Thunder Lotus Apologises For Ableist Storyline In Spiritfarer, Pledges To "Correct The Mistake"

The thing is, a lot of the characters in the game, are based on people the developers knew and lost. So those words could have been something the real person said.

Glad they took responsibility

Literally the most cookie cutter game offends people now a days...

Prompt effective response. Great to see.

I'd have hoped that someone caught on to that earlier on in development but it's an indie game, they wouldn't have the luxury of extra proof-readers.

It's so easy to offend people these days without intention of ever doing so.

@status-204 from the sounds of it this particular witch hunt was:

"I'm not that happy that me using a wheelchair is still seen in these terms by most people."

"We hadn't really considered that, it's not an area we know much about but probably should have examined a bit more closely. We'll see about making changes to more accurately reflect the experiences of wheelchair users."

"That's great, thanks."

I mean, it's hardly torches and flaming pitchforks is it?

Glad they're getting it sorted out, it's one of those incredibly damaging misconceptions that people keep spouting off without realising they're doing it because it's constantly reinforced even though it's wrong. Pointing something out and asking devs to do better is hardly torch and pitchfork fare.

@jimtendog Yep that's 2020 for you. We in the midst of more pressing issues but somehow still got cater to the whims of 1 person when literally no one else sees an issue

@oatmaster No no no, it’s definitely a witch hunt. Haven’t you seen Lotus’ response and how persecuted and reluctant it looks? /s

on one hand they want representation but once represented they're never satisfied. you can't win with such people so it would be best for media creators not to give in at all. we've seen this happen time and time again

If somebody is living a happy life in a wheelchair, that's fantastic! More power to them. But not everybody who is wheelchair-bound is going to have a positive outlook. Is it really so hard to believe that a person who isn't feeling so positive might see death as a release from their disability? This isn't ableism. It's just a character who represents something that's a sad reality for some people.

Well that’s that then.

I'm gonna refrain from updating the game until I've fully completed it so that my playthrough will not be marred by bs like this.

Good that I caught the news!

The writing from this game is great, it really touch, not political or religious problems, but existencial problems. It show exacly what the people regrets and last wish on death. This is very sensitive issue, perfectly handled by the game. If you identify yourself has one of char, it will touch even more.
Sometimes it just not only fighting if someone ban u from a game because you show a flag, sometimes its a meaning of your life.
The change of text is because the character made the gamers life look like a prison, and it's not, and should see as hope. Yes, for the first time I agree that they could improve a little this character feelings.

Great to see that they want to incorporate a more positive representation of wheelchair users. My respect for the company has really grown.

Not all representation is good. It’s like when gay characters have mostly been villains for decades. Or lived very sad lives.

Fair enough to the devs. Great game, by the way.

What is going on with the comments under the line? We had Gamergate resurrected in all its foulness the other day, and now people are actually complaining about a compassionate response from a developer to wheelchair users. What is the problem with this? (That is a rhetorical question - if you think there is a problem with this, I don’t want to know.)

There's an issue with the term 'wheelchair-bound' too, which cropped up both in the article and this comments thread. I have no disabilities but have worked with disability in varying ways for about 15 years, and the perception I have, and that of most people I've known, is that wheelchairs don't bind the individual, they free them. They are the method by which some poeple with disabilities can become MORE able.
This certainly doesn't strike me as a witch hunt at all. As others have commented, some people who have experiences of using a wheelchair have spoken out to say 'yeah, this kind of isn't how it is for us', and the developers have responded graciously by taking it as the learning opportunity it is.
Literally nobody has said 'YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT WHEELCHAIRS LIKE THAT!'. It's a dialogue between disabled gamers and (presumably?) able-bodied developers. Accessibility and representation are big issues at the minute and it's great to see some developers being proactive (see TLOU2), or in this case at least reactive.
Let's not get mad at a wider range of people having their lives and experiences represented better in gaming.

@status-204 @Retron, how many wheelchair users have you seen in games? How many were positive representations?

When you see so few wheelchair users in games, and then the ones you see want to die to not be in a wheelchair anymore, that strongly affects how other people see wheelchair users in general.

Now, if games were filled with wheelchair users with all sorts of different stories this wouldn’t been as big of an issue.

Welcome to 2020, where it's only acceptable to have one viewpoint on certain demographics and any alternative perspective is just very very wrong and must be changed or destroyed. Healthy discussion and debate? That's apparently when everyone agrees and sees things exactly the same way, whatever that way may be.

