Paradox pulls workshop mod down for altering human phenotypes

[Thelonius]

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...tory-stellaris-mod-that-made-all-humans-white

And are potentially planning on doing the same to the 'Separate Human Phenotypes' mod also available on the Steam Workshop (get it while you can, laddies and ladies)

Personally I feel that this decision is somewhat strange and the reason given ("we do NOT however wish to enable discriminatory practices.") is not motivated at all, I think people would appreciate if a Paradox employee would provide a better explanation as to how mods altering human phenotypes "enable discriminatory practices", a statement which at the moment has no argument behind it.

It strikes me as uncomparably odd that Paradox feels that a mod like this enables discriminatory practices but at the same time allow me, the player, to enslave and commit genocide without even requiring a mod, using systems developed by Paradox themselves! Yet these things don't enable discriminatory practices? I haven't seen a single word, written or otherwise, from Paradox regarding what parts of Stellaris the consumer should consider to be political statements.
Without requiring a mod I can right now create a human empire and deliberately enslave or genocide populations of a specific phenotype, does this mean that you (Paradox) enable discriminatory practices? And if not... why?

EDIT: In the immortal words of Gaius Valerius Catullus (84 B.C - 54 B.C), written in his infamous invective Carmen 16:
"For it is proper for a devoted poet to be moral himself, it is in no way necessary of his poems."

I've always wanted to use that quote for something and I think it's quite apt in this case.

 

[safe-keeper]

Please don't shut down this thread, too. Which mods to allow on Steam Workshop, and why, is a community concern and should be open to discussion.

My opinion, which I tried to post in the other thread:

I'm of two minds here. I don't mind, for role-playing reasons, to be able to play as only whites, only Asians, only Hispanics, or what have you.

On the other hand, I can see how this can be used as a kind of "white supremacist" tool. Especially when it specifically removes every non-white human from the game. If there was a mod that removed every female character from EU or CK, I would find that pretty questionable, too.

I much better liked the mod that allowed you to pick and choose which "colours" to put in the game. As in, if I want to play as space-faring Africans or Chinese, or for that matter whites, I should be allowed to. The backstory could be something like that you're playing as a colony of, say, China, that recently declared independence and set off to explore and colonise space on its own. It would make sense that the population of such a colony would be predominately Asian.
Even so, such a mod would be much better if it didn't completely remove other "colours". Most nations on Earth have some ethnic diversity, and a Chinese colony would likely have some whites, Africans, and what have you.

All the same, taking the mod down seems like an overreaction. We still have the more neutral mod, though, but if it is taken down too I will find that objectionable.
That's my two cents right now. Hoping we can have a discussion on this without it becoming heated. Let's try to hold the accusations of trolling, political correctness, racism, and whatnot.

 

[Jerzy_I]

Purge the Racists for the Emperor

 

[Zealuu]

If you want to play StellAryan Nation you can still download it from ModDB according to the thread.

 

[Thelonius]

If you want to play StellAryan Nation you can still download it from ModDB according to the thread.

I'm more alarmed by them potentially taking down the 'Separate Human Phenotypes', I want to play as a bizarro China during an extremely late Three Kingdoms period that reached into space, but if Paradox are going to take down stuff with separate phenotypes and namelists that's ruining it.

There's also the matter about not knowing what parts of Stellaris are political statements or not, right now it's just guesswork because apparently multicultural space humans is a political statement, but if I opt to enslave every non-asian phenotype then apparently it's not?

 

[MarQan]

If you can win in HoI as Germany, then why not have space-nazis who only have whites?!
An ascended Persian empire who actually got through the greeks and conquered europe and then the whole world.

There are really a lot of scenarios that support the validity of a phenotype mod... and most of those are for roleplay purposes, and not discriminatory.

 

[Ownie]

What are you? A racist Nazi? CMON MAN IT'S {CURRENT YEAR}!

 

[Hideous]

I was reading about this in Reddit and apparently there are other mods that change the human race in similar ways.

Just for example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=688751838
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=688760542
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=688760738
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=685620784

If paradox really goes this way, they certainly have a lot of mods to purge. It seems to be fairly popular to mod the humans to suit your needs.

 

[Amightypie]

the mods are racist, good riddens

Edit : incase people dont see this on page 2, i would edit out my initial statement as it was a rash reaction but then id be accused of somthing else so ill leave it there anyway carry on

We saw the mod, thought it wasn't in very good taste, but let it remain. Then the creator of the mod decided to update the description of the mod to promote an "agenda" not related to computer games at all, and this was being clearly displayed on our product page. We decided it was a step too far and removed it. Eurogamer did not do a good job describing what exactly it was we removed.

from the community manger on the reddit post on this

 

[RandumDude]

Well if they do stick by this decision, I do hope they will continue to watch steam Workshop and remove all the mods that enable only one race or one gender.
Honestly the thing here isn't that the mod was removed since it's easy to make it and there are third-party places where you can get it from, but the reasoning of why it was removed and if Paradox will be hypocrites about it.
Also, are mods that allow only one color for the alien species racist too? If I want to get a mod that makes all my space foxes grey, will I have to worry that it will be removed on the same grounds?

 

[C4po]

I not only agree with Paradox completely, but I think they're being too lenient with non-PoC representation in Stellaris.
Current projections already predict Euro descendant to be a small minority a couple of decades in the future, it's ridiculous to expect they to be represented as heavily as Poc in the 23th century.
I would even go as far as support a removal of non-PoCs immediatly, or at least heavily decrease the chance of a pop or leader to be a non-PoC.

 

[mightygaz]

yeah this seems a bit silly to me. all this will do is give this enormous publicity, and probably end up with many more installs than it otherwise would have, since it can be obtained from other places.

seems like a snap decision from paradox to address an issue that wasn't actually an issue.

I'm hoping paradox will backtrack here, as this is heavy handed nonsense.

 

[Pen Name]

Seems like a bit of an nontrovesy to me.

 

[mightygaz]

I not only agree with Paradox completely, but I think they're being too lenient with non-PoC representation in Stellaris.
Current projections already predict Euro descendant to be a small minority a couple of decades in the future, it's ridiculous to expect they to be represented as heavily as Poc in the 23th century.
I would even go as far as support a removal of non-PoCs immediatly, or at least heavily decrease the chance of a pop or leader to be a non-PoC.

what the hell is a PoC?

 

[Coffee Fox]

Great, I guess Stellaris is going to be affected by all the diversity bullshit SJWs and the media keeps harping about.

The mod was fine; People just made it into a problem when it shouldn't have been.

 

[Ownie]

what the hell is a PoC?

Person of Color

 

[REDDQ]

On the other hand, I can see how this can be used as a kind of "white supremacist" tool. Especially when it specifically removes every non-white human from the game. If there was a mod that removed every female character from EU or CK, I would find that pretty questionable, too.

There are African only mods as well. The same with Asian only and female only. And soon Paradox will release 4th game where you will be able to literally spread the master race across the world and plenty of wehraboos will play it. In Stellaris there are purges, both discriminatory and not. I hope it is fair to assume that PDX will delete those mods, stop HOI4 development and kill any mod containing copyright infringement because of high morals



My general stance about Paradox actions ie. deleting mods and killing threads...

 

[Zealuu]

Also, are mods that allow only one color for the alien species racist too? If I want to get a mod that makes all my space foxes grey, will I have to worry that it will be removed on the same grounds?

You can figure this out on your own by asking yourself this one simple question: Are there real-world, structural inequivalencies in society brought on by centuries of systematic oppression, exploitation and dehumanization that have real ramifications on the lives of non-grey space foxes living today?

If the answer is no, then no.

You can do this test as many times as you like! Just replace "non-grey space foxes" with "non-phenotype + species". If the answer is actually yes, then yes. So for instance, making all humans white is obviously racist given the effects of actual, real-world history, and you should take a good, long look in the mirror if you need to ask conceited rhetorical questions to figure that out.

 

[TogoBestWaifu]

Why the hell is a gaming company policing MODS? People can mod whatever the hell they please into the game, that's what mods are for!

 

[Jelbert]

Not this shxx again.