r/SocialistGaming • u/Iraqi_Weeb99 • 2d ago
Question Indie games to avoid?
I always hear when AAA game company does something controversial but not so much with indie devs. I bought Heartbeat recently on Steam and i passed the two hours mark, then i found out that the dev behind the game is really anti-LGBTQ+, but I just can't refund it. Are there any other indie games that I should avoid?
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u/Yarzeda2024 2d ago edited 2d ago
The people who made the isometric mecha game, Brigador, are alt-right dipshits. Like you, I didn't know it until I had passed the two-hour mark.
The two heads over at Moon Studios, behind the two Ori games and No Rest for the Wicked, have been accused of mistreating their employees. One of the two co-heads also made some incredibly gross comments comparing cancel culture to the rise of the Nazi Party before the Holocaust. I've been told Ori is amazing, and No Rest for the Wicked looks like the kind of game I would love. But fuck me if I'm giving one red cent to those jackals.
There was also a gladiator game called Domina that was pulled from Steam after the developer started putting a bunch of hysterical rants in the game's patch notes like masks being for pussies (this was the height of COVID) and a heaping helping of anti-trans bigotry. Steam nuked the game from orbit and no longer hosts it. I hear you can still purchase it from his personal site, but you have to go out of your way to find it and support his insanity.
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u/Censored_69 2d ago
Maaan, I wish you hadn't told me about Brigador. I've put way more than two hours into that game.
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u/Yarzeda2024 2d ago
Do you want me to apologize?
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u/Censored_69 2d ago
Nah, I want the Brigador Devs to apologize, donate all of their profits to support trans healthcare, and stop being sacks of shit.
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u/interstellargator 2d ago
I've been told Ori is amazing
Honestly I don't get the hype and it's the type of game that ought to be right up my alley. I love metroidvanias and flowy platformers. Ori was kind of an okay version of both, combined into something that was less than the sum of its parts. The story felt cynically tear-jerking, and the combat seemed completely tacked on and clunky. Plus the aesthetic of drowning every screen in bloom made me feel like I was having a migraine. I bought it well before the controversy but I would never have recommended it even before that. Many better games out there in both genres.
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u/JuhwannX 2d ago
I played Ori relatively recently, having bought it a LONG time ago and it sat in my backlog. I have to agree with your assessment of the first game. It felt like "Oscar Bait, the Game." Rather than a game that has any of the mechanical or emotional depth that it presented as having, it uses the most bare bones non-dialogue cutesy moments that would have only spoken to me when I was a young person.
Gameplay was fun enough, but it definitely was babies first metroidvania. Haven't played the sequel, so I can't say much about if it got better between entries. Since I own it already, I'll probably try it out just because Metroidvania are one of my favorite genre's.
As far as Moon Studios, I've been off of them since I saw the No Rest for the Wicked abuse news. Doesn't help that the game is apparently in a bit of development troubles due to the publisher closing (deserved stress if you ask me.)
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u/Yarzeda2024 2d ago
I still follow No Rest because I was subscribed to a bunch of stuff about it at one point.
They seem to be spinning the closing of the publisher as a positive, as it gives them more creative freedom, and they released a big content update for the game in early access. Maybe it's all saving face, but they seem to be doing pretty well, all things considered.
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u/JuhwannX 2d ago
You know, for the developers who are just doing their job: good for them. Tons of studios laid off thousands of workers last year, so if they're still working and getting a check and credits, then great. I probably still won't get the game though, not even because of the CEO drama nor the abuse ( though they are still MASSIVE reasons) but because what I have seen is...unimpressive? Kinda like the Ori games, it seems they're hyped on cinematic quality vs. actual. And I saw they have times quest things and a sort of mobile gameplay loop that just gives me a gross feeling for a game I can purchase for up to 40 dollars. And when I saw people question it, fans were told that they, the devs, thought it would be okay because after you do everything, you'd go back to the original thing. Just a bit gross as a design decision for a single/optionally multiplayer game for me. If I'm playing, I'm playing. I don't want to have to wait 2 hours to continue my adventure because I have to just wait for a time to count down.
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u/popintarts 2d ago
Can Moon studio even be considered "indie"? Their wikipedia page says they have 80+ employees and both ori games are published by Microsoft, and no rest was originally published by private division only to be self published later. Theyre independent now, but theyre still a pretty sizable company especially compared to other indie devs.
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u/SaltyNorth8062 9h ago
The Domina saga is probably one of my favorite developer meltdown stories in a good long while. Funniest shit I've seen.
