JonTron's Yooka-Laylee Cameo to Be Patched Out by Playtonic

I love JonTron, no matter how much I disagree with his comments. As such, I don't think it was right for them to take out his cameo. It wasn't probably going to be that big of a deal. Just some grumbly voices that sound like Jon.

It's ridiculous. Nobody outside of some obsessed gaffers even cared about Jontron's connection to this project, and now Playtonic has turned this into yet another controversy where the mere act of purchasing the game becomes a political decision.

They're handling this VERY poorly.

I've been a fan of JonTron's videos for years now - I'm sure many of us have been. I haven't really looked too deeply into his comments, though. Sounds like a bit of a mess.

I'm more curious on which character he voiced.

It's absolutely ridiculous. He didn't even say anything bad, he basically just poorly worded some things that he better clarified later--And some of it were just some controversial facts. Things that are true but you're not supposed to say because political correctness blah blah.

But honestly that's neither here nor there. No matter what side of the fence you're on this should have never been an issue in the first place. He made some, like, single-character-cameo and all this started because some trolls on GAF started mass emailing the devs pretending like there was some public outcry. All they needed to do was be like, "Yeah the views of Jon Jafari don't represent our own," and move on. All they've done is stirred up more controversy where there didn't have to be any and quite frankly it's pathetic.

I cancelled my pre-order, I have plenty of other games to play. Suck a Jiggy, Playtonic. I'll use the $40 to buy some JonTron merch.

wanted to get it at launch, but now i'm either not getting it or when it's <$10 :^)

People are allowed to have their own opinions. But at the same time, just because you are allowed an opinion does not mean you are free of consequences for voicing your opinions.

No idea who JonTron is or what he said to piss off others; frankly, I'm not sure if I care to be enlightened in either regard. If Playtonic wanted his cameo, it's their business, but if he's no longer there, it had BETTER be their business and decision first and foremost. If it isn't, we can but document another point won by the cancer of audience meddling. While they ARE within their right to choose whatever they percieve as a lesser evil in such situations, but to change simple cameos for an unachievable mirage like "players feeling 100% comfortable with the game"? Like that EVER happens. Now a bunch of fanbrained gamers will relish in the feeling of firmly holding a whole piece of interactive fiction where the sun don't shine while another bunch including JonTron supporters will set out to rip the developers a new one. Cheers. /)_-)

And when will people learn the difference between a staffer/guest's personal opinions and the collective gig that makes up the content of the product? If they're so outraged at whatever JonTron said AND feeling that having his cameo on board could possibly equal supporting and advocating said outrageous ideas, then one's invited to question their default level of esteem and respect for the game in the first place. I know the ancients said that "money doesn't smell", but is it even COMMERCIALLY viable to have and cater to an audience like that in the long run?

Jeepers; what on Earth did he say?

@get2sammyb Heavily disagree. Since he's an influential figure he's not allowed to speak his mind and have public opinions? Nonsense. We need people who challenge the narrative and speak their minds. People should not be intimated into silence because their word doesn't fit the one on the street.

@get2sammyb JonTron is popular, but he doesn't have the mainstream appeal to make front page news. Pewdiepie arguably was, if not front page news, at least extremely publicized recently, though, with several major papers calling him a white supremacist because of his shock humor.

Anyway, I think the issue for me is less about JonTron facing "repercussions" for his words (whatever that means), and more about yet another developer taking an unnecessary political stand and irreparably dividing their player base. A lot of people are tired of the way this hobby is continually being politicized.

And if Playtonic was simply trying to avoid controversy then their response was not only wrong-headed but also incredibly foolish. The streisand effect is going into overdrive right now.

@get2sammyb Exactly, you're proving my point. Celebrities should be able to speak their minds and challenge the narrative without worrying that their careers will end just because they say something controversial. It's a stupid system and it's why celebrities are mostly made up of plastic fakes — You be the person the culture expects you to be. It's good and healthy to have people that say, "But hmm what about this?", right or wrong, and make people think. Unfortunately you can't do that in this current culture or you get crucified and treated like a monster. It's utterly toxic, and so it's great to see people like Jon who are breaking out and speaking their minds despite the mob.

@RustyDan https://gamerant.com/jontron-racism-controversy-breakdown/

This is as unbiased an analysis of the controversy as I have seen.

I'm surprised they're gonna patch him out. He did apologize, didn't he? Something like this would be pretty much heartbreaking to him, especially since he's a huge Banjo fan. I think this is a foul decision on Playtonic's part, since they've already put in the effort to add him in.

Never heard of the guy, so doesn't change anything for me. Man, this game is around the corner?!

@Ralizah
Thank you! Now I have a better grasp of the situation.

Meh I listened to the destiny chat etc. I don't even particularly like Jontron but that guy was full on baiting him, pushing him and you could tell he had no idea what he was saying. He was so flustered he basically turned to mush and it got jumped on any time he said something that could be misconstrued. Do I agree with being biased towards colour or race? No I don't, but one hell of a lot of people are and under those circumstances would probably say something stupid or similar. I didn't feel as though it was a full on hatred for a certain race, more like a bias towards white Americans. But most people seem to hate first questions later, so I'm not suprised with playtonics reaction to it. It's just damage control for them I guess.

@Tasuki This is pretty calm and civilized. You should see the mess the comment section on the NL article about this has devolved into.

I'm not getting the game now.

Playtronic way over-reacted. The destiny person purposely screwed with jon in order to mess him up.

Jon said nothing wrong and is now being mis-quoted everywhere.

@Ralizah
Don't you mean NintendoEverything?

@Gold_Ranger No, I mean Nintendo Life. I take it the Nintendo Everything comments section is a chaotic, angry mess as well?

@Ralizah
Even more so. It is seriously a mad house of insanity.

@Ralizah Yeah, I saw the comments on Nintendo Life. Pretty messy, but honestly the comments section on their articles always tend to blow up on controversial articles all the time almost.

@naut "our current culture"?
Celebrities get away with literal murder sometimes.
Roman Polanski was a wanted man and still won awards.

In the past people lost careers for being privately gay.

Don't treat celebrities like they're special in some way. Speech has consequences. Not legal ones, but otherwise everyone is fair game

@Ralizah all art has always been political.
Ironically, they're trying to distance themselves from political statements.
Fringe political statements, so who cares? Actually, who cares about 'dividing the player base' at all?
Why do you care about whose money playtonic wants?

@nhSnork "I don't know anything about this, but tirade in wall of text".
...alrighty, then

@naut those were not facts. They were "alternative facts".

@Gold_Ranger Jon compared immigration to the invasion of Tibet.
He made numerous easily disproven claims which he'd brought up before on Twitter, and linked to in the non-apology video.

@starman292 so he's not a hateful racist, just a regular racist?

@AlwaysGreener he didn't apologise.
He said he could have been "easily misconstrued" he still believes the things he said.
He still gave an interview to Brietbart.

With the vibrantly otherworldly world Playtonic's set out to create (which I can totally get behind), it seems their original sin was letting the messy real world sink its hooks in by giving an internet celeb a cameo in the first place.

Gonna shrug my shoulders at this and make a mental note never to make irrelevant pop culture references in any work of art I might create in the future. The real classics are timeless.

Their first mistake was putting a youtuber in the game in the first place, bad idea. They should of at least done their homework to see if he was a massive racist before signing him up.

Well this isn't the best way for them to get publicity for the game but it means more people talking about it so they'll probably sell more copies now.

I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, am I...

Anyways, concerning my stance towards the whole JonTron racism scandal, and how Playtonic handled the situation, I am trying my hardest to keep a neutral stance on the situation.

On one hand, many people were understandably upset over what JonTron said over the matter of immigration. That is a whole other can of worms and I really don't want to drag politics into this, we could be here all day, all I want to say that they were pretty crazy, and maybe not the best choice of words to use on that matter. Associating yourself with a popular image who has spouted racist remarks about minorities and 'white superiority' will not look good on your PR. This is a business wide thing; people can and will get dropped from sponsorships for saying things like 'death to [minority here]' in a tweet, or joking about something like the holocaust, or admit to taking illegal drugs, like the case of Noriko Sakai, whom sponsors dropped like crazy for taking drugs, which is considered a cardinal sin over in Japan, as Pokemon blogger Dogasu elaborates on his blog, when he talks about the third Pokemon short (Pichu and Pikachu):
http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/movies/pm_lord_unknown_tower_entei/lord_unknown_tower_entei_sakai_noriko.html

(tl;dr: Noriko admitted she used illegal stimulants, sponsors dropped her left and right, she left the music industry, and anything containing Noriko was softbanned; including the short for the 3rd Pokemon movie (where she was the narrator, and sung its ending theme, 'Tomodachi Kinenbi'), and she's basically a Persona Non Grata in Japan today)

On the other hand, a person and their work, lest they shoehorn their politics into it, are not the same entity. While JonTron may not have had... well... the best stance on the whole thing, this, in it of itself, does not degrade the quality of his videos at all. Harder to enjoy, maybe, considering the stance, but Jon is a really good content creator. His videos on 'Birdemic' and 'Pokemon Bootlegs' did crack me up in particular, and I do love myself some surrealism. Taking someone's voice out of the game (even in what could've been a cameo appearance, a la Shovel Knight) isn't going to add/subtract to the quality, but even if Jon was in the game despite the negative comments on immigration, this would've not hurt the game in terms of gameplay. I know it sounds obvious, but considering all the 'I'm cancelling my pre-order/demanding a refund on Kickstarter' comments flooding the internet en masse, I just had to put that out there for those who are tossing their expectations out because of this, and not over how the actual game is going to play.

So that's my 2 cents on the matter. I'm open to discussion about this, but keep this in mind: I still am planning to pick up 'Yooka-Laylee' - the Toybox demo from my pre-order did manage to win me over. This controversy has not changed my opinion on that. I will not be surprised if both sides of the argument jump down my throat over this.
With that said, thank you for reading this heavy wall of text, and have a good day.

@PanzerThiefZero Someone making racist comments in a public forum is absolutely awful. No need to be neutral about that.
It's very important racism isn't normalised, we should all stand against and challenge it at every opportunity.

People get arrested in some country's just for criticizing illegal immigration,and branded a racist..google and other sites are now actively censoring free speech..you dont have to like the speech itself..what if you want to use your free speech yourself about whatever,then find yourself banned from some site or other? maybe its racism,maybe its just not politically correct? i dont know much about this youtuber dude,not agreeing or disagreeing with him.actions speak louder than words.

Freedom of speech cuts both ways. Jon Tron is free to express his views HOWEVER Playtonic are similarly justified to disagree with his views and in disagreeing refuse to have him associated with their product.

@LieutenantFatman Indeed. I do not tolerate racism in any way, shape, or form, and while I do feel I could've elaborated on that, as I said, I really don't want to dive into politics. The whole controversy with Playtonic is a whole 'damned if you do' situation: if they kept Jon, people would be put off by having a racist in the game, but by kicking him out, people have called Playtonic 'spineless' and 'immature' over the whole thing. They can't win.

The reason I brought up the Nori-P saga was because there was quite a similar reaction to the whole thing with a celebrity using drugs instead of spouting racist comments, which, as I said, the former is a huge no-no in Japan. People who've listened to songs like 'Otoko no Ko ni Naritai', 'Aoi Usagi' and/or 'Tomodachi Kinenbi' (all from Noriko's discography) will still agree that they are enjoyable songs, like I still enjoy Jon's videos. I just think Jon's views on immigration on the other hand deserve no such neutrality. They are indeed racist, and I do indeed agree we need to end racism for the benefit of us all.

I'm not surprised it's free press for the game atm with all that's gone on with Jon

Freedom of Speech is a myth because of the society we live in, it doesn't matter how you say something because someone will always take it out of context to fit there views.

Good riddance! The guy has been spouting some absolutely insane drivel lately.

I kind of understand why they did it, but I don't like it. I reckon Jontron would have been awesome in it, and from what I understand Jontron didn't say anything bad at all (correct me if I'm wrong). All he said is that illegal immigration is bad, and we should be careful when taking in immigrants from drastically different cultures. Both to me sound like perfectly reasonable opinions. Also I dislike the whole "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences thing". If people are scared to express their honest opinions due to fear of job loss, we do not live in an environment that promotes free speech.

I can understand why Playtonic wouldn't want to be associated with him after what he said.

No idea who this person is or what they did, but I do think this whole political correctness thing has gone too far. I literally don't know any more how I am supposed to refer to groups of people because someone has decided a word that was fine to use a decade ago is now insulting. I think the problem these people don't see with the idea of changing the word will change the connotation is that the same people who used the old word negatively will do the same with the new one.

The other problem is that, once you've grown up and aren't a child any more, you tend to use the words without any of the negatives entering your mind, but by making people have to think about using the correct word or even the way the word sits in a sentence makes you have to think about the negative implications which seems counter productive.

If you want a rough idea what I'm on about then take the fact that about 20 years ago there was a charity shop called the Spastic Society. However, despite being a medical term that described a condition, the word spastic was decided to be a bad word so a charity that helped people had to change its name so as not to be seen as negative/discriminating against the people it helped.

Anyway, rant over

Just jumped over from the same thread on Nintendo Life to catch my breath. It's all kicking off over there. 😋
Always very easy to tell by the comments those people who are not in a minority. They don't get 'it'. Not by a long shot. 🤔

@Fandabidozi This. It's been quite a stuffstorm considering the circumstances, and I really didn't want to take sides, as I elaborated in my post concerning this whole controversy in the first place, lest those for and against went into a vicious argument against me.

:/

@TheGZeus
Yeah basically lol, like I said I don't agree with what was said but I do think it was blown a bit out of proportion.

@banacheck Nonsense. No one's free speech has been taken away. You have a right to speak your mind, you don't have any right to a particular forum unless it's one you control. You don't have a right to avoid criticism, response from others, or any consequences that may stem from what you have to say. Too many people seem to think that freedom of speech means, "I can say what I want and you can shut up and listen." Sorry, the real world doesn't work that way.

"Professionalism"; does this word have any meaning for those web "stars". Unfortunatly, being a vulgar idiot on internet nowaday is more profitable than doing a job properly.

Just what we needed, more political junk.

So much for peace and quiet.

@JoeBlogs I remember this too and often the word was shortened to 'spaz' (hope that's ok in the context), but the point is children will always do this for anything that falls outside the normal spectrum (and by normal I mean the mode average spectrum where the local populace falls - and this is why I don't like the pcness of things when I have to justify everything I say). The name of the charity didn't change until much later when the populace went from thinking it is just children being children to it being a moral outrage (I swear most people have a general disconnect from reality).

The point is that changing a word or altering a sentence is relatively pointless, those of us who are generally adult enough to handle the fact that some of the population can be heartless at times are just ambivalent about the change and those who have a genuine problem with whatever the word was to do with will still have that chip on their shoulder. I mean, I'm not supposed to say my friend is an asthma sufferer any more and instead say my friend copes with asthma because someone decided the former term is offensive...

Were Andy Robinson and Mark Stevenson involved in firing him, b/c that would be fairly ironic considering what they said yet neither of them were fired, the big fat liars.

Robinson: We naturally have so many backers who opted for Wii U. Because of the size of the team, we couldn't take on all the consoles. You can imagine from a developer stand-point, that porting from PC to PS4 and Xbox One is slightly more straightforward than porting to Wii U.
I also think it feels right playing it on a Nintendo system to some people.
But the other versions will be fantastic as well.
Stevenson: We wanted to make sure that Wii U gets the right attention. There is a lot of nostalgia around Banjo, Banjo heralds from Rare's Nintendo's days, and we are all massive Nintendo fans as well.

Playtonic had 1 console job, the Wii U version, they paid Team 17 to make the X1 and PS4 versions, and they decided to bail on making it and just keep all their Kickstarter money instead. Nice racket, collect money to make a Wii U game, then pay other people to actually make the game on other consoles, and not make the game on the console people gave you the money for.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/06/playtonic_handling_wii_u_version_of_yooka-laylee_team17_porting_to_ps4_and_xbox_one

Playtonic firing someone for something they said is the pinnacle of irony.

@JoeBlogs My girlfriend works and has worked in some more public roles and enjoys telling me about some of the changes made in the name of political correctness. So this is why I know that you shouldn't refer to someone as an asthma sufferer (or a diabetic or anything like that) as it apparently associates them directly with the condition. Instead you should say the person copes with asthma (or diabetes or whatever) to remove a direct connection or some such nonsense. Also suffer is too negative so that needed to be changed to copes.

While I agree that terms that have solely become known for their negative meanings should generally not be used, going to the other extreme of preemptively making words and phrases wrong to say is, in itself, wrong and self defeating.

Going back to my girlfriend, in one job she had they were asked to make lists of all names they could think of for man and woman. After they had they went through them and people had to say if a term was offensive to them. Apparently Lady fell into the offensive category as it is indicative of class when you go back to its roots. The point is sometimes you have to draw a line between people being oversensitive and something genuinely being offensive.

@Dichotomy It's odd how they associate the word suffer as being too negative. I have acid reflux and I will definitely tell people that I suffer from it; because I do. It's the worst thing.

Guess that's how things change.

@Deadlyblack I assume it is something to do with giving power back to the person - if you suffer with something it implies you have no power or choice about it, but if you cope with it you are actively showing that you can deal with it. Or something like that, I'm with you though, suffer is a good enough way to describe it and I never feel I'm doing the person or myself a disservice by using the word.

@rjejr Unfortunately, that's the problem with kickstarter; you're almost never held to your promises because you're asking people to invest, with the only guarantee being you'll get a refund if things go bad. I don't like it either, but it's one of the reasons I try to avoid it.

As far as this whole Jafari Safari thing goes, (how did he NOT make that his youtube name?) it seems like people like him and more recently Moriarty seem to forget they're constantly being recorded, scrutinized, and listened to. Even if it's personal opinion, if you make a comment that a company you're involved with doesn't like and thinks it'll hurt their image, they'll throw you to the curb and not think twice. Welcome to the Internet and business politics, YouTube celebs. Read the rule book before you open your mouth!

Didn't knew he was in it and tbh I'm not that bothered.

Im not going to speak on his comments but I think Playtonic is empowering what was set as a dangerous precedent where when people disagree with someone's political views, they can email their employers or associates, often when they don't care about the game or product in the fist place and have no interest in buying it. Just because hurting people that you disagree with is wrong. I'm not saying this the greatest example of this as his opinions are a bit more radical than some of this same example of trying to silence people by getting them fired

@DaneilSan Double standards. Playtonic also have a freedom of speech, they can include (within reason) or exclude whatever content they want in their own product. Are you suggesting someone should take those rights away from them?

Any users asking for a refund because they felt this was wrong got banned on steam and the official forums.

@kyleforrester87 I think that's less irony, more pun. Though sadly it did take me about 4 or 5 seconds to figure it out, so maybe you're right about the irony. Thanks either way, made me smile.

@LieutenantFatman of course not I just think that if they took him out it should be because that's what they thought was the right thing to do. Not that they were pressured into it. If they were offended and took him out that's great more power to them. If they only took him out because people that didn't even have interest in the game sent multiple emails on many different accounts pretending they were more people than they were threatening to cancel pre-orders, then that is wrong

@RedMageLanakyn "you're almost never held to your promises"

Thanks for stating it so clearly and concisely, exactly what I was trying to long-windedly say. Playtonic can say whatever they want, keep all the money, nobody bats an eye. This guy says 1 thing, bam, he's gone. More hypocritical than irony I suppose.

Consequently if they took him out because they chose to and think that is right, they shouldn't put him back into the game because of outside pressure

People who considered what he said racist don't seem to understand the definition of racism.

@Ralizah Dutch do overreact a lot i know because im Dutch. To be fair he did a real stupid thing by defending that stupid idiot. And he should not have defended such a person. Trump does split the Americans and he is a liar but the people who voted forum him seem really stupid.

Him not being in the game makes me buy 2 copies. I never liked him, was super happy he got replaced by the AMAZING Danny at Game Grumps and his opinions are stupid.

You are entitled to being a white supremacist/racist/bigot/idiot/etc all you want but don't be surprised if someone removes you from a project, cause they are just as entitled to remove your bad vibes to prevent you tainting their hard work.

Good for you, Playtonic! and good riddance, we already have enough disrespectful/hateful humans to deal with this day and age.

@special_donky there's no such thing as free speech infringement in a private space.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences... or are you just in favour of racist comments?
@sonicmeerkat that's awesome.
@thatguyEZ
racism
NOUN

mass noun
1. Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
‘a programme to combat racism’

...sounds about right.