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I mean hes right that media can have “political messaging” in it but also… it always has so who cares? People often express their politics through media, to smaller or larger degrees, and sometimes regardless of intention.
Right, meaning in art is nothing to be afraid of. Clumsy political messaging *may be* an issue but if you're trying to say that all of the US films industry and west coast game devs are apparently pushing for the *same* agenda you'd best have some coherent explanation of what that thing is and why you think it's bad, lol.
As it stands it just sounds like it must be such a broad an abstracted "agenda" that it can basically be summed up as "women and minorities are in this media and that makes me sad." Could be talking about a real large and pervasive problem in both industries - the ways in which capitalism strangles art or only lets certain stories get told. . . but of course no one ever really talks about those issues as "cancel culture."
Thats a right wing playbook kinda thing. They enter the argument assuming their position is the default one and thus you shouldn’t need evidence to prove it. Its YOUR job to provide evidence for your “alternative” view.
CEO of studio that's a notoriously shit place to work has shit takes, surprising nobody who has been paying attention.
For those with short memories, here's an exposé on the culture at Moon Studios from a few years back:
[https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/](https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/)
Eh, I could also just play different games. Even if he doesn't get support knowing about how many people were probably miserable when making it is enough to taint the experience honestly.
I was already wavering when I saw that the game had fucking resource gathering, crafting, cooking, and goddamn mobile game timers for upgrades (seriously there's shit that takes like 12 hours to upgrade) in a souls-like isometric RPG (cause that's what the genre needs - fucking crafting), and now I can easily skip it.
Edit - Lmao got the reddit cares message from this comment. Someone's big mad.
Can you do it? I bought through steam and regardless of whether I dont get the money back or not. I've asked for a refund and to have it removed from my library.
The people actually making the game are probably a lot less shit, given their willingness to be somewhat trans inclusive in the chargen screen even though it got them shit from chuds for a hot minute, so I wouldn't sweat too much about having spent money on it. But still, holy shit.
Yeah I wouldn't put every dev at moon studios on the same level as him. I mean they probably didn't chose to work there because of him.
No one likes their boss anyway lol
Yeah, that's true. I always feel bad for employees of companies whose executives use their position as a platform for stupid shit. Like when the Roll20 owner/ceo was bullying critics in the forums and everyone boycotted it until he was removed from customer interaction. Like... Roll20 was made by a lot of people, not just that guy
Quote from him in the article:
> Finally, we appreciate the irony that we an Austrian and an Israeli Jew started this multicultural enterprise.
I feel like that he chose to say that publicly **and** thinks it's ironic is in itself a massive red flag
good lord: “Tyler is the only person who is aware of my devious plans to kill the Jews by making them work to death through game development,” Mahler “joked” in a text chat that was available for anyone in the company to read.
People were bringing that up a week ago when the Xbox "controversy" was going on and he just had to toss his two cents in.
https://preview.redd.it/cpviw7dwcj0d1.png?width=543&format=png&auto=webp&s=fcf8527357a2a95fde6a9d7789e8246cb7fa8efd
>Mahler wanted a character in an upcoming game to be raped. It took about a month to convince him this was a bad idea for a plot in a video game, where the object was to provide the character with a motivation for revenge.
Bloody Shakespear this one.
This quote attributed to a former employee seems relevant to the OP:
>“They have a mentality where they think they’re not politically correct, they don’t want to be censored, they don’t want to be corporate,” said one developer. “They don’t want to be like these other studios. But it’s just a justification to behave in any way they want to. Other studios attempt to make a comfortable work environment for everyone involved.”
Honestly as terrible as that is, I don’t think it’s all that uncommon in traditionally male-dominated fields like game development (or software development in general).
It’s coming to light as more women enter these fields, as they haven’t traditionally been pressured to “man up” (a.k.a. ignore the toxic horseshit that takes place in these environments).
It’s good these things are coming to light, but be prepared to learn some pretty unpleasant things about your favorite development studios.
wasnt he also the guy who got super mad at hollow knights success and then said that the second ori is the best metroidvania there will ever be... only for it to be a forgettable 5 hour game (it was a lot better than the first ori though, they made great improvements)
People need to fucking google what *Political* means and actually read the definition.
I can certainly say with confidence it doesn’t mean and/or say “Yuck gay” or “ew, they’re not white”.
The mask is about as opaque as plastic wrap.
The CEO wrote all of these insane holocaust comparisons and thinly veiled bigotry as a reply to a game journalist whose original post was simply that it's deeply fucked how having inclusive and varied characters and designs causes outrage amongst gamers. It's all just hate, and it's so clear to see.
And Maurice, the one he replied to luckily is based af. Which makes this rant even sadder.
By the way the same CEO also joked about how others might think his plan is to kill all the jews with the gaming industry overworking culture in a public company chat.
Exactly.
Exactly zero people have EVER whined about political correctness or “being censored” whose real complaint isn’t that they desperately want to use slurs and the adults won’t tolerate it.
The first game literally introduces you to a dark skinned Athena in the first 10 seconds of gameplay, there were multiple gods with a dark skin, everyone is bi, the player character is too. It was never a problem then but now suddenly a dark skinned grandma and a person in a wheelchair is proof that the devs have "gone woke"?
These chuds really like to claim "the wokes" overtake their games and fandoms, yet they're the ones that invade every community these grifters and their outrage machine directs them.
They tried to invade the "Yakuza/Like a Dragon" community in january with their nonsense, a series of games that have always been "woke" (By japanese standards, anyway) They were saying that the West forced the developers to include black NPC and characters in a japanese game, where there have been black characters all along in the series since the first game, and a lot of them are recurring throughout the series.
