Creative Assembly Blocking Sexy Mods For Total War: Three Kingdoms

Jorge Arenas |

Jul 11, 2019

Creative Assembly is blocking sexy mods in Total War: Three Kingdoms.

With the release of the new game a number of players have created quite a few sexy mods replacing the base character models for the females. In one instance, Steam user CUW replaced all of the base female generals with new female skins of the generals in a sexy, but tasteful robe.

YouTuber Arch Warhammer explains that the mod “replaces the generally uninspired and downright boring character models of the base game where you can barely tell the characters apart from one another.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-84la7b9gVg

As Arch Warhammer points out, the creator of the mod indicated that Creative Assembly wanted the mod taken down because “one of the portraits is too sexy for them and offend their EULA.”

As reported by One Angry Gamer, the CUW mods were “changed and eventually removed because the developers claimed they violated the end user license agreement regarding mods.”

Then Chinese Steam user 匡扶漢室不二人選 decided to just re-upload a number of the mods including the CUW Female Strategist Portraits mod, the CUW Yellow Turban Female Scholar Portraits. These mods would also be removed.

The Chinese user would then provide an update as to why they could not edit their mod page. They would take to the comments section of the CUW Yellow Turban Female Healer Portraits to explain to mod users why the images were broken.

They posted the following message on July 9th, 2019:

“Right now I can’t edit the description on my mod page due to steam regulation, so I have to write this here temporarily.

Hi, folks, I have some bad news, after I removed the so-called “offensive contents” which CA employee asked me to remove in two of my mods, these two mods are still took down by Steam Workshop somehow. CA and I have an agreement, I agree to remove the contents they want me to remove and I did remove them, I honored such agreement but it seems that CA didn’t.

Now I’ve filed a case to Steam customer service to try to clear things out, if they reject my case and remained the old decision, I’ll be forced to release the conversation and agreement between me and CA employee to public, as a proof for public judgment and examination. This is not a threat, it’s also NOT my intention to sabotage CA’s reputation nor provoke any more unnecessary controversy, but I think it’s necessary to let public, especially other customers of CA, know how they treat their costumer and how they manage their public relationship, for such small trifle of a few pics of sexy women in some harmless mod.

As a Chinese, I appreciate CA for making a decent game based on China such as TW3K and provide me a good entertainment, but as their “customer”, I really cannot approve how they treat some of their customers, including myself, and their poor PR management method. I’m not native English speaker, so please forgive me for some typos and grammar errors, thanks for your reading and concern.

PS: Even my own personal account is affected, I cannot edit nor upload any picture and game screenshots even in my personal account temporarily . They desperately want to shut me up for some reasons. Don’t be so afraid of letting people know what you did and said, CA. Yeah, it’s the rules of Steam, but it’s you CA ask them to do it, yes? I’m just a nobody, it’s really necessary to do this to me? Are you that afraid of a small foreign fish like me who can’t even speak English properly? You are a big company, CA. I’m your old customer but you treat me like your enemy. “

This left many fans of both the game and the mods scratching their heads on why they weren’t working and what was going on with Creative Assembly.

In a follow-up video, Arch Warhammer speculates that Creative Assembly is specifically targeting sexy mods. He points to a Reddit comment made by Creative Assembly’s Community Manager Grace Carroll, who specifically took issue with sexy mods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsbpQR0OFdY

In the Total War subreddit, /r/TotalWar the community manager didn’t mince any words about her offense regarding the mods. She even noted that she would be taking a hiatus from the subreddit after making her distaste of sexy mods clear.

“That’s it, I’m staying off the subreddit for a bit.

If you guys can’t understand how weird and uncomfortable it is as a female community manager to see every main female character in our game reduced to standing around in her underwear then I’m not sure what to tell you.”

This response came after a user asked about another mod, half-naked Sun Ren, which was removed.

Many users turned the tables on the Community Manager as they reminded her that the community wasn’t supposed to conform to what she wanted, but is supposed to be what’s best for the community as a whole. User TurdinthePunchB0wl noted:

“What is it with modern community managers? If there ever was a company position filled with people that frequently think too highly of themselves, it is community managers.

The community is not here to conform to your desires or standards.

If you see something you don’t like, then look away. You are grossly overstepping your bounds as a community manager.”

Creative Assembly appears to have taken a heavy-handed approach regarding sexy mods following this comment from their community manager. In fact, only beautification mods for female portraits are the only ones currently allowed.

This isn’t the first time the studio has turned against its own players. Last September, Community Editor Ella McConnell told players to not purchase Total War: Rome 2. This was followed up by the official Creative Assembly Twitter account bashing players and liking Tweets comparing their customers to Nazis and Gamer babies.