June 2023 Content Update Discussion Containment Thread

[renda]

The last time a few frames were redrawn, they explained that implementing a toggle to put them back would be a lot more work to maintain than you'd think. They didn't do it then and won't do it now.

how would a toggle be so difficult to implement and that was back then surely they'll be able to do it now. either way making filia 18 is easier and better than redrawing frames and still keeping her 16 which basically solves nothing in the end. as for egrets Potemkin has a similar design and he also has a red arm band yet no one ever thought it was nazi related.

 

[HellCofer180]

how would a toggle be so difficult to implement and that was back then surely they'll be able to do it now. either way making filia 18 is easier and better than redrawing frames and still keeping her 16 which basically solves nothing in the end. as for egrets Potemkin has a similar design and he also has a red arm band yet no one ever thought it was nazi related.

I think missingno has a point (regarding the art compendilum). I don't much about implementing stuff development-wise but I'd imagine it be somewhat hard to implement it with frames and art stuff involved. Regardless of how difficult it is, It's worth implementing, that way everyone is happy and we can all let this drama blow over.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

I think I have an answer. No, it's not related to any specific agendas or any such thing. The real issue, I believe, is the state Skullgirls found itself in at this point.
Skullgirls was largely developed by two people, MikeZ and Alex Ahad. Mike handled the gameplay, Alex handled the art. Many other people joined later, but at its core, Skullgirls was the brainchild of those two, and Alex specifically, because he gave the game its distinct art style and atmosphere, as well as the story.

There are a few minor points in your post that I think have been addressed before in previous posts so I'll just skip over them, but I just want to address this point specifically. Alex is absolutely the original creator of Skullgirls, but I think saying Skullgirls was developed largely by Alex on the art side is giving other art developers way too little credit and conversely Alex way too much credit. In pre-alpha SG, I think you could say that Alex did most of the work, but you could still find pictures and videos of them and see how unpolished they are. In the current version of what people would consider Skullgirls, there are a lot more contributions from other artists, both in the concepting processes and in the execution processes. That's not to say that Alex was lazy, but it's impossible for one person to do that much work in a game with as large a scope as SG, especially since Alex had very little animation experience compared to the senior animators that were brought in.

Most of the senior artists who helped created SG are still working on the game, which is why even the new DLC developments after Alex left has maintained pretty closely the art and animation style to the one SG has always had.

tl;dr - Do not assume complex agendas in places where good old-fashioned corporate greed can explain everything.

Overall, I do agree that the decision was largely a business one to make the game more marketable, but I think it's too simplistic to just explain the whole thing as being a corporate decision. The devs aren't a monolith and I'm sure internally there are people who agree or disagree with the decision more than others. I've seen members of the current staff making comments specifically on the game contents and general views on social issues long before this change took place that make it clear that they most likely personally believe in the change. Of course, these kinda changes wouldn't have been ultimately approved unless the corporate overlords believed in its business case, but I find it difficult to believe there are not at least a faction of devs that pushed for this change for personal reasons and honestly believe it makes the game they help create better.

If it still pleases everyone (fans and the sensitive audience alike) in the long run, I don't think it matters wether or not it's in the game.

exactly just have the censored version on by default. bayo 3 had a toggle, no reason it wouldn't work for this game,

Like it was mentioned, the reason for the change was to make the game more marketable and remove (some) things that can be seen as problematic from the game completely. Imagine if the game is being played on stream by a big streamer, they turn on the toggle to unlock the hidden contents in the game, and a bunch of people see them. People aren't gonna care if the contents are hidden or not, they are gonna complain about it if they are offended by it, and these aren't mods or fanarts or whatever, they are actual, official contents that the devs put in the game. There's no way to defend that from the devs' position.

It's the same logic that you can't just make a game that's supposed to be for kids, then just slap a toggle on it that allow you to show nudity and graphic violence. If it's in the game, it's in the game. Like I have said, I don't agree with the change, but if the change is meant to do the thing they want it to achieve, making it toggleable makes no sense for them to do. Whether the toggle is easy or hard to implement is beside the point.

 

[HellCofer180]

Like it was mentioned, the reason for the change was to make the game more marketable and remove (some) things that can be seen as problematic from the game completely. Imagine if the game is being played on stream by a big streamer, they turn on the toggle to unlock the hidden contents in the game, and a bunch of people see them. People aren't gonna care if the contents are hidden or not, they are gonna complain about it if they are offended by it, and these aren't mods or fanarts or whatever, they are actual, official contents that the devs put in the game. There's no way to defend that from the devs' position.

It's the same logic that you can't just make a game that's supposed to be for kids, then just slap a toggle on it that allow you to show nudity and graphic violence. If it's in the game, it's in the game. Like I have said, I don't agree with the change, but if the change is meant to do the thing they want it to achieve, making it toggleable makes no sense for them to do. Whether the toggle is easy or hard to implement is beside the point.

Can't argue against that. Though others would want the toggle (and I support that), it be kind of redundant for the devs personally to add it if the goal was to censor things they see fit. It's kind of annoying to hear about the complaints from the fans (though they are fair, to be honest) since they tie the censors to "woke" agendas, ESG stuff, and whatnot. I don't want to believe the devs are doing this just to please the "modern audience", but the complaints have gotten me questioning the devs at worst. I am no die-hard fan that is part of the crowd, just a newcomer, but I can understand their complaints (some exaggerate the things I mentioned earlier). It's just that, in the grand scheme of things, not too much of the art content has been removed (aside from certain fan arts I now realized are my favorites, damn that's now come back to bite me. Jokes aside, some of the censored stuff are questionable by objective standards) and I don't want to say it's not a big deal but the censored stuff doesn't really matter in the long run. I mean no offense to the fans when I say that their outrage over the changes are exaggerated, to say the least. Overall, It's uncertain whether skullgirls is gonna pull through with this controversy or not but I'd say it still will.

 

[renda]

Like it was mentioned, the reason for the change was to make the game more marketable and remove (some) things that can be seen as problematic from the game completely. Imagine if the game is being played on stream by a big streamer, they turn on the toggle to unlock the hidden contents in the game, and a bunch of people see them. People aren't gonna care if the contents are hidden or not, they are gonna complain about it if they are offended by it, and these aren't mods or fanarts or whatever, they are actual, official contents that the devs put in the game. There's no way to defend that from the devs' position.

It's the same logic that you can't just make a game that's supposed to be for kids, then just slap a toggle on it that allow you to show nudity and graphic violence. If it's in the game, it's in the game. Like I have said, I don't agree with the change, but if the change is meant to do the thing they want it to achieve, making it toggleable makes no sense for them to do. Whether the toggle is easy or hard to implement is beside the point.

you're assuming people would be offended by the simple fact it's in the game and not that they are seeing it. filia still has panty shots so what hey did to her wont satisfy those types of people for long so they are gonna to keep changing her. as for bigbands story scenes absolutely no one would care if a alternate version existed in game.

It's kind of annoying to hear about the complaints from the fans (though they are fair, to be honest) since they tie the censors to "woke" agendas, ESG stuff, and whatnot. I don't want to believe the devs are doing this just to please the "modern audience", but the complaints have gotten me questioning the devs at worst.

when they are removing things like filias comb which no one ever complained about it makes sense to assume to they are trying to get "woke" points.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

It's kind of annoying to hear about the complaints from the fans (though they are fair, to be honest) since they tie the censors to "woke" agendas, ESG stuff, and whatnot. I don't want to believe the devs are doing this just to please the "modern audience", but the complaints have gotten me questioning the devs at worst. I am no die-hard fan that is part of the crowd, just a newcomer, but I can understand their complaints (some exaggerate the things I mentioned earlier). It's just that, in the grand scheme of things, not too much of the art content has been removed (aside from certain fan arts I now realized are my favorites, damn that's now come back to bite me. Jokes aside, some of the censored stuff are questionable by objective standards) and I don't want to say it's not a big deal but the censored stuff doesn't really matter in the long run. I mean no offense to the fans when I say that their outrage over the changes are exaggerated, to say the least. Overall, It's uncertain whether skullgirls is gonna pull through with this controversy or not but I'd say it still will.

Yeah I think the problem is that, while I think people have every right to be upset, a lot of the discourse just verge on hysteria, with too many people just popping off without even seeing the facts, or coming up with all sorts of conspiracy theories or outlandish takes. Doesn't really help their cases in any way.

you're assuming people would be offended by the simple fact it's in the game and not that they are seeing it. filia still has panty shots so what hey did to her wont satisfy those types of people for long so they are gonna to keep changing her. as for bigbands story scenes absolutely no one would care if a alternate version existed in game.

The point is that people would be seeing it if it's in the game. It's not about the people who have already bought the game, it's about people who are seeing the game on streams, advertisement, gameplay videos, etc. Refer to my previous post about streamers.

Like I said, I am sceptical of the effectiveness of this content update exactly because there are still so many "problematic" visuals in the game. Regardless of its merits, if the devs/company want to remove the contents so as to not associate the game with it, leaving them in the game even behind a toggle makes no sense.

when they are removing things like filias comb which no one ever complained about it makes sense to assume to they are trying to get "woke" points.

I have also questioned this and it has been pointed out to me that one of the most liked videos on Tiktok under the Skullgirl hashtag is about the comb. Yeah, it's pretty dumb. But it's Tiktok. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Kittens]

how do you explain the shantae series when shes the same age a filia and blatantly sexualised?

Shantae being underage was misinformation spread from an ex-developer, I think. Though the design doesn't help, Shantae is supposed to be a young adult.

