This is absolutely not worth the effort to change. Visual Novels are (typically) literature-based, and you're neither promoting nor employing racism or slavery. This is someone who *really* wants to be offended by something picking a bone for literally no reason. You know how many printed works have that exact word usage in them? Hundreds of thousands, and the people decrying insensitivity and racism in those scenarios are just as wrong. The written word is protected for a reason - this exact circumstance, actually - and it's so that people don't try to white-wash artistic works. If you were to remove everything that could give offense, every novel would be bland, repetitive, uninspired fodder for uselessness. Only someone with an incredibly weak mental constitution would take issue with this. Your VN is fine as-is.
Maulth - thank you for taking the time to post here and share your thoughts. <3
We totally realise that this will be a non-issue for some people. It's gone without comment for well over a year. But we can also see how it could be very jarring and confronting for some at this point in history and as a part of this particular bundle with its particular purpose.
Language is always evolving, and certain phrases with problematic roots may have grown beyond those roots in their general usage - while other words and phrases remain problematic. To complicate matters, what's problematic and what's not isn't going to be the same for all people, not even within the same community or group. I've really come to dislike the phrase "grammar nazi" - do all Jewish people feel that way? Not by a long shot. And I think that's totally fine. There are tons of people who use that phrase in a totally non offensive way and I don't really point it out or say anything about it.
You're totally right that we cannot sanitise language. It's a task that's too big - and you're right in that trying to remove every word that might possibly offend every individual on the planet would leave us all in silence. We completely agree that we can't strip language of all that makes it unique and beautiful and nuanced - in an attempt to make it as utterly non-offensive and non-confronting as possible.
That said, we do feel that if someone finds something confronting or tone deaf or out of keeping with a message that our studio is trying to send, then we want to seriously consider what can do about it - if we can do anything at all. Sometimes we might not be able to fix it. And in some cases, we might disagree that anything needs to be done to fix it in the first place. We might disagree with the general sentiment or feel that something serves a greater purpose in a story and deserves to stay.
Every situation is different.
For this moment and this phrase, we'd like to try to correct it if we're able to do so without destroying everyone's progress and save data because we do think it's a valid observation! And it's something we're willing to put effort into doing right now. But we're still testing to see if that's possible, so we'll have to see!
Again, thank you for taking the time to comment.
~Esh
> someone who *really* wants to be offended by something
This is the always regurgitated line of someone who can't bother to think for themselves or to have empathy for others and *really* wants to be offended by someone speaking up about their personal experience.
> how many printed works
Yes, we should never change anything, ever. So many people are used to the status quo and therefore people should shut up and stop being a bother.
> the people decrying insensitivity and racism
Yes. People speaking up against intolerance are JUST AS BAD as the racists and bigots they oppose! You are very clever.
> If you were to remove everything
Wheeeeee, slippery slopes are fun!
> Only someone with an incredibly weak mental constitution
"Unlike ME who is SUPER MAD about a small, polite word change request in a VN!"
Go ahead and kill that high horse you rode in on. It's unearned and you've abused it to death already.