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First Person Shooters (Games) Games

'Harassed by Assasin's Creed Gamers, A Professor Fought Back With Kindness' (apnews.com) 123

Posted by EditorDavid from the we-are-the-shadows dept.
A Dartmouth College associate professor of Japanese literature and culture became a narrative consultant for Ubisoft's game Assassin's Creed Shadow (which launched in March). Sachi Schmidt-Hori's job "involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters," writes the Associated Press.

But when a trailer was released in May of 2024, some reacted to a game character named Yasuke who was a Black African samurai, according to the article, "with gamers criticizing his inclusion as 'wokeness' run amok". And they directed the blame at Schmidt-Hori: Gamers quickly zeroed in Schmidt-Hori, attacking her in online forums, posting bogus reviews of her scholarly work and flooding her inbox with profanity. Many drew attention to her academic research into gender and sexuality. Some tracked down her husband's name and ridiculed him, too. [One Reddit user described Schmidt-Hori as a "sexual degenerate who hate humanity because no man want her," while another called her a "professional woke social-justice warrior" who confirmed "fake history for Ubisoft."] Learning Yasuke was based on a real person did little to assuage critics. Asian men in particular argued Schmidt-Hori was trying to erase them, even though her role involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters.

Ubisoft told her to ignore the harassment, as did her friends. Instead, she drew inspiration from the late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis. "I decided to cause 'good trouble,'" she said. "I refused to ignore." Schmidt-Hori began replying to some of the angry emails, asking the senders why they were mad at her and inviting them to speak face-to-face via Zoom. She wrote to an influencer who opposes diversity, equity and inclusion principles and had written about her, asking him if he intended to inspire the death threats she was getting. "If somebody said to your wife what people are saying to me, you wouldn't like it, would you?" she asked. The writer didn't reply, but he did take down the negative article about Schmidt-Hori.

Others apologized. "It truly destroyed me knowing that you had to suffer and cancel your class and received hate from horrible people," one man wrote. "I feel somehow that you are part of my family, and I regret it. I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart." Anik Talukder, a 28-year-old south Asian man living in the United Kingdom, said he apologized at least 10 times to Schmidt-Hori after accepting her Zoom invitation to discuss his Reddit post about her... He was shocked the professor reached out to him and hesitant to speak to her at first. But they ended up having a thoughtful conversation about the lack of Asian representation in Western media and have stayed in touch ever since. "I learned a massive lesson," he said. "I shouldn't have made this person a target for no reason whatsoever."

'Harassed by Assasin's Creed Gamers, A Professor Fought Back With Kindness' More | Reply

'Harassed by Assasin's Creed Gamers, A Professor Fought Back With Kindness'

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  • The Hard Road (Score:5, Informative)

    by hadleyburg ( 823868 ) on Sunday May 04, 2025 @05:59PM (#65351973)

    It would have been much easier for the professor to bite back and belittle those attacking her, or to just switch off and ignore it all, as she was advised.

    For her to find the energy and courage to reach out to individuals is admirable. She would have been quite justified in deciding not to do that. She went over and above.

    • Her response reminds me a lot of Daryl Davis [wikipedia.org], a black musician who engages KKK members with kindness and has convinced many of them to leave and denounce the organization.

  • Racism (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Sunday May 04, 2025 @06:35PM (#65352059)

    It's amazing to me to see repeated examples of the latent racism in the US.
    Trump successfully mobilized it to squeak to an election victory and we see examples like the game every day.
    Really folks. It's time to get over it. The US (and the world) is multicultural. White folks are a minority and nobody gains when people whip up racism.

    • Racism against who? White people are a minority in the world. So are Japanese. They deserve protection and special treatment in order to level the playing field.

      • Its not about numerical superiority. Its about power, it was always about power.

        The problem is, white folks might be a minority (Everyones a minority in the big picture), but have overwhelmingly had the bulk of power and have often used it in ways destructive to everyone else. Egrariously so in the case of black folks who where enslaved, denied the vote, and turned away from employment and denied the ability to build a middle class, with the end result being black folks living the life of a developing count

        • You're ridiculous. People in your camp will defend a black murderer as oppressed, and the white toddler he executed as his oppressor. (I'm referring to a real incident.)

          There was some merit to the oppressor/oppressed argument 100 years ago. You're clinging to it for political points. Everyone has been equal for quite some time now, and shoving black characters absolutely everywhere is a tried and true race baiting strategy for companies who benefit just as much from rage clicks as they do from upvotes.

    • White people are terrified of becoming a minority. Wonder why that could be?

  • Wikipedia on the story (Score:4, Informative)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Sunday May 04, 2025 @06:40PM (#65352085)

    Wikipedia has a page about Yasuke [wikipedia.org], a 16th century black person who was the first recorded foreigner to receive the rank of samurai

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by ravenshrike ( 808508 )

      That wiki page's primary, secondary, and tertiary cites all circle back to the two-faced bastard Lockley. As such, it is completely worthless.

      Here is his scholarship presented to the media in english.

