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Stellar Blade Developer Shift Up addresses censorship claims "This is our final product. We are discussing this internally"
It would have helped if I had remembered the word moire. much better than "off tv photo Aliasing effect".
InterMusketeer
Member
Not really. I just described a scenario to that poster like he asked. I never claimed it was the absolute truth.
We would have to come to some sort of agreement on which outfits are the skimpiest and whether the altered costumes would have been skimpier. Then we would have to agree on whether whoever made these changes would agree with our conclusions. Impossible.
It doesn't happen very often that parties just openly state they were censored. Shift Up and Sony are business partners. They're not going to expose each other.
So ultimately it comes down to that reasonable doubt that I believe already exists, and which you apparently don't. I won't budge on this unless new information is released, and I assume you feel similarly.
Crayon
Member
Oh no I'm pretty fluid on the point of weather it was censorship or not. My hill is over there, where I say even if it was censorship starting a shitstorm over it is not a good idea in these circumstances.
Aside from that, maybe we can all come to agreement that it's the skin suit lol. You walked right into that one!
Aside from that, maybe we can all come to agreement that it's the skin suit lol. You walked right into that one!
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Crayon
Member
InterMusketeer
∆∆∆ that one was to you but I lost your whole quote somehow.
InterMusketeer
Member
I just find this argument difficult to understand. Censorship is really bad. Creators being restricted in their creativity is poison for this industry. It doesn't matter if the rest of the game is still good. It's worth discussing the censorship regardless.
I get your positive attitude. But simultaneously you are spending a lot of time trying to police how others react to censorship (most of which I've seen is proportional) when there's actual problems going on in this industry. People are not sending death threats, they're not harassing. There's forum posts, a hashtag and a petition. Is that really such a terrible response that one would need to jump into gear to criticize it?
Can we? I'm sure there's people out there who might think Eve's chest is sexier and more pronounced in outfits with cleavage for example.
No but you can download the NG+ patch play the game and save with the patch. uninstall and reinstall the game and your ng+ kind of remains on 1.00. People claiming that it's on the disc are lying. It's not.
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Aenima
Member
Ah ok. Makes sense. Guess i will just do a NG+ run patched and by the end unpatch it to see if the new outfits form the NG+ suffer any changes. Most likely they will remain the same.
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Angry_Megalodon
Member
I can't view how this "physically" could happen.
- The man in contact with Shift Up is Shuei Yoshida. He supervised the original project, approved it, and signed the deal.
- Right now, PS doesn't have a CEO. Hermen is the top exec.
Given that Yoshida could never do this, it should be Hermen. So, he spots a few costumes he doesn't like, and then what? sends an email to Kim, the CEO and art director of SU, and tells him how to do his job? I can't imagine how you would sign a second-party deal and your first action would be to piss on the CEO of the other company. Asking Kim (and his wife, also an artist) to change his outfits is like asking Kojima or Yoko Taro to change their writing.
It's Shift Up's reputation the one on the line. They would be dumb to ruin it just because Sony asks them.
Calling devs liars, asking for refunds, and claiming false advertising is a terrible response. I know the petition doesn't state that, but the wake of followers and YouTube rage-baiters do. And they are all in the same camp.
My legit fear is that this will backfire and next time Sony or/and Shift Up will avoid any controversy by making games for "modern audiences". I'm pissed that people who didn't care about this game just 3 months ago now use it as a spearhead for their own fights, with no regard for the consequences. If SU says "fuck this shit I stick to my gachas" it's the players who lose, not the Twitter warriors.
And Grummz knows it. But he doesn't give a shit, like all the others.
- The man in contact with Shift Up is Shuei Yoshida. He supervised the original project, approved it, and signed the deal.
- Right now, PS doesn't have a CEO. Hermen is the top exec.
Given that Yoshida could never do this, it should be Hermen. So, he spots a few costumes he doesn't like, and then what? sends an email to Kim, the CEO and art director of SU, and tells him how to do his job? I can't imagine how you would sign a second-party deal and your first action would be to piss on the CEO of the other company. Asking Kim (and his wife, also an artist) to change his outfits is like asking Kojima or Yoko Taro to change their writing.
It's Shift Up's reputation the one on the line. They would be dumb to ruin it just because Sony asks them.
Calling devs liars, asking for refunds, and claiming false advertising is a terrible response. I know the petition doesn't state that, but the wake of followers and YouTube rage-baiters do. And they are all in the same camp.
My legit fear is that this will backfire and next time Sony or/and Shift Up will avoid any controversy by making games for "modern audiences". I'm pissed that people who didn't care about this game just 3 months ago now use it as a spearhead for their own fights, with no regard for the consequences. If SU says "fuck this shit I stick to my gachas" it's the players who lose, not the Twitter warriors.
And Grummz knows it. But he doesn't give a shit, like all the others.
Crayon
Member
Policing? Uh oh.
Dr. Claus
Banned
Playing itself 
Pejo
Member
Well shit. Between more stuff being found now and the fact that the 1.02 costume icons have the uncensored designs still, I think it's pretty clear that this was last minute censorship and not just a "we didn't get to finish it before the discs went out" thing. Any further GAFfer handwaving this evidence will not get a reply out of me, because I'm tired of trying to talk to people who only reply in bad faith. But yea, that's pretty damning.
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DoktorCoktor
Member
The NG+ data has to already be present within the disc's installed data if it works after the updates are uninstalled. The NG+ save from the patched files makes it so you can access that data offline with the base disc version after you completely uninstall the game data. So the data has to be present, it just doesn't work because they obviously disabled the trigger calls.
LegendOfKage
Member
The censored outfits in Stellar Blade, reminded me of this key art that Sony also censored, while the original one was shown in all other platforms.
So many instances like this: https://www.youtube.com/@CensoredGaming/search?query=sony
Just example after example, really. It all adds up to not being able to believe the developer when they claim that all of the changes were due to their ever evolving artist intent. Changes that only went in one direction, and censored more of the character in terms of their clothing while nothing was made more revealing. It's possible, but Sony's past behavior have left a lot of room for doubt.
If Sony demanded changes to certain outfits for whatever reason, the developer would have not been able to admit that without harming their relationship with Sony. And again, Sony has a detailed history of this type of censorship.
It's pretty bad when family company Nintendo is allowing low-cut tops on their console and Sony demands that those same characters be covered up. That's not a matter of ESRB ratings, and it's not a matter of artistic intent, it's Sony wanting to play the morality police. They've been doing it for years, so it's no surprise that people believe they're responsible for this censorship as well.
I get what you're saying, but like any "it's such a small change, why do you even care" argument, the point you're making is a two way street. You could also say "if this whole 'pro woke' thing has gone so far as to not even leave this game alone, then there's no where else to even go."
[note] The post I'm responding to is from the petition thread, but my post isn't really about the petition, so I figured I'd post it here instead.
Aenima
Member
Its pretty clear the patched outfits are not what the designers intended. You can see that in most of the patched outfits that still have the original designs but have extra fabric added to cover more skin. They are not outfits redesigned from scratch. The bunny outfit added fabric where a zipper is lol. How does that even make sense from a functionality point of view?
Toons
Member
Because he's the creator of the game?
As opposed to tbose supplying the other narratives, mainly, what some random youtube culture guys with a literal financial stake in getting folks as riled up as possible are saying, what makes them any more credible?
Dr. Claus
Banned
It doesn't, but the same 4-5 users will come in here and undoubtably make some more excuses about how it truly was the creator's decision and how everyone is an incel/loser/basement dweller. Gets tiring after a while.
Toons
Member
Id say many were expecting those individuals would target this game. This isnt something is generally described as tailor made for their tastes.
