The Fractured But Whole is finally here and it’s only appropriate that the game continues to be hit with controversy. From the announcement of the games name to its apparently racially charged difficulty system, the newest South Park game has been fraught with criticism from beginning to end. 

For most games that would be a bad thing, but not South Park. Both the show and the games seem to thrive off of criticism. Outlandishness and insensitivity are the pillars that South Park was built upon. It’s earned the show’s creators death threats and awards over the years, but it’s also given the FCC and cable TV plenty of headaches. Rarely have the controversies directly impacted fans, but that’s just what’s happening this time around. 

As you can imagine, parts of the game can be a bit unsavory. From highly suggestive content to humor at the expense of race, religion and sexuality, there’s plenty of reasons for advertisers to not want to be associated with the game. This has lead to many YouTube videos of the game being hit with demonetization.

Demonetization happens when a YouTuber’s video doesn’t break any of the site rules, but still contains content that YouTube thinks advertisers wouldn’t want to be associated with. YouTube leaves the videos up, but strips the adds from them, meaning the user who uploaded the video can’t profit from it. 

In the case of The Fractured But Whole, this has lead to one of two things. Either the user takes down their original video and applies a hefty dose of censorship, then re-uploads it. Or they just leave up the original and hope that the exposure is worth it.

YouTube’s had to address their demonetization ordeal several times over the course of the last year. Many prominent YouTube personalities claimed their games were being demonetized more and more frequently, with little or no explanation, but this instance is turning out a bit different than the previous ones.

YouTube and gamers are seemingly seeing eye to eye on The Fractured but Whole. There was an inkling of controversy immediately, but the overwhelming response has been understanding. While many users have made it clear that there videos have been demonetized, few have actually voiced complaints.

It seems as if this whole thing has resulted in one of those rare instances of understanding and civility. YouTube has fixed many of the problems they were dogged with earlier in the year and aren’t demonitizing every last The Fractured But Whole Let’s Play. Meanwhile gamers understand that South Park is a pretty raunchy video game and have accepted the fact there’s a pretty good chance their videos will be demonetized.

It’s a win-win. Or at least a neutral-neutral.