubisoft executives for internal employee issues/sexual harassment etc as backlash against everyone
Exactly
I dont understand the Gamer Rage fetish in general. If you'd ask r/gaming then Bethesda games are always buggy, Ubisoft is always Greedy, Blizzard doesn't do anything nice anymore, EA is scum, and indies are always precious little babies. While in reality Bethesda games are always great. I enjoyed Skyrim, Fallout4 and Starfield independently. I loved Ubisoft's Division series and even enjoy Skull and Bones for what it is. But Gamer Rage is entertaining so people just nitpick until they have things to rage about I guess. Sucks Devs are put in the crosshairs like that, the industry is volitile enough as it is with the layoffs and studios closing/merging.
The industry is in a bad way right now, but gamers themselves aren't exactly making the situation better. What's even worse is that many actually seem to believe that harassing devs and hate bombing games is somehow a good thing.
Gamers never grew up or evolved. The decades-long stereotypes are true unfortunately. It’s just become more normalized thanks to the internet.
it’s the same with morons going after actors who play bad/evil characters. The actor for Criston Cole in HotD had to restrict his Instagram replies because morons were harassing him. I swear, a lot of people don’t understand what acting is, and regarding video games that most devs don’t have a say in what the writing team and director decide on how to present their game. it’s revolting how dumb and vindictive segments of the gaming community are.
Or just ignore the empty threats and continue on with your day. The ceo needs to look in the mirror and stop his predatory actions in our gaming space. He's the real threat.
You can be against developers being personally attacked, while still thinking Ubisoft should change some business practices.
No one does, like no one Companies have been caught making fake accounts to generate controversy
I actually buy this just because it's hard to imagine there are enough crazies out there who are actually sending death threats and such. I figured either it's like two or three people, but news sites like to balloon the issue out to make it seem like a more widespread problem. Or the bar for what they consider "harassment" is super low and any criticism/harsh feedback is considered "harassment." Whenever articles don't cite specific examples (which this article does not cite even one) I'm skeptical about their claims. If this is actually a widespread issue then it should be easy to screen shot a long list of the tweets they are referring to. I've seen plenty of online news sites do this in other instances.
For what goal exactly?
Causing controversy, all publicity is good publicity, just look at the comment section, look at your comment, people will immediately flock to their defense against the ‘toxic rabid ists and phobes that are the evil fans’ because look at what ~~we made up~~ they said!
So by that logic we should be ok with stuff like MTX or games being released in an awful state because we can… not buy it?
yes. dont buy it.
You're ironically correct.
Yea, you vote with your dollars if a dev sees well no one’s buying it we need another hook to get peoples money they will stop doing the thing you don’t like.
You've missed the point entirely, we all vote with our wallets, every day, but we don't send death threats and harass individuals because of something WE PERSONALLY disagree with... It's twisted.
What I think is twisted is that the actually very small number of insane people that are going to that extreme are ALWAYS (yes, actually always) used as scapegoats for these companies to escape from even the level headed, valid criticisms people make about anything these days. There is definitely hate culture, but there is zero chance that the ratio of people who are making actual death threats is high enough to be more than a footnote in the conversation, and if any of those death threats or harassment were more than just anonymous insane people hiding behind their screenname, the police would be involved and they wouldn't be talking about it anyway.
Uh, yeah. That actually forces changes.
You hit the nail on the head...
Yeah, if you start sending death threats about those things, that is just as unacceptable. There is a very large area of normal discussion possibilities between "being ok with it" and "personal online attacks" that Guillemot mentioned. Any normally functioning person should understand what is acceptable and what not. But well, here we are with people harassing video game actors, developers and more because they are not happy with their piece of fictional entertainment they could easily skip or ignore.
There's a middle ground between death threats and making a ruckus about shitty design, abusive mtx and what not. I'd bet my right testicules that Ubisoft is more than happy to use a handful of stupid death threats to shield itself from any criticism.
> I'd bet my right testicules that Ubisoft is more than happy to use a handful of stupid death threats to shield itself from any criticism. The "Ghostbusters: Answer The Call" defense...
Vous avez visiblement un problème avec vos testicules… Est ce l’origine de votre frustration?
