I don't even like Jon but removing him from the game is pretty bullshit and even though on paper it's easy to see why they did so (I mean if I were to be a game dev and I saw some voice actor spouting some shit it will be embarassing), but if you go deep something's just not right:
We would like to make absolutely clear that we do not endorse or support JonTron's personal viewpoints and that, as an external fan contributor, he does not represent Playtonic in any capacity. Playtonic is a studio that celebrates diversity in all forms and strives to make games that everyone can enjoy.
Kinda makes me glad that I have never funded a Kickstarter. Btw according to one user, the Yooka-Laylee devs were sperging out about the elections too so it isn't surprising to him, but I would like to know more about this information.
I've only backed a handful of Kickstarters over the years, and have yet to be let down.
It's not dangerous, you just gotta do your homework. It sucks that the onus is on the backer, though.
Right now, though,
the comments are a fucking bloodbath, and the backers are revolting.
Gamers are an entitled crowd, one day your fandom loves and defends you but on the next they hate you and want you dead. Look what happened with MN9, No Man's Sky etc. If YL dissapoints then playtonic will automatically become the devil of the story. (but i backed the game so i hope they don't...)
I need to make very clear why this is such an issue for everyone, because it goes well beyond mere Social Justice tomfoolery and a NeoGAF witch-hunt campaign.
In the immediate term, backing away from Jontron probably seemed like the best strategy for Playtonic - and Jontron himself certainly didn't want them to fail over it. Jon's a gigantic Banjo-Kazooie fan; why the fuck would he want it to fail? On balance, however, their choosing to ditch Jontron was the
worst possible thing they could have fucking done.
By choosing to ditch Jontron in favor of the shrieking lynchmob on Twitter, consumer confidence has been
completely undermined. Appeasing the vocal whackjobs like this means that the devs were willing to compromise their game in various ways for the sake of political expediency, and that, as we say, is a fucking death sentence. The second you make clear that you're willing to undermine your own project for the sake of getting heat off you - a project that the fans fucking are
paying you to make, lest this not be sinking in - you've made it clear that you're more worried about the professionally offended than you are about your customers. You've done the Social Media equivalent of negotiating with terrorists. There is no quicker way to completely piss off your fucking consumers.
Over the last five years, we've seen this sort of outrage pout-fest used with devastating effect against various game developers. The outrage doesn't even have to be over something legitimate, as
we saw during the Andrea Ritsu thread; it just has to be volatile enough that the professionally offended brigade can get a foot in the door, and then this can be used as the first step towards undermining yet more of the game down the line. Literally no game worth its salt that has gotten toned down because of these loons has emerged better for it when the dust settles, and we've seen that over and over.