The comb part got addressed already - it didn't exactly have any fans before, and it's a tiny piece of a couple of frames. If they're going to clean up the game a tad for its bigger franchise scope, might as well err on the safe side, even if that's exactly what we're arguing about.
Like, I've seen people call a game sexist because a grown ass woman gets a heart implant that just happens to come with a shirt that has cleavage. She has costumes and jiggle physics that could push that argument way more (though I really disagree with the whole thing), but that wasn't pointed out??? It's risky business to follow the audience's complaint + their solution and not just work on the first your own way.

 

[renda]

The point is that people would be seeing it if it's in the game. It's not about the people who have already bought the game, it's about people who are seeing the game on streams, advertisement, gameplay videos, etc.

simply have the censors on by default. "but the streamer might take them off" okay so how on earth are they gonna get around old gameplay content? no matter what anyone interested in the game is at risk of seeing the uncensored content. what if a streamer wants to stream sg right now and wants to look up past match ups or combo routes during stream?

you're talking about ads as if they couldn't just use censored footage for ads. speaking of ads the the current steam trailer has the uncensored version of filia in it lmao. them dissociating from past content is like activision blizzard trying to dissociate from the sexual abuse cases.

I have also questioned this and it has been pointed out to me that one of the most liked videos on Tiktok under the Skullgirl hashtag is about the comb. Yeah, it's pretty dumb. But it's Tiktok. I'll just leave it at that.

The comb part got addressed already - it didn't exactly have any fans before, and it's a tiny piece of a couple of frames. If they're going to clean up the game a tad for its bigger franchise scope, might as well err on the safe side, even if that's exactly what we're arguing about.

got a link? because all im seeing is a vid with 20k views and 2k likes which is not worth paying attention to at all. white people can have afros and they would need a afro comb to comb it. the founder of way forward said shantae was 16 but changed it years later.

Like, I've seen people call a game sexist because a grown ass woman gets a heart implant that just happens to come with a shirt that has cleavage. She has costumes and jiggle physics that could push that argument way more (though I really disagree with the whole thing), but that wasn't pointed out??? It's risky business to follow the audience's complaint + their solution and not just work on the first your own way.

korsica barley has any cleavage the shirt she gets focuses on the big ass heart transplant even when its practical they complain. when you focus too much on trying to appeal to everyone you end up appealing to no one with a different product then intended.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

simply have the censors on by default. "but the streamer might take them off" okay so how on earth are they gonna get around old gameplay content? no matter what anyone interested in the game is at risk of seeing the uncensored content. what if a streamer wants to stream sg right now and wants to look up past match ups or combo routes during stream?

you're talking about ads as if they couldn't just use censored footage for ads. speaking of ads the the current steam trailer has the uncensored version of filia in it lmao. them dissociating from past content is like activision blizzard trying to dissociate from the sexual abuse cases.

There's a difference between "these footage are from old versions of the game that we no longer endorse" and "these footages are from the current version of the game that we just hid behind a toggle lul".

Like I said, regardless of my own scepticism on the effectiveness of the content change, it's quite simple to see why from the devs' perspective, they want to remove the contents from the currently distributed version of the game completely. As for official footages or images that contain pre-censorship designs, they would likely get to them soon enough. They have been doing censorship passes for years before this update - the Egret armbands were censored since the original release of SGM in 2017 - and more recently there have been minor censorship passes in almost every major updates since the Annie pre-release; this patch is simply just the biggest one. It most likely will not be the last.

got a link? because all im seeing is a vid with 20k views and 2k likes which is not worth paying attention to at all. white people can have afros and they would need a afro comb to comb it.

There was one with at least 70k likes last I saw but I can't find it anymore. Maybe the poster deleted it.

Again, I don't disagree with you about the lack of merits of the comb removal. Most of the actual players who are black I have asked don't see a problem with it. But it's big with the Tiktok kids and that's the people they are trying to sell the game to these days. They literally just made a Tiktok official account.

 

[Sun]

man what a truly messy situation

 

[HellCofer180]

man what a truly messy situation

And the devs are literally making it worse with their newest announcements on twitter. They shouldn't keep ignoring the controversy, they should address it as soon as they can. This is really getting on my nerves for me to have to hear about more complaints about this and the fact the devs haven't done anything to alleviate this issue. Either they do something about it or this whole hysteric charade is gonna continue ruining Skullgirls' reputation, and no one that's isn't currently complaining is gonna want to deal with that.

 

[Nuuance]

More universal/'proper' appeal:

A logistic look at things pretty much tells the current story of SG.

This game has been more than visible & lewd discussions settled a while ago. There isn't going to be any ridiculously new exposure higher than whats out now. It's been to evo quite a few times, trended tons...no new eyes are seeing this after generous repeated 15min of fame. For example, rule of thumb in media is 5-15% of engagement are active participants; average twitter turnout is 2-3k likes & it falls right in line w/player count. Viral posts are more volatile, but for many in the 8k+ range, not even .1-1% of those posts are adding to regular players. Increased Buyers/Mobile? I can't know that. All I know is it's not adding to consistent playerbase. Media/press isn't the issue. Like trying to rebrand Dead or Alive or Beanie Babies, unless you change the *entire* way the IPs handled (Strive/SF6) no one new cares because its image has already been solidified in the public consciousness. I mean even just saying 'Skullgirls' already is an odd title to the uninitiated. Will the title change next to SkullFighters...?

Subtraction of Lewdness isnt going to change that anymore than removing panty shots from High School of the Dead to make it more marketable. Sex sells despite how politically correct things are these days. SF6 Cammy/Chun-li anyone? Have we seen the memes or mods? The lewdness is a part of the entire charm & leaning *into* it. Not to mention gobs of art. To pretend it's not is a little naive regardless of how much we've liked gameplay. But even that's suffered from stagnation so we wait for a patch. In all honesty a huge progressive patch should be the focus with more features.

I forget the phrase but a while back I hear something along the lines of 'peoples explanation for frustration might not make sense, but comes from somewhere that does.' Ignoring the political arguments, a lot of people dont like the change strongly enough to review bomb SG. That clearly points to something bigger than simply 'woke go broke.' While much of the discourse isnt being articulated or is exaggerated, I don't think it's wise to ignore it all as baseless.

a toggle's perfect, but I guess we've already talked about why that wouldnt make sense with the apparent direction FC's claiming. Sg clearly isn't OF, but feels like onlyfans trying to go straight after making all its money then disavowing the stuff the helped them even make it. understandable~but disingenuous. Might not be the intention but comes off as using a large amount of the playerbase then discarding them. If FutureClub or whoever wants to drastically increase retention or whatever they're going for, we need SG2 or a 3rd Encore update with real features. But no one's talking about that. Everything's always shelved; Feature confirmations MIA over a year ago, confused DLC still needing retooling, legacy characters largely in need of fresh updates, Netplay in need of updates, old solo content, messy public feedback process where 'No' holds more power than a 'yes.' Lewdness is the least of FC's problems rn

 

[RNBBonetti]

This game is beautifully animated and the art is what drew me into the game. I had not played fighting games before and what kept my interest in the game for the last decade was the art style. I truly appreciate the hard work put in and have enjoyed playing the game these last ten years.

I argue that an art piece should not be changed to conform to modern sensibilities. Art is always a period piece and changing the art changes the interpretation of the piece. With that in mind, let's review the reasons behind the changes according to MightyZug's post.

Most people today would ague that the Nazi party was evil. The in game depiction of the Renoir family and the Black Egrets drew parallels to the imagery of the Nazi party while avoiding all its controversy. The real world hate groups argument in MightyZug's post would only hold weight if the Renoir family or the Black Egrets were depicted performing hate crimes. I have yet to see anything closely resembling something the Nazi's did in any official Renoir family or Black Egrets art. The message that is depicted through the imagery looses it's potency with the removal of the arm bands. It waters down the original message of what Parasoul stands for and takes away from her character. You might not like the message that the artists were going for when they originally created the character, but that is what Parasoul and the Egrets are known for. To change that now is to take away from the history of the character.

The sexualization of a 16 year old character in this game is an interesting bit of history and provides cultural perspective of the 2010s. This piece showcases how the artist viewed their character and world at the time. Stipulations could be made about the artists psyche but that is not the point here. The fact that this piece of art stayed in the game so long and is now being removed sends a powerful message. Today's audiences rightfully called this piece out and deemed it an unacceptable message to have in Skullgirls presently. I highly agree with the removal of this piece of art from the game. It does not change how Filia is viewed in the game and leaves her character completely intact. Unlike Parasoul, the removal of this piece of art does not change the message Skullgirls is sending.

As for the other changes implemented to tone down the sexualization of your characters, I think it is a huge miss. The color pallets have been established for a decade and changing the color of the characters panties detracts from the original message of that color pallet. It changes the message that Skullgirls is sending with their view of panty shots and detracts from the original artists intent. You may not have liked having a character with striped panties but that is what was chosen for that color pallet and it should remain intact. The same message from a decade ago should still be viewable today.

Going back further with the panty issue, the changing of the artwork to cover the defeated characters ass was hit and miss. I would agree with the changes made to Filia's defeat pose due to her depicted age but Cerebella's artwork should have been left intact. The artists decided to draw Cerebella with certain panty shots and that depiction of the character should have remained intact. I personally think it fits Skullgirls aesthetic well by paying homage to 1920s female circus performers and how their roles changed during that decade. If Cerebella's defeat and Cerecopter pose had remained intact, it would have bolstered her character as a performer more as putting on a show is what she does.