Toons
Member
And now we have armchair game modelers determining which parts of the models were hastily added by the *Korean devs and which parts were there form the start, and that being used as "proof".
Dude if SU comes out and says Sony asked for this stuff ill take back everything I ever said in this thread. I'll eat my crow handily.
But that isn't what has happened. What has happened so far is SU made a statement(which, while it acknowledged many wouldn't accept it, doesn't in itself mean that they didn't mean it) and a few ideological guys on the internet spun this into a conspiracy and folks are just kinda following the hive, meanwhile normal people are enjoying the game immensely.
Has nothing to do with incel anything. Has to do with internet mobs and how they form and how they operate. We saw it happen with Hogwarts legacy, we saw it happen with TLOU2, same stuff is happening now.
I've been around enough to be immediately skeptical of internet mobs, regardless of their lean. ESPECIALLY when the person spearheading it us a clown like Grummz, who himself has a financial stake in this mob, and has a history of grifitng and scamming based on what little I've seen of it.
That should give anyone pause.
Edited for naming the wrong country origin
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Madflavor
Member
Neither is going to happen, relax. They're currently hiring for a AAA Action RPG, and Korea is breaking out into the console gaming market, and Shift Up is one of the studios leading the charge. They're not going to give that up over something like this. Stellar Blade 2 for "modern audiences" would be a much bigger controversy than what we're seeing now. Sony would be fucking stupid to push that on them.
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Pejo
Member
Comparing this to Hogwarts Legacy stuff is asinine to me because that was like exactly the opposite. That was a group of people that hated a game/IP/creator trying to get the game to fail. This is a bunch of people that either bought the game or are highly interested in the game that are not happy with evidence that the designs promised were changed last minute. With Sony's reputation as a repeat offender for wanton censorship of PRIMARILY eastern developed media (another instance just dropped today in fact), people are thinking critically in that it's likely due to some mandate by Sony.
I don't think a bunch of people with no interest in Stellar Blade would be signing a petition to bring more content to Stellar Blade. It's not a cancel attempt, it's a "just give us what was promoted" thing.
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Madflavor
Member
I have a feeling they're going to rollback the changes, either revert the outfits to their original state, or an option to toggle them on or off. A big reason I think this is because the outfits are available for people who got the physical copy. If you look at it through that lens, it basically means physical copy owners get access to content that others don't, in a game where the sexualization of the protagonist is one of it's selling points. Additionally, this controversy for better or worse, has basically drowned out a lot of actual discussion online about the game itself, at a time where Shift Up should've been celebrating making a great game. The whole thing puts them in an awkward position, where I feel like the winning move is to just make people happy and give them want they want, so both players with digital and physical versions can access them.
Then again, it may not ultimately be up to them if Sony was the one who wanted the changes made. In that situation if Sony tells them no, then that just sucks for everyone involved. Shift Up would have to either stay silent or just tell the players they aren't changing them back, and then they take a good amount of shit from players on Sony's behalf.
Then again, it may not ultimately be up to them if Sony was the one who wanted the changes made. In that situation if Sony tells them no, then that just sucks for everyone involved. Shift Up would have to either stay silent or just tell the players they aren't changing them back, and then they take a good amount of shit from players on Sony's behalf.
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Toons
Member
Its about WHY they hated the game, nd the reasons why they hated it have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself. The game became a battleground for something that really had nothing to do with it.
Stellar blade is becoming a similar thing, and just like HL, normal people are just playing and enjoying the game and it's quite successful.
When you've gotten to the point you're only willing to accept confirmation of your suspicions, and any statement or evidence to the contrary regardless of its source is dismissed, thats the point when you're no longer thinking critically but looking for confirmation bias.
Let's say SU does nothing and leaves the game as is. Will people accept that maybe they just always intended to alter stuff for the final release, or will they only be willing to accept SU coming out and validating them?
