Blizzard to Remove "Sexy" Tracer Pose in Overwatch - Update

[Cati]

No idea if this was already adressed, but I just wanted to point you can't say that you want to include everyone, and then remove something.

Even if you really wato get technical, he specifically DIDN'T say this, but that "We want everyone to feel strong and heroic in our community".

No one feels weak, or unheroic, by not getting to look at a particular pinup girl pose. The reverse is not necessarily true.

This should be an obvious spirit of the reply even if he DID say that they want to "include everyone", but it's super obvious given the actual wording.

It's not about looking at a "pinup" pose (also, whut?).

What about the female gamers who want to be a character that's bad-ass and marginally sexy, as opposed to being either bad-ass or overly sexy? Does what we want in a game only count when our wants are inline with all the male "feminists" and over-protective dads, and can be used further their own interest?

Why is it, in a discussion that supposedly started due to the objectification of women, are we being treated as objects by the very people condemning the objectification women?

"Sorry honey, the men are speaking now. You just sit quiet and look pretty. Only speak when I need you to back up my assertion all those other men are pigs. Ta, love!"

That's what this entire topic has boiled down to, across all the platforms it's being discussed.
From the original post on the Overwatch forums, to the response thread there by a woman who disagreed with the OP; to the use of women's experiences by the likes of Danny O'Dwyer to protect himself in a petty privilege pissing contest on twitter; to here, where any reasonable point is ignored if it doesn't involve misrepresenting people's objections to the change as being all about nerdy men wanting to ogle digital butts.

It's not about representation, lack thereof, or about female gamers feeling uncomfortable because of unnecessary objectification.

It's a pub brawl kicked off by Some Guy calling a bar full of men pigs because m'lady exclaimed someone grabbed her ass, and all the non-ass grabbing men that had been minding their own business are now having to defend themselves from the unfair accusation.
Meanwhile amidst the chaos, m'lady has fucked off with the hot young barman she'd been eyeing up all evening, and the rest of the women in the place are trying calm things down and are largely being ignored. The only time they're acknowledged is when someone goes to throw a punch at the asshole and has to stop because Some Guy has pulled a nearby woman into the way.

The part of M'lady is being played by the original man who complained. Some Guy played by the game director and every bloke who's being condescending and downplaying the backlash as being "just a bunch of horny losers getting pissed about anime arses". The men in the bar are all the guys trying to point out the ridiculousness of it all and are protesting the mischaracterisation of their objections.

And the women? Who cares who played them. They're the object in this discussion, not equal participants in it. They're just there for Some Guy to use to score brownie points and keep his head off the chopping block, whether they agree with him or not.


Time and time again these non-troversies come up, and instead of making any real difference to the things that should matter, we get treated to a round of soap-boxing and dick-waving from men who want to feel superior to the nerds, and some game dev makes an easy cosmetic change that does sod-all for anyone in the grand scheme of things.


Edited: Changed one of the characters to "Some Guy", since I was posting from an emotional place and the original character name wasn't fair to anyone here who may see themselves in that character. Sorry!

 

[Lightknight]

You still brought up a valuable point regarding how the reduction of options diminishes player choice and ergo power over how they portray their avatar. It was a good point.

Not really, it just brings us back to the previous point about how really it's the changing of previously known content that makes this into a big issue.

Of course, because otherwise we either wouldn't know that this wasn't included or it wouldn't have been an issue.

No one would receive the message from Beyond Good and Evil that it's disempowering to women because it's denying the option for Jade to wear a swimsuit through the game.

If they had said that they created a sexy costume for Jade but removed it because sexy people evoke weakness and not heroism then that would have been insulting to women who accept or even celebrate their sexuality. If they said that they wished to portray a woman whose sexuality was not a focus of the character then that would be perfectly acceptable motivation, but not saying that women who express sexuality are weak by implication or directly.

If the gaming industry in general would noticeably tend to disproportionally deny female characters control over their mannerisms, or try to obsessively cover up their sexuality, that could send a neative message.

But in this case, you are not really talking about how THE GAME sending a negative message, but about how the fact that we had the opportunity to follow the creative process, sends a negative message.

Yes, we are discussing information that we have learned. I'm unsure how this changes the reason they give. It's because in their mind sexy isn't strong and isn't heroic which is a problem for the reasons I've discussed.

If Overwatch would have been released in a finished version first, with the pose already remove, no one could reasonably claim that it's a sex-negative or puritanical game.

True, but that didn't happen.

The entire outrage rests on the belief that fine tuning during beta exactly WHICH characters should be HOW sexualized, is inherently censorous.