The removal of Big Band's major story element artwork is criminal. It removes so much of the character's story and motivations; despite the dark theme it should not be shied away from. Police brutality was not something on the forefront of people's minds a decade ago, but removing this artwork from the game cheapens Band's story, character and the message Skullgirls sends. Additionally, how crazy is it that this game has a character that was beaten to death by the police as a black man, came back and is cleaning up the streets his way. By removing this art it washes something away that audiences would appreciate from a piece of its time. Big Band's story is way ahead of it's time and I would argue culturally significant today. Don't remove a harsh message because it is unpleasant.

As for other cultural issues, ask why they are being removed. Is it for modern sensibilities or do they clash with the message Skullgirls is trying to send? The removal of a hair pick to better reflect Filia's character is an excellent choice. However, if that decision to remove the pick was because for cultural appropriation reasons I would argue you missed the point. Artwork in the game is reflective of the 2010s and should remain that way.

In closing, this game's rich history over the past decade, while not always the prettiest, should not be shied away from but rather embraced. There are some excellent and some unsavory parts of this game, and as a piece of art they should remain for future generations to explore and learn from. By removing the unsavory parts of this game you prevent future generations from learning from your mistakes and remove cultural references and ideas that were relevant in the 2010s.

Speaking honestly, release Skullgirls 3rd Encore. Revert 2nd Encore to it's previous status and let it sit in out game libraries as a piece of cultural history. Please don't remove what is unsavory because it makes you uncomfortable. People love this game because of the message is sends, even if it is a bit edgy and raunchy. Embrace your past's mistakes, move on and your audience will understand that the work you made was a product of its time.

 

[renda]

The sexualization of a 16 year old character in this game is an interesting bit of history and provides cultural perspective of the 2010s. This piece showcases how the artist viewed their character and world at the time. Stipulations could be made about the artists psyche but that is not the point here. The fact that this piece of art stayed in the game so long and is now being removed sends a powerful message.

but it's still in the game they'd have to remove all the panty shots to make that message have substance and you are assuming filia being 16 is import if they change the characters age and revert the visual changes no one would complain about the morality of how the character is depicted since the only moral complaint is that she his 16. the comb removal shows how much power they are willing to give to these people if a 20kviewd vid on is all it takes to get stuff changed they are gonna end up changing the game completely to the point they'll basically be making a new game. egrets complaints should be ignored until people start complaining about potemkin because it's the same as indiana jones having a nazis in the film.

Like I said, regardless of my own scepticism on the effectiveness of the content change, it's quite simple to see why from the devs' perspective, they want to remove the contents from the currently distributed version of the game completely. As for official footages or images that contain pre-censorship designs, they would likely get to them soon enough. They have been doing censorship passes for years before this update - the Egret armbands were censored since the original release of SGM in 2017 - and more recently there have been minor censorship passes in almost every major updates since the Annie pre-release; this patch is simply just the biggest one. It most likely will not be the last.

i just believe none of these people are complaining about it being in the game it's more so they just don't want to see it, regardless they still should be ignored. the same thing happens with anime people complain about anime having fanservice and instead watching non fanservice anime they continue read/watch the fan service anime.

the mobile game and 2nd encore are 2 different games. if they wanted to censor sg mobile then that's fine but 2nd encore shouldn't be censored. if censorship for 2nd encore was always the plan after sg mobile released then they should've said so instead of getting people hyped up over annie and releasing a character pass people can't refund.

There was one with at least 70k likes last I saw but I can't find it anymore. Maybe the poster deleted it.

Again, I don't disagree with you about the lack of merits of the comb removal. Most of the actual players who are black I have asked don't see a problem with it. But it's big with the Tiktok kids and that's the people they are trying to sell the game to these days. They literally just made a Tiktok official account.

that's still nothing as far as tiktok traction goes and the fact the vid isn't up shows how using a one off vid as a reason to makes changes is dumb. these are the same type of people that harass artist and 100k likes for drawing miles morales with lighter skin due to the lighting around him even though the movie does the same thing.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

Addressing this point in general, because I've seen a lot of people proposing the idea of ageing up Filia to 18. While I get where people are coming from, it's absolutely the worst thing that they could possibly do about this issue.

Filia is canonically 16 and was designed with the "sexy schoolgirl" trope in mind. In the current social climate, that makes her pretty dicey. However; simply retconning her to be 18 or some other "legal age" will just be taken by the community and the public at large that the devs are giving carte blanche to people to make lewd art of her. You can already imagine the ways that gaming "journalists" will frame it.

"Skullgirls developer changing child character's age to 18 to allow pornographic fanart"

Yeah, not a very good look. Even if the devs have good intentions in mind, that's the way people will take it. Not to mention that it will absolutely drive a flood of lewd art of her once the change is made, because "it's okay to do that now". I really don't think that's the type of hype the devs are looking for, especially on the tail of this Content Update.

To give context, Alex Ahad designed Filia and most of the Skullgirls characters when he was an edgy teenager in middle/high school. He worked on SG for years since, and while he grew from an edgy teen into an edgy adult, the original designs of those characters stayed mostly intact due to the lore that he was developing. If someone could have gone back in time and told him that this was gonna cause problems 2 decades into the future and he should have made her 18 or older canonically, could he have? Probably, but hindsight is always 20:20. The kind of social climate back in those days were just different, for the same reasons that we had characters designed with explicit Nazi symbolism and other "problematic" visual aspects to modern sensibilities, some of which were addressed in this update.

The fact of the matter is: she is a 16 year old character. Simply changing a number is not gonna undo that, and without some good lore development to back it up (e.g. progressing the timeline of the story in order for the characters to age in a sequel), it would be perceived as a transparent move in order to skirt around the issue of her design. A decision like that will definitely cause more harm than good; I can say with 100% certainty. There is a reason the internet makes fun of the "This character looks like a toddler but is actually a 300 year old demon" trope.

On a side note, them deciding to hide the ages of the characters in the character bios was a bad decision as well, imo, but that's another topic and I've already given my thought about that previously on this forum.

 

[Will]

If FutureClub or whoever wants to drastically increase retention or whatever they're going for, we need SG2 or a 3rd Encore update with real features. But no one's talking about that. Everything's always shelved; Feature confirmations MIA over a year ago, confused DLC still needing retooling, legacy characters largely in need of fresh updates, Netplay in need of updates, old solo content, messy public feedback process where 'No' holds more power than a 'yes.' Lewdness is the least of FC's problems rn

Seriously, can we actually talk about this please. Not to rude or insensitive to the people who are upset over the changes since their feeling are completely valid but I'm going to be real, idgaf about this whole content drama going on. All I'll say is that I can see what the devs were going for with the removal of certain content. However, I do agree that some of the changes that were made are uncessary (Censorship of Big Band beatdown scene, Soviet announcer removal, Removal of Filias burst animation hair pick) and while its probably better for me not be on the neutral / unbiased side of things, I can also see why alot people are upset about the changes. I personally don't agree with review bombing the game because if anything that can potentially drive new players away from an already niche game within a niche genre of gaming which is not a good thing but I get why people are doing it. That being said, what I really care about is the longevity of the game. Like Nuuance said, this game needs more updates if we really want to keep player retention and potentially bring in even more players. DLC is hype don't get me wrong and I really am grateful to the devs for putting in so much love and work into the new characters but I'm going to be honest, I feel like we're going to need more than that. Imo, we need a Strive level update where every character on the roaster either gets some sort of meaningful change to make them better overall / more interesting to play (e.x. Removal of health drain for Fukua or changing the way shadows work, Giving Annie an install gauge instead of it draining meter etc.) or new tools / mechanics to play around with in general. Online lobbies is another big one imo. I don't know about everyone else but compared to other games like Strive, Blazeblue, SF6 hell even DNF, Skullgirls online lobbies are BORING and online is just barebones overall. No ranked mode, quick match is kind of garbage to use, can't use training mode while searching matches, no sort of character customization or avatars etc. Then we have GGST or any of the other games I mentioned previously where they have pretty much have all of what I mentioned and more. I'm not saying those games are perfect by any means but there's no denying that when it comes to the online experience, those games blow Skullgirls out of the water and its not even close. I could go on and I'd like to make a more detailed list of the changes I'd like to see in SG but I'm pretty sure you get the point by now. This game needs more meaningful updates that will make the game a more fun and interesting experience overall and bring in new players. This is especially the case when you consider the games SG has to compete with: SF6, Tekken 8, MK1, Strive. I'm not saying this game is gonna die anytime soon because trust me, if theres one thing SG has proven its that it can withstand the test of time and overcome adversity but there's no denying that we're getting left in the dust when it comes to updates and getting content that actually matters in the long run. But thats just my 2 cents so feel free to share your opinions or disagree as you see fit. Honestly, I just want to move on from this drama and talk about things that actually matter because frankly, I don't care.

 

[Nerio]

I personally don't agree with review bombing the game because if anything that can potentially drive new players away from an already niche game within a niche genre of gaming which is not a good thing but I get why people are doing it.

Usually, I'm against review bombing because usually, it's done for reasons completely unrelated to the game itself. The reasons lie, more often than not, in some real-life controversy.
However, I think this is the case where reviews are justified. The content was edited and straight-up cut, including specific things people paid for separately, such as art books, voice packs, etc. Customers are right to be mad about it, just like they were right to be mad about Warcraft 3 getting removed from everyone's accounts and replaced with a vastly inferior hackjob that was Reforged. This situation is not as bad, of course, but nevertheless scummy. Future Club should at least offer refunds to those who want them, or an option to download the artbooks and the game unchanged. It would be the only decent way to resolve this situation.

