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Quantic Dream changed the skin tone of Saudi characters in Beyond PS4 to..
- Thread starter Nibel
- Start date
silvermember
Banned
We are going to need some numbers to back up your claim.
dragonbane
Member
That's totally fine. But yeah I think we definitely need to conclude that giving QD any negative or positive credit here doesn't make much sense. Even in the case it's statistical correct (which I don't know if it is) that most wealthy Arab people have lighter skin tone, I very much doubt the artists researched that only for the remaster, thought "oh shit" and then changed them all to white to make it more accurate. It was fine on PS3 and it's seemingly fine now imo. While an odd change, this remaster has plenty of them outside of characters and game development does work in strange ways sometimes, so yeah. Just out of curiosity it would be interesting to know though what their process was for tackling these scenes on PS4. Maybe this was an old build they had for PS3, which didn't run that well so it needed a texture downgrade and this is actually the original version reinstated, who knows.
It's always hilarious to me that some people actually think that Cage is responsible for every little thing in his games and somehow controls what 170 employees are individually doing down to every detail in every corner. The chances he was involved in this are less than 1%. Learn how game development works people, for christ sakes lol
Necromanti
Member
You're not wrong here, unfortunately. It's true. The US has one of the most developed senses of racial awareness in the world due to its history and demographics (and that's saying something). As critical as I am of the treatment of minorities in the US and the mindsets that persist in a large portion of its society, Europe is way behind on its understanding of race relations and the concept of what constitutes racism (and its negative effects), comparatively speaking.
Guys... you dont honestly think that Cage told the modelers/programmers to white-wash Saudi characters for the remaster right? I mean, ive heard some stupid shit in my time, but that is quite the leap. Even if he did (which, come on), do you think said programmers would have been like "yeah lets do that"
Gold_Loot
Member
Too much common sense. We need to outrage first, think rational later!
Deceitful-Fox
Neo Member
Don't bother, my friend, this is not the place.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
Hey, Murdock said Arabs are white so.... fakts
potatohead
Member
People know that many Arabs have fair skin right?
Not that I really care about the change, or welcome it anyway. I don't even like QD or their games tbh.
Not that I really care about the change, or welcome it anyway. I don't even like QD or their games tbh.
Conspiracy-Gaf brah.
In my opinion, the character looks more realistic. Skin-tone aside, the character looks like a generic middle eastern dude. And even at that he looks more believable. Just my two cents.
Seems like the people outraged by this are the social justice police because you my friend, are correct.
Silver Arrows
Banned
Grimløck;187702053 said:
Get the grill going, somebody just got fucking roasted.
The Spoony Hou
Member
The lack of balls to stand for your vision is astounding. Especially because they are pandering to ignorance now.
Oh, I see. So they maybe realized their own ignorance in displaying other races and decided they are only fit to show white people.
Oh, I see. So they maybe realized their own ignorance in displaying other races and decided they are only fit to show white people.
Monty Mole
Member
It's clearly a simple SDK issue. They just need to tick the skin tone box, the one next to the anisotropic filtering box.
potatohead
Member
I'll say it one more time and last time.
First, I'm not defending any of QD's decision making. I don't even like their games really, but I did like Heavy Rain (especially the twist).
But there are many Arab people who have fair skin. Apparently people on GAF are not aware of this. Not everyone from Middle East and South Asia have dark skin.
From Lebanon to Saudi Arabia to Iran and even in India..... lots of fair skin. I worked under a Lebanese woman about 30-ish she had fairer skin than most "white" people I know.
So it's actually people in this thread suggesting that all Arabs have brown skin who are the ones who are ignorant.
There are tons of Indians or Arabs or whatever who have fair skin, and tons who also don't.
It's even true that "dark skin vs. light skin" is a debate in even countries like India and such where Westerners might assume everyone is just brown, which is patently false.
"Light skin vs. dark skin" also has a component of racism even in countries like India with the things like caste system and class-ism and other forms of elitism in which wealth and skin colour dictates a lot.
CyclopsRock
Member
Pardon?
Deceitful-Fox
Neo Member
If you're trying to convince us of your argument, don't link to an article written by a self-professed 'member of the “academic left”'.
dragonbane
Member
And as multiple times stated, there is no issue with any of that concerning these particular changes. Also people get way too hung up about Navajo. While the teepees in the flashback scene are obviously wrong, the only place the game actually depicts in detail is the correct one too. While The Mission itself was ludicrous, again I can't see nothing obviously wrong with the depiction of Mogadishu. I even remember someone commenting that the native spoken dialogue was quite well done, unlike most movies that do this.
