@facelessvixen: Implying that CDPR’s problem is being too horny fundamentally misrepresents the argument. There are advertisements plastered everywhere in the game fetishizing a trans person’s genitalia, for instance, with little in the way of rounding out trans representation as with exploration of how trans folks live in Night City. That is the issue (one of many) in this game. Those other developers you mention do objectify their characters, yes, but for one, they are mostly working with cis-characters who have varied and wide ranging characterizations throughout media, and for the other, those games don’t have the reach of Cyberpunk having Keanu fucking Reeves doing commercial spots during Monday Night Football. This is very much an apples to oranges comparison.

@pnutz83: Being offended has nothing to do with being weak. It's an emotional and intellectual reaction. It doesn't dictate behavior. How do people who get offended by transphobia cope with life? They cope. Nobody here has said that they were so offended they collapsed on the floor and couldn't move.

You respond to offensive stuff however is appropriate in the moment. If calling it out and holding people accountable is possible and would be productive you do that. If it wouldn't be then you just note it, and move on.

There is no world in which tolerating abuse of others is somehow the "strong" or "brave" position. Nobody has ever said "look at that dude. Someone was picking on a trans teen and he just stood there doing nothing. What a brave, strong, hero."

Everyone who has ever stood up to a bully or tried to fix an injustice started off by being offended.

Nah I just don't give a fuck. If you call me asshole to my face and say some derogatory shit straight to my face i get offended. But not by reading something from someone I don't know. Only people I know can offend me.

@pnutz83: That's your choice. Nobody is saying you have to be offended, you can do whatever you want. But to call other people weak because they are offended is incorrect. Many of the strongest people demonstrate their strength by fighting back against things that offend them.

Also this is not about being offended about things that are targeted towards you. Most of us aren't even in the targeted groups. I don't know if any of the posters here are trans but statistically speaking chances are that the number is low, because trans people are a relatively low percentage of the population (that's one of the things that makes them easy targets.)

This is about caring about how others get treated by society and in media.

You don't have to care. Whatever your circumstances you seem to be in a position privileged enough that it's a choice for you, rather than a matter of survival. I'm in that position too. But being offended should not be mistaken for being weak.

I don't get it. I just don't. How can you be personally offended if the offensive material isn't specifically directed towards you (again not you specifically) then. I mean is it not a sign of weakness to be offended by things that aren't directed towards you. I am probably to old or dumb to understand these things, because I just don't get it apparently,

@pnutz83: You are not too old for empathy so that's not an excuse.

But I am too old to be offended if it isn't directed at me specifically. And I thought that was how it worked. If someone insults you personally you get offended. Not if you watch something on tv. You might get mad, angry and upset but never offended. I mean if I watch some racisst say some stupid shit I get angry and upset but not offended. That is what I mean with too old. I am too old to understand how people use offended nowadays.

Oh. I remember you now.

Yeah this is a non starter.

@pnutz83: Caring about others. I am sure you could be offended if someone said something nasty about someone you love. Called your child stupid or whatever. You just take that principle and apply it broadly and are offended when someone says something mean or does something thoughtless towards another member of your society or group within it.

If you break it down into like legal terminology an "offense" is a violation of a rule or standard. So here the rule or standard is that other people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and when someone doesn't do that to some group of people then people get offended because the offender committed an offense. We are all in society together and any attack on people or groups within a society is, in a way, an attack on all of us and the kind of society we want to live in, where people aren't treated cruelly or thoughtlessly.

Now does this mean that we have to make some huge deal out of it? No. And nobody here is trying to cancel anyone or claiming that this is some massive hate campaign or anything, but it's worth acknowledging when people behave badly and for some people refusing to buy a game that insults them or others in our society is their response to the bad behavior.

Yup. Non starter whatever tha means.

This does make sense. I don't entirely agree with you. But I can see the point you are trying to make. It seems like we have to agree to disagree though.

@pnutz83: Your posts make you sound like you don't give a shit about anyone but yourself. It's especially wild that this manifests over a video game.

I don't think being offended over something that harms friends, family, or groups who are routinely targeted or harassed is a weakness. It means I care about my friends or family. I care if a person or piece of media uses them as a quick and easy target for a cheap laugh. I worry that if certain groups are only used as jokes or in disrespectful material that's all they'll ever be viewed as.