@status-204 : I couldn't agree more. It is ideological compulsion disguised as compassion, but the motivations behind this sort of champagne victimhood are far more sinister. People say things that I don't like all the time. There' is nothing empowering about feeling emboldened to throw a hissy fit every time that happens though.

There seems to be a lot of superficial diversity in the media nowadays, but very little diversity in thought/ideology.

Haven't played the game but I thought it strange that after one complaint the Devs decided to step in.

I initially thought that the team shouldn't have made changes because it's one point of view - someone could well want to be free of a wheelchair.

However, after reading the statement and follow up replies from Thunder Lotus I can understand their reasoning. Here's what I'm referring to from their Twitter:

"Also, without getting into too far into spoiler territory, saying this is the character's own perspective doesn't actually hold water."

So if this isn't the message the team wanted to convey, then I don't see the problem with changing it.

Not gonna lie, reading the twitter conversation genuinely brought a tear to my eye

@Blizzia You should just stop playing if this bothered you that much. It's literally just one freaking character.

Kudos to the devs for listening to their audience.

@Damo

Whilst I see the spin you're trying to make, and conceptually agree, no good comes from becoming inherently offended by things because people fundamentally have no concept of controlling their reaction, often overreach with what they think they control (spoilers: you can only ever control your own thoughts and actions) and end up harbouring and identifying as a victim.

Humans are ultimately compassionate and empathetic beings forced into ideas of competition, egoic identity and separatism as most of the world celebrates individual power and being "better" than others.

Pandering to egos that have identified as victims and are offended by concepts and words with no intended malice are creating a very divided culture on both ends of the extremist scale of politics.

Good for them! Really professional way to address this issue

Not read all the replies but I think if videogames are going to be treated as art then they have to be open to criticisms of unrealistic portrayals. That's all that's happened here, it's not 'political correctness gone mad'.

Do we really need to change it? Just because a random person on Twitter feels a certain way about wheelchairs doesn't mean the character would feel the same, or even another player.

I've seen plenty of portrayals of characters that have the same traits or experiences as me, but I'm not complaining if they are different overall. Representation is nice but we're never going to see every person in that minority represented...that's just how it works. There are bigger issues...

@InJeffable this. Since ableism is a thing, so are the situations where a person with an ableist mentality may become disabled sometime down the road and definitely not have a positive change of heart about it overnight (if ever). Many folks physically challenged from birth may bear a similar outlook under the influence of their environment, too. Fiction is entitled to model characters and circumstances after any of these cases - if anything, they may have a cautionary function in the audience resonance akin to how the fictional depictions of other contested or outright discouraged issues offer a "don't be that guy" conclusion to draw, but censuring them out for someone's comfort is always detrimental and disrespectful to Fiction in itself. You'd think a character sporting explicitly homicidal views and practices would disturb even more audiences' feelings, but is it the grounds for removing, editing or deliberately avoiding this kind of character altogether? As with all kinds of external meddling, this rabbit hole goes deeper than most concerned people may account and would be willing to take responsibility for.

FWIW I'm a group 3 since birth myself and never felt any negativity about it, contrary to some of my the people I've had to interact with, so I get where both parties are coming from. But I'm also a cynical philologist who's long had it up to here with how many people find it acceptable to not just express their personal discomfort in the audience (or, heck, a fear for potential discomfort elsewhere beside them) but actually lobby it against worldcraft and enforce it above an imaginary world's integrity and existence. Thankfully, the case at hand sounds like the creators simply pledge to consider the raised concern in future works and the source of said concern only wanted as much. No patches, no edits or other similar crap which is as disturbing and the issues discussed - but rarely treated as seriously in our world where audiences like to run on the "customer always right" mindset whenever they can shoehorn it.

@oatmaster again, first and foremost, videogames are interactive Fiction. Fiction and Art are recurrently overlapping but ultimately separate fields, and mixing together their goals, standards and demands on autopilot would be... most uninformed, to put it politely. Accusing worldcraft of being "unrealistic" (never mind that in the discussed situation it's a false accusation to boot) is a very eyebrow-raising attitude, too.