Sucks about Brigador. I'd never heard of it but I heard "mech game" and gave it a peek and it looks like something I would have played or paid for had I not known, so thanks for the tip in advance (still sucks mech games are only slowly coming back). Sucks about Ori too. It's finally getting put on platforms I can play it on and had it on my to-get list for ages.
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u/interstellargator 2d ago edited 2d ago
The Witness and Braid are getting harder and harder to recommend as Jonathan Blow slides deeper into insanity. He's always been a dick but every time he engages with a topic outside of his area of expertise he shows his complete arse. And he's become a Trump/Elon dickrider since the latest election.
The guy behind Factorio went off on a load of weird anti-cancel-culture rants when someone asked him to stop posting links to a misogynist developer without flagging them as that, which ended up with him claiming "statutory rape is an SJW term" so I guess don't buy that unless you want to line the pockets of someone who believes in consensual paedophilia.
Also always worth reminding people that the studio that owns Disco Elysium, Za/Um, ousted the original creators after a company financier siezed control of the IP by defrauding them and taking control of the studio.
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u/smwcbio 2d ago
The witness got a really good high effort shitpost called "the looker" which is funny and shorter (since the witness is way too long)
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u/interstellargator 2d ago
I actually really like the Witness despite it doing its best to vanish up it's own arse, but yeah The Looker is a fantastic send up of it, and a good puzzle game in and of itself.
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u/Aegis10200 1d ago
As far as I know, there is only one guy in the Factorio dev team that had sexist and anti-trans rant, but he is one of the main dev and nobody took action at Wube. The community's reaction has been very weak too (at least, what I saw)
This really threw me back. I sank way more time in Factorio than I care to admit, and the amount of work and polish they put in their game is quite impressive compared to the industry's standards.
At least, the game has no DRM
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u/letiori 1d ago
What did you expect from a community of engineers and backend devs?
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u/interstellargator 1d ago
Idk all the backend devs I know are trans women and/or anarchists
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u/RegularWhiteShark 11h ago
Engineers and devs seem to be pretty polarised. They’re either full on right wingers or left wingers, very few in between.
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u/Supercozman 1d ago
Jonathan Blow was never built to be a public figure, he can't take a lick of criticism without crashing out. No wonder he developed a victim complex and fell into the right pipeline.
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u/grownassman3 2d ago
Disco elysium is such a brilliant piece of art that I would never tell anyone to avoid it, even if the company is now run by crooks. It came from people trying to tell an honest and deeply personal story, and it should not be missed by any gamer that calls themselves a socialist. I guess I’d say at this point you can pirate it instead, but I have no qualms telling puerile to just buy it- I mean I bought it when it came out and my money still unknowingly went towards the ousting of its original creators anyway.
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u/ZenQuixote 1d ago
I'd just sail for this one now. Still haven't gotten around to playing it, but I'll not be greasing the wheels for those bastards after they fucked the people who mattered over
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u/bassbeatsbanging 1d ago edited 1d ago
Damn, I played braid years ago when it was new. I normally hate puzzle games but the big surprise with the last level was mind blowing.
So sad to learn he's a piece of shit. Doubly so given the political meaning of Braid, I definitely wouldn't have guessed he went full Maga.
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u/vg-history 12h ago
i would say that blow was one of the many reasons i left x for bluesky. he represents everything wrong with it.
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u/Gabby-Abeille 2d ago
Allegedly, the studio behind Sun Haven is really shady and doesn't pay their artists well.
https://youtu.be/ouSWPM4jfUY?si=Rxn2-CtNk3zYpKUS
I also found out after I had already bought and played it a lot.
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u/Iraqi_Weeb99 2d ago
Removed from my wishlist
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u/Gabby-Abeille 1d ago
Luckily, there is no lack of similar (but way better) games you can play instead. Maybe take a look at the BG3 mod for Stardew Valley, I heard it's pretty good (didn't have the time to test it yet).
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u/indiemosh 1d ago
Yeah, they've done a ton of shady stuff. They had fans translate their game without credit, released a broken Switch port and didn't patch it for MONTHS, released TONS of overpriced cosmetic DLC and a cash-grab Survivor-like, have generally been radio silent on their Discord in the face of all the backlash... My wife and I put 30-40 hours into SH and really liked it despite its flaws but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone at this point.
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u/Atryan421 infra-materialist 2d ago
Ori and the Will of the Wisps & No Rest for the Wicked
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u/Mustekalan 2d ago
I knew about Ori but what's up with No Rest for the Wicked?
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u/BreadDaddyLenin 2d ago
If you like “boomer shooter genre” the folks who made Ion Fury are transphobe chuds.
