Hello! I have a small concern about the last ask that was posted here (the one about Qiu and Baxter). English isn't my first language so I'm sorry if anything sounds weird, I mean everything in the most polite way!
I understand that Qiu and Baxter as a ship will never be canon and that's okay (I'm not a fan of the ship at all myself) and that some people are uncomfortable with it, which is completely normal. But isn't it calling it "shitty" a bit too much? Our Life is mostly a family friendy series that does their best to comfort their players and that most people won't be comfortable with ships with age gaps and so but why police ships when the characters are fictional? I'm really sorry if I misunderstood anything and the post was only about someone spreading misinformation, which is not a good thing, but the way it was worded felt like "you can't ship these characters because they have a three year age gap" but I might be missing some context. As long as everything is properly tagged (so it can be blocked/silenced), shouldn't everyone be free to ship whatever they want?
I'm not asking you to take any side. In fact, I believe it would be best to stay neutral since you can't please everyone in the fandom. I just found the wording a bit too aggresive and it has been bothering me since Our Life are very important games for me and I wanted to say something. Thank you for all your hard work!
My reply was harsh and this one will probably sound that way too, but I think some players are not realizing the situation here. I, the writer, am 33-years-old. I write games that are intended to be helpful/reassuring/encouraging to people mainly 10-20 years younger than me (though I am happy some players older than early 20s like the games, too!). It's the kind of stories I would've liked to see when I was 10-20 years younger. "Shipping culture" means nothing to me. I have a responsibility to make a game where the romance progression is age appropriate and the relationships are healthy.
There is no way on earth I am going to be neutral on power dynamic, age gap pairings of the characters I make because some people find that an "interesting" topic to make fan stories on. Yes, people are gonna imagine whatever they want for themselves, but I'm not a part of it. I have a strong line against that because it is not okay for what I'm trying to do here. It was, in fact, shitty to see some people trying to spread lies that content of that nature was promoted in the game itself.
You can't ask me to be in my 30s as a game developer who writes child/teenage characters and say "creating uncomfortable stories with minors is fine because they're not real" or to be a "pro-shipper" or say "someone who is almost an adult can certainly date someone who is barely a teen" or something. Absolutely not.
If this makes OL not possible for you to play anymore, I'm sorry. But it is the truth and it'd ruin way more people's enjoyment of the game if they thought the adult they were trusting was cool with inappropriate content of the minor characters that adult created. I'd rather stop making games entirely than do something that'd make the young people who like those games feel objectified by someone much older.
Seriously, you don't want me to be "on your side" with "problematic" or "kinky" relationships relating to minors. Adults making content about underage characters for real life teenagers/young adults to read about should not be promoting or tolerating that. It is irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst.
So remember, whenever content comes out from GB Patch Games, this somebody 33-years-old doing it as a job, not a fellow fan or fellow teen. I am someone who should be held accountable for what I'm doing and I'm trying my best to do it right.
