Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

I dunno, seems like ROCEJ violation bait.

Yeah, it is generally a bad idea to list any political figure unless there's one very specific 'controversy' that clearly disproportionately overshadows the rest of what they did. That's not really something I'm seeing here.

Honestly, the RL subpage probably needs another sweep. I looked at it just recently and saw some questionable entries.

Plus if you need to give context it's probably not famous enough to apply.

That a core of neoconservatives were once Trotskyists is an interesting anecdote I've heard from a few sources, but Trotsky himself is far too famous to be overshadowed by it.

I just cross-wicked the OBC entry for Ooblets onto its YMMV page, and while it's... fine, trying its best to have a neutral tone despite the inflammatory subject matter, it's also quite long. Do you think it could be trimmed? (My first exposure to the game and the controversy was TheJWittz's sponsored review of it, where all the comments were complaining about the Epic Games exclusivity, but since then the game has faded into obscurity. Maybe Tainted by the Preview would fit?)

That definitely fits Tainted by the Preview better, because it's purely about pre-release information.

• The Play Station 3, despite having some solid exclusives down the line such as Demon's Souls, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted, is still remembered for its infamous 2006 reveal, with the announcement of the "599 US Dollars" launch price. With this being the most expensive launch price of a console in almost a decade, few would end up rushing to pick one up, and Sony's arrogant statements making clear how justified they thought the pricetag was did no favors. Not even being a comparatively cheap Blu-ray player at the time was enough to convince people, and what certainly didn't help was the 2008 Great Recession that was just around the corner, which stunted the adoption of HD home media as many people during that era could not afford HDTVs which were required to truly take advantage of Blu-Ray's improved picture quality. It also allowed Nintendo to effortlessly upstage Sony with the Wii's $250 launch price, and for Microsoft to regain their footing after the RROD debacle. The disastrous launch of the PS3 that was in no small part a result of the conference left Sony with little choice but to drop its price, several times, in order to get people to start buying the system. This presentation helped ensure that the PS3 stayed in dead last among their competition in the 7th console generation for a long time, despite dominating the industry for the past two generations and their solid recovery efforts that barely put its sales ahead of the Xbox 360 years later. Watch the presentation in its entirety here.

This entry feels like a List of Transgressions and a wall of text. I know the Playstation 3's reveal was controversial, but I tend to see people talk more about the games released on it than the console itself.

Yeah, while the high pricepoint during a recession is worth noting, the meme tended to be "PS 3 has no games" early on in its lifecycle for a reason.

At best, its launch was overshadowed, but it was ultimately able to recover thanks to 2 previous generations of goodwill and some smart course corrections. By the end of its life, it would outsell the Xbox 360 (albeit barely) and I don’t think people gave much thought to the memes.

Contrast it with the Xbox One, which never came anywhere close to rivaling the Playstation 4’s sales due to the stench of the anti-consumer policies they pursued (like used game restrictions), which haunted it even after they scrapped them shortly before launch.

Honestly even the Xbox One wasn't "overshadowed," I'd say by the time the X came out it wasn't really a huge deal, and Game Pass was late that gen too?

Hard disagree. It was outsold by the PS4 2:1 while their predecessors were sold similar totals, a drop which can almost entirely be attributed to the horrificly anti-consumer policies.

Nonetheless, I’m just one person with an opinion. If others agree it should be cut then so be it.

I’d say it’s absurd to ignore that fact when Microsoft ceased publishing sales after a year and didn’t admit how badly they had lost until a little more than a month ago. Nonetheless, I’m not interested in derailing your new suggestion so I’ll leave that discussion alone unless others throw in their two cents.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on Oct 5th 2022 at 6:20:19 AM

Again, by the end of the generation, nobody was talking about those policies, instead praising the backwards compatibility and Game Pass. Saying the sales difference can be attributed to exactly one thing people stopped really considering is absurd in basically any context, let alone with no real evidence to back that claim up.

I'd also like to ask if the following should be cut:

• Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE was originally announced as a straightfoward serious Fire Emblem and Atlus' Shin Megami Tensei crossover Role-Playing Game on 2013, but became this upon its gameplay reveal in 2015 as a Lighter and Softer Idol Singer-themed SMT Spin-Off RPG more in-line with the popular Persona series, with an original cast of protagonists that uses Fire Emblem characters as the companion monsters and enemies of the game. The ensuing backlash led to Nintendo of America giving the game a non-existent advertising campaign and little-to-no fanfare during its release. The game's Western release (and the Japanese version of the Nintendo Switch Updated Re-release^note Notably, the announcement that the Japanese Switch version would be based on the censored and rebalanced western version caused the uncensored Wii U version to rise to the top of the sales charts) was also significantly censored in some parts, mostly regarding the more mature sexual content and humor, causing even fans of Japanese media who would otherwise be interested in the game to boycott it out of principle. The combination of all these factors lead to the game bombing in sales and killing plans for a proposed series of Shin Megami Tensei crossover spin-offs. It did manage to get a small following however, with multiple players noting that even with the unexpected tone, themes and notable censorship for the western Wii U release, the gameplay was solid and those not even fans of the idol genre could see the game crafting its own identity. Thus, the Switch rerelease was made and sold better than the Wii U version, but the presence of censorship on both regions this time resulted in yet another controversy that proceeded to undermine potential sales once more.

