(no subject)

[olivermoss]

A lot of people had the same reaction to Boyfriend Dungeon that I did. And I am more annoyed at the game that I thought I was.



Kitfox Games didn't just fail to warn for the stalking and emotional manipulation in the game. The promo materials and the Kickstarter that funded the game sold it as silly adventures and 'sword smooching'. What they put out has stalking, emotional manipulation and pursuing the canon romance means ignoring warnings about personal safety. They crowdfunded the game based on the tagline 'True love is inclusive' and delivered 'creepers gunna creep'.

They've updated their warnings. Still, on Steam you get the warnings only after you've bought the light-hearted seeming game. Even with the warnings, some people go in assuming that the darker themes are optional content. It's standard in dating sims that you pick the type of content you want by picking a certain romance. These dark themes aren't completely optional in this game. I don't know how much of the stalking is part of the storyline no matter what you do, but I know some people assumed they could just shut down that story branch.

People are saying that having warnings is bad because they compromise the game's artistic freedom. But romance genre is about catering to comfort zones, not pushing people out of them. There are dark dating sims, I've played one. But I also knew exactly what I was getting myself in for.

I expected an escapist fantasy of being welcomed in dating spaces, not to be warned about possible assault if I pursue the main romance. Since the game is still selling itself as being full of cozy vibes I don't think my expectation was unreasonable.
I mean, this is a game that lets you remove the Mom character from the game if you'd find it upsetting to get texts labeled 'From Mom'. I'd followed the game since the initial kickstarter and had watched a lot of the dev update vlogs. I felt like I had a solid idea of what the game was about.

I like boundary pushing media. I like consuming content without even knowing what the genre is. If I can see a film without having seen even a trailer, I am happy. You can do dark stuff in dating sims. I played Ladykiller in a Bind and it's very upfront about the content you'll run into. But what Kitfox pulled with this game really pissed me off. Part of why I am annoyed isn't the game's fault. It's just a feeling of 'yep, this always happens.' Something looks like it's going to be cozy, relatable, possibly catering to me? Nope, it's going to be alienating at best.

After writing this I looked into the discourse about the game and it looks like things are in full Backlash Against The Discourse mode. People are saying that criticizing the game is literally attacking queer creators. The discourse is way too messed up to even engage in. I'm just glad I didn't help fund the game and Steam does easy refunds.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

according to AnaMardoll the game devs' opinion is that the stalking is a core part of the game. someone played it through by not responding to the stalker's texts and nothing broke, though.

meanwhile the backlash I'm seeing against the people saying the marketing is misleading is coming of the form "how dare we tell the devs to remove dark content from the game". the hell. who's saying the content needs removed? the content needs correctly labeled, and the labels need to be visible before somebody pays money for the game, especially if it's money that they can't get back because apparently the Switch store doesn't do refunds. that's all.

[olivermoss]

It's fine to have stalking as a core part of the game. Some people love this game. But Kitfox had to know that crowdfunding based on one vibe and delivering the opposite was going to have backlash. Nearly 7 thousand people pre-paid for this in 2018. So the whole 'respect the artistic integrity of the devs' thing I am seeing all over the place is weird.

Kitfox dropped the game with no fanfare. They didn't even announce a release date in advance. It's possible they knew this wasn't going to go over well. There may have been another reason, but if in a year it comes out that they were trying to wrangle the game's hype I would be very unsurprised.

After I refunded the game I watched some streams to get a view of the later content, see if I over-reacted. The first stream I watched, the streamer had the stalker pop back up when they thought that storyline had been shut down and seemed seriously creeped out by it. The stalker appears to drive off a possible POC cat lady romance. I don't know at what point you need to shut down the stalker, the first few texts seem fine.

For me, personally, it was the main/canon romance having domestic abuser red flags that creeped me out. ... and by red flags I mean the character's friend tells you point blank that he can be violent and to stay away.

Steam has a really good refund policy, but even on Steam it's weird to have the warnings after you buy the game. Currently, the warnings change is a new post, but that news post will cycle out. It sucks that the Switch people and the backers have no options.

