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Forums - Microsoft - Microsoft Vetoed A Black Woman On Cover For Fable II

Neodegenerate said:
Soundwave said:

I wouldn't have much of a problem with a black Bond, simply because there's been varying Bond's already, some are Irish, Scottish, British, Australian different hair color, totally different physical looks. It depends on the actor too, Idris Elba as Bond I would have no problem with.

It depends too how much the ethnicity of the character is relevant to the character as well ... like the Prince of Persia ... not looking Persian is kind of problematic, lol.

I haven't watched many Bond movies, but I always took the concept of Bond being more alias than person.  Like, agent 007 is James Bond and that is it.  If that agent dies, another rises to take his place.  If it were a female it would probably just be changed to Jane Bond but still be 007.

Is there anything in the movie continuity that debunks that?

Also, random factoid, when I worked at a Chinese food restaurant when someone wanted chicken fingers the order went through to the kitchen as 007.

Yes. The string of James Bond movies featuring Daniel Craig debunks that. The character who Daniel Craig plays is actually named "James Bond". They go the old Bond family estate named  in "Skyfall" and you on the estate you see a whole lot of pictures and memorbilia of James Bond's white family.

James Bond is a white guy whose family is from Scotland. This has been firmly established.



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Brii said:
potato_hamster said:

Developers might be the ones making it, but the publishers are the ones paying for it. They're the ones on the hook for lost sales if having a black woman on the cover resulted in the game selling less. That's why it's their call.

And the same reasoning could be used for any localization choice that people seem so discontent with, like changing outfits to be more more appealing to a broader group, to get the rating they want, or to avoid controversy. Those are all marketing and calculated business decisions as well.

We can't have it both ways. Either you accept that this is a business and they'll sacrifice artistic liberty for the sake of profit, or you condemn these actions for putting these choices in the hands of people that have no part in the creative process.

I don't care which. I'm just annoyed by the hypocrisy I'm seeing (not directed to you in particular, since I don't know your opinion on censorship). 

This.



I Love Playstation, but my uncle works at Nintendo.

 

Soundwave said:
pokoko said:
Anyone else chuckle at that guy's story? "A black woman on the cover means you can be anyone you want!" How does that even make any sense? If you want people to think they can be different characters then you put different characters on the cover, not just one. His entire argument sounds kind of silly.

I used to do the ordering for a video store. When people are browsing, they're drawn to titles that are marketed toward them. That's a fact of life and common sense. I've seen it a billion times. It's why we had minority led titles grouped together--not because it's what WE wanted but because it's what the CUSTOMER wanted. Is a black person who rents four movies about black people being racist? No, they're just drawn to material they feel reflects them personally. With a game like Fable, the marketing people were marketing toward the group they feel would buy the most units. I see nothing controversial about that.

I think the developers point is that black women are not often protrayed as heroes in games/movies as such the point would be that anyone can be a hero which is representative of a key feature in the game.

The marketing people often don't know shit either. Today's audience doesn't care about this stuff, if a game is good they'll buy it. The best selling game of the last several years is Grand Theft Auto V (which is going to sell like 50 billion copies at this rate) which has had playable black lead characters.

If that was his point then it fails unless the consumer already knows the characters can be customized, in which case the cover won't matter.  For the person browsing, who has little knowledge of the game, you're not telling them the hero can be "anyone", you're telling them the hero is a black female.  If you think most of the people out looking for new games are black females thent that's awesome, go for it.

As for GTA V, it would have sold millions regardless of anything.  However, regarding the cover, I think it backs up what I was saying perfectly.



potato_hamster said:
Neodegenerate said:

I haven't watched many Bond movies, but I always took the concept of Bond being more alias than person.  Like, agent 007 is James Bond and that is it.  If that agent dies, another rises to take his place.  If it were a female it would probably just be changed to Jane Bond but still be 007.

Is there anything in the movie continuity that debunks that?

Also, random factoid, when I worked at a Chinese food restaurant when someone wanted chicken fingers the order went through to the kitchen as 007.

