Mordhau Responses | Games ReCAP Episode 017

[Music] welcome welcome welcome today's episode of games recap is all about responses yes we just simply read the news who gave our opinions and people who watch the whole video agreed with us people who watched 5 minutes saw the title and seemed to be good allow this on our concept that's how it always goes that's how it always goes it's very easy to not spend time investigating and you know [ __ ] talking trash that's what we get called you know called out for doing I guess yeah by people like apparently we're doing the same thing maybe we are change developers indie developers and they felt like we're ganging up indie developers when we literally spent the last month for three days straight celebrating indie developers well I'll say this even in regards to people

thinking were out of touch on this issue specifically everything that we based our commentary on were things that came from people who were representing the company at the time obviously the two artists who did their interview everything they say we are supposed to take it as okay well they work at that company and they said this this got published printed I'm going to believe what they're saying is more true than speculation that comes from people who don't work in that studio they had to do some cleanup they had to do some cleanup literally the next day it would have been it would have kept them out of the press okay it wasn't because of being a toxicity that really blew up the game that happens in every game it's the action they took that kind of sighted on a position that was with the boys they

were like all right clearly you're making this few yeah if I'm this controversy so to have one group fighting another group right and let's say you're the person who's supposed to be like a referee and scenario and when I say fight having like one group is like really like attacking another group I'll say it like that one group is attacking one group is defending if you do nothing because you say like I don't want to affect or I don't want to alienate then you're making it easier for the attacking group to attack you're making it harder for the defending group to simply just exist because in order for them to exist they have to endure you know the toxicity the harassment or the things that are happening to them that is ruining their gameplay experience so doing nothing in a scenario where somebody's being bullied or somebody's being pressured or somebody's being attacked means you're making it harder for the person who's not doing any attacking and you're making it easier for the prisoner who is doing attacking yeah and I think a lot of people have issues just simply didn't read the whole article they just saw the

idea that European medieval time game including minorities and in effect no there were avatars that was being made players that represented their skin color and they were getting attacked and so the solution after that was to take them out and that was the issue it wasn't because they didn't they just had all whites from the beginning of the game though and then people were like hey you gotta be more inclusive and allowed more Asian though I know where it needs to be you know that wasn't the case it was because custom avatars that was really in the game was being filtered out after custody was happening and they were siding with boys that's the main dish yeah and you idiots I feel like it's also even like if you look at it as two different things right like I'll say the community toxicity probably was going to exist you know even without the art problem you know I mean because the people problem and then there's an art problem but because there was an art

problem that like kind of helped racist people apparently like being power like oh yeah that's right yeah they like yellow let me do this let me do that that's where they're starting to see some amplification because one actually kind of was fueling the other because let's just say all the people were blue green yellow and purple but still the same gameplay mechanics right still the same combat same everything I think the game would still be fun the desired realism might be a couple steps down significantly even but the gameplay experience would still be there I would imagine you would still have an unpolished community so of course you're gonna have criminals running rampant because that's what happens that's what happens imagine that there was no laws in America you saw the purge imagine they're little no laws today you think civilization is gonna occur as it currently does where people are working within the confines of law jurisdiction due process trials going to jail crime punishment all that stuff as soon as you tell somebody like hey no laws it brings out the worst because

they have an opportunity to be the worst and not get punished and so I would say regardless of like the other issue with the art having you know racial undertones or pulling in or pulling out avatars at representative communities because you have a none policed open forum you're inviting the best and the worst yes yeah and just lets us this to be happen and just not take a sign they would have been in a better position and they the the crazy press wouldn't have worked against them we wouldn't be comments anymore it wasn't until they responded in the way that they did by having a filter button that they're taking out by the way by it by pressure but hopefully understanding that it wasn't the right call yeah so at least that's the reason why everyone is responding in a negative way it's not because it's promoting them to have