@status-204 fair enough, but it's a well-recognised fact that people deal with needing a wheelchair much better than they would have imagined before the fact. Most people imagine that they would never cope with it but when it happens they (on the whole) adapt remarkably well. That's what I mean about it being an unrealistic portrayal. Without additional narrative context an unrealistic portrayal can come across as simplistic and potentially offensive when the portrayal comes from people with no experience of it.

@status-204 This is an example of how it SHOULD be done.

Someone does something that offends, intentionally or otherwise.
The offended asks to be treated better.
The offender learns something, apologizes, alters their behavior to be more considerate.
The offended accepts the apology.

If all of this is done in good faith, it is an ideal interaction.

"Political correctness" is just being polite. It's that simple.

@Entrr_username What bothers me is merely that they're changing this bs because a single person took offense to it.

I'd rather play the game as it was when they released it, aka before a narrative change that wasn't in line with the vision of the game.

The team might be groveling and promising immediate change and "doing better" but that's cancel culture for ya. If you don't immediately promise to do what a possible Karen wants, they sic the Twitter police on ya.

The game is fun and entertaining in the iteration it was in at release, so I'll play it through like that.

And yet I knew someone that had comparable idea of being in a wheelchair.

He said that death will free him from it, but the reason he keeps living is because of the people he cares about.

Everybody is different, that person that found it offensive and said that on Twitter is also different and that is fine, people are diverse and everybody thinks about stuff in a different way.

Everybody is different, so was this change in the game really needed? Do we really need to change stuff because someone said it is offensive?

Anyhow I have respect for the dev to care about this, however this way anything is offensive so nothing is safe to say, which makes everything difficult because like I said above everybody is different.

What a world to live in...

@Blizzia I take it you didn't read the rest of the article. The "Karen" didn't even ask for them to change it.

Good. It’s not like they were screaming for the devs to be dunked in a pit of lava. They pointed out that the plot relied on harmful stereotypes which the devs then admitted was an area they knew pretty much nothing about. It’s really not the end of the world for a dev to change their own game.

@Entrr_username I actually did, good sir. It's not necessary to ask. In this day and age, the moment you hear a whiff of something, you take action or get cancelled.

@Blizzia You’re using the word Karen wrong. A Karen wouldn’t be offended by this, they would be offended by so called ‘cancel culture’. A Karen is a small-minded NIMBY who distrusts anybody under the age of 35 and gets involved in causes that have nothing to do with her. I love it when the right attempt to meme, it’s like watching a child try to ride a unicycle.

"Free speech is dead! Freedom of expression is dead!"

Good riddance!

F*** ableism, f*** racism, f*** transphobia, f*** homophobia, f*** fatphobia, embrace all kinds of people and don't question it.

If that is how the character felt, that is how the character felt.
It is reasonable to believe such an opinion could exist from such a character.
If it’s not a statement the developers needed for their story, then it may be a good idea to edit the comment. But it is reasonable to tell a story with such a character too.

@Tuney Are you f-ing serious with this?

@status-204
100% agree, these kind of things are a serious blow to freedom of speech.

It really disgusts me that people are so sensitive and easily offended that things like this are even an issue. I mean, really, the world has so many problems, and you choose to make a big deal about something so insignificant?

@JDig
"If the character was an olympic athlete or legendary warrior then this sort of line may be appropriate in the immediate aftermath of becoming disabled."

Wait, so it's acceptable for a person that was in peak physical condition, but not us normies? Why do they get a free pass to complain?

@shaneoh Lmao, not really sure what point they were trying to make. “You just sat on your arse all day so you shouldn’t mind being in a wheelchair”?

@Figeluren

Whose freedom of speech? Or is some freedom of speech more equal than others?

All I see is a developer seeing constructive criticism and deciding to act on it.

@nessisonett
Haha, by that logic I shouldn't complain if I lost the contents of my pants because it hasn't been getting much use lately.

...TMI?

@shaneoh 👀👀

@nessisonett A Karen is someone who gets offended by literally anything, whether it has anything to do with them or not.

So yes, she's a Karen. She just didn't get to the rage stage because they complied instantaneously.

@Blizzia

Rubbish. Kayla is a wheelchair user talking specifically about how it can feel to be a wheelchair user.

Hardly meets your definition of being "offended by literally anything".

@HeyL1sten I made an account here just to like your comment, it's the best one.

Notice how she offers 'consulting services'? That's how the grift starts.

I, personally, wouldn't have even responded to the person. It's my game, I'll do what u want and if they don't like it, they don't have to play it.

Trying to make a game that doesn't offend anyone is impossible anyway. Furthermore, not every person in a wheel chair thinks the same. It just so happens that this fictional character found the wheelchair limiting and is glad to be five with it.

Just Brevard someone has accepted their limitations does not make the limitation go away, they are still limited. That's just reality.

@Blizzia You’re completely and utterly wrong. A Karen is an antivaxxer, refuses to wear a mask etc. Karens are basically the opposite of what you’re describing. Literally just look at the Urban Dictionary definitions. God I hate it when the right try to piggyback stuff, they always ruin it.

Don’t think there needs to be an apology. If that’s how the character feels, that’s how the character feels.

My father lost his leg almost a year ago in a car accident that nearly took his life. He was in a dark place and said some similar things while in the hospital.

One character or person sharing their feelings doesn’t always have to represent everyone in that group.

(Side note: my wife is a pediatric rehab nurse for the last 15 years, so I have heard many positive AND negative mindsets from her patients - vast majority are positive & upbeat)

It's a bad stereotype with real-life consequences. We're in a time where some doctors have had to make tough choices about who gets treatment for COVID in an over capacity ER. Stereotypes like this influence decisions like that

@status-204 People need to join a witch hunt to feel like they belong to something bigger than their bored selves, even if it is a mindless mob.

@Supadav03 The problem is that it's a common, wide-spread stereotype, and that stereotype has bad real-life consequences.

Wait, so you're not allowed to create a fictional character that doesn't like being bound in a wheelchair? What the actual *****?

@nessisonett those are all parts of a Karen. One does not need to encompass all of the qualities. "Including, but not limited to" comes to mind as a suitable sentence.

But I guess we'll agree to disagree

@SaveDinos to often we conflate the opinion or experiences of one person to a whole group.

This is one of those instances.

I am going to write the makers of God of War. I don’t like the way they depict fathers as stoic, cold, heavy handed, etc. As a father, it offends me and perpetuates a stereo type of toxic masculinity...or it’s just simply how Kratos is as a father & isn’t mean to represent all fathers.

Just like this character.

@Supadav03

So this stereotype is true because it is a fictional account written by someone who is not a wheelchair user?

Huh?

Edit: You changed your comment completely I see.

This was a really good, thoughtful apology and I’m glad they’re addressing the issue. This game just jumped up on my priority list.

@status-204 The team wasn’t pushed into it. They saw concerns being raised by a member of their community of fans and are taking steps to address those concerns of their own volition.

While everyone goes wah wha wha about freedom of expression and hand wringing about what the world is coming to, This basically amounts to the devs going, " Oh crap! thats not what we meant to say at all!"

Creatives need feedback, just like anyone else. When you find out that you did not achieve your intention, you fix it. So the outcome will be closer to what they intended, based on user feedback.

a differently-abled person giving feedback to a dev team that created a differently-abled character? TERRORISM! /s

Why are people being pressured into apologizing for their art? It’s your art, your story, your characters, you can make it whatever you want. I welcome variety. This ***** reminds me of Newspeak in 1984 - y’all really want everyone to be a perfectly respectful clone with no vocabularic freedom. I welcome all opinions and creeds. There are “disrespectful” people in the world, so why wouldn’t the world’s art reflect that?

Video games are art. I’m not for censoring art: “good” art, “bad” art, or any art.

End of story

I'm not in a wheelchair but I do have hidden physical disabilities.
What I hate is we always have to be positive about having a disability. Trust me, I'm far from positive at times, it's robbed me of every physical activity I loved to do.
I like my life but I don't have to like my disability. This needs to be represented more, I think.

@Anthracks it's not just art, but a business. Everybody knows wheelchair people spend the most on videogame entertainment, so it makes perfect sense to take special care with regards to the right wording and story sensibilities.

|EDIT| also please don't curse. It's offensive. Thank you for your consideration.

@SaveDinos Thanks, man. I find it so odd that people get upset at people getting upset. We're here on this thread, listening to a range of opinions. The developer listened to some opinions too, reflected on their values and decided they'd do it differently next time, not forcing anyone to do the same. That's all.

This idiot doesn't understand that not all people with a wheelchair are disabled. A lot are just wounded or have weakened muscles.

@geordie Glad to know I am not the only one with a disorder that I am unhappy about.

@Yorumi Man, people really do have common sense on this site... Unlike Twitter. And I like that!

