They're probably just annoyed by the flamboyant display of ignorance in this thread
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Kotaku: Ubisoft Reworked A Famous Holocaust Quote To Promote Watch Dogs: Legion, And Nooope
- Thread starter Icolin
- Start date
They're probably just annoyed by the flamboyant display of ignorance in this thread
Uhhuh, sure. Ubisoft certainly is worthy of going to bat for when people ridicule them. "Poem fits the game perfectly" is more "flamboyant" crap than anything else said in this thread. The game isn't even out yet + knowing the milquetoast mediocrity Ubisoft churns out, especially in terms of story/social commentary, that's fucking ridiculous a thing to say.
Yeah, I noticed it when I was watching the conference, pointed out to those who were watching with me that using a Holocaust quote to promote your videogame is probably not the best idea. It's a very specific quote that not only calls out racial injustice, but most importantly how the people tend to look away until the problem doesn't start knocking on their door directly. Using this quote in such a game does not seem like a bright idea, because it really doesn't even seem to be trying to go that deep into the themes it borrows the quote from. I'd understand more in something like Detroit: Become Human (not because how the actual game is, but because of its attempts, if heavily faulty, to talk racism and classism), but here it just seeemed poor taste, especially these days between the BLM movement gaining traction and the harassment accusations at Ubisoft.
User Banned (1 Week): Trolling over multiple posts
😢😭💔 However will I live knowing you disapprove my post. I feel so ashamed of my words & deeds. I apologize to everyone at Ubisoft, truly the beacon of light among the benevolent game publishers, the forerunners of insightful political commentary in games as well as real life. How I regret ever muttering a negative word. Flay me if you must. 🙇♂️
Honestly when I heard that voice over in the short film I just rolled my eyes at how cringey it was not because it was a holocaust poem (I'd honestly forgotten the origin by this point) but because at this point its been used so many times it just came off as cliche.
As others have pointed out, it isn't really a Holocaust quote.
This isn't as cutting or witty as you think it is.
It's over the top and weird.
Honestly on the strength of this post alone I'm changing my mind. It's fine that they used it, so long as I don't have to argue on the same side as this guy.
It comes from various AA and NA-type programs in the '80s. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/amp/
What a twist, the insipid quote of life advice that doesn't really mean anything wasn't from a theoretical physicist who's mainly known for inventing general relativity but was instead from a community support group 12-step program. I never would have expected it.
Exactly. Also to call it a 'holocaust quote' is very reductive and misses the point. The holocaust is only part of what was happening in Nazi Germany.
Because it is fashionable to admit to it now. Social awareness is now a marketable bulletpoint.they have been explicit in saying this game is political
Watch Dogs Legion's Director on Brexit, Politics, and Ubisoft - E3 2019 - IGN
Clint Hocking explains the political and social themes that Watch Dogs Legion aims to explore.www.ign.com
WOW.
A tacky use of a poem gets a 7 page thread in 1 day.
The sexual harassment story at Ubisoft gets 7 pages in 4 days:
www.resetera.com
This is straight up performative activism
A tacky use of a poem gets a 7 page thread in 1 day.
The sexual harassment story at Ubisoft gets 7 pages in 4 days:
[Liberation] Sexual harassment at Ubisoft: "We knew". (>100 cases from harassment to rape, half were known to HR, toxicity tolerated with results)
This seriously deserves another thread given it's newly reported and flying under the radar. Investigation piece by France newspaper, the Liberation - goes deeper into the deeply toxic culture at Ubisoft and how HR and leadership protects them, so long as they deliver the results...
www.resetera.com
This is straight up performative activism
Honestly fuck Ubisoft and their bullshit culture but as far as the WD3 team goes how are they supposed to win. Either it's not political and they don't have the gall to actually say something with this game or it is political but they're only doing it because social awareness is en vogue right now.
I think it's more there's no grey area or discussion about your shared thread. It's just fucking awful. This thread is longer because people disagree and disagreements lead to more discussion.WOW.