      Yasuke was in the temple with Nobunaga when he performed seppuku. “There’s no record, but tradition holds it that [Yasuke] was the one who took Nobunaga’s head to save it from the enemy,” Lockley said. “If Akechi, the enemy, had gotten the head and he’d been able to hold up the head, he would have had a powerful symbol of legitimacy.” Lockley explained that an act like that would have given Akechi credibility as a ruler. After the attack on Nobunaga, Akechi did not get much support and was soon defeated in battle. “Yasuke, therefore, by escaping with the head, could have been seen and has been seen as changing Japanese history,” Lockley said.

      Here is a translation of his scholarship as presented to the japanese media

      (1)
      ————

      Translation:
      According to the family claiming to be the descendants of the Oda family, Yasuke took Nobunaga’s head and sword out of Honno-ji to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. The anecdote about Nobunaga’s is based on the claim that a death mask, which is not a Japanese tradition, was made with Yasuke’s help(1).
      There are several issues with this claim. First, no documents mention what happened to Nobunaga’s head (whether Yasuke was involved or not). The only document mentioning Yasuke’s participation in the battle is Frois’ letters, which do not mention Nobunaga’s head. If Yasuke had taken the head to the Nanban-ji, Frois would have mentioned it. Secondly, escaping from a burning temple surrounded by many enemy soldiers, —even without the additional task of carrying their own weapons along with something as astonishingly large and cumbersome as a human head—, would have been extremely difficult.

      Notice how it goes from the generalized 'tradition holds' to 'this one family claims to be descendants of Nobunaga and has a mask which they say totes shows that Yasuke came back with the head and used it to make the mask but this is bot

    • Re: Wikipedia on the story (Score:4, Informative)

      by hey00 ( 5046921 ) on Sunday May 04, 2025 @07:52PM (#65352223)

      Yes there's a page. Now look at the history of that page. Look at the talk section, too.

      It used to say Yasuke wasn't a samurai. After ubisoft announced it and started catching flak, that page was rewritten to fit the new narrative, based on one controversial guy's book.

      This is literally rewriting history to push an agenda, it's eerily reminiscent to 1984.

      Noone would have batted an eye if Yasuke was an important NPC, but ubisoft had to make him the main character, and alter history for it, to push their agenda. People are tired of having agendas pushed onto them. Doubly more so when it hijacks a beloved franchise, like AC or dragon age. Triply more so when it happens on the Japan episode fans wanted for years. And even more when said episode is riddled with micro transactions and battle passes despite being single player. Especially in a franchise that used to try to be reasonably historical accurate.

    • The wiki article is wrong regarding the rank of Samurai. (Seems it got rewritten recently)

      There is no proof that he was ranked samurai, and there is no proof that he was not a samurai.

      We simply do not know anything about that issue. Considering he was less than 3 years in Japan, and less than 2 years with Nobunaga (a feudal Lord), it is unlikely that he got promoted to be a Samurai, but not impossible.

      There are quotes from historians that he was "bearing Nobunaga's swords". Some interpreted that as "he carr

  • if you don't like what someone is doing, what happened to just pointing it out and arguing it? what is threatening to kill going to achieve?

    • I'm surprised by - who is so invested in the Assasins Creed franchise that they would get this worked up about it? I mean, they're fine games and they were super inovative ages ago, but they're nothing to be obsessed about.

      One would guess they're Anti-Woke-Warriors who have so much anger they just need to outlet it.

      (Also I have played this game and when you get to unlock Yauke and start kicking enemies halfway across the castle... that moment is a chef's kiss)

    • You better hope the righteous cause you're arguing for doesn't have one stupid person uttering threats, because you're going to be painted as just like them.

      You'd never want to be treated the way you're now treating others, so why do it?

      Trolls and dumbasses just want to see the world burn. For all we know it's lies and false flags, considering how useful it is to cry about their bad behaviour.

  • it's time for the world to understand already, that flamebait comments must not be glorified by the media - meaning not read at all, in case you're too stupid to understand (since, well, they obviously are) what glorification means in this context

    giving a second voice to a troll who doesn't deserve the one he has is tantamount to shooting your own testicles off because a fly landed on your pants. it's that level of retarded. You are rewarding their scum behaviour and so encouraging them. You can either f

  • ... south Asian man ...

    He assumed part of his culture was being monetized for American comfort. Many white people in that position would be more interested in remaining the 'victim'.

    ... he did take down the negative article ...

    The exception, not the rule. Internet Fuckwad Theory exists because because anonymity and abuse are easy on the internet, and there's little incentive to be nice.

  • People arguing this is acceptable are using a motte and bailey. The bailey is that this is a real person. When shutting down factual arguments proving this wrong fails (and discrediting Wikipedia and its woke bent in the process) they switch to the motte that it's okay for the game to take this liberty with history because it's just a game.

    Allow me to counter the motte. Yes, it's okay to make any kind of game you like with any kind of thing in it you like. But when you do so for a blatantly political reaso
    • And before someone jumps on it, by "real person" I mean in the form he is presented, not that he didn't exist or wasn't black.

    • Is this a joke? Or are you just explaining that you're defending a bailey with no back wall, and don't know that your statements appear to be being made without context for the rest of the AC series?

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