A Western Developer Uses Racism To Discredit Elden Ring's Success 

This is probably my spicey-est video yet. And I apologize for my voice not being up to snuff, having the flu sucks. Subscribe & share the video, it really helps the channel out. And let me know what you think in the comments. Thank you. And remember to not harass anyone. Let's just take this as a learning experience & move on from it.

"For Asians" is nonsense, the original Demon's Souls flopped in Japan. Sony refused to publish it in the West, Atlas & Namco picked it up and it was a huge success. We (western gamers) literally "chose" this genre because it matched the sensibilities of a decent portion of our gamers. Elden Ring has 1 million(ish) sales in japan, the rest of that 13 million+ in sales is everywhere else. This style of game is very much for us, even if that wasn't the original intention.

Skull and Bones unironically looks like the "if Ubisoft made Elden Ring" meme, lol.

The irony here is that, these people are claiming the design is stupid due to "oriental people's limited mental ablities" when it's them who can't figure out that an EQUIPMENT tab has EQUIPMENT in it lol.

Elden Ring forces devs to consider the possibility of making more money by making a good game rather than one full of predatory monetization 😂

It’s amazing how much drama there’s been over this game. Just for being a great game. Their only crime was working hard and achieving excellence. That makes them the enemy of a certain group.

The only thing worse than a western, AAA dev is a western journalist.

Laziness and lack of creativity are the western dev worst enemy.They put all the markers on their games to show where the players should go because those are the places they put the game assets while fromsoftware put their games assets all over the place so players could have fun exploring the world they created.

Western UI developers: "Eastern UI is trash" Also Western UI developers: "I'mma implement an stick controlled mouse curser"

These western Devs need to put their foolish ambitions to rest

I'd like to point out that Knights of the Old Republic, a Bioware game, also has you equip armor and weapons in the Equipment tab instead of the Inventory tab. These "developers" sound like your typical game journalist who thinks they're all knowing.

It is quite interesting to see people specifically refer to "japanese videogames" when japan was basically the birthplace of videogames as we know them. If anything, western videogames should be specifically refered to.

As someone who had never played a single soulsborne game before elden ring, I had no clue how anything worked or any of the stats/equipment when I first started. It was fun having to figure it out because it was well designed

There is a lot of hate towards outside groups anytime they make their (typical western corporate drones) self-important-selves look bad. Elden Ring has crapped on Ubisoft, EA and Blizzard and they are seething with anger at the level of success and loyalty that we the gamers have towards true artistic expression instead of disgusting and typical corporate greed.

It's been like 5 months. Amazing they are still hating The Japanese are well known for making new and experimental video games. They are artists while over here devs follow a stale script for all games.

I love how salty some devs are that Fromsoftware is blowing them out of the water. Japanese devs make games for gamers. Western devs make games for investors.

The only real ui" problem" I have with elden ring is the fact there's no "favorites" options for equipment. For all the armor, weapons, consumables, etc you have, an easy to sort and swap between them would be nice. Instead of memorizing where it is. I mean, they give you that option for graces, why not your equipment?

What makes this even more ironic is that western mythology/fantasy has inspired so much of fromsoftware’s work. I cannot imagine being so mad about people liking a thing. I really really hope it takes the GOTY award. I don’t care about that show at all but I just want it to sting them even more.

As a westerner trying to be gamedev/artist, I need to express something... In the last few months I've seen these discussions about western professionals criticizing Elden Ring's UI for being "bad", when in fact it's just clean (it gives you the information you need to play and react fast and simple, and you get rewarded for playing - unlike Assassins Creed, where icons mark the distance between you and objectives, has quest lists that accumulate in a hell of 'same things' ; in games like FS games, BOTW, some Capcom you are rewarded for exploring or just playing, and is fun). And it's all this Western Criticism is for a very simple reason (apart from envy): we have a weird "there's only one way to do something right" way of thinking. And the most bizarre thing is when you realize it's just illogical! I see a lot in the community here (artist, gamedev and schools) talking about "if you're going to make art, don't overdesign the character/object; keep it simple because 'less is more'" and often it just results in more of the same (a knight / green goblin / scifi soldier / the cartoon furry; all with a style emulating Blizzard art... in this you have a hypocritical artist from Bioware criticizing Tree Sentinel's design for it being golden and being an enemy because is a basic rule that "gold is good"). At the same time, when they talk about UI in game dev schools, it's like "read the line that says not to pollute the interface... now throw that away, let's overdesign it and put a lot of information that gives the player a illusion that he is progressing and he has a LOT to do (even if they are the same type of missions)!" There are fundamentals, but they don't stop you from distorting them or doing something "creative", as long as it's to give a better user experience and with purpose (which here between us, seems to be rare in large western industries lately..." Did you know that Disney is going to make a live action movie out of yet another animation?"). In the end, if you make a dirty interface in a game that is sometimes forgettable and you are complaining that another game is dominating the audience by doing something different... it just shows that you are not creative (and you if your awnser is being racist/xenophobic, it just shows that you have a rotten brain)!