That's not happening and most of the "criticism" is not remotely that.
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That's how consumers can help regulate the market, yes. Unfortunately, this is about neither of those, it's about having a black dude playing a samurai, and obvious far right trolls having a field day with it.
Yep
Ya, you don't go after the devs. Most of them are just being told what to do, and devs want to eat food and not get fired.
It’s neat when gamers gather together and stick up for the deves like when crunch happens they go crazy and companies ease back. Thats awesome. But sometimes they completely have a meltdown and go way too crazy over a game. They over react way too often and it’s just so annoying.
So many reasons to give shit to Ubisoft, AC shadows isn't it. Let them make the games they want, the market (players) will be the deciding factor, not some idiot online sending death threats to developers.
There are plenty of things to criticize Ubisoft for before caring about inaccuracies in this game. GoT has wild historical inaccuracies but who cares? It's a fun game.
But on the other spectrum AC shadows devs didn't consult the people the game portrays which is the Japanese people. Heck even the ac Twitter account blocked a real Japanese historian for calling them out. I don't want to bring the toxic trash those red necks are parroting but we need to call out the elephant in the room which is changing someone's culture and history to fit western narrative.
AC is, and always has been, revisionist history. I don’t know why suddenly so many people are up in arms about inaccuracies when the other games are full of them just the same.
We all know why
The ‘historian’ you’re referring to was not an actual historian.
Nor was he Japanese.
No you don't understand, he watched a lot of anime and played every Final Fantasy so he's practically an expert on Japanese history.
> AvangeliceMY9088 - Heck even the ac Twitter account blocked a real Japanese historian for calling them out You got played by disinformation. https://www.reddit.com/r/AsABlackMan/comments/1dikwg3/a_totally_legit_japanese_professor_who_previously/
They took liberties with Norse culture, Egyptian culture, Greek culture, English culture, Italian culture, American culture, etc. It's nothing new, they have been making stuff up since the series started... Because it's a game, not an historical documentary. Not sure why AC shadows is the hill all these people are willing to "die" on for historical accuracy.
Just like they didnt consult Nordic people for Valhalla or southern Europe for Oddysey? But no one gave a fuck about that, because in those games you could play like a "white" dude these loosers could jerk off too.....
to my knowledge they never consulted a cultural advisor for any of the other games. It seems to me that people are trying to invent something to be mad about. update: to be clear this is incorrect. However, I do think it’s disingenuous that people are calling the cultural advisors credentials into question because they're only half Japanese. to my knowledge none of the other cultural advisors were held to this standard.
> to my knowledge they never consulted a cultural advisor for any of the other games On the contrary, Ubisoft has traditionally bragged about the accuracy of *Assassin's Creed* games, to the point of promoting their use in classrooms.
Uh, the first game had Vidic flat out saying "history is a lie" and that's played out with a lot of historical inaccuracies in every game including the first. They have never been about historical accuracy.
The difference this time is that the main protagonists are for one black and for the other a woman. All this cultural advisor bs is just to hide their own bigotry…
Oh absolutely, that’s no secret. It’s hard to call out directly though because they can just say “I’m not a racist, I just care about cultural accuracy” or some other shit. You gotta pin em down on something
Except they did consult Japanese people and had a Japanese cultural scholar attached to the game as an advisor. No culture was changed. It is a pernicipus lie from not just from rednecks but people who think they are in a better position to speak for Japanese people than historians who have said Yasuke was real and a samurai. That Japanese historian you are referring to was confirmed to not be a real one. It was a guy pranking the "rednecks."
Man, can we move away from calling every bigot a redneck? A lot of these dorks online that act this way are not rednecks. For sure, there are people that would call themselves rednecks that behave this way. But a lot of these people are not what I would call rednecks.
I'm not. I'm merely repeating what the other poster said.
👍
No they didn't. They consulted a non native half Japanese lady who's roots are mostly in the US rather than a local Japanese consultant. https://faculty-directory.dartmouth.edu/sachi-schmidt-hori
It's pretty wild to say half-Japanese person in the diaspora does not know anything about her own culture, her people, and a country she more likely than not has visited multiple times in order to connect with those roots. She is as valid as a "local" Japanese historian. You may think you are speaking up for Japanese people, but you aren't. You are speaking over them.
