Cultural laws AND moral boundaries of the majority of the audience.
And not in “other” countries, but in “all” countries.
If this were done just to appease China, then it would have been done in the China-specific version of the client (which was made because China doesn’t allow skeletons in video games).
The USA was already prude by European standards back in 2013 when the game released. Both the USA and Europe have become even more prude over the last years.
I think the main reason for the changes in the non-Chinese version is simply that Blizzard wants parents to not feel uncomfortable when they see their children play this game. And the boundary or that has edged towards less skin and less gore over the past years.
Look, I play to crush people, if a card is nerfed I am affected by it, the people that are like me invest time/money into the competitive aspect of the game.
Then there are people that play for the looks, look at Kripp, he has an almost fully golden collection, he invested quite a lot into it, other people only make the golden copies of cards they like the most, replacing the best art in the game with absolute sh****t affects their experience too
Well if that’s the case then fair enough, that’s still an admirable goal in my book. Adjusting something so that more people are comfortable with it is never a bad move in my opinion…even more so when people actually start to complain that it’s no longer sexualized enough for them, that speaks more volumes about those kind of people than anything else to me
It actually has some severe implications in mental health with, as an extreme example, increased suicide and suicide attempt rates in Gen Z. Refer to the book “Coddling of the American Mind” for a full view. However, and I want to make this crystal clear, it is just one of many factors and a very local thing in the US. Most of those factors are irrelevant outside of the US.
[h.ttps://www.igdb.com/games/hearthstone/age_rating]
Apparently the age rating for Hearthstone warns that blood and gore could be present. If parents are really that concerned about it, a google search probably wouldn’t go amiss.
(remove the “.” to see the link)
I was going to say that you are neglecting mobile market. While I checked I found it’s actually rated Teen which means: “Alcohol Reference, Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes.” To be honest, I was convinced it was rated for 4+.
So there is the possibility that they are trying to get to a wider, younger audience over time. Would take quite a bit of time considering things like “Tavern”.
Not impossible, but I think it’s more likely that they try to continue to appeal to the same age range while society is slowly adjusting its norms and standards.
Movies that were rated PG when they were released one or two decades ago are now being frowned upon. (For some examples, see https://screenrant.com/pg-rated-movies-never-allowed-today/)
keep on judging people on that, I do prefer sex demons to look like sex demons though, but judge me, and I do like some violence when I play a game that involves killing violently (with eviscerating your opponent to beat him) which speaks a lot about me
There is balance in everything, HS had just the right amount of awful and now you’re so happy they got rid of that, speaks about you
I mean, I bet you wouldn’t allow salt or lemon in cookies either, cause those aren’t sweet, right?
I’ve read about a study on how moderate exposure to violence (and I refer to the eviscerate kind of violence) lowers the chances that those people will be violent or sensitive to seeing violence, I did see this reflected in real life btw.
EDIT: I tried to find any reference to this but I couldn’t in the time I had, too bad
Though there are factors in a child’s development that can’t be manipulated by complete strangers they don’t even ever interact with so maybe yelling wold is the right choice here
@Raywen I just can’t though “It’s to be appreciated that they care for how parents feel…” really? you think they do, how funny, they did it for money, they want a better reputation with the EU, with parents, with uninformed facebook mothers and so on
I knew it was 16, I mean there are cards that literally say “Fu**” which adults here aren’t allowed to say
At what point did I say I was “happy about it”? Tbh I have no feelings about their changes one way or the other…they decided to change the art…the new art is pretty decent…fair enough as far as I’m concerned. What I have a problem with is peoples reactions to the changes. I’ve seen posts that people are quitting the game…QUITTING THE GAME…….because they are disgusted about the game being so de-sexualized. And you wonder why I say it speaks volumes about those kinds of people? Not being funny mate, but a few pictures have been changed and people are screaming about it like they’ve committed mass genocide. That’s what I have a problem with…….the overreaction to what is basically a MINOR change that really doesn’t affect anybody
The one is which you missed these cards in those countries have been round for 5 years and no change. A certain country put a ethical team to examine games coming and see if that affects or influences young minds. Its called censorship no matter what words you say art whatever. You lucky if you live in a western country and your not affected by this ethical team if you were I bet you would not be defending it bah.
This is where you said you liked that they changed it
I’m so tired of this kind of conversation, here’s a tip
IF YOU READ SOMETHING AS SCREAMING IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SCREAMING!
Whenever someone has a little complaint, problem or discomfort that certain people on this forums don’t have they go “You are so degraded, unlike me cause I don’t care about this, as always I have no opinion on this certain thing therefor I am bette…no, I’m not better, I’m too humble to be better, you’re worse! Yeah…that fits…”
If you have no opinion on it stay away, It’s impossible to believe you have no opinion when you’re all over this subject
It grinds just about everyone’s gears.
Look, contrary to my namesake I’m pretty miserable about all this.
If any HS developer has the basic decency to read this post, I would ask for many things, but now because of these art changes, I have a brand new request that’s probably one that people have asked for recently:
Like the heroes and the card backs, hearthstone players that created their accounts pre-year of the dragon should have an optional “art toggle” or “alternative art” switch. Not just for succubus/felstalker and secretkeeper, but also for cards like Malygos. Someone really needs to do a proper job of doing malygos rather than lazily putting Kalecgos as a rushed attempt.
Don’t be so lazy, Hearthstone.
That’s my job.
I suggest a card art switch that appears in the collection so we can pick the art for our cards. However, from another accounts perspective that has the switch OFF, they’d see all the RATED E for Emetic Art rather than the RATED R for Risqué.
Just because Activi- Sorry, I mean Blizzard, is trying to appeal to a wider audience, doesn’t mean it has to cut out all those older, more mature players like us.
As I said…I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other about the changes. At best my opinion is…I wouldn’t have been bothered if they haven’t changed them, and I’m not really that bothered that they have, but now that they have…at least the art is actually pretty cool for the most part. I have, however, at least tried to see things from Blizzards point of view as to WHY the changes were made, unlike the vast majority of the people who’ve posted about this who just jumped on the ‘f*ck blizzard and its stupid censorship’ bandwagon. As I also said, what I DO have an opinion on is peoples ridiculously over the top reactions to it and I’m more than entitled to voice my opinion on the fact that I believe people are making WAY too big a deal out of it thank you very much
Nope, never used the word ‘like’ about the changes. What I said was that IF the changes were made so that the game is more acceptable to others and therefore more inclusive, then that is an admirable goal…NOT the same thing
With the exception of some clarifications, I’ve been stepping away from this discussion because I feel that it’s snowballing for a couple of days. There are too many badly informed opinions around, way too many assumptions and what I can only qualify as a disproportionate response mostly fuelled by political and social-cultural perceptions, or dare I say, gross stereotypes.
The slippery slopes that I’ve been reading in this forum fit this description. Apart from a couple of interesting exchanges (one of them with you by the way), everything else seems like we are talking about a major cultural shift when in fact we are just talking about 8 graphics out of roughly 2000 in a moderately sized mobile game. There are many interesting discussions to be had around these changes, for sure. But I’m not seeing any of them here.
My current expectation is that this nonsense has reached its peak and every thing will slowly go back normal. Because, if we are honest, we’ve heard these doomsayer announcements in the past and after some weeks, nothing really changed.
