Why do the devs spend time to upscale the pin-up posters just to remove them later?

[Com Nguoi]

I have tbh they did a great job upscaling those 2 posters. The one on the right is especially hot but that is not the point. I don't think they would cause this much backlash if they just decided to remove them at the beginning. Doing something like censoring midway is like tricking you to buy something and then delivering something else entirely.

[chakkman]

What kind of answer do you expect here, or from the dozen of other identical threads?

[Com Nguoi]

Originally posted by chakkman:

What kind of answer do you expect here, or from the dozen of other identical threads?

Most of the threads on the first page are calling for a refund. Unfortunately I don't really see the motive behind this move from the devs however and I don't see anyone discuss them.

[Lanzagranadas]

Because not everything is decided by 'the developers'. There are too many cooks in this kitchen (Aspyr, Saber, Crystal Dynamics), and they don't necessarily all think the same and agree with each other on everything... Core and Eidos also had their many differences back in the 90s.

You normally wouldn't put something you don't like just to remove it later, but if someone else with enough authority tells you to remove it you have to do it. People have bosses and jobs to do, even if you think your boss' decision is stupid.

[solaris32]

Originally posted by Lanzagranadas:

Because not everything is decided by 'the developers'. There are too many cooks in this kitchen (Aspyr, Saber, Crystal Dynamics), and they don't necessarily all think the same and agree with each other on everything... Core and Eidos also had their many differences back in the 90s.

You normally wouldn't put something you don't like just to remove it later, but if someone else with enough authority tells you to remove it you have to do it. People have bosses and jobs to do, even if you think your boss' decision is stupid.

This. Crystal Dynamics forced the devs of this remaster, Aspyr, to remove it.

[shadowgravy]

I don't know the full story but it seems to me that the team that did the real work tried to keep the posters in the remaster by signing them 'Laura Cruz,' the original working name for the Lara Croft prototype character. The pinups were at the very start of a level in The Lost Artefact. In 1998 they were very pixelated and you recognized them more by color more than detail that they were the publicity art for Tomb Raider III created by Eidos. I recall that The Lost Artefact 'expansion' was also created by Eidos, not the CORE Design team, so it kind of made sense back then to find the pinups in the game as an Easter Egg inserted by Eidos. They were probably intended as a sly joke, but possibly they were a call-back to Eidos's marketing strategy to glamorize Lara Croft and arguably fetishize her femininity.

I don't know why the posters were removed but I'm inclined to believe there is a legal reason. The publicity artwork may have been copyrighted by Eidos and not licensed for use in the remaster. Or, perhaps Crystal Dynamics is protecting the Lady Lara Croft image by not portraying her as a pinup model in addition to her being an aristocrat and adventurer.

[Com Nguoi]

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

I don't know the full story but it seems to me that the team that did the real work tried to keep the posters in the remaster by signing them 'Laura Cruz,' the original working name for the Lara Croft prototype character. The pinups were at the very start of a level in The Lost Artefact. In 1998 they were very pixelated and you recognized them more by color more than detail that they were the publicity art for Tomb Raider III created by Eidos. I recall that The Lost Artefact 'expansion' was also created by Eidos, not the CORE Design team, so it kind of made sense back then to find the pinups in the game as an Easter Egg inserted by Eidos. They were probably intended as a sly joke, but possibly they were a call-back to Eidos's marketing strategy to glamorize Lara Croft and arguably fetishize her femininity.

I don't know why the posters were removed but I'm inclined to believe there is a legal reason. The publicity artwork may have been copyrighted by Eidos and not licensed for use in the remaster. Or, perhaps Crystal Dynamics is protecting the Lady Lara Croft image by not portraying her as a pinup model in addition to her being an aristocrat and adventurer.

Oh thank for the info. This is the kind of answer I was looking for aside from the obvious one like the higher-up demands those posters to be removed.

[DogMeat]

I don't think they actually 'upscaled' it. I assume they just got the source images that those pixelated posters were based on.

Not sure why anyone would defend them over this. They've censored other things in game and even if this censorship has a good reason (legal rights issue) communication from the developers is the most important thing.

They refuse to give good patch notes and communicate with their customers, yet a handful of individuals still seem to want to defend them.

[ParabolaWaVe]

I don't believe this explanation, because legal teams sort all this kind of copyright stuff previous to the start of the project. The fact is that the artwork in question was there, in the initial release. And still is on classic mode, after the removal... only more pixelated and hard to distinguish. If the problem was copyrighted art, they would've deleted the assets from classic mode as well as remastered. Its more like they didn't want the players to look at the artwork, rather than they not wanting to include it in the package.

[ParabolaWaVe]

Also to consider: they could have easily generated new posters on the same style to replace a supposedly copyrighted material, using the same Lara 3D model of the game.

[shadowgravy]

They could have redone the art in the style of the achievement badges. I think that would have been pretty cool actually.

