Quote Originally Posted by Skivvy View Post
But on the flip side of this, many people have been clamoring in this thread that there is no reason to bring RL into the game. That argument just makes me scratch my head as there are SO many things inspired from real world things (not just in Stormblood), but heaven help you if you're asking for slightly more diverse character creation options as that is obviously stepping over the line.
You see, there's a slight difference in these two things. Namely...who draws the inspiration.

In the case of Kugane and other in-game stuff, it was the developers drawing inspirations to match their story, its aesthetics.
In the case of skin color, it's the people that want to implement THEIR OWN aesthetics into the story.

Now, there is nothing wrong with suggestion whatsoever. The game is a business. We're being told painfully clearly that this game is not made for any reason other than to earn a buck by all sorts of things, sometimes more directly. As such, following clients suggestions that increase their satisfaction without really harming much at all is reasonable.

However, one needs to still remember that the aesthetics of the story are a significant part of it. The reason why we don't have these options may be because of technical difficulties, a result of cutting on budget or because they don't really match the story in its makers opinion. Then there are also options like them simply not thinking there would be demand for it, forgetting about it or thinking that the currently available options would have been satisfying.


So it's not the problem with the suggestion, but with the form. Clients simply don't have the right to demand real-world inspirations and existence of such in a story is no excuse.

I won't name the game, but I guess most everyone will know. There was a game that was aiming for a significant realism of a certain part of history of a region of the world that, at the time presented, had virtually no non-white people. Like, if there WERE any, they were so few that majority of the region wouldn't ever come across them (heck, living pretty close to that region now, having nearly 30 years, I saw maybe a handful of non-white people with my own eyes in real life where I live!). And organizations of "people of color" were literally clamoring about the studio being racist because there are no non-white people in the game. They demanded a significant presence.

Ironic, really. What does "people of color" really mean?! Seriously, "black" is lack of color, while "white" is a compilation of all colors in one. That phrase itself seems to be more racist than most of the stuff that many of the people crying "discrimination" claim, seeing as it suggest that white people are "colorless", from which one can derive "empty". Now, do you see how that works? Should I now make demands that I want this or that because I'm in the minority of the world (it appears that Caucasian people constitute about 33% of the world, while Mongoloids about 31% of the world...then there are other in-between etc.)?
Of course...the offense part is an add-on, but I really do have issues with the term "people of color".


In other words...As I said before, if someone wants new variations of face structures and skin tones, no one would have any issue with those suggestions (except possibly saying that the developers time would be better spent elsewhere, which is what pops-up with basically any glamour suggestion ever made). Yet no one seems to be interested in making such a thread. One that is strictly about the essence of the suggestion.

This one will NOT work. It will die out very quickly or random people will pop-up and bring up the racial stuff once again. It's natural. People will NOT care that it was hammered for 50+ pages. Most will read only the original post and maybe few past that (some don't even read past that) and it'll be good if few of the last posts. They will skip all that was said before and will bring the tone back to the flames.


Remember. We pay, but we are not entitled to demands. Square Enix offers a product, not their servitude. Customers don't hire Square Enix, we pay them for a product that comes as-is. Any thread or post made needs to reflect that fact.