CD PROJEKT RED and regarding Nudity and Sex and Sexuallity and the overzealously Censoring.-FeedBack

[-Nailes-]

Private or public, there is no difference.

There is absolutely a difference between private and public.

In a private company the owners only have to hold into account the customer, which, as we can see from the OP, includes (a lot of) young horny men.
In a public (publicly traded) corporation the management(not necessarily the owner) is beholden to both the shareholders and customers.

Going public means that you sell a part of the ownership of your company to the public at large. Investment companies who represent individuals or individuals on their own. Those individuals are often not gamers or even of that age. They are people who buy through their investment company(Blackrock is a famous name) and are told by said investment company that these shares are good ones(retain or increase in value or pay out a good dividend). They often have zero interest in what the company makes.
As such, the corporation is now trying to juggle the interests and desires of both the customer and the investor(the public at large), who both have different views of what is acceptable.
Thus, while a customer wants their game to be rather sexualized in nature, the corporation will tone it down anyways because thats not how investors or shareholders see it. ESG(which I expect to go out the door soon-ish) plays a role in it, its investors who want to 'prepare' a company for the future. That, again, is a view that is driven by the public(or the perception of what the public or even lawmaker wants, not the customer).
If the shareholder is displeased, the shares will be sold and lose value.

And btw, you can hold a minority share and still retain power. The founders of Alphabet/Google have 51.5% of voting rights despite only owning a minority of shares. They split their shares in three categories; Class C(6.8 billion shares) has no voting rights, Class A has voting rights(another 6.8 billion shares), while the 800 million class B(of which the founders own 85.5%) shares have 10-1 voting power. Its not an uncommon to retain power like this, in a publicly owned corporation. For the investor, the voting rights dont matter. But if displeased, the investor can still sell and if they sell en masse, the share loses value. A lot of value. Thus the corporation has to hold the views of the other shareholders into account, even if those cant really make any decisions.
Going public means you are owned by the public, even if that doesnt mean direct control.

The game doesnt need more sex or sex scenes, I dont feel like they'd add anything to the story, But I expected to see more nudity in general and things like prostitutes on a lot of corners in CP2077 or far more sexualized advertizing(not necessarily nude), though some ads already are suggestive.
Its a world without (m)any rules and I would expect advertizers to fight eachother for the attention of the customer. Which already happens to an extent, ads do their very best to jump out and draw your attention. But I fear that they followed public opinion and toned it down. I fear that the sequel might be toned down even more. Which would be unfortunate, its supposed to be a cyberpunkian dystopia, make it one.

 

[pliskards]

Maybe. But I think it pays for developers, now that games are played by more than just straight male teenagers, to think more carefully about how these things come across to different types of players. You need to be careful of not accidentally announcing yourself with tropes that shout "straight male w**** fantasy". Most especially when as much work has gone into a game as it has into something like Witcher 3. You do your own product down when showing the same thing later, with more context, would not have the effect of cheapening the opening perception of your game in some player's eyes.

I don't really know how to explain this further except to say that the horny straight guy perspective of the world has been so overused as a lazy trope to pull in viewers to consume crap that any suggestion of that can precipitate an eye roll and a "no, why would I bother with this."

Contrast Cyberpunk. They have a TV show dedicated to a gay male power bottom (look it up, or don't), who goes around sleeping with anything that moves. THAT comes across as different. THAT does not risk coming across as lazy pandering, even if it may offend some.

It's best for me to bow out of this conversation now. {edited]

 

[Czech Death]

I first played The Witcher 3 back when it first came out and back then the sex-scenes were full monty nudity. By 2020 you had Geralt in Boxers after making love and Reginald's meat and two veg has a fig leaf on it ! I mean what's up with that? In my own honest oppiinion, modesty and maturity is the best approach. I absolutely miss the steaminess and eroic heart-pounding and everything else that goes with this controverse subject about procreation and brothels and prostitution and pleasure palaces. Why is GTA V ok with the strip clubs and poledancing and nudity but Cyberpunk isn't ? Iam treading carefully on this subject as to not poke the bear, but hey a male is a male and i absolutely sometimes get really horney to the point of well you know and am not even going to say it but you get the picture and the gist of this very private activity behind closed doors where you do what you dont confess. It is also very important to teach (your) children important views of modesty and positive views abou sex and the body and not shaming sexy by saying it is dirty or disgusting, because i didn't have a great childhood upbringing and self-esteem and confidence and had to teach myself these things.​

This also comes with Autism too, and absolutely love playing these types of games because of this. In the next game(s) CD PROJEKT RED does decide to release, they should have a modest , more laid-back approach on human sexuality and procreation and also babies. I mean it also would be nice to see the main character actually get married and have multiple kids and children and everything else kind of like the old Fable where your choices mattered even choosing to use or forego protection (condoms). Human being are social creatures who crave love and another reason why I absolutely love playing these kinds of games too. And I guess itt is also how males are in a non-stereo-typical way and views and am absolutely not referring to whores either, but sometimes you get this grittiness with the Cyberpunk Genré and Alternate Reality and Science-Fiction and definitely reminds me of something like an old Twilight Zone episode where Procreation is banned and so is having children and there is only a handful of the population left to sustain a viable population and have to discretely break the rules without getting caught and also cannot leave because they will be shot and killed on sight and when immediately detected. You get what I am saying.​

