John Kowalski
Banned
Seems like something they could fix. That they are aware of this and not in some way addressing it so far is a clear display that it isn't one of their priorities.
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Quantic Dream changed the skin tone of Saudi characters in Beyond PS4 to..
- Thread starter Nibel
- Start date
Seriously though, I'd be interested in knowing how many people complaining about this actually bought the game before the article and were offended by the change when they saw this / were planning to buy the game and won't now because of this. Can't imagine there were too many sales lost or gained by this move either way.
Spring-Loaded
Member
Gotdatmoney
Member
So racism or white washing doesn't apply when you aren't going to gain sales? Because if that isn't your point I dont see how any of that matters.
Zvonimir Boban
Banned
Institutional racism is OK as long as it's mild and unintentional.
TatteredHat
Member
They both look like accurate depictions of Saudis, so it doesn't make much sense to actively change them unless they're being randomized.
I don't know the full history behind it but Google seems to indicate there is an ongoing controversy around Beyonce's skin lightening.
dragonbane
Member
Here is how Cole compares:
PS3:
PS4:
Seems like they changed the lighting in most scenes or changed the gamma curve.
PS3:
PS4:
Seems like they changed the lighting in most scenes or changed the gamma curve.
My point is that if this is a problem, and their apology/explanation isn't good enough, the only solution is for QD to make a patch that fixes it. Would it be worth it in their eyes to spend the time and money to develop one if the people upset by this didn't actually buy the game or weren't going to buy it anyway? I know it'd be good in the sense that (as far as I can tell) no one reacted positively to this change and fixing it could only gain goodwill, but I'm wondering whether it'd ultimately be worth it for QD in the business sense.
Gotdatmoney
Member
Ok so basically if its not good for business it doesn't matter. Hollywood like indeed. If doing the right thing is off limits because hey, we gotta spend money to fix a problem we created, that's not worthy of being excused.
travisbickle
Member
This is not whitewashing. Whitewashing is the removal of ethnic characters from true historical events and replacing them with white American actors in the movies of said events.
This is a character artist redrawing an Arabic fictional character with a lighter skin tone. The people arguing against it are literally saying all Arabic people are one singular skin tone that was perfectly represented in the original version of the game and can't be this other skin tone that they are in the new version.
dragonbane
Member
QD also changed Ryan's race from Caucasian to Super Caucasian
PS3:
PS4:
Their white-washing knows no bounds!
PS3:
PS4:
Their white-washing knows no bounds!
Like I said the lighting in the engine makes a marginal difference. That's kadeem hardison. They aren't going to straight up change his model. They made explicit and intentional changes to the other npc.Here is how Cole compares:
PS3:
PS4:
Seems like they changed the lighting in most scenes or changed the gamma curve.
Gotdatmoney
Member
The Arab characters were dark skin in the original. Now they are light skin. How is that not white washing if you dont apply mental gymnastics? White washing doesn't just apply to historical works and movies. If you have a piece where all the characters are portrayed one way then all of them except the dark skinned ones get to remain so in another, how is that not whote washing?
wanderjahr
Banned
It's almost as if porting a game from one generation to the other might require some color balance. Sweet Jesus, people wanna see controversy everywhere they look. Maybe sometimes a cigar is just a xenophobic agenda cigar.
dragonbane
Member
Yes, because they were low res on PS3 and looked bad up close. That's the only reason they were changed, to make them look better and have more polygons on PS4. You know, the sole point of a remaster. Cole didn't need any upgrading, because he is a primary character and looked good to begin with on PS3. Nonetheless he is still affected by the lighting and shader change. They did the same upgrading process for other bad looking passer-bys as well, not just the guards in this chapter.
N
Noray
Unconfirmed Member
"They should have been more careful/thoughtful" is really the most I feel you can say about this. I care about these issues but I don't really see a smoking gun here.
Diablohead
Member
Question is why does the new skin shader making skin a lot whiter? did they not think that making everyone more pale to the point of looking white would not cause issues?
"They should have been more careful" seems like a real weird thing to say because that's not what happened here. The careless/lazy way would have ended up with the same character model, and instead to reach this result they had to actively change it.
travisbickle
Member
The Sheikh you talk to directly in the game has remained unchanged, some of the other NPCs have had new models with some having changed skin textures. No ethnicities have been changed, look at the previous page the new character models look distinctly Saudi.
dragonbane
Member
Cause everyone got more white, including characters that were already white to begin with. Very dark characters also got darker, the new skin shader is going into the extremes, which you either like or don't.
The PR does not say whether they intent to fix it and of course they could fix it. They never pretended otherwise, they just explained how this change came to be due to technical reasons. Do you really care enough about this "bug" is the question?
Gotdatmoney
Member
They were dark skin. Now they are light skin. It doean't matter of they still look Saudi. The darkness of your skin has many negative or positive connotations in many cultures (which is horrible). It matters. You are trying to play it off like ot doesn't but it does.
dragonbane
Member
Many Arab gaffers have commented that this unintentional change actually is more faithful to how Arab people in that region generally look. Where is the issue?
Gotdatmoney
Member
The very dark characters got darker and the white characters got wjite yet everyone got lighter? What?¿??¿
The PR bugs me because he is playing victim. If you don't think its a problem dont address it. But dont go in the face of evidence "oh how could you ever accuse me!!" when anyone with eyes can see that the dark skin characters got lighter. And dont blame technical reasons when this is somrthing that can obviously be fixed. There is nothing technically impossible in fixing this. You just dont want too.
This said I dont think QD is racist or anything like that. Games are technical and are subject to change with technology that has unexpected consequences. But that means when something like this happens I expect them to say, "you know what we didnt recognize this as an issue, we will fix it", not "yall are seeing shit where there is no shit" as though we are totally unaware of cultural phenomina and cage knows all.
UnemployedVillain
Member
They even made the clothing white! For fucks sake
Gotdatmoney
Member
So you are going to continually ignore my point huh?
Green Yoshi
Member
First world problems.
Quantic Dream is really not the kind of company you would suspect to be racist.
Quantic Dream is really not the kind of company you would suspect to be racist.
Wow.. people still carrying on about it being wrong and racist after the PR statement and evidence as to why it happened. I can't see any racism in this at all. Fuck have you guys met upper class Saudi people? Thinking they should all be dark skinned is applying a stereotype. And the models certainly do not look Caucasian either. And on top of that people asking them to fix it? :/
Jawmuncher
Member
A small part of me expected darker skin. But i knew what I was actually in for.
But that did happen. Its just that it wasn't reported on for obvious reasons.
The usual people are always on the lookout for something to be offended by. The color of some pixel in a video game has changed, this is a clear, intentional attack on the social justice system, unacceptable, we need to denounce it! Quick, light up the outrage signal and grab the pitchforks... Let the social media outrage shitstorm begin!
RubberJohnny
Banned
Wow they're super mad, but the actual stuff from the files they provided showed that yeah everyone is whitewashed. They're saying that some people are darker but can't show that that's the case anywhere.
hikarutilmitt
Member
Your point is just barking, now. You're pushing an issue that has been explained by the dev and also fits with what should happen given the changes. Also that the GAFers in this very thread have said it's MORE accurate now. There was clearly no white-washing, despite that you seem to think.
I mean, it seemed likely from the first time I saw it on the DF comparison (the day it was posted, before any of the media reports) that the lighting and skin shader changes (probably moreso the former than the latter) made their skin tones lighter, but it's also a lot less flat, which is WHY it looked so much darker than it was ever intended to be. That being said, I also figured this very discussion would happen because the internet is going to be the internet.
Honestly, both look arab to me. I'm all about speaking up when whitewashing (like in Gods of Egypt) happens but this isn't really the case here. There are many white Saudis and the models (see YianGaruga's post) don't look caucasian at all. They look like a more accurate depiction imo.
The former King Abdullah:
The former King Abdullah:
dragonbane
Member
We don't know, but they certainly either changed the lighting model a lot or the entire gamma curve. Bright stuff is brighter and dark stuff is darker.
Sometimes if the lighting didn't change the skin tone looks mostly identical:
PS3:
PS4:
Note that the base model wasn't changed on PS4, because this guard has speaking lines, so he is higher prioritized in their character list, which results in him having more attention devoted to him during the original production of the game. Hence he has quite a good model and textures and didn't need to be upgraded for PS4.
They have the distinctions primary character (Ellen Page), secondary character (this guard) and passer-bys (the other guards). Only the last category received additional treatment across the board on PS4.
Most textures appear different though under the changed conditions, some examples:
PS3:
PS4:
Lighting was entirely changed here!
PS3:
PS4:
PS3:
PS4:
PS3:
PS4:
PS3:
PS4:
PS3:
PS4:
dragonbane
Member
Listen, QD did address it because they were openly accused of intentional white-washing, when they are not aware of doing such a thing. Hence you clarify it, as otherwise people think you silently admit to it. Of course it can be fixed, QD never said otherwise. Maybe they will actually fix it, maybe not. They merely explained how this change came to be due to technical changes and not due to artistic intent. Being accused of racism and intentionally white washing would feel pretty accusing to me, if I actively try to not do that in my games.
Also, as you can see, dark skinned characters indeed got darker, while white characters got more white. It's just that those guards fall into a middle ground and swayed more towards the white side of the extremes with the new shader. If the shader was just a bit different they probably would have gotten a lot darker instead. Would you complain then? For making them darker?
They don't have to, because it's obvious everywhere. I just showed it.
The asset textures themselves were changed to a lighter skin color as seen in their own asset comparison in reaction to this controversy, leading to the fact that it was artistic intent and not something that can be blamed on the new lighting model. (PS3 top, PS4 bottom)
However as BarryWake and others have pointed out, the lighter skin might be a closer depiction of actual arabs than the tan skin they had before, so chances are the artistic decision was made with that in mind.
Andy Believes
Banned
Saudis, and in fact may Asians, have both lighter and darker skin. Portraying people of a culture with the same skin tone seems more stereotypical (another form of racism) to me. Not every south Asian is the same shade of brown, not all Japanese and Chinese are yellow. If they have variety, I think it is better because they shows the diverseness.
If they have both light and dark colored charters representing Saudis, I am good with that.
However, if they had made a change like removing the Saudi/Asian/African American characters themselves (i.e. they do not look their ethnicity and the changes are not indicative of their diversity), believe you me, I would be one of the first to take umbrage.
Andy Believes
Banned
That's a fucking strong light then.
The PS4 version looks more indicative of how many Saudis look. Honestly, the PS3 version - not so much.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
That's a fucking strong light then.
To be fair uh, Jodie(?)s skin looks lighter than the ps3 version.
potatohead
Member
Honestly, both look arab to me. I'm all about speaking up when whitewashing (like in Gods of Egypt) happens but this isn't really the case here. There are many white Saudis and the models (see YianGaruga's post) don't look caucasian at all. They look like a more accurate depiction imo.
The former King Abdullah:
Yep.
But don't forget these "white arabs" are bastards and murderers.
But its not true. At all not even a little. Lmao.
Weltall Zero
Member
No such thing as bad publicity and all that... although I'm not sure how much they'll benefit from this as their game is already pretty well known and I would assume this will alienate people (at least some of them).