Also, regarding SG2, I'm sometimes asking myself not if they should, but if they could.

 

[fancytickler]

Addressing this point in general, because I've seen a lot of people proposing the idea of ageing up Filia to 18. While I get where people are coming from, it's absolutely the worst thing that they could possibly do about this issue.

Filia is canonically 16 and was designed with the "sexy schoolgirl" trope in mind. In the current social climate, that makes her pretty dicey. However; simply retconning her to be 18 or some other "legal age" will just be taken by the community and the public at large that the devs are giving carte blanche to people to make lewd art of her. You can already imagine the ways that gaming "journalists" will frame it.

"Skullgirls developer changing child character's age to 18 to allow pornographic fanart"

Yeah, not a very good look. Even if the devs have good intentions in mind, that's the way people will take it. Not to mention that it will absolutely drive a flood of lewd art of her once the change is made, because "it's okay to do that now". I really don't think that's the type of hype the devs are looking for, especially on the tail of this Content Update.

To give context, Alex Ahad designed Filia and most of the Skullgirls characters when he was an edgy teenager in middle/high school. He worked on SG for years since, and while he grew from an edgy teen into an edgy adult, the original designs of those characters stayed mostly intact due to the lore that he was developing. If someone could have gone back in time and told him that this was gonna cause problems 2 decades into the future and he should have made her 18 or older canonically, could he have? Probably, but hindsight is always 20:20. The kind of social climate back in those days were just different, for the same reasons that we had characters designed with explicit Nazi symbolism and other "problematic" visual aspects to modern sensibilities, some of which were addressed in this update.

The fact of the matter is: she is a 16 year old character. Simply changing a number is not gonna undo that, and without some good lore development to back it up (e.g. progressing the timeline of the story in order for the characters to age in a sequel), it would be perceived as a transparent move in order to skirt around the issue of her design. A decision like that will definitely cause more harm than good; I can say with 100% certainty. There is a reason the internet makes fun of the "This character looks like a toddler but is actually a 300 year old demon" trope.

On a side note, them deciding to hide the ages of the characters in the character bios was a bad decision as well, imo, but that's another topic and I've already given my thought about that previously on this forum.

Respectfully though, I think that's what makes the situation such a huge catch-22. I can understand the devs wanting to distance themselves from fetishizing schoolgirls, but that's pretty deeply baked into the game, even as it is now.

Because the content edits are honestly very small and I don't see how they keep Filia from being sexualized? They tone things down, sure, try to keep assault scenes from looking like pinups, but the character in design, animation.... just about everything is transparently horny.

So I think people are talking about this update strictly in relation to what came before. But honestly, if someone booted up the current version of the game completely blind, would they think that the devs disapprove of sexualizing schoolgirls? It's a pun in the name. The panty shots have been made less glaring but are still all over the place. Jiggle physics go far beyond what's realistic. People have just been playing the game for so many years I think they've become desensitized to it. It's gonna be hard to claim disapproval of sexualizing the character while selling... this.

Which is why the changes feel like a weird half-step. The devs have put countless hours into the animations, and it's just not realistic to redesign or completely reanimate the main character. But that means there's no getting around how the animations treat her. If anything, I feel like the changes are going to make some long-time players feel a bit less guilty, but will do nothing to change the first impression people get when they see the game. At least aging her to 18 will make the game itself come off a bit better. Because people rightfully make fun of the 1000-year toddler trope, but I don't think anyone ever makes jokes like "Sure, this character is clearly drawn to look 16 but is actually 18." At the level of stylization the game has, there wouldn't be any noticeable difference in how she'd be drawn.

 

[renda]

Addressing this point in general, because I've seen a lot of people proposing the idea of ageing up Filia to 18. While I get where people are coming from, it's absolutely the worst thing that they could possibly do about this issue.

Filia is canonically 16 and was designed with the "sexy schoolgirl" trope in mind. In the current social climate, that makes her pretty dicey. However; simply retconning her to be 18 or some other "legal age" will just be taken by the community and the public at large that the devs are giving carte blanche to people to make lewd art of her. You can already imagine the ways that gaming "journalists" will frame it.

"Skullgirls developer changing child character's age to 18 to allow pornographic fanart"

first of all it's likely no one would make a article like that and if they did it'd get no traction, be serious who's gonna make a acritical title like that? kotaku? they'd just get laughed at like they always do. the devs already gave the world "permission" to draw lewds of her by designing her the way she is and allowing zone to help with the games development AFTER her made porn of her that went somewhat viral, giving him a back ground cameo and a squiggly palate, that will forever be cemented into the image of skullgirls. changing the age isn't gonna cause people think the devs are giving the artist the go ahead because the devs have already given them to go ahead because the design and zones involvement, there's no way to undo that. Shantae was stated to be 16 multiple times by the creator of the ip and founder of the company they back tracked and blamed the intern and that was that no article no nothing.

Yeah, not a very good look. Even if the devs have good intentions in mind, that's the way people will take it. Not to mention that it will absolutely drive a flood of lewd art of her once the change is made, because "it's okay to do that now". I really don't think that's the type of hype the devs are looking for, especially on the tail of this Content Update.

people are already drawing lewds of her because of this news also who cares about lewd fan art. earlier you said ""and these aren't mods or fanarts or whatever, they are actual, official contents that the devs put in the game. There's no way to defend that from the devs position."" as if to say they won't have to defend fanart which they don't but now all of a sudden it's important that lewd fan art doesn't get created? it was okay to do before hence zone and it's okay to do it now regardless of canon age, artist usually have a all chars are 18 disclaimer anyway. what's the current message people are getting now? "it's okay to sexualise a 16 year old as along she has black panties?" because the game still has a 16 year old that is sexualized at the end of the day.

The fact of the matter is: she is a 16 year old character. Simply changing a number is not gonna undo that, and without some good lore development to back it up (e.g. progressing the timeline of the story in order for the characters to age in a sequel), it would be perceived as a transparent move in order to skirt around the issue of her design. A decision like that will definitely cause more harm than good; I can say with 100% certainty. There is a reason the internet makes fun of the "This character looks like a toddler but is actually a 300 year old demon" trope.

On a side note, them deciding to hide the ages of the characters in the character bios was a bad decision as well, imo, but that's another topic and I've already given my thought about that previously on this forum.

it worked for Shantae no reason it wouldn't work for filia. why are you 100% sure it would be the absolute worst for sg when Shantae did the same thing with no problems.

as for lore I don't see how that would be effected much, retconning filia and carol to be in the 6th form of their school would work perfectly because she'd have to be 17 or 18 to be in her last years of 6th form and she'd still be going to the same school wearing the same type of uniform.

the " 300 year loli demon" is a false equivalency. filias body doesn't look child like at all where as a loli body does look child like. if gainax retconned yoko litners episode 1 age from 14 to 18 do you really believe anyone would say "they're pulling the 300 loli demon trope to justify the sexualisation"?

 

[Chrono_Tata]

Honestly, I just want to move on from this drama and talk about things that actually matter because frankly, I don't care.

I mean, there is no reason you need to engage in the drama lol. At least here, the discussion is contained in one thread. You're free to ignore it and just check and reply to other unrelated discussions on the game.

Respectfully though, I think that's what makes the situation such a huge catch-22.

That's my point. There is no good way to address this. But there are certainly bad ways to do it, which they should avoid. Unlike a Catch-22, the options are not binary.

first of all it's likely no one would make a article like that and if they did it'd get no traction, be serious who's gonna make a acritical title like that? kotaku? they'd just get laughed at like they always do.

If you actually take a peek outside of the echo chamber, you'd find out that, yeah, people actually do care about it. I think Kotaku is as much of a hack site as you probably do, but unfortunately people do listen to them. Whether they are right or not is practically irrelevant. It's bad publicity for the game, and avoiding bad publicity is the whole reason for this Content Update in the first place.

the devs already gave the world "permission" to draw lewds of her by designing her the way she is and allowing zone to help with the games development AFTER her made porn of her that went somewhat viral, giving him a back ground cameo and a squiggly palate, that will forever be cemented into the image of skullgirls. changing the age isn't gonna cause people think the devs are giving the artist the go ahead because the devs have already given them to go ahead because the design and zones involvement, there's no way to undo that.

And the devs are trying to distance themselves away from these past decisions. Obviously, you can't control what happens in the past or outside the game in fanwork, but they are making changes in areas that they could control.

Shantae was stated to be 16 multiple times by the creator of the ip and founder of the company they back tracked and blamed the intern and that was that no article no nothing.

That is absolutely different to this case where Filia's age has been stated in official materials for a long time. Devs didn't just say it out of the blue in a random post somewhere. In Shantae's case, there is no retconning because there was never any official canon for it.

people are already drawing lewds of her because of this news also who cares about lewd fan art. earlier you said ""and these aren't mods or fanarts or whatever, they are actual, official contents that the devs put in the game. There's no way to defend that from the devs position."" as if to say they won't have to defend fanart which they don't but now all of a sudden it's important that lewd fan art doesn't get created?

