Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

Lmao, if you recall I was one of the people on the thread saying we shouldn't blanket ban things, but go off I guess, sorry for responding to the comment directly above me to explain the consensus already reached about sports examples not being tropeworthy.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 19th 2022 at 9:35:14 AM

Went ahead and commented the YMMV.Gory Toons example out as suggested, citing this thread.

Edited by bowserbros on Sep 20th 2022 at 2:37:55 AM

Found in OvershadowedByControversy.Video Games:

• Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, a Compilation Re-release of Unreal Engine-based remastered versions of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City and San Andreas, was met with unanimous backlash for numerous reasons: 1) It was developed by Grove Street Games^note Formerly War Drum Studios, who developed the mobile ports of the aforementioned games, which were met with mixed-to-negative reactions, and the source code for the remasters was based on the mobile versions instead of the superior PC versions, 2) the compilation introduced some new glitches that weren't present in the previous releases, 3) the updated graphics were a mixed bag, with character models suffering from Unintentional Uncanny Valley, the compilation reused assets from the newer games, which in some cases appear anachronistic, and some of the text on the buildings and billboards are laced with typos, 4) the PC version had DRM in the form of the Rockstar Games Launcher, which rendered the games unplayable if the servers were to go offline, which incidentally happened the day after its release, and 5) Rockstar decided to delist the original versions of the games from all storefronts that had them except for the Rockstar Games Launcher on PC in light of the compilation's release, similar to what Blizzard did with Warcraft III: Reforged. The Definitive Edition compilation quickly became one of the lowest-rated games on Metacritic and earned the Fan Nickname of "the Defective Edition".

This reads more like a List of Transgressions to me.

It also doesn't really sound like a case of a game being overshadowed by a controversy and more the game itself just being controversial. The backlash over the art style for The Wind Waker was agreed to count as a historical case of OBC because it overshadowed all discussion of what the game actually contained for the better part of a decade, but the point on the GTA port seems to mostly go over all the stuff relevant to its status as a port.

Even if it is applicable for OBC, I only heard people bring up its bad graphics and Vinesauce Joel accidentally triggering a memory leak glitch that got misattributed to him drinking like 600 cans of soda in-game, so the stuff about the choice of developer, the DRM, and the delisting of the originals probably wouldn't be eligible.

Edited by bowserbros on Sep 29th 2022 at 11:36:45 AM

So cut?

Maybe wait until further opinions on the matter come in, since like I said, I did hear a lot of talk about the graphical quality, but I alone don't know if that's enough to make it count, so it'd be good to hear what other people think.

There were also a lot of complaints about the old version of the game being delisted, essentially forcing consumers to buy the Porting Disaster version until backlash caused them to relent. Rockstar's actions were consciously done in order to avoid letting an OBC reaction build up, so I don't think it qualifies.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 29th 2022 at 6:04:28 AM

Sorry; in the moment it was hard to be rational when responding to what came off as an unfair statement, but I should've kept a cooler head. My bad.

As for GTA, that one does come off more as a "list of gripes" rather than one specific controversy overshadowing the game. Whether the game counts or not it needs a better, more focused writeup.

Yeah, that's just a list of gripes. It's just a case of Porting Disaster.

Yeah, it seems like most of the GTA issues are just Porting Disaster, and the points that COULD be classified as a "controversy" don't have evidence supporting that they overshadow all other discussion of the game.

I wouldn’t say the GTA trilogy was OBV more than it was just panned for being a horrible set of remasters.

The GTA franchise as a whole is an example as a long time go-to punching bag for video game violence. But as far as I’m aware, the GTA trilogy remake specifically is just hated for being deeply flawed. Unless there’s something deeper to it than that, such as Warcraft 3 Reforged’s forced “upgrades” and rights contract, I’m in the cut camp.

Cut.

That gets me wondering, which of the other GTA entries count?

Edited by badtothebaritone on Sep 29th 2022 at 4:38:58 AM

San Andreas could at least be considered a historical example on the back of the Hot Coffee Minigame controversy, that much I can tell off the top of my head.

That's the one of the three I'm most solid on keeping.
I didn't know of GTA 5's torture mission. When I think of that game specifically, I think of Lamar and Online shenanigans.
How much blowback did Vice City actually get? Was it a major talking point of Vice City or the major talking point during that time?

Edited by badtothebaritone on Sep 29th 2022 at 5:32:05 AM

Umh is adding GTA a good idea. Considering these games you know thrive on and intentionally create controversy. Like its kinda part of the package...

