Content Warnings

[JonPringus]

I'd like to know your thoughts on content warnings, since this game has one. Personally, I dislike them and I feel goes against what art should strive to be, plus it can kinda spoil stories somewhat. But at the same time, I don't want to be totally insensitive to people who may benefit from them.

I think the solution is a compromise: make viewing the content warning optional. That way people who care can view it if they so desire.

I dislike the wording in this one. I get it's kinda boiler-plate, but still "take breaks as needed" like I'm playing a Wii game or something lol.

[Fairystail]

Originally posted by JonPringus:

Originally posted by Pastel TJ:

Content warnings on game start ups aren't even a modern thing. Almost every horror game on the PS2 had a screen saying "This game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore."

That's the Silent Hill I'm dying on.

Good point. Obviously the content being warned about has changed as culture changed. Were they always bad? Perhaps. I'm personally fine with age ratings despite their freedom of speech issues.

Originally posted by CerebralPolicy XXth:

Making it optional kind of defeats the point of having a content warning, just in terms of function.

I disagree. You should know if you're a sensitive person or not. I don't even see how it defeats the point of them.

So here's the thing. Its not just a case of being sensitive or not. Its also a case of knowing if somethig may be triggering or not.

i.e if i play a horror i know there will be gore and certain themes that come up in horror (i.e SA, Murder, Suicide, cults etc are likely) however let's say I play a game about child thieves balancing their school lives.

I can expect certain things from that like gambling (casinos are a common trapping in phantom thief related material) or betrayal. I can also expect bullying, maybe even suicide (both can be expected in 'serious' stories about school age kids) if none of those are triggers then why would I check the content warning? its not like SA would show up right?

But it does. In fact it's a key theme of the very first mission. It's not a trigger for me so wasn't an issue but I would never have guessed that SA would be a theme in Persona 5 (beyond the obvious that you consensually date a teacher)

Making content warnings be optional means that people are still gonna be blindsided because there will be triggers that surprise people because media is different.

[Fairystail]

Originally posted by Pyro3000:

Originally posted by Miss Butch:

Who cares dude. Maybe someone had a close friend or relative commit sewerslide and they don't wanna think about that rn. There's nothing wrong with warning players ahead of time, they already do on the box at the store.

I would argue that post-purchase is not really adequately "ahead of time." Once you own the game, it's basically just a potential spoiler. Like, everyone goes into Persona 3 Reload expecting that one of the characters has been bullied. So, it's less surprising when it comes up.

Outside of that, I don't care much. I just roll my eyes.

tb we are on a Steam Discussion Board. Can always get a refund if you play less than 2 hours
so still pretty helpful

[doin yuo're monm]

I think it's good to have, personally. It's pretty harmless. I just wish you didn't have to wait five seconds to skip ahead. I understand why they can't just have it stop appearing after you've launched the game for the first time (if you're letting your friend boot it up on your computer, for example), but having opened the game every day since it came out, I've definitely accumulated a couple minutes' worth of time just waiting to be able to press X to move on and have to mash X through the logos.

[JonPringus]

Originally posted by Fairystail:

Originally posted by JonPringus:

Good point. Obviously the content being warned about has changed as culture changed. Were they always bad? Perhaps. I'm personally fine with age ratings despite their freedom of speech issues.



I disagree. You should know if you're a sensitive person or not. I don't even see how it defeats the point of them.

So here's the thing. Its not just a case of being sensitive or not. Its also a case of knowing if somethig may be triggering or not.

i.e if i play a horror i know there will be gore and certain themes that come up in horror (i.e SA, Murder, Suicide, cults etc are likely) however let's say I play a game about child thieves balancing their school lives.

I can expect certain things from that like gambling (casinos are a common trapping in phantom thief related material) or betrayal. I can also expect bullying, maybe even suicide (both can be expected in 'serious' stories about school age kids) if none of those are triggers then why would I check the content warning? its not like SA would show up right?

