THQ's Smoked!

This is regarding the Dead Island statue. After our discussion so far, i'm going to say that i'm going to give Koch the benefit of the doubt here and assume in the lack of evidence otherwise -- if it IS a statement as folks are claiming -- that it is an unintentional statement, in a world that is so rampant with these statements that it is forgivable accidentally to fall prey to the same way of thinking. I will assume this was a well-intentioned error and hope for them to do better next time.
 
Not only Dead Island, some other notable titles they've released on PC that have done reasonably well:

Gothic 3
Risen
Risen 2: Dark Waters
Sacred 2
Stalker: Clear Sky
Spellforce 2
(There are many more, these are just the ones that I've heard the most about)

I've personally played Half of those titles there and enjoyed them all.

Koch Media is definitely a heck of alot better than EA getting their hands on it, that's for sure.
 
$22 million!? They must be pretty confident they are going to get their money back.

They better not include a load of garbage DRM, I can put up with Steam but otherwise forget it. Also can't stand games for windows live nonsense... argghghh!!
 
I think that there's a difference. The Dead Island statue, named "Zombie Bait", cuts off a woman's limbs leaving gory stumps except for a perfect pair of plastic surgeon fake breasts. The statement that it makes (intentional or not) is that this feature is the only redeeming quality of worth on a woman and reinforces misogyny.

TychoChelchuuu on the PA forums explains this far more eloquently than I can


In addition, the videogame industry has a long and sordid history of misogyny and treating women developers like dirt. #1reasonwhy exposes this kind of treatment with hundreds of female developers responding with their thoughts on why there is a lack of women in the industry and giving personal examples of the hurdles they face on a daily basis:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/29/1reasonwhy-reveals-sexism-gaming-industry_n_2205204.html

It's easy to casually dismiss something that doesn't affect you personally. The statue is an egregious example of the casual misogynistic attitude that holds sway over our industry, and is actually a symptom of this much larger problem. As gamers, I think we all need to start to at least consider the bigger picture. Do we really want to support these kind of socially accepted norms that keep women from being treated as true equals?

Excellent points, especially the last one. The 'majority' does not understand the extra hurdles if one is of a 'minority'. I have family members with North American Indian blood, while they are accomplished and self made, still face the 'oh yeah, special treatment token Indian' sentiments. In my city we have a street nicknamed 'Sesame Street' This is where men from the suburbs pick up aboriginal children selling themseves...as young as 11! Well known street but accepted because of the attitude toward aboriginal people. So the 'subtle' 'I didnt mean anything by it' attitude causes much grief and has destroyed a culture where I live. Canada BTW
 
There seems to be some confusion over what IPs are coming with Volition. It looks like it's only Saints Row and nothing else:
przechwytywaniems.jpg
"Primarily in connection" with is awfully vague
 
I read that to say "We're buying Volition for anything and everything involved with creating the Saints Row IP"

Basically, all they wanted was SR, and they couldn't care less about Red Faction.
 
I kinda read that as "You're buying Volition for their rights in regards to Saints Row but not other franchises unless bought extra". It is vague, but the way it's worded implies that KM now owns the Saints Row franchise and rights, and owns Volition studios. Not an and deal, they bought one in regards to the other. Now that it's over, they may well have the right do whatever they want with either. If they decide another studio would be better with the SR games, they could and Volition has no recourse. I doubt that'll happen, not when we're looking at 22 million dumped into this.

In turn the question is how much independence will Volition keep when they make the 4th game (They will make another game, 22 million for a franchise and company is NOT a tiny drop in the bucket) and thus what kind of game will it be. More than that, how much independence will they retain? Remember, EA also claims that they'll give the developers creative control and won't hamper their ability to make their games, but in the end they still go and shut down studios and pass the games/rights about freely internally. When EA buys a company they cease to be an independent entity, no question, it just takes time. Other publishers aren't so bad, but there's a lot of wiggle room between ea-borg and full-hands-off. Just because you don't subsume them doesn't mean you give them full creative control.


And now I kinda wonder what happened to Red Faction and other games.
 
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