Edited by miraculous on Sep 29th 2022 at 4:32:44 AM

I think part of why San Andreas applies, at least on a historical level, is because the Hot Coffee Minigame was Dummied Out content that got publicized via a mod that reenabled it, rather than being something Rockstar intentionally made accessible to buyers. In that sense, it's an unintended controversy rather than one that the developers anticipated.

Oh I definitely think Hot Coffee at least counts. Major American politicians were talking about it—I recall Hillary Clinton was one of them. Per Wikipedia:

At the very least it's a big historical example.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 29th 2022 at 7:45:48 AM

Do you guys think the Webcomics section should be spun off into its own page? There aren't too many entries on it at the moment, but a lot of them are pretty long.

From Real Life:

• Boris Yeltsin is better remembered internationally today for his very visible and embarrassing alcoholism problems during public appearances than for any of his policies as President of Russia, or even the fact that he was the first President of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. He is even less fondly remembered in Russia, where under his term, Russia's GDP and life expectancy drastically fell, and his involvement of Russian forces in The Chechnya Wars remains controversial today.

Yeltsin was always controversial for the exact stuff he did here so likely will have to be cut. However, if this was a Tony Blair or Clinton situation where he is only primarily known for one controversial thing outside his controversial behavior, it meeds to be rewritten if there is proof that he's known for alcoholism more than his policies outside Russia, need to delete the last part beyond that.

• While the late South Korean president Chung-hee Park is still highly respected by many Koreans for practically rebuilding the nation from the ground up (after it had spent 35 years under Japanese rule and another three at war with North Korea), his 18-year rule is remembered by just as many for the fact that he led one of the most oppressive and dictatorial regimes the country had ever seen after becoming convinced that he was the only person who could properly maintain his country. This became such a dark mark for him that when his daughter Geun-hye became president in 2013, she publicly apologized for the atrocities he committed while he was in office. The younger Park, herself a divisive figure due to both her parentage and her bungling of the Sewol ferry disaster, was herself disgraced in October 2016 when she was forced to admit to a longstanding friendship with the daughter of an infamous cult leader who may have influenced many of her decisions as President, and she was impeached that December.

Park Geun-Hye could qualify if she is just known for the cult stuff but her father? Cut for "people being critical of an oppressive dictator's legacy because they're oppressive".

I'd say keep Yeltsin his alcoholism was legendary in some of the worst ways possible, most infamously the time he was caught in his underwear. I'll try a re-write:

• Boris Yeltsin is most remembered internationally today for his very visible and embarrassing alcoholism problems during public appearances than for any of his policies as President of Russia, or even the fact that he was the first post-USSR President of Russia.

As for the Park thing, cut. Dictator is controversial for being a dictator is not enough and while a case could easily be made for his daughter, the 10 year after leaving office prohibition on politicians makes any such discussion here moot.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on Sep 30th 2022 at 1:49:01 PM

That writeup looks good.

On a similar note, could Leon Trotsky be a example of real life Overshadowed by Controversy? Whenever people talk about Trotsky nowadays it almost always isn't either to whitewash him as supposedly nicer than Stalin or to condemn him for his own atrocities while in the Soviet government, but rather the bad things his followers did. Specifically what happened to them after they ditched Communism altogether in the 50s and 60s and went to the right, which gave rise to a political ideology that let's say came to be very controversial in the 2000s. And he and "normal" Trotskyism is often lumped in with the post-Communist escapades of his ex-Communist followers, with "normal" Trotskyism being seen as the direct progenitor of what came after.

Edited by xie323 on Oct 1st 2022 at 7:27:56 AM

All I ever heard about Trotsky is that he supported the Soviet Union, defected from it after Stalin came to power, and got bludgeoned to death with an ice pick while living in exile in Mexico, so I'm not particularly sure if Trotsky is overshadowed by that specifically. Might be worth probing around for further opinions, though.

Edited by bowserbros on Oct 1st 2022 at 9:42:50 AM

Bascically, to give some further context, he has been accused of being the progenitor of neoconservativism because of some "directions" that his followers(with Max Schatman and Irving Kristol singled out the most here) took after they got disillusioned with Communism, and it is perceived generally "common knowledge" that he is so even outside circles apologetic towards Stalinism. It would be one thing if it is only tankies or extreme Putin apologists that harp about Trotskyism=Neoconservativism, but we see this in libertarian right wing and social democratic left circles as well, and AlternateHistoryHub had a video about Trotsky where he mentioned the link to neoconservativism

Edited by xie323 on Oct 1st 2022 at 10:05:12 AM