But it does. In fact it's a key theme of the very first mission. It's not a trigger for me so wasn't an issue but I would never have guessed that SA would be a theme in Persona 5 (beyond the obvious that you consensually date a teacher)

Making content warnings be optional means that people are still gonna be blindsided because there will be triggers that surprise people because media is different.

I disagree. I think you are underestimating people's abilities to know what they are sensitive to or triggered by. If someone is sensitive towards suicidal themes, we should at the very least expect them to know that for themselves. I guess if I thought people were stupid, I could argue that optional content warnings should be more established so people understand what would be entailed in them so they know they should look at them. If that makes sense. I still think people are smart and shouldn't be infantilized.

This post made me realize how important it is for art to be able to "blindside" people with its content and themes. Some people absolutely need to be surprised by sexual assault, murder, suicide, etc. appearing in the art they experience. I watched a movie last night where suicide is a major theme, and I wasn't expecting it. I'm pretty sensitive to suicide right now, and being surprised by it being in this movie really enhanced the message of the film, and impacted me personally and honestly helped me cope with these issues I'm facing. I wouldn't have gotten that if I read a content warning first. So much great art blindsides its audience with darker themes, and that is absolutely lost with a non-optional content warning. Not that it's "great" art, but doki doki literature club's tonal twist is utterly ruined by the content warning that was added. It basically makes the game not worth playing anymore. Of course, that warning was added because some teen blamed their suicide on the game, so in some ways, I do have to admit that some people need to be infantilized. But that doesn't mean we should infantilize people. I feel respecting someone's intelligence is more important than making sure they're comfortable.

I do feel optional content warnings do not infantilize their audience. In fact, I think it really shows a level of respect for people because people really do know what's best for themselves, and people who need content warnings are completely capable of realizing that maybe they should spoil the game by reading that warning. Making it not optional disrespects everyone in the audience, and disrespects the art itself.

[Haseo8]

I think you're overestimating people

[megpie71]

I'm coming to this remembering my first time playing P3, back on the PS2 (I still have the console and the game, and they both still work - old stuff was built to last!). The first time I saw the summoning mechanic for Personas (and the first time I saw the opening FMV) I was somewhat taken aback. I'd bought the game expecting a JRPG (something along the lines of the Final Fantasy series, or maybe Dragon Quest), not something which really started strong with themes of death, suicide, and so on. It was confronting, and the game play was even more so (you don't see it so much in the new version, but the summoning methods for the various characters were very much demonstrating multiple ways of holding a gun to effectively commit suicide by gunshot), and at that time in my life, I was living with constant suicidal ideation as well. Playing the original Persona 3 was always a bit of a challenging experience for me, and the main thing which made it survivable for me was knowing this was a game.

That the overall theme of the game is very much "life is worth living, and living to the fullest; the world is worth saving" doesn't really take away from the suicide imagery.

So yeah, I can understand why they'd put a content warning on there, particularly in this day and age where people threw tantrums about the "this is a work of fiction" disclaimer on Persona 5 because it wouldn't let them play the game without agreeing they understood this was a game, and not real life. I'm just disappointed they didn't have the same "you do understand this is a game, right?" gateway on this one.

I can also understand having the epilepsy warnings in the game loading space as well - it used to be those were in the manual. Remember game manuals? You got them with the discs, and they were a little booklet containing things like, oh, a brief run-down of the game mechanics, the inevitable warnings and discussions, a brief introduction to the characters you were going to meet at the beginning of the game, an introduction to the plot and so on. I was weird, I actually read them, because they were useful. In these modern days of everything downloaded, they've stopped having a manual, and instead front-load every single game with enough tutorial content to ensure you're not going to be able to settle in and play without distraction until you're at least halfway (possibly two-thirds of the way) through the game.

If you really object to content warnings, epilepsy warnings and so on, then start campaigning for physical media and game manuals again, and give the developers and marketers somewhere to put this stuff which isn't part of the actual game.