To be honest, they will also screech at western devs if they find success with a game that does things differently. And they always find a reason. When "Ghost of Tsushima" was widely acclaimed - they raged about "cultural appropriation"; when "Kingdom Come - Deliverance" was successful - they raged about "devs racist cause no people of color", etc.

I love how Western devs are blaming literally anything that is superior to their games as racist. They cannot cope with the fact most gamers don't want their forced microtransactions and politics in their games.

... The reason why Japanese games have a different 'mental model' this American games is because Japanese gamers are primarily console gamers, not PC gamers. The UIs are different because there is a different base assumption on how it should work. You can't implicitly expect to 'drag and drop' from an inventory when you are using a controller.

Can confirm, I'm racist and love our Honorary Aryan FromSoft genius allies.

I think the most ridiculous part about the equipment argument is the fact that they're acting like you have to change equipment in the middle of battle. In reality, armor stats don't really make that much of a difference.

I’m on my ng+ with 3 hours in and I just beat the game 2 days ago. I’ve never done that before and I’ve been gaming for 30 years now. The amount of detail and passion shows out for Elden Ring in every area of the game. It’s a masterpiece and without money hungry micro transactions. I can actually tell that the developers and the entire staff who worked on it, all wanted to create a timeless classic. They have my money for any DLC that hopefully releases one day

Elden Ring should be GOTY, even though we still needs to wait and see the new GoW and I believe GoW Ragnarok will be an amazing hell of a game, I still vote for Elden Ring to be GOTY, Fromsoftware deserve it.

Its not even a case of exaggerating what these people say, they are genuinely being racist because they’re butthurt that someone didn’t do the bare minimum for a game and were successful because of it

They’re just sore because FromSoftware has been steadily destroying them in game development and innovation for over a decade now, which is a hell of a feat considering all their games follow a similar formula to each other yet are unique and interesting every time. UI clutter and quest development are the two biggest weaknesses of Western Developers, so it’s always hilarious to see them projecting their own failures. Maybe if they started listening to their fan base instead of rehashing the same old tired formula, they may find themselves in the position of FromSoftware instead of being reduced to slinging insults like impotent SJW’s…

Most of the games I've thoroughly enjoyed in my life are from "Asian" companies. Armored core and samurai warriors was my childhood. Blood will tell, dynasty warriors, dragons dogma, monster hunter, dark souls, all are some of all time favorite games/series.

I think western devs have adopted the clutter UI because philosophically they view you has a pilot playing their game. They want to throw all the information at the pilot, just like a real pilot in a plane. That is why they put "gauges" all over the screen. Where ER took an open world approach where you are not a pilot but an adventurer. Their main purpose was to make you "feel" your way through a game, like a person riding a pedal bike.

I looked at the UI for that pirate game for three seconds and then just went blind immediately because it was preferable over seeing that monstrosity for even one more second.

I feel like AAA western devs straight up don't know how to convey information. I'm a writer, and one of the first things you learn is to trust your readers to understand what you are conveying. This applies to essentially every medium of information. Your players aren't braindead morons who need a pacifier shoved in their mouths at all times, we don't need to be handholded to such a degree that we can't see what's going on behind all the different popups. If your UI is noticed by players, you have failed in your job. Throwing 50 Skinner boxes on the screen is not the way to engage players. If the method of conveying information is noticed before the actual information, you have a serious problem.

It is quite funny that one of the Western cult classic series, Legacy of Kain, have the UI even more minimalistic than Elden Ring, and I don't remember anyone berate them for it.

Eh... I can understand different design paradigms being rooted in culture. The existence of JRPGs as a subgenre of RPGs originating in Japan demonstrates this. While many Western RPGs embraced the idea of making one's own character unique, with a degree of player-driven choices in dialogue and personality, JRPGs focused on tightly defined protagonists and linear character development paths (though at times with choice in advancement paths). Even with a strong overlap in markets, the distinction between these two paradigms remains and one cannot ignore their cultural-geographical origins. For that reason, I wouldn't say that the claim that From's UI design may be rooted in Japanese culture (specifically, game design culture) is necessarily bigoted. The problem is more that these Western devs are so wedded to the paradigms that they've been taught that they cannot stand anything from outside the box they've place themselves within. It's certainly narrowminded, but not necessarily racist.