I'm not sure anyone could adequately claim censorship. They said they were already waffling on whether or not to include that pose and this just tipped the scale.

I do think internet mob mentality is capable of censoring media. It just doesn't really seem that this is the case here. The overwatch design team has been incredibly considerate of the issues of sexism in gaming and have specifically designed characters accordingly.

I just find their reasons for removing this and the writer's reason for being mad at it to be offensive.

 

[EMWISE94]

Yeah, deadlines can make you put out content you otherwise wouldn't. I imagine that designing to someone else's specs can make this an issue, though. And since we're talking being part of a larger team, I can see it potentially slipping through the cracks. Especially if you have, say, one team working on the actual animations and another on the skins. Or perhaps the character gets changed mid-project anyway.
But like, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with ass-hugging tights. I'm a fan of comic books, after all. And it doesn't really seem like it was contentious until it was put into this specfic context.

You know?

I got no problem with ass-hugging tights either, though I do have a problem with how often I see them on female character designs, its on of those design elements that almost feels like the designer isn't certain that they've presented this character as female so they emphasise something, sometimes its a low-cut cleaving showing top, sometimes its boob armour, sometimes its pants, regardless of fabric (or intended fabric) hugging the females cheeks like their afraid of slipping off. Oddly enough whenever this get brought up people are quick to rush to bring up pics of Solid Snake and go 'MALE CHARACTERS GET THIS TREATMENT TOO!' but in most cases where they do its cause they get designed with skin tight clothing like a wetsuit or something. But yeah, its a design element that always bugs me if I see it, kinda like whenever I see male character designs for warriors/fighters or typical fantasy combat roles and its always some super buff dude, actually one example I could give is Street Fighter where the male characters get really absurd muscle design to the point where they sometimes just look too beefy, sure you have instances like Birdy in SFV or Rufus in USFIV, but those are like the only two differences. Also I'm aware that if I wanted to see sleeker male character designs for fighters then JRPGs are the place to look but... most of those designs are too anime for my taste at times.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

It's a minor cosmetic change made in a Beta that doesn't influence Gameplay, Mechanics, Story, Character Design, or general Characterisation. It's getting a replacement, so it's not like Tracer is going to have less "stuff" than other characters.

I don't get it. Considering the complaint hovered mostly around it being "inconsistent in character" and that the Devs agreed, this would be like getting upset that Counterstrike removed a US Army digital camo option from the AK-47 in exchange for, I dunno, Chinese People's Army digital camo. Sure, the US digital camo is fine, but it doesn't really fit, you know?

Seriously, at this point, if anybody arguing that this change hurts the game has also argued that game reviews should only be relevant to technical stuff and "the gameplay", they should probably sit for a spell and try to reconcile those outlooks. Changing one of Tracer's victory poses changes nothing about the game, the story, the mechanics, or Tracer herself. It is entirely cosmetic and, through the admission of most of the detractors here, would've gone completly unremarked upon if Blizzard hadn't said anything.(I actually have my doubts about that, given how the "censorship" of R. Mika started out, but still)

If you're thinking that, if not for Blizzard mentioning it, that this change would've been unremarkable, then please. Let it be unremarkable.

 

[LazyAza]

"we gave our character a nice butt and put her in super tight pants so for the love of god don't show it off and especially don't show her posing with it slightly emphasized. What? we already showed it off in the promo video and artwork and her running animation alone already emphasizes her butt? no no ignore all that please."

Because as we all know any girl who is self confident and comfortable with her sexuality and seems like she'd be all too happy to show off her figure of her own free will would never ever pose like this right right??!?! People might look at her and have thoughts and stuff, holy shit can't have that. sigh

Either confidently include sexuality in to character design, behavior and presentation (you know, reflect actual real human behavior) or don't game devs. Don't do it and then suddenly decide because one moron complained you should feel super paranoid about it. What's extra ludicrous is this game above all others has incredible levels of character diversity in terms of design and presentation, especially with its females. Widowmaker is the only one I'd say is traditionally pandering to the straight male gaze but even she comes across as "tasteful" rather than tacky to me and Tracers pose is hardly character destroying at all. This whole thing annoys me not because of the context of the situation but the attitudes and ignorance behind it, its just so dumb.

 

[Yuuki]

I don't get why the lady was "offended".

That's easy. She was offended based on her own opinion/beliefs.

