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

SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 355 points –
‘Black Myth: Wukong’ Devs Told Streamers to Avoid Politics in Their Playthroughs. It Backfired
wired.com

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.”

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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.

Woke pitchfork brigade

Nothing you say is ever worth paying attention to if you use phrases like this

give the document a read yourself

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1aKlZvxWxbPOzldSUdc6CaHmoy80Fl7W_wQt-Ex-vl0k/mobilebasic?pli=1

Published by https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YVuo-oqw2EU

https://videogames.si.com/news/black-myth-wukong-streamers-feminist-propaganda

Thanks for the additional sources! And for the discipline.

I have read that "document", how does that change anything I said? Have you not seen this toxic "anti-woke" bile that has been popping up for every new game release now? Like we get that they hate woman, are super racist, and think that being gay or trans makes people not human, but I think they are a minority that should go back to living in the swap.

And my comment getting a -40 makes me sad for the future if that many people are choosing to side with hate and discrimination.

Have you not seen this toxic "anti-woke" bile that has been popping up for every new game release now? Like we get that they hate woman, are super racist, and think that being gay or trans makes people not human, but I think they are a minority that should go back to living in the swap.

They might be a statistical minority where you live, but that doesn't mean they can't assert political power and discriminate against scapegoated outgroups.

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