Life Is Strange And The REAL Virtue Signalling (The Jimquisition) 

for anybody confused, Life is Strange 1 and 2 were developed by DON'T NOD (formerly DONTNOD) and Life is Strange Before The Storm and True Colours were made by Deck Nine, which is the development studio this video is about

Buy the glove pass to unlock the 5th finger.

The "particularly obnoxious" developer's desk wasn't moved away from his victims, it was moved away from _other_ departments so they couldn't hear him shout at his team as much.

Coming from a studio that abused and mistreated me so miserably that trying to go to HR for help got me fired because 'there is no problem here' I can confirm how willing people are to pretend nothing ever happened and it was just a 'one off' scenario.

Ai generated glove.

A reminder that Dontnod were the ones who made Life is Strange 1 and 2, so it's really it's almost like they took the skin of a product made by passionate people and filled it with corporate B's only because it's popular, as Square Enix is one to do. It's honestly no fucking wonder they started self publishing their own products like Harmony: Fall of Reverie, Jusant, and Banishers: Ghost of New Eden (with support from Focus Interactive). The last of which was also accused of "virtue signalling" for daring to have a... Interracial relationship... It's 20 goddamn 24, if complaining about an interracial relationship isn't a mask off moment I don't know what is. Edit: For context I'm not saying that Don't Nod is better at inclusion or even better at making games. Purely just arguing that they're focused on making art they want to make, presumably even the management but that is an assumption on my part.

I haven't cared about the Life is Strange series ever since the original devs Dontnod walked away after Life is Strange 2, they cited the reason being Square Enix owning their IP and having a say in their work. Knowing now that Square Enix told Deck Nine not to make the series 'the gay games' you start to understand why they'd abandon a successful IP if it means they can self-publish.

It always cracks me up that "virtue signalling" was initially about how conservative Christians would give off the veneer of caring about a topic, only to never want to do anything to resolve it. The original virtue signal was "thoughts and prayers."

"Um, Actually! A lot of my employees are diverse so I'm allowed to say that..."

I feel like the very important distinction between Don't Nod (devs of LiS 1 & 2) and Deck Nine (devs of LiS: BtS & LiS: True Colours) SHOULD have been made clear in this video from the outset

My heart couldn’t handle this article. It’s made me want to share my experience in the Video Game Development Industry. I’ve been a victim of abuse as well as similar treatment. I’ve partaken in small indie game projects. This one developer who won’t be named was responsible for time crunching me very hard.. 60-80 hours of nonstop development. He fired several women for the simple fact that they didn’t turn him on. He had persuaded a few new workers who also happened to be women into trusting him. One was allegedly assaulted upon meeting him. I ignored his attempts while trying to turn a blind eye to everything out of shock. He withheld my monthly payments as apparently I wasn’t performing well enough. I thought he meant in video game development but it turns out he was referring to the way I talk as well as the way I talk to him. He made changes on April Fools’ Day wanting us all to address him as “Master” & “Daddy” I ignored this thinking it was just an April fools joke. After that day. Everyone also thought it was just a joke. I had some of my team members tell me that they felt disturbed. It got worse for me as I was going through a money crisis. I trusted him. I met him in person as he made advancements on me. I’m so upset after reading the article because it reminds me of how many victims shy away from speaking out. I haven’t left this team because I feel passionate about the project. He became a changed man after successfully getting into a relationship with one of the new workers on the team. She refuses to talk about the two of them as we are all left in the dark. What sickens me is the fact that most people believe he is changed man… 😢 (I've shared this in another video too related to this topic) - (It's happening in most places in the industry. Some of us aren't strong enough to speak out) 🙏

My impression is that those who use it as such think that (their definition of) "virtue signalling" is so widespread because they are so cynic that they can't imagine that anyone else would genuinely want to represent such an opinion without having any ulterior motives. "So you want to make the world a better place? Yeah, right. But seriously: what's in it for YOU?"

I love that Stephanie doesn't virtue signal, they heel signal. They advertise exactly what they will antagonize you about and then antagonize you until they are dead (not necessarily you). And they are right to do it.

I’ll never understand how they decided that the Nazis aren’t such bad guys

Ubisoft "We treat our slaves well" People on the right "See! They're treating them well. So shut up!"

Well, to be fair, Deck Nine's statement is just that they're a diverse team. They didn't say they're committed to stopping bullying and harrassment in the workplace.

