gotta say I’m not feeling suuuuuper optimistic given the studio involved in general and their marketing department is definitely not doing any favors with stuff like this garbage (CW: transphobia)
19 Likes
Just wow. I am beyond flabbergasted and disgusted. This is so disappointing, ignorant, immature and hurtful.
1 Like
That transphobic tweet was incredibly disappointing to see. I don’t know if this was some social media intern or what, but if this is indicative of a larger culture at CDProjekt it makes me think twice whether I want to give Cyberpunk 2077 any of my time at all.
8 Likes
Not a good look…You can blame cultural differences or what have you. But this just comes across as a stupid move especially in such a sensitive and political climate.
2 Likes
And of course, judging by Twitter this morning, this has managed to just give their more terrible gamer bro-y fanbase an opportunity to defend them.
5 Likes
The well-reported Kotaku piece on the culture of sexism at Riot Games comes to mind. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Here’s a link to the corresponding waypoint-thread:
2 Likes
From what I understand CDProjekt got a good deal of negative blowback before deleting the tweet, so that’s a good thing, if true. Of course the Shitty Joke Defender Force is out there, too, and I wish company PR hadn’t been so quick on appealing to the worst parts of the community.
1 Like
They did a “sorry if you were offended, we didn’t intend to” fake apology too.
2 Likes
As a trans woman who is super into cyberpunk I was sooo dissapointed. Mostly by their reaction. It’s easy for a techbro to make a crappy joke and not realize it. It’s not great, but there’s room for growth.
The non-apology cements that this is not going to be any kind of Cyberpunk game at all. It’s tone-deaf and ass-covering and is not going to satisfy anyone that was actually hurt by the post.
Moreover, trans women are some of the most pro-cyberpunk-as-genre people I know. A lot of us, at least on the internet, are tech savvy and anecdotally a lot of us know how to program. We’re also very interested in expensive body modification and tend to be pretty anti-corporate.
A lot of trans women I know, myself included, grew up reading and devoting ourselves to cyberpunk media because it resonated so closely with our sense of self in the world.
My interest in the game is inextricably bound to my trans-ness. I now have no confidence that I can play this game without having to deal with a completely tone-deaf treatment of the genre.
23 Likes
y’all ever see an apology so bad you are forced to immediately go to sleep?
21 Likes
Now I just can’t help but wonder how many shitty people there are at that company that are totally fine with comments like that.
2 Likes
I’m more bummed out at the thought of there potentially being marginalised folks that work for CDPR who are seeing stuff like this. It sucks to be on the outside and dealing with game companies (and their social media platforms) spouting this sort of dehumanising shit, though I’d much less want to be in a position where I had to work for such a company.
This whole situation is a bummer. Regardless of whether this will actually be reflected in the writing & world-building of 2077, it definitely doesn’t leave me any desire to find out for myself. And foh with that non-apology nonsense.
16 Likes
I made the mistake of reading some of the Twitter replies to Austin’s tweet and to CDPR’s “apology” and on top of all the other bad things, they’ve also dogwhistled so loudly to all the transphobes. If there was any hope of gender fluidity within the game (the OP of this thread) I think they’ve all but doomed it by calling the gamergate twitter army into their corner.
10 Likes
there was a chance for them to save face here with something as easy as a halfway decent apology. they failed miserably. shame on them.
at the hypothetical future date on which cyberpunk 2077 comes out, there will be other good games available. i might just play those instead. i don’t have any illusions about transphobia/homophobia/racism/misogyny in the games industry, i’m sure that behind most big titles there are people that hold some of those “beliefs” - but if they can’t even be bothered to try to keep them off of social media, it’s like … what the fuck are you guys doing? why would i support you? again, it’s a damn shame.
5 Likes
Considering the reports of the working conditions & office politics of CDPR, yeah, this being reflective of the internal environment is far from unlikely.
Very glad to see (in the replies to Austin’s tweet, don’t read them they’re bad) CDPR’s reactionary pandering bullshit is still excused by fans as “just their culture, you don’t understand”, too. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s also been used to defend them reportedly underpaying their workers regularly. Same as it ever was.
And really, an “assume my gender” “joke” followed by a “sorry if you’re offended” tweetpology? We’re still out here with this? Couldn’t even ‘creatively’ code your casual dehumanization of a massive group of marginalized people that gotta deal with the consequences of this shit every day, eh CDPR?
17 Likes
Gonna be honest by the reaction people had to the tweet in question I was thinkin the ‘joke’ was way worse than it actually was. Still shitty but I expected a looooot worse.
I think most people are more upset about the apology. The joke is really bad and shouldn’t have been made but to then go and just punch down in an apology is just crossing a line.
There’s an easy “Hey sorry y’all that was really bad on our end, we’ve talked to the person responsible and we are going to be making changes internally to make sure that doesn’t happen again” to be made and they instead opted for the “Sorry you’re offended” apology one gets from someone who isn’t really sorry but is just saying it as a formality because it’s expected.
6 Likes
Yeah, I understand that much more.
Given some of CDPR’s choices about representation in the previous Witcher games, I was already approaching Cyberpunk with cautious optimism. But between this tweet and apology and the new screen shots showing only white people (or so it looks to me anyway, maybe the low lighting is playing tricks) I’m sliding more towards hope-they-prove-me-wrong pessimism. It could simply be that the marketing or PR teams made both those decisions and it doesn’t reflect the full scope of the game, its development, etc, and I know there was at least a little bit of racial inclusiveness in the E3 trailer. But when a studio is so consistently careless about these sorts of things, eventually I’m going to stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.
2 Likes
