#tiak

So, there’s a post making way around Twitter about an interview with Lionhead Studios, whose been recently shutdown before their launch of their next title in their most notable franchise, Fable.

Specifically, this part is what everyone has been up in arms.

John McCormack remembers butting heads with Microsoft's marketing department over Fable.

"The marketing was shit," he says. "It was terrible. They just didn't get it. But it wasn't Microsoft's marketing. Marketing was like its own department. And they were going, what are you making? An RPG? Right, dragons and shit. And that was their advert. And we were like, no, ours is a Monty Python-esque comedy. And they went, look, we know how to market RPGs. And they opened the RPG marketing drawer and pulled out a picture of a dragon that wasn't even in the game and went there you go. That's your market. The market for that game is your average Dungeons & Dragons fare. And we were like, this game's totally different.

"That annoyed me."

McCormack was further incensed over a row over the box art for Fable 3.

"They were going, you can't have a black person on the cover, and you can't have a woman. And you want a black woman. And I was like, yes, I do, because it's about be whatever hero you want. No. It's a white guy. That's just the way it is. We know what sells and that's fucking it. Stop the arguing. I was like, fuck you! That was a huge fight.

"They said, what's the most unsuccessful Disney film? I was like, I don't know. They went, Princess and the Frog. Work it out. I was like fuck you, man. I hated it.

"I was screaming at them in conference calls. I lost it at that point, because they just weren't getting the game. Especially because we were the first ever game that had gay marriage, we were about breaking down walls. It was meant to be funny and mature. They just took none of it and just did the usual white guy with a sword on the front. Damn it! You missed the point!"

This part raised a lot of suspicions within me, especially how McCormack threw a fucking temper tantrum TWICE. Admittedly, I have a lot of bias towards marketers, cause they never get any positive credit.

The thing that bothered me is that he wanted to put a black woman on the cover (inb4 RACIST, SEXIST CIS SCUM). Except it wouldn’t make any sense. You would want to put the player character on the cover or at least someone of importance, not some random NPC that’s almost nonexistent in Fable, and I use “almost” cause it has been while since I played, so I have NO MEMORY OF ANY BLACK PEOPLE IN THE GAME. I can really only remember Thunder from Fable 1, AND THAT’S FABLE 1.

You can’t even use the “Whatever Hero You Want” claim because YOU CAN’T CHANGE SKIN COLOR. You have zero customization over the hero’s body except by weight and hairstyle. It would actually break canon since in Fable 3, you’re the descendant of the hero of Fable 2, who was white no matter the gender (though really by end game they would practically ascend race by Will upgrades alone), and your brother and antagonist King Logan was white as a swan.

So don’t go throwing your work desk over “the dragon wasn’t in the game” if you’re going to do the same exact shit.

Moving on, the claim that Fable 2 would have been the “first game with gay marriage” is undeniably false. The Sims had “joined unions” with Sims 2 4 years prior to Fable 2 and Fallout allowed you to marry a gay male in the original game. Most casual MMO’s have a marriage systems that really doesn’t care bout gender, like Mabinogi or Luna Online! While I’m not too knowledgeable on gay marriage in games, I know for a fact that in all 31 years of post-crash gaming, we’ve had gay marriage in at least one game WAY before 2008.

So it really makes McCormmack’s story look bullshit and it just comes off as virtue signalling. Doesn’t help that McCormmack didn’t say who was this “mysterious, non-Microsoft marketing department,” so now every is at Microsoft’s throat for nothing.

  So in my Government class, we just talked about the burden of proof! Naturally, I was the only one that gave a close answer (I also had to answer what was preponderance of evidence, and I couldn't have been any more off). The burden of proof is something that I keep seeing time and time again in many arguments throughout Tumblr, so I thought it would be best to disss what it meant

  The burden of proof, according to Google definitions, is:

the obligation to prove one's assertion. 

   To elaborate a little, it is up to the claim-maker’s responsibility to provide evidence, not the defendant. In US Courts, we have a thing (and I hope this is a worldwide thing) called “innocent until proven guilty”. When you are accused of a crime and sent to criminal court, the judge must ask the jury to always assume that the accused is innocent until proven guilty -and here’s the kicker- beyond reasonable doubt! This is what get’s a lot of people on the topic of burden of proof. Just because you provide evidence does not mean its broken through reasonable doubt.

   There’s a reason that DNA evidence is not enough, despite proving that the culprit was at the crime scene. Until you proven that the culprit DID commit the crime, and past the jury’s reasonable doubt, he’s getting off scot-free.

   Now to be fair, that is the legal definition. I’m pretty sure no one gone to jail for losing a Tumblr argument (and even then, I wouldn't be surprised if they did.Tumblr is really whiney).However, it still important here. A lot of people like to provide one-or-even-no sources, links, or evidence to their claim, yet when they get called out on it, the claim maker goes immediately on the defensive and call out the opponent for not providing sources either. That’s not how it works. That’s a logical fallacy. Just because the counterargument doesn't have a source doesn't mean your argument is any better. In fact, it’s not the defendant’s responsibility to provide any evidence at all! The claim-maker should have the evidence already, as they are making a case against the average man’s reasonable doubt.

   So that’s burden of proof in a nutshell. Just remember that it’s a responsibility, not an order. The defendant can always provide evidence to their counter argument to make it more reasonable, and I always support that idea. But the claim-maker needs, and is a mandatory OBLIGATION, to provide evidence to their claims. They are making a claim, after all.