Popular Post Seraphim_Rez Posted June 25, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 25, 2020 (edited) Before I start, let me just say that I do not care if you do or do not like the game, the company, and/or the people who work there. That is your opinion and you can have it. The problem I've been seeing in the months up to the game's release and after is the spread of misinformation as fact and this post is going to talk about that. ----------------------------- The first thing that will be talked about is the recent revelation by ex-IGN employee Mitch Dyer that the IGN article that claimed that Amy Henning was forced out was unsubstantiated and merely gossip. People have used this claim for years to hate on ND and direct harassment. Since Dyer's original Twitter thread, multiple current and former IGN employees have also come out about toxic leadership during that time period. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1275457947955613697.html It's also clear that Henning holds no hostility toward her former employer and she was even excited to play Uncharted 4 saying that "there’s a lot of me still in there!" https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbNyhwNWoAU9WHO?format=jpg&name=large The credits even includes a special thank you message dedicated to her. Also remember that Amy Henning had no part in the development of anything related to The Last of Us as she was focused entirely on Uncharted. Amy Henning has also stated in a interview with VentureBeat that she does not want to talk about details regarding her departure from Naughty Dog because she doesn't want people taking what she says to make clickbait. "I don’t really talk about it. I always steer away from things that feel like they could be used for sensationalist clickbait-y kind of stuff. Not that you would do that, but you know how these things go. Fundamentally it’s just creative differences. We had a different idea about which way we should go. That happens." ----------------------------- The next piece of information that's been going around is that "70% of employees left the studio" or "70% of employees left the studio because of "not following the studio's vision"" I'm not sure where this started, but I can tell you where the 70% came from. In the article by Jason Schreier for Kotaku, the crunch culture of the studio is talked about in detail with accounts from former and current employees. Several paragraphs into the article, is this statistic: "One major consequence of this culture has been attrition. Of the 20 non-lead designers in the credits of 2016’s Uncharted 4, a whopping 14—70 percent—are no longer at the studio," Fourteen employees is not 70% of the entire studio though that is still a very high attrition rate. And it's clearly pointed out this is due to crunch culture. ----------------------------- "Employees were forced to watch mutilation videos as reference material." Alexandria Neonakis, a character concept designer at Naughty Dog, made a Twitter thread about it. " For the record, I concepted quite a bit of brutality against humans. I looked at ref. And at every assignment my leads checked with me. Are you sure you’re okay to look at this? Do you want us to put someone else on this? Let us know if this gets too heavy. Every single time." "There are real discussions to be had about the effect of looking at violent imagery while working on projects like this. Just be careful with tweets making broad dramatic claims about it to get likes because it’s the hot thing right now." "And I of course cannot and will not speak for everyone on this project, if someone WAS actively forced to look at that content, that’s extremely not okay. But the people saying it are external to the company and some folks are saying it’s from an article about a different game." Someone replied with a Kotaku article where Druckmann said "if you watch reference videos, which we have, it’s gross and it’s messy" but Neonakis pointed out that the word "forced" is never mentioned. It is likely that people are mixing it up with a different Kotaku article by Joshua Rivera that talked about several developers at NetherRealm who had to watch graphic material and where one developer mentioned that he would have "extremely graphic dreams" who resorted to keeping himself "awake for days at a time, to avoid sleeping" to avoid those dreams and who was later diagnosed with PTSD. People may have read that article and assumed it was the same way at ND when it came to looking at references. But so far, there is no indication or source that anyone at ND was forced to watch any graphic material. ----------------------------- "Laura Bailey was forced to do mocap scenes with Neil Druckmann." Laura Bailey post a tweet that debunked that pretty quickly. ----------------------------- "Druckmann has a self insert character." Other variations include that he was the character that spit on Joel's corpse and had sex with Abby. First, those are two separate characters. And two, there is no self insert character. To make it clear, this is Owen. He is the one that has a relationship with Abby. He sure does not look like Druckmann. And this is Manny, the one who spit on Joel's corpse. Manny is modeled after his voice and mocap actor Alejandro Edda. Druckmann does make a cameo as a character on a collectable trading card in the game along with Halley Gross, the co writer and narrative lead, and former ND employee Bruce Straley. ----------------------------- Abby is based on a real person. Colleen Fotsch, a crossfit athlete. The game also makes it clear that Abby becomes a gym rat. The WLF is shown to have a large gym focused on weights and if you look closely next to Abby's nightstand, there is even her workout schedule posted. Is this achievable for most people? No. But it's certainly not impossible when you spend every minute you can working out. ----------------------------- If