On Monday, Sony showed off a deluge of upcoming PlayStation 4 games at its Paris Games Week conference. There’s been a little controversy surrounding those trailers, especially with The Last of Us Part II and Detroit: Become human. The first showed a brutal, out-of-context scene of women being tormented, and some have seen it as little more than torture porn. The latter showed some iffy domestic and child abuse, and both have been called out for being ill-fitting ways to promote a game.
There’s a distinction to be made, of course, that it doesn’t seem anybody is really calling for that sort of stuff to be excised from their respective games – and within the context of those games those scenes probably slot right in. I’m somewhat in that camp. I think that creators should be able to create whatever they want to – but that people should also be free to criticise those creations – with the caveat here that criticism doesn’t mean condemnation, which is what half the internet seems to believe.
Sony also feels that its creators should be able to make the things they want to make. Speaking to VG247 at PGW, Senior Vice President Michael Denny said that the company puts a lot of trust in its creators.
“We’ve always wanted to have a variety of content, lots of choice, we’ve always wanted to be innovative and sometimes challenge as well,” Denny said. “To have thought-provoking and mature content if it’s handled in the right way and aimed at a mature audience, I think that’s part of PlayStation as well. It always has been that we trust in our creators. It’s about the experience and the game they want to make.
Clearly, we’re involved in producing that and if you’re going to go into areas of challenging content we need to make sure it’s done in an appropriate way as well,” he added. “Part of these things are about playing the game and putting them in context – making sure it’s thought-provoking in the right way.”
You can read a little more, including a direct response about Detroit’s scenes at VG247.
Last Updated: November 1, 2017
Pieter Kruger
November 1, 2017 at 09:39
This is what Sony is good at, Single Player 3rd person with immersion! Chasing that 1st high will always lead to MORE. If it’s too much to handle go play Mario, and I assume the Rating of this game will tell you if you’re too young/immature to play/review/cry/bitch over or even comment on articles about this game….
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
November 1, 2017 at 11:31
I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not. This is weird.
Skittle
November 1, 2017 at 09:44
Meh, put PG16 VL before the trailer. Problem solved.
Francois Knoetze
November 1, 2017 at 09:55
People really need to get over the hypersensitivity issue of everything.
Original Heretic
November 1, 2017 at 10:23
These people who wanted to complain, did they even play the first Last of Us?!? It’s not a game about a little girl having a tea party.
It’s a world of violence and survival. Those two often go hand in hand.
Steffmeister
November 1, 2017 at 10:51
If Polygon keeps on crying wolf at everything, they will become a joke… oh wait.
Steffmeister
November 1, 2017 at 11:01
Polygon: We want game developers to show more realistic strong (well written) female characters.
Naughty Dog: Writes good female characters in a game that happens to be very violent.
Polygon: Oh no violence against women!
But seriously though, I get what the Polygon writer was trying to say(violence against woman without context), but the whole point of the trailer was to make the viewer feel uneasy, and also not giving away much of the plot. Let the TLOU fans figure things out.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
November 1, 2017 at 11:29
Yea but no problem if the TLOU trailer involved men. But then the snowflakes would be “WHY ARE THERE NO WOMEN REPRESENTED??”
Lets’s make a game about a fucking barbie doll tea party and see how well that’s received. Then they’d be “WHY ARE YOU PERPETUATING GENDER STEREOTYPES??”
Peter Pan
November 1, 2017 at 11:35
The Detroit trailer was super heavy – digging into the darkest recesses of man, but all it provided me with was the shock factor – it didn’t create in me any desire to play the game. The Last of Us trailer though – yeah, violent as well, but then so was the prequel – I am definitely keen for this one.
Allykhat
November 1, 2017 at 11:57
I don’t want to be that guy…
But…
If it was two dudes getting beat on/hanged, none of these snowflake f###wits would have made such a fuss. Personally? After seeing those trailers I’m even more interested in playing the games. I was already pretty keen for TLOU2, but that piqued my interest. Why did that happen? Why was that lady doing what she was doing. I want to see the motives behind the actions. I’m hungry for the context behind what happened and why. No because of it being “murder/gore porn”, but because after ACTUALLY PLAYING The Last of Us, and seeing what the world and people in the game have become in order to survive, there is no way that was put in as a non-contextual piece of marketting “gore porn”. That event will have impact on the story.
As for Detroit… That game wasnt even on my radar at all.. until that trailer. The sheer fact that a game TRAILER could stir feelings and emotions the way that one did surprised the hell out of me.
If the snowflakes get their way, entertainment will go the way of watching paint dry, because that’s one of the few things that cant possibly offend anyone.
Oh wait… paint comes in different colors! Scratch that idea :/
Skyblue
November 1, 2017 at 12:01
Lol. Detroit is going to be like the rest of Quantic Dream’s games which is a QTE-fest movie rather than an actual game. I finished Heavy Rain but took a skip on Beyond: Two Souls. This looks intriguing but you might as well watch a play through imo.
Gavin Mannion
November 1, 2017 at 14:14
I just watched the TLOU2 trailer now for the first time, the violence seemed proportionate to the world they now live in.
If that offends you then great don’t play the game, no one is forcing you to