A tacky use of a poem gets a 7 page thread in 1 day.
The sexual harassment story at Ubisoft gets 7 pages in 4 days:
[Liberation] Sexual harassment at Ubisoft: "We knew". (>100 cases from harassment to rape, half were known to HR, toxicity tolerated with results)
This seriously deserves another thread given it's newly reported and flying under the radar. Investigation piece by France newspaper, the Liberation - goes deeper into the deeply toxic culture at Ubisoft and how HR and leadership protects them, so long as they deliver the results...
This is straight up performative activism
I wouldn't take it as a metric of what people think is worse or how many people care. Otherwise, I made a thread about a man getting attacked and almost lynched and that was only 2 pages.
It's not that nobody cared about that story it's that all you can do is be horrified and being horrified doesn't necessitate a post for everyone and there's no people to come in argue, an increase the thread by a lot of posts.
Some people only want to be seen to apparently care, but they don't. As evident from this and from the Ulighurs thread we have had pinned.WOW.
A tacky use of a poem gets a 7 page thread in 1 day.
The sexual harassment story at Ubisoft gets 7 pages in 4 days:
[Liberation] Sexual harassment at Ubisoft: "We knew". (>100 cases from harassment to rape, half were known to HR, toxicity tolerated with results)
This seriously deserves another thread given it's newly reported and flying under the radar. Investigation piece by France newspaper, the Liberation - goes deeper into the deeply toxic culture at Ubisoft and how HR and leadership protects them, so long as they deliver the results...
This is straight up performative activism
Regarding the poem in the OP, I'd never know the origin of the quote, but I find it hard to attack on just Ubisoft for this when people have reworked it before (even on this site).
I mean the whole point of the poem is to be a warning/lesson. That warning/lesson is still a good one; I'd imagine the author would WANT it propagating through history (and one cannot control precisely how that happens)
Same. I found it embarassing not because I think it was misplaced or anything, but like... I've heard it so many times.. in different media..
Did Kotaku AU repurpose a Holocaust quote for a gaming furniture article?
First They Came For Your Chairs, And Now Brands Are Targeting Your Desk
We’ve already got every form of gaming accessory imaginable. The next frontier? Gaming desks, if brands have their say. The pitch is simple. Standard desks, the ones gamers tend to buy, aren’t high quality. Cable management isn’t typically a thing, the desks aren’t adjustable, colour choices...www.kotaku.com.au
Wowowoeowowowow
I don't see a problem inherently doing this because modem media help disseminate the lessons of the past.
I have a big problem with Ubisoft doing it because they are being disingenuously apolitical which compromises their ability to teach younger generations about what we should still remember about the past.
I have a big problem with Ubisoft doing it because they are being disingenuously apolitical which compromises their ability to teach younger generations about what we should still remember about the past.
It's such a tonal mismatch with what of the game they showed with a comedic presenter showing the silly hijinks you can do in the game.
Ubisoft marketing labeled it a cinematic trailer. Did you watch it? At the end of the "trailer" it's called a short film.
Can you tell me the difference between a short film and what Ubisoft put up?
I actually went to look for the post to see how I used it but couldn't find it either in Google or Site Search. Maybe I thought better when I was going to use it and never actually wrote anything here using it, but I've never taken issue with someone using this poem in satire to point out the ridiculousness of someone else's perceived persecution complex. It's an effective rhetorical challenge to tell someone: "Your perceived persecution is not as dire or important as you're making it out to be," and I don't have a problem with this poem being co-opted to make that point.
But, yeah, I stand by my statement that using this oft-quoted poem to *sell a videogame* is tasteless. Using something in satire or artistic license to argue some point is one thing, it's part of human language and the value of it depends on the point that the person is making, but using it as part of a marketing statement to sell videogames is another, especially with the direction of Watch Dogs that more often treats oppression, surveillance, and authoritarianism as like ... a light-hearted back-drop to rig booby traps for AI baddies and earn XP kudos. Maybe the new Watch Dogs game wrestles with authoritarianism, surveillance, and persecution of minorities in a serious way, but I doubt it based on the direction of Watch Dogs 2.
