Boycott Atlus

[phil_]

Originally Posted by Pip Boy

Im frustrated that the biased narrative of this thread permits people to make whatever insensitive/disrespectful/inflammatory remarks fair game as long as they're pretending its justified by the other person's failure to blindly join a crusade.

Yeah, but this isn't a crusade. Crusades involve going places and killing people, or at least going outside in the heat. This is "Don't buy games you weren't going to buy anyway, and stay tuned to the Liz Channel for the latest Liz News on how this one company screwed up." You don't have to play along if you don't want to; the Pope won't excommunicate you and King Richard won't have your head. Liz News will even keep on trucking, giving you further info, even if you wash your hands of this. You can even jump back in once you're satisfied with the arguments presented, as (I believe) there are no exclusive pre-order packages on this thing.

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Like, without having heard of it, would you look up the term heterosexual male gaze? I sincerely doubt it:

I actually would! I look up lots of things before I post—titles, names, repeated terms—especially if I'm about to say something argumentative. Goldenphil_-colored rule: If it's worth posting, it's worth a minute on google double-checking.

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

I hope you appreciate how hard it was to figure out the source for what that meant.

Yeah! Like that! That's the way to do it.

[Nikose Tyris]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

I hope you appreciate how hard it was to figure out the source for what that meant.

It's not a matter of having no idea what a gazebo is. A more apt analogy would be if I said, "I go sit in the gazebo", and the DM was like, "Okay, it eats you and you die, dude wtf why didn't you look it up in the monster manual?" Why would I look up Gazebo in the monster manual?

I love how you do exactly the right thing and then somehow completely miss the point.

[rpgdemon]

That's probably a good rule. It would have been good to know before hand! In the future, I'll probably look up any term that I'm contending with before I do so, in case it's a historical term that I was unaware of.

Thing is though, I openly admitted that I was wrong about what the term meant, but it keeps getting brought up again as a way of going, "Nope, you're just self-entitled, I don't need to listen to what you say.", when I'm trying to contribute and help.

[rpgdemon]

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

I love how you do exactly the right thing and then somehow completely miss the point.

My point is: I was using a definition of the words heterosexual, male, and gaze to understand what the words heterosexual, male, and gaze meant when they were used in that context. I was wrong, but I didn't think that I would be, because I knew them to mean one thing, and didn't think to check if they meant some other thing.

Edit: I understand your point: Look things up if you don't know them. My point is, I thought that I -did- know this particular thing, because I didn't expect there to be the dread Gazebo in the monster manual. I was wrong and the dread Gazebo ate me, and I admitted that I was incorrect, but do you see how I could have misunderstood?

[Nikose Tyris]

The point is not THAT you misunderstood, it is that you insisted on pushing forward with how you weren't technically wrong, instead of focusing on the actually important thing that you misunderstood, and just saying "Whoops, I misunderstood" instead of trying to backtrack and somehow insist while apologizing that you're still right and that this is obviously wrong.

All that happens is that suddenly the Gazebo is a monster that eats you.

(The story is that it was just a regular gazebo, but the players were so insistent that it must be a monster that the GM just says it kills them.)

[Jagos]

Originally Posted by CABAL49

Atlus has made games and supported games that have insulted Transgender. So Liz decided to boycott them in order to send a message to other video game companies that Transphobia is not ok. I don't see how this is hard to understand. Objectifying women and transphobia are a serious problem. Ignoring a problem that we can help fix because there are other problems is stupid. Thinking that Atlus will come around on their own is stupid. If they are ignorant of their offences, then they won't correct themselves unless something grabs their attention. A boycott of Atlus isn't going to be the end of Atlus, this is neither an extreme move, nor one that will cause any kind of long term harm. I mean, if this was a bout bombing their HQ I could understand the hesitation. But this is just money. If they are doing this out of hate, then they will quickly learn that this is not ok.


Maybe because I have read about everything Liz has written on the topic, that I am more willing to support it, or friends of mine who are Trans and therefore protective of, but the amount of resistance to this just doesn't make any damn sense. If you agree that objectifying women is wrong, that transphobia is wrong, and you don't want to be a murderer, this is the best thing to do.

I'm just going to repost this. This is an argument that I can support. I'm willing to talk about Atlus and their transphobia but I don't have enough information and context to really make an informed opinion. I can see one game and my problem here is that this one game doesn't show enough for me to figure out why I should support the boycott.

The reason I pull up Witchblade or other examples of oversexualized females is because from my context of comics being supported by mostly males (with bishonen characters for females) I didn't see the problem. Cabal did this in far fewer words without throwing the topic to chaos by trying to make anyone argue for clarification. That's something I respect a lot more.

Here's what I'm asking as someone receptive to this cause but trying to help people bring up these issues. You have to make your case upfront so that I can see the context. I don't know about Atlus' history. So why should I care about this one game? How is their position different from the competition who may have a similar view (ie Capcom and their treatment of Poison or Square with the game Nier)? How is their overall history of women or gay rights in general that I should pass this to a friend? What are the methods used to spread this message and how effective can this boycott be?

I sincerely would love to help but if everyone thinks that I'm evil for questioning part of the topic, what's the use for me to do anything but get frustrated at those that criticize everyone that comes into this argument without expansive knowledge of the subject at hand?

[rpgdemon]

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

The point is not THAT you misunderstood, it is that you insisted on pushing forward with how you weren't technically wrong, instead of focusing on the actually important thing that you misunderstood, and just saying "Whoops, I misunderstood" instead of trying to backtrack and somehow insist while apologizing that you're still right and that this is obviously wrong.

But, that's not what happened. I said I was wrong, I misunderstood, when someone linked me what it meant. But then it kept getting brought up here, and so I figured I'd address it again, and explain what I thought it was saying, because just saying that I misunderstood the term wasn't enough for it to be dropped.

[Nikose Tyris]

It kept getting brought up because you keep bringing up why you aren't wrong when you are actually wrong.

[Nikose Tyris]

Actually no let's declare WHAT THE FUCK EVER new meanings new phrase RPG learned something new today hurray let's stop with this one entirely now, good deal?

[phil_]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

That's probably a good rule. It would have been good to know before hand! In the future, I'll probably look up any term that I'm contending with before I do so, in case it's a historical term that I was unaware of.

Thing is though, I openly admitted that I was wrong about what the term meant, but it keeps getting brought up again as a way of going, "Nope, you're just self-entitled, I don't need to listen to what you say.", when I'm trying to contribute and help.

Well, I mean, you now know that it isn't a case of "Dudes get to look at hot babes, where's my hot naked guys?" and that it is a case of "Advertising via boobies is kinda shitty," which is the approach you seemed to be advocating originally. So, things are going how you seemed to want them to, even if you got roughed up in seeing that such is the case. Now's time to sit and see how stuff goes down, I think.

Originally Posted by Jagos

why should I care about this one game? How is their position different from the competition who may have a similar view (ie Capcom and their treatment of Poison or Square with the game Nier)? How is their overall history of women or gay rights in general that I should pass this to a friend? What are the methods used to spread this message and how effective can this boycott be?

That's what the tumblr's for. I mean, Liz could just dump everything on us now, but it won't be as well-written or researched as if she works on it a bit at a time on the blog, plus there are the whole "buried in the internet" reasons already posted. I know the counter argument to this is "Liz should've had all this ready upfront," but, I mean, it's kinda a lot to ask someone who's upset to write a thesis on why they're upset before they can do anything at all to let people know that they're upset.