EFFORTPOST Super Bowl? Palestine? The real drama is unfolding over.... YELLOW PAINT!

So this discourse has been brewing for a couple of days, but since it seems to stick around, I figured I'd put something together. Prepare for the worst - this is about autism, bad faith xitter dunks and worst of all - g*mers.

Background

All of this started... 19 years ago, in January 2005.

That's when Resident Evil 4 was released. Since it was a popular and well-received game, like all vidya slop it was eventually remade. The remake came out in March of last year and it set the stage for an eternal discourse - the infamous yellow paint:

One of the more significant changes in the remake compared to the original was the introduction of this yellow paint, smeared over interactable objects. The purpose is clear - set these objects apart from their environment to guide players and help them navigate, find objectives, etc. Now it is well known that g*mers are fricking r-slurs that would literally eat their video games unless they're made to taste bad and obviously need all the help they can get, but nonetheless this practice ruffled some feathers. It was seen as lazy, blunt, excessive handholding and destroying their immersion. The more unhinged g*mers saw it as an insult to their intelligence. This ladder in particular drew ire and was the subject of memes:

At the time this was a small, short-lived discourse. But it was a precedent and established yellow paint as a symbol for all that is wrong with modern video games (allegedly).

But now, it reared its ugly head again...

Final Fantasy and THE DISCOURSE

Since the video game industry is creatively bankrupt, the inciting incident this time is yet another remake. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth released a demo about a week ago and just what did the poor g*mers have to see there? YELLOW PAINT!

Who isn't familiar with random mountainsides splattered with paint all over? This was seen as an exceptionally silly example of this sort of player guidance and for whatever reason, this time, the drama really took off. As far as I can tell, the following was the initial tweet that started the drama:

THE YELLOW PAINT VIRUS HAS INFECTED FF7

I personally have a feeling the use of "virus" reminded people of the "woke mind virus" phrase that gets thrown around and it infused the whole thing with some of that culture war zeal, leading to it becoming a bigger deal this time around. Plenty of shitflinging in the comments, but we also see some of the early strategies deployed, such as accessability.

Oh no, accessibility settings for those who may be visually impaired that break your immersion in a game where you travel with a talking lion? The horror.

However, the main angle of discussion seems to split the neurodivergents into two camps. One the one side, those that think developers are lazy and should do better than resort to yellow paint. And on the other side those that believe g*mers are fricking stupid and need visual aid. For those of you paying attention, you might notice these are not actually contradictory views, which makes this massive drama just funnier because it's so pointless and in my opinion supports my idea that this is really just another culture war front in the most serious business of video games. Anyway, as with any good discourse, both sides rallied around a shitty comic portraying the other side as stupid:

Pro-Paint

Anti-Paint

And then people argued a whole lot about dumb shit. What follows are some selected "tentpole" posts for your reading pleasure.

Righteous paint enjoyers

I watched a streamer play Metroid Prime for the first time and they would often enter a new room, ignore interactive objects/open paths in plain view at eye level, declare the room had nothing in it, then leave and then complain about feeling lost. G*mers are just that stupid.

Need I remind you guys of that really dumb streamer trying to play TOTK?

DSP catching strays in this as well as advertising Ame . DSP in general morphed into the archetypical "r-slurred g*mer" used by both sides as an example to illustrate what devs need or should not cater to, respectively.

Gaming industry: Lays off thousands of people en masse

Twitter's problem with the gaming industry:

>noooo you must care about random codecels losing their job

oh no i can clearly see the things i can interact with, god forbid

My hot take on the “yellow paint” thing in video games: as someone who's been playing them since the NES days, I've spent so many hours of my life going “where the heck am I supposed to go” that I don't give a shit anymore. Paint stuff yellow. Cool with me. Whatever.

Rare occurence of the gaming r-slur everyone tries to enable speaking up

I can't think of anything funnier about this stupid post decrying yellow paint than interviews with Bulletstorm Devs describing if they made explosive barrels any colour other than bright red they couldn't get any players to shoot them.

This guy in particular started a sub-discussion about the realism of colored indicators in general:

Leading to many,

many,

many jokes.

And what had the other side to say for themselves? Let's check it out.

Stupid, whiny paint deniers

The original comic drew quite a bit of ire, with many questioning the premise:

Game devs and snooty artists love the idea that they are illuminated masterminds making stuff for uneducated monkeys.

"The yellow is there for you stupid g*mers. My massive knowledge in game designs tells me you need it or your poor brain will get lost."

Yes, that is it.

Yellow paint is insultingly lazy and distracting. If you have to guide a player do it in a better, more subtle way lol

to the rescue:

Local chudcel chimes in :

"But without the paint, people would easily miss what you're supposed to do!"

Maybe if modern AAA games didn't regularly sacrifice readable environments for the sake of ultra-realism that wouldn't be a problem?

But a somewhat curious thing that happened is that many of the paint opponents started to notice that the paint supporters seem awfully beligerent, considering all people are complaining about is clumsy design. Isn't that a good thing?

"Man I hate yellow paint slathered over everything"

G*MERS ARE DUMB!

"Just let me turn it off"

BIG DUMMY DUM DUMS

"Just let me turn it off"

DUURRRRRRRR

The "Yellow Paint" discourse is people raising a design point

Being fought back by people who just made up a guy to completely ignore how weird the yellow paint looks to say "PEOPLE WON'T KNOW WHERE TO CLIMB" as if there aren't 50 yellow paintless Assassin's Creed games

Very true. It almost sounds like....

...there was bad faith in the air:

Grillpilled enlightened centrists

This is all I'm going to say about the yellow paint discourse

"G*mers are dumbasses that need to be held by the hand" and "yellow paint marking the critical path is tired and immersion breaking" are two ideas that can coexist

I always feel a bit insane with the annual "yellow paint guidance" discourse and counter-discourse. A g*mer thinks the paint is dumb, and then all the devs are like "YES but you don't understand it's UNAVOIDABLE" and man, no it's not! You can be clear without being patronising

Couple of great examples of less intrusive player guidance in that thread. One of many such threads that popped up.

Yellow paint discourse is already a greatest gaming hit

Person A: "I want better slightly better art direction"

Person B: "You need to deepthroat a 12G"

C: "The VVest has fallen."

This last humorous take brings us to...

Memes and general clownery

Also apparently there's a limit for adding files, so you're just going to have to actually click the links for once.

the yellow paint discourse was a punchline 12 years ago and no one has done it better since

Stanley Parable mentioned

how about a game where you play as the dude who has to go paint interactable things yellow before the adventurer gets there

Added some yellow paint to our browser so g*mers know what they can click on

World's least funny browser just had to get in on the action.

Put a bunch of yellow paint on my front door so I don't get lost when trying to leave.

THE YELLOW PAINT VIRUS HAS INFECTED SUPER MARIO 64

they should make a game about a superhero with the power to produce yellow paint so that he can climb any wall he desires

covering my toes in yellow paint so she knows theyre interactable

the yellow paint virus strikes again ... lazy butt level designers ...

vintage meme

seriously? they used yellow paint to tell me where to go?

surprised there's no splatoon marsey

It's Yellow Paint. Yellow Paint is the Yellow Guy.

Conclusion

Not much to add here if you paid any attention. Obviously g*mers need guidance and obviously there are better ways to do it than just dumping a bucket of paint everywhere. Really groundbreaking stuff that apparently people feel the need to endlessly discuss. In summary: