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Stellar Blade (2024)

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Stellar Blade became rather controversial with critics in large part due to the sexualization of its protagonist Eve. They argued that the game's marketing leaned heavily into Eve's sexual appeal by focusing on elements such as revealing costumes and suggestive character designs for its promotional strategy. This got to the point where the South Korean version of the game received an "Adults-Only" rating due to suggestive images, nudity, and violence. Hyung-Tae Kim, the game's director, defended these design choices, stating:

"When it comes to the design, we put special attention on the back of the character because the player is always facing the back of the character when they're playing. That's what they see the most of, so we thought this was pretty important."

This controversy culminated when the game released with a Day 1 patch that patched out unintentionally offensive graffiti, and censored two revealing outfits Eve can wear in the game, the Holiday Rabbit and the Cybernetic Bondage, but these are not the only censored outfits left in the game. When the player finds their first unlockable Nano Suit blueprint on the overworld, a tutorial pop-up appears featuring a video that scrolls through a montage of the other Nano Suits you can unlock in the game, and among them is an uncensored version of the Moutan Peony, an outfit that features dark pantyhose covering Eve's skin up to her waist in both the base game and the Day 1 patch. It appears that the developers forgot to remove this video when changing the costumes during development, and it's currently not known if other outfits in this video were changed in the final game.

These changes are in contrast to a claim from the game's official Twitter account stating that all versions of the game worldwide would be released uncensored, leading to the changes being widely criticized by players on social media and speculation that the game's publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment mandated the changes after addressing the offensive graffiti. However, Kim addressed the matter during a Q&A at a launch event for the game, stating:

"Understandably we also recognize about[sic] the issue. However, the final costume that we wanted to show you is indeed the costume in version 1.0.0.2. I want to clarify that is our final product. However, I know this answer is not enough to convince our users. There is an internal discussion ongoing regarding this. So I think we'll have a chance to answer it soon."

The speculated tensions between Shift Up and Sony during development were actually highlighted by Drakengard and Nier: Automata creator Yoko Taro, a developer with a history of tensions with Sony, during a joint interview with him and Kim for IGN published a little over a week before the game's release:

Yoko Taro: "[...] Mr. Kim, I wanted to ask you if there were any fights with Sony Interactive Enteratainment (SIE), since they are publishing Stellar Blade."

Hyung-Tae Kim: "(Glances at SIE staff members in the room and laughs.) The people at SIE are... very, very nice!"

Taro: "SIE's staff members are pulling faces I've never seen before. I wish the readers of this article could see it!"

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person chocolatejr9 calendar_month April 27, 2024

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Sexualization complaints:
https://www.denofgeek.com/games/stellar-blade-controversy-explained/

South Korean rating:
https://en.as.com/meristation/news/stellar-blade-gets-an-adults-only-rating-due-to-nudity-and-explicit-gore-n/

Design choice quote:
https://fandomwire.com/hyung-tae-kim-stellar-blade-avoid-controversy/

Day 1 patch censorship:
https://esports.gg/news/stellar-blade/players-outraged-at-unexpected-stellar-blade-outfit-censorship/

Compilation of outfits in base game before Day 1 patch (uncensored versions of Cybernetic Bondage at 2:30, and Holiday Rabbit at 4:52):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMT6z9xejeA

Compilation of outfits after Day 1 patch (censored versions of Cybernetic Bondage at 1:03, Holiday Rabbit at 2:19, and Moutan Peony at 3:02):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAcvYBGPoGk

Nano Suit tutorial pop-up montage with uncensored Moutan Peony costume (this is the only footage I could find of anyone sitting through this video start to finish):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHJhViruQKM?t=3761

Stellar Blade uncensored claim tweet:
https://twitter.com/StellarBlade/status/1781976139688534449

Video of Hyung-Tae Kim defending update changes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/stellarblade/comments/1cdlllp/directors_answer_to_the_change_in_the_outfitvideo/

IGN interview with Yoko Taro and Hyung-Tae Kim:
https://www.ign.com/articles/stellar-blade-x-nier-automata-taro-yoko-hyung-tae-kim

Skull and Bones (2024)

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Despite incorporating several elements common in a live-service game (i.e. an in-game store, a battle pass, seasonal events, and premium currency), Skull and Bones was given a price tag of $70. Yves Guillemot, the CEO of Ubisoft, justified this during an investors call before the game's release, stating:

"It's a very big game and we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is. So it's a really full triple-A, quadruple-A game that will deliver in the long run."