you do not like the game or the company, you are welcome to say why, but don't resort to spreading false information to fit your narrative. And while I believe the posts in question have been removed by mods, no matter how much you dislike a game, book, movie, or other piece of entertainment media, that is no reason to talk about physically harming a person. Edited July 23, 2020 by Seraphim_Rez formatting, added sources, clarification, fixed dead image link with new working one 36 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post SilkyJay86 Posted June 26, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2020 (edited) Lauren Chen ... It's simple people are sick of lefist horseshit being infused into our once beloved past time. The actual reviews are out there, from actual people. There's no twisting anything. Social justice propaganda with zombies. Fuck no. User reviews are where you need to look, much like you shouldn't be watching Don Lemon for your news. Nerdrotic Anti Father Xaneca Anti Straight White Males How does such an amazing first game go straight to the woke sjw narrative in just it's sequel? These people are tyrants, they're never satisfied, even if you let them burn your city to the ground, loot, kill, and assault innocents. They want to control language. This runs deeper than inner hr 'problems' it was made by radical progressive ideologs. The real question is where does this stop? How do you kill Joel off? That's like killing, Nathan Drake off in the 2nd game, Isaac Clarke, or Max Payne. I feel like they'd kill Mario off too since he's apart of 'the oppressive white European Patriarchy'. This was Joel's story, and they stole it from the fans, and Ellie was a sweet part of the narrative. But Joel was the main character, pure and simple. It made no sense to do that, unless you have an AGENDA to push, NOT quality content. I'm a huge survival horror/action guy, and this is an unforgivable as you can get, in my opinion, especially in this genre. No I didn't play it, nor will I. They preach diversity, but don't allow a diverse range of opinions. They preach tolerance, but are clearly the intolerant party. They want to rewrite history Orwellian style. Look at what they're doing to Movies, statues and even to our games. Enough is enough. Edited June 26, 2020 by SilkyJay86 Links 25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post BrandedBerserk Posted June 26, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, SilkyJay86 said: Lauren Chen ... It's simple people are sick of lefist horseshit being infused into our once beloved past time. The actual reviews are out there, from actual people. There's no twisting anything. Social justice propaganda with zombies. Fuck no. User reviews are where you need to look, much like you shouldn't be watching Don Lemon for your news. Nerdrotic Anti Father Xaneca Anti Straight White Males How does such an amazing first game go straight to the woke sjw narrative in just it's sequel? These people are tyrants, they're never satisfied, even if you let them burn your city to the ground, loot, kill, and assault innocents. They want to control language. This runs deeper than inner hr 'problems' it was made by radical progressive ideologs. The real question is where does this stop? How do you kill Joel off? That's like killing, Nathan Drake off in the 2nd game, Isaac Clarke, or Max Payne. I feel like they'd kill Mario off too since he's apart of 'the oppressive white European Patriarchy'. This was Joel's story, and they stole it from the fans, and Ellie was a sweet part of the narrative. But Joel was the main character, pure and simple. It made no sense to do that, unless you have an AGENDA to push, NOT quality content. I'm a huge survival horror/action guy, and this is an unforgivable as you can get, in my opinion, especially in this genre. No I didn't play it, nor will I. They preach diversity, but don't allow a diverse range of opinions. They preach tolerance, but are clearly the intolerant party. They want to rewrite history Orwellian style. Look at what they're doing to Movies, statues and even to our games. Enough is enough. Dude... chill, like really it’s just a video game shit ain’t that deep. As someone who’s not a fan of the sjw nonsense, I’m questioning where people are getting this idea that last of us part 2 is a “social justice propaganda game” because other than almost every female character oddly being flat chested, I really haven’t noticed any of it and I’m 20 hours into the game. This goes both ways and you’re not doing any better than the sjw crowd that complained over donut drake or being able to see up 2B’s skirt in nier automata. Oh and no, the “actual reviews” are definitely not from the horde of sheeps spamming 0s because your beloved character got what he had coming then having to see the perspective of another group of survivors. Same goes for the ones spamming 10s just to counter the 0s. Edited June 26, 2020 by BrandedBerserk 25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post StraightVege Posted June 26, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2020 Nice thorough debunk, although I strongly doubt the "woke = broke" crowd will care what you have to say—some of them have been holding a grudge ever since the kiss scene in Left Behind. Funnily, the controversy they in part manufactured has only served to pique my interest in playing this game far sooner than I otherwise would have, so... good job? Still need to pick-up my copy from the post office. Anyhow, Sterling's recent video puts forth some legit criticisms of Naughty Dog, Druckmann, TLoU2, and AAA gaming in general. My views align almost perfectly with his. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majob Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 I think many people are confusing assumed criticism with the actual criticism for it. People are saying A while their opponents are attacking them for a non mentioned B. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Seraphim_Rez Posted June 26, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2020 (edited) 16 hours ago, SasquatchSaul said: lmao, I certainly didn't expect it to happen in the first post. That's certainly a record. All I did was post facts. And of course they linked YT videos from people I never heard of. I'm not wasting...*checks length of videos*....almost 45 minutes of time doing that. 18 hours ago, ScarecrowsFate said: Nice thorough debunk, although I strongly doubt the "woke = broke" crowd will care what you have to say—some of them have been holding a grudge ever since the kiss scene in Left Behind. Funnily, the controversy they in part manufactured has only served to pique my interest in playing this game far sooner than I otherwise would have, so... good job? Still need to pick-up my copy from the post office. Anyhow, Sterling's recent video puts forth some legit criticisms of Naughty Dog, Druckmann, TLoU2, and AAA gaming in general. My views align almost perfectly with his. I watched that video last night. Sterling makes great content. And yeah, those kind of people will simply not care, not like they cared about actual facts anyway. Edited June 27, 2020 by Beyondthegrave07 formatting/removed off topic quote 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slava Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 (edited) I knew some of this stuff already, but the origin of the "70%" is the fact I found most interesting. So it's only counting the designers who left after Uncharted 4, huh. Do we know the numbers for the rest of the team? BTW, this was a good and informative post. Thanks for putting the information together ? Edited June 27, 2020 by Alderriz 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majob Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 8 minutes ago, Alderriz said: I knew some of this stuff already, but the origin of the the "70%" is the fact I found most interesting. So it's only counting the designers who left after Uncharted 4, huh. Do we know the numbers for the rest of the team? BTW, this was a good and informative post. Thanks for putting the information together Many programmers and designers who work with gaming companies are contract so most could be gone simply because their contract is over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seraphim_Rez Posted June 26, 2020 Author Share Posted June 26, 2020 26 minutes ago, Alderriz said: I knew some of this stuff already, but the origin of the the "70%" is the fact I found most interesting. So it's only counting the designers who left after Uncharted 4, huh. Do we know the numbers for the rest of the team? BTW, this was a good and informative post. Thanks for putting the information together There are no exact official numbers for the rest of the Uncharted 4 development team, but at the end of that Kotaku crunch article, it says: "After Uncharted 4 and Uncharted Lost Legacy, even some of the designers and artists who had been at Naughty Dog for more than a decade decided to call it quits. One developer told me that toward the end of 2017 and into 2018, it felt like they were getting new farewell emails every week." So it sounds like the crunch for the last couple games was the most brutal and that led to a larger than usual departure rate of employees. I doubt there is anyone left at ND that worked on the Jak series for example. But it's important to note that crunch is not the only factor in people leaving even though it is a significant one. People get older and they don't have the stamina they used to, or they got married and had kids and want to focus on their family. They may want to work on their passion project, start their own studio, etc. People rarely stay at one company their entire career. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Conor Posted June 26, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2020 (edited) Wow, that first response is just about the worst take I've ever seen. Totally deranged. Talk about fabricating scenarios about imaginary oppression against you and getting mad about it. And those videos are total alt-right garbage as well. Reactionary rubbish fostering incel culture and outright bigotry. Everyone (25 fools and counting) who upvoted that comment should be ashamed- do you people actually believe in all of that nonsense? Seriously, get help. Oh, and of course he didn't actually play the game, says so himself yet he thinks he is entitled to an opinion. What a joke. My original comment got edited for "griefing" while he gets to keep his tinfoil hat nonsense. @ OP, great post, honestly I'm amazed people actually believed any of that nonsense. Especially the Druckmann self-insert one- so many dudes have dark hair in man buns and it's pretty clear from a five-second search that it's the actor's likeness as well as voice. Edited June 29, 2020 by Lan Stee 21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post rolldogg187 Posted June 26, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2020 And this what happens when people take whats supposed to be a video game space and try and make it political.Lets leave politics to the politicians and not try to push our own agendas here its pointless those of us who are right no were right those on the left no they're wrong simple as that. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slava Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 (edited) 53 minutes ago, Seraphim_Rez said: So it sounds like the crunch for the last couple games was the most brutal and that led to a larger than usual departure rate of employees. Sounds so. Also, both games have been delayed 3 times. I've been listening to old episodes of a podcast about Playstation. In one of the episodes from 2016 there was a news item about how Uncharted 4 was delayed for manufacturing reasons. When TLOU2 was delayed the third time they mentioned the same reason, but this time due to covid. Don't want to start another conspiracy theory here ?, but it happened two times in a row to ND (if you don't count The Lost Legacy which is a smaller game). It made me think that the real reason both times was also crunch and not being able to finish the game in time. Not saying I'm convinced that's what happened, just wanted to throw it out there. Edited June 26, 2020 by Alderriz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post DeepEyes7 Posted June 26, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 26, 2020 When you can't compete with an amazing studio in their field, then you start to spread a lot of bs... Nice compilation! 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post kaltezhan Posted June 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 27, 2020 Nice text, op. Always had my doubts about the Amy Henning thing. Glad IGN is something I try to avoid since I bought a PS4. Honestly, I've no idea how people saw sjw agenda in TLOU. Does Ellie saying "bigot" count? I also found out about this "Neil made a character like himself and spit on Joel" rumor this morning, and I fuckin laughed my ass off, man. This is some next level paranoia 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beyondthegrave07 Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 Cleaned up the thread a bit. Can everyone please try and stay on topic instead of calling each other names or just posting to troll? If you want to provide your own evidence to disprove the OP, tell them that this doesn't change your opinion of the company, agree with them, post more info, or whatever, that's fine. If you're just going to post to troll and give grief, go elsewhere. We've been going through this like every other day... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcade_Legend Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 (edited) 40 minutes ago, Beyondthegrave07 said: Cleaned up the thread a bit. Can everyone please try and stay on topic instead of calling each other names or just posting to troll? If you want to provide your own evidence to disprove the OP, tell them that this doesn't change your opinion of the company, agree with them, post more info, or whatever, that's fine. If you're just going to post to troll and give grief, go elsewhere. We've been going through this like every other day... About time some damn order was brought in here, Beyond! Wasn’t me helping you in TLoU multiplayer good enough for something? ? Just kidding... So, in reference to the OP’s post about who Abby is modeled after (which you ninja-edited from your original post)... The fact that they brought the most obscure, ridiculous-looking, disturbing, Abbomination of a creature to be the ‘spiritual’ body double instead of the original model and voice actress known as Laura Bailey (gorgeous woman) is quite grotesque, and exemplifies how a warped psyche like Anita Sarkeesian can humiliate, disrespect, and bastardize a franchise that a lot of people fell in love with. And that’s a FACT. Tell me I’m wrong, or talk about my body parts in a disrespectful manner. Makes no difference to me. ? ‘I will SPLAAAAAAASSSSSHHHH the pot whenever I feel like it!’ Edited June 27, 2020 by Starcade_Legend Grammar/Punctuation 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Weskerfan75 Posted June 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 27, 2020 I swear this whole thing is so pathetic. If the game is SO bad people could just, y'know, not buy it. This is giving me Ghostbusters 2016 flashbacks. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NxtDoc Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 Well said OP. There is a lot of misinformation out there on ND, and TLOU Part II. The game is excellent. I did not agree with, a particular plot point. But I didn't notice any SJW "propaganda". 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcade_Legend Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 10 minutes ago, Weskerfan75 said: I swear this whole thing is so pathetic. If the game is SO bad people could just, y'know, not buy it. This is giving me Ghostbusters 2016 flashbacks. I totally agree 100%. But that goes both ways, believe it or not: if someone thinks the game is SO good they could just, ya know, buy it. ? Where are we going with this? ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yellowwindow7 Posted June 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 27, 2020 everything sound ok, until they started deleting negative scores and block the comment section in their YouTube videos, then they lied about the leaks saying it's not true as its just been taken from an early build where in fact from what I have heard the leaks turns out to be 100% true straight from the final game. all of this is fine to me as long as I have to play the game myself to fully judge it, then this BS of Naughty Dog is manipulating the Metacritic scores ( because this is now is what selling games believe it or not ) if you gave the game a 5 or 4 or lower the site will claim that the page does not existed, a youtuber have made a video of giving the game a lower score and the site have rejected his user score by giving him an error code the moment he post a 10 out of 10 or a 9 and the site have accepted the score right away. I mean if you want to be so honest and have a halo on your head then how about to get rid of the fake positive review scores too. it's a very sad day to what happens to TLOU 2, I been waiting for this freaking games forever and after all of this stupid delays and waited for 7 freaking years the biggest improvement they ever did gameplay wise is to add a jump button and a rope mechanics, and most importantly we get this?? what have really happened to Naughty Dog? I would love to play the game myself even though i already start to hate it with a passion now after seen all of these spoiler free ( reviews that does not spoil the story ) but the game is banned here in the middle east so I had to get it digitally from the NA PS Store and now there's some shortages of US PSN wallet topping cards here. now I lost my interest on getting the game brand new or even digitally, RIP Joel and TLOU brand as a whole, should have never put this political agenda in video games and should have never made a sequel to one of the greatest games ever made, the story should have just ended with the first game and be done with. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weskerfan75 Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 13 minutes ago, yellowwindow7 said: all of this is fine to me as long as I have to play the game myself to fully judge it, then this BS of Naughty Dog is manipulating the Metacritic scores ( because this is now is what selling games believe it or not ) if you gave the game a 5 or 4 or lower the site will claim that the page does not existed, a youtuber have made a video of giving the game a lower score and the site have rejected his user score by giving him an error code the moment he post a 10 out of 10 or a 9 and the site have accepted the score right away. I think the thing with Metacritic disabling scores was because the game was getting review bombed with 0's. Not even 12 hours after the gme launched there were already thousands of negative reviews by people who most definetly didn't play it and most likely didn't even own it. 3 minutes ago, luke50322 said: anybody here play call of duty Yeah Black Ops 2 is my favorite game because it has no politics. Great to play alongside Bioshock and Fallout. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcade_Legend Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 (edited) 52 minutes ago, NxtDutch said: Well said OP. There is a lot of misinformation out there on ND, and TLOU Part II. The game is excellent. I did not agree with, a particular plot point. But I didn't notice any SJW "propaganda". So for me, 9 out of 10 of those points I never even heard there was a conflict about. I just mainly heard of ND getting critical acclaim for TLoU and Uncharted Series, but I’m a filthy casual about that stuff so...yeah. As far as the SJW stuff, I’m not a cheerleader of any specific fan club, to be honest. I AM a businessman, though. And it cringes me to see businesses make the most obviously blatant missteps for a certain ‘message’. Now don’t get me wrong: unlike most people I do understand WHY a business would pepper their product with a certain narrative/agenda...I’m just saying it has to be more subtle or ‘honest’, if you will. What happened to that certain individual was not ‘subtle’ or ‘honest’; that was rushed and excused so the narrative can get on with the MAIN story. Again, SONY/ND can do what they want/hire whoever they want to consult...but if we’re honest about this situation, one ‘team’ is mad about how disrespectful it was. It doesn’t get more straightforward than that. And ‘screw that team’, right? Welll, does that ‘team’ mainly keep the lights on (at the moment) for that company? ? As for me personally, without condoning or condemning their decisions, from a business standpoint...I understand. BUT...if the sales fail to meet their expectations from coming off of such a storied original journey with the potential to have multiple record-breaking games in this franchise gets marred because of the anxiousness to ‘rush progress’ (especially while everyone is home and want something to play), then...they messed up. And someone’s gonna have to answer for the design direction taken. It’s all about the Benjamins, dude. It might be wrapped in certain Political Blankets and whatnot, but at the end of the day, it’s ALWAYS about the Benjamins. Edited June 27, 2020 by Starcade_Legend Grammar/Punctustion 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcade_Legend Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 (edited) 46 minutes ago, yellowwindow7 said: now I lost my interest on getting the game brand new or even digitally, RIP Joel and TLOU brand as a whole, should have never put this political agenda in video games and should have never made a sequel to one of the greatest games ever made, the story should have just ended with the first game and be done with. This is an example of going ‘too hard’ in one direction, and one ‘team’ responding just as hard the other way. ‘Subtle’ and ‘honest’...that would have made a lot more sense, in my opinion. Unless Naughty Dog kills the sales expectations worldwide. Then...screw what me or anyone else thinks. Bring on more Abbomynations! ? I just had a thought: what if there was a Mercenaries/Zombies/Horde-type mode, where it was essentially a Boss Mode made up of nothing but Abbomynations! That would be crazy! ? Edited June 27, 2020 by Starcade_Legend Grammar/Punctuation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Weskerfan75 Posted June 27, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 27, 2020 4 minutes ago, Starcade_Legend said: Unless Naughty Dog killed the sales worldwide. Then...screw what me or anyone else thinks. Bring on more Abbominations! It's already the PS4s fastest selling game. Beating Spiderman by over 700k sales in it's first three days. It'll do fine. Also, by the time ND releases TLOU3 everyone will have moved on to the new "controversy". 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starcade_Legend Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 9 minutes ago, Weskerfan75 said: It's already the PS4s fastest selling game. Beating Spiderman by over 700k sales in it's first three days. It'll do fine. Also, by the time ND releases TLOU3 everyone will have moved on to the new "controversy". As The World Turns...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now