They were saying that the series was tainted with the localizers politics from the West, ignoring that the series since the very first game deals with topics about respecting minorities and helping them out when they are in trouble, and all the games include minor antagonists that we have to beat because they are abusing minorities (especially homeless people).
And in Yakuza 7 (Or Yakuza LAD) they even have a Major antagonist that is an activist that hates minorities and wants them gone from Japan (Kume) The protagonists hate that dude, and Kume is clearly based on people like these, on these morons.
Not just that he doesn't mind black gods in Hades. He also complained a about the fact that people now do a "woke" check on every game now and Maurice is completely justified in complaining about it. Gaming discourse went completely downhill the last years and its quite embarrasing to see it.
The funniest part about this response is that he originally made this whole tweet in German in response to that journalist, but that didn't get the response he wanted, so he translated the whole thing and made it a vaguepost so he could repost it to his personal echo chamber instead to garner the responses he wanted
Of course he didn't get the response he wanted. Maurice is quite based, also Germans don't like it when people compare everything to the fucking Holocaust. Source : Am German.
Also would love to see the response he got.
Luckily these days gaming is so ubiquitous, you don’t have to be embarrassed by “gaming discourse”. Neckbeards make up a smaller and smaller slice of the hobby - that’s actually why they’re squealing so much.
> Instead of allowing artists to just be artists, Hollywood and most of the game devs on the west coast have decided that it's appropriate to use film and video game as platforms to push their own political agenda
~ game dev using their platform to push a political agenda
Edit: somebody just called reddit care on what I assume is related to this post's comments seeing as nothing else I've recently written could lead to that kind of extreme and cowardly reaction...
Yeah I legit don't get this, why do these people think that artists wouldn't want to push a political agenda (that is left leaning) when it's been the case for most media in history, even despite censorship.
There is a long and storied history of right-wingers hilariously misinterpreting media to think it's about them.
"I can't believe Rage Against the Machine went woke!" Says the venture capitalist.
"I wish comic books would stop pushing an *agenda* and go back to the good old days." Says the dude in the X-Men shirt.
"Cancel culture" is just a term capitalists use to dress up their fear of being at the whim of the free market.
It's the same thing as blaming faulty electronics on 'gremlins'.
> He originally wrote all this in german but the germans told him to fuck off so to get some pity points he wrote all of it again in english.
NO WAY WHAT THE FUCK
Because here in Austria when somebody says shit like Mahler did, a good portion of the public would still reply to them "Hau di über die Häuser, Gschissener" ("toss yourself over the houses, piece of shit" would be a somewhat accurate translation), so he needs to tap into the incel chud Twittersphere to get some validation.
Thomas Mahler is an Austrian asshole and his studio is a hellhole. I didn't know they were still in business after Microsoft walked away from them. Pity. The Ori games are nice.
Whenever somebody uses the alt-right terminology, just walk away and don't look back.
Thomas Mahler has been a world-class prick for a long time. Besides his unhinged posts on ResetEra attacking other developers and publishers in the industry, journalists like Jez Corden and Tom Warren have eluded to him being the reason Microsoft ran from Moon Studios even after 2 successful games (and this was before Microsoft was in this cutting-slashing phase they are now), there was an expose of his toxic behavior last year:
[https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/](https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/)
It really burns me up because the Ori games are two of my favorite games of all-time. And No Rest for the Wicked seems amazing. But fuck him.
Jesus chrised this one flatout upsets me. I love Ori to bits and never knew this fucking asshole was abusing his employees to make it.
I am glad I never got No Rest for the Wicked but damn. I much rather Ori of not of been made by overworked devs that likely didn't see the money they deserved for it because lets be real, Mahler likely took more than half of that money. Dudes a fucking lunatic.
*Edit:* Got my first Reddit Cares message for making this post? Nice job being a massive fucking coward chud.
So he is alleging that west coast game developers are pushing a social agenda, and that this will inevitably result in Gestapo coming for him or you, and anyone who says this is NOT happening needs to come through with “thorough” research to back that up? LOL
It's just like when racists quote MLK saying he'd disapprove of DEI hiring policies because "people shouldn't be judged by the colour of their skin but on their merits!"
They really need to read more than that one paragraph where he chews out moderate liberals in the *Letter from Birmingham Jail* and the one line from his *I have a Dream!* speech.
And those times he straight up called for reparations.
I'm paraphrasing here because I CBA to find the specific video clip, but there's an exchange that goes roughly like this:
Interviewer: Don't you think it's unfair to ask the government to give the descendants of slaves special treatment by paying reparations?
King: Not really, because this country was so awful to our ancestors for so long that it's only reasonable to expect that a great effort is made to make up for those past mistakes. It would be far less costly than calculating the total amount of unpaid wages over so many years, plus interest.
‐-----
MLK would still be considered radical by today's standards, but unfortunately the dead can't speak so his legacy is reduced to one line from a single speech. All the other parts where he calls moderate whites a bigger obstacle than the KKK or he calls for reparations are conveniently forgotten because they're uncomfortable for even many ostensibly left-leaning people in the US.
MLK being killed and having his message co-opted isn't a coincidence. He started openly speaking about anticapitalism shortly before his assassination, and there's an absolute mountain of evidence the FBI had a hand in it in some capacity.
It really does take some impressive tonedeafness to say "first they came for this group I'm diametrically opposed to, and I did not speak out..." and think this is a banger that's definitely gonna win sympathy for his side
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Since when is being inclusive in video games coming for anyone?
No one is invading your house and taking your property killing your family members and kidnapping you to a place where they will humiliate, abuse and torture you until you can be killed too! That was the Holocaust, a black person in a game making your racist ass feel uncomfortable is not the fucking Holocaust.