It's worth noting, however, that the game cost $200 million due to its decade-long development, with Ubisoft admitting that they did not think they would be able to break even due to its poor launch. Knowing this, it can be inferred that Ubisoft insisted on referring to Skull and Bones as a "quadruple-A" title not because of the scope of the project, but for how abnormally long it took to produce and raised the price to recoup costs, because this was not the first or only game they called a AAAA title in the past. It was discovered as far back as 2020 on the LinkedIn pages of several Ubisoft employees that they referred to Skull and Bones, the also long-delayed Beyond Good & Evil 2, and later Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, all games with development times lasting at least six years, as AAAA titles in their work experience.

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person chocolatejr9 calendar_month April 29, 2024

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Quote source:
https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisoft-ceo-defends-skull-and-bones-dollar60-price-tag-says-its-a-quadruple-a-game/

Game budget:
https://insider-gaming.com/skull-and-bones-players-total/

2020 LinkedIn page mentions:
https://screenrant.com/ubisoft-beyond-good-evil-skull-bones-aaaa-games/

2022 Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora AAAA game label:
https://tech4gamers.com/avatar-frontiers-of-pandora/

City Life DS (2008)

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In 2022, the English rock band Arctic Monkeys released a song titled "Sculptures of Anything Goes", featuring the following lyric in the last verse of the song:

"The simulation cartridge for City Life '09 is pretty tricky to come by."

This lyric became the subject of news articles when fans on the music lyrics website Genius initially determined that it was referencing the obscure Nintendo DS game City Life DS, which only released in France in 2008 and the United Kingdom in 2009, and did not sell as well as previous games in the City Life series. Fans theorized that the difficulty in finding a copy of the game referenced in the lyric stemmed from Nintendo eventually discontinuing the DS family of systems to support future consoles. They also cited the closure of the Nintendo 3DS/Wii U versions of the Nintendo eShop as another possibility, but this was unfounded as City Life DS was only officially released as a physical cartridge and not part of the Wii U Virtual Console's Nintendo DS library.

However, it was confirmed in an interview with the band's frontman Alex Turner by Rolling Stone Germany on the day the song released that the lyric was not about City Life DS. He attributed the lyric to the works of author David Foster Wallace, most likely as a reference to his book "Infinite Jest" where the characters consume entertainment in the form of cartridges, which could also be referring to Turner's growing struggle to appeal and relate to Arctic Monkeys' audience from their earlier years as their sound and image changed later on.

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person MehDeletingLater calendar_month May 6, 2024

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Arctic Monkeys - Sculptures of Anything Goes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQsrIxyoJdE

City Life DS release dates:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180109182552/https://www.gamespot.com/city-life-ds/

Alex Turner Rolling Stone Germany interview:
https://www.rollingstone.de/arctic-monkeys-alex-turner-im-grossen-interview-zum-neuen-album-the-car-2508705/

Speculation news coverage:
https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/arctic-monkeys-sneak-an-obscure-nintendo-reference-into-the-car-3333593
https://www.gamesradar.com/an-obscure-nintendo-city-builder-has-resurfaced-on-the-new-arctic-monkeys-album/
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/10/random-arctic-monkeys-song-potentially-makes-obscure-ds-city-builder-reference
https://indigomusic.com/pop-cultures/arctic-monkeys-made-a-subtle-nintendo-reference-in-their-track-the-car?amp=1

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