The Giant Beastcast: Episode 46

Those are not the exact same thing. They are two very nuanced separate incidents. In the NASA incident Matt Taylor wore the shirt and he is the one that got flack for it (whether or not he deserved it is for another time). Rapp had nothing to do with the source of her attacker's frustrations.

She has nothing to do with her own views on child pornography possession? Whether you agree with her or not, it is absolutely related to her.

What's interesting for me is, the only way for an ultraconservative company like Nintendo to avoid controversy on the localization issues is to stop changing releases for different markets. In a way, it's similar to the backlash from the staggered Dark Souls III release. In the era of social media, especially, people will find out when stuff is altered or released early for a specific region.

Personally, I'd like them to leave games and anime they way they are when released in Japan. After all, these products are niche in the grand scheme of things, and the cultural flavor of it is a key part of what draws its fans to those products. You lose more than you gain when you make controversial changes during localization. How many people are you really going to get from the mass market versus the negative media storm that will be caused within the dedicated, vocal fanbase? These are the people who care enough about the products to get involved in the discussion in the first place.

The reality of it is, though, that if Nintendo were to do single global releases of games, they'd dumb everything down to the norms of most restrictive region, the lowest common denominator.

@silphage: She has nothing to do with the localization changes. You know what I meant.

@axersia: if that's the case then idk how anyone can hold it against Nintendo for firing her. It sucks that she's getting harassed, no one deserves that no matter what dumb things they say on Twitter, but it seems like she's was just bringing a lot of negative attention towards herself. Nintendo has certainly fired people for less.

@ohhhboyyy: No.. The localization changes are not the only reason some people dislike her. Though yes, I agree that localization issues have nothing to do with her.

Patrick and Drew's EVE coverage got me into the game, and here I am now with two mains each with 50 million skillpoints and barely undock. (My "bee ally" is homeless anyway.)

It's been a great experience. Lots of real life friends from it. I could maybe say there are some people from Star Trek Online I would enjoy meeting, but it's not the same. The stories aren't the same. I just try not to take it very seriously. Some people believe they own the biggest grain of sand on the planet.

Y'all people who always say "it's fascinating and terrifying from the outside", on the inside the feelings of terror are usually replaced with eyerolling. It can be a fucking shitshow; some of these people are sociopathic infants. The 13 year old racist from COD voice comms is now 20 years older and plays EVE. But you can still mute the fucker.

CCP made a hell of a game. EVE Forever.

This podcast is so good that the royalty free intro might need some terrible lyrics to go with it.

Here's Vinny and he is awesome, there's Alex salty yet rad, A. Walks soon to be a Doc, J.B. is still a brand new daaaaaaa(harmonica)aaaaad!

You guys are the best. Thanks as always for this amazing podcast.....spoilers...

Wow, first off let me applaud how the discussion in this episode was handled. They did a very good job of providing a lot of nuance on the topic of the Nintendo situation. You can see how much more civil the comments in this post are than on the Bombcast's post from Tuesday just because of how well the crew did their homework on this topic. Personally, I wish they had gone a little more in detail about the subjects that Alison had spoken about on her public Twitter account. Austin did a little bit at the beginning and I feel line providing some more of that information would have given the discussion more context. I can understand that it would have probably sidetracked the conversation though with minutiae about age of consent laws and Western vs Japanese values, etc and they most likely realized that so they didn't push it.

Second thing is that I believe that harassment of any kind is awful and she absolutely did not deserve the vitriol that was directed at her. Sending things like death or rape threats is abhorrent.

Having said that, she has said some things on her public Twitter account that some people might find objectionable or controversial. Austin and Vinny directly say this on the podcast and express that they even see some of it as objectionable and Austin specifically said he "won't shrink from" that fact. I personally don't agree with some of the things she's advocated either, particularly the phrase "child sexual agency" that she used, as I find it to be a bit dubious to say the least. With that in mind, I don't necessarily think it was wrong for Nintendo to fire her. Everyone who pays attention to the industry knows they are a very buttoned down, laced up company who targets children as a market and if what she was saying went against their values as a company, I don't think they should have to keep her as an employee if they don't want to and believe her actions were hurting their reputation.