@Bermanator

I think you need to look up the definition of disabled.

@Snesionetty Everyone curses on Twitter. Nobody cares. It's kinda normalized there. Freedom of Speech.

@Creature I am one of those people that hates being mentally disabled/neurodivergent.

This is ridiculous. The game is about death and dying. Of course it's going to make someone uncomfortable.
I bet none of the people complaining are wheelchair-bound. It just makes disabled people look weak and immature, like when a mother covers a child's ears in case she hears something naughty.

@JDig
I copied and pasted exactly what you said. You don't need to be "an olympic athlete or legendary warrior" to have these sorts of feelings, it makes sense for anyone.

@JDig "There's no narrative justification so it relies in simply assuming the identity is something that people couldn't/wouldn't find fulfillment or value in which is stupid"
There are a few things wrong with this statement.
1. The work is fiction. It isn't real, so who gives a shish?
2. It isn't assuming the majority of the group that way, it's bringing awareness there are people in said group are that way. I hate being autistic and even feel that it is ruining my life. There is no reason to be happy about being disabled when God could have given you better but decided not to. It should be okay to WANT to be "normal".

@Anthracks It's to feel powerful over people who have accomplished something (like releasing a game) when all they do is complain on Twitter. Also to make people second guess everything they do instead of the people in charge. There's a perfect summary of this in Persepolis graphic novel: when you're busy worrying about the length of your skirt or if your hair isn't showing, you're not thinking about human rights violations performed by your country.

@TheFullAndy I was more referring to disabilities given at birth are marginally different from becoming crippled in an accident.

“So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless.”

Good on Thunder Lotus for such a considered response and positive reaction.

I am not in a wheelchair, so honestly I don't think my opinion matters at all. This was a honest criticism from someone met with measured and responsible retribution, I don't get why people are so mad about that.

Y'know, I think they just meant that that was what the character felt about being in a wheelchair. I doubt that they meant that all people in wheelchairs feel that way. I have a vision disability which I absolutely hate, so I actually understand that statement about death from one of the characters. That doesn't mean I expect all people with the same disability to feel the same way. The world is not catered to me specifically, nor should it. If you're that easily triggered maybe you shouldn't play video games at all.

When you have decency this is how you act you take responsibility. Speaking from the perspective of a novelist to the people complaining why are you so monumentally offended by them receiving criticism? All artists need to be told when we fall short so we can do better.

@Supadav03 This is about more than being offended. The perpetuation of this stereotype has serious real-world consequences. As men (I'm just gonna assume you're a man too based on your take) we're represented in every imaginable personality and type. Like seriously. When we think of a man we think "They're so complex! There are so many different kinds of men." when we think of a disabled person we only pity them and think of their wheelchair as a "prison" because that's all we're ever shown in TV, movies, and games.

That's the problem.

So only completely able-bodied people can joke about the sweat release of death?

@SaveDinos I don't agree. I feel men are very often stereotyped & portrayed in a specific way & I’ve seen handicapped people (wheelchair or otherwise) portrayed in many ways from geniuses, to villains, to cool kids, to heroes, to leaders, etc.

Feels like you are making a lot of assumptions.

Is it important people of all races, creeds, ages, abilities, etc are shown in ways that they can be positive influences on individuals & society? Of course! Does that mean people can never be shown otherwise? No.

Maybe a handicapped person saw this and thought “oh, I’ve felt like that. Kinda nice to know I’m not the only one struggling with these feelings. Maybe there is someone out there that can relate to me & help me through this”.

We NEED ALL aspects of all people to be on display - “good and/or bad”

We don’t all interpret the same character, story, game, etc the same way.

@status-204 Some developers decide they want to try to be nicer to people and you're so offended by this idea that you had to make a tantrum comment on a blog post. That says so, so much about you as a person.

I've been able-bodied most of my life and became disabled last year and need a wheelchair sometimes (ambulatory). When you first need a wheelchair, you feel a whole range of emotions. I was mostly sad, and cried whilst getting pushed around because I had to use it and felt so helpless. I was looking at the chair from an abled-bodied perspective...my OLD perspective. Now, I've had time to grieve for the body I lost and understand my new body and its limitations, I like the wheelchair. It makes getting around and doing more possible, otherwise I'd just be stuck at home all the time.