Theres plenty of people with no interest in stellar blade who are going to sign this petition because of culture war reasons and its pretty obvious to see why. Signing a petition on change.org is the easiest thing in the world, requires zero investment.
Pejo
Member
But in this case, the removed/altered content DOES directly have to do with the game. Again, this is nothing like the Hogwarts thing.
Not sure what you're referring to here?
I think at the bare minimum, an official statement is in order of why they changed what they changed, and why they did it at the time that they did. The cat is out of the bag at this point to know that they pushed changes that would look like covering up certain outfits to any rational person after the game was gold. If that wasn't the case, if it's all a big misunderstanding, let's hear it. And not something like "oh that's our final design", maybe talk about why so many of the costumes were covered up.
Why do you look at the petition with such disdain? There is literally zero downside if ShiftUp/Sony decide to provide the original unedited costumes. You're acting like if they dare give in and give the fanbase what they want, that it's some sort of defeat. If they provide toggles or alt versions of these costumes, literally everybody wins. Fans get what they want. ShiftUp gets to look good in that they did right by their fans and that "uncensored in all regions" tweet wasn't just blowing smoke up our asses. Sony gets to fight some of the allegations that they are a cause for censorship in this case. Literally nobody loses if the petition succeeds. People that have no idea or interest in this drama can continue not knowing or caring, or maybe they find the toggle and flip it and are delighted.
Culture war be damned, it's just a net good.
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Silver Wattle
Gold Member
The thing that I don't understand from all of this, is what motivates the pro censorship crowd? We know the motivation of those against the censorship, but pro censorship?
Crayon
Member
I don't think there's much of a pro censorship crowd around these parts.
Toons
Member
I disagree. I think that the way in which this game is being turned onto a culture battlefield over something that is not only incredibly minor from any objective angle in the game itself, but also is very possibly not even the thing its being accused of being is very similar in terms of audience reaction.
Im referring to people disregarding the official dev word on the game and the state of it and instead pursuing a more convenient, more expected narrative and then working backwards to try and make that out to be the reality.
"say specifically what we need to hear you say to quell this reaction or were gonna assume the extreme opposite" isn't critical thinking either. As has been covered in this topic already there are a variety of factors that could have gone into this, some of which we may not even know about, and aren't necessarily entitled TO know about either. Attempting to hold up the success of a game you like until you get that isnt balanced, its entitlement.
No it isn't.
Theres a distance between developer and audience for a reason. At the point at which a developer feels cooerced to pander to a small part of an audience in this way, the artistic vision also becomes subverted just in a different way. It would send the message that if a small minority of people throw a big enough tantrum then they will be appeased. Something that might appeal to you in THIS case but I can guarantee wont appeal to you in others.
Thats to say nothing of the fact that the petition is being run by, at BEST, a distrustworhy actor with a very clear financial and ideological stake in dragging out this narrative. We wanna keep ideology our of gaming, that has to go both ways and guys like this dont need to have any influence over major companies.
Besides, if it really was Sony forcing this, why would Sony then allow them to release the "original" version? They cant magically become independent from sonys oversight when a petition by maybe 10% of the base has signed. If Sony could be swayed by that then it doesnt even add up that they'd force a change in the first place.
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Pejo
Member
You're the only one that keeps bringing up this culture battlefield angle. If you look at the tweet posted by ShiftUp today, the replies are saying stuff like "great game, hope you revert the censorship". You're creating the boogeyman and then starting that battle all on your own.
Well it's a good thing you can always trust everything out of corporations mouths, right?
This is a loaded prompt by you, I never said tell us what we want to hear, I said tell us more than "it's our final design" of why the changes happened. There is no question that changes DID happen, what I think is owed to the consumers is an explanation of why. Or they can keep it a secret and just add the old designs back in. Regardless of how you interpret the "uncensored in all regions" tweet, it was a straight up bald faced lie. That's not good business at best and false advertising at worst.