A healthier alternative to a cool sci fi boomer shooter powered by gzDoom is Selaco, the lead’s voice actor is non-binary.
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u/Okami512 2d ago
Oh fuck I forgot to mention earlier. . . The dude from 3D Realms that hosts realms deep is a fucking piece of shit.
Can't exactly get into details without a risk of doxxing myself.
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u/SirMenter RSR Representative 1d ago
"I saw him punch a black kid in the Walmart parking lot".
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u/Okami512 14h ago
Listen the dude's a cock that deserves to be cancelled imo, but I'm not a fan of false allegations. That shit downs out the real one's and hurts victims.
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u/SirMenter RSR Representative 14h ago
Well you said you'd doxx yourself if you described the details so I just made a joke regarding that.
I'm sorry.
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u/Scripten 2d ago
I thought that had been a barely involved collaborator. Sucks to hear that they are crummy
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u/Phonyyx 2d ago
You can still refund it. Steams two hour mark is just the “no questions asked refund”. You will just have to write your case and Steam is known to be pretty generous with their refunds.
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u/CptMidlands 2d ago
Can confirm, they refunded Conan Exiles for me after 5 hours, they rejected it at first but then I basically did it again and made it clear I felt two hours to experience a game like Conan was unfair and that 5 hours was reasonable to know if I would like it or not.
Refunded a few hours later, always worth a shot
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u/Captain0Science 2d ago
Yeah I got a refund for Frostpunk 2 despite going a decent bit over 2 hours after describing UI issues in the box.
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u/Miserikord 2d ago
The Messenger has toooons of Jordan Peterson quotes
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u/Bi_disaster_ohno 2d ago
The Sabotage studio game? Noooooo I loved both The Messenger and Sea of Stars!
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u/MeisterCthulhu 17h ago
I never noticed that, but I don't remember a lot of quotes from that game either. Then again, I was also never a JP fan so no reason why I'd know quotes.
What I do remember is that it was hyped to oblivion and I thought it was mostly ok, which is usually way more disappointing than finding something ok without previous media hype.
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u/MonochromeMorgan 7h ago
Wasn’t this just a joke? Saying it has Jordan Peterson quotes out of context is abit unfair. The devs have said they don’t align with Petersons views.
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u/Iraqi_Weeb99 2d ago
So it kinda like Civ 5 quoting Geogre,W bush?
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u/Miserikord 2d ago
?
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u/Iraqi_Weeb99 1d ago
The game has qoutes from dozens of people when you complete a tech, a lot of people they qoute became awful or already controversial people.
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u/Miserikord 1d ago
I mean, maybe, but I don't think that's a fair comparison
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u/Iraqi_Weeb99 1d ago
Why?
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u/stockinheritance 2d ago
I recall the Ready Or Not dev being a chud but that's probably obvious given the copaganda of that game.
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u/BreadDaddyLenin 2d ago
The game is super obvious copaganda so I don’t think anyone needs a flag for that. But the studio partners with police unions and shit for promos and money
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u/SirMenter RSR Representative 1d ago
I heard mixed opinions about the game being copaganda.
In some ways I felt the same but unless things got worse with the DLCs, I remember the game mostly presenting stuff as is without trying to take a stance on much, which I suppose can be considered an issue.
Of course there's also the whole "city fallen in chaos" angle but if anything it shows the cops aren't solving too much, especially when they're evicting homeless people hiding from storms and whatnot.
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u/Successful-Bike-1562 21h ago
It's copaganda. Taken directly from the steam page: "At its core, the game honors the work of dedicated law enforcement officers across the world "
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u/TheFalseDimitryi 21h ago
Across the world?
Are there Chinese or Mexican cops? Are they international teams like in R6S?
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u/Successful-Bike-1562 21h ago
I've not played the game, but I believe it's just American cops. I think the devs are stating that they have blanket approval for cops in general outside of the game.
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u/TheFalseDimitryi 21h ago
lol that’s such horse shit. “Are game only features cops from the US but we love them everywhere”. Honestly a game that focused on the issues cops had to deal with in other countries would be cool. Like Chinese, Mexican or Iraqi cops. Like yeah ACABs but every country has them……..
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u/Natural_Patience9985 16h ago
Listen. There's nothing more American then doing something nationally, and claiming it to be an international thing.
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u/Okami512 2d ago
Domina Dev - literally got banned off steam for putting anti-Covid and anti-trans bullshit in the patch notes.
ASKA devs - (personal experience, sadly didn't save evidence) asked a question related to gender locked classes in the steam forum, got railroaded with a lot of hate and vitriol, told to kms by others in the forum, their mods shadow nuked the thread. Not a single comment from their mods.