Point is, the majority of disabled people like how their chairs can give them life again. The original dialogue sounds like it was written by an able-bodied person who just didn't understand. It's good the devs realised their mistake so soon, listened to an actual disabled person, and say they'll correct it.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a single fictional character saying something like that, but it is really important for a writer to think about the overall message the end product says. Without anything else in the game to counter what was said, it does seem to come off as offensive and I’m glad they’ve decided to change it

I don't think a lot of you applauding this understand something.

Everyone wants to be accepted and loved. That's a given. That's pretty much a universal thing.

-but I agree with what someone else said here. This person got offended by this portrayal of a person in a wheelchair and now the developer has to bend the knee for this... even though the character could be very well in line with reality.

Having your ability to walk taken from you means a great deal of agency is taken from you as a person, because you can't stand for long periods, if at all. It means losing a sense of autonomy that many of use who have never been wheelchair bound can't truly relate to.

It makes sense that some people would want to die and see death as a release from something they see as a miserable existence, especially when or if they've lived most of their life being able to walk.

While it's not the same: I at one point in the past several years managed to fracture my left wrist. It wasn't my dominant hand, but it still stunk. I was out of work for 7 weeks because of that... Which was then followed by several weeks of physical therapy. On that first day of therapy, I had not even realized how weak my wrist had become. I was astonished how little strength it had.

Now imagine losing that strength permanently in your legs. That would be devastating for some, depending on background. To never have the strength to walk or even stand again. For some, that could lead to wanting to die to escape the misery.

Of course, that doesn't account for everyone... but that doesn't inherently mean it's offensive.

@MegaVel91

So you are criticising a person for giving their view on something they would have more knowledge of than others....by giving your view on something you think you kind of know cause you hurt your wrist for a bit?

Ok

Also Kayla was just giving her view, not demanding changes, just like you are here.

@TheFullAndy It's called being able to extrapolate your feelings and try to understand how it might feel for someone else to experience something similar or worse. Trying to put yourself in their shoes.

It's called empathy. Try it sometime.

@MegaVel91

You had none for Kayla apparently, who was just expressing her views on a game she was playing like anyone can.

She was not demanding changes, just commenting.

While the response and the change was probly correct thing to do THIS time. It does worry me that ppl can't handle being offended anymore. Being offensive and being offended by something is part of the freedom that ppl risk life and death for everyday. I don't care for this odd new public RULE about walking on eggshells all the time and being careful not to offend anyone ever at any time no matter how miniscule or no matter the actual original intention. In this example it was a wheelchair bound character, but who is to say that this particular character didn't really feel this way? Changing it probly was for the best, but watering down "disabled" characters to all having the same personality or viewpoint is arguably worse than offending somebody irl that disagrees with a character. Just because they share characteristic of being wheelchair bound doesn't mean they have anymore relation to that character than someone who shares other attributes with a character. I'm not being funny, if I offended anyone in my rambler comment I really do apologize. This stuff up is just very worrying to me and seems to snowball and is getting more and more ridiculous as more of our culture is altered by political correctness or watever is behind this.

@Jhomesjones

Funny thing is when I see comments like your own it just comes accross as someone being offended on some kind of meta level.

People get so worked up at times (me included) when maybe the right approach should just be "meh who cares" and get on with your life. It is too short.

@JDig
Your legs don't work, why does there need to be more justification than that? There doesn't.

Also if people aren't catching your meaning, perhaps you need to be clearer about it, because I'm not the only one interpreting your statement in that way.

Dangit, I wasn't going to comment, but oh well...

1. Good for the Devs and this gal (is that an offensive term? I haven't gotten the daily update on what is the accepted lexicon) for having a really thoughtful and respectful discussion, and they exercised their voices in a meaningful way, and their choices were their own. I thought it was beautiful.

2. IMHO, the idea that since Videogames are Art this makes them bound to rules and laws on what is currently acceptable to all is B.S. Utter B.S.
That isn't Art. That is something else. Creatives should have a choice as to what their art is and says. Maybe it is Super Mario Bros. Maybe it is Gears of War. But, as a Creative it really gets my goat when someone decides that my work needs to be changed so that they will like or accept it better. If that is the case, then don't buy it! That is your choice too!

Can you imagine how absurd it would be if someone came up to H.R. Giger and said "hey man, I know you spent several hundred hours on this painting, but I don't think your vagina doors are realistic enough to represent all vaginas. In fact, what about people without them? Why aren't you thinking of them?? And, since I have bought your work before, I now believe I have the power to dictate what you create going forward, after you fix this existing work for me. Great... thanks!"