The take that really annoys me is people saying that Queer creators can only make baby-food wholesome content or this sort of backlash will happen. It's like ... no I promise you a lot of this is salty kickstarter backers and other people feeling mislead.

[alexseanchai]

yeah, most of the people I'm seeing objecting, the objection is that the content was mislabeled. people play Doki Doki Literature Club, after all, knowing on their way in that it's psychological horror, and it also initially presents itself as a fluffy dating sim.

(with a content note at the beginning. I have seen people flipping out about Doki Doki's actual genre not matching the genre they expected, but I believe all of those are people who listened to their friends telling them to play the game entirely unspoiled. except for one who asked why the game page said Psychological Horror and then came back later and reblogged themself all 😱 that explains that.)

some of the objections I'm seeing are that the triggeriffic content in Boyfriend Dungeon isn't optional, but I feel like if the content were correctly labeled to begin with, those people would have stayed clear.

[olivermoss]

Yup, exactly. This is a labeling / genre conventions issue. I love going into some canons blind, but romance is one where people react particularly badly to being mislead. I mean ... look at a hundred fanfic dramas.

[alexseanchai]

if it's not Happy Ever After or Happy For Now, it is not romance, and everyone trying to subvert the romance genre by writing something that's neither HEA nor HFN needs to do that by subverting a romance subplot in some other genre. the definition of 'romance genre' does not change when moving from novels to gaming.

[olivermoss]

Also people need to respect that making cozy content isn't childish or unskilled. Dark = adult is a theme underlying some of the backlash to the backlash.

[alexseanchai]

also true!

[mistressofmuses]

I definitely think the bait and switch marketing vs. content is the problem.

The existence of potentially dark content isn't the problem, and I know that some of the discourse HAS swayed that direction, which is sucky. But the real issue (I say as someone who hasn't played it, and didn't know about it before you posted about it and then I saw the discourse blow up on tumblr) is the fact that it was utterly unwarned for and unavoidable, despite it being counter to what the game WAS allegedly about.

And the fact that the game (the developers there of) seemed to somehow be utterly unaware that any of that COULD be a problem for someone is a little... weird.

[olivermoss]

They didn't even tell the backers the release date, it dropped out of nowhere. Releasing games like that is what you do to try to tame the hype when you are expecting backlash. I don't want to get armchair know it all, but I think it's possible that they well knew they'd failed the assignment.

I've seen some more 'not all art is for everyone and you should be upset if it's not for you' takes about this and like, people backed it on the idea that was was specifically going to be inclusive of them? But, well, that is gaming discourse all over. The loudest voices never have a clue about the actual issues going on. I haven't been looking for takes, the takes found me. (Also, apparently Sarah Z's TouchGrassGate video mentioned the game and made things worse? I haven't watched her video, but I've seen it said in reliable places.)

For fun I did what the loudiots on twitter never do and check stuff. The Switch storefront ... doesn't have the warning on the page! It's just rated T for teen. They don't do refunds so you'd buy the game and then see them. it just says 'fantasy violence, language, sexual themes.' GG

I feel bad about the toxicity of the discourse. I mean, I can vent here but I feel like a lot of people with valid reasons to be upset are being lumped in with Antis.

[mistressofmuses]

Oof, yeah, the kinda-hiding the release date is a shady move, and does seem like they were banking on keeping response small/manageable.

It seems really frustrating that a game that was billed as being inclusive and "safe" in a lot of ways (like the ability to customize the "text from mom" type thing? Which seems like a very above-and-beyond accessibility/inclusivity gesture)... then failed so remarkably.
Having a route with some dark content/a dark love interest/catering to an "obsessive" fantasy/whatever wouldn't be as big a deal if it could be avoided or customized out... but having that be a core aspect of the game? WHY?

And fucking yikes that this has and will continue to blindside people who purchase the game and haven't been warned.