Seems like you are conflating 2 completely different points. So let me try to simplify it:

1) Devs know that Filia is well-known to be a 16-year-old character, and they are trying to reduce sexy images of her in currently distributed official materials (this is a previous point I was making in the line you quoted from a different post)
2) An attempt to age up Filia, regardless of the intention, would be seen by the public as the devs giving the green light for people to sexualise her (this is a different point and is the one we're talking about)

 

[Will]

I mean, there is no reason you need to engage in the drama lol. At least here, the discussion is contained in one thread. You're free to ignore it and just check and reply to other unrelated discussions on the game

Touche. I mainly just wanted to talk about what Nuuance mentioned with content updates while just quickly stating how I felt about the whole situation without getting involved too much. Unfortunately, nobody is really talking about anything but the content update so its kinda hard to shift the topic to something more meaningful. Doesn't really seem like people care too much about what I have to say which is why I don't even bother half the time but even still, figured I might as well give it a shot and give my opinion anyways.

 

[Nuuance]

1) Devs know that Filia is well-known to be a 16-year-old character, and they are trying to reduce sexy images of her in currently distributed official materials (this is a previous point I was making in the line you quoted from a different post)
2) An attempt to age up Filia, regardless of the intention, would be seen by the public as the devs giving the green light for people to sexualise her (this is a different point and is the one we're talking about)

changing her to appropriate age I think is a tad over-analyzed. Art & lewd art is still out there. Will we take it all down? What about the large segment unaware of the lore and just wanted to make hot art? Or people who wanna make art in the future. Recoloring panties still leaves suggestive animations, voicework & original problem, forcing everyone to now be silent when talking about filia. Looking at overall vision of Alex & common sense in general, I really doubt an age change goes against anything. Just make her 18 & be done with it -- it's a fictional property. No loli scenario, she's actually a fitting age now. Makes more sense than taking artist's time revisiting artwork & taking away from other tasks. If people talk, it's because they want to be snide. Idk it's just unfortunate seeing how a once-resolved issue has been kicked up again. Changing any part of the story or art which we saw as canon is no different than changing age. An established part of the game now different. Why do they get to change band getting beat up as a robocop reference, mixing race into it (which no black person i know was upset about including myself), but not an age. it's confusing. edit: Either way I get it. Whatever's best for the game. I just think people are smart enough to understand it was an oversight and the game's been treated in good faith for a long time. Feel like that translates without saying anything but I might be overoptimistic.

Funny part is I had zero clue about any of these details until this whole thing...I just enjoyed the game.

EDIT, credit to Duckator: Didnt see this but apparently in first blog post, Alex writes 'Some people think that I made the characters to pander to a fan service-craving audience. However, in my mind you can't really please anyone but yourself, so I start there and figure there are bound to be people with similar tastes. So really I'm doing what I want, and people are welcome to come along for the ride if they'd like to.'

Not everything is made for everyone. Same with Elden Ring & difficulty. And that's ok. But twisting a focused IP into a 'wider appeal' despite being in the wild for 10 years is silly. If certain people dont like sexualised content, that's them.

 

[renda]

I mean, there is no reason you need to engage in the drama lol. At least here, the discussion is contained in one thread. You're free to ignore it and just check and reply to other unrelated discussions on the game.


That's my point. There is no good way to address this. But there are certainly bad ways to do it, which they should avoid. Unlike a Catch-22, the options are not binary.


If you actually take a peek outside of the echo chamber, you'd find out that, yeah, people actually do care about it. I think Kotaku is as much of a hack site as you probably do, but unfortunately people do listen to them. Whether they are right or not is practically irrelevant. It's bad publicity for the game, and avoiding bad publicity is the whole reason for this Content Update in the first place.


And the devs are trying to distance themselves away from these past decisions. Obviously, you can't control what happens in the past or outside the game in fanwork, but they are making changes in areas that they could control.


That is absolutely different to this case where Filia's age has been stated in official materials for a long time. Devs didn't just say it out of the blue in a random post somewhere. In Shantae's case, there is no retconning because there was never any official canon for it.


Seems like you are conflating 2 completely different points. So let me try to simplify it:

you know damn well it not being in game doesn't mean anything as long as the dev said it and it wasn't a out of the blue one off, they stated it multiple times because they were asked.

people did not know filia as a sexualised 16 year old. she was known as the sexualised mascot for the game her age had no link to her character or appeal it wasn't until they changed the sprite and made it about her age now you've got people calling her sprite cp tell me how that's better then just having her be 18.

not sure how you are gonna talk about echo chambers when you're bringing up imaginary tiktok videos. should we say good bye peacocks cigar if someone complains about peacock being a child while smoking and gets 70k likes on tiktok. you are completely ignoring the fans that helped get sg to where it is and prioritising people that only want to grand stand.

1) Devs know that Filia is well-known to be a 16-year-old character, and they are trying to reduce sexy images of her in currently distributed official materials (this is a previous point I was making in the line you quoted from a different post)
2) An attempt to age up Filia, regardless of the intention, would be seen by the public as the devs giving the green light for people to sexualise her (this is a different point and is the one we're talking about)

1) she's well know to be a 16 year old because you brought it to attention. people would accept the change of her age since she will likely always be sexualised unless you plan redesign her and her moves visually she'll always be seen as a sexualised character with sexy images in game. covering her panty's doesn't make her not sexy its just makes less sexy still sexy since her design was made to be eye candy. you turn on the toggle in bayo 3 and she still sexy even with no cleavage because she design to be sexy regardless of doing nothing physically sexy.

2) they'll always think sg is giving them the green light even if you cover all panties shots just because of how shes designed and the legacy of sg. at 18 at least sg would be giving them the green light for a 18 year old and no they won't think you're doing the legal loli trope since she already looks legal.
another example is miko from glitch techs, the creator didn't want lewds of her but because of the deign of miko it gave artist the green light regardless of what the creator intended or wanted and she 16 too lol when he complained they just made more.

Funny part is I had zero clue about any of these details until this whole thing...I just enjoyed the game.

Streisand effect; the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet

 

[Corridor89]

I want to point out that the removal of the afro comb in Filia's burst, but NOT Fukua's also created this kind of unfortunate situation where Fukua is now coded black (I guess), but also given new artwork like

Spoiler

Anyway,
An important thing to remember is that it wasn't solely Filia who was censored. It was a lot of things. It was with female characters older than Filia, it was with male characters as well. This "patch" wasn't really only about censoring or walking back Filia's age, it was about a lot of the removal about large swathes of Skullgirls's "questionable content". All of which, I feel, is basically a (half-assed) abandonment of what Skullgirls was. As the game wasn't only unashamedly sexy (or sex positive if you asked someone on Tumblr 10 years ago), but it was also unashamedly edgy. It was born out of the mid 00's period of unironic edginess and I think it's disgusting that the developers decided to begin to remove that identity (and outright remove content) -- for reasons they haven't divulged and ones that might not make logical sense or even benefit the IP down the line.

Skullgirls was always very up front about what type of content it had and It has always confused me why people (be they passersby or people who actually play the game) thought they had the right to really complain about the content they did not like when all of it was so prevalent and so visible. Nothing objectionable was hidden, and a lot of it was tongue-in-cheek or there for shock value. The game always wore the offensive stuff on its sleeve and that was part of its identity and its appeal, and nobody who claims to be a fan of Skullgirls can convincingly tell me that they have actually secretly hated all the character designs, the sex, the violence or the offensive imagery for the last 10 years.

 

[Nerio]

I want to point out that the removal of the afro comb in Filia's burst, but NOT Fukua's also created this kind of unfortunate situation where Fukua is now coded black (I guess), but also given new artwork like

They most likely forgot, that's all. Not sure how though, considering that Fukua being an asset flip of Filia is the entire joke of her character.

The game always wore the offensive stuff on its sleeve and that was part of its identity and its appeal, and nobody who claims to be a fan of Skullgirls can convincingly tell me that they have actually secretly hated all the character designs, the sex, the violence or the offensive imagery for the last 10 years.

A game that has characters like Valentine will never be accepted by the general audience anyway, no matter how much the devs try to pretend otherwise. Actually, this whole situation reminds me of a certain other fighting game franchise.

Dead or Alive is (was?) a fighting game franchise that built its reputation on its raunchiness. DoA1 was legendary for its realistic breast jiggle physics at an age when other devs couldn't animate faces properly. It was pretty dang successful and became one of the "big" fighting game franchises.
Then, many years later, on their sixth mainline game, the developer decided to pivot. In their chase for the bigger markets, they announced that they will be toning down the sexiness in the name of FGC's "core values" (my regards to Joe Cuellar for that gem, the community will never let him live it down). Of course, the fans were furious, but who cares, there's a bigger normie fish to fry.
Naturally, the launch of DoA6 was a disaster. They even tried to pivot again at the last minute and promised that there shall be melons, but it was too late. The game flopped hard. So hard that we never saw the next DoA fighting game. The only remnant of the series now is a gacha game that is chock full of fanservice (and it makes decent money, last I heard).

What Future Club should've done is indeed to say that Filia is now eighteen, so whatever. Sure, some Kotaku nerd would probably pop a vessel, but it beats getting dragged through the streets by your fans, especially in the long run.
I assume that's the lesson Future Club wants to learn the hard way.

Could've just given Team Ninja a call.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

people did not know filia as a sexualised 16 year old. she was known as the sexualised mascot for the game her age had no link to her character or appeal it wasn't until they changed the sprite and made it about her age now you've got people calling her sprite cp tell me how that's better then just having her be 18.

Do you think if people didn't know about it, we'd be talking about it right now? You can easily Google and find plenty of conversations where people talked about it, not to mention her age was easily viewable on both the official website and the top result wiki.

not sure how you are gonna talk about echo chambers when you're bringing up imaginary tiktok videos.

