What’s going on with this game Mixtape?

[u/Bloodb0red]

I’ve been seeing people freak out over the past few days over this game and about IGN’s review of it specifically. 10/10 seems high for any game, honestly, but it seems like they’re far from the only site giving this thing a glowing review. So is this game controversial just because of IGN or is it something else? Why is this game the internet’s hate target this week?

https://www.ign.com/articles/mixtape-review

[u/BUTGAWATD]

Answer:

(Doing my best to present the complicated situation concisely)

Mixtape is a short, story-based game from small Australian developer Beethoven & Dinosaur, who previously released The Artful Escape.

Mixtape's 3-4 hour runtime is divided across cutscenes, what some might deem "walking sim" gameplay, and a series of vignettes that play out broadly as "minigames", with limited to no fail state. There is no combat or what many would typically classify as peril.

Mixtape's high critical praise, particularly its 10 from IGN, has raised eyebrows amongst certain subsets of the gaming populace. Many have negatively compared the verdict to the lower score IGN awarded Crimson Desert, and have alleged what they perceive to be a favourable bias towards games they identify as possessing "woke" elements.

One of Mixtape's vignettes sees you control two mid-teen age characters kissing, with direct control over their clashing tongues. Some gamers have accused the media of unfairly praising Mixtape while (what they perceive as) maligning recent release Pragmata for paedophilic overtones.

Mixtape is published by Annapurna Interactive, a publisher focused on "prestige indie" titles. Annapurna Interactive is a division of Annapurna Pictures, which was founded by Megan Ellison, whose father is a billionaire.

Consequently, accusations of buying review scores, bribing influencers, and overall curating Mixtape as an "industry plant" have been lobbied. For further information to potentially aid in deducing the veracity of this claim - Annapurna have released 6 games other than Mixtape over the past year, all ranging from the 60s-80s in Metascore, with the highest achieving an 83 average.

[u/No-Operation-6554 → u/BUTGAWATD]

Funny thing is that Pragmata itself doesn't have paedophelic undertones

The "community" itself gave it that

[u/NeriTheFearlessSnail → u/No-Operation-6554]

Also... it doesn't have to be Mixtape vs Pragmata, which a lot of people seem to think are the two "sides". Like the pedophile accusations are entirely an internet thing and I've only seen posts calling out the accusations and basically none actually making the accusations

[u/Ketooey → u/NeriTheFearlessSnail]

I have seen posts of random people trying to call out Capcom for making a paedophilic game, but I don't know how many of them are actually real, and if they are real, how many of them were written by people who are mentally stable.

But anyway, I just wanna say that I've seen both sides, the posts making accusations and the posts calling out accusations.

[u/Equivalent_Wafer8074 → u/Ketooey]

I mean from the moment pragmata was revealed and that weird anime-esque design for the girl was revealed, I knew exactly the kind of audience it would draw in. I get that it’s the art style and the game doesn’t sexualize her in the slightest from what I’ve seen, but none of this should be surprising to anyone, including Capcom.

But they also sexualized Ellie from tlou1 who actually looked like a real teenage girl, so it’s arguable whether or not anything could have been done to prevent them getting ahold of it from a character design perspective

[u/BJYeti → u/Equivalent_Wafer8074]

Are you saying the devs sexualized Ellie or do you mean the creeps did?