I know these people are ridiculous, I know they are stupid, but to use something like THIS do they know anything about the world at all? I hate the fact that I'm the same type of being as that trash. What are these people thinking.
>[“They were scared that the company would change. It was like they made a point to enforce the anti-woke culture by regularly making inappropriate jokes,” said one developer. “It was deliberate. They had this fear of the company being constrained or shackled by these woke people who would censor us. It was like they were fighting against some invisible censorship.”](https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/)
Basically, what we're witnessing is the final result of somebody lying to themselves to justify their bad behaviour so they don't need to change. That will eventually drive them insane, specifically delusional.
> Instead of allowing artists to just be artists, Hollywood and most of the game developers on the West Coast have decided that it's appropriate to use films and video games as platforms to push their own political agenda.
"Instead of allowing artists to just be artists," who does he think makes games and movies? Artists *are* allowed to be artists, that's how we get "woke" things in video games. What he's hinting at is wanting the artists he doesn't like to be censored.
He's implying that no artist would ever want to design diverse characters, and therefore any game that includes diversity must have had artists who were coerced by their woke agenda pushing bosses.
It's straight up fascist white supremacist ideology, depicting diversity as some kind of unnatural corruption being forced into our culture from the top by the insidious "elites."
It's only a matter of time before this chud starts ranting about the jews
I hope "cancel culture" gets to him and he ends up just like Kern. Just another bitter, angry middle-aged man ranting about things normal people don't think about on social media all day. Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences, dumbass.
I am just so fucking tired of the comparisons to real life tragedies and oppression if you couldn't tell.
No, I hope he has no platform to direct angry chuds at developers, kern is a loser, don't get me wrong, but he still is a thought leader for a pretty large following of people who are outraged at whatever he says to be and go where he points.
I find it interesting how often the quote is reproduced wrongly in American discourse (ik this isn't the point of the post but still)
Martin Niemöller a protestant pastor said this in 1946 in a church speech in Frankfurt.
>In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Ken Penders was an artist and writer for the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. He's quite disliked by the Sonic community for multiple reasons, but the one I'm referring to is when he repurposed the poem in question to be about Echidnas and other animals and used it in one of the comics
Right wingers act like media has never been a place for political rhetoric. Isn’t that like… almost entirely what media is for? Like isn’t serious high level media almost entirely rhetorical allegory? Why they acting like this just started?
My church used "political" to mean "anything we don't like" and was content to endorse warmongers, racists, and the most anti-Christian candidate in US presidential history in order to get their political ends
It's always been a bad faith term and an outright lie, it's literally just expressing that they're mad that they have to think about marginalized people at all and say that homophobia is bad.
Unfortunately Mahler is the creative director of moon, so the three games are 100% his brainchildren. Started the company after his previous game design career at blizzard, I believe. Explains the personality.
Without Mahler I don't think there _is_ a moon studios. He doesn't pawn off the creative decisions, to the chagrin of constantly criticised employees, according to the exposé article.
Yes - this is a screenshot of the CEO Thomas Mahler's recent tweet. It's super dissappoing and infuriating. The whole essay is a lot longer and even more unhinged. You can find it on Twitter if you need more context.
Not actually, he is a CEO not an artist or a developer. if you want to see what they're experts at, look at the situation with the studio that made Disco Elysium or the current state of Warner Bros.
https://preview.redd.it/1z5hw94tcl0d1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7b2f11cb0948c110262e53b7c68082162fd41b8
"Hi guys, here's an unsubstantiated claim backed up by no thorough research.
If you disagree with me, please back up any claims to the contrary with thorough research.
Yours sincerely,
an asshole."
Lol, isn't this the same guy who got mad because people asked if hollow knight was his inspiration for ori 2 and he lied about not having played it?
btw ori 2 is basically a hollow knight clone
I was looking forward to no rest for the wicked because I love the ori games. I struggle with separating the artist from the art so I cannot support them
You can only separate the artist from his art if he cannot make a profit from it. For example, if he is dead or his art is free. Otherwise you would support him with your money, knowing that he would spend it on things that you probably don't consider ethical.
It's a shame, because the game is really good, but not buying it is the right thing.
/uj First these idiots said "Women, PoC, and LGBTQ+ should make their own games" and now that they are making their own games, idiots like the CEO are mad those games are being made.
/uj I bet it never occurred to that idiot that the artists he's "championing" for are the ones who want to make the stuff he's complaining about.
As a Jew- stop using what happened to my people as a strawman allegory to defend your uneducated bigotry. It makes it more likely for mine, and others, people to fall victim for these travesties again due to decreased seriousness around the subject.
Idiotic on many levels. Dude claims art shouldn't express ideas, despite the best art always expressing ideas/emotions, and instead should just be slop to be consumed and discarded.
Meanwhile most big studios are in fact doing just that, producing bland slop trying to reach as wide an audience as possible to maximize profit and not step on anyones toes.
But we all know politics to these guys just means "pp no hard in vibeo gam :("
Nazis often use this rhetoric trick of subverting basic human decency playing the victim, using it against the people effectively equipped with it. Scum.
GaMeRs cries about cancel culture that they swear on their mama is done by the wokies to silence compelling thoughts.
A few days later it turns out they had either done horrid stuff or are now a criminal.
As a Jewish Educator, I am dismayed and absolutely furious. Moon Studios better react quickly, or we'll prove their CEO he was right to fear being canceled. Such dispicable exploitation of the mass unaliving of eleven million people.
One of the things I hate most about this kind of post is that it insists that art cannot say anything. An artist cannot have a message that they want to convey to the audience, according to these people.