Where's those raging gamers when companies fire their QA staff, add microtransactions a day after the reviews come out on top of a $30-50 battle pass on top of $70 price tag, on a broken game?

Life Is Strange was created by DONTNOD. DeckNine took over the baton and is responsible for producing BTS and True Colors. Seems unfair to tarnish the whole franchise without that context. It looks like DONTNOD is currently making their own IP similar to Life Is Strange, so at least there's an alternative to giving your money to the other backwards tossers.

What I've come to realize is people who constantly claim others are virtue signaling (like multiple times every day, not a single video with specific examples) are actually signalling their own virtue of not being one of "those people"

I think Deck Nine only Developed True Colors, not the rest of the Life Is Strange series.

Great reminder that a diverse team might just mean that the brass gets to abuse a diverse set of people.

they say they don't want life is strange to be known as "the gay game" like that's a bad thing. clowns

Please talk about Accursed Farms campaign against Ubisoft and other companies killing games

Best part about that Solemn Jpeg was when it described their diversity as "above and beyond the industry standard." Oh no, we don't actually care about peoples' unique lived experiences and perspectives, we're just meeting a quota.

Another case of "Wow, what a surprise... but not really" in the game industry.

What's sad is that the virtue signaling is the only reason there is a TINY bit of representation. That's heart breaking on every level.

I like to call it 'performative virtue signalling' just to stress that it's all an act.

Remember when people used to buy games just to escape reality

There’s a third piece to this and that’s Don’tNod. SquareEnix “allegedly” wanted the game to be less gay. Don’tNod leave the franchise and make a game where an openly trans character is a main character. DeckNine take the reins and “allegedly” remove a trans character. Not saying these pieces are connected but they’re from the same jigsaw box and the edges line up.

You got a glove that was supposed to be delivered to the Simpsons version of yourself. Slightly yellow, one less finger, and just as fabulous I'm sure. Just be glad it wasn't 2 fingers and a thumb; I'm sure Ninja Turtle Stephanie Sterling would less pleasant to deal with over a missing glove. Not that they aren't quite lovely, but living in the sewer can't make them fun to hang around. Glad I could help you sort this out. Also putting marginalized employees on your team doesn't count for much if you purposefully further marginalize them. I'm batting 100% for the day with the big facts.

They took "fingerless" a bit too far

Nothing like a jimquisition to perk up the Monday

I figured out a long time ago that people calling out "virtue signaling" are usually virtue signaling.

Free speech means you can say what you like, but you have consequences. It means we find out what you think.

the true irony of usage of the word "woke" is that in early internet terms, *being "woke" meant you knew that Ancient Aliens built the Pyramids.* Or that Dave Chappelle was a clone. The fact that anyone uses the word "woke" at all will always be hilarious to me, given it's dumb, dumb, dumb, origins.

I always love the Skeleton Warrior cuts. :)

That left glove is terrifying...who thought it was a good idea to let generative AI operate a sewing machine?

My disappointment with the games industry has reached a new middle.

09:40 Above and beyond 'the industry standard'. That's quite the specification. Really feels like the classic 'they killed all the fish in the pond. Eventually'.

"A Parent Lee" made me spit my drink out. Good job.

For the last hour I've looked for proof of any of the claims of "nazi symbols" in the life is strange game. I have yet to find any evidence of such. Only obviously photoshopped images. Can anyone present proof of this allegation? I'm not saying it's not there. And if it is there I won't be supporting games those devs have made. But I can't find even one single example. Proof please?

When you buy fingerless gloves, can you really be mad when they are missing a finger? It's right there in the name

What's also sad is that Before the Storm, and especially True Colors (Deck Nine's LiS games) both have _explicitly_ LGBT+ protagonists and were genuine steps forward for representation in the mainstream landscape. I hope the amazing people who worked on them can find better employers.

I cringe in pain every time you call Deck Nine "Life Is Strange developers", which, while technically accurate since they took over the series as the dev studio for Square-Enix, is uncharacteristically misleading of you, as the original Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange 2 as well as several similar queer-inclusive story-heavy games since were created by DONTNOD. It constantly feels like you're throwing them under the bus by proxy.

I actually rather liked True Colors. I know this video is more about the company, Deck Nine, than about the games they've produced, but for those devs who fought and continue to fight to make great games about queer characters, thank you. It sucks so much that they had to fight their own management to make True Colors what it was, and god I hope there's a chance for change so they won't have to keep fighting so damn hard.