What people should be confused about is why the devs cared about her being offended, even going as far as apologizing. Now THAT is the truly baffling part. If Blizzard's reasons for the change were "we made our own decision", then why the fuck did they apologize to the woman?
I have never heard of Blizzard apologizing to an individual complaint over an artistic decision. I can't even begin to comprehend it.

 

[Gone Rampant]

I think the article should be edited, given it's come to light that the original poster is a dude.

So yeah, another example of so-called protectors of women deciding in place of actual women what is and isn't sexy.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

As much as I appreciate that considering the moral implications of, or... I suppose "what could arguably be inferred" by x does have it's place. If we're doing the "won't somebody please think of the children?" thing, then my primary concern isn't "what does this piece of media say beneath the surface?" so much as it is "what kind of culture are we leaving for them?"

I touched on this in my post several pages ago. I think this is the important point in this entire conversation, though I think I am coming at it from a different point of view than you. I am not particularly concerned about the fact that Blizzard is making the change. What bothers me is the reasoning behind the original complaint and the initial, unthinking response Blizzard gave that basically endorsed the line of thinking as valid and correct.

What matters here isn't what actually gets into the final game. What matters is how we got there. The original feedback by fipps was many things. It was well worded, it was designed to be inoffensive and reasonably put as possible. I also think it was very sexist.

The core of Fipps issue with the pose was that a character they thought shouldn't be sexy was being mildly sexy, that this instantly "reduces her" to a sex symbol, that this sexuality conflicts with her other core character traits (kind, funny, good friend, ie, the archetypal good girl character), and that this sort of pose should be confined to characters who are defined by flaunting their sexuality.

This lands a bit too close to the mindset of "good girls shouldn't be sexy" for me. It isn't slut shaming, it is the far more insidious root that leads to slut shaming. It attempts to draw a line in the sand that says one kind of woman on the left side, other kind of woman on the right side, and all the women on the right are better (remember that he actually makes the argument that including a minor sexy pose reduced Tracer in his eyes.)

I don't like that. And I especially don't like that Blizzard agreed with the line of thinking.

 

[Yuuki]

What bothers me is the reasoning behind the original complaint and the initial, unthinking response Blizzard gave that basically endorsed the line of thinking as valid and correct.

Agreed. I don't even care about the reasoning behind the original complaint (stupid people will always exist), but Blizzard actually responding with an apology?? That blew my mind.

 

[Cati]

@ThatOtherGirl - you've hit the nail on the head there. Excellent post!

The initial complaint and arguments supporting the pose's change are so obviously old-school sexist. And it is aggravating and disappointing to see people happily going along with it. People who claim to be against sexism, and who claim to want women be seen and treated as equals.

I see it all unfolding this way and feel like I've been taking crazy pills.

 

[Cati]

I don't get why the lady was "offended".

That's easy. She was offended based on her own opinion/beliefs.

What people should be confused about is why the devs cared about her being offended, even going as far as apologizing. Now THAT is the truly baffling part. If Blizzard's reasons for the change were "we made our own decision", then why the fuck did they apologize to the woman?
I have never heard of Blizzard apologizing to an individual complaint over an artistic decision. I can't even begin to comprehend it.

The original complaint came from a man btw. That normally wouldn't matter, but this guy conveniently omitted that fact when using his daughter to divert attention from what his real motivations could be. Usually when someone points to their kids in that way, it's accompanied by a phrase like "I'm a [father|mother] of [child] and..." That wasn't the case here, and subsequently everyone assumed the complaint was coming from a woman, giving it more legitimacy in the eyes of the game director and initial supporters.

 

[EternallyBored]

I don't get why the lady was "offended".

That's easy. She was offended based on her own opinion/beliefs.

What people should be confused about is why the devs cared about her being offended, even going as far as apologizing. Now THAT is the truly baffling part. If Blizzard's reasons for the change were "we made our own decision", then why the fuck did they apologize to the woman?
I have never heard of Blizzard apologizing to an individual complaint over an artistic decision. I can't even begin to comprehend it.

The original complaint came from a man btw. That normally wouldn't matter, but this guy conveniently omitted that fact when using his daughter to divert attention from what his real motivations could be. Usually when someone points to their kids in that way, it's accompanied by a phrase like "I'm a [father|mother] of [child] and..." That wasn't the case here, and subsequently everyone assumed the complaint was coming from a woman, giving it more legitimacy in the eyes of the game director and initial supporters.

That's a stretch, you are asserting that it is usually accompanied by the phrase mother or father, but that's basically just an assumption to support your interpretation that his lack of mention over his gender was deliberate. I've seen these types of complaints before without the parent identifying their sex, both from mothers and fathers, I work with kids and parents, and usually such things are not some obfuscation tactic.