Factorio - lead dev has literally defended statutory rape. Defended an asshole who stated women and minorities had no place in software engineering. It goes on.
RetroArch lead developer ('twinaphex' not to be mistaken for the musician 'Aphex Twin') has caused enough shit to be banned from numerous emulation communities including /r/emulation has harassed emulator developers by calling their places of employment. And is highly suspected of making highly misogynistic comments towards other devs, in addition to being suspected of being involved with the harassment campaign which lead to near's suicide. (Much of the proof of this is no longer extant as of the Reddit protests last year).
(Brought up as it's on steam and they have mentioned ideas for a commercial product that would interface with it.)
Notch -obviously, but he doesn't profit off of Minecraft any longer and had all mentions of him stripped from the game.
For some reason I remember Garry Newman of Facebook studios being a royal asshole, but I can't remember for sure / can't find anything from mobile. So I may very well be mistaken on this one.
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u/ShadowAze 2d ago
Honestly I have a meta suggestion
If a game is on Steam and GoG, and the game version on GoG isn't missing features which are on steam (like updates, dlcs, patches, etc. which you can double check here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zjwUN1mtJdCkgtTDRB2IoFp7PP41fraY-oFNY00fEkI/edit?gid=0#gid=0 and also maybe check the reviews of the game on GoG)
Then buy on GoG instead. GoG has a far more lax refund policy, you're not restricted to two hours of playtime and the game can be in your library for a little while. That being said, I trust people here will not abuse its refund feature.
There seem to be a lot of bad actors, which is pretty much true for anything. With GoG you could at least have greater control of your refunds (I do wish they moderated their own subreddit a bit better tho)
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u/Snoo-27292 2d ago
Games made by Cavemanon, Snoot game is pretty much hatespeech against non-binary people
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u/MotorVariation8 2d ago
Underrail, probably the best indie crpg released within the past 10 years is developed by an absolute piece of shit and has an entire dlc based on nazi lore.
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u/SirMenter RSR Representative 1d ago
I heard that idea about said DLC before but no one actually explained the issues to me much. Wasn't it some weird Atlantis or something?
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u/MotorVariation8 1d ago
Yeah, first thing that pops up on Google if you look into it is a Reddit analysis on the subject.
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u/SirMenter RSR Representative 1d ago
I see I see, I asked someone who played the entire thing before but he didn't mention anything too weird.
Even talking with randoms about it they only mentioned vague references to nazi occult shit so that's why I was curious.
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u/MeisterCthulhu 17h ago
Don't know anything about this specific case, but imo you can very much make a story about that weird occult lore and conspiracy shit without being in support of nazi ideology. Would be a shame if you couldn't because that shit is honestly really interesting
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u/MysticGramarye 1d ago
Scott Cawthon is far-right and donated money to Donald Trump, so probably avoid the Five Nights at Freddy's games.
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u/MessyConfessor 1d ago
The lead guy behind The Bazaar, Reynad, is a huge right-wing conspiracy nut. IIRC he also ate a ban for cheating at a MTG tournament? Just an asshole in general.
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u/Smiling_Rider 2d ago
First one I can think off the top of my head is Cultist Simulator/Alexis Kennedy
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u/Smiling_Rider 2d ago
Not really sure what the situation with who gets the money for the game now, but yeah Kennedy is someone to avoid
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u/WarMom_II 1d ago
Cultist Simulator is Kennedy's own studio, you might be thinking of the Sunless series, which predates CS and Book of Hours.
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u/GreyPercival 1d ago
I've read some stuff that contests those claims, and I think there's a lot of bad blood between both dev teams. I don't know who to believe necessarily, though I admit I'm probably biased towards Kennedy since I went out of my way to read some of his blog posts on the matter.
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u/Bloodbag3107 1d ago
Yeah, this situation is far from clear cut and to me it seems like something that went way out of hand. As it stands I just support FailBetterGames and Weather Factory both, because I like the games they make.
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u/GreyPercival 1d ago
I just hope that, even if he may be a shit person, that he still gets what he's owed, especially since they're putting out a tabletop game sometime soon.
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u/FlynnFaust 1d ago
Killing Floor's lead Dev is a weird anti-abortion christofascist. Avoid Killing Floor 1, 2, and 3.
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u/TheFalseDimitryi 21h ago edited 3h ago
Wild how K2 has a literal WW2 Nazi as a playable character. And not like a funny Nazi zombies Richthofen type like in COD, but just a straight up Nazi with no lore explanation saying or alluding to him giving up Nazi ideology or feeling disillusioned with Germany towards the end of the war or anything. He constantly calls the games currency “Euro trash” and has other lines based of the fact Hes a literal Nazi
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u/jukebredd10 2d ago
Yandere Simulator.