agents your based on what I'm seeing there is like I think they have a decent amount of competent game developers obviously because the game came out the game looks good and the game is fun to play what I feel like they have is a lack of like PR leadership or PR understanding this probably the first time their company has been in such a spotlight again I openly admit like this is my first time knowing about them their production team and who's actually working on this product so I don't know their whole lineage but just from where I stand and how I see them responding or handling questions or the slip-ups that seem to be happening that they have to course-correct for it didn't seem like they were prepared for any sort of like media plan or like hey here's how we're gonna communicate here are major stances as a company here's what we're always gonna stand on and here's what we're going to you know try to eradicate in regards to how we do things how we're going to fix things right and so to say hey everyone you know what we hear all these things are wrong but we're just gonna leave it in the players hands that's not a great

way to kind of handle a situation like that to expect that your community is gonna police itself is it that never works that never works because that's when you go down to primitive like survival of the fittest biggest thick you know baddest fighter is usually King because no one can thwart the authority and you get two or three people in a group especially a very vocal polarized community on issues of racial bias racial tensions and you let them know that they can get away with doing and saying the things that they can't say or do to people anywhere else in this form and be protected because there is no protection I mean you're gonna you're gonna see what happens and so that's where I guess I still give them [ __ ] is like you can't be like you can't take like a Switzerland stance on we're gonna be a racist vocal group and we're gonna be a group of people want to play a game without having racist vocalizations or racist experiences or a racist you know things pointed at me even if it's not directed at me but because you're you're

engaging in like types of behavior that involve like making fun of a race or community that I belong to or a demographic that I belong to that is a racial experience that is a threat against me yeah well let's do and I'm speaking generally when I say yeah specifically it's over reading an article to talk to you right everybody topic there's a legitimate press out of it so this is a response so they are backtracking from the ginger gender race filters yeah a step towards a better understanding of the issue and it seem like they're real quick that they're so they're kind of course correcting on something that was said publicly that was not actually the case the way that the the gentleman was cleaning it up was like they made the artist made some statements that wasn't entire true and it wasn't based on what our development plans were and the context was changed right so it's they're saying it's not that you know we wanted to have

like this race thing where we were gonna do this or do that it's that we had actually planned it as a feature in a way to make it more accessible like this is what he's saying but because of how it was said it came off as it being like something that was going to whitewash everything and so that was an accident I like a slip in you know in a statement not necessarily like a planned feature so I I can I like I'll accept that ok cool no problem then they move down into saying that like hey we're also very stretched thin and so a lot of us wanting to police is just not gonna happen because we don't have the resources we don't have the time or we don't have the you know I guess we don't have the plan in place and the means to actually be able to do XYZ to police the community or to create like that safe haven that people are asking for and so because of that we're not going to we we can't we have plans that we have things that we want to do but currently we're stretched very thin we're a small studio and that's exactly what we said actually

in our video of the day before I was like yeah I bet they're a small studio they don't have XY and Z to be able to do XYZ I literally they didn't get to the part where we're like you know it's a growing issue not just with this game about player behavior including racism sexism homophobia is just across all team yeah that's not new that's not new and that's not what we're criticizing and that's not what we're pushing of course we want to have everybody playing nicely with those other and dis enjoy the gaming experience without feeling Kali and having to leave the game that they'd love to play it I mean that's the issue that the developers are facing now and this was their best interest to kind of please their player base yeah all right the historical accuracy was thrown out the window as soon as they let you create your own avatar and include whatever racing water that is

part of the future it isn't if they came out and say everybody you can't create anything what just armor or other vanity things mmm that's a different feature well that's clear this date is like then here you go yeah it was a decision to be inclusive at the beginning and then suddenly take that away that was very controversial because now you're siding with bullies sure which is the main issue of your game right now and this isn't helping them selling more copies right and it's so laughable that it's like it's such an issue to me you know I mean like if you want historical accuracy in a video game point to one where that game got a hundred percent right as a modern game that is obviously trying to sell as many copies as possible you can go to the History Channel for historical accuracy and you can watch a movie that's a documentary based on a situation or based on a period of time but I bet even then you know you're never gonna find like a pure one-sided situation you're gonna see like examples oh yeah oh wow yep there

it is California earthquake that's dope feels like your house is on water no no let's keep going professional the video people can't tell us the earthquake no that's actually no that's that's actually all the people mad at our YouTube video marching up to the door yeah we covered this right controversial thing when time is definitely getting yelled at by a player their journal - yeah you know then you're hesitant to put a more word filter because you're afraid that it might take out my system just the official stance is that they