Would I have fired her if I had ran a business and had hired her? No, I wouldn't have. Even though I personally object to some of the things she expressed, as long as she was of value to my business I would have kept her as an employee. But I can only speak for myself and my own views.

The only analogy I can think of off the top of my head is tattoos or piercings. I don't think it's wrong if a business doesn't hire someone if they have neck tattoos or huge gauges in their ears and worry they'll lose customers who will judge their employees just based on their appearance. Sadly that's the world we live in today. My hope is that there will be a day where people WON'T judge others in that way, and instead will just care if they're able to perform their job well. Until that day comes however, I don't think a business should be denied that freedom.

The real bad guy is the awful internet hate brigade that makes it a personal campaign to derail these people's lives by dredging through their personal life to try and find some kind of dirt on them. In this case they did that and shoved it in Nintendos and the public's face, effectively forcing Nintendos hand one way or the other. I personally think Nintendo erred here and should've stuck by her but with them having the kind of company culture that they do, I can (sadly) see why they let her go. The timing sucks and only gives ammunition to the online haters.

Hi everyone, I'm 980ti Jeff (call me Jeff, for short). First off, thanks to Vinnie, Austin, Alex, and fellow Jeff Bakalar for reading my letter. I didn't intend to bum them out at the end of the show and was really just writing to see if my experience is out of the ordinary, but I appreciate the sympathy, guys. Thanks for making a damned good show every week.

My power supply is an EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 80+ Gold 750w.... man, they make these names long.

In any case here's my parts list...

Motherboard: Asus Z170-A
CPU: Intel I5-6600k 3.50 GH
RAM: Kingston Hyper FuryX DDR4 8GB X 2

Not sure if you need to know my hard drives, but running an SSD 250gb for my Windows 10 install and a 2TB Seagate for everything else.

Great discussion of the Baldur's Gate and Rapp dramas. Speaking as another token libertarian, I always find @austin_walker's analyses to be enlightening and entertaining despite not sharing his politics. He has been a great addition to the site.

I think there is is an important discussion around the violent injection of politics into every aspect of our lives, through social media in general and twitter in particular. And it should be recognised that these social media tsunamis are propagated by all 'sides' of politics - Justine Sacco being a famous early example. GG may have been incredibly hypocritical in this instance, but they weren't the first group to exert massive social media pressure to remove someone from their job.

@ikramit: Thanks very much, I'll give them a go.

@gvillestein: I'm pretty sure it's not my HDMI cable, since it only does it when the computer is at higher resolutions and does it with every other HDMI cable I try. I have tried all three of the PCI express slots on the board with the same result each time. I'm pretty sure it's either the card itself (Btw, it has been the same card this whole time, not two of them as the BeastCast thought. RMA-ing sent it to Gigabyte's repair team who replaced the BIOS chips in the card and then sent it back to me...) or some issues with the software.

I think I am approaching the point where I will take Austin's advice and just have a professional look into it. I have a few friends who work in tech around here who might be able to do it for free, so I'm trying to coordinate schedules with them first. Thanks for the tips, I'll post something here if I get the thing working.

@alex@austin_walker

Words like "most vocal" and "the majority" were used a few times when discussing the response to the Buldur's Gate expansion. I see words and phrases like these tossed around a lot, increasingly so in regards to the amount of harassment people do or do not receive online.

How are you guys ensuring that you're not overemphasising the magnitude of say, the amount of "bigoted" reviewers in the world, or the amount of harassment an individual is receiving? If, when you talk about "the majority", etc., you're drawing on your own observations, perhaps from your Twitter feeds or by talking to your friends, and not on any empirical data, how do you ensure that you're not falling for the availability heuristic, the focusing effect, or just plain old confirmation bias?