[Lumios]

Originally posted by Sal from Impractical Jokers:

I think it's good to have, personally. It's pretty harmless. I just wish you didn't have to wait five seconds to skip ahead. I understand why they can't just have it stop appearing after you've launched the game for the first time (if you're letting your friend boot it up on your computer, for example), but having opened the game every day since it came out, I've definitely accumulated a couple minutes' worth of time just waiting to be able to press X to move on and have to mash X through the logos.

In Persona 5, the legal disclaimer would pop up only once for each new game or new game +, and I don't believe anybody will see it more than once or twice before they stop playing.

I don't understand why Atlus decided to do it differently this time around. Why didn't they do that here too? It would've probably not spawned this 7 pages long discourse.

[DohItAgain]

You guys scared of content warning would've been absolutely *devastated* in PS1 era playing Resident Evil or a number of other games. And let's not get started on 90s TV.

[Megabyte [RSSD]]

Originally posted by Fairystail:

Originally posted by JonPringus:

Good point. Obviously the content being warned about has changed as culture changed. Were they always bad? Perhaps. I'm personally fine with age ratings despite their freedom of speech issues.



I disagree. You should know if you're a sensitive person or not. I don't even see how it defeats the point of them.

So here's the thing. Its not just a case of being sensitive or not. Its also a case of knowing if somethig may be triggering or not.

i.e if i play a horror i know there will be gore and certain themes that come up in horror (i.e SA, Murder, Suicide, cults etc are likely) however let's say I play a game about child thieves balancing their school lives.

I can expect certain things from that like gambling (casinos are a common trapping in phantom thief related material) or betrayal. I can also expect bullying, maybe even suicide (both can be expected in 'serious' stories about school age kids) if none of those are triggers then why would I check the content warning? its not like SA would show up right?

But it does. In fact it's a key theme of the very first mission. It's not a trigger for me so wasn't an issue but I would never have guessed that SA would be a theme in Persona 5 (beyond the obvious that you consensually date a teacher)

Making content warnings be optional means that people are still gonna be blindsided because there will be triggers that surprise people because media is different.

this right here is why Im not sure for this game it's a big deal. Yes, the impact is there, but it's a story beat you expect to be in the gametype.

Im thinking things like DDLC where it hides itself as a dating sim before the messed up stuff starts. A warning screen degrades the intended cold-slab of meat to the face effect... occasionally you need something that straight up forgoes the warning.

[doin yuo're monm]

Originally posted by Megabyte RSSD:

Im thinking things like DDLC where it hides itself as a dating sim before the messed up stuff starts. A warning screen degrades the intended cold-slab of meat to the face effect... occasionally you need something that straight up forgoes the warning.

DDLC literally had a content warning bro

[Faiyez]

Originally posted by DohItAgain:

You guys scared of content warning would've been absolutely *devastated* in PS1 era playing Resident Evil or a number of other games. And let's not get started on 90s TV.

Yes. Content warnings used to mean something.

[JonPringus]

Originally posted by Sal from Impractical Jokers:

Originally posted by Megabyte RSSD:

Im thinking things like DDLC where it hides itself as a dating sim before the messed up stuff starts. A warning screen degrades the intended cold-slab of meat to the face effect... occasionally you need something that straight up forgoes the warning.

DDLC literally had a content warning bro

It used to not have one when it first released.

[Faiyez]

The Japanese version doesn't have this.

Nanny localizers.

[Faiyez]

Rise of the Ronin has a content disclaimer apologizing for not showing diverse enough representation in a game based in historical Japan.

Wokeness is out of control.

[Edible T-Shirt]

Originally posted by Faiyez:

Rise of the Ronin has a content disclaimer apologizing for not showing diverse enough representation in a game based in historical Japan.

Wokeness is out of control.

Bruh came back almost two weeks later and brought up an entirely different game just so he could keep whining. Imagine having that kind of resolve.