First off, the whole premise of the game involves you actively stalking girls to find murder them for daring to try and date a guy you are also stalking.
Secondly, while I have little real idea on what he's doing lately, I heard that the dev has made a few comments about how people should ahem get groovy with children if you catch my drift.
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u/Bentman343 2d ago
YandereDev is a narcissistic jackass grifter who coasted off people's monthly patreon subscription for years while doing the absolute bare minimum work on his game, and despite all this he can't even be humble about his failures.
That being said, the content of his game is really not the problem. I don't care that he made a game where an anime schoolgirl can kill another schoolgirl to stalk.her crush, I care that he's actively lying to his audience to pretend he's able to make this game and banning anyone who tries to make his real intentions clear.
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u/RegularWhiteShark 11h ago
The game will never come out. I remember watching a video that went over his work and how long it took him to do even simple things and how crappy he’d done it. That’s when he actually does work on the game, anyway - he’s usually too busy hating on everyone or with his discord sycophants.
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u/SirMenter RSR Representative 1d ago
I guess I Wani Hug that Gator? I heard the game itself is fine but it's made by the same 4chan weirdos who made Snoot Game.
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u/Commercial-Dealer-68 1d ago
Domina comes to mind but they were so shitty that their game was desisted. I only found out about how shit they were after buying a copy unfortunately.
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u/Suspicious_Stock3141 2d ago
Billie Bust Up:
If I were to go into everything that BlackGryph0n (the VA for Barnaby) has done and how the BBU Team defended him, we'd be here all day
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jxh8GQCw5seOpetu0Gg_zQSjguXHUBH-3Lun1xachWc/edit?tab=t.0
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u/mrwishart 2d ago
Is the game anti-LGBTQ or just the creator?
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u/Iraqi_Weeb99 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's more like his gf is very Transophobic and he was defending her. The game itself has nothing to do with it.
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u/Ok-String-2303 1d ago
This is performative and a waste of mental bandwidth imo. Focus on real issues and play games that are good , unless the game itself is chud propaganda
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u/Apprehensive-File251 10h ago
I agreee and disagree.
I am LGBT. Given that the views of right wingers usually range from. "You have a mental illness, you need to pretend you aren't like that" to "you should not be alive". I personally, don't want to put any of my money in the hands of creators who bear me that kind of ill will.
That said- it is often a little more complicated and some of the receipts here might be on the weaker side. Few games are single person creative endeavors, etc.
But you definetly won't find me ever paying money for anything scott cawthorn makes, or anything notch may do if he does return to game dev.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 1d ago
you can always try to refund if past the 2 hours. it's only that under 2 hours it's an automatic refund, past that people at valve will decide.
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u/JAnetsbe 1d ago
Terraria collaborates with PewDiePie the neonazi streamer
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u/SD-Cynessa 11h ago
Terraria and Relogic are goated
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u/JAnetsbe 11h ago
What I said is still true
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u/SD-Cynessa 11h ago
When was PewDiePie a neonazi? Just know about the bridge incident
Never watched him
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u/Affectionate-Pipe-10 1d ago
12 minutes. Time loop game that fixates on the solution of drugging your wife
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u/JakiStow 1d ago
Not indie but not AAA either (double A then ?): Lords of the Fallen.
The studio is deep into the "players first" and "anti-DEI" rethoric. Case on point: their character creator had body types "A/B" instead of "male/female", but when the transohobic portion of their fan base complained they reverted it to "male/female".
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u/JAnetsbe 1d ago
Old stuff but they never retracted or apologized
Rimworld's dev excused gamergate as nbd
Space pirates and Zombies hired totalbiscuit the reactionary weirdo gamergater.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/interstellargator 2d ago
He was a PoS? I thought he left gaming because gamergaters doxxed him for standing up for Zoe Quinn?
I know he was abrasive and argumentative but was he ever actually problematic?
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u/stockinheritance 2d ago
This sub needs to decide if consumer purchases are something leftists should decide based on their ethics or not because I got done voted for suggesting that it actually isn't "liberal" to boycott Nintendo for price hikes.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SocialistGaming-ModTeam 18h ago
This is a queer, feminist and multicultural oriented sub. Bigotry isn't tolerated.
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u/JasonH1028 2d ago
Don't avoid Disco Elysium but don't pay for it either. Although what am I saying it's this subreddit you already know Disco Elysium.