I only bring this up because "the majority" of the reviews and discussions I encountered on Steam and elsewhere were definitely not as bigoted as the ones you describe in the podcast.

It's not about whether Nintendo had adequate grounds for dismissal, it's about when that dismissal occurred: right in the middle of this localisation shitstorm, which makes GG look like the victors.

Edit: removed speculation on why she was fired.

@phoenix654: err wait you RMAed a faulty card and got the same card back (same serial #?) with an updated BIOS? That's garbage, demand the card be replaced. You could've flashed the BIOS yourself!

I'm sorry Matt Rorie.

@thainatos: He is a professional forum moderator. I'm sure he will survive.

It is probably worth remembering that on these comments, on steam forums and reviews, probably twitter to some amount to, have the worst of the comments forcibly removed or minimized, though they still weirdly and momentarily contribute to the conversation.

Like, to see the worst of the steam reviews for Baldur's Gate it takes scrolling down quite a while through negative reviews until they get rated for "helpfulness" quite low, and with likely plenty more deleted ones. Lotta people exaggerating and shouting about SJW and social/political correctness crusades over that one character, ruined childhoods and etc.

Also apparently a pretty buggy release too.

Good luck Matt Rorie.

I've said my piece on the Rapp stuff but a truncated version is I'm not surprised that Nintendo fired her once her more controversial beliefs were made more public but I don't think anyone should be in danger of losing their job for expressing an opinion, no matter how unpopular it is. As for the trans character in Baldur's Gate, for the life of me I can't figure out why anyone would care that much. If that somehow "ruins" the game for you, don't play it. It's an expansion. The core game is still there and the way you remember it. I thought it was asinine when people got all butthurt over a joke about a transgender person in Pillars of Eternity and I think this is equally stupid. Glad to hear the developers are standing their ground. I'm not really sure where I fall on the Steam reviews though. On the one hand if people are truly that upset about a trans character in a game, Steam reviews and the like are pretty much their one legitimate way of voicing that displeasure. That said, the way those reviews aggregate and get turned into a rating, it might negatively affect a great game/expansion and people who might not have a problem with a trans character, or even a poorly written trans character just see a low community score and will assume the game itself is bad.

@phoenix654:First step is to isolate what the problem component is. If you have an old video card or onboard graphics you can use that to rule out the HDMI cable and the PCI-E slot/mobo. If you can rule out the HDMI cable and any problems with the motherboard, it's probably your power supply or it could just be you got super unlucky and got two bad cards. That'd be pretty rare for a graphics card but not out of the realm of possibility. EDIT: Just saw that you got the same card back the second time. Not only is that bullshit, but that leads me to believe the card could still absolutely be the problem.

I'd at least get a true RMA on that card to get a new, different card before paying someone else to troubleshoot the issue.

I liked Krem, just not the jarring changes/additions to the Qunari lore. The Qun is the most strict and rigid religion, can't fathom the idea of women becoming warriors, does not allow people to choose their roles in life, yet is somehow able to grasp the complexity of being transgender.

The same with all the codex sprinkled about talking on how accepting/inclusive all the cultures are. The same franchise has it's Origin lore based on all kinds discrimination. Instead of just adding the characters and letting them feel organic, they felt the need to constantly point out to the player how inclusive everyone in that universe was. Let's not talk about the succubi being the only demons that miraculously couldn't find the huge hole in the sky. It just felt too heavy-handed to me.

I dunno Minsc might be somewhat more justified in his complaints considering that you are actively choosing to ignore his companion being eaten by gnolls instead of a vague threat or you being too nice to people.

Anyway I'm not gonna argue that she's a shining example for tact but she brought up two fairly appropriate examples.

Ye, I get this exact thing whenever I encounter media with white cis straight characters in it. It's just so unrealistic and then you look at how many things have that exact issue and how all the media with this bad content in it has been elevated by critics who are unaware of what nonsense a world filled with white cis straight characters is. How am I meant to enjoy my escapism when I'm thrust into this totally unrealistic world filled with these fake ass Kinsey-scale-0 cissies?

Really we need to have a more organised campaign to ensure that no media is released with these unrealistic, immersion breaking flaws in it. Writers need to go and have a long hard think about why they need straight cishet men in their stories at all. Haven't those stories all been told by now? And it's so immersion breaking when they keep dumping so many of them into stories.

[Which is to say I really enjoyed this week's Beastcast - keep up the good work guys. Making time to have the conversation and put that out there is important. Really glad to hear everyone weigh in and discuss it.]

We're people, not "contested" ideas. We've always been here. We will continue to be here. Get used to it.

You spelled "discussions on treating people with dignity" wrong.

How can you even begin to claim to know that?

I don't think there is anything strange, or questionable at all for a company to fire a PR person that with their beliefs and actions might reflect negatively on that company. It happens all the time.

The harassment she got I know nothing about, but that is always shitty. But Nintendo's decision makes 100% sense and isn't anything bad on their end.

In the end I think the lesson is that people maybe shouldn't put every single opinion they have out on social media. Everything you say can and will be used against you. For better or for worse

To the guy who was having issues with his 980ti, have you tried the steps in the 4th post of this thread? (it may be for an evga card but the steps are producer agnostic)

http://forums.evga.com/980Ti-Code-43-driver-issue-on-all-versions-m2401551.aspx

Code 43 is really annoying to troubleshoot so I feel for you buddy. Stick with it, PC gaming is great once all the issues have been smoothed out.

The Dark Souls misunderstanding is such a(n) MERICAN thing.

Well, the beastcast thread is just as embarassing as I imagined it to be. I mean they even called it in the podcast. I guess no matter how many times they say "don't be an asshole", people still want to be an asshole.

So was she fired for her opinions or because of her moonlighting? Pick an unbelievable narrative and stick with it.

Nintendo refused to help an employee when she was the target of a harassment campaign and then they cut her loose the second they found a reason. Obvious to me. Obvious to anyone who has been in the business world. Total BS on Nintendo's part.

Especially if they can be an asshole to a woman. That's apparently more fun.

Unbelievable narrative? As opposed to the narrative you have completely fabricated, claiming a company is lying based on nothing but your own beliefs, that she was fired because she was the target of harassment?

And no its not "picking", both very likely factored into her termination. But sure, lets just stick with the thing that goes against company policy, that is more than enough. You say they don't have that policy? Because Rapp said so?

The harassment she got against her is awful, and nobody should be treated like that. What exactly does it even mean to help your employee, what should they have done? Let her stay with the company? I am genuinely curious here, what Nintendo should have done to help her? Because you can't be immune to breaking company policy because of that?

@wrenchninja: where is the asshole behaviour? All I see is two sides discussing a controversial issue....unless you meant people with a different opinion to you are assholes?

@depecheload: I've been working in the corporate world for about 10 years since I got out of college. I know how to navigate it pretty well. Certainly better than Rapp.

I realize it's a sexier story to say Nintendo sacked this girl for no reason and that they're the big evil lying corporate entity (despite any evidence to back that up) so you can continue to believe what you want.

That was a highlight for me, definitely. And they did go into the points that made the more exciting option less likely, but still.

i stopped reading at "girl".

The sad thing (okay, backpedal... a sad thing) about all this fighting on the internet is that I honestly can't tell the difference between an actual hate-group and trolls. We're raised to stand up to hate, but on the internet the best thing way to deal with a troll is to ignore. There's no surefire way to deal with the problem, and a 50% chance you're only fanning the flames by addressing/not addressing it.

At this point I feel the best way to handle this is with positivity. Don't get down in the trenches with these people. Stop being snarky. Instead show your support for someone next time they get targeted like this. Just let them know that someone out there cares about them and sees things their way. Hopefully by doing this you starve trolls from the fight they desire, and you let the vocal minority know that they are just that, a minority.

@jayjonesjunior:

cool.

@phoenix654:

First off, dope setup.