I thought "voting with your wallet" is something prompted by your ilk whenever devs make a change that is disliked? Or did it go something like "don't like it, don't buy it." Besides the vast majority of people have already bought the game and are happy with it. The petition is a non-threatening method of direct feedback to the devs to let them know what the fanbase wants. Would you get bent out of shape if they sent a survey out and people responded to it? That's akin to what this petition is. Look at it as an unprompted survey.
Oh boy....
Once again, I need to remind you. This is not requesting something be removed from the game, this is essentially saying "give us what was advertised". This is an additive thing. That Grummz guy must live in your head rent-fuckin'-free if all you can do is keep coming back to him. I get that you don't like him and his general shtick, but I don't give a shit about him and I still support the goal of the petition.
Which line are we on here, 2 or 3?
Toons
Member
I think that's a little disingenuous. The very state of deciding its already "censorship", combined with the general discourse surrounding this topic, as well as the very clear ideological angle that the guy running the petition is taking this makes it impossible to separate that from it.
If you're willing to believe SU is lying to its consumer base for its own gain then why would they be willing to turn around and change it, and if they could be cooerced into doing so by Sony then why rely on them as a dev at all?
It can't be both ways, which is another thing not being addressed. If they revert things back they are as good as admitting they lied to consumers, and that would be worse than a few people simply speculating that they did.
Thats only if you are of the opinion they intended the 1.00 version or whatever has the ""uncensored"" suits for wide release. So no, it's not necessarily a lie.
But again, if you're believing they intentionally lied to customers then what is even left to salvage if they come our and say "yeah we lied but have your few pixels of skin back lol". That's more untrustworthy on their part than the alternative.
All of those things are absolutely true and I stand by them, regardless of "ilk". That doesnt mean the folks voting with their wallet aren't still being entitled, nor are they absolved from criticism for their choice to do so. Entitled people vote with their wallet all the time. Its their money to do so with. They're still entitled tho.
No, the game has what was advertised. What was advertised was always subject to changes as development processes continue, and its not even always after the fact. There are times the stuff shown in advertising literslly isn't even finished. This happens all the time. This is going back a bit but when injustuce 2 was coming out, you can still view the original trailer for Robin in that game, and his ultimate animation cutscene is noticeably different than the one that made it into the final game, which facial expression changes and far, far less blood in the final game than the trailer.
This doesn't mean they were forced to censor, but the version in the trsioer could've been an early unfinished version of the animation.
As for grummz, I mean hes made himself the face of this, hes literally running the petition dude? Why are you trying to separate him from this; hes spearheading the whole thing and his intentions with regard to it absolutely warrant considering.
Which line are we on here, 2 or 3?
Were still on one, because the onus is still on SOMEONE to prove this actually happened lmao. (As in, Sony forcing the dev to change things, not that changes happened)
Like I said. I'll eat crows for lunch if that is proven to be the case.
Edit: off to bed for now, I will see if there are new developments tomorrow.
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consoul
Member
This has been on my mind from the beginning.
The 'accidental' demo drop.
The Hard R.
The toning down day one patch.
The "I know this answer is not enough to convince our users" response.
The drama.
THE DRAMA.
It's all money-can't-buy publicity that has kept the game at the top of gaming discussion.
Does it end with them restoring the original costumes for a final positive news story? I reckon it will.
Mithos
Member
You think the current news media will report this as a "positive" thing?
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Sony has killed off Days Gone IP only because of controversy, despite selling 9 million copies. Other than Yoshida, I don't trust Sony's decisions. In the last years, they are often not aligned with their fans.
While I agree that the flash demo was intentional and the current drama is free marketing, it's the wrong type of marketing. It doesn't do justice to the game, which is legitimately great. The conversation around it (tits and butts) was always annoying IMO and now it reached new levels. I doubt that people who worked their asses off in making great music, combat and level design are happy about their work being reduced to tits good - tits bad.
Regarding bunny suits, in figure collecting, there are 2 basic models: with or without stockings. Collectors prefer the ones with "more clothes", the bare-legged are much less popular. I'm saying this because the censorship theory presumes that more clothes is censorship and that generalization is not always true in the waifusphere.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Not only there will be media backslash but "fans" will keep attacking SU because "it was never their intention, it's all thanks to us, my dudes"
It's so predictable. Just a lose-lose situation.
No because the data could reside in the save file too once created.
Madflavor
Member
Different situation that, and regardless the next game by Shift Up is a cross platform project. Stellar Blade reviewed well, and it's seems to be selling fine. They're not going kill any sequel or future project plans with Shift Up over 70k nerds making a fuss about censorship. That would be absolutely fucking retarded on Sony's part. If the outfits were censored by Sony, then Shift Up takes the shit for it and Sony cancels the next game over a decision they themselves made, that could hurt future relationships with Korean developers. Sony knows Korea is about to enter the console gaming scene in a big way, and they want to cultivate that.
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InterMusketeer
Member
Well, the devs promised something and seemingly didn't deliver. The word "liar" kinda makes it sound like they're accused of intentionally misleading customers. For the record, I don't think that happened. But it is true that their promise became a lie when/if they caved to outside pressure.
I'm baffled you would argue against people getting to decide what to spend their money on though. I wouldn't refund the game for these changes myself, but that's up to the individual to decide.
"If we complain about the rat guts in the apple sauce, we might not get any at all in the future!"
Lol, why even bring him up? No one even mentioned the guy. I swear you guys are just arguing against imaginary people, who are all puppets controlled by a false prophet.
Uhh, yeah. That's why I believe him when he says his argument isn't convincing.
I'm pretty sure people call it censorship because they can see the changes. Not because some dude on YouTube said so.
SSfox
Member
Sony has become so dumfucks it's insane and make me sad as hardcore PS fan. From now on I'm less whiling to buy my games on playstation and PS5 may be my last playstation console.
Thing is I don't even care about the costume that much, but the censoring thing is just so dumb
Thing is I don't even care about the costume that much, but the censoring thing is just so dumb
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midnightAI
Member
Is it? Where have you read that? Just curious
Madflavor
Member
It says it right there on the front page next to Stellar Blade.
midnightAI
Member
Huh, interesting, guessing the second party partnership is only for Stellar Blade (maybe)
It says it right there on the front page next to Stellar Blade.
Same ol G
Member
I'm laughing cause new game+ is more than just a simple registry edit, it adds 30+ new costumes to the game.Same ol G Some people clearly don't know what resides on save files and the possibilities available with save file hacking.
The save file is just over 40 mb, you think i believe everything that is needed is included in the savefile.
This would also be giving problems when deleting the patch files because the save file now expects the 1.0002 version and you're booting the 1.0000 version.
That's why
Interesting, where is the original blurry off screen grab on the right from?Courtesy of 4chan:
Kinda lost track at how many censored outfits this makes at this point.
People who bring up the icons as the original design though ignore the fact that the "uncensored" versions have missing fabric on icons too. we're talking about a 1bit image (not grayscale but just black or white) so if they put all fabrics on the icon most of the icons would just look like the same silhouette of her body. Go look at the "uncensored" versions of the cybernetic bondage suit and compare to the icon you'll see the icon doesn't show all the fabric, by that logic even the uncensored suit has been censored.
Madflavor
Member
Anon's phone.
So you're telling me that NG+ in its entirety is on the disc and they just had you download gigs for no reason. Most of the costumes are palette swaps so yes them remaining from the original design that's on the disc would fit on 40MB.I'm laughing cause new game+ is more than just a simple registry edit, it adds 30+ new costumes to the game.
The save file is just over 40 mb, you think i believe everything that is needed is included in the savefile.
This would also be giving problems when deleting the patch files because the save file now expects the 1.0002 version and you're booting the 1.0000 version.
That's why
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