don't want to include a word filter yeah was because they were afraid that it would take innocent now that was the one that was the one that's like my remaining okay you still didn't clean this one up right right to say that like we don't want to put a word filter in because there's two things one it's gonna be useless because pee gonna find the way around it and - it's gonna catch innocent words come on like you have engineers that just made a video game to this level you mean to tell me that you can't parse text and identify certain strings and either replace them right with a different word or replace them with Asterix characters or something like that you mean to tell me that everything that I've seen you guys do in your game is thwarted because you guys scratched your head at the idea that Wow you can't tell the difference between the f-word and fun yeah you can't tell the difference between a slur and a slang or something else like come on you can at least do the words that you know for sure you know that you

don't want to have said if they find a way around it that's fine that's but you at least are showing to the public that you give a [ __ ] that you're exactly and you're fighting against foxes yeah which has never helped a game no like as developers you should understand that and we are developers okay people I think we're getting big enough that people know these two guys have a microphone go to linkedin.com type my name Larry Charles jr. at I Brandon Pham you can see the resume we've been here we've put in the work I'm working on my 13th year that's the kid developer great not as alike as I like I downloaded unreal and I'm making stuff in my house as in like I've been receiving a paycheck to develop games across mobile console pc designer sure

understand and see because this is more I would even say PR marketing is setting right developers and designers especially are the first to say hey this is it's not gonna go well right yeah there's an internal discussion yeah before marketing PR comes in it's like what's our message before anything becomes a feature is first an idea than a plan exactly then an execution yes an implementation like it's about the same then every you kind of cover their ass and I think a lot of what he says is kind of thinking on the fly is it like a full team statement Sorrell yeah it is that's even worse an internal development team deciding that a world filter would actually would actually negate more players because it might catch fun instead of [ __ ] okay it's like serious come on then yeah come on you can't win with that wellness slide it's

fight I don't know if is he still yell team were there I I have to kind of mix it between either a really young team and a bear form right that don't have this type of issue as much or at least it doesn't weigh heavily on them in their country bro we're not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe right like it's EA tried this [ __ ] at Parliament this isn't a loop box this is a surprise mechanic to marketable words I'm a people person I talked to the people so that the programmers are their best la minute hopefully our experience and sure this is why you need a PR for

me to deal with press this I would say spending I imagine they've sold enough copies of the game that they could afford to at least have somebody professionally handle the situation that they're in right now because for two days in a row they've been a major talking point across the industry there's a lot of people in your forearms in your game that are pushing minorities gender females you know cosmetology issues lawyers response well if this is the first time I'm hearing of this which isn't yeah right but I'm just gonna play the best like I'm removed me personally and I'm gonna and I'm gonna do that okay thank you for bringing this to my attention we've actually seen some of this before and we put it some plans in place that we're about ready to execute on secondly I do want to apologize to everyone in

the audience who is going through this understand we're a small team we are trying to get it together but we want everyone to have fun in our game so if anybody is being victimized marginalized or hated on inside of our game it's actually one of our primary important things that we will have to solve from here moving forward yeah previously we've been concentrating on just making the best game delivering great content and we think that we've achieved that now that the game is out and we're seeing how the community is reacting to it we are noticing that there are things that we could possibly push on more so I will say this we are committed to making sure that we do that so that's where we're gonna execute looking forward nice and then the haters or the people who attack was gonna say you want to know the trigger but not the trick but the beauty of what I just said was there was nothing that was committed

to a date to a time and nothing explicitly named that was said that like oh how we're going to fix it or what we're doing to address it I just said we know it we will address it and we're looking at it moving forward and we're committing to it but what is it right like what is I'm giving a party actually exactly I'm still giving my company I would have said nothing but I mean like I'm giving my team a chance to be able to do something to give us some protection and like acknowledge that yes we there is a situation we need to handle which is first what people want to hear and two we are going to handle it so then people like okay cool you've got some runway now to figure this out [Music] don't have the prior experience managing communities of the size nor the manpower resource at stablish studios can never see he's just talking too much like you know any of that yeah but you didn't need to go in specifics you could say what you just said and be able to handle