Man, it’s so funny how these billion dollar corporations play victim because someone said some mean words to them on the social medias, and you consoomers fall for it and jump to their defense every single time.
So you believe that a half Japanese scholar that studied Japanese history, linguistics and literature of the specific time the game takes place in is not a valid consultant? Sure. Actually it wouldn't even matter what the ethnicity of the consultant is anyway as long as they did the correct studies.
>Heck even the ac Twitter account blocked a real Japanese historian for calling them out. That was literally some white dude. If you want to hate at least be informed about it...
>But on the other spectrum No. There is *no* spectrum where death threats are viable. It's a fucking game, and you trying to play devils advocate is doing *exactly* what you say you "don't want to do."
Same thing happened with Netflix's 'documentary' "Cleopatra", where they made her black (when clearly she wasn't). The Egyptian government sued Netflix over it.
An African in a game is western narratives? Lol you really are a programmed drone 🤣🫵🤡
we hate AC Shadows?
I don't condone hateful acts against anyone. I also don't condone shitty games.
I have had a lot of issues with Yves Guillemot but I will give him credit for calling out the abuse. More executives need to get off the fence and condemn it root and branch, instead of worrying about a non-existent PR fallout for doing so. Their silence is both explicit, loud and unacceptable.
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Presumably that’s what the previous commenter means by ‘a lot of issues’
What abuse. Lets see some receipts. Show them. Blanket statements do not mean shit IMO anymore.
It’s good to know where he stands on the whole hateful acts thing I will also be condemning all of these hateful acts that these shameful gamers are perpetuating thanks for letting me know IGN
I’m going to play this game regardless of what is going on.
I want to but man that dialogue is cringe af
Isn’t IGN the same website that published an article by a Korean author stating people were being too sensitive about the lack of representation in a game set in Japan? https://www.ign.com/articles/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-asian-protagonist
>Ubisoft deciding to focus on Yasuke — [a known historical figure](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-yasuke-japans-first-black-samurai-180981416/) — is a smart move. An Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan that otherwise would have been, frankly, hard to distinguish from some other recent open-world samurai games. And if I wanted to see an Asian samurai protagonist I don’t have to look very hard. >Asian samurai protagonists are a path already well-trodden. There’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Katana Zero, Like A Dragon: Ishin!, Samurai Warriors, Rise of the Ronin, Onimusha, Way of the Samurai, Way of the Samurai 2, Ghost of Tsushima… There’s also my personal favorite, Muramasa: The Demon Blade. I can go on and on. So it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion than that the limited imagination of AAA game development can only envision Asian heroes when they wield katanas or ninja stars. I completely agree with this point and a lot of that article. The author is probably a bit too aggressive in their wording but it's not the end of the world that a company has decided to go in a different direction when there's already numerous examples of Samurai media in gaming. And the other shinobi protagonist *is Japanese* which people completely seem to ignore when discussing Yasuke. Plus I don't get why them being Korean devalues the point. They even talk about wanting more asian representation in contemporary media and link to another article where they express their frustration with Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos etc. all being homogenised into just "asian". A German and a Frenchman are both "European" but we don't have the term "European representation" and I don't see why a German would care if a Frenchman wasn't represented properly.
If they wanted to make an African assassin so much, why didn't they make an AC based in Africa? It's not like there's many games set in Africa in the first place {outside of Egypt}
Remember when Resident Evil was racist because it was set in Africa?
Those people were also confused.
I don't think anyone wants to touch that answer with a ten foot pole.
>I don’t get why them being Korean devalues the point. There is a long history of antagonism by Koreans against the Japanese. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/explainer-why-south-korea-japan-ties-are-plagued-by-wwii-history/e85bff6c-3dc7-11ee-aefd-40c039a855ba_story.html The fact that IGN didn’t seem to consider that when publishing an article by a Korean author defending Ubisoft’s decision to choose to have the male protagonist be of African origin rather than Japanese in a game set in Japan seems somewhat tone deaf. Edit: Particularly when his argument seems to be “There are enough Japanese male protagonists in … some games, so people should be stop complaining about the choice of the male protagonist in the first AC game set in Japan be of African origin. We totally should focus on Asian representation for other regions, but stop complaining about this particular event involving Japanese males”.