Discourse in general is always the worst. I hate that ANY criticism gets lumped in with anti shit, even as I understand how easy the knee-jerk reaction in opposition to bad-faith criticism becomes. (And so much criticism IS bad faith, or twisted entirely away from any genuine points that could have been made.) But god, the awful discourse, especially on twitter it seems like, has just killed off any nuance on any side.

[olivermoss]

Dunking on people who were upset by the game seems a pastime right now. I mean ... idk what I expected. The internet is always going to be like that. Particularly around games, especially around small queer developers whose companies actually will live or die based on how the internet takes to their game.

Discourse aside, how few people are streaming it ... posting on tumblr ... *checks* actually even playing it on Steam, I don't think this has done well for them.

While some people will trash anything with queer rep, there are also those who will defend viciously anything with queer rep because they don't want to lose what little they have. It's a recipe for... the exact type of muck we are dealing with now.

[mistressofmuses]

The internet do be like that. :/
Yeah, I *get* the impulse to protect queer artists, because they ARE so often exposed to unfair levels of scrutiny, and demands for impossible standards of perfection...

But an awful lot of these current complaints ARE completely valid. There are a lot of bad-faith arguments about "dark" content, and plenty of valid points about how often that kind of anti shit gets lobbed at queer creators, but that's not what this is! It's also disingenuous to pretend that there is NO valid criticism.

Even coming from a very opposed-to-requirements-of-moral-purity standpoint... one of the very frequent stances in those spaces is that there is nothing wrong with dark/problematic/explicit/morally-grey/morally-wrong etc content... IF IT IS PROPERLY TAGGED AND WARNED FOR.

And THAT seems to be the biggest issue. That this isn't what it purported to be, and does not give adequate warnings or abilities to opt out of upsetting material and situations.

But agreed. Discourse is about taking sides, and those "sides" are often extremely reductive and performative, and allow for no real nuance.

[olivermoss]

And all the 'defending' does is kill the audience for queer dating sims. 95% of the audience for anything is super casual. If everyone is yelling at them that they should expect this for 'artistic integrity' and being called infants they are just going to ... not.

Right now if you add Monster Prom and Monster Camp's in-game stats together, that roughly equals Boyfriend Dungeon's. That not good for a new release.

Indie gaming is a minefield to begin with, with terrible mechanics or creators turning out to be gamergaters. This don't help.

[mistressofmuses]

Agreed. So many of these attitudes (the "defend mindlessly against all criticism") do more harm than good. Even understanding the impulse after so many years of bad takes twisted to justify an anti's ship of choice and whatever... THIS ISN'T HELPING.

Oof, yeah, that's not great, stats-wise.

And yeah. Indie gaming can bring about some wonderful stuff, but it is definitely a minefield. This is just another landmine, it feels like.

[olivermoss]

Most of the champions don't know or care about the actual facts. Even the Kotaku articles have just been round ups of the most viral tweets and no context. If I hadn't been following the game and hadn't played it, I don't even know were I'd have gotten the right deets.

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, I HATE how many niche "journalism" sites will push out headlines about internet drama/discourse/controversy of whatever kind, and instead of it being an examination of the facts, or even a true op-ed, or anything trying to analyze and explain what happened... it's just a roundup of other takes. Ugh.

A LOT of the takes I've seen have come from people who admit they haven't played it. I at least know that you did, so I appreciate having gotten to see your perspective early, ha.

I wish people on all sides of this kind of crap would give a shit about facts for a change. The "pick a side, fight to the death, screw the facts" attitude is bullshit.

[olivermoss]

Most of the points being made about the game like 'learn to accept when media isn't for you' are things I agree with in general, it just don't apply here. Also, the Switch storefront page still isn't updated.

I just checked Steam and ... it just says 'tasteful and inclusive approach to sexuality'. That's ... it. gg

[mistressofmuses]

I 100% agree with those sentiments. I'm completely fine with media that doesn't appeal to me existing, and am thrilled for the people it does appeal to, even if I don't get it, or even downright dislike it.

BUT THIS ISN'T ABOUT THE CONTENT ALONE. It's about it being MISLEADING regarding the content!

...and the fact that it still isn't appropriately labeled is crap.