I'm talking about the echo chamber exactly because you keep bringing up things like "nobody knows Filia was 16" and ignoring conversations that have been happening in the fandom for years, but, come on, you're accusing me of making up stuff now? The tiktok video is gone for whatever reason, but people have posted screenshots of it, but even if I go dig it up I doubt it would make any difference to you. You'd probably say it's photoshopped I'd imagine.

should we say good bye peacocks cigar if someone complains about peacock being a child while smoking and gets 70k likes on tiktok. you are completely ignoring the fans that helped get sg to where it is and prioritising people that only want to grand stand.

Seems like you're still missing the point that I also disagree with the change. I've been trying to explain the logic of why the devs removed them, not why I think they should remove them. You're arguing against a strawman, mate.

Our conversation seems to be going in a circle so unless you have any new points, let's agree to disagree.

 

[renda]

Do you think if people didn't know about it, we'd be talking about it right now? You can easily Google and find plenty of conversations where people talked about it, not to mention her age was easily viewable on both the official website and the top result wiki.

okay most don't know or care and the people that do likely don't like sexualised content regardless of age. they'll still complain because she still has plenty of panty shots anyway.

I'm talking about the echo chamber exactly because you keep bringing up things like "nobody knows Filia was 16" and ignoring conversations that have been happening in the fandom for years, but, come on, you're accusing me of making up stuff now? The tiktok video is gone for whatever reason, but people have posted screenshots of it, but even if I go dig it up I doubt it would make any difference to you. You'd probably say it's photoshopped I'd imagine.

I meant nobody thinks of her as THE 16 year old as if it's a defining trait of hers. when people see spider Gwen they don't think " that's the 17 year old with super powers". fixating on their age when it's not a defining trait is sus. it doesn't matter if the tiktok is real or not removing the comb because of it is dumb.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

changing her to appropriate age I think is a tad over-analyzed. Art & lewd art is still out there. Will we take it all down? What about the large segment unaware of the lore and just wanted to make hot art? Or people who wanna make art in the future. Recoloring panties still leaves suggestive animations, voicework & original problem, forcing everyone to now be silent when talking about filia. Looking at overall vision of Alex & common sense in general, I really doubt an age change goes against anything. Just make her 18 & be done with it -- it's a fictional property. No loli scenario, she's actually a fitting age now. Makes more sense than taking artist's time revisiting artwork & taking away from other tasks. If people talk, it's because they want to be snide. Idk it's just unfortunate seeing how a once-resolved issue has been kicked up again. Changing any part of the story or art which we saw as canon is no different than changing age. An established part of the game now different. Why do they get to change band getting beat up as a robocop reference, mixing race into it (which no black person i know was upset about including myself), but not an age. it's confusing. edit: Either way I get it. Whatever's best for the game. I just think people are smart enough to understand it was an oversight and the game's been treated in good faith for a long time. Feel like that translates without saying anything but I might be overoptimistic.

Funny part is I had zero clue about any of these details until this whole thing...I just enjoyed the game.

I agree that, yeah, the devs have no control over art or other fan works. The portrayal of Filia in the game aside, whatever gets created in the fandom is outside of their responsibility. Hell, pretty much every character in every IP have had lewd fanarts, regardless of whether they are sexy in the original work or not (as per the well-known internet rule).

The point is, if they change her age, it would be taken in such a way that would make people think they are directly trying to wade into this topic. We've both touched on the same point that a lot of these topics, like Band's story edit or the comb removal, would not have even have been brought to the attention of the fandom at large if it weren't for the update. Changing Filia's age would absolutely cause a storm, positive and negative, in certain segments of the fandom - the kind of attention that the devs are not looking for, especially right now since they just dropped one of the most controversial updates in recent years (if not ever).

EDIT, credit to Duckator: Didnt see this but apparently in first blog post, Alex writes 'Some people think that I made the characters to pander to a fan service-craving audience. However, in my mind you can't really please anyone but yourself, so I start there and figure there are bound to be people with similar tastes. So really I'm doing what I want, and people are welcome to come along for the ride if they'd like to.'

Not everything is made for everyone. Same with Elden Ring & difficulty. And that's ok. But twisting a focused IP into a 'wider appeal' despite being in the wild for 10 years is silly. If certain people dont like sexualised content, that's them.

Like I said before, as a fan, I 100% agree with this. I see SG as a work of artistic expression as well as a game, and I hate to see that things are being censored and removed that distance the game from its original vision. Any creative works are products of their times and I think things should be viewed with more nuance, something greatly lacking in modern internet discourse. But I am a realist enough to understand that the business decision is made in order to improve the marketability of the game in the long run. Yeah, it's easy as a fan to just say "if you don't like it, don't buy it lol", but when your job depends on the game being sold to more people, things aren't so black and white. In the same way that the original release of Skullgirls was a sign of its time, this content update is also a sign of its time.

 

[Nerio]

Changing Filia's age would absolutely cause a storm

Not really. Only Twitter weirdos care that much about it.

But I am a realist enough to understand that the business decision is made in order to improve the marketability of the game in the long run.

Again, this is a DoA situation. Let's make a good old food analogy - you're in the baking business, and you make cakes. You have a sizeable audience of people who like sweet stuff, and they buy your cakes. Now, suddenly, you decided to expand your market reach to people who like all other kinds of food, but instead of making spicy or salty food, you started removing toppings from your cakes. People who liked your cakes are now outraged, and everyone else never cared in the first place.

 

[ChocoP]

1. I think I had an old Skullheart account but if I did it's been YEARS so I figure there's no point in agonizing about trying to retrieve it and it makes more sense just to make a new one. I've lurked the forum in the past years anyway; now seems as good a time as any to actually post. Both to express my own opinion as well as my general frustration with how I've seen much of the discourse (broadly speaking across the entire internet) progress.
   
   For a bit of history and introduction of sorts: I found out about Skullgirls from that E3 trailer ages ago, started following in earnest when Parasol was first revealed and followed the game through the FNF fights, the PS3 release from Reverge Labs, The Smash Bros vs. SG fundraiser, the kerfuffle that went down with Konami, the foundation of Lab Zero, the crowdfunding revival, the Waifu Wars (the character DLC poll) , the long hiatus from the switch to Indivisible (Are we allowed to mention that game right? Or do we have to pretend it didn't exist?), the first time some art content edits were made for the game, the dissolution of Lab Zero, the founding of Future Club and all the way through the present. Basically, I've been here the whole time LMAO (I'm sure I left out a few things from that rundown but you can be assured I was there). I love fighting games (including Marvel style games), I love animation (anime/cartoons but the principle itself too) and to be honest, I really enjoy most kinds of anime fanservice, so SG has a lot that appeals to me!
   
   I suppose it wouldn't be a year that starts in "2" if there wasn't some sort of "controversy" about this game/IP but my scorching hot take about the situation, after looking through the edits, is that while I don't agree every change made was needed, I do think some were for the best and I respect the artists right to make them. Furthermore, even the changes I felt weren't needed are all basically completely harmless.
   
   
2. I can understand some ire with edits to the Digital Art Compendium as "stuff that isn't/didn't make it into the game" I believe is a selling point and it's not part of the game proper. It's common to find stuff in concept art that isn't in the real game for a variety of reasons including "the developers thought this went a bit too far". But the DAC is also understood to be a "living compendium" (if it wasn't they couldn't add anything to it over time) rather than a static archive. I also felt removing some items from the Guest Art Gallery was a shame, but that art didn't become unavailable/inaccessible (like what often happens to say delisted games) and I'm MUCH happier they did that then try to edit art they didn't make/own which would have been gross.
   
   Did I feel the image in the Big Band story mode needed to be changed? Given the context of the scene and the overall narrative not really; I didn't think it glamorized police brutality (a serious RL issue). But the new version keeps like 95% of the impact and has no negative effect on any other element of the story mode. I find it very hard to be bothered by the changed. Considering that's one of the biggest changes to story mode content, I feel similarly apathetic to other tweaks. Perhaps the edit that bothers me the most is the change to Cerebella's outfit where she's no longer battle damaged after losing to Eliza and that's entirely because the edit looks off rather than me having an issue with the idea of the tweak.
   
   
3. The biggest art overall change is of course the change to the Egrets uniform with the armbands; this is clearly for the better. I don't want to touch upon politics much (so I won't after this section), but if you've been paying attention to American politics AT ALL since like 2015, Nazis and "Nazi-adjacent" groups having been getting extra loud and extra visible. While obviously they've always been around, they were certainly less in your face when the game launched or when Ahad first conceptualized the Egrets back in like high school (at least I believe that's when he first came up with some of the OG SG concepts?). This isn't even like a Castle Wolfenstein scenario where "Of course those bozos look like Nazis! They are, and the GOAL of the game is to punch them!". Parasol and the modern Egrets are the good guys. Given that reality, given the role the Egrets play in the modern timeline of SG and given the personal sentiments of the dev team which are very easy to parse if you pay attention to their social media or any of the things they've said/done over the years this is a no brainer. "But, but it's very important that these heroic characters look like fascists as much as possible!" is a sympathetic opinion to practically no one. There may be a slight benefit that this would make the Egrets easier to merch, but this is very obviously primarily artists flexing their personal beliefs and how their thought process might have changed over the years.
   