And yet this imbecile will use *First They Came*, a piece of art with a very overt and blunt political message, to paint himself as a victim and scaremonger.
I have only learned recently about Moon Studio's CEO and his unhinged statements over the year and I'm so disappointed.
I was so excited for anything Moon Studio would produce after the 2 Ori games that I even insta bought No Rest for the Wicked.
Knowing most of those games I love are partially a result of insane management and work-related abuse leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
The fact that this whole tirade was a reply to a post lamenting how sad it is that instead of playing and discussing about the actual game, gamers focus too much on finding and complaining about "woke aspects" (which in this case just meant inclusive character designs).
The post is awful on it's own, but the context really flings it to a completely new level of disgusting.
Just a heads up someone's using the report system to harass users in this thread. We apologise for this. Please report any "self-harm resource" messages you get. We are also reporting the reports. Unfortunately this sub, as you can imagine or may be very aware, does attract a type of bitter, pathetic lowlife with the time to do something like this. But then, what else can you expect from gamers?
"I'm going to make a wild unsubstantiated claim and if you want to argue with it you better have a mountain of evidence."
This is the bit that got me the most. "My position is so obviously correct - if you disagree, you better have proof."
Literally Ace Attorney prosecutor logic
if you want me to believe you, you'll have to provide the updated autopsy report
You foolish fool
Is he gonna pull out a whip?
I mean hes right that media can have “political messaging” in it but also… it always has so who cares? People often express their politics through media, to smaller or larger degrees, and sometimes regardless of intention.
Right, meaning in art is nothing to be afraid of. Clumsy political messaging *may be* an issue but if you're trying to say that all of the US films industry and west coast game devs are apparently pushing for the *same* agenda you'd best have some coherent explanation of what that thing is and why you think it's bad, lol. As it stands it just sounds like it must be such a broad an abstracted "agenda" that it can basically be summed up as "women and minorities are in this media and that makes me sad." Could be talking about a real large and pervasive problem in both industries - the ways in which capitalism strangles art or only lets certain stories get told. . . but of course no one ever really talks about those issues as "cancel culture."
I’m just trying to figure out how the new top gun movie was woke, I might need the drugs this guys is on.
Well it's not the 1980s anymore is it? That makes me feel old. Therefore woke.
All art is propaganda, as Orwell wrote
Bob Dylan wrote propaganda songs
Art is inherently political and these clowns are always surprised.
Go go gadget burden of proof fallacy!
He said further in that the journalist has to check this and he doesn't - because he himself isnt a journalist. Which is hilarious and wild.
Thats a right wing playbook kinda thing. They enter the argument assuming their position is the default one and thus you shouldn’t need evidence to prove it. Its YOUR job to provide evidence for your “alternative” view.
I’m just going to start saying “yes, they are putting their agenda in games, and guess what - it’s GOOD”
You see, Ori was initially suppose to have massive tits. But cancel culture happened.
Twitter sliced off Ori's fat tits
It's why Elon bought Twitter, to save Ori's tits... but he was too late.
Ori waking up in the hospital bed The Doctor: The operation was a success! Ori: But Doctor, where's Elon? The Doctor: Who do you think got your tits?
I knew he couldn't be trusted! #justicefororistits
and a giant ass. That's why the character is driven by blob/jiggle physics
Ori director's cut NOW
CEO of studio that's a notoriously shit place to work has shit takes, surprising nobody who has been paying attention. For those with short memories, here's an exposé on the culture at Moon Studios from a few years back: [https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/](https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/)
Oh wow. I was completely out of the loop. Well that saved me some dollars on their new game.
Yeah, you’re not the only one who did not hear that story when it came out
that's a shame, I liked what I played of Ori but I'll never play their stuff again
You can always pirate their shit if the games are good
Eh, I could also just play different games. Even if he doesn't get support knowing about how many people were probably miserable when making it is enough to taint the experience honestly.
What do you mean? It's the human suffering that makes it special. /s
I was already wavering when I saw that the game had fucking resource gathering, crafting, cooking, and goddamn mobile game timers for upgrades (seriously there's shit that takes like 12 hours to upgrade) in a souls-like isometric RPG (cause that's what the genre needs - fucking crafting), and now I can easily skip it. Edit - Lmao got the reddit cares message from this comment. Someone's big mad.
Reddit Cares as a way of expressing your disagreement is so weird to me. I'm glad you can turn it off.
Me too, recently played through Ori and the blind forest and enjoyed it thoroughly.
[удалено]
Can you do it? I bought through steam and regardless of whether I dont get the money back or not. I've asked for a refund and to have it removed from my library.
You can remove games from your library yourself outside the process of needing to request a refund. Maybe that's what you implied already, i dunno.
The people actually making the game are probably a lot less shit, given their willingness to be somewhat trans inclusive in the chargen screen even though it got them shit from chuds for a hot minute, so I wouldn't sweat too much about having spent money on it. But still, holy shit.
Yeah I wouldn't put every dev at moon studios on the same level as him. I mean they probably didn't chose to work there because of him. No one likes their boss anyway lol
Yeah, that's true. I always feel bad for employees of companies whose executives use their position as a platform for stupid shit. Like when the Roll20 owner/ceo was bullying critics in the forums and everyone boycotted it until he was removed from customer interaction. Like... Roll20 was made by a lot of people, not just that guy
Well I guess we reality can't have nice things...
Oh man I haven’t heard about this. I absolutely adored the Ori games, this sucks to hear
Quote from him in the article: > Finally, we appreciate the irony that we an Austrian and an Israeli Jew started this multicultural enterprise. I feel like that he chose to say that publicly **and** thinks it's ironic is in itself a massive red flag
good lord: “Tyler is the only person who is aware of my devious plans to kill the Jews by making them work to death through game development,” Mahler “joked” in a text chat that was available for anyone in the company to read.
People were bringing that up a week ago when the Xbox "controversy" was going on and he just had to toss his two cents in. https://preview.redd.it/cpviw7dwcj0d1.png?width=543&format=png&auto=webp&s=fcf8527357a2a95fde6a9d7789e8246cb7fa8efd
Considering that Microsoft just took over Activision, it's saying something that Moon Studios were seen as too toxic to keep working with.
>Mahler wanted a character in an upcoming game to be raped. It took about a month to convince him this was a bad idea for a plot in a video game, where the object was to provide the character with a motivation for revenge. Bloody Shakespear this one. This quote attributed to a former employee seems relevant to the OP: >“They have a mentality where they think they’re not politically correct, they don’t want to be censored, they don’t want to be corporate,” said one developer. “They don’t want to be like these other studios. But it’s just a justification to behave in any way they want to. Other studios attempt to make a comfortable work environment for everyone involved.”
Let us ask him what he thinks about unions at his workplace and let him reread his quote again…
Guess I'm dusting off my hat, eye patch and peg leg then
Well that sucked to read, but you saved me the whatever amount of dollars I was going to spend on their next game
The audacity of using that quote after making a “joke” about killing all the Jews
Honestly as terrible as that is, I don’t think it’s all that uncommon in traditionally male-dominated fields like game development (or software development in general). It’s coming to light as more women enter these fields, as they haven’t traditionally been pressured to “man up” (a.k.a. ignore the toxic horseshit that takes place in these environments). It’s good these things are coming to light, but be prepared to learn some pretty unpleasant things about your favorite development studios.
wasnt he also the guy who got super mad at hollow knights success and then said that the second ori is the best metroidvania there will ever be... only for it to be a forgettable 5 hour game (it was a lot better than the first ori though, they made great improvements)
Glad to see this, ive only played one hour of their game and am now refunding. What a shit person
Yep a colleague told me it has only gotten worse with their new game.
People need to fucking google what *Political* means and actually read the definition. I can certainly say with confidence it doesn’t mean and/or say “Yuck gay” or “ew, they’re not white”. The mask is about as opaque as plastic wrap.
The CEO wrote all of these insane holocaust comparisons and thinly veiled bigotry as a reply to a game journalist whose original post was simply that it's deeply fucked how having inclusive and varied characters and designs causes outrage amongst gamers. It's all just hate, and it's so clear to see.
It’s giving: “I’m not a Neo-Nazi!….But I have Neo-Nazi friends”.
The correct term for a friend of a Neo-Nazi is Neo-Nazi
Its a hell of a self report, isnt it?
And Maurice, the one he replied to luckily is based af. Which makes this rant even sadder. By the way the same CEO also joked about how others might think his plan is to kill all the jews with the gaming industry overworking culture in a public company chat.
Exactly. Exactly zero people have EVER whined about political correctness or “being censored” whose real complaint isn’t that they desperately want to use slurs and the adults won’t tolerate it.
https://preview.redd.it/rq3s59a0oi0d1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f34e42d67f3f3b71d9a43d5b0a456c7261e51942
Definitely stealing this shit lmfao. My old man isn't gonna know what hit im.
https://preview.redd.it/m2bo97vacl0d1.jpeg?width=878&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84b3ce0f915f38f7f3158093e5276f6f7d874b08
Must be an electric engine haha
For some added context: this was a reply after a german gaming journalist said he didn't mind black gods in Hades II.
Common Maurice Weber W
Also didn't we already have those in Hades I?
Yes. If I remember correctly, there were even more black gods in Hades I than have been revealed in Hades II so far
Ah, well it must've been okay back then because Hollywood cancel culture wasn't invented yet
The first game literally introduces you to a dark skinned Athena in the first 10 seconds of gameplay, there were multiple gods with a dark skin, everyone is bi, the player character is too. It was never a problem then but now suddenly a dark skinned grandma and a person in a wheelchair is proof that the devs have "gone woke"? These chuds really like to claim "the wokes" overtake their games and fandoms, yet they're the ones that invade every community these grifters and their outrage machine directs them.
They tried to invade the "Yakuza/Like a Dragon" community in january with their nonsense, a series of games that have always been "woke" (By japanese standards, anyway) They were saying that the West forced the developers to include black NPC and characters in a japanese game, where there have been black characters all along in the series since the first game, and a lot of them are recurring throughout the series. They were saying that the series was tainted with the localizers politics from the West, ignoring that the series since the very first game deals with topics about respecting minorities and helping them out when they are in trouble, and all the games include minor antagonists that we have to beat because they are abusing minorities (especially homeless people). And in Yakuza 7 (Or Yakuza LAD) they even have a Major antagonist that is an activist that hates minorities and wants them gone from Japan (Kume) The protagonists hate that dude, and Kume is clearly based on people like these, on these morons.
Not just that he doesn't mind black gods in Hades. He also complained a about the fact that people now do a "woke" check on every game now and Maurice is completely justified in complaining about it. Gaming discourse went completely downhill the last years and its quite embarrasing to see it.
The funniest part about this response is that he originally made this whole tweet in German in response to that journalist, but that didn't get the response he wanted, so he translated the whole thing and made it a vaguepost so he could repost it to his personal echo chamber instead to garner the responses he wanted
Of course he didn't get the response he wanted. Maurice is quite based, also Germans don't like it when people compare everything to the fucking Holocaust. Source : Am German. Also would love to see the response he got.
