Thanks all for your comments I just plunked down my $9.99, and will put it up near the top of my queue for when I want to start a new game.
My main concern was that every review on steam basically said the same thing (awesome game but don’t give the company any money). So not knowing the full extent of the controversy and how this plays out in the gaming world I decided to outsource my morality to the dope.
I am really not clear on what the controversy is (I mean, I read an article but I cannot decide if there is merit to it or who is wrong or even if it is some big deal to be upset about…will need to wait and see).
The recent Bayonetta 3 hubbub is a cautionary tale. The original voice actress tweeted something and the gaming community dumped on the developer and calls for a boycott were all over the place. Then more story came out and now they are dumping on the original voice actress and supporting the game.
Point being, I do not think how you spend your gaming dollar should entirely be informed by the scandal of the day. If you think you will like a game then go ahead and get it. Up to you of course.
Write-back when you start playing and let us know how you like it!
Here’s an article about it.
After reading that, I don’t really know who is in the wrong. Or if anyone is. This paragraph from the article seems to summarize what is happening:
At the beginning of October, it was announced by one of the group’s founders, Martin Luiga, that the “ZA/UM cultural association” was “dissolving.” This was in response to an unknown internal dispute that had, according to Luiga, caused three key members of the group to leave at the end of last year, in ways he described as “involuntary.” Tech News Space is reporting today that the game’s lead designer, Robert Kurvitz (one of those three who was let go from the studio), is suing the company ZA/UM, although again, details are scarce.
All of the “details are scarce” and “unknowns” about this situation makes me skeptical of declaring that a boycott is warranted.
From what I’ve heard is that the game was backed/funded by at least one big pocketed person who after the games success ha s muscled out the ZA/UM cultural association members who were the writing/art/design leads and seem to be the driving creative parts. The ZA/UM company is making a sequel with lots of cash grabby stuff like transactions and NFTs and a TV series. And the former leader of the now dissolved cultural association is bringing a lawsuit against the studio/company. (For yet unknown reason)
It seems mostly like a corporation trying to get all the money and control of a surprise IP and hit game.
Bayonetta 3 seems more about Helen Taylor not being so much of a VA (Bayonetta is her only VA role) as a theater actor and trying for more money in ways that may work in the theater, but not in video games. But the controversy may actually make the game the most successful of the series.
Everyone gets greedy after a big success.
On the one hand the creative team were responsible for the success and should be rewarded and retained for future projects. On the other hand, it would not surprise me if those creative people wanted massive pay raises. A pay raise is deserved but is it (as an example) $100,000/year to $250,000/ year or $750,000/year? Kinda goes to the Bayonetta thing. The voice actress decided it was a popular game and they had to pay her a HUGE increase over the norm. She went too far.
But it sounds like the studio is going to ruin it completely with that NFT crap. TV show…hard to see how that would be done well.
Seems to have ended up, like The Matrix, an awesome work with no real sequel.
Or Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. That was a beautiful game that I greatly enjoyed. By the time I played it, the studio had already gone bankrupt (it was the only game they ever made). Though it has been remastered and been given DLCs since release.