I call that respecting the players intelligence.

Every YTer ever with a cold: "I may sound a little weird..." Me, EVERY time: 🤷‍♂️

Its the same as when someone hears that a game was made in Japan and its automatically a "weeb" game. That word has been thrown around like free giveaways from Oprah, it eventually lost meaning.

Western games usually have only one stat on armor, usually a number called armor. It's needed to have a saparated window for weapons and armor when you have so many variables to consider, I can't see how where you're born affects this.

I feel like these devs are just farming the attention at this point

In most games, when you open the inventory, there's a separate tab for each piece of equipment anyway. It's almost more convenient to have all of your equipment spots in one menu rather than having them each in a different menu under the inventory.

Literally one of the most basic things you learn in pvp in Souls games is to hotswap weapons to reduce load because equipment is SO easy to access that you can do it in combat

elden ring's UI is probably the best i've ever seen in a video game. it's so easy to use that people often swap equipment in the middle of riding on torrent or in the middle of a fight.

I've been hearing about The Witcher 3 since it came out... After playing Elden Ring for 3 months I decided to try The Witcher 3 yesterday and dropped it in about an hour with the menus and navigation being one of the main reasons (absolutely not THE main one but still major)... As a person new to gaming in general I think Elden Ring's menus, gameplay and HUD setup are some of the most intuitive and unobtrusive that I've seen... Additionally, I absolutely love that it's a straightforward game where you go around and kill monsters or bad guys without distractions like finding a job in a new area in order to make money with whch to purchase ingredients with which to go to someone to make a potion with which to complete a sidequest thus making it possible to complete a bigger sidequest(not saying that such games are bad but obviously there are people like me who still want to play a dark fantasy rpg and who find all those steps unnecesary)...

When you can't make a cool game. Hate on a guy who can instead of taking not only good notes that help you as a company, but a beggar. Go as low as racism to be salty instead of listening to fans. That leads to great success as a American gaming company. 😆🤣😂Totally makes you sound totally cool especially when you have people continue to pay for even when your games are mostly crap.

Wow i am at a lost for words im a American and just hearing this genuinely aggravates me i love elden ring the audacity for devs to do that is just wrong on every level

I’m asian, I have 500+ hours on Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3, and I never actually noticed that I can’t equip armor from inventory menu because who tf would scroll two extra times when the first thing on the list of menu is the equipment tab. Also equipping it from the equipment tab that already sort out the items that can be equip for you is so much easier than scrolling through all of your items to find that one armor you want to equip. What kind of game do these western dev make?

The added screen clutter on Elden Ring made me lol 😂 thing is I see my kids playing Fortnite and the clutter on their screen is crazy, I don’t know how they focus on the actual gameplay

Awesome summary of whats going on. Really good job. Thanks for putting this together!

American devs are mainly coming from liberal arts schools. Where there taught not to see people as people but people as “Asia” as “black” as “white” it’s sick. All humans are unique and grouping even just a few that “look similar” or have “similar backgrounds” is just plain wrong. No human should be group with anyone as the human is a unique creature that should be idolized on the individual level and not just group by physical traits

Wow. Imagine releasing a game that feels complete and reinforcing the stalwart loyalty of their fans. What a surprise.

I hope Elden Ring wins this year's goty. Miyazaki deserves it.

If they somehow found something racist in Elden Ring, that should tell us how delusional they really are

Completely agree with the content creator here. I believe that Western developers should focus on their craft instead of either just financial gain or superficial virtue. Western civilization was a civilization because it could identify problems and solve them. Now we create problems and end those that try to identify them

I don't like anime's aesthetics and storytelling, doesn't make me racist!

"you mainly judge the value of a person over two things: how they treat people below than them, and how they look at those above"

Great Break Down Endymion. It's disappointing and frustrating to see developers choose to disparage their competitors with racism, Instead of looking at themselves to see what improvements they can make. I'm so excited to see From Software have so much success with Elden Ring. No micro transactions, no season pass and an amazing, complex game upon release. 🤩

It just occurred to me that most of the high quality games I bought are Asian in one war or another. SquareEnix is the only AAA I still buy from (for now). Dyson Sphere Project comes to kind as well, and that developer is Chinese.

It's actually not "racism" it's actually Xenophobic. I'm sick of hearing people describe this issue poorly. They're not hating all Asians, they're hating on foreign developers.