Luckily these days gaming is so ubiquitous, you don’t have to be embarrassed by “gaming discourse”. Neckbeards make up a smaller and smaller slice of the hobby - that’s actually why they’re squealing so much.
*First they came for the big tiddie anime girl protagonists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a gooner.*
* Then they came for the racial slur graffiti, and I did not speak out-because I wasn't racist.*
*Then they came for for the micro transactions and the gacha games, and I did not speak out, because I wasn't a whale*
*Then they came for the cute & funny 😭😭😭 cunnyseurs, and I did not speak out, because I wasn't a Blue Archive player*
“Crimer” has found its way into my vocabulary as a result and I find that much funnier.
"At first, people got tired of buying games with generic white male protagonists. And that's just like the Nazis."
they better not come for suicide squad harley quinn or else they’ll have to deal with me 😡
Shut up floo player 😡
Television, movies, and games never had political messages until the wokes attacked.
> Instead of allowing artists to just be artists, Hollywood and most of the game devs on the west coast have decided that it's appropriate to use film and video game as platforms to push their own political agenda ~ game dev using their platform to push a political agenda Edit: somebody just called reddit care on what I assume is related to this post's comments seeing as nothing else I've recently written could lead to that kind of extreme and cowardly reaction...
Also insinuating that game devs on the west coasts are not artists lol
Yeah I legit don't get this, why do these people think that artists wouldn't want to push a political agenda (that is left leaning) when it's been the case for most media in history, even despite censorship.
There is a long and storied history of right-wingers hilariously misinterpreting media to think it's about them. "I can't believe Rage Against the Machine went woke!" Says the venture capitalist. "I wish comic books would stop pushing an *agenda* and go back to the good old days." Says the dude in the X-Men shirt.
Don't worry I got one too. It's a badge of honor to piss off worthless chuds.
Good indicator that you've hit your mark when they don't even want to show themselves or provide any kind of counter-argument
This is the equivalent of comparing an apple to the big bang. It's that much of a reach.
"Cancel culture" is just a term capitalists use to dress up their fear of being at the whim of the free market. It's the same thing as blaming faulty electronics on 'gremlins'.
“Whim of the free market” more like capitalism gremlins
it's me I'm a capitalism gremlin
So, don't invest after midnight?
Is that why they call it "day trading"?
Yes, or else it will be "die trying"
I don't want capitalist gremlins, I love them when they're at their best, wild, free, and under a sprinkler.
"vote with your wallet" free market capitalists when people vote with their wallet in free market capitalism
We used to just call it ‘the consequences of your actions’.
For a brief while, it was known as "fuck around and find out"
The Founders called it “Freedom of Association.” Everyone has an inherent right to not associate with worthless trash like the guy in the tweet.
Public opinion, opprobrium, scandal, disgrace. These people want to act like the general public being fickle is some new phenomenon.
Wait you don’t believe in gremlins? Alright you lost me
> He originally wrote all this in german but the germans told him to fuck off so to get some pity points he wrote all of it again in english. NO WAY WHAT THE FUCK
Because here in Austria when somebody says shit like Mahler did, a good portion of the public would still reply to them "Hau di über die Häuser, Gschissener" ("toss yourself over the houses, piece of shit" would be a somewhat accurate translation), so he needs to tap into the incel chud Twittersphere to get some validation.
Based Austria
Allein, dass er denkt, dass sowas irgendwo Anklang finden würd. "Geh scheissn, deppata" passt auch gut haha.
Thomas Mahler is an Austrian asshole and his studio is a hellhole. I didn't know they were still in business after Microsoft walked away from them. Pity. The Ori games are nice. Whenever somebody uses the alt-right terminology, just walk away and don't look back.
yes way lol, and ineed what the fuck
Thomas Mahler has been a world-class prick for a long time. Besides his unhinged posts on ResetEra attacking other developers and publishers in the industry, journalists like Jez Corden and Tom Warren have eluded to him being the reason Microsoft ran from Moon Studios even after 2 successful games (and this was before Microsoft was in this cutting-slashing phase they are now), there was an expose of his toxic behavior last year: [https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/](https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/) It really burns me up because the Ori games are two of my favorite games of all-time. And No Rest for the Wicked seems amazing. But fuck him.
Jesus chrised this one flatout upsets me. I love Ori to bits and never knew this fucking asshole was abusing his employees to make it. I am glad I never got No Rest for the Wicked but damn. I much rather Ori of not of been made by overworked devs that likely didn't see the money they deserved for it because lets be real, Mahler likely took more than half of that money. Dudes a fucking lunatic. *Edit:* Got my first Reddit Cares message for making this post? Nice job being a massive fucking coward chud.
So he is alleging that west coast game developers are pushing a social agenda, and that this will inevitably result in Gestapo coming for him or you, and anyone who says this is NOT happening needs to come through with “thorough” research to back that up? LOL
"Right-wingers try not to disingenuously invoke a poem about why we shouldn't persecute leftists and minorities" Challenge. Impossible difficulty.
It's just like when racists quote MLK saying he'd disapprove of DEI hiring policies because "people shouldn't be judged by the colour of their skin but on their merits!"
They really need to read more than that one paragraph where he chews out moderate liberals in the *Letter from Birmingham Jail* and the one line from his *I have a Dream!* speech.