Well, this is plain bs.
The Spoony Hou
Member
I'm 25% Lebanese. Half my family is either Arabic or Jewish. Yes, I know lots of Arabs have fair skin. Still, it seems to me that those edits were made out of pure ignorance.
Are you claiming they were racist when they made the original game, and are fixing it now? It doesn't seem to me that they are addressing complaints from the Arab population, but I could, of course, be wrong.
dragonbane
Member
How about they weren't racist when they made the original and aren't racist now. This isn't some wild conspiracy theory where the higher ups decided to alter their vision for a low budget remaster they made in their spare time while everyone senior is working on the PS4 game. Why in god's name would they care? What's much more likely is that some artist upgraded all the low res textures in the level and decided to make changes as he saw fit. He changed a green dress to grey, gave some dudes lighter skin tone while upgrading the face, left others exactly as they were on PS3 and changed a carpet texture because he liked the other one better. If they made these edits purposefully, then why did they leave all the other scenes with dark skinned characters alone that are much longer? Why did they only make some of them lighter skin toned as opposed to everyone in the embassy scene?
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Don't they just have randomly generated characters? So when you replay the game, some times the faces and clothes change.
The Spoony Hou
Member
Exactly. Why would they care? Leave the characters as is, if there's nothing wrong with them. If they changed, it's because they think there was something wrong. Do they just prefer light-skinned people? Ok, and wouldn't that be racist?
I haven't played the game, but the go out of their way to change only dark skinned Arabs means there's obviously something wrong with them. And to do that in this time of increasing hate against Arabs makes it seem fishy.
Might be unrelated. Might be just random characters. I don't know. I can only call it by what it seems to be.
dragonbane
Member
What was wrong with them? Likely that they had pretty bad looking low res textures and blocky features. Which were improved on PS4. Notice how the one guy who already had a good looking texture on PS3, the sheik, still looks the same on PS4?
Why change the skin colour of the guards in the process of upgrading their texture? There are a million reasons ranging from accidental over to changes in their skin shading library to finally that one artist thought a mix of white and dark toned would look more convincing than all dark like it was on PS3. Maybe he thought it expressed the original artistic intent better. Or maybe he was simply tasked to come up with an improved skin texture and didn't consider the original skin colour while making it or a change in their engine and/or tools made it appear more dark toned to him than it ended up being in the game.
All of these reasons make more sense than someone suddenly developing racism at the studio between working on the same game on PS3 and PS4, going nuts and changing the skin colour of 3 dark toned NPCs (that are cloned) out of like 50, because he hated those 3 with a passion.
SallyIsNow
Banned
That's EXACTLY what I think happened.
dragonbane
Member
They improved the texture. As to why they changed the skin colour in the process there could be a million reasons. But graphically it does look better, which is the reason they did touch it, cause the guards had low res textures on PS3. The sheik, which had a good texture, wasn't touched at all as a result and remains dark toned.
One can only hope you are still sarcastic. If not, you are highly delusional about both the realities of game development and Cage as a person.
TheActtionFigure
Member
Yep that's what I believe happened too. There is no other logical reason why character's skin tone needed to change when being ported to a more powerful system. The amount of disingenuous apologist in this thread for this crap is kinda hilarious. It reminds me of the same people around the internet defending the piss poor casting in 'Gods of Egypt'.
The Spoony Hou
Member
You present lots of excuses why someone could change those skins. Fine, They are all possible, and nobody knows what happened. Maybe the changes are more faithful to their original view, which, again, nobody knows what that is. Still seems unnecessary to me.
To address the part I quoted: I never said anybody suddenly developed racism, so I suggest you read my posts more carefully. I said they might feel their previous work was racist and decided to change it. Or, they are afraid of ignorant racist people and changed it.
So, in your opinion, instead of just changing NPC skin tone from one extremely common tone to another extremely common tone among Saudi Arabians for a little more diversity and authenticity... EVERYONE at QD is a racist (after all, no QD devs spoke out against the change, so they are all accomplices). You realize how stupid that sounds?
Theanine3D
Member
This is really slimy and I'm glad people are actually calling them out for this.
Can't wait to hear their "justification" for this change.
Can't wait to hear their "justification" for this change.
TheActtionFigure
Member
When did I say that everyone at the company was racist? Please show me that quote! What would be the point of changing the skin tone at all if it wasn't a conscious, calculated decision? The game industry & Hollywood has a looong history of whitewashing characters in an attempt to appeal to a "wider (whiter) audience". This is a fact that you're more than welcomed to go on with your life denying and being purposely ignorant about. But don't dare say that it's stupid to point out that there had to a conversation had among the higher-ups at the company to change the skin tones. This is such an obvious example that it's stupid not to acknowledge it.