[DogMeat]

Originally posted by ParabolaWaVe:

I don't believe this explanation, because legal teams sort all this kind of copyright stuff previous to the start of the project. The fact is that the artwork in question was there, in the initial release. And still is on classic mode, after the removal... only more pixelated and hard to distinguish. If the problem was copyrighted art, they would've deleted the assets from classic mode as well as remastered. Its more like they didn't want the players to look at the artwork, rather than they not wanting to include it in the package.

I don't disagree. They don't deserve ANY benefit of the doubt based on just about everything they've done. Got a few shills in the thread trying to downplay this about how it might be a legal issue.

Well... if it is they should probably communicate about it.

They're either absolutely incompetent at communicating with customers or they're going through a period of turmoil. Apparently they're selling a bunch of companies that were involved in this and I heard they fired their communication manager sometime before the game released.

I'm not really sure how you manage to bungle a classic remaster this badly but they seem to be doing literally everything they can to be incompetent and controversial.

Part of my excitement over this remaster was that there was no way they'd manage to bring culture war nonsense into this. I even argued with people who claimed / asked if it would be woke. "Don't bring that crap in here!" I'd say. Then the actual developers brought that crap in here.

Eff them. I hope they all lose their jobs.

[ParabolaWaVe]

To be fair, it is always possible that there is, after all, a legal explanation. But I think its very unlikely, considering the time that has passed. Saber and Crystal Dynamics are probably well aware of the controversy, since it has appeared on the web, Reddit, forums of Steam. If the removal wasn't censorship, there would be a social update by now, clarifying the issue. That they haven't done so, is pretty much confirmation of censorship in my opinion.

[DogMeat]

Originally posted by ParabolaWaVe:

To be fair, it is always possible that there is, after all, a legal explanation. But I think its very unlikely, considering the time that has passed. Saber and Crystal Dynamics are probably well aware of the controversy, since it has appeared on the web, Reddit, forums of Steam. If the removal wasn't censorship, there would be a social update by now, clarifying the issue. That they haven't done so, is pretty much confirmation of censorship in my opinion.

I mean, remember the Epic fiasco? They waited FIFTEEN days to address that. Don't be surprised to see them wait another fifteen days to address this, assuming they even do.

I legitimately don't care if they have a good reason for it at this point. They're utterly incompetent at their jobs and have done everything in their power to make being a classic Lara fan a miserable experience.

If they remaster my favorite classic Tomb Raider game, Last Revelation and they do a good job of it they wont see a dime from me after this.

[v00d00m4n]

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

I don't know the full story but it seems to me that the team that did the real work tried to keep the posters in the remaster by signing them 'Laura Cruz,' the original working name for the Lara Croft prototype character. The pinups were at the very start of a level in The Lost Artefact. In 1998 they were very pixelated and you recognized them more by color more than detail that they were the publicity art for Tomb Raider III created by Eidos. I recall that The Lost Artefact 'expansion' was also created by Eidos, not the CORE Design team, so it kind of made sense back then to find the pinups in the game as an Easter Egg inserted by Eidos. They were probably intended as a sly joke, but possibly they were a call-back to Eidos's marketing strategy to glamorize Lara Croft and arguably fetishize her femininity.

I don't know why the posters were removed but I'm inclined to believe there is a legal reason. The publicity artwork may have been copyrighted by Eidos and not licensed for use in the remaster. Or, perhaps Crystal Dynamics is protecting the Lady Lara Croft image by not portraying her as a pinup model in addition to her being an aristocrat and adventurer.

Lets not pretend that we did not like Eidos marketing back then! We all loved it. except for Toby Gard, but despite all the respect for him to creating this game, he was wrong about sexiness of Lara overshadowing game itself. It served game pretty well!

I found out sexy lara posters in game journals before i played game. And i was hyped to see it! I was lured into this game by boobs and booty on poster, but in result got way more than this, an excelent adventure game which made me forget about boobs and booty, but if it was not advertised like that i may have skipped this masterpiece. And millions of others may have skipped it too. So marketing was good, and game was even better.

It the same story as with Nier Automata - most of people bought it because of 2b arse, that they saw on screenshots and preview. Nobody expect anything deep and meaningful from it, and suddenly game surprised everyone by fact that besides nice arse there is a deep soul and meangful story that makes you cry in the end. But arse did not hurt the soul, actually arse allowed many people to find this soul deep inside, lol. So sexiness is not excluding other good features of games, actually it attracting more people to those good features. And Nier author - Yoko Taro knows that, and mix sexiness and fetishism with deep stories pretty well, he plays our instincts and minds like a damn fiddle.

[GenSec39]

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

Or, perhaps Crystal Dynamics is protecting the Lady Lara Croft image by not portraying her as a pinup model in addition to her being an aristocrat and adventurer.

Roflmao. Did you even read the disclaimer they inserted at the start of the game? They condemn this trilogy. And they hate Lara Croft. Not just classic Lara Croft, but in general. They condemn everything she did.

Did you read recent Crystal Dynamics' posts? Next game about Lara Croft won't even be a Tomb Raider. Because tomb raiding is ba-a-ad. Protecting Lara Croft, haha...