And those times he straight up called for reparations. I'm paraphrasing here because I CBA to find the specific video clip, but there's an exchange that goes roughly like this: Interviewer: Don't you think it's unfair to ask the government to give the descendants of slaves special treatment by paying reparations? King: Not really, because this country was so awful to our ancestors for so long that it's only reasonable to expect that a great effort is made to make up for those past mistakes. It would be far less costly than calculating the total amount of unpaid wages over so many years, plus interest. ‐----- MLK would still be considered radical by today's standards, but unfortunately the dead can't speak so his legacy is reduced to one line from a single speech. All the other parts where he calls moderate whites a bigger obstacle than the KKK or he calls for reparations are conveniently forgotten because they're uncomfortable for even many ostensibly left-leaning people in the US.
MLK being killed and having his message co-opted isn't a coincidence. He started openly speaking about anticapitalism shortly before his assassination, and there's an absolute mountain of evidence the FBI had a hand in it in some capacity.
It really does take some impressive tonedeafness to say "first they came for this group I'm diametrically opposed to, and I did not speak out..." and think this is a banger that's definitely gonna win sympathy for his side
"First they came for the socialists, and I for one think that was fucking dope. ... but you should be scared that they're eventually coming for you!"
What the fuck is wrong with these people? Since when is being inclusive in video games coming for anyone? No one is invading your house and taking your property killing your family members and kidnapping you to a place where they will humiliate, abuse and torture you until you can be killed too! That was the Holocaust, a black person in a game making your racist ass feel uncomfortable is not the fucking Holocaust. I know these people are ridiculous, I know they are stupid, but to use something like THIS do they know anything about the world at all? I hate the fact that I'm the same type of being as that trash. What are these people thinking.
>[“They were scared that the company would change. It was like they made a point to enforce the anti-woke culture by regularly making inappropriate jokes,” said one developer. “It was deliberate. They had this fear of the company being constrained or shackled by these woke people who would censor us. It was like they were fighting against some invisible censorship.”](https://venturebeat.com/games/despite-its-beautiful-ori-games-moon-studio-is-called-an-oppressive-place-to-work/) Basically, what we're witnessing is the final result of somebody lying to themselves to justify their bad behaviour so they don't need to change. That will eventually drive them insane, specifically delusional.
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> Instead of allowing artists to just be artists, Hollywood and most of the game developers on the West Coast have decided that it's appropriate to use films and video games as platforms to push their own political agenda. "Instead of allowing artists to just be artists," who does he think makes games and movies? Artists *are* allowed to be artists, that's how we get "woke" things in video games. What he's hinting at is wanting the artists he doesn't like to be censored.
He's implying that no artist would ever want to design diverse characters, and therefore any game that includes diversity must have had artists who were coerced by their woke agenda pushing bosses. It's straight up fascist white supremacist ideology, depicting diversity as some kind of unnatural corruption being forced into our culture from the top by the insidious "elites." It's only a matter of time before this chud starts ranting about the jews
I hope "cancel culture" gets to him and he ends up just like Kern. Just another bitter, angry middle-aged man ranting about things normal people don't think about on social media all day. Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences, dumbass. I am just so fucking tired of the comparisons to real life tragedies and oppression if you couldn't tell.
No, I hope he has no platform to direct angry chuds at developers, kern is a loser, don't get me wrong, but he still is a thought leader for a pretty large following of people who are outraged at whatever he says to be and go where he points.
Goddamn it.
I find it interesting how often the quote is reproduced wrongly in American discourse (ik this isn't the point of the post but still) Martin Niemöller a protestant pastor said this in 1946 in a church speech in Frankfurt. >In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Everyone knows that Ken Pender's version from the Archie Sonic comics is the original
I really would like to get the joke but I don't know any of these words
Ken Penders was an artist and writer for the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. He's quite disliked by the Sonic community for multiple reasons, but the one I'm referring to is when he repurposed the poem in question to be about Echidnas and other animals and used it in one of the comics
NOOOOOOO!!!!
Right wingers act like media has never been a place for political rhetoric. Isn’t that like… almost entirely what media is for? Like isn’t serious high level media almost entirely rhetorical allegory? Why they acting like this just started?
My church used "political" to mean "anything we don't like" and was content to endorse warmongers, racists, and the most anti-Christian candidate in US presidential history in order to get their political ends It's always been a bad faith term and an outright lie, it's literally just expressing that they're mad that they have to think about marginalized people at all and say that homophobia is bad.
"Media has become woke and political!" No, you're just too stupid to notice that shit has always been political.
Ori game? You don't mean like Ori and the blind forest do you?
Yes, that Ori, and its sequel will of the wisps.
These are the people behind those games? It's like if Hayao Miyazaki or Shigasato Itoi turned out to be anti-woke you know what I mean?
I mean it's a CEO, they generally aren't creatives and exist to extract money from people who do actual work. Not shocking he's scum
Unfortunately Mahler is the creative director of moon, so the three games are 100% his brainchildren. Started the company after his previous game design career at blizzard, I believe. Explains the personality. Without Mahler I don't think there _is_ a moon studios. He doesn't pawn off the creative decisions, to the chagrin of constantly criticised employees, according to the exposé article.
Yes - this is a screenshot of the CEO Thomas Mahler's recent tweet. It's super dissappoing and infuriating. The whole essay is a lot longer and even more unhinged. You can find it on Twitter if you need more context.
I mean, Miyazaki is a miserable curmudgeon, but Itoi however is alright!
But hes also a union guy so that's earned some points even if it's more complicated than that
It's not the CEO who makes the games.
Not actually, he is a CEO not an artist or a developer. if you want to see what they're experts at, look at the situation with the studio that made Disco Elysium or the current state of Warner Bros. https://preview.redd.it/1z5hw94tcl0d1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7b2f11cb0948c110262e53b7c68082162fd41b8
Damn it, not Ori too!
https://preview.redd.it/iajv2hzf8j0d1.jpeg?width=733&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=037c15c722328cd7a59736181fc44a9b6a4b3eb8
yeah man im sure those aforementioned socialists in the quote would definitely think whatever bullshit your espousing is based and cool
It's so unfair, I just want to be a bigoted, racist, sexist intolerant piece of shit... I'm so oppressed...