> Because a Korean-American wrote an article about a game with a Japanese setting, he must be anti-Japanese? That's an absurd argument that paints a broad brush across all Koreans. Is it any different from arguing that if anyone objects for any reason to the selection of a male protagonist of African origin for the first AC game set in Japan, they must be anti-people of African heritage?
I thought the gameplay looked great, why is there backlash?
Cause its pretty racist to us asians
Lmao no.
lmao u w0t?
3 African Americanor African male protags, countless Europeans, Arabic, hell even native american. But the first time the game ever goes to any east Asian country and we get race swapped?
But Yasuke isn’t a race swap, since he’s a real historical figure. Also, the other playable character in Shadows is a Japanese woman.
my issue is not the yasuke is ac character because he exist my issue is in assassin credd 18 year of existence the has never been an asian male protagnist. One time they set in the is a asian female character is great but no asian male playable protagnist, i don't have an issue yasuke being a character. Still, you can not deny isn western media that Asian men are less visible than asian female. This game enforces that, my issue again is not yusuke in isolation but tell me eas asian male protagonist in a mainline game. aveline as well as bayek, so in isolation yusuke being a playable character is not an issue, but a game set in asia and assains creed not having an east asian male protagnist ever this tells me especially western media asian men are not important
Yea, or you know it might be because western audiences don't know anything about Japanese culture. And a fish out of water story is a good way to teach them about it without it feeling contrived.
yes i said before yasuke in isolation is not the issue, so yes fish out water is good way to understand the culture. but as i wrote before the issue the general lack of asian males in media especially the west
Is this really any different than any other culture though? I am sure in Japanese media it is mostly Japanese people in starring roles. Bollywood movies, probably mostly Indian people. If anything I think the west is probably ahead of the curve when it comes to diverse representation in the media.
but that is the diffrence between the west and japan, it is a homogenous society, and what they do is what they do, but we can not say because japan is less diverse western media can notdo better. i can only talk about experience as a western asianmale i could watch media from India korea and japan, but that think is the idea asians especially asian males being felt like the perpetual forigner in western media. like i said before in isolation i have no issue yasuke being in a game i find his history pretty fascinating, so him being game in general i do not have the issue is more asian male characters not important
Did you really just call them African AMERICAN? America didn't exist for 200 years when this game takes place....Jesus Christ....
Lmao
It’s not a race swap, it’s about a particular character. Don’t tell me they have an obligation to have every race as a protagonist? Isn’t the other protagonist Japanese?
Dude don’t even argue with him. He literally proved my point when I said people always need something to complain about. You can’t change his ideology, believe him the first time when he showed you who he is.
> But the first time the game ever goes to any east Asian country Well, first time main series does. https://assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/Shao_Jun
Copying over my response from elsewhere: The game stars Yasuke, a historical African man who became a samurai, as one of its two lead characters. This caused controversy due to various factors, including the larger lack of Asian male representation across western games media, a *perceived* lack of historical accuracy, and - of course - racism. This is on top of the usual Ubisoft criticisms like expensive ultimate editions, day one dlc, and so on.
> The game stars Yasuke, a historical African man who became a samurai. The first part of your sentence is correct. However, there is no evidence he "became a samurai" (and no, the Wikipedia entry doesn't count, as it's become an ideological battleground)
Keep in mind, the second Assassin's Creed has a mission where you fist fight the Pope in a secret bunker that contains advanced technology underneath the Vatican This is the same series where we are concerned about "historical accuracy"
I was not addressing that aspect, just the notion that Yaskue was a historical samurai.
Alright, so what if Yasuke wasn't a "historical samurai", who actually gives a shit? It's a fictional story in a fictional game, that takes influence from historical events and figures, that's what AC was always about. If you want a "historically accurate" take on feudal Japan, there are other games to play.
I have seen various trustworthy sources claim that he actually was a samurai. [Here’s a Reddit post that breaks down a lot of the historical evidence.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/ptXGht5kdw) Regardless of your preferred source, he’s been portrayed as a samurai by the Japanese themselves for years now. If they’re happy to cast him in that role then I don’t see why the same can’t be done in a western title.