this behind closed doors as it should right you're giving out pretty much we've done we've thought through this we saw the problem we're doing nothing yes one paragraph it's like give your team a chance he could have just let it die down and then slowly roll out patches to fix the issues and then not have all this like attention towards your game in a bad way I've got a great scenario for you right Nike sells shoes right yep there's a female runner I don't even want to do female but it's very easy for this example because you actually hear about this kind of stuff this is Central Park there's a female runner she bought her brand new Nike shoes and she goes running through Central Park all the time right she loves running in Central Park one day she gets attacked by let's just say some sort of predator I'm not gonna give many descriptions to this predator because I don't want to put anybody down but that predator also wears Nike shoes because that predator was like this is

the best way for me to catch my victims these are the best shoes they're the lightest they're whatever whatever so now the story breaks that this female was attacked in Central Park by a predator they're both wearing Nike shoes Nike comes out and says you know we kind of just want to leave it in the hands of the we're not making money and so they went with the general response we're working on this back to you leader and that's what everybody does not just companies but like athletes anybody who's accused of anything yeah so you know in that scenario Nike obviously is most I don't want to say I don't want to step in their shoes but I would imagine based on what I've seen

they were like hey we've you know gone to the hospital we like talked with the family we're putting money towards helping victims in a similar situation and doing all these things that kind of like help build their brand up and show that they're showing solidarity and supporting this person who went through like a tragic experience they don't also then say you know and this this is this predator over here also wearing Nike so we're gonna do this and that and this and that for them you don't hear [ __ ] yeah they help who needs to be helped they stand on who should be stood on and say this is where this is where we're putting our time and attention and that works because that's the right thing to do guys and that's so that's why I laugh when I hear somebody like clearly see like two opposing sides morality leads me to say that one side is probably the side that you should support I got to have any reason to support side beat other side a yeah to be like but they both buy what we make no one's gonna saw it with people that are I mean you look

at every movie there's never a movie in entertainment history on it that follows the bully's life and then just see him beating people some about that old oil family like they they rule I want I want them to win a small team with small resources you should have kept it behind closed doors gave a public statement be general and say we're working on this okay and you don't have to lie but you are working on this yeah but going say hey we look at Chile at all scenarios and we concluded that doing nothing is the best one oh man it's never good PR ever even if that was your standpoint right if that's how you plan on delivering the message it's like the biggest take a turd on the victims chest like Oh Dan you just got attacked hold on saying lay right there yeah now that we got that out of the way we

can get back to business okay yes let's let's put ourselves on the hot button general is pretty much everybody's feelings on you know a lot of the subreddits on the game players are debating the merits of Cheniere neons really changing the statement desert world okay so I'm defending the developers citing how small they are or their average to mass essentially shoe next censorship they haven't taken out every word they're taking out the words that they're taking a stand on words that should not be said in their games and forms that's [ __ ] there's there's an even still right you you could have the option to not play with that you know what I mean like there as much as they say they are toggling the option of doing like gender stuff or you know minority based stuff or whatever you could also say like hey do you want to

play with language filter on or off because all the games I know that have public communities have at least done that much I think a team of eleven people that made the game that they made I mean that's come on dude I mean I could go write the C++ for you to have that feature installed if you really wanted me to I'm not even joking we're trying to do more oh my god that's the [Laughter] History Channel is making this game like would you rather have more players in the server or less players do you like hanging around do dicks all the time Brewis experience if constantly a

machine in the chat room just hate I mean doesn't that affect the player I'll never play a video game that's not real there's a certain point you mean like even a business hmm directly a point to me in a game where it's just hey hey hey into the negative things yeah dude it's just I just turn it off I I don't go to the movies to watch just try and play yeah yeah yeah exactly and it's a video game right like it's we're selling a piece of a fantasy and it's an all-inclusive fantasy I would say sure the art what it has to do with immersion the sound has to do with immersion but the combat the gameplay mechanics the decisions the dialogue sure a lot of that all adds up to one game experience that I'm either gonna enjoy or not enjoy but I definitely know that if the server is like only 14 people now like the life of this game has died because 70% of the customers quit like if you want just this same thing same types of people your game

