The Last of Us

Frankly, it's not even theory, it's bullshit.

She's certainly Armstrong in that way.

Edited by RedHunter543 on May 28th 2020 at 2:34:39 AM

I bet people will purposely get killed while playing as her just for the lulz

Abbey being transgender is a theory that was started by idiotic incelish alt-righters that flip out about any women in video games not having unrealistically feminine bodyshapes.

The theory started because Abbey in all the scenes we have seen of her so far is really buff, considering the Last of Us takes place in the literal fucking apocalypse a lot of people would be forced to get really fit or they'd die via bandit or clickers.

Edited by Wispy on May 28th 2020 at 2:57:31 AM

Although it makes you wonder how trans people would manage in an apocalyptic setting

Buddy there are some scenarios you don't wanna contemplate,seriously just don't

serious answer: just like everyone else experiencing an Apocalypse they're screwed,maybe even more so

Edited by Ultimatum on May 28th 2020 at 10:15:17 AM

Yeah, let's focus on what you should actually be pissed about: the human cost that a game like The Last of Us II demands.

The crunch hours, the creatives getting burnt out, the people wrecking their health just so a sack of grains can deflate when you shoot it.

Think about those, and don't buy The Last of Us II when it comes out. You don't need to play it, you don't want to encourage companies to keep doing this shit. If you want to buy a game with a lesbian protagonist, there's probably tons of indy games with that. Search for one, and then buy and play one of those instead.

Seriously, pretty please.

The "Triple Ayyy" video game industry is shit, and it won't change if we keep throwing money at it.

boycotting games knowing full well how the company and higher ups treat developers has, to my knowledge, never worked. The game is going to sell relatively well regardless of the leaks or the accusations of crunch. That's sadly how it goes.

I'm not really sure what a viable solution consumer could do besides not buying the game. At the least hope game developers may get the possibility of making an union in order to combat those harsh working enviroments.

I get the logic, and personally, i'm just here for point and laugh fodder, but like damn, there is no easy answer for things like this.

Don't buy the game and the devs suffer because it wasn't successful, buy the game and either the abusive treatment continues, and even escalate like Randy Pitchford denying the bonuses for Gearbox employees.

And on the other hand, while the first Last of us never really grabbed me like so many others, i do feel bad for people who are invested in this franchise and have to see it turn to well THIS.

Watch as unions get demonized.

Edited by RedHunter543 on May 28th 2020 at 3:50:01 AM

Well, you can at least support small-scale creatives that need all the money they can get and keep your conscience clean.

Do it for yourself.

Look, I know it sounds very callous, but the devs are screwed either way, it's like you said, but you can at least pick that option that might net some long-term benefit down the line.

On the other hand, there is no comparison to be made with someone getting dissapointed that their little time killer is badly made to someone getting this sort of treatment at work. None.

A game you were expecting to be good turning out to not be so does not cause you actual harm, it makes you upset for a week, you make a few snarky posts on the internet, and you move on.

What Naughty Dog does with its employees actually does cause harm, and that is all there is to it.

Edited by HailMuffins on May 28th 2020 at 7:55:21 AM

The most damage ND will take is reputation. Which could be significant but seeing as half of the AAA industry is already full of Card-Carrying Villain type companies, that i feel doing either will make a difference.

But who knows, maybe something could improve down the line

I still don't know why all the things people hate about the story of this game are grabbing my attention in a positive way so much.

Edited by GNinja on May 28th 2020 at 11:23:11 AM

I mean, name one time boycotting alone has worked for anything.

Boycotting has had results in the past, just not in the videogame industry. Because gamers are terrible about sticking to their promises to not buy games.

For a boycott to have even a chance of success, people have to actually refrain from buying the thing. Gamers too often fail that step.

Edited by M84 on May 28th 2020 at 10:37:11 PM

@Ginger Different opinions, Ginger. It's not really worth your trouble.

There was a Jimquisition about this very subject when the Pokemon Sword/Shield boycott failed to accomplish anything at all. He brought up how it doesn't work, and suggested other ways for angry gamers to protest that had a better track record;

Btw, in regards to Abby, it's not the fact that she's buff that I have a problem with in terms of her design. It's just that she is an extremely unappealing character to me what with her killing of Joel and all that, and her design not exactly being all that pleasing just makes it all the worse.

The design i personally don't really care, i just like the Senator Armstrong jokes.

The problems comes regarding her role in the story. But even if half the game is leaked, i will reserve my judgement until the game drops.

The thing with boycotts is that they are an entirely personal decision on part of the person doing them. When it comes to larger media that's part of a successful brand, there's pretty much never gonna be enough people boycotting to make a meaningful difference, the only way it will make less money is if the quality of the product is poor enough that word of mouth spreads and its sales suffer. This is hardly something that applies to just games, it may have worked in the past for other products, but in the last few years I can think of pretty much no instances where a sufficiently large product failed because of boycotting.

Which is to say, you boycotting something is really just a personal decision you make for yourself according to whatever values you have. Which is totally fine and something I would support anyone who feels strongly about it to do, but on the other hand it's important to acknowledge that this is often something we apply selectively, the sad truth is a LOT of AAA game companies are like this, or they may be headed by people who do other things we may find deeply objectionable (like THQ Nordic getting in hot water a while back for their 8chan ama).

I think this is a horrible status quo and I don't think we should simply ignore it, it definitely deserves to be criticized and exposed, but on the other hand I also don't think that people buying AAA games in less quantities because of moral reasons (at least, to the point of seriously impacting finances) is particularly realistic to expect. If this game fails to sell well for any reason it will because the story decisions or gameplay qualities alienated fans, and nothing to do with the crunch.

Really, the best thing you can do is to make noise and signal boost articles/journalists talking about this issue (Jason Schreier being a big one) and hope that with enough of it, videogame devs will eventually be able to unionize. That's really the only way to make any sort of significant change.

Edited by Draghinazzo on May 28th 2020 at 11:34:45 AM

And vote for politicians that are aware of this bullshit and willing to do something about it.

The sad part is, there are a few studios that manage to have a reasonable work culture like Insomniac that prove you can still make decent games in a reasonable amount of time and on budget. But they don't seem to be that common, unfortunately.

And of course the myriad of indie devs and studios out there out there, who I will always personally champion.

There are definitely bad eggs amongst Indie Devs, though. Phil Fish is one of them as a person.

There tend to be less bad eggs in the indie scene but it's not perfect.

More often than not the bad ones are the ones that get the most traction simply because people like to talk about negative things.

Even worse is that Naughty Dog from the stories I'm reading is not even the worst I've heard of in this regard. Don't get me wrong, it's terrible and not acceptable at all, but one employee describes that at least the management in ND makes some token attempts at being supportive and trying to make their employees feel better, even if they are pretty hollow and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and at least the employees get above average pay for all their trouble and crunch time, even if it's still a terrible trade-off.

Meanwhile you still get stories like L.A Noire's development, which is just an unending nightmare of misery and abuse that lasted for nearly seven years and dealt a heavy blow to the entire videogame development scene of the country it was made in (Australia). And there's the story of Anthem which was just a completely directionless mess for years until EA forced Bioware to get their shit together and ship something.

Edited by Draghinazzo on May 28th 2020 at 11:54:22 AM