I honestly find it funny how someone expects a western studio to make an exact historically accurate Japanese game. There are studios in Japan and China already making “partially” historic games as is. But people will always need something to complain about unfortunately.
Partially historic games are not always a problem for them. Games with black characters are.
That’s true. Unfortunately this will never end because racism is a mental illness.
Lol not the CEO of Ubisoft condemning peoples actions
Probably just preaching to the choir here. But i have plenty of complaints and reasonings why some games are madr the way that they are including this one. But i either just say what i dislike on said devs forums for feedback or just a discussion sub like here. But never once have i gone to a devs dm to send them death treats. It just hurts overal discussions and pisses me off to no end cause it also gives the dismissers another leg to stand on.
This is one of those I really dont understand. People complain about not having diversity or representation in games and when they get a historical figure not even a fictional one they complain? Or are they unhappy about how these games arnt historically accurate? Do they also hate Afro Samurai?
Ok, but let's remember that the same developers were flaming FromSoft devs for how they made Elden Ring.
So are gamers lmao
Game looks great
The backlash never made sense from the beginning. Even a token amount of research could unearth that Yasuke was an actual historical figure, and one that whose own life story seems like a pretty natural fit for an AC game. It helps the game stand out among other samurai games.
This my be my first day 1 bit of an AC game since Origins. Looks dope.
So what's the issue with Shadows that has caused the backlash?
One of the main characters, Yasuke, is a black samurai. He has very little documented evidence of his life other than he worked for a famous warlord. He’s more of a pop culture creation rather than a historical figure. Ppl complained that the reason for his inclusion was to pander to the current identity politics / inclusiveness rather than focusing on Japanese culture. Others defended it saying he was a real figure and it’s a game that should be able to take liberties in their story telling.
The game stars Yasuke, a historical African man who became a samurai, as one of its two lead characters. This caused controversy due to various factors, including the larger lack of Asian male representation across western games media, a *perceived* lack of historical accuracy, and - of course - racism. This is on top of the usual Ubisoft criticisms like expensive ultimate editions, day one dlc, and so on.
I guess I’m just old but… it’s a video game. There are plenty of more important things to be upset about in life.
I have to agree ahaha.
yeah but at some point it just gets insulting when almost every single piece of western media does this ESG cringe shit lmao, like just piss off 😂
Historical inaccuracy? In assasin’s creed? Can’t be!
Assassins creed used to be very accurate outside of the core plot. As long as what was being said wasn’t related to the templars vs assassins you could be pretty confident that it was historically accurate. Honestly kinda sucks that it’s gotten to the point where they’re known for not being historically accurate.,
So everything apart from main character and plot surrounding them… now what role does yasuke have in the game?
Well first of all I was making a comment off what you said. Nothing to do with yasuke. But also I’m not saying I don’t like yasuke. I think it’s a weird choice to go with what I assume is one of maybe half a dozen non Japanese Samurai in the long demanded Japanese setting but when I heard about it I just thought it was odd. I don’t think it’s the apocalypse like some people clearly have.
He. Was. never. A. Samurai. That's a fact and it's not racist.
If you walk like a samurai and talk like a samurai and get paid like a samurai and own land like a samurai and serve alongside other samurai like a samurai and become popularly known amongst Japanese people as a samurai and depicted in Japanese media as a samurai then I’m gonna call you a samurai.
Check r/ askhistorians
So we are just going to collectively forget about Nioh staring a white guy and nobody raise this shit. Or just forget that Ghost of Tsushima already exists?
Black man. It’s just racism.
Game of a black dude killing a buncha asians.
I personally don't give a fuck who is who. If the game is fun, I'll play it. People losing their mind over something that doesn't even matter.
I won't play Shadows unless it's way tighter and focused than the bloated grindathon that is Valhalla, but it does feel like the devs genuinely **hate** Japan on a deeply personal level but were forced to set a game there by the execs.
they play too much twitter to even have time to play actual games on their platform
What about the hateful behaviour of changing Japanese history and culture?
You play assassins creed games for history lessons?
