Interesting take. You bring up a good point, but the game has been in development for 10 years and it’s a really small cameo. I’m assuming most did the voice work for free or a small flat rate. It’s not like you’re supporting them with royalties every time the cat meows.
If you asked Ben Stiller to remove the Donald Trump cameo from Zoolander he’d probably give a similar answer despite Donald Trump being a far worse person and Ben Stiller publicly being a Democrat. I don’t think it’s a “centrist bullshit” position to work with people with wildly different views.
For me, it’s just such a small issue to focus on and ruin something else you find enjoyable. It’s one thing if McMillen was a vocal supporter of Israel or vocal MAGA. Like, I haven’t watched a Tom Cruise movie in almost 2 decades because of his role in Scientology, but I watch Zoolander like once a year.
I get that, but to me it’s honestly less about the inclusions, especially given the dev timeline, but more about defending it so staunchly today with his whole “balancing out” shtick. It doesn’t seem like anyone was actually paid for it, let alone under contract, so it would’ve been so easy to just go “yeah this is kind of fucked up after everything that’s happened, let’s cut these out before release” instead of doubling down on it and defending the inclusion of literal nazis and rapists.
I read his take more like: “the game is edgy, offensive, and gross anyway. If you are offended by someone we had do 3 minutes of meows who turned out to be a terrible person, you probably can’t handle other content in the game.” And “it’d be cool if we get a bunch of people that had a big influence on internet culture in the last 20 years do a cameo”
It felt more like an apolitical take than a centrist take. For me, that’s fine. I understand your perspective also and generally I agree.
“yeah this is kind of fucked up after everything that’s happened, let’s cut these out before release”
I mostly agree. I think there’s a couple reasons why it didn’t happen though. First one is he just didn’t know. He was probably more focused on other things than if some of the cameos in are from problematic people. The other reason is that if he did remove them he would anticipate a headline like “McMillen removes cameo from Conservative Internet personality in new game” and he wanted to game to stay apolitical.
I’m really enjoying the game. And think McMillen could have done better. But if I stopped playing/reading/watching/using every piece of media from someone I disagree with a little then I wouldn’t be able to do anything ever.
Interesting take. You bring up a good point, but the game has been in development for 10 years and it’s a really small cameo. I’m assuming most did the voice work for free or a small flat rate. It’s not like you’re supporting them with royalties every time the cat meows.
If you asked Ben Stiller to remove the Donald Trump cameo from Zoolander he’d probably give a similar answer despite Donald Trump being a far worse person and Ben Stiller publicly being a Democrat. I don’t think it’s a “centrist bullshit” position to work with people with wildly different views.
For me, it’s just such a small issue to focus on and ruin something else you find enjoyable. It’s one thing if McMillen was a vocal supporter of Israel or vocal MAGA. Like, I haven’t watched a Tom Cruise movie in almost 2 decades because of his role in Scientology, but I watch Zoolander like once a year.
I get that, but to me it’s honestly less about the inclusions, especially given the dev timeline, but more about defending it so staunchly today with his whole “balancing out” shtick. It doesn’t seem like anyone was actually paid for it, let alone under contract, so it would’ve been so easy to just go “yeah this is kind of fucked up after everything that’s happened, let’s cut these out before release” instead of doubling down on it and defending the inclusion of literal nazis and rapists.
I read his take more like: “the game is edgy, offensive, and gross anyway. If you are offended by someone we had do 3 minutes of meows who turned out to be a terrible person, you probably can’t handle other content in the game.” And “it’d be cool if we get a bunch of people that had a big influence on internet culture in the last 20 years do a cameo”
It felt more like an apolitical take than a centrist take. For me, that’s fine. I understand your perspective also and generally I agree.
I mostly agree. I think there’s a couple reasons why it didn’t happen though. First one is he just didn’t know. He was probably more focused on other things than if some of the cameos in are from problematic people. The other reason is that if he did remove them he would anticipate a headline like “McMillen removes cameo from Conservative Internet personality in new game” and he wanted to game to stay apolitical.
I’m really enjoying the game. And think McMillen could have done better. But if I stopped playing/reading/watching/using every piece of media from someone I disagree with a little then I wouldn’t be able to do anything ever.