Which Gigabyte card is it? For instance, their Waterforce card has a pretty intense OC mode. A lot of top-tier cards will have an OC BIOS switch that can make your card flip out without correct cooling.

....Aaaaand I just read that you tried all the PCIe slots. Good. And that they updated your car's BIOS so, you've probably also made sure it's not an issue with turbo-mode.

I agree it's shady that they sent you the same card back. However, if they went to the trouble of flashing the BIOS, they probably had it working. One hopes at least.

I'm probably wrong about the PSU. Those EVGA units are solid as fuck. You could toggle Eco-mode, but that should only effect the fans.

This last month, Nvidia drivers have been kinda screwy, but I haven't heard that artifacting was an issue, so that's probably not it. If you haven't tried an older driver tho, it might be worth it.

Getting local help is probably the answer, as it seems the big stuff you've already tried.

One last idea tho... you mentioned higher resolutions, and while HDMI is great for 1080p60 and basically necessary if you're hooking it up to a TV, I'd go with Display Port for resolutions higher than that. And if you are using HDMI, just make sure that its 2.0 and not 1.4. Even if the card supports HDMI 2.0 out, the monitor might only support lower resolutions and refresh rates through that connection.

Good luck man, hate to see such a bangin' system sidelined like that.

I like that the one week when they turn to the comment section to help an emailer out is also a week when the comment section becomes a new front in the ongoing and terribly important internet culture war. That's gotta be fun to dig through for GPU troubleshooting advice.

Never played EVE, but like many i enjoy reading abouting it. Wish the combat between large fleets were cooler, something like Logh, but it just looks like a blob of ships shooting at another blob.

It genuinely matters that you guys are willing to talk about this stuff. Thank you!

"Nuanced and thoughtful" isn't something we always get from games media, and that makes the Beastcast something special.

@austin_walker Very interested in criticisms from trans people about the trans character not being written well. Do you have any links handy? I know you should never dump researching at someone else's feet, but all my searches are clogged by transphobic posts.

Yeah, that sounds insane.

@phoenix654 Your PSU looks fine on paper, and is a flashier one that the power unit I've got along with my 980ti. At this point I'd ask for a refund on the GPU, then go buy another brand of 980.

I doubt there's anything wrong at all with the Gigabyte ti's but after the service you've had I'd be giving my money to Asus, MSI, EVGA etc. I have an MSI 980ti, by the way, and it's been great.

@graf1k: @insectecutor: Yeah. Weird about the RMA thing, huh? (see below)

@grezul: Thanks. It should be a good system if/when it works.

Gigabyte Geforce 980 ti Windfoce OC edition. Watercooled parts sound interesting, but I have a well ventilated enough case that it shouldn't be necessary... yet.

I agree it's shady... mostly I'm pissed about how much time it took. I sent them the thing at the beginning of March and they didn't get it back to me for 3 weeks. Might be my (partially) fault, not sure if I went through the process properly and accidentally requested a repair or something. In any case, that's a long damn time to wait in this day and age.

If you're wrong about the PSU, I believe you owe someone twenty bucks... :P

I don't know if it's Nvidia, but there are two different driver sets that I've been trying. The first is the one included with the disk and the other is the version available since March 8th.

And yeah, once I get it checked in another PC to see if it works in there, I'm going to become a big thorn in Gigabyte's side and make them send me a new one. If all that doesn't work, I'm finding someone local to look at the rig and see what's up.

I hope it doesn't remain sidelined forever, thanks again for the advice.

@phoenix654: The only time I've had a GPU behave in that way was a good 10 years ago, was after I'd bought a top of the line card, pairing it with a PSU which wasn't up to the job of powering it.

As I said in my post, your PSU looks fine but it might be worth checking the connections to the GPU. I see that it's modular so check that it's connected properly at the PSU side. If it is, try hooking the card up to another one of the GPU power connections.

It also wouldn't hurt to do a clean install (I bet you're sick of doing this by now, huh?) of your drivers. I use Display Driver Uninstaller when I think I've got driver issues. Link