Everyone deserves a chance to be judged for who they are and when the media treats these groups as jokes or lesser than then others will follow suit. So I get offended, or really whatever word you wanna use when I see something like Cyberpunk use these groups as cheap laughs.

Upset, angry, mad, sad, irritated are all good words that you can use.

@pnutz83: All totally applicable. It's sad that offensive is now a hot button word. Honestly, it's a lot of frustration because sooo many people want to defend offensive material before trying to understand why someone would be offended.

What, exactly, do you think it means to be offended? 4 of those 5 words are synonyms for it.

Offended is when someone personally attacks you verbally and you get offended by that. You can only be offended when it is a personal attack i believe. I will leave it at that and not discuss this subject any further, because i think we have derailed the discussion enough now. And it doesn't seem like we will reach a point where we agree on anything. So I see two ways this can end accept that we disagree, or discuss with a wall that will not answer. Goodbye.

This isn't agreeing to disagree...you're literally just misusing the word/inventing some new, nebulous definition for it. If someone can say something racist about someone else, and that makes you upset/angry/mad/irritated, you're LITERALLY offended on their behalf. I'm using one of your OWN examples.

@pnutz83 The irony of your crusade in here against the descriptor "offensive" considering you could argue you are getting offended that people are offended about something is pretty wild to me. Seriously though; it's just a word. Stop getting so caught up in the zeitgeist to presume it means exactly the worst case scenario that your implying it does. People are OFFENDED by Cyberpunk and have a right to be. Anyone that isn't doesn't need to weigh in to determine if it's offensive only acknowledge that some people find aspects of the game offensive. But even now this devolves into a debate about the correct wordage for the appropriate "level" of offensive this is.

Why does this level of criticism have to be so hard for people to just accept and move on with? I don't get it. Regardless of your opinion of the game itself, or what it does. Like the fact that there had to be follow up posts covering the basic principles of how to apply empathy in a situation like this is almost insulting to where a discourse like this SHOULD be at by this point in time.

There’s some top tier arrogance on display here.

Besides me feeling embarrassed for CDPR thinking that putting in the low brow shit in their game would be a good thing, I didn’t get offended, upset, frustrated, or any other negative descriptor over it but I at least don’t have the gall to dictate to others how they should feel about such shit or push people to use specific language over how they should be describing their negative feelings over it.

Also if anything, this guy seems to have gotten offended, triggered, or whatever other facsimile you feel like using in this context, because of what I said. To then validate my point by acting like he really does deserve a medal for not being offended by any kind of media is all the more hilarious.

There's too many people of many different creeds right now interacting with dying human beings and you're out here thinking that sitting around and stuffing your mouth with Doritos while watching hours of offensive garbage on LiveLeak just to prove that you can't get phased is a case for growing a pair? Here's to hoping you find empathy and that the road there is paved with as little pain as possible.

Sadly the internet has tied the word 'offensive' to 'Karens' and rainbow-coloured hair complainers, which makes a whole swath of people not want to touch the word with a stick. Someone might perceive them to not be a strong independant (wo)man but a petty complainer after all!

In a time where a ton of stuff is clearly quite offensive no matter your political affiliation, The procedures surrounding the corona virus, blatant insider trading, turning away from the climate issue, nepotism or how minorities openly get fucked over come to mind, but i'm sure everyone has a list of their own by now. Call it fucked up, shitty or bullshit, you're still basically expressing that you're offended by it. Being offended doesn't mean you straight up fall to the floor and can't carry on living until the offensive material is gone or something.

Woof. This thread went places while I was logged off.

The phrase "let's agree to disagree" has been bothering me lately. It'd be one thing if it came up about something totally subjective, like food or movie tastes or something. In that case, it really is just personal preference and no agreement can be reached, and just acknowledging that is useful.

But more often than not, "let's agree to disagree" seems to be deployed by the most Reply Guy of Reply Guys on the internet, usually after a dozen or so posts relentlessly arguing their point no one else agrees with. Only after this prolonged exertion do they go, "well, no one agrees with me, and I am surely never going to change my mind because I'm Perfect, so let's agree to disagree!"

May or may not have been on the receiving end of a few of those conversations lately, ha.

Oh, and PS -- in case anyone is at all confused on this point, though most people here seem to get it -- you don't need to be transgender to have some basic empathy towards how trans folks are represented. Ugh.