​

It's a shame Cyberpunk was too controversial for it's time and was the final nail in the coffin and the straw that broke the camel's back too. CD PROJEKT RED should definitely tread more carefully in the future and consider the possibe outcomes of either upsetting the general population or offending the general population. This has always been the case with the Western Main-Stream Hollywood Media and Stereo-typicical views vs the Far Eastern Societies and Cultures especially Islamic and Muslim and Jewish Sociology and societies too.​

Back in high school, I took an advanced Collegiate World History and American History and learned a lot more about Sociology and even had some Arabic,Muslim,and Islamic Foreign Exchange Students as classmates as well as a Jehovah's Witness too. So, yes I absolutely leareed a lot and also had to watch what i said and did without offending them, and once offended them and later apologized for my actions and learned from my my mistakes in a professional matter while still maintaining thier friendship too. Sometimes you got to think BEFORE YOU ACT OR SPEAK and have learned this the hard way with my Autism. So always remember this before you make an absolute fool out of yourself.​

Post automatically merged: Dec 16, 2023

I am not even going to argue but there is nothing political about this post. Sheesh.

Make it BIGGER It is not obnoxious enough xD

 

[Netrunner2go]

Well 1k views and 60+ replies say it was more than enough

 

[GrimReaper801]

There is absolutely a difference between private and public.

In a private company the owners only have to hold into account the customer, which, as we can see from the OP, includes (a lot of) young horny men.
In a public (publicly traded) corporation the management(not necessarily the owner) is beholden to both the shareholders and customers.

Going public means that you sell a part of the ownership of your company to the public at large. Investment companies who represent individuals or individuals on their own. Those individuals are often not gamers or even of that age. They are people who buy through their investment company(Blackrock is a famous name) and are told by said investment company that these shares are good ones(retain or increase in value or pay out a good dividend). They often have zero interest in what the company makes.
As such, the corporation is now trying to juggle the interests and desires of both the customer and the investor(the public at large), who both have different views of what is acceptable.
Thus, while a customer wants their game to be rather sexualized in nature, the corporation will tone it down anyways because thats not how investors or shareholders see it. ESG(which I expect to go out the door soon-ish) plays a role in it, its investors who want to 'prepare' a company for the future. That, again, is a view that is driven by the public(or the perception of what the public or even lawmaker wants, not the customer).
If the shareholder is displeased, the shares will be sold and lose value.

And btw, you can hold a minority share and still retain power. The founders of Alphabet/Google have 51.5% of voting rights despite only owning a minority of shares. They split their shares in three categories; Class C(6.8 billion shares) has no voting rights, Class A has voting rights(another 6.8 billion shares), while the 800 million class B(of which the founders own 85.5%) shares have 10-1 voting power. Its not an uncommon to retain power like this, in a publicly owned corporation. For the investor, the voting rights dont matter. But if displeased, the investor can still sell and if they sell en masse, the share loses value. A lot of value. Thus the corporation has to hold the views of the other shareholders into account, even if those cant really make any decisions.
Going public means you are owned by the public, even if that doesnt mean direct control.

The game doesnt need more sex or sex scenes, I dont feel like they'd add anything to the story, But I expected to see more nudity in general and things like prostitutes on a lot of corners in CP2077 or far more sexualized advertizing(not necessarily nude), though some ads already are suggestive.
Its a world without (m)any rules and I would expect advertizers to fight eachother for the attention of the customer. Which already happens to an extent, ads do their very best to jump out and draw your attention. But I fear that they followed public opinion and toned it down. I fear that the sequel might be toned down even more. Which would be unfortunate, its supposed to be a cyberpunkian dystopia, make it one.

First, sure, take a tiny little bit of my post and leave out all of the context and of course I'm wrong. Of course there are differences. The end goal is the same - making money.

Secondly, I'm aware of all the specifics you are speaking of here but I tried to keep it as layman friendly and as succinct (failed at that part) as possible. Getting bogged down into the specifics of various corporate structures is irrelevant to CDPR's structure.

The argument that going public automatically means you will censor your game is pathologically wrong. Do some companies do it? Absolutely. But it's in no way automatic as demonstrated. Just like favoring greedily lining your shareholders pockets isn't a given.

While I don't agree that CP2077 is being censored, if it was, it's not because of going public.

Are they not exploring more "explicit" aspects of sex and nudity because of ratings? Most likely. Age ratings are a very fine line to toe. It really doesn't take much to stumble into A/AO rating when it comes to sex and nudity. That rating would mean being excluded from both consoles. PC would still remain a viable market since Steam, GOG and (I believe) the Epic store accept adult rated games but you'll still get a lot less visibility even on those platforms.

If your 300 (400+ with the extra 120 to fix the game) millions dollars video game is excluded from that huge of a segment of the industry, you're making a dangerous gamble. Regardless of being a private or public company. Would the shareholders be pissed if you invested that huge of a sum into a product that won't be accessible to half the market? Definitely, you took a dangerous gamble with their money. Can they force you to change that? Not necessarily and not in CDPR's case. I have zero doubt that even had they remained private, CP2077 wouldn't be any more explicit than it currently is.

That's not to say they couldn't have pushed it a bit further and still gotten away with it. They surely could have but they just didn't.

Again, whatever perceived censorship that may or may not be happening is not happening because they went public. With that said, there is definitely an argument to be made for video game companies/projects growing so big that they can't afford to not appeal to the masses.

Well 1k views and 60+ replies say it was more than enough

I chuckled. Good point.

 

[Draconifors]

This thread definitely has political and world-view aspects, which are against the forum rules.

Please also note this sticky thread: Regarding In-Game Nudity Suggestions

Thread closed.