JonTron Salt - feat. the growing Yooka-Laylee shitstorm (Mighty No. 9 2.0)

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Team 17 have a bit of a history of having a cry even back in the 90's. It's a bit 1998 but Stuart Campbell's Amiga Power 2 site details the story well

http://theweekly.co.uk/ap2/dissent/vendetta.html
http://theweekly.co.uk/ap2/dissent/Team17_lawsuit.html

For those allergic to HTML pages with no CSS or need a TL;DR (though to be fair the way they present it a bit awkward)

Team 17 used to be a pretty big proper software house during the Amiga's heyday and released a ton of games that are well regarded. They did mostly score and were good - but as time went on Team 17 seemed to have a certain grudge towards Amiga Power. They would put the mag staff in games with shitty AI and started to get antsy when AP noticed their slow decline. After one bad review they launched a lawsuit, then ran to a French magazine to claim AP took bribes and were corrupt up the wazoo (because France doesn't have the libel laws UK has)

AP as an aside were one of the few mags that tried to have an ethical review policy. It did trip up a few times during it's run (reviewing unfinished games by mistake or deliberately) but had a lot of contempt for other mags that they knew took money/gifts ect for good reviews.

Then Worms released and got big, so Team 17 could just release half decent games or keep riding the worms wagon. These days outside the recent Worms title, they mostly act as a publisher for select indie titles. But would seem they didn't learn the lessons of before.
 
Pretty sure this thing is going to get hammered with refunds and reviews.

Playtime: 20 minutes
Review: FAGGY SJW ruin my clam refunded!!

Should be interesting to see what happens on release. Betting three outcomes.

1. Goes to top of steam charts for one day due to everyone wanting to post a funny review then refund. Commercial failure.

2. Gets buried. Due to Mass Effect, Zelda, Neir , DS 3 DLC sucking most gamers paychecks and hipsters/SJWs blowing cash on night in the woods and other more "progressive" games. Once again, a commercial failure.

3. They do some publicity stunt where they get another popular youtube star to fill a void and bandaid the outraged, but delay release. Maybe profitable.
 
SteelPlatedHeart said:
Oh good...now there's two crappy baiters in here.

I feel like things are gonna get worse for Playtonic before it gets better. Removing Jon? Crappy thing to happen, but I get the reasoning. Openly showing contempt for those that disagree while also showing that the reason for dropping Jon was less about the company and more about their own personal ideologies? That's where you fucked up. They're basically saying "yeah, we DID drop Jon because the SJWs told us to, what of it?"

Instead of staying neutral about the situation, they're going as personal as possible. Bad move.
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What bothers me so much about it is that this was such a zero sum game. All they had to do was just ignore NeoGAF entirely.
You know, exactly what most of the internet would prefer to do.

Didn't need to block, didn't need to make a statement on the matter, just flat-out not respond.
Would have taken absolutely no effort.

Instead, not only did they drop Jontron, but they made it perfectly clear to absolutely everyone that they did so for petty political reasons, and to drive home this fact after the initial shitstorm brewed, they doubled down on it. They chose literally the only response literally guaranteed to fucking cause a shitstorm.
 
Jaimas said:
What bothers me so much about it is that this was such a zero sum game. All they had to do was just ignore NeoGAF entirely.
You know, exactly what most of the internet would prefer to do.

Didn't need to block, didn't need to make a statement on the matter, just flat-out not respond.
Would have taken absolutely no effort.
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Neogaf were intent on making this a controversy. They don't sharpen their pitchforks (the second link is the site's worst moderator) if they don't expect to draw some blood. Even if Playtonic ignored their autism, one of the AIDS video game websites (Kotaku/Polygon/Vice) would've signal boosted their outrage. The only way Playtonic was going to get away with not commenting on the situation was if the game's release date was pushed back far enough for every normal person to have forgotten about this.

Speaking of the forum, some of them are now digging through years worth of Game Grumps footage to find Jon saying things they dislike.
 
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Grant's been vague on Twitter.

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Jon and him are friends so I'm guessing he finds it sad that Jon had to go.
 
Munchingonfish said:
Neogaf were intent on making this a controversy. They don't sharpen their pitchforks (the second link is the site's worst moderator) if they don't expect to draw some blood. Even if Playtonic ignored their autism, one of the AIDS video game websites (Kotaku/Polygon/Vice) would've signal boosted their outrage. The only way Playtonic was going to get away with not commenting on the situation was if the game's release date was pushed back far enough for every normal person to have forgotten about this.

Speaking of the forum, some of them are now digging through years worth of Game Grumps footage to find Jon saying things they dislike.
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I was gonna take issue, but... Sad thing is, I know you're right.

Right before this witch-hunt launched, a number of the usual suspects made a move. Jim Sterling most obviously, who put up an article bashing Jon and declaring him to be a white supremacist less than 24 hours before the thing broke. Usually when they're setting up attacks in advance, it means a hammerblow's about to drop on somebody - and after years of following this sort of thing happening....

Well, let's just say you stop believing in coincidences after the same two dozen or so people keep popping up over and over.
 
Baldur's Gait said:
Exactly. That's why entertainment is called entertainment. People want something to distract themselves from their problems, not remind them that life sucks or that other parts of the world are suffering. The moment you try using entertainment media to try espousing your dumbass political beliefs, you cease to be entertaining because now you're reminding people of what they want to get away from.

The fact that politics has been digging its claws into virtually everything that's supposed to be an escape irks me.
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I think in another thread @Piga Dgrifm joked "We aren't allowed to enjoy things until a Democrat is in the White House again." It's amazing how many things that statement applies to now.

