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Anonymous Coward's avatar

Plante, I don’t know if you’re aware or how much control you have over it; but the free version of your podcast is full of Republican propaganda ads; I got hit four times with the same one on the sex games episode.

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Chris Plante's avatar

Yeah, I have heard from a few listeners about this. I've notified Acast (my podcast host) and filled out the paperwork to have political ads (along with ads tied to guns) excluded.

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Anonymous Coward's avatar

I figured you probably were not happy about it; but I hate that it made me pause and wonder

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Aaron's avatar

This might possibly be an uninformed observation, but Tentacle Locker 2 looks a lot like a game about assaulting school-aged children. I normally trust your judgement on games, but this seems a really distressing choice for an interview subject.

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Chris Plante's avatar

Hey Aaron! The game is meant to portray characters of legal age, and the sex wasn't designed as an assault. That said, with sex games, the range of what people will find tasteful vs. distasteful is extremely broad.

In terms of the interview subject, Hot Pink gave a lecture on the topic of adult games at this year's Game Developers Conference and has a positive reputation in the community. But by no means does that mean you should feel pressure to play their games or even like them.

Hope that helps provide some clarity!

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Aaron's avatar

Hi Chris, thank you for clarifying!

I should say that I haven’t played Hot Pink’s games, or even heard of them prior to this post! I just looked at their itch page to see who you were interviewing. I understand that opinions vary - especially when it comes to the term “sexy”! - and certainly don’t feel pressured into liking/playing something just because it is being discussed.

For me, the framing device/visual language of adolescence and choice of the word “catch” really reinforces my worst assumptions about this genre. It seems like a nightmare, so I did want to clarify the point before listening (both for myself and for others like me - people who, whilst having zero issues with NSFW stuff, get distressed by these specific kinds of topics & portrayals). If the framing is simply a “oh but they’re actually not and this actually isn’t”, I’ll give this one a pass.

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Chris Plante's avatar

I can’t speak to how to frame the game, but I can say that the game isn’t discussed at any real length in the episode and the conversation is broadly focused on the business of the space.

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