look they're not if they're gonna sell copies because of this controversy there's a lot more people believe you that's not gonna support them then support them yeah this game and the servers are gonna be gone okay I haven't game anymore and if you are the very few that are playing servers it's gonna be the most hateful people in the world for no reason and people clerks people hanging on to realism and accuracy and all those things other people I don't want to watch movies with because that mindset in general is stupid because let entertainment be entertaining you know I mean like you go too fast and the furious with that guy in oh my god that car actually only tops out of 120 there's no way the suspension would handle it jumping through that building there's no way that the truck is actually that high because realistically the amount of drag that has added on to the nobody gives a [ __ ] like if you want

a game or a movie to be real and like totally realistic then go watch the news you know like this is entertainment if you're like in the history book and people are like this should be more off this is no you [ __ ] idiot and I side with you guys don't change history you can't change history no you're history's history yeah you like watch The History Channel and like suddenly your people are like yelling and crying about how there's no even representation in a medieval history lesson right it's like no because you know what China was doing then China's like [ __ ] that we're minding our own business our wanting to be themselves no most of these type of experience that's true and I always make myself yeah exactly and for you to not given the choice or even worse gave them that choice they took it away it's not going to help the players experience though in all aspects

of the world know right so we have a few minutes left maybe it is a short one I didn't cover a lot of the commentary from our direction at one thank you for your views no I hope you watched more than five minutes of that moment yeah actually covered a lot of what we're talking about right now if those are haters your partner when you've been watching to the end of this all right look that's fine I have no problem with anybody having a differing in opinion I have no problem with constructive criticism I have no problem yeah yeah I have no problem if somebody takes what I say fact check and they're like actually later you were wrong it was X Y & Z I'm the one that will eat crow and be like cool because now whoever read this has the right information and the reason why we're even doing any of this is because we want to spread share both information and opinion you know what I mean that's how this show works we take information and we offer opinion so if either if the

information was wrong and therefore our opinion is based on something that was wrong I completely welcome somebody or anybody or any group of people being like well let's let's fix the information part so then your opinion can be more honest or more have more integrity right cool I have no problem with that relationship what bothers me is like scrolling through YouTube sees title jump straight to the comments we can see it's it's all good it's all good I mean I'm not gonna yell at the YouTube ocean of people and tell them how to act because that's not a fight I'll ever win but yeah that was being reported to the point where there was a follow-up article retracting on the banter thing some PR damage and how much of what was said in that article aligned with what we said in the video so like I I don't want to hear crickets now keep that same energy you know what I mean

from video one and bring it back in video two where you have to eat crow yeah I can at least respect somebody who was like you know a [ __ ] up man I can respect that cuz I have to do it - I do it all the time whenever I mess up I have [ __ ] though I'm sorry rather for this game that we're losing players want to sell copies dude there's a lot more colors that are playing you're eating and it is a king my life in video games it's not like if I take any game that I've enjoyed and I was like you know the skin color of this person this character makes me not enjoy the experience

anymore that's never been me it's never been me did that person still bust her ass with that combo though right like even if eddie gordo was white yeah don't you still hate it when button masters play Eddie Gore like the gameplay doesn't change you can make eddie gordo white chinese freakin indian haitian doesn't matter button mashers on eddie gordo still gonna whip your ass like the gameplay experience is the same this power please join us we're gonna be right back in like five ten days recur passing a badass 3d character artist shuttle to curdle and he's gonna do a demo for us on one of his projects it showed show us how it's done cooks the real waste years in the industry so all you haters not knowing that we're getting too close I hope I hope at this point Kurt ate like own stock and pixologic cuz I have never seen somebody with the skill in ZBrush that this guy has so we're gonna go off

we're gonna come back to stay with us as we are exiting with a tag bar also real quick please donate to our earthquake relief fund all right guys so you know when your crown falls out you go back to the dentist to get it fixed consider yourself recapped [Music]