Also, holy shit, I somehow I managed to block out how annoying the pricks at Neogaf are but now it's all flooding back. Imagine being that salty over politics and video games all the time. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
 
Meanwhile, the Steam Forums and Playtonic Forums are a fucking sight to behold:

oe8eDwD.png


V1jgHrt.png


The mods have given up even pretending to do damage control, and are leaving all the shitposting by both sides up.

Weens have moved in, and this is causing no end of silliness as the staff keep their heads down and hope fervently to god the Autism just blows over.
 
Jaimas said:
Meanwhile, the Steam Forums and Playtonic Forums are a fucking sight to behold:

oe8eDwD.png


V1jgHrt.png


The mods have given up even pretending to do damage control, and are leaving all the shitposting by both sides up.

Weens have moved in, and this is causing no end of silliness as the staff keep their heads down and hope fervently to god the Autism just blows over.
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"You went full political. You NEVER go full political."
 
Playtonic was very much stuck between a rock and a hard place with this situation. While it has the spirit of Rareware, it's got none of the workforce, or money.

Some things to note (I seem to have people and contacts everwhere for this sort of shit. Wonder how the fuck I managed that).

Playtonic is a tiny studio which cannot afford controversy of any form for its first launch, everything is on the line for Yooka-Lalee, with its three founding members having sunk a lot of their own cash into the game alongside the kickstarter money. If they'd left Jon in, then the corrupted gaming websites would've raked them over the coals for having a racist's voice in the game. Taking him out is a smarter move on their part.

The above note of 24/26 devs being white men is accurate. This is because Playtonic is in an area which is 92.3% white and primarily recruits from a city where the ethnic population is less than 20,000 people. There simply isn't a magic ethnic pool to draw from.

They have one person doing both Public Relations and Marketing, who, iirc, is a uni graduate about a year/two out from Uni. This will have hit them like a fucking freight truck.

Jon's comments will not play as well to mainstream UK audiences as they would to the shitlords of the USA. Both sides are actually minority groups and simply loud ones, the mainstream will probably also find Jon's views either distasteful or outright wrong, remember, the moderate middle is also the majority.

Team 17 is also a realtively small UK company betting big on Yookalaylee and is more used to self publishing its games then it is doing this work for others, there's likely a lot of influence from them in this trainwreck as well.

Both seem to be in a relative panic mode thanks to the sheer weight of hate they've garnered.

In short, there's simply too much at stake for both companies for them to just ignore the wider controversy like a bigger company would.
 
They should have just ignored it because no one but a tiny handful of SJW's would have cared. If they really wanted to appease a tiny portion of their audience they should have made Jon's voice an option that you could swap out. That's it.

But they had to make a stance and are eating shit. Streisand Effect in action.
 
Ponderous Pillock said:
Playtonic was very much stuck between a rock and a hard place with this situation. While it has the spirit of Rareware, it's got none of the workforce, or money.

Some things to note (I seem to have people and contacts everwhere for this sort of shit. Wonder how the fuck I managed that).

Playtonic is a tiny studio which cannot afford controversy of any form for its first launch, everything is on the line for Yooka-Lalee, with its three founding members having sunk a lot of their own cash into the game alongside the kickstarter money. If they'd left Jon in, then the corrupted gaming websites would've raked them over the coals for having a racist's voice in the game. Taking him out is a smarter move on their part.

The above note of 24/26 devs being white men is accurate. This is because Playtonic is in an area which is 92.3% white and primarily recruits from a city where the ethnic population is less than 20,000 people. There simply isn't a magic ethnic pool to draw from.

They have one person doing both Public Relations and Marketing, who, iirc, is a uni graduate about a year/two out from Uni. This will have hit them like a fucking freight truck.

Jon's comments will not play as well to mainstream UK audiences as they would to the shitlords of the USA. Both sides are actually minority groups and simply loud ones, the mainstream will probably also find Jon's views either distasteful or outright wrong, remember, the moderate middle is also the majority.

Team 17 is also a realtively small UK company betting big on Yookalaylee and is more used to self publishing its games then it is doing this work for others, there's likely a lot of influence from them in this trainwreck as well.

Both seem to be in a relative panic mode thanks to the sheer weight of hate they've garnered.

In short, there's simply too much at stake for both companies for them to just ignore the wider controversy like a bigger company would.
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The issue is less about Jon being removed and more their reaction to people complaining about Jon being removed. They basically went "lol u mad, gamergaters?"
 
BrunoMattei said:
They should have just ignored it because no one but a tiny handful of SJW's would have cared. If they really wanted to appease a tiny portion of their audience they should have made Jon's voice an option that you could swap out. That's it.

But they had to make a stance and are eating shit. Streisand Effect in action.
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It's illegal for UK companies to be discriminatory in any capacity. Jon's comments can be construed as discriminatory, and should they have kept him in it would've likely gotten them in trouble as an endorsement by association. Especially for a bright, colourful kids-like game.

Now, yes, the way the companies have handled this situation is frankly rubbish, they could've removed Jon and made little commentary on it, or as others have pointed out said that the Kickstarter money's already gone into development and as they've actually developed the game they have no right to a refund.

Again my adage of "Just because someone is educated doesn't mean they're smart." comes to the fore, the situation strikes me more as a panic (Because the timing honestly could not be worse for Playtonic and Team 17) than the usual malice we've seen from stuff like Dina.

You have to remember that even the founders were only Rareware middle managers before they branched off into doing this as their own thing, so its likely they were trying to get ahead of the situation quickly rather than either letting it burn itself out or taking time to think it over to construct a better public facade.
 
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