Willy Wanka
my god this avatar owns
Wrong thread
A bizarre change. I wonder why they did it.
A bizarre change. I wonder why they did it.
dragonbane
Member
My excuses are far more likely though if we consider how game development actually works and apply some common sense. There are exactly 0 comments to be found about the scene on PS3, so I doubt they felt any heat from racist people or suddenly became aware of the fact that it was racist on PS3 just on their own with no probable cause.
Well, the textures are a lot better, so it did accomplish something.
Ever heard of accidents, random generators or artists doing stuff because they felt like it? Was it also a concious, calculated reason to change a woman's dress from green to grey in the same scene? How do you feel about that colour change? What would be the point of changing the dresses colour you think? The point is, some guy either felt like it or he developed the new higher res texture with no consideration for the prior one. The same likely happened with the skin texture, which are re-used across the entire scene. It's not like they changed 50 individual textures for it, the scene uses a lot of clones. 1 setting is probably enough to affect them all. Also, seriously, what would be the fucking point to have an entire set of dark toned NPCs on PS3 just to white wash them on PS4? If this is a Hollywood problem and somehow QD got affected by it, then why wasn't it done on PS3 to begin with? Why on a remaster which was done by a skeleton crew and had a low budget and barely any company attention devoted to it. Why did they only white-wash the Saudis in this 10 minute scene, but not the African people in the 60 minute Somalia chapter, which has a far bigger impact?
The Spoony Hou
Member
Well, if you want to believe it was an accidental change completely unrelated to racism, that's your choice. But if that's really the only skin tone change in the game, it still seems to me like they purposely changed the Arabs skin color to avoid controversy.
Yes, that's a stupid reason, and yes, I don't think they are above doing that.
Tinfoilhatsron
Banned
Now this?
This is fucking unbelieveable. Fuck you Cage/QD, you racist wankers.
But.
But!
Before I get ranty, are we sure this mistake isn't from poor porting issues or different models? Could be a bug. Is QD porting this?
If it is whitewashing then fuck them.
This is fucking unbelieveable. Fuck you Cage/QD, you racist wankers.
But.
But!
Before I get ranty, are we sure this mistake isn't from poor porting issues or different models? Could be a bug. Is QD porting this?
If it is whitewashing then fuck them.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Wow.
They royally fucked up. What was a beautiful Persian carpet on PS3 is now a shitty doormat you get at walmart for $2. The powa of next-gen!
They royally fucked up. What was a beautiful Persian carpet on PS3 is now a shitty doormat you get at walmart for $2. The powa of next-gen!
the scene looks more realistic to me characters-wise, especially for those (now lighter-skinned but not just that) Saudi "princes" but it might only be because in my years of experiencing Sardinia/Costa Azzurra by summer that is how they mostly looked :shrugs:
of course that doesn't explain the security guard so QD got some 'xplaining to do I guess?
of course that doesn't explain the security guard so QD got some 'xplaining to do I guess?
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
Christ, they didn't just change the skin colour, they changed the actual features. Yikes.
This make me laugh more than anything.
I can see why people take offense to white-washing a game that has already been released, but I personally find it hilarious that instead of spending time fixing the product on a technical level to make sure it runs swell on new hardware they are going back and editing minor character models of all things. Was the dark skin having a texture problem or something?
I can see why people take offense to white-washing a game that has already been released, but I personally find it hilarious that instead of spending time fixing the product on a technical level to make sure it runs swell on new hardware they are going back and editing minor character models of all things. Was the dark skin having a texture problem or something?
Tinfoilhatsron
Banned
Well one can be both laughing and be slightly offended that someone would waste resources on not offending...This make me laugh more than anything.
I can see why people take offense to white-washing a game that has already been released, but I personally find it hilarious that instead of spending time fixing the product on a technical level to make sure it runs swell on new hardware they are going back and editing minor character models of all things. Was the dark skin having a texture problem or something?
Someone. I dunno.
Saudi here, the embassy was as stereotypical and poorly researched as it can get, but the skin tone was actually too dark for the PS3 version. Although if they were trying to fix it, they should have cut that whole sequence and remade it from scratch, because the whole thing was a mishmash of Arab stereotypes you always find in nationalistic American entertainment.
You realize Quantic Dream is French right?
I do, but the whole game is based on America and Americans, with a lot of Hollywood influences and Actors.
Yup, just like Navajo and Mogadishu. Beyond was pretty racist/stereotypical, but I attribute that to the incompetence of Cage and his decisionmakers.