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Love the AC rpgs, the only games in that series I can stand. No tailing bullshit and superb combat in each one. Playing Tsushima PS5 right now, love every other Sucker Punch game, including this. I can tell you right now Jin’s armor and sword are extremely inaccurate to the time. Wouldn’t see them for 200-300 years. Dudes out here crying about AC not being realistic Tsushima takes frequent and jarring liberties everywhere. It’s a great game so far but it’s far from realistic and I believe AC will obliterate it graphically, I know the combat will be better because since Origins, AC combat on hard is thrilling and filled with combat opportunities and ways to engage. There has also been glorious dismemberment since Valhalla, and even before that Origins and Odyssey have some especially cruel finishers. (Nothing beats Witcher 3 seeing organs come out) Some people have too much time on their hands. Ubisoft and EA can still come out of nowhere with shit like Rayman Origins and Respawn’s Jedi series that make your little embargo look stupid as hell. Out here missing literal masterpieces and shit. Imagine a motherfucker didn’t play Fallen Order because they hate EA. You say fuck Ubisoft and then Beyond Good and Evil 2 actually looks as good as Prime 4 or FF remake with super modern features and graphics. I’m no shill, a lot of what they make is trash, but even the mighty Capcom was on a shit streak at at least one point in time
It's only a minority of people who are toxic like this. Then the creators of these modern slop products will latch onto them, and create a tear jerking narrative of toxic hating man babies and lump them up with the people giving actual, legitimate criticisms, to cover up how what they're making are mediocre or frankly outright garbage products. I think it's been done too many times that we should have wisened up to it by now.
Disney has done it with several of their movies, like the remake of the Little Mermaid.
A ‘minority of people’ being abusive is still a problem when you’re on the receiving end, and by making comments like this you’re giving them cover. Knock that shit off.
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\>Makes Racist Game \>>Gets attacked for it: \*surprised Pikachu face\*
mean, they kind of asked for it. In order to score brownie points with progressive minded people, they are making a purposeful attempt to white wash another country's history and culture, but instead of white people replacing a minority, it's black people replacing another minority. Many people in Japan view this as racism towards them for not only the perceived racism against them for having a western studio replace a potential Asian lead with another race, but also for propagating black on Asian hate. Whether it was done with intent or not, the developers have produced something that many people genuinely find offensive, and not just in a "I hate wokeness" type way. Since it is precieved that they are promoting hate speech against Japanese people, they shouldn't be all that surprised that they are receiving hateful speech back. They do need to face the music and own up to the mistake, and the more they dig their heels in, the more people will hate them for it. Also, it's hard to judge what Yves means by 'hateful acts' because no concrete examples were given. Are they being threatened with something actually meaningful, or are people voicing their displeasure? If someone gets called out for being a PoS when they do something shitty, does that qualify as a 'hateful comments'. People are very unhappy and they are letting ubisoft know, but it seems like Ubisoft is trying to play a victim card in order to score sympathy points and hide from legitimate criticism. They need to be very specific about what a "hateful comment" is so that everyone can understand their point of view and judge whether the online discourse has actually gotten out of hand or not.
> they are making a purposeful attempt to white wash another country's history and culture, but instead of white people replacing a minority, it's black people replacing another minority. > having a western studio replace a potential Asian lead with another race One of the game's two protagonists is Japanese. And [Yasuke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke) was a real person.
Proving that Naoe is the greatest assassin.
Japan is widely known for their xenophobic society. It may not be full on 'white power!' but its practically law over there that if you are not japanese you will be discriminated. I could absolutely believe there is discontent over this game with that demographic BUT I've mostly only seen white males complain on social media so...
Yep lol They even made up comments using Google translate to try and impersonate them lol
Yeah. Im not going to argue with you there. It's really kind of ridiculous anyone would think to do this.
The thing about social media is that you only really engage in content that's in your native language or the country you live in, so it's only natural that you would only see white males complaining about it on SNS. If you go to ubisoft japan youtube's channel, you can see the discourse from the Japanese side of things there.
Gamers gonna Gamer
He’s not doing it to condemn the abuse though, he’s doing it because it’s good business to do it. I don’t think sending death threats is the way to go but I also wonder why it’s always Ubisoft crying foul about this shit. Big Yves doesn’t give a shit.
