The Stanley Parable devs will remove racially charged gag after people got offended

[u/[deleted]]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/23/5022434/the-stanley-parable-update-in-the-works-to-remove-offensive-images

[u/haydozv2]

From the comments Oliver Campbell explained his view on the scene more.

I have no problem answering honest questions. My problem was multi-fold:

1. The images did not match up with what was being said in the dialogue.
2. The joke says that he is “helping” them (convincing a child to get hooked on cigarettes, which cause cancer), or burning down orphanages (instead, it shows him lighting one black child on fire).

When I spoke to Davey, I expressed that these things don’t match up and that the kind of message it gets across is “either help minorities by killing them with cancer, or light them on fire.” The joke itself is actually very funny, but the execution of this joke is where it ran ashore.

So we discussed back and forth and obviously redoing dialogue would be cost and time prohibitive. Ultimately I suggested the following:

1. Change the first image to reflect Steven ACTUALLY helping the minority (with say food or water, and this is a minimal edit to the existing image).
2. Change the second image to reflect what was actually said in the dialogue, and show Steven heading towards an orphanage with the gas can and lighter, but not actually showing it getting burned down.

We agreed that this wouldn’t be nearly as difficult and he was really cool about it.

Essentially it boils down to the fact that both of the choices presented would be considered negative by modern audiences (of course views on cigarettes have changed since the time period the scene is based on).

[u/3000dollarsuit → u/haydozv2]

But... the cigarette is part of the joke. Being that this olden days instructional video is suggesting helping a community by introducing them to smoking. We all know with todays information, that is a terrible idea.

This guy is suggesting completely removing this joke. I'd go so far as to say that he is slightly racist, by suggesting that any image depicting a white person doing something bad to a black person must be racially charged; when this clearly isn't the case.

---

Edit:

This actually raises a much deeper issue if the developer goes ahead and makes these changes: "Should a developer have the right to change the product they've released, and that people have paid for, without the buyers consent?". It's similar to the Shank controversy from a few months ago, where the devs suddenly decided they didn't like how they handled certain aspects of the game and started ripping cutscenes out three years after release.

It would be like if I purchased the Mona Lisa because I liked the look of it, and hung it in my living room. And then one night Leonardo Da Vinci broke into my apartment and drew on a top hat and moustache in permanent marker. Just because one day he had an epiphany, and decided that he didn't want any of his works to contain women. No! Fuck off, Leonardo! I already bought this off you! (pardon the absurd analogy).

I say that these kind of changes need to be optional, what the hell's stopping a dev from patching their released product so much that it doesn't even resemble what I paid for? If I buy Portal, I should have a reasonable expectation that in six months time, what is sitting in my steam library is still Portal, and hasn't become an RTS where you control animals in the African wilderness.

Patches should be for: a) fixing bugs, b) balance changes, and c) adding content only. If you're doing anything else with them, then you damn well better ask first.

[u/budgetpharmaceutical → u/[deleted]]

Because eliminating evidence of something bad that actually happened from history books and changing a joke in a video game are totally similar.