I came across an interesting article by Gamespot in which they interviewed Junichi Masuda on his decision for getting rid of the Jerk rival in the recent Pokemon games and his response legit actually pissed me off. Now I wasn’t mad at Masuda one bit for his decision, he probably looked at the issue from a business standpoint and followed the path that would lead to more sales, I get that, I’m mad at how soft people have gotten these days.
To give you some context, Masuda said this in his interview with GameSpot:
“Also, because it’s just dialogue and there’s not a whole lot going on on the screen, it doesn’t give as harsh of an impression even if they’re jerks, I think. Now we have HD graphics and the visuals are much more impressive. If you also made him a jerk, the impression would be a lot stronger on players.
Another thing, just my own personal take, is that it feels that people with those kinds of personalities these days are just not as accepted by players as they were back then.”
I read his quote and was dumbfounded by his response. To cut it straight to the point, he made the rivals friendlier to avoid offending people. That’s how soft this generation, shit, MY GENERATION have gotten. They can’t handle a fictional character talk a little smack towards them. It’s a Pokemon game! The worst thing that could happen is for your rival to say that your Pokemon are weak, smell ya later, or I’m better than you…trash!
Like, has the definition of a rival changed over the years and I just missed the memo. The whole point of a rival IS to have those moments were you talk shit to each other while respecting the other parties strength and achievements because you see them an equal. To have someone to compete with for the same objective or for superiority in the same field of activity.
This notion of desperately trying to avoid offending everyone has really gotten out of hand. Don’t get me wrong here, I still think that we as a society need political correctness to some degree to help establish a level of respect and understanding for one another. To be able to emphasize and be nicer to one another but when it goes beyond reasoning and into something like this, then it’s a bit concerning. I’ve started to see more and more games try to avoid offending people and it kinda getting outta hand here.
Rockstar Games co-founder 'thankful' to not be releasing Grand Theft Auto 6 right now. pic.twitter.com/BVpB6raDRy
— IGN (@IGN) October 25, 2018
There’s a fine difference between making a game that is perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against vs making a game were a 10 year old kid calls you a loser. The former is bad, the latter is not! Lets not turn the PC culture into what Feminism has become today. You know, the extreme activism kind!