3:52 Sort of like Crunchyroll when they were failing to try to hype up High Guardian Spice but only went on about "look how diverse we are!" instead of actually talking about the show. Almost as though they were more interested in profiting off the publicity from the culture war (pretty sure they have direct ties to Happy Science branch who run Anime News Network too, which may be a factor) than the show itself.

I remember a TV commercial for Kelloggs cereal and cereals with large white checkmarks* on the box to "signal nutrition." Virtue signaling in a nightclub.

As someone who adored True Colors and has been willing to defend it amidst detractors who consider it bad, it is very enlightening to see that the parts looking crunched looked crunched for a reason, and the exclusion of trans characters is very clearly why the only trans character featured in the game doesn't even have a face. Still, I can't deny the impact the parts made by a clearly passionate team had on me, despite the toxic leadership. What _did_ catch me off guard was the racist and nazi imagery caught during development. Fucking hell..

Z Manzilla kills me with those Bruce Lee variants. And hey, you made those gloves work by the end, Steph! Have a great week. I'm gonna watch a few clips of Aldo Rayne.

Glad to see IGN putting out articles about stuff like this, and I feel awful for not knowing about this until this video. My attachment to Max and Chloe was attached to Deck 9 as well and to know that they are so disconnected from that hurts.

“A parent Lee”. Applause.

Obligatory agreement that it should be stated Deck Nine replaced the OG devs DontNod. At least that means I don't have to worry about hidden swastikas in Vampyr....sigh....

Moar visual gags of Bruce and Jet Lee when Steph used a word that ends in -ly plox.

I bought LiS True Colours a while back (unaware of a dev/publisher change), is it good and am I morally okay to play or should I grab my 50ft barge pole now?

Took me a few sec to grasp what the fuck was (Warframe's) Darvo doing there... OH YES, DARVO!

*The moment I heard about this situation* I knew immediately that Jim Sterling would report on this. Thank you Jim Sterling! We don't deserve you.

You're really not making it clear you're you're talking about with all the footage of Life is Strange 1 Steph. That was made by a completely different company called Don't Nod.

Thanks for the buy recommendation, Jim.

It is heartbreaking to learn that this went behind the scenes of one of my favorite games. For me personally, Deck 9 took the LiS torch and made 2 of my favorite entries - Before the Storm and True Colors. It's a shame that management keeps garbage people at the helm, because you could still sense a lot of care & love from the devs in those games.

I don't know how or why, but as soon as this video opened and that song started playing with the camera on Steph, I thought "oh no, what broke?".

Ooh, the new animation on the edits feels nice and snappy.

The sad thing for me is I'm both disappointed and not surprised at the same time.

Instant like for the DARVO reference.

Video should have specified that DeckNine isn't the creator of the series, and that the original devs Don'tNod did not have these issues. Life is Strange really wasn't my thing but I respect what Don'tNod was trying to do with it. Also for a while I thought we'd finally get an episode without that weird blue finned thing, it is absolutely overused in these videos.

Wait. I thought SquareEnix still had the rights to LIS after DONTNOD gave it up.. When did DECK NINE get ownership? I'm just asking because I'm out of the loop on that.

9:43 I agree with much in this video but I just wanted to say "Apparently" as "A Parent Lee" with Bruce and a little Brandon at the bus made me chuckle hard enough to choke on my cookie. Cheers. :P

5:48 I speak German and I don't recognise that word at all. Plus German doesn't have an ë character so is this supposed to be something nordic?

Thank you as always for the show, Steph. Have been having a rough time of it recently, and this was a nice cheerup.

it's worth noting the team themselves fought very hard for what representation was in there according to the article. honestly the article is worth reading as it adds much needed context

As always Steph, great video! I look forward to the next one, even if the subject matter of the eternal abuse going on in this industry (or perhaps rather, this world), is a bit exhausting someone sure does need to say it, and you do (and have done for so long). I hope one day you'll have a week in which you can talk about positive news, but considering the corporate gaming industry's track record, I will have to be patient sadly. Side note, who's the person on the "Unrelated Footage"? Not Z-man's avatar of course, the guy in the video.

That "Honest Lee" visual gag was great.

Thank you. I've been saying this for years. When minorities tell you what is wrong hear them. Don't ignore what they are saying and think up how you can do the least to help to feel like you did the most.

