YAIBA: NINJA GAIDEN Z (90% off at Steam)

I am sure I will get my butt kicked big time by this game, whenever I get a chance to try it… historical low point on the price, just in case people want to check it out too.

@DontBeSilly, @Enki

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Mao! It’s pretty but is there a way to turn off the copious blood drops?

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Looks ace. Bargain as well. SOLD!

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I just checked, there seems not be a gore/violence filter in the settings… Sorry… :frowning:

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Ah…oh…uh…must resist somehow .

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honestly looks really bad to my eyes, can’t stand that comic-ish artstyle at all haha easy pass, my wallet shall be safe

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I am just the opposite…

I can't resist the style, ever since:

image

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Hm. Between too much blood and not knowing the series much, I may just get Monochroma on Humble - it’s on sale and more to my art style preference.

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Think I am going to pass… But thanks for the heads up @YQMaoski :heavy_heart_exclamation::heavy_heart_exclamation::heavy_heart_exclamation:

Think…Not sure…But I am looking at Low Magic Age because once it’s not on sale…They are adding $5 to the price and making it $15.00

And this is being removed from Steam…After the sale of 80%.

And I thought this was cool for the price:

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@delenn13 I like the look of Kyrstopia. Getting that and Ember today. Low Magic Age looks really nice, but I’m keeping my eyes sharp for a Fell Seal trade and LMA seems like another time intensive one. Trying to pick “struggles” wisely, lol.

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I just removed Low Magic Age recently from my wishlist cause of some bad review which also mentioned the dev was from China :space_invader:

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Removing because of bad reviews I can understand, but the China bit is lost on me. Elaborate?
:carrot::blowfish:

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Well i obviously cant speak for him but China is pretty … not the nicest country in the world , lets put it like that. I also do have one country i pretty much avoid all stuff from so i can relate a bit.

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Ah I guess I understand, but at the same time it’s a bit of a shame. I’d rather judge people on their individual merit than lump them together and judge them as a group :sweat: I did a 1 month exchange for the final year of my Illustration program in China a few years ago and the individuals I met during my stay were really lovely people. Anyway, I don’t want things to get political or anything so we can just move along and change subjects lol.

:carrot::blowfish:

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There are a lot of game studios in China and a lot of Steam users in China…

I was born there myself, even though I left as a young kid… (If not for my parents, I would still be there.)

It’s not exactly fair to avoid all products from a country that has so many people, I think.

Anyway, you do whatever you feel is necessary or right, I think it’s just kind of unfair to, say, walk down the street and say hello and smile at everyone but turning away from every fifth person just because of a generalization. That’s about the population in China, in comparison to the rest of the world.

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No I think it’s entirely fair actually, it’s not about penalizing people for being Chinese. It’s about not supporting the Chinese government, every bit of business no matter how tiny you do with a Chinese company means putting some of your money into the coffers of China.

If there is a country which acts in a fashion you find disagreeable then I think it’s entirely fair, admirable even, to opt out of or even just trying to decrease the business you do with companies from that country.

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Yup. @Fraggles formulated it better than i did but general idea is that people should have morals and stand behind them even though it might land you in some troubles or make you unpopular.

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I completely agree with this aspect of the argument.

I think doing what you think is the right thing is completely reasonable, it would be great if everyone could do this as well.

Aside from the fact that decreasing business or cutting doing business at all with a company that falls within a location means that you are punishing the people who live there, who have little or nothing to do with the overall political machine, but who are trying to go day to day, make a living, put food on the table for their families, send their children to school, etc. Ultimately the people who suffer are the ones at the bottom rungs of the ladder, who are truly struggling. This decision could easily be why they suffer more. I speak about this because I have family members (not immediate, but distant relatives) there who live in these impoverish situations whose lives as far as they know is the say day in and day out. Some of them make it out, some of them are stuck. Just because they are working under a “legal” umbrella established by the system just so that they can continue doing what they know and can do in order to keep living and providing the necessities for their families. All this, just because so many countries out there have made it a habit of exploiting the fact that manual labor is cheap over there? Where do these companies and their executives’ consciences lie?

Again, generalizing decisions to affect people because of disagreement with a political machine that is completely outside of their control/ranks/authority is punishing them, without a doubt. Indirectly, the ones who are truly affected at those who are struggling the most.

Because of the manufacturing costs, pretty much everything we use and come across on a regular basis have been, in some way shape or form, come across some hands overseas. Not just people in China, but also other easily exploitable peoples elsewhere. But what can they do, that’s all they know because that is all they have done.

Will you stop buying clothing that’s manufactured in China? Okay, say that some people have the necessary funds to do so, this is fine. But that’s far and few in between. Computer parts manufactured in China? Even if the assembly is in Europe or the US or Japan, many of the individual parts had been made in China. Decisions like this from one or two people in our consumer ranks certainly would do little to change the bigger picture, but what if these decisions came from more influential figures who can sway a large populous? The ultimate effect would be a part of the people are turned zealously into stout followers, while others may become indifferent. But know that a lot of these people are making their decisions because it is outside of their ranks and decision-making considerations because they cannot deal with the increased costs as that decision would have on their already tight budgets.