As a fresh web dev i find this take funny since i was taugh that the best way for UX(at least for web design) is the simplified one where each functions is made clear and grouped by uses then sepreated by whitespace which ER's UI is. And as someone who enjoy games for the longest time a lot of game now a day seem like that they will hold your hand until you reached either mid game or end game and treat user like a child which a lot of time pissed the user off.

100% western devs want an "optimize equipment" button, they love handholding, thats why their game UIs are always so cluttered, god forbid their players have to use even a single braincell

I love listening to Elden Ring takes whether plausible or whimsical. I also love hearing other people in the community react to takes as well. Another Great Vid in the books. 👍🏼

Now, western devs are just proving elden ring that they’re all as maidenless as me

This explains so much that brings the full picture thanks man.

You know, there's a reason Pride is listed as one of the 7 deadliest sins. These people are fckn lost. Perhaps instead of taking your hubris to the grave... TAKE NOTES There are VERY good reasons that Elden Ring is successful. Can confirm having never even played it. My brother does - Just WATCHING someone else play is fun.

I like my games with red dots on every icon and tab I'm supposed to click, lots of pop up tutorial boxes about how to press buttons, and plenty of flashing arrows ensuring I don't wander or waste time playing around 🤡😭 Seriously though, good video and points 👍

Westerner here I love elden ring still playing it almost everyday

1:28 western devs when there's no map, health bar, money counter, souls counter, weapon status, enemy's health bar, No arrows on the screen indicating where a certain thing is, your mission, how left for the mission to be done, a timer for no reason,

These are the same people that would cry for diversity and inclusion in their games.

It’s about ego - I built it you must see it all my work must be seen From Software just gives you a shovel and find the x spot yourself

The envy of these people is strong

Your great commentary has earned you my subscription. Kudos

One thing I absolutely love is seeing those websites for buying items in Elden, where in the old days and still now, people just trade those items for a weapon they want, souls, etc.

People just can’t grasp that it’s ok for some games to not be for everyone

An addendum to my previous comment: Someone ought to show these western devs the "Open World Fatigue: Elden Ring & the Ubisoft Formula" video on DX's channel. It actually has some constructive criticism they could learn from in it!

I never even thought about equipping something from the inventory menu.

I love minimal UI, especially with Dead Space. It doesn’t fucking blind me.

2:20 The supposed "UI Problem" can easily be explained by the game being developed from the ground up as a console game. It seems they wanted a CRPG style inventory screen, where the UI is an overlay and the items and equipment slots are on the same page. This is doable only because of the mouse, which lets you drag and drop items as you want. Furthermore, with the mouse you can float over an item and the item description appears. Obviously, this is difficult with a controller. 4:00 If that is even remotely true, then Diablo and MMORPGs should never be popular in Asia. Ergo, wrong. Korea alone probably developed half of all MMORPGs of the 2000s and 2010s.

I am playing through tiny tinas right now, and I don't even feel like looking through my inventory because of how cluttered it is. I love the way from software does it instead. This is a wild garbage take.

It's more like "I have been thaught that MY WAY is the best way. Look at EA and Ubisoft? If anything becomes successful that is different from what I learned, it horrible." In fact its even worse. It's people who just can't accept anything that deviates what they have learned. Fragile people.

Your a psychopath if you go to the inventory tab to look through your weapons and armor.

jfc elden ring has one of if not THE best UI I have every had the utter and total pleasure to use in the last decade and the only games I ever find to have utterly trash UIs are western games specificaly Ubisoft games, looking at you horiszon zero dawn a game I bought before elden ring and after compleating elden ring went to play only to realise I already compleated it, I almost 100% horizon and forgot thats how underwhelming I found it the only thing I remebred is the UI being bad and getting on my nerves how dare they use contry of origen such xenophobic pieces of trash those devs are.

Look I won't argue that the West is pretty fucking racist. But with the term "mental model" it seems to me he's acknowledging cultural differences in design philosophy, which is definitely a thing that exists. I don't think acknowledging that is the same as "Japanese people need simple UIs because Asians are stupid" like you're making it out to be. It may have been a poor word choice and a bad take, but I don't think he was trying to insult the Japanese as people.

Jesus Christ this was over blown ....I thought it was going to be an actual racism.