I think it does bear saying that Deck Nine did not make the first Life is Strange. DONTNOD made the first one, and Deck Nine made the following prequel. Just ... wouldn't want the first and most beloved game to be drug through the mud because of Deck Nine ... Granted, DONTNOD may be just as scummy for all I know, but innocent until proven guilty ... ? At least this once? Maybe don't use their LiS for the thumbnail?

What is that shooting game with pixel graphics that pops up at 4:15?

It's funny that there is almost always such a dissidence between most of management vs the people actually making the games. Hell Square Enix even - you have the team working on the remake series of Final Fantasy 7 being like "we wanted to change some stuff because we felt the originals handling of sexuality and queerness was problematic and we wanted to be more socially conscious" while the management is like (about Life is Strange) "ewwww, we don't want to publish a GAY game!" Just a huge difference between how the creative staff sees things. And yeah creatives can be toxic themselves, but that's still managements job to fix and they just don't.

Stephanie has Nightcrawler's glove.

Saw that defective fingerless glove and thought of Danny DeVito's Penguin from Batman Returns! XD

I could not figure out a translation of vherungegheizt. Anyone care to explain?

Speaking of investigating every game company, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the second round of layoffs at Singularity Six whose only game is still in beta testing stages yet has a cosmetic shop with items as expensive as $51 a set.

That glove is hilarious.

I don't know why, but that last line with an exasperated cutoff is one of the funniest things I've seen in ages. Simple folk, easily amused etc etc.

What's that "unrelated" footage at 12:51?

Stephanie accidentally bought a Mojo World glove.

Hey Stephanie, would be great if you can update the video thumbnail to show the actual LiS games Deck 9 worked on, rather than LiS 1

I don't even understand how the term "virtue signalling" is even an insult. yes, statements like "I support gay rights" or "black lives matter" ARE virtuous. these things SHOULD be signalled.

Honest Lee killed me, great editing to make me laugh in such a serious topic

*slowly blinks eyes* JimSteph...*WHAT* did you do to Darvo?!

Don't forget to emphasize (again) that corporations who suddenly care about gay rights for exactly 30 days only do so in the west, and definitely not in the Middle East or China (and probably others I forget).

I never trust ANY company that places its "diversity" or "wokeness" front and centre. Those that that can, just get on and live their beliefs, and those that don't want to, simply talk about it. Similarly, these companies are abusers. They don't advertise it. They just do it, quietly behind the scenes.

Always a good listen. Thanks for all your dedication and sharing your work with us.

This coming out the same day as Frost's Cold Take about how optimistic he chooses to be the gaming industry makes for a nice pair of bookends. I'm glad we have Steph to voice the cynicism we need and Sebastian to voice the hopes we want. (Also, is Vherrungegheizt (@5:45) a word I'm too stupid to be able to look up, or has something new entered the lexicon?)

Silly Sterling! They're GAMING gloves, don'tcha know? You just bought the basic entry level gloves, and the extra finger is DLC. As these are likely created by Ubisoft, it's the middle finger that's missing. Of course, you can only buy the DLC in packs of three fingers at a time, and must be bought with a propietary cryptocurrency. Don't get used to them though! As they are only working as long as the servers are up, then they'll simply decompose.

I recently read a bunch of stuff describing how Steph has been an abusive employer towards their last video-audio-editor/driver/graphics designer. Is that anything? Sorry I'm out of the loop

did you somehow buy those gloves in Springfield

It amazes me that virtue signalling originally had a very useful definition, basically meaning 'stating ideals and then doing the bare minimum to support them'. That's actually a really useful thing to have a term for, but it was too easy to co-opt to let us have a nice thing.

My boy Darvo!

Oh come on Steph! "Life is Strange" IP, while owned by Square Enix, is the creation of DONTNOD! NOT DECK9 who have been contracted to do a spinoff episodes!

I'm a bit saddened to hear this but somehow not surprised. Deck Nine only copied the homework of DON'T NOD and lucked into True Colors being a good story with good characters. But the company does not have a good history otherwise. They even pushed ahead with recasting Ashly Burch from the lead role of Before the Storm because they didn't give two shits about the voice actor strike going on. The core DNA of Life is Strange started with DON'T NOD and they further proved that when they made the outstanding Tell Me Why which feels like the logical progression of LiS without having the title (also holy shit, actually used a trans actor for their trans character).

that super sped up "Skeleton Warriors" cracked me up lol

Corporate allows this because this is how corporations survive through the generations, by sustaining the toxicity. It prioritizes profits over humanity.