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[ChuckeRearmed]

Well unless you are american it does not mean anything

Hard R is just a non-offensive way of referring to the N word

 

[WoJ]

Someone had to go out of their way to find this and be offended by it. Lame. People have too much time on their hands.

 

[Ozriel]

It is about the "N word". "N*gga please" is an example of something black people say to each other. A racist who calls someone a "n*gger" with the R sound at the end instead of the A sound......that's the "Hard R". Usually referenced by comedians and such.

Bill Burr's standpoint routine has a great example:

Yeah. It’s an unintentional coincidence.

Perfectly valid to call for it to be edited, and removing it doesn’t compromise the intentions of the artist or diminish the material in any way.

Now even the word hard means racism...when we keep asking themselves if theres a new low, media proves us wrong. Theres no limits for this, its just an endeless bottom.

Kinda silly to pretend you haven’t read the thread.

 

[Codeblew]

I'm black, and I'm not offended by it. Keep it, it's fine.

It is probably the white blue-hairs that are offended.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

When you see sexism everywhere in this game than it's not a leap to think that they must be racist too.

I imagine the Hard is just a random art asset that was procedurally generated and got put next to the R. What would they gain from putting a dog whistle in the game?

Nobody is claiming that there were racist intentions. They inadvertently put a racist slur in the game and now that they’ve been made aware of it, they’re changing it.

This is a total non-story, I can’t believe people are getting upset about it.

 

[crackajack]

Am I part of the problem??

I saw the screenshot before reading but immediately thought thats unfortunate.....or someone is being very clever.

Imho even if they pronounce all letters of the n-word in that anyway garbage vandalism art form it would not be automatically racist. It would just be bs like almost all of that art is.
Germany finally overcame their ban on swastikas in ww2 games, so Wolfenstein and any other game can now show historically accurate symbols and avoid making up some fake, cartoon version of the still recognisable thing. As long as the ideology is not praised, it is acceptable. Showing some graffity is no statement whatsoever in my book, so this should also be acceptable everywhere. So I would also disagree with the notion that this isn't censorship. Declaring words to be taboo, just having n-word and seemingly hard-r word as their less offensive but seemingly still taboo replacements without any use of context is imho perfect example of censorship. It does not have to be governed, it only requires societies, or parts of it pushing hard enough that kinda everyones feels forced to oblige.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Found some secret footage from IGN HQ

 

[lughnasadh123]

Normally I'd be the first to question interpretations of stuff but after looking at the picture it's looking a bit iffy. Way too on the nose to be coincidental.

 

[{insert code here}]

FFS, how do these people function in the real world. Oh that's right, they don't.

 

[mckmas8808]

I just got what this means. haha. I listen to nxtgen720's podcast at times, he uses that phrase.

imo everyone should quit using every variation of the word, then eventually it'll be so rare it'll be like calling someone a harlot.

Now you've gone too far!

This would not have been removed 20 years ago. These are the times we live in. Something completely random and can offend the sensitivities of a certain group of people.

I understand why they're removing it. It's not worth the trouble of dealing with the nonsense for potentially months or years to come. Doesn't make it any less clown world worthy.

We weren't updating our games 20 years ago.

 

[ssringo]

If it's an intentional reference I'm inclined to believe it's a reference to "hard" rated-R movies (due to graphic/violent/sexual content and not language). Apparently the 'R' shop (R=first letter of the owner's name) is where you can get some sexy outfits.

 

[Kilau]

WE GOT THEM!

 

[Saber]

Kinda silly to pretend you haven’t read the thread.

C'mon guy, don't be this shit with me.
Theres a big ass "HARD" grafitti there. It's mentally disturbed people that dig out something and tried to associate with the other small letter from a shop(2 different things btw). If there weren't people digging this shit no one would bat an eye, probably because no one see racism in a single graffiti. Pretty sure fellas here didn't even knew about this until read on the explanation in this thread.
Theres alot of hard grafittis in my country. If you put racist lens in your eyes of course you gonna see racism everywhere. Don't be like them.

 

[TonberrysKnife]

As someone that is black, THIS IS SUCH A FUCKING REACH. Even both words are stylized differently!!! PUSSY ASS SHIT, LEAVE THAT SHIT IN! Fucking White Savior complex is a DISEASE.

 

[Putonahappyface]

Wankers.

 

[violence]

I learned something.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Even if it was intentional, it wouldn't be "racist" to refer to a dumb internet meme of "hard R." It doesn't even give a particular take on the word, or pair it with a black caricature or something... just a bit of joke graffiti referring to edgy internet speak. Get over it, no one cares. How is it coherent at all that a game today can contain any level of violence or extreme content, but can't make a joke about edgy internet language?

 

[LordOfChaos]

I don't get it. Hard R? Is that a racial slur?

 

[MayauMiao]

What's next, saying "the N word" is racist?

George Carlin would be rolling in his grave.

 

[TintoConCasera]

 

[SmokedMeat]

Well that lasted two days.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

I don't even get why this is "news". It could have been changed and literally no one would have known about it. Is this just due to the prejudice against this game?

They should have left it in. I mean, we've gone 25 years hearing "so long, gay bowser" in Mario 64. This sort of thing is just a funny coincidence.

 

[Topher]

Sony found it during their review process and told the devs to censor it out, which the devs did.

If you don’t agree with the dictionary definition of censorship then I don’t know what else to say

Stop pretending this is Sony forcing Shift Up to remove something against their will. Shift Up has no issues with this change as the result was completely unintentional and inconsequential to anything in the game. That is not censorship.

So much for being uncensored.

 

[Gaiff]

Am I part of the problem??

I saw the screenshot before reading but immediately thought thats unfortunate.....or someone is being very clever.

I really wonder if a Korean dev would notice something like this.

 

[Fermbiz]

I legit thought it was Hard Retard Shop

 

[Kilau]

For folks still confused, let Mr. Dawson educate you.

 

[Zelduh]

The Hard R (Resetera) is absolutely losing their minds over this and they think it's intentional and are outraged and REEEEEEing about it

 

[Valt7786]

This was literally some man-bun wearing chode looking for absolutely anything to pick the game apart for. What a waste of time and internets.

 

[Complistic]

I legit thought it was Hard Retard Shop

Same. Don't care if they remove this dumb coincidence or not though.

 

[violence]

I thought HARDeR.

 

[BouncyFrag]

The comments…

 

[Portugeezer]

Sweet Baby Inc not detected.

Sony found it during their review process and told the devs to censor it out, which the devs did.

If you don’t agree with the dictionary definition of censorship then I don’t know what else to say

I don't think the devs would want something racist in their game. They would have removed it internally if one of the dev team had noticed. It's a silly mistake with copy pasted graffiti, nothing more.

 

[mansoor1980]

I thought HARDeR.

 

[graywolf323]

Stop pretending this is Sony forcing Shift Up to remove something against their will. Shift Up has no issues with this change as the result was completely unintentional and inconsequential to anything in the game. That is not censorship.

some people are looking for any excuse to ‘boycott’ a game just as much as the Ree crowd that they claim to hate, just two sides of the same coin

 

[Ma-Yuan]

Glad you can always play version 1.0 via disc

 

[Topher]

Well that lasted two days.

Read the articles. That is in response to the Japanese ratings board.

"Developer Shift Up has confirmed that PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade will not be censored in any region, including Japan. Japan was specifically mentioned because the country’s rating board CERO is known for being strict. Last year, CERO banned Dead Space remake because of its gore."

PS5 Exclusive Stellar Blade Won't Be Censored in Any Region - PlayStation LifeStyle

Developer Shift Up has confirmed that PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade will not be censored in any region, including Japan.

www.playstationlifestyle.net

Independently making changes to one's own work is not censorship.

 

[NickFire]

I think removing it is the right call. If I were a dev and included artwork that would be construed as racism without realizing it then I would certainly want to remove it too.

Rejecting censorship does not mean you must offend people needlessly.

 

[Tunned]

 

[Fbh]

Even the headline is misleading.
There is no art referencing racist language, there are 2 different assets that can be found in multiple places in the world and in this one location they happened to possibly reference a racial slur if you are a weird person obsessed with race and constantly looking for something to be offended by.

 

[Topher]

some people are looking for any excuse to ‘boycott’ a game just as much as the Ree crowd that they claim to hate, just two sides of the same coin

Pretty much. People are making themselves look silly.

 

[Danjin44]

People actively want to get "offended" over everthing for sake of...

 

[Saber]

Even the headline is misleading.
There is no art referencing racist language, there are 2 different assets that can be found in multiple places in the world and in this one location they happened to possibly reference a racial slur if you are a weird person obsessed with race and constantly looking for something to be offended by.

Yeah. The only way people know about this is by doing some hard investigation during the entire game, searching every detail in the hopes to find something, like IGN do.

 

[Zelduh]

The Hard R forum just locked their thread about it, that was record timing lmao

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Another day where I'm glad I'm not American.

 

[rhodesianshepard]

Nobody is claiming that there were racist intentions. They inadvertently put a racist slur in the game and now that they’ve been made aware of it, they’re changing it.

This is a total non-story, I can’t believe people are getting upset about it.

Both sides are getting upset. Overly offended liberals saying it's "intentional", when it obviously wasn't. And then you got genuine racists who are upset that unintentional racist slurs are being taken out of the game

BTW, I'm not defending Sweet Baby Inc, but this is the type of shit companies like them are hired for. It's not to rewrite, but to point out unintentional stuff that could be very offensive to certain demographics

 

[RiccochetJ]

I thought the whole "Hard R" thing was a well known term and I understand why they're removing it. However, I don't think it was intentional on the developers part. I think that this is pretty much a non-issue but boy is it going to generate outrage clicks and "engagement" on social media.

 

[Duchess]

Resetera is jumping on this, as more evidence of Sony backing "the disgusting game".

I'm not white; I'm mixed race, and have been subjected to certain amounts of racism in my life.

But this had to be explained to me. It seems that 99.999999% of people won't know what the issue is, either!

 

[StereoVsn]

As someone who lives in a "Hard R" state

Spoiler

Didn’t know about Hard R thing till today, but that map is hilarious.

 

[Xtib81]

Rejecting censorship does not mean you must offend people needlessly.

That's the thing, some people are offended by absolutely everything lmao.

 

[TransTrender]

I thought 'hard R' meant retard.
Regardless this is an incredible stretch and doesn't need to be removed.
People will see shit they want to see everywhere they look. Instead they should be seeing the four white walls of a padded room.