But these percentage decrease in use and cash flow would trickle down ultimately to the people at the bottom ranks of the manufacturing process.

I always go back to thinking about taking a walk through my father’s home town a few years ago when I visited there for the first time. I was watching an elderly woman, probably in her 60s, with many sets of baseball parts sitting by her, as she sits alone, in her shop, making baseballs one by one, Some stitches with a machine, some by hand, with a large needle and those thick binding threads, etc. We stood there watching her as she fashioned baseballs one after another–just so that some aspiring child in a baseball-heavy country or perhaps established baseball player could use the ball for its intended meaning. Why do I use this example? Well, I have never heard of anyone growing up to play baseball in China. It’s just not a thing. For this woman, it meant likely a boringly continuous and arduous life where she gets paid a few pennies for her labors. Is she struggling? I don’t know. Does she like what she’s doing? I don’t know that either. But I can tell you that she’s masterfully fine-tuned the process, and that’s her way of helping her family bringing in maybe a little extra income, maybe the only income. I just don’t know.

I am sorry I rambled on so long, I think about individual people and individual faces when thinking about this and as such, these discussions carry meaning far too personal for me.

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The problem with your argument of “think about the bottom rung people” is that nothing will ever improve for them if we keep supporting their exploitation. Only political shift can accomplish that and only by making current standards not viable can such shifts be made.

A good example of that happening is the idea of fair trade coffee and chocolates, at some point we appear to have decided that the exploitation of the bottom rung people in south america had to stop to some extent and at this point I think pretty much all coffee you can buy in Sweden is now “fair trade” branded.

The all or nothing approach does not work, I know way too much stuff and components are made in China, some things you simply do not have a choice in. I will be buying new computer parts at some point and it will be inevitable that those parts contain microchips and diodes made in china because they have near global monopoly on semiconductor material manufacturing. So no I wont stop buying EVERYTHING that’s made in China, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t try to actually look at where things are made and make a conscious choice. It also helps curb consumption as I’ll ask myself whether I really do need this item or not.

Does it matter if I alone don’t buy Chinese made stuff? Does it matter if I alone don’t buy EA games? Does it matter if I alone don’t buy blood diamonds?
No, course not, never said it would. But it is my choice to make and even if I don’t solve anything I at least wont be part of the problem.

Also I have a hard time imagining that game developers in China are sitting on the bottom rung of society, since abstaining from Chinese made games is what we started this discussion on.

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As we are unable to get away from the idea of a global community, everyone’s idea of what’s right and wrong will be a few shades different. I don’t disagree with you that there are obvious things that can be changed to improve things. The fair trade coffee and chocolates is a good example. Would people from these international companies all of a sudden decide to pay higher wages so that the people working under them in these distant and international factories could have a better quality of life? I wish.

As for game developers, I don’t know where they sit. Probably you are right, they are not at the bottom, but except for the people who make it big and those who have outstanding skills, most of these are still the people who went into the field with a dream of making it big, with a passion and interest in the field, and likely they needed years of schooling to gain the skills and abilities to pursue their dreams. As far as I know, Computer Science is only a field that’s taught in college, not at any high school level in China, and so they had to want to go into it to make it that far. Despite years of schooling, a lot of these individuals struggle through uncertainty, whether it is getting a game to perform the way they want it, or to get a game to sell well, or perhaps their next paycheck is dependent on it. I don’t know the inner workings at all, I left China when I was very young and thus not understanding their societal restrictions, etc. What I know is all learned from a western perspective education and then whatever I have managed to read about over the years.

I only carried on this conversation because of a gross generalization of saying “product A was made in China” and “I disagree with decisions by the Chinese government” and thus “I will not buy the product.” I just wanted people who to make this decision to think about the many layers of people this may potentially affect. It could be a drop in the ocean that’s negligible, or could be the tiny bit that caused a natural disaster. I don’t profess to know what would happen from the decision of an individual, and even my own decisions to buy games are heavy discounts may have some economic impact in a negative way as well that are unclear. Perhaps I am contributing to the machinations of an army of employed programmers and coders working tirelessly just so that they could get enough sales “on sale” in order to supply enough comfortable living conditions for their families as well. At the bottom of things, I just wanted to point out that government and the people within may have different ideas about what’s going on in the world.

I commend that your decision is your own step toward a goal of improving human lives across the globe in a way that you feel is appropriate and within your power. And I am not trying to convince anyone to buy a game that’s produced by developers in China. But do we really have to tie everything back to the governments that are in a completely different frame of reference for the individuals involved. I just want to focus on the people.

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