Lack of real Skater intervention & values.

Initially I wanted to submit this solely as feedback for developers in hopes that the game will consider this in newer versions of patches moving forward but couldn't find how to do that directly so thought I'd post here and see if anyone agrees and or has any opinions on what I had to say and hopefully someone from the team may see and take some of our points on board.

Now firstly I've seen a lot of hate from the game but in all honesty besides a few nit picky aspects that are very easy to ignore I have been really enjoying playing, the mechanics seems to be super smooth and non limiting on what you'd like portray in the game and "steeze" translates super well (aside from transition but I have hopes that's still being worked and can be left for an alternate discussion) however one thing I've not been able to shake is this cold, meta almost cringey feel that the games aesthetic, narration and overall values holds.

As someone who has grown up and been interested in the world of skateboarding my whole life I just feel like there a lot of aspects of this game where the true values of this world miss the mark.

First of all the game comes across as very "PG" for lack of a better word, now I assume this has been done to open up the potential of introducing a new crowd to the scene, allowing access of all audiences to the game and with the gaming population becoming ever more increasingly younger, in hopes of maximising profits and engagement I believe they've catered for this. However one thing we forget is one of the true ethos' of skating, anarchy, grittiness, the streets, independence, freedom! - now I'm not saying this game should be packed full of sex, drugs and rock and roll but this whole removal of hall of meat to introduce this new AR concept that means you don't get hurt is ridiculous, I understand that it's meant to take a futuristic sort of super human stand point but come on, the reason hall of meat existed is because Skaters pride themselves on their injuries, there's nothing more gnarly than sending a mega trick, bailing and cheese gratering your entire forearm with some bad boy road rash and showing the world that the resilience of a skater is not halted by a little blood and continuing as nothing happened. And this translates into all aspects of the game that take this stance, I get youre trying to make it more accessible but no kid or parent of a kid exploring this world is not going to be worried by some content a little close to the mark, the way you've held back on the script has made everything feel so robotic, not one skatepark on this world will you go to and not hear some foul language being flown around, now this is not from vulgarity but from passion and considering all the fine tune options in settings, if you did want to be inclusive, could you not include an option to change from a more mature script to a suitable to everyone script? And even just throughout all aspects of the game, think about how gritty and grimey some of the elements of the previous skate games into the tony hawks saga have been, we will slowly come to miss that. Now this is an irk I feel a lot of us have felt but I believe one that will truly be detrimental to the success of the game follows.

Pricing on micro transactions - now I appreciate that this game is free to play and I am forever grateful for that and because I'm practically saving £40-80 on a premium triple A title I am happy to spend abit of my money having a bit of fun messing with the in-game purchases, however I haven't been able to bring myself to as when I'm comparing prices of currency to what you receive ie. £5 for shoes £10 for a lot of clothing I think back to when I skated and the values I held them and I can't bring myself to do it - one of the ethos' that is carried out through skating is working with what you got and when I reflect to those times the prices of in game clothing which are quite literally a branded collection of 0's and 1's compared to what I wanted to spend on my clothing or equipment Id wear when skating really isn't far off - no why I think this is extra detrimental to the game, as any skater will know one of the primary mantra's is "supporting skater owned business" now although this doesn't directly tap into that how it does tap into that is they're not supporting a skater driven player base - for example alot of people will know in the history of skateboarding companies such as Nike, Adidas etc have been boycott due to their approach of dominating the skateboard industry with their big wig access to finances and essentially pushing out the brands that paved the way and created the scene - I believe more the traditional skate is alienated and not thought of or included in the development of this game, the more of the authentic player base will become fed up and quickly kick this game to the curb.

Now I appreciate you are trying open up a new audience however I believe the traditional audience is just as important in pushing your game in the right direction so much so that if you aren't looking to regard them as high as this new audience you may as well have not made a skateboarding game and you may as well have just invented a new fictional extreme sport and created something completely didn't, which then would align with the values of the new sci-fi futuristic approach you seem to be going for.

Again this is not slating the actual mechanics and fun to be had with this game but I just feel this has to be said whilst in early access in hopes that some positive developments in regards to this can be made.

Thoughts?