And yes, I'm happy to "set that line" and, no, I don't think it's arbitrary.
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Regardless of the teams intent, if Ubisofts Policy is to act like their games aren't political they can't claim otherwise.
Obviously that changed now.
I really don't see the difference, they both seem pretty tasteless to me.
You know I'm all for shitting on Ubisoft and corporations in general, but this is a pretty embarrassing response to a relevant factual correction.
Edit: I didn't mean to pile up; didn't see the follow-up post and subsequent ban. But yeah, perhaps take this chance to reconsider your dialectical approach moving forward.
Did Kotaku AU repurpose a Holocaust quote for a gaming furniture article?
First They Came For Your Chairs, And Now Brands Are Targeting Your Desk
We’ve already got every form of gaming accessory imaginable. The next frontier? Gaming desks, if brands have their say. The pitch is simple. Standard desks, the ones gamers tend to buy, aren’t high quality. Cable management isn’t typically a thing, the desks aren’t adjustable, colour choices...
Haha wow, Yeah using that widely repurposed quote for a game about an authoritarian London is just wrong, they should save for serious stuff like....articles about gaming desks.
they have been explicit in saying this game is political
Watch Dogs Legion's Director on Brexit, Politics, and Ubisoft - E3 2019 - IGN
Clint Hocking explains the political and social themes that Watch Dogs Legion aims to explore.
Also feel like more people in this thread need to see this.
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I watched it during the event, so I have the context of them saying it was a short film after.
It's not not a "short film", but it's not like they just happened to make a movie based on the game. It's a fancy advertisement. It is marketing in itself. So some people in this thread specifically calling it a "short film" while acting like that means any decision in it wasn't something Ubisoft could control is very silly to me.
I agree, it is fancy advertisement, in the sense Ubisoft paid an award winning director to make a tie-in to their game. But with Alberto Mielgo being behind the short, and I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote the script for it as well without much input from Ubisoft.
I don't think Mieglo went into this treating it as a "cinematic trailer", and I don't think thats what Ubisoft hired him to do. I think they chose him for a reason, they loved his work, and wanted to see him portray the Watch Dogs universe with a bit of his own spin.
If you want to call me disingenuous for thinking that, go ahead.
+1
Holocaust is part of human history and should be treated as a serious subject
but they aren't making fun of the holocaust neither their victims
Seriously? It fits the narrative and frankly is pertinent to our modern infatuation with censorship. People cheer when people get banned and ran off of all big social media sites. I'm not even speaking about hate, I see people post facts or news stories and get banned because it goes against the narrative. Especially Reddit, they're the worst with banning actual news they disagree with but this site is almost as bad. People are happy to see people they disagree with get fired and silenced but that will eventually come back on you too. That's why all speech is protected, should be protected. Once you pick and choose what is acceptable and what is problematic you already lost. Besides, it's a flipping quote. When it was written means nothing. This is silly.
Just so we are clear, it wasn't a relevant factual correction. You, like that poster, are just reading the title to the article instead of the content, the article goes over a list of games that are "not political" but political.
Except this specific game is not one of those mentioned in the article. This game has never been stated not to be political; that's the factual correction. Bringing up other Ubisoft games that claimed to be apolitical (and yes, we know that's bullshit) is irrelevant in this case.
It was a joke on Ubisoft claiming they try to avoid politics in games.
Ubisoft sucks, but this poem has been appropriated so many times that it's hard to see this as a faux pax so much as it is an overreach.
The point is this specific game doesn't live in a vacuum.
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No, the point is that making a gotcha about a specific game professing to be apolitical but actually being political, is nonsense when the game in question never professed to be apolitical. There isnothing ambiguous about it: it's flat out factually incorrect. Take the L and move on; this guilt by association straw-grasping is embarrassing to watch.