Yes. The string of James Bond movies featuring Daniel Craig debunks that. The character who Daniel Craig plays is actually named "James Bond". They go the old Bond family estate named  in "Skyfall" and you on the estate you see a whole lot of pictures and memorbilia of James Bond's white family.

James Bond is a white guy whose family is from Scotland. This has been firmly established.

The Bond "canon" is wildly all over the place that it doesn't really matter that much IMO. What happens if the next Bond isn't a Scottish guy then?

There's so much goofy/silly shit in the Bond movies as a whole, this is a franchise where Bond wore bell bottom suits at one point.

I mean if there was a firm singular Bond identity then the whole series doesn't make sense ... how is he still 30-45 years old in 2006 when he was fight Russians in 1960s Cold War? Does Daniel Craig's Bond know Xenia Onatopp? No, because that's a different Bond. It's obviously a character that is eternally rebooted.



Soundwave said:
potato_hamster said:

Yes. The string of James Bond movies featuring Daniel Craig debunks that. The character who Daniel Craig plays is actually named "James Bond". They go the old Bond family estate named  in "Skyfall" and you on the estate you see a whole lot of pictures and memorbilia of James Bond's white family.

James Bond is a white guy whose family is from Scotland. This has been firmly established.

The Bond "canon" is wildly all over the place that it doesn't really matter that much IMO. What happens if the next Bond isn't a Scottish guy then?

There's so much goofy/silly shit in the Bond movies as a whole, this is a franchise where Bond wore bell bottom suits at one point.

I mean if there was a firm singular Bond identity then the whole series doesn't make sense ... how is he still 30-45 years old in 2006 when he was fight Russians in 1960s Cold War? Does Daniel Craig's Bond know Xenia Onatopp? No, because that's a different Bond. It's obviously a character that is eternally rebooted.

The current Bond isn't a scottish guy.



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potato_hamster said:
Soundwave said:

The Bond "canon" is wildly all over the place that it doesn't really matter that much IMO. What happens if the next Bond isn't a Scottish guy then?

There's so much goofy/silly shit in the Bond movies as a whole, this is a franchise where Bond wore bell bottom suits at one point.

I mean if there was a firm singular Bond identity then the whole series doesn't make sense ... how is he still 30-45 years old in 2006 when he was fight Russians in 1960s Cold War? Does Daniel Craig's Bond know Xenia Onatopp? No, because that's a different Bond. It's obviously a character that is eternally rebooted.

The current Bond isn't a scottish guy.

Exactly. I could be wrong but Bond isn't supposed to have blue eyes and blonde hair either.



Jega said:
This is why there is a lack of fresh new games and innovation.

I suspect it is not just at Microsoft, probably happening at other major publishers.

What the eff, let the creators effing create.

This



Soundwave said:
potato_hamster said:

The current Bond isn't a scottish guy.

Exactly. I could be wrong but Bond isn't supposed to have blue eyes and blonde hair either.

You do realize I'm not actually arguing that James Bond couldn't be a black guy. I answered a question whether the Bond Films actually confirm that James Bond is supposed to be one person and not an alias, and the answer to that is "yes". That's all.



KungKras said:
KLXVER said:

This happens all the time unfortunately. Just like Sony not wanting a black James Bond.

Not trying to defend the merketers in the article just commenting on the black James Bond thing.
I think it's annoying when characters who are already established are changed. I wouldn't want a black James Bond for the same reasons that I don't want a white Blade.

James bond isn't actually a real person even in the lore.  Its a code name that  assigned to any Agent 007.

So you just wouldn't want a black bond (here on out known as BB lol)...  has nothing to do with the actual story.  

Secondly, it really doesn't matter who plays who as long as they do the role justice.  



I think this thread needs moderating, not because of the people and their comments but because of the article. The article has much more context and amazing stories, yet some idiot journalist took out one small section of a very large article filled with info and turned it into ckickbait where it seems MS are racist or not letting Lionhead be creative. Anyone who reads the full article (it really is good and should be read for the amazing things which happened at Lionhead) would not only be better off than debating the clickbait nature of the out of context article, but would also learn a lot more about Lionhead, MS, development of several games and more.