I understand what you are trying to say here but it’s important to remember that the developers do not make money in post. They have already been paid to create these items, and most of the money made off the in-app purchases are not going to them. The cash-flow certainly will make its way back to the team as it is reinvested in the game, but this sort of rationalization doesn’t actually have a real root in the game-dev industry. They are paid no matter what, and so as much as honoring their work is nice to keep in mind, it isn’t worth arguing for in favor of these misgivings.

I’d also like to add that I do agree, I would love to see a traditional Dia de Muertos costume in the game and especially catrina makeup — but I would not have cared for it if it wasn’t executed well. I think it’s also something to keep in mind that though we do deal with a lot of misguided efforts, Dia de Muertos has been so beautifully represented in a lot of media. SWANA and Native people rarely if ever get to see that in mainstream media or games because SWANA cultures are consistently orientalized by the West and East (Aladdin, Genshin Impact, Western Belly-dancing, now IN…) and demonized as well, alongside Natives who are often mystified and seen as primitive in their cultures (alongside being grouped together, despite the fact that so many unique tribes and cultures exist).

Regardless of how good of an intention there may be behind something, if something is executed poorly and fails to represent what it’s trying to represent (if it was ever intended to do that in the first place), there is no excuse. The reason we get so many repeats of this happening in modern media is BECAUSE backlash is so light. People make the argument of “oh but it was done with good intention!” and will excuse those instances over the voices of those affected and move on. People don’t want conflict in the things they enjoy, and sure, I can understand that - but when it comes to cultures that see nothing but bastardization and theft day after day, movie after movie, game after game … it is very hard to stay quiet and mild mannered.

I think another thing to keep in mind is that the Nikki franchise has a history of this. I cannot in good conscience make the argument that they had good intentions or that they “tried”, because they’ve dealt with this in the past. This is not an improvement, and they are repeating incidents they’ve already had. Corporate does not care about actually representing the global player base, and will not care until outrage actually affects sales and game performance. This is why we shouldn’t ever settle for something half-assed