   
4. This gets me to what I've found most annoying about the discourse surrounding these changes. Some seem dumbfounded as to why they were made even when the dev team spelled it out pretty clearly in the update message. The main drive for these changes is that there are some elements they're no longer comfortable keeping in the game. Yet it feels like for some reason some don't like that answer and are either ignoring it or assuming the dev team is lying? Over 10 years have passed since the start of SG and a lot of people's hands have touched the project. It's normal for an artist to be less than enthused with some of the things they created X years ago. There are things I did/said X years ago that I would not do so today. The opposite is also true though - I'm cool with stuff now that I wasn't X years ago. People, how they think and how they see the world change over time. Unlike say a painting (you make it and then never touch it again), SG is a game that has been in active development on and off for a decade. It's understood that things will be added, changed or removed over time be it gameplay or art elements. I've heard people say "they should stick to the original vision of the game" but like what "original vision"? For example, the original "vision" of the game certainly didn't include Fukua, Robo-Fortune, Beowulf, Eliza, etc.
   
   Most franchises, if they last for 10+ years, will have multiple games and you'll see design philosophies change over time between those games. For example, the design philosophy of Stive is different from Xrd. You see obvious differences between SF 4 vs 5 vs 6 or the various Soul Caliburs and so on. SG is in a unique spot where it's been one game being worked on for so long. I don't think that's happened to any other fighting game ever?
   
   
   
5. Another sticking point to me is the subject of sexualization ("lewdness"/"horny" for short). I've seen so many say something akin to "well these changes won't make people who don't like fanservice like the game" but that so thoroughly misses the point I'm sometimes left wondering if people hear the word "censorship" and then stop doing any critical or nuanced thinking LOL >_< Look, the developers are not prudes. That's obvious if you're familiar with any of the work much of the art team has/continues to do on the side. They just released Black Dahlia who literally "bounces" around in her lingerie while escorted by a troupe of playboy bunnies. Even in Indivisible, a much more grounded game than SG, they had Thorani jiggling all over the place. "Lewd" is a key part of SG. That's never going away and there's never been any indication suggesting otherwise.
   
   Rather, not all "lewd" stuff is equal - a nuance that seems completely lost on many. In their post about the changes the dev team stresses the difference between "agency" and "exploitation". Characters in SG that confidently express their own sexuality with their attitude/design are SUPER lewd (Cerebella, Parasol, Valentine, Eliza, Black Dahlia and to a lesser degree Ms. Fortune and Beowulf) and characters that don't are not lewd at all (Peacock, Painwheel, Squigly, Big Band, Annie, Umbrella and soon Marie). Double is a freak show and kind of in a category of her own LOL. SG has COPIOUS amounts of fanservice but they've actually been very judicious about how it's used. I'm forever thankful that the game is 100% free of loli fanservice.
   
   Filia is a bit of a conundrum: She has a very fanservicey design but has an asexual personality and presence. My suspicion is that if Filia was designed today for the first time she'd look different (I figure same proportions but a different outfit) and if we ever get a SG2 she is IMO the most likely to get a Milia Rage Strive style redesign (which would be fine with me since Strive Milia is an awesome design). That's off the table so they did some of these tweaks instead.
   
   The goal isn't to make SG not "lewd". That's impossible while keeping true to the spirit of Skullgirls and again there's no indication the dev team wants to do that. Rather the team wants to be horny "responsibly" and that means trimming on the edges the things they personally feel cross the line. Hence that distinction between "agency" and "exploitation". I've worked with tons of NSFW artists over the years for commissions/projects/etc. and what they're all personally ok with varies. Many will be down to draw the lewdest stuff but there is almost always something they won't touch with a 10-foot pole. Some will under no circumstances draw non-consensual intercourse, some won't draw canonically underage characters (even if you age them up), etc. What "crosses the line" varies from one artist (or group) to another and it can move, in any direction, over time. The exact same thing is at play here. "Cheescake" is an important part of Skullgirls. A random panty shot in a Double cutscene/promo that's a bit "extra" is not. "But, but it's very important that I see someone molest Filia in full detail and then see her panties flash when she tells them to F off" is another opinion that is sympathetic to practically no one. "But, but peice of media X does stuff even more graphic!" is irrelevant unless that's what the devs want to do. I know Berserk is a beloved IP that does some messed up shit. That doesn't mean the SG devs want to make Berserk or that was ever the goal from the very start.
   
   
6. I suppose the last thing that frustrates me about this discourse is that I've seen people say nonsense like "oh clearly this is because they changed the entire dev team recently" even though most of the people, especially the major artists, working on the game have been around for years if not from the very start. I've seen nonsense like "they censored the game so they could have a $5000 Evo pot bonus" which makes even less sense since anyone who knows anything about SG/fighting games in general know that SG has had pot bonuses at every Evo (and many big majors) and that money is for the players; it's not some kind of profit the company makes LOL. There're a lot of people chiming in with their opinions that clearly hadn't even heard about SG until a few days ago. Everyone is of course free to share their opinions on a subject (free country/world after all) but it is frustrating to have to listen to those who clearly have no idea what they're saying and are keen to spread misinformation.
   
   
7. Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. It might take a few weeks but this will pass. There was drama when Capcom tweaked some of the super moves and outfits in SF5; that eventually passed. There was drama when Sakurai put tights on Mythra (though some found that even hotter!); that eventually passed. Or heck there was a bit of drama a few years back when there were some minor tweaks to some SG animation frames with regards to some panty shots, etc.; that also passed. There's room for reasonable disagreement, disappointment and debate but the changes in this recent update are so minor it's gonna be hard for anyone who isn't looking to be mad to stay mad. People often cry "Let the artists do as they want! Artistic Integrity!" to try to rebuff censorship and yet here we have the artists doing what they want and you got some crying about "forced censorship". Or people on Twitter demanding to be listened to shouting "don't listen to people Twitter" without a shred of irony :P
   
   SG has taken blows over the years that would have killed most IPs 10 times over and yet it still stands. Obviously, the SG community is a huge part of why but without also the passion, dedication and grit of the developers we'd be nowhere. I trust them to continue to shepherd the series into the future and nothing I've seen here, even if I don't personally think all the changes were needed, has shaken that faith one iota.
   

 

[Nerio]

They just released Black Dahlia who literally "bounces" around in her lingerie while escorted by a troupe of playboy bunnies.

They didn't design Black Dahlia or any of the released characters, those designs were done by Alex Ahad. I don't think we've yet seen anything not previously designed by him in Skullgirls.

I'm MUCH happier they did that then try to edit art they didn't make/own which would have been gross.

It's gross either way. People paid for those old art books, specifically because they represented the game's history. They didn't pay for a digital canvas that Future Club can edit at their whim. It's even more insulting because if it wasn't for those people, Skullgirls simply wouldn't exist. Editing things like in-game pantyshots is something you can debate, but editing art books that were already sold simply because you can is inexcusable to me.


This is the real big issue and the reason why Future Club needs to address the situation. Censorship of character art is one thing - as you said, it's something we've seen before, and we can debate it separately. But removing and altering things people paid for (such as voice packs, color palettes, or old art books) with no reimbursement or option to opt out feels downright scummy. This is something I've never seen before, even in online gaming, and I've been around for quite some time.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

Not really. Only Twitter weirdos care that much about it.

It's easy to paint people who disagree with you as "Twitter weirdos", but do you really not see the irony of people signing up and complaining in droves due to the update and saying that this change is gonna affect the future of the game, but dismissing reactions to other potential changes with "oh people aren't gonna care about that, only weirdos".

Again, this is a DoA situation. Let's make a good old food analogy - you're in the baking business, and you make cakes. You have a sizeable audience of people who like sweet stuff, and they buy your cakes. Now, suddenly, you decided to expand your market reach to people who like all other kinds of food, but instead of making spicy or salty food, you started removing toppings from your cakes. People who liked your cakes are now outraged, and everyone else never cared in the first place.

The change literally only affects a very, very small portion of the game. There are zero changes to the gameplay. Most of the characters are completely untouched. The actual game sprites have been changed for 2 characters, and they aren't even super significant (armband and comb removals). Most of the changes were palette adjustments. The analogy is less of them removing the entire toppings but more like reducing 4-colour sprinkles to 3-colour sprinkles. Should one be upset about it? Yeah, sure, that depends on what you're looking for in the game, but overexaggerating the scope of the content censor doesn't really help the argument to be more convincing - it just makes it seem more hysterical.

This is the real big issue and the reason why Future Club needs to address the situation. Censorship of character art is one thing - as you said, it's something we've seen before, and we can debate it separately. But removing and altering things people paid for (such as voice packs, color palettes, or old art books) with no reimbursement or option to opt out feels downright scummy. This is something I've never seen before, even in online gaming, and I've been around for quite some time.

This part on the Compendium I do agree with and I think they could have handled it better. They could have given a week notice or something on the patch rather than pushing the update straight away which replaced files in the Compendium especially for people who had auto-update enabled, so people who want to could have backed up the files. But what's done is done.

Practically though, the changes are very small in term of volume and affect only a few files. Most of the files that got censored are freely available online anyway. Hell, if someone has a file they want that were edited from the Compendium and can't find it otherwise, PM me and I'll send the previous version of it.

The only arts that were outright removed (not just edited) were the guest arts, which weren't even in the Compendium in the first place. All of them are also freely available online.

 

[Nuuance]

I agree that, yeah, the devs have no control over art or other fan works. The portrayal of Filia in the game aside, whatever gets created in the fandom is outside of their responsibility. Hell, pretty much every character in every IP have had lewd fanarts, regardless of whether they are sexy in the original work or not (as per the well-known internet rule).

The point is, if they change her age, it would be taken in such a way that would make people think they are directly trying to wade into this topic. We've both touched on the same point that a lot of these topics, like Band's story edit or the comb removal, would not have even have been brought to the attention of the fandom at large if it weren't for the update. Changing Filia's age would absolutely cause a storm, positive and negative, in certain segments of the fandom - the kind of attention that the devs are not looking for, especially right now since they just dropped one of the most controversial updates in recent years (if not ever).