3. While I love the response of the Devs to this, and they made a choice that I respect, I hate this persistent idea that people need to always be represented a certain way. That is something akin to government sponsored art.
As someone who has what is considered a non-physical disability, I could care either way on how positive or negatively it is portrayed in media. I have been on both sides of it. Some days are good, other days I wouldn't be going "yay me! My life is really difficult right now from this and I love it!!"

To me, saying that we have to always be positive about this feels like those with handicaps are being shut down with a statement that reads: "You shouldn't complain! Put on a happy face! Other people with your condition are just fine, so aren't you just complaining?"

@TheFullAndy Really? A cliche response? That's all you have?

Just because I disagree doesn't mean I lack empathy. Nice try.

@Bermanator @TheFullAndy this is as far as I'm going to get into this argument, but to quote Oxford:

"Disability
Noun
A physical or mental condition that limits a person's moves, senses or activities"

A person with no signs of a disability can still be called disabled, also known as an invisible disability. I don't think anyone really likes their disability, I know I don't, but both sides of the argument are being kind of petty. As one of you said, it's just a "meh" situation. Didn't spin out of control like usual, so why does it need to?

@MegaVel91

Cliche? Okey dokey

Do you accept that Kayla never actually asked the developer to change anything but was merely just expressing her views?

@GilbertXI

Well we wont go into it any further as you suggest but originally the other commenter called Kayla something more insulting (since edited) then proceeded to seemingly not understand what disability means which is why I made my comment.

@TheFullAndy Oh ok I thought you were directing it at bermanator. Have a good one.

@GilbertXI

Yes I was directing it at Bermanator. Kayla is the lady in the article who he had called something more insulting originally.

Bermanator said:
"not all people with a wheelchair are disabled. A lot are just wounded or have weakened muscles."

I asked him to look up the definition of disabled because as you say in your comment it means "A physical or mental condition that limits a person's moves, senses or activities" so the examples he was using were still people who are disabled.

Nothing i read indicated a reason to be mad its a shame that developers are no longer allowed to make a game how they see fit, power has been given to the non-developers it seems

Jesus.
Can't people just be happy that a genuine complaint was met with an adequate answer?

@TheFullAndy I was mainly trying to say that being born disabled is different from breaking your legs.
And I called her a stupid b because she didn't have to call it ablist. People love calling things those words. Racist, sexist, ablist... They got nothing better to do. I am autistic and I feel like it's ruining my life. So, yeah... PEOPLE THAT HATE BEING DISABLED EXIST! NOT EVERYONE IS GOING TO BE PROUD OF THEIR IDENTITY, THE GAYS INVENTED THAT WHOLE PRIDE THING! Being Autistic makes figuring things out extremely difficult, and I just think life would be so much easier if I was a neurotypical. I have always, ALWAYS wanted to fit with the social norms.

@Apyan No, because there was no reason for that complaint to exist in the first place... Just overly sensitive people (usually women) acting like total control freaks. These people are why cancel culture exist.

@JDig "They aren't saying all disabled people feel this way so why does this person?" Wow, contradiction much? Because you clearly just said "not all" which in turn means "some". So, why this person? Because they're different.

Seems like the real snowflakes are the people in the comments here. Imagine getting mad that a company and it's fans had a respectable conversation about a nuanced topic. No, it's not "Newspeak" to ask people to be tolerant, thoughtful, and open-minded, it's called being a mature adult. (Also friendly reminder that Orwell was a socialist

@BigRed40 Won't deny that the comments often attract some strong personalities, but it wasn't really about having a respectable conversation about a nuanced topic.

It was the beginning of a poopstorm gently taking off (it always begins this way) and a company scrambling to avoid getting cancelled ASAP.

@InJeffable Have to agree this could be a sad reality. Maybe it would be better to address that depression that could come from such. No one can judge either way without getting to know the individual in the chair instead of assuming how they feel. Really, you'd hope that they don't see themselves defined by their disabilities as much as it is a non disabled persons responsibility to do the same. I think this particular individual assumes others do so, or defines themselves that way. It is a fair assumption of others, though, if that is the case. After all this, I have not even played the game, so not sure on what exactly is said.

@Chamver calm down