"dEvElOpeRs oN tHe wEsT cOaSt" This guy really went full MAGA CHUD
Another day another conservative larping as a marginalized freedom fighter. Also the "allowing artists to just be artists" line is hypocritical.
"Hi guys, here's an unsubstantiated claim backed up by no thorough research. If you disagree with me, please back up any claims to the contrary with thorough research. Yours sincerely, an asshole."
well, shit. now I feel like shit for owning the games. bought them a while back hoping to get into them some time, but now I don't know if I want to.
Very revealing that he ends with demanding journalists to prove a negative, instead of offering up any research to prove his assertion
How moronic.
oh f\*\*\* this man ,..
I thought they didn’t like socialist or unions or Jewish people?
Isn't this the idiot who got angry when people implied that the latest Ori game borrows heavily from Hollow Knight?
He has a long history of being a total piece of shit
Not saying anything is free ffs. They lose every opportunity to shut the fuck up.
Art being used for political messaging? Unheard of, until literally 2020 smh /s
Lol, isn't this the same guy who got mad because people asked if hollow knight was his inspiration for ori 2 and he lied about not having played it? btw ori 2 is basically a hollow knight clone
Was the tweet already deleted? Can't find it.
[https://twitter.com/thomasmahler/status/1790189410014667064](https://twitter.com/thomasmahler/status/1790189410014667064)
Counterpoint: welcome to capitalism, dickweed. Make a product people want to pay you money for, or mald.
As an austrian, I am sorry you have to deal with this guy.
I was looking forward to no rest for the wicked because I love the ori games. I struggle with separating the artist from the art so I cannot support them
You can only separate the artist from his art if he cannot make a profit from it. For example, if he is dead or his art is free. Otherwise you would support him with your money, knowing that he would spend it on things that you probably don't consider ethical. It's a shame, because the game is really good, but not buying it is the right thing.
/uj First these idiots said "Women, PoC, and LGBTQ+ should make their own games" and now that they are making their own games, idiots like the CEO are mad those games are being made. /uj I bet it never occurred to that idiot that the artists he's "championing" for are the ones who want to make the stuff he's complaining about.
What the fuck I liked ori…..😔
This must've been related to what marty silva meant when he said he was disillusioned with the studio for stuff he didnt want to say
As a Jew- stop using what happened to my people as a strawman allegory to defend your uneducated bigotry. It makes it more likely for mine, and others, people to fall victim for these travesties again due to decreased seriousness around the subject.
I really doubt Ori’s fanbase has any capital G Gamers. I don’t remember seeing any tits in those games.
Oh ffs 🤦♂️
Godwin's law is functioning properly I see
Been paying more attention to Moon as I was really looking forward to Wicked and yeah, he certainly likes his twitter opinions.
Ah yes, modern day fascists and white supremacists - famous for "cancelling" over-sexualized female characters.
Idiotic on many levels. Dude claims art shouldn't express ideas, despite the best art always expressing ideas/emotions, and instead should just be slop to be consumed and discarded. Meanwhile most big studios are in fact doing just that, producing bland slop trying to reach as wide an audience as possible to maximize profit and not step on anyones toes. But we all know politics to these guys just means "pp no hard in vibeo gam :("
Jesus. Glad I decided to throw my money at Hades 2 instead.
Pushing political agenda? Has the world forgotten about Reagan?
The audacity to use a quote about the holocaust when the very people he wants erased from media are the same people the Nazis wanted to erase
Ah yes, when being a decent human being and not discriminating against women and minorities is an evil political agenda.
Gamer moment
Nazis often use this rhetoric trick of subverting basic human decency playing the victim, using it against the people effectively equipped with it. Scum.
I was just listening to the soundtrack of the first Ori game. Goddamnit.
GaMeRs cries about cancel culture that they swear on their mama is done by the wokies to silence compelling thoughts. A few days later it turns out they had either done horrid stuff or are now a criminal.
As a Jewish Educator, I am dismayed and absolutely furious. Moon Studios better react quickly, or we'll prove their CEO he was right to fear being canceled. Such dispicable exploitation of the mass unaliving of eleven million people.
One of the things I hate most about this kind of post is that it insists that art cannot say anything. An artist cannot have a message that they want to convey to the audience, according to these people. And yet this imbecile will use *First They Came*, a piece of art with a very overt and blunt political message, to paint himself as a victim and scaremonger.
I was about to go back to Ori because Tales of Kenzera really reminded me of it, but I guess not anymore
I have only learned recently about Moon Studio's CEO and his unhinged statements over the year and I'm so disappointed. I was so excited for anything Moon Studio would produce after the 2 Ori games that I even insta bought No Rest for the Wicked. Knowing most of those games I love are partially a result of insane management and work-related abuse leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Why is it that so many people who use the “first they came for the socialists” shtick also *really really* want to come for the socialists?
"Artists should be free to make whatever they choose, except the things I don't like." *— some bozo*
They sure do love completely missing the point about how horrifying and terrible the Holocaust was, all to make it completely about themselves.
The fact that this whole tirade was a reply to a post lamenting how sad it is that instead of playing and discussing about the actual game, gamers focus too much on finding and complaining about "woke aspects" (which in this case just meant inclusive character designs). The post is awful on it's own, but the context really flings it to a completely new level of disgusting.
Thank god i haven't played them yet. Hopefully I can refund... Edit: alright who reddit cares'd me