The Stanley Parable Maker Promises to Change "Racist" Image

[CriticalMiss]

Wow, it only takes TWO complaints to get this guy to change his game? Anyone want to join my crusade of blind rage against the creator for the game not dispensing real ice-cream every two minutes? I only need one other person apparently and the lack of ice-cream equality is...dairy-ist! Hell, maybe if we get THREE people to complain we could get him to change Stanley in to a parrot. Because animal rights or something.

 

[seditary]

Since we're changing the game based on complaints from the community, can I get in on this?

Can we make Stanley black? I mean, all the other characters in the game, including both Narrators, are white. This offends me.

Send him a mail with your complaint and explain it to him, he seems to be taking requests:

Spoiler

Oh god its worse than I thought.

Is he seriously listening to every random person who messages him about removing something from his game?

 

[Victim of Progress]

What if the image depicted a transgendered child being lit on fire? People would probably nuke the creator from orbit. It's kind of crazy how far PC can go.

 

[Caiphus]

So, let me get this straight...

Mr. Wreden created a game that had an image somebody was particularly upset with. They then decided to contact him and let him know of their issue, and Mr. Wreden, not wanting to upset anybody in the extreme, decided to change it. After all, he's the creator of the work! Therefore, it's his right to change something if he also feels it's an issue, and he doesn't just live in an elitist bubble that's somehow above criticism! The image can easily be replaced with one that has no racial connotations, which would probably be better in the long run anyway as the image of the downtrodden black male being overpowered by the well dressed white male is still heavily burdened by racist symbolism. One day, it won't be, but that day is not today.

But no, let's close our eyes and ears, pretend the problem doesn't exist, hold on to the laughable notion that art is objectively above this kind of serious criticism and scream 'POLITIKAL CORRECTNESS' if anyone says otherwise! YAY!

FUCK!

Yeah, I'm with you on this one.

You have to feel for the devs who get themselves into these situations. If anything, it seems marginally hypocritical to throw a tantrum to try and get the guy to change it back.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

I certainly hope that he will change it from white guy setting fire to the dark orphan to the reverse just mess with people.

 

[Silvianoshei]

It's not racist, it's a legitimate problem. The first world burned the third world out for resources.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Eh, if he thinks it can be changed without it compromising the ending I trust his judgement.

But it seems like just a harmless joke to me.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Since we're changing the game based on complaints from the community, can I get in on this?

Can we make Stanley black? I mean, all the other characters in the game, including both Narrators, are white. This offends me.

Send him a mail with your complaint and explain it to him, he seems to be taking requests:

Spoiler

Oh god its worse than I thought.

Is he seriously listening to every random person who messages him about removing something from his game?

I expect his tweet box is flooded by hilarious requests from "offended" people, by now.

I think I've seen that avatar before....

Well, it's from a damn good game. Shame i don't see avatars referring to it more often. Anyway, i'm planning to change it after Halloween, so feel free to treat it like it's aaall yours.

 

[jackpipsam]

I am kind of annoyed he changed it.

I thought it was fantastic, showing that white people (possibly a metaphor of the West) "helping" the black child (possibly a metaphor of places like Vietnam or Iraq), that's clever!

I can't believe this is being removed

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

I really think people are missing the point here.
The offensive part isn't merely that it depicts white-on-black violence or has racist undertones, but that it's making light of something that actually happened less than a century ago. Just google "African colonial violence."

If it showed a British soldier beating an Irish Catholic, or a Nazi gassing a Jew, or a Jihadist hijacking a plane, I'm sure there'd be a lot more people from the Escapist upset about that. It's just that we have so few members of the black community kicking around that you all lack insight.

 

[RJ 17]

Bioshock Infinite was an entire game based around racism and I didn't see people crying about that.

I dunno, this seems as silly as the guy who got upset because of GLaDOS making fun of adopted children. Because the opinions of fictional characters are really something we should all be concerned with. >.>

 

[hexFrank202]

Ehhhh yeah this is pretty lame. It wasn't racist; it was violent. If the creator wanted to make it less violent, and THAT was his stated reason, it wouldn't make him seem no annoying.

 

[hentropy]

The staff of the Stanley Parable deserve it for taking what was a cool indie game, enhancing it a tad, and then asking money for it. Stay indie and free, burn as many orphans you want regardless of race. Go commercial, pay the commercial price of having to worry about PR.

Yes. I'm being that guy.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I'm pretty sure if there are people who should be offended, it should be people whose children have been set on fire, not people who feel as if their race is being- er, discriminated against? I mean, the only real effect this kind of thing would have would be to make people laugh at a child being set on fire, I don't see how race has anything to do with it.

 

[fluxy100]

My god all the complaining in this thread is annoying, essentially everyone is saying they know better than the creator of this game.

A man found a scene offensive and in a very civil manner contacted the creator, the creator responded in a civil manner and they discussed it. The creator saw the man's point and agreed to change it without too much trouble. But NO!! we know better than the author about whats going on and know better than him about what he should do with his game "How dare he change something!!" "He saw something that could be fixed without changing the game that much BURN HIM!!!"

 

[K12]

And.... cue the whining over political correctness.

 

[grey_space]

Well the complainants in question did apparently have a dialog with the creators and explained their reasoning.

Their reasoning was apparently good enough for the creators to change their vision.

Hmmmm.... I would really like to see the reasoning behind that. As I understand the joke its kind of a reflection/parody on 50's racism and patriarchy, hence inferring that those things are...bad?

So in my opinion the races of the participants are kinda the point of the joke.

Now is there anyone here genuinely upset by the joke that could possibly explain the negative/racist connotations here?

Genuinely curious.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I don't see how that's racist. I thought it was a rather effective, darkly humorous illustration of the narrative. It's a shame that two people's knee-jerk reaction to it was "That's racist, because the child is black", and that the dev is going to neuter his creativity to appease them.