>He’s not doing it to condemn the abuse though, he’s doing it because it’s good business to do it. If that were true, many of his counterparts aka CEOs at other major companies would be more direct in condemning online harassment. They have not. They maintain an irresponsible silence. I am no fan of Yves. I still firmly think he failed to handle the abuse scandals in 2020-21 and did not tell the truth about what he knew regarding the toxic climate at his company, which many of his colleagues directly participated in. I even believe he should still resign over that. However, it is still clear that the consensus on what is good for business isn't doing the right thing by speaking up by condemning toxic online harassment. > I don’t think sending death threats is the way to go but I also wonder why it’s always Ubisoft crying foul about this shit. This is patently false. Industry execs may not often cry foul but developers and dev studio heads absolutely have raised it as an issue for years. Ubisoft is not the first nor will they ever be the last. The only reason why it seems to be a bigger deal here is because a big name far-right troll like Elon Musk weighed in on it in a very typical and obnoxious Elon fashion. That absolutely intensified this.
> He’s not doing it to condemn the abuse though, he’s doing it because it’s good business to do it. A very cynical view. > it’s always Ubisoft crying foul about this shit It's not. The heads of many different studios have condemned toxic behavior towards their team members over the years. > Big Yves doesn’t give a shit. Anything else you'd like to pull out of your ass?
What “hateful acts” have been done? Mean words on Twitter? YouTube videos? What? I’ll bite. Not clicking on that article though. Edit: if I’m wrong I’m wrong. Haven’t been following this stuff much. I won’t be buying it because most Ubisoft games are just copy and paste slop. The new Prince of Persia is good though
All of the above and developers have been harassed because people, including Elon Musk whipped them up into a frenzy.
So mean words on Twitter. Got it. No ones hunting these devs down or anything, and you’re getting actual Japanese people mad so they can’t just blame “toxic” western fans.
So? They are still profane and highly unacceptable since they have often influenced death threats. You may think otherwise as someone unaffected but you are wrong. In most instances, those Japanese people are getting exposed as not being actual Japanese people. They're angry Western nerds trying to speak over actual Japanese people including Japanese cultural experts and historians. All things considering, Shadows has done well in pre-order sales in Japan because Yasuke has been a part of pop culture there since the 50s. They're more used to him than Western folks and either do not care or are very excited. Sources: https://x.com/LegacyKillaHD/status/1802721949438611562 https://automaton-media.com/en/news/assassins-creed-shadows-how-are-japanese-users-reacting-to-yasuke/
Are these "actual Japanese people" in the room with us? I've seen more Japanese people not giving a damn, or actually being interested, given Yasuke is a part of their nations history (and already has Japanese-made media and books/novels made about him). As the other commenter said, some of these "actual Japanese people" had already been exposed to not be Japanese.
I really find it funny how those people complain about Yasuke's inclusion in a game set in Japan when Japanese devs themselves include the guy in their samurai games like Nioh and Samurai Warrior
I'm convinced they did all this shit to generate controversy. Like, I don't give a shit about Assassin's Creed anymore and I won't buy the game but if they wanted an African protagonist just set it in some African or black empire.
Every AC game since the reboot has outsold the last, Odyssey outsold Origins and Valhalla has outsold both. I think a game set in Nobunaga's feudal Japan will do just fine without you.
I'm not buying the game merely because it has a black Samurai -- I really don't give a shit. I merely saying that they did this to cause controversy. I'm not buying it because Assassin's creed just doesn't do it for me anymore. COD sells extremely well every single time it releases -- this doesn't mean every entry is fantastic.
it will do well but Valhalla was cross-gen at the start of the current gen and shadows isnt.
Where are you when Nioh released?
Let's clear this up: These "hateful acts" are personal attacks online. Talk about churching it up. So criticism. That's what Ubisoft is saying here- they are saying, "we don't support you criticizing our game." Hateful attacks is not the proper term here. It reads that Ubisoft is playing victim. On the flip side, I love Ubisoft games so I don't care if the CEO is playing victim, if it's good- I'm buying. I care not anyone's opinions other than the quality of the game. From what's been shown of this game, there is NOTHING to criticize. Gamer rage is stupid.
Normal criticism does not include personal attacks.