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[I’d like to disclose that I am a “Pillars of Eternity” backer as well, and the people who I’m quoting are backers identified by the “PoE Backer” badge in the official obsidian forums or left comments in the backer exclusive section on Kickstarter]

In today’s world of fast news, there isn’t always much time to look back and analyze an issue a little bit more deeply. As some of you may be aware, Obsidian Entertainment came under fire last week when someone on twitter took offense over a poem that was submitted by one of the backers as reward for having pledged $500 to the project.

“Firedorns Memorial” no more?

Obsidian’s response was patch 1.03, in this new version of the game the poem that caused so much controversy was removed as many had requested and in its place there was a new poem that was not that well received either.

But let’s go back a few days before patch 1.03 was released, during the weekend, heavy discussion about this controversy took place all over the internet, but the most invested people in this discussion were to be found in Obsidian Official Forums, I am referring of course to Obsidian fans and backers who are not only emotionally invested in their favorite game studio, they have also invested financially in the creation of Pillars of Eternity during their crowdfunding campaign.

“It seems like a double standard to demand a joke to be censored but murder and torture are given a free pass.”

“There is nothing agreeable about removing content from a game because of the easily offended. Nothing.”

“Even if it’s offensive or not, I find all the raging over it beign blown out of proportion.”

“I pray that Obsidian actually listens to the majority of backers on this and dont’ change the content. It seems that there’s a large group of people that are just looking for the next thing to be outraged about and I doubt they were planing on buying the game anyway.”

“Myself and other commentors simply don’t want Obsidian to bend over backwards to the perpetually offended.”

“Pillars of Eternity” had 73,986 backers who pledged $3,986,929 in total.

While it’s true that a few backers were supporting the idea of Obsidian removing the poem from the game, the majority of the backers that took place in the discussion were urging Obsidian to ignore this outrage campaign that was mostly taking place on twitter, many pointed out that the poem was no transphobic, or at best, open to interpretation, while others pointed out that some of those calling for censorship were bigots themselves.

After a few days Obsidian came out with patch 1.03, in the patch notes they explain that the poem had not been vetted, and it had to go through the vetting process just like everything else. In Obsidian forums the backer that created the poem said that Obsidian asked him if he wanted to change it and he said yes.

Many took this as Obsidian changing the poem only because the backer said so, disregarding the fact that they were under heavy pressure on social media over the weekend, even recently a new article came out absolving Obsidian of any guilt, and giving them a pass, saying that the backer was the one who ultimately chose to change the poem, but this is factually wrong, as long as they own the IP, the final choice has been and always will be in the hands of Obsidian, and the fans know this, that’s why many of them reacted with disgust when they saw Obsidian self-censoring their game because of social pressure.

“You caved in harder than the ending to NWN2”

“This is really disapointing and the last game I bought from Obsidian. I am sorry but I do not support censorship in any form”

“Shame on you for giving in and censoring the game. I thought you were better than that.”

“Due to censoring content entirely fitting to the game world, I will in the future suggest everyone to boycott your products. And I will also myself parteke in this boycott. I hope that you will see light in future, but as of now your practises aren’t good for the industry in the long run“

“Incredibily disappointed you succub to faux outrage. While you may not have written the joke, it was still in your power to proctect creative freedom. Instead you bowed to pressure and allowed self-censorship to, again, be the order of the day”

“I used to think Kickstarter would be a way for devs to get away from the nonsense of publisher deadlines and pressure, but it looks like the pressure just comes from a different source now, and you fold just as easily”

It could be said that this is not censorship because Obsidian decided internally to remove the content and they did it willingly, but when Larian Studios changed the cover of Divinity: Original Sin they also did it willingly, and as some have pointed out, at the end of the day this just sends the message that it’s OK to target game studios with blind accusations of transphobia (or any kind of bigotry), and in the same way attack anyone that tries to defend the developers, as we have seen with the hashtag #ShutTheFuckUpTotalBiscuit

Recently I received an email from Obsidian where they seem to understand their actions came at a heavy cost, they have alienated a lot of their fans to the point it might hurt their sales in the future, well at least we can hope they appeased the people who were offended and… oh, wait, nevermind.

Jack Davis
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround