Another weekend, another new episode of Splash Damage appears. On tap this week, per the original post from half-KIA on Reddit:
Happy Mag published an article asking if Grand Theft Auto V’s “harmful” depictions of trans people should be retroactively censored. We dive into why censorship is never permissible along with China’s endless quest to censor games, an actor complaining the Super Mario Bros. voice actors are too white, Bungie’s hilarious efforts at “diversity and inclusion,” and more.
You can find this episode on your favorite podcasting app or here. As always, thank you for listening!
DISCLAIMER: As always, I'm not Scrivonaut, nor am I affiliated with the show, I'm just a fan that feels the show deserves a signal boost.
My hot takes:
A game (or any work, for that matter) should NEVER be retroactively censored. That level of authoritarian bullshit should NEVER be tolerated, and any publisher that does should be avoided like the plague. This is also a good place for me to speak my mind against digital-only media. If you can't download an archival copy of something (that can't be altered by the manufacturer by a "patch") or you can't lay hands on a hardcopy of it, then you don't own it.
John Leguizamo is just a salty bitch who is pissed that he didn't get the call to do a voice. If they weren't going to make Mario and Luigi authentically Italian, then at the very least we'd better hear some voices that sound like they crawled out of The Sopranos - and when it comes to doing voices, John ain't all that.