The example seems to greatly exaggerate the effect that the "censorship" had on the game's sales; it tries to say that the Switch version being based on the US version led to a significant spike in JP Wii U sales, before admitting the Switch version sold better and moving the goalposts to "controversy undermining potential sales." Even the game not being what was anticipated by a crossover seems like a stretch for "controversy" and more "the game was not what people were wanting"

Edited by NAFEDUDE on Oct 5th 2022 at 2:04:16 AM

The Wii U version sales claim probably needs a citation at least. I don’t know enough about it as a whole to rule one way or another.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on Oct 5th 2022 at 9:54:23 AM

That always rubbed me the wrong way because it read like a List of Transgressions. The Wii U version probably didn't sell well because it was on the Wii U.

Not just on the Wii U, but a loose crossover of a then-niche (and honestly still not as popular as Persona) franchise and a franchise that was just being resurrected, leaning more towards the former. Most general audiences probably barely know about the changes in the localized version and those that do probably more know about the infamous "vagina bones" tweet than anything else. If it did have an impact on sales it probably wasn't substantial enough to have made the game a hit had they not changed anything.

I'd say it might count as Audience-Alienating Premise but that's about it. The argument that a controversy "undermined potential sales" is weird because while it's technically true, it's true in the same way that the game not being a military FPS game undermined potential sales. Every creative decision does that, even ones designed not to do that because it homogenizes the medium and thus pushes people bored of the current trend away. It's a meaningless statement disguised as evidence.

Edited by NAFEDUDE on Oct 6th 2022 at 12:01:39 PM

So I have yet to play TMS#FE, but that entire example should be cut.

The thing about the Japanese version being censored was a bit of kerfuffle on Twitter for, like, a couple of days. Also the censorship amounts to having a couple of girls wear minidresses instead of bikinis.

And the game really isn't controversial. The overwhelming reaction it elicits is bemusement. Plenty of people wonder why it exists, but there's no big controversy.

Cut it. There's a few more I spotted on the page that seem bad.

• Much uproar arose when Kenji Yamamoto's soundtrack for the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series was replaced for the HD re-release following the discovery of plagiarism in his songs by Toei and Namco Bandai. A Broken Base has emerged as to whether or not Yamamoto was in the wrong, despite the borrowed melodies appearing to be unauthorized. This one doesn't seem to count. "There was a plagiarism controversy, soundtrack was changed, some people are upset it was changed and some were upset it was plagiarism" isn't overshadowing.

• Dragon's Crown gathered some rather heated debates and negative press coverage over the Amazon and Sorceress' character designs, the former being an Amazonian Beauty in a bikini with oversized legs and the latter having breasts the size of her head. This actually led to lots of free advertising in the West, making the game more successful in the process. Can something be overshadowed if the discourse boosted sales? Is people being upset at creative decisions like this even an example?

• The Atari 2600 game Dragster was a short, decent game by Activision, the system's biggest third party. It is almost entirely remembered for a 5.51 score being the most infamous of Todd Rogers's now-banned, decades-old records, being the most infamous impossible score among all his highly suspect achievements. Seems like a shoehorn, since this wasn't anything about the game itself.

Really seems like people think this trope is "there was a controversy or discourse at all."

Edited by NAFEDUDE on Oct 7th 2022 at 12:32:54 PM

A lot of these examples also seem like they got lost on their way to They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.

the dragster one i think could count since it's definitely overshadowed anything else about the game, OBC doesn't have to be something directly about the work (it can also be something about its creators or audience reactions, the latter of which this would fall under). the world record controversy is even on the wikipedia article as a major section. but the others can go for the reasons you said yeah

Edited by NoUsername on Oct 7th 2022 at 1:51:49 AM

Agreed. The Todd Rogers stuff overshadows everything else about Dragster.

I think the one about Kenji Yamamoto can be kept, but rewritten to focus on Yamamoto himself rather than Dragon Ball (and moved to the Music section accordingly). IIRC most discussions of Yamamoto after his firing still focus on the plagiarism scandal and whether or not his actions counted as genuine plagiarism or if they were simply homages.

I'm not familiar enough with his work to really make that entry. If someone else could write that entry and cut the game entry, or something similar, I would appreciate it

I don't think the given reasons for removing the Dragon's Crown example are strong enough.

> Can something be overshadowed if the discourse boosted sales?

Yes. Even if the controversy prompted some people to check out a work, it can still be overshadowed if it's mostly remembered as "that work that got caught up in that controversy".

> Is people being upset at creative decisions like this even an example?

Yes. A controversy can arise from elements within the work — it doesn't have to be something external to the work like "it turned out the developer was a massive racist".

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Oct 8th 2022 at 3:32:50 PM

It's basically the same boat that Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out! is in. The backlash made the series a lot more popular, but discussion of it, especially outside the fandom, is dominated by her tits. Both are definitely OBC.

Already removed it and I disagree greatly. I don't think "there was some discourse about booba that lasted a bit" really counts for the same reason the Tokyo Mirage Sessions example didn't count. People not liking certain creative decisions and being loud about it isn't really "overshadowing" if we can't get concrete evidence those things actually had an impact on the work's perception. All three seem to be engaging in a sort of Fan Myopia; "people don't like thing I like, but thing is popular, so their attacks backfired!"

I personally remember the Dragon's Crown rerelease not really having the discourse be revitalized. Feels like if the controversy was that big it would've stuck around.

Edited by NAFEDUDE on Oct 8th 2022 at 2:32:50 AM