This OP of mine originally started off as a rather slim and “shooting from the hip” kind of publication. However…As I was writing everything up on the fly and putting all the pieces together.
I soon realized that that I got something much bigger, more complex, and more important on my hands than I originally anticipated.
You see, the whole deal with Top Hat Studios and their recent public statement (which they made on 2021-01-01) about their (and Suzaku’s 2.5D) horror game “Sense” wasn’t just about setting the record straight (lies Vs the truth) and defending the product which they believe in (something of which you can also see them do in our previous “Sense” interview and Top Hat Studios interview).
No, because it was also about making a stand where Top Hat Studios said no to cancel culture, censorship, bullies, and haters. Because Top Hat Studios showed the whole world that they don’t cave in to demands of censorship (“Sense” will not be censored on the Nintendo Switch), nor that they accept any bullying and death threats towards their team.
So, my from point of view. Top Hat Studios might just have made not only this year’s most import statement in the video games industry, but one of the most important statements in the video game industry in the 2000s.
Because the day that Top Hat Studios made that statement, that was the day when Top Hat Studios also said yes to creative and artistic freedom, and no to forced censorship in the video games industry.
So, hopefully, because of Top Hat Studios public statement, they might have given other game developers and game publishers the courage to do and say what’s needed to be said and done. I for one hope so, because the more people that dare to speak-up about censorship, cancel culture, and SJW/PC madness in the current year, the better it is.
Because it’s about damn time that game studios and game publishers put their foot down and tell the SJW/PC crowd to fu** off! I for one have written and warned people about censorship and the SJW/PC camp for over six years time now via TGG (our site launched back in 2014)…
And looking back at what I’ve said and written from back then (2014) to the now (2021). I have to say that GamerGate has been right about pretty much everything which they warned Gamers about (censorship, corruption, SJW/PC madness, you name it).
So you can think and say what you want about GamerGate, but the part concerning their worries about censorship, cancel culture, and the SJW/PC agenda in the games industry was (and IS) 100% correct even in the current year (2021).
With that said. I also got one bone to pick with the mainstream gaming news media, as quite a few of them have lied, stayed silent, put out smoke screens, and even engaged in bullying throughout the whole “Top Hat Studios Inc and Sense Vs SJWs” aftermath.
So I’m going to jump straight into that matter right now, and right here. Well, right off the bat, from what I can tell. Big gaming news sites such as Kotaku, IGN, Gamespot, Polygon, PC Gamer has been silent as the grave about what went down with Top Hat Studios and “Sense” even though death and doxing threats were made against Top Hat Studios.
However, there was one particular gaming site that stood out from the crowd throughout the whole Top hat studios and “Sense” Vs the SJW camp aftermath, and that was “The Gamer”…At first I didn’t know what to make out of it, because I thought that “The Gamer” was some kind of Gaming version of “The Onion”, but that’s not the case…
You see, on the 5th of January (2021) “The Gamer” released an article called “Top Hat Studios And Cyberpunk Anime Game “Sense” – Anti-Censorship Or Viral Marketing?” (which was written by Cian Maher, lead features editor at TheGamer).
Well…I just couldn’t help to notice how very different the tone was in the case with Top Hat Studios and “Sense” Vs how the mainstream gaming media sounded when Naughty Dog got “harassed” during and after the release of “The Last of Us Part II”…
As a matter of fact, “The Gamer” more or less tried to spin it as if everything that happened with Top Hat Studios and “Sense” was nothing more than a cheap PR-trick:
“Top Hat Studios has stated that it will not censor Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story – although it looks like nobody even asked in the first place.”
“If Nintendo asked for Sense to be censored, you can guarantee it would have been. But Nintendo didn’t ask for it to be censored, and virtually nobody else did either. The only parties talking about censorship are Top Hat and the people it has riled up to buy a game that nobody, on either side, really cares about.” – The Gamer
Here’s the thing though, plenty of games have been censored before or after it’s release due to pressure from the SJW crowd in the past… (some games have even ended up not being released in the West at all, games such as “Omega Labyrinth Z“, and “Dead or Alive Xtreme 3“).
And let’s not forget how whole video game series such as “Senran Kagura” has been toned-down and even self-censored in the current year to please Sony…
Another example would be PQube and the lewd game developer Inti Creates upcoming lewd rail shooter “Gal Gun Returns“, which won’t be launching on the Playstation platform at all…It’s also worth pointing out that “Gal Gun Returns” was also on i’s way to the Xbox platform, but then the game was canceled at the last minute…
Well, I think you get the idea and my point. So I’m just going to let you guys and girls judge for yourselves what to believe in the case with Top Hat Studios and “Sense”. Me, I think it’s 100% legit.
I mean, just take me. I’m not even a game developer, and I’ve had my fair share of threats and whatnot since 2014 (including a crazy Canadian mother of three who wanted me dead because of my MEA article).
What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t take a whole lot to tick off the SJW/Feminazi crowd (just look at what happened in the case with the “Mandalorian” TV-series and Gina Carano…), so why in hell would Top Hat Studios have to fake it?
Just take my most recent adventures on Twitter which ended-up with us being suspended for 12-hours because of “harassment” and “violent conduct” (you can read the whole thing for yourselves here: https://archive.is/DD0Sg + https://archive.is/Onl3y).
Long story short, in the current year, the SJW/PC madness is worse than ever before (just check out the ResetEra/RetardEra forum, the news about Parler, and China’s on-going censorship war on the Internet), and the same can be said about censorship and cancel culture as well (Sweden, my nation, is now a full-blown 1984 state thanks to the new COVID-19 laws…).
That’s also why people need to wake the hell up, and fast! (just compare our most recent interview with Running with Scissors to our 2015 interview with Mark Kern, that’s how fast things have gone on the censorship front between then to the current year…).
With that said, what’s your take on this matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!
Source:
Top Hat Studios inc Twitter statement part 1
Top Hat Studios inc Twitter statement part 2
Top Hat Studios inc Twitter statement part 3
YongYea – (via Twitter)
Dark Titan Enterprises
The Gamer (Archive)
Nichegamer (via Twitter)
Nintendo Life (via Twitter)
Twinfinite
gonintendo (Via Twitter)
Vox (via Twitter)
N4G
***Disclaimer***
This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.
Credit:
Elton BorMes
Robin “V-Act” Ek
Editor in chief
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround
More by Robin Ek:
Tags: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story, Censorship, Cyberpunk, Indie games, Kickstarter, PC games, Sense, SJW, Suzaku, Top Hat Studios