That reminds me of some Jews somehow finding Attack on Titans anti-semitic for some reason when what it reminded me of was how Japanese felt towards their corrupted govt in WW2. But extremists will find anything antysemitic even math and rational thinking

Was watching and waiting for the racism. All I saw in the end was an overreaction. Mental Model is a UI/UX term that demonstrates how a certain type of person might react differently from someone else. Like the mental model of UK drivers is to drive on the left while the mental model of americans is to drive on the right. Making an American drive on the left will shock that mental model and may result in the product forcing this behaviour to fail. Nothing about what the guy said was remotely racist. It was a genuine question. Go play some Asian MMOs and you'll find in many of them, equipping gear can be as complicated as it is troublesome. Is that a mental model thing? That's what the dev was asking. Personally, I find the equipping of gear to be cumbersome in Elden Ring. There are other games that do it better. And Elden Ring also does some things better than others. Is it a big deal? No. Does it shake my mental model? Absolutely. Why? Because I'm not a mono-gamer. I don't just play the one game and have that be my entire construct of what games are. Just wanted to end off with, when you see racism everywhere, you're going to use it as a crutch to enforce your own opinion. Trust me, I know. I'm asian, living in Asia and not the right kind of asian. I know racism better than I know my own hand. And I know my hand a lot ;)

Not racist tbh, but still an insane take over exaggerating. A true look at Japanese games would be looking at the many games were character use text but the model of the characters barely moving their mouths (if that). This man is just starting to milk whatever comes out of ER, hope we get news on DLC cause the content is recicles and dry. Since we had the same tweets many times and they all mention UI and difficulty.

as an filipino born grown up in the netherlands, what stood out to me particulary is that western media always stay traditional, always following the same world, rules and ethics, where as asian media aren't afraid to explore deeper themes or to show the brutality and unfairness of the world

The whole optimize equipment thing is stupid. You can use any weapon you want in any souls game and still beat them. Zerolenny is a testament to that.

This is a new low , Japanese games definitely have a theme and that’s not racist it’s just a fact. Lol 😂 guess I’m a racist for stating the obvious

Idk what that guys on about but i might be even more loss hearing what your on about lmao. Dev is clearly dumb and needs to be more self aware but the level of virtue signaling in this video is kinda egregious and is so blatantly sophistries. You dont need to twist things to make new reasons for people to not like these devs they already dislike them on account of the bad games they develop haha.

Now that you mention this, I just realized that the UI in these games is one of the reasons I fall in love with these games. They are way more intuitive than other western games to me.

When did he say "primitive and can't handle too much information at once"???

I don't believe there is a racist intent with the original twitter post. The person is obviously a little tone deaf. I think they meant that the Asian Market has a preference to a certain style and he doesnt agree or like it. Its how I read it but the Dev has obviously been locked in a cupboard too long and doesn't understand how to construct a decent sentence. I could he wrong and there was malice behind it but I don't know. In regards to the commentary in this vid, I love you man but you have filled in a lot of gaps with assumptions and used a lot on inflammatory language, because like you say you support the Asian style of games and have come out in defence rather than looking at it in a balanced and objectified view. And it is a little blind to say that there aren't any differences in cultures and beliefs. There are huge differences and rather trying to get anyone thinking and acting the same we should embrace those differences. So if the Asian want (I'm not a market expert on gaming but I do work for a big car manufacturer and know what we have to develop and sell in the Asian markets in much different way to Europe and America) to have simplified UI, so what, just because it might be a culture thing that less is more, doesn't insinuate your are dumb. The same as Americans thinking excess and overindulgence shows wealth (it doesnt).

The takes were shit, but you’re just putting words in their mouths over and over again and then attacking said words

I just don't see how you can look at the number of concurrent players and then still go "this game is not want people want, I would have done it differently". The numbers speak for themselves.

I mean, to be fair, I don’t think the UI of FromSoft games is perfect. Having one tab to change your equipment, but having to go to another if you want to drop it is a little annoying. That’s just one example. But generally, I definitely prefer it over the typical Ubisoft model.

You are reading way too much into these comments dude. And then you quote your own interpretions as if these things were actually said by other poeple. At least use correct quots in your takes.

Dumbest take ever. I think the journalist is wrong, but he's CLEARLY not being racist. Different "cultures" (his words) DO tend toward specific tastes/preferences. Not EVERYone has the same opinion, but that's not what he was saying. Dude can be wrong without being racist.

This dev must have never had attention deficit issues either cuz let me tell you from experience, these “games” with shit all over the screen are an absolute nightmare and I almost immediately turn off as many HUD elements as possible. One of the reasons I only play games like the ones from soft make are because I know from beginning to end my focus will be on the game in front of me not the list of tasks some Reddit mod dev couldn’t stand being as messy as possible

I have contacted everyone you mentioned, personally. I told them a RU-vidr sent me