Like I said before, as a fan, I 100% agree with this. I see SG as a work of artistic expression as well as a game, and I hate to see that things are being censored and removed that distance the game from its original vision. Any creative works are products of their times and I think things should be viewed with more nuance, something greatly lacking in modern internet discourse. But I am a realist enough to understand that the business decision is made in order to improve the marketability of the game in the long run. Yeah, it's easy as a fan to just say "if you don't like it, don't buy it lol", but when your job depends on the game being sold to more people, things aren't so black and white. In the same way that the original release of Skullgirls was a sign of its time, this content update is also a sign of its time.

thanks for words. I feel you. I guess my sentiment is besides the lewdness itself I genuinely think this game is socially capped as far as exposure and sales as whole & 'damage has already been done.' I'm sure theyve made a lot more than I think, but I guess all I can say is as an original fan it's offputting. Not the end of the world at all but seems like we can't catch a break...update for the rest of the game is already enough to deal with. I hope FC has a good plan whatever it is.

@ChocoP I'm nitpicking but bouncing isnt really anything new & kinda needed for continuity. I get the point but DLC compared to legacy characters are so tame (obviously annie/umbrella/robo make sense). Legacy characters have the sauce. Feel like trying to differentiate between soft & more hardcore lewdness makes no sense if I understand correctly. if you got pantyshots, no matter how innocent you try to make things around it, it's still in a certain category unless the IP itself is changed (which I dont want).

Maybe I'll chime in again soon but for now, thanks everyone for support & discussion. Also thanks chrono for measured responses. Have a nice day people

 

[Nerio]

The change literally only affects a very, very small portion of the game.

I wouldn't say that. Sure, the changes don't affect strictly gameplay, but we don't play video games for the gameplay alone. All the additional content being changed and removed is significant enough to be clearly visible, and that's bad enough. It also makes people question the direction of the series - if the current devs see fanservice and edgy themes as hostile and antithetical to their vision, why are they working on Skullgirls? What is going on there? These are the questions people are asking. I know the reality is always more complicated, and I'm sure that the developers are all very nice people who want this game to flourish, but they have to realize how this makes them look.
When DoA was being censored for the wider audience, there were people who said "It's no big deal". There were also people who cheered for the game "not being creepy" anymore, promising that they will totally play it now. Guess what - they didn't. Nobody did.

But what's done is done.

Not really. They can revert the changes. They can give out refunds. They can offer free copies of the original items (this includes in-game items) to those who purchased them before they were removed or changed. They have a lot of options.

are freely available online anyway

The entire previous build of the game is freely available online to those who want it. That's not really relevant to the issue at hand.

 

[renda]

"Let the artists do as they want! Artistic Integrity!" to try to rebuff censorship and yet here we have the artists doing what they want and you got some crying about "forced censorship". Or people on Twitter demanding to be listened to shouting "don't listen to people Twitter" without a shred of irony :P

i mean we know for a fact the dev's were censoring alex even in non official art so what you are saying is a lie. the difference here is we already had a unedited version. we aren't saying they can't make a censored version we are saying don't replace the uncensored. even it's not censorship it's the forced changes that people don't like, you guys are getting hung up semantics.

For example, the design philosophy of Stive is different from Xrd.

ye because people no ever complained about how the game looks

The goal isn't to make SG not "lewd". That's impossible while keeping true to the spirit of Skullgirls and again there's no indication the dev team wants to do that. Rather the team wants to be horny "responsibly"

remove the panty shot from story mode only to have the same thing in game. it's not even consistent. they have made less the lewd they just make look worse how id black panties some how less lewd?

"But, but peice of media X does stuff even more graphic!" is irrelevant unless that's what the devs want to do.

it's relevant when other media has more fans than sg despite doing the same thing.

some seem dumbfounded as to why they were made even when the dev team spelled it out pretty clearly in the update message. The main drive for these changes is that there are some elements they're no longer comfortable keeping in the game. Yet it feels like for some reason some don't like that answer and are either ignoring it or assuming the dev team is lying?

yes. they have not shown how filias intro is exploitive all while still keeping zone in the game. if they cared so much about exploitation they wouldn't be making a gatcha game a genre that can easily lead to addiction that's exploits players fomo. big bands changes was a reach and the comb changes where random.

"they censored the game so they could have a $5000 Evo pot bonus"

ye the evo thing is dumb most don't know that sg has been there before and that no one is really playing sg for money.

 

[missingno]

Would it shut people up to archive the last build under Steam's Betas tab? There's already the old pre-2E+ build under code 'ireallyfearchange', but not anything more recent. I do think preservation of old versions is important, maybe this compromise would give them the freedom for new updates to move forward.

I just don't know if it would actually shut people up though, because I think most of the rioters just don't want change to happen at all.

 

[KuroOneHalf]

Would it shut people up to archive the last build under Steam's Betas tab? There's already the old pre-2E+ build under code 'ireallyfearchange', but not anything more recent. I do think preservation of old versions is important, maybe this compromise would give them the freedom for new updates to move forward.

I just don't know if it would actually shut people up though, because I think most of the rioters just don't want change to happen at all.

Earlier I suggested the best course of action may be to just reverse the patch to show people the devs are listening, but you may be right, anything they do would only reverse so much, as a lot of the people making noise do not have the game's best interest in mind. I don't think there's a way to fully fix this. I think this is one on scar they're just gonna have on them for the rest of time, like all the other ones. I think they're just gonna have to keep their nose down, wait for the temperature to lower and people to stop caring, and keep delivering value to the people who've been with them on the journey and new players coming in.

One thing I think is for sure though, they have to be more mindful of unnecessary changes in the future. If it's a small change few would care, then don't touch it and risk another round of backlash like this. It's still a bit early to know what impact the review bombing and other toxic discourse will have, but I imagine it's gonna be non negligible, and take a while to heal. Games live and die on this kind of social currency.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

I wouldn't say that. Sure, the changes don't affect strictly gameplay, but we don't play video games for the gameplay alone. All the additional content being changed and removed is significant enough to be clearly visible, and that's bad enough. It also makes people question the direction of the series - if the current devs see fanservice and edgy themes as hostile and antithetical to their vision, why are they working on Skullgirls? What is going on there? These are the questions people are asking. I know the reality is always more complicated, and I'm sure that the developers are all very nice people who want this game to flourish, but they have to realize how this makes them look.

A lot of people, at least most of those who have stuck with the game in the long term, care more about the gameplay than its art direction. While I do care about the artworks and designs and the changes bother me to some levels (some more than others) and I generally do not agree with them, it's not a deal-breaker for me because the things I actually care about in the game remain mostly intact. Does that mean my opinion should matter more than others? Absolutely not. Everyone's concern is valid and we all have the rights to express them in a healthy manner.

It's been over 10 years since Skullgirls was released and it has gone from an indie fighting game struggling to get funding to a pretty big mobile gacha game. There are people I have talked to IRL who don't play fighters and whom I have never talked about SG to, who have discovered SGM completely independently. You ask why they are still working on Skullgirls, and the answer is quite simple. It's their livelihood.

Skullgirls is a business and like any business, they need to keep pushing out more monitisable products. With more contents and more players, they need to expand the development teams and take on more costs, and they need to continue to expand their revenue in order to do that. The original audiences are already in our late 20s, 30s or even pushing 40s. We're not playing or buying as many games as before, and we certainly can't sustain the game in a way that will keep it in development by ourselves. Unlike 10 years ago, the modern audience have different tastes and tolerances, and if you want to sell things to them you have to sell them what they want. It's easy enough to claim artistic freedom and integrity when one's job doesn't depend on it.

Not really. They can revert the changes. They can give out refunds. They can offer free copies of the original items (this includes in-game items) to those who purchased them before they were removed or changed. They have a lot of options.

Fair enough. People have been asking for the game to get censored for years and I think it's perfect fair for people to ask to get them uncensored. I just think we need to set realistic expectations because these types of content updates have been implemented before and they have never been reversed.

Would it shut people up to archive the last build under Steam's Betas tab? There's already the old pre-2E+ build under code 'ireallyfearchange', but not anything more recent. I do think preservation of old versions is important, maybe this compromise would give them the freedom for new updates to move forward.

I just don't know if it would actually shut people up though, because I think most of the rioters just don't want change to happen at all.

I think it would probably alleviate some complaints but it goes back to the same point I was making regarding the content toggle. If an uncensored branch is distributed then the devs are still actively distributing the contents, while the goal is to distance themselves from it.

In any case, yeah, I think the complaint about archiving the contents is minor compared to the general feeling of the negative feedbacks which is that people don't want the censors to be implemented in the updated, actively developed version of the game at all.

 

[renda]

you guys are overestimating how much people actually care that it's in the game as toggle or it being officially distributed even if it has as a archive compared to them just not wanting to see it when they play.

y'all dancing between "the devs aren't comfortable with this anymore" to "they need to do this to appease the larger market" which is it? the one version of sg that reaches the larger market is the mobile game, why not continue the censor that game and leave 2nde uncensored or a add a toggle to 2nde. they've gotten this far with the mobile game so that means 2nde isn't affecting the mobile game. i doubt many if any have said they've dropped the mobile game because of the content in 2nde nor would they start to if 2nde got reverted.

 

[Milky]

refunds at the very least should be given, since this is clearly not a franchise that is trying to appeal to its original fanbase anymore and intends to make its money off of gacha-****s and twitter freaks