Could he have hid it on purpose? It's possible, but casting aspirations on intentions with such flimsy evidence that you have to pick apart the language of the post to such degree and assert that parents always call themselves the father or mother when talking about their child, strikes me as reaching for a narrative.

There's plenty of avenues to criticize both Blizzard and the original poster from, I think this is one of the weaker ones that looks more like confirmation bias.

Don't let me stop you, but I find it wholly unconvincing.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Look, Blizzard caved in to some random whiners again. Just like a several of the emote jokes in WoW. The game is rated T. I think teens who are allowed to play violent video games can handle some tight pants.

If a character wants to be sexy, alluring, or just gently showing off the goods - why not? So long as they all aren't sexualized. I've read that the females in the game are diverse. So I guess diversity is only acceptable if you're not trying to be sexy.

Why is it such a big deal? Why not look at it like she's comfortable with her body and doesn't care what you think? But I guess that isn't as empowering or acceptable as taking away that choice to make some overly sensitive types (who don't mind violently killing people in the game) more comfortable with it. Solid logic guys.

Better get rid of the "BAMF" belt buckle too. That's alluding to a naughty word!

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Look, Blizzard caved in to some random whiners again. Just like a several of the emote jokes in WoW. The game is rated T. I think teens who are allowed to play violent video games can handle some tight pants.

If a character wants to be sexy, alluring, or just gently showing off the goods - why not? So long as they all aren't sexualized. I've read that the females in the game are diverse. So I guess diversity is only acceptable if you're not trying to be sexy.

Why is it such a big deal? Why not look at it like she's comfortable with her body and doesn't care what you think? But I guess that isn't as empowering or acceptable as taking away that choice to make some overly sensitive types (who don't mind violently killing people in the game) more comfortable with it. Solid logic guys.

Better get rid of the "BAMF" belt buckle too. That's alluding to a naughty word!

Honestly, I think this whole mess happened because Jeff Kaplan wanted to show the world how progressive and inclusive he was. I think the developers were already talking about changing the pose to begin with for entirely different reasons (they felt like the pose didn't fit the character). Instead of quietly swapping the animations around, Kaplan decided instead to make a big deal about the change and the reasons behind it. He was trying to make himself look good, only for the community to call him out on it.

I really doubt this was a case of Blizzard caving to a single whiner.

 

[EternallyBored]

Look, Blizzard caved in to some random whiners again. Just like a several of the emote jokes in WoW. The game is rated T. I think teens who are allowed to play violent video games can handle some tight pants.

If a character wants to be sexy, alluring, or just gently showing off the goods - why not? So long as they all aren't sexualized. I've read that the females in the game are diverse. So I guess diversity is only acceptable if you're not trying to be sexy.

Why is it such a big deal? Why not look at it like she's comfortable with her body and doesn't care what you think? But I guess that isn't as empowering or acceptable as taking away that choice to make some overly sensitive types (who don't mind violently killing people in the game) more comfortable with it. Solid logic guys.

Better get rid of the "BAMF" belt buckle too. That's alluding to a naughty word!

Honestly, I think this whole mess happened because Jeff Kaplan wanted to show the world how progressive and inclusive he was. I think the developers were already talking about changing the pose to begin with for entirely different reasons (they felt like the pose didn't fit the character). Instead of quietly swapping the animations around, Kaplan decided instead to make a big deal about the change and the reasons behind it. He was trying to make himself look good, only for the community to call him out on it.

I really doubt this was a case of Blizzard caving to a single whiner.

Uhh, not exactly "entirely different reasons" when the original complaint also said one of the reasons they were complaining about Tracer but not Widowmaker was that they felt the pose didn't fit the character.

It sounds more like the original complaint mirrored BLizzard's own concerns to an extent, sans maybe the parts about oversexualization, but if Blizzard thought the pose didn't fit her character, then the original complaint is, at least partially, BLizzard's own views on the character.

The stuff about Kaplan stepping in to try and score brownie points is something I am willing to believe though.

 

[Yuuki]

I really doubt this was a case of Blizzard caving to a single whiner.

Jeff Kaplan himself said that this was a change the dev/art team had already decided to make a while ago. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and take his word on it. Minor artistic decision, adjustment made, job done, no biggie, move on.

BUT!

What I don't understand is how they handled this one particular complaint. Blizzard's standard practice of simply not responding to 90% of stuff would've worked perfectly fine here, but instead they went out of their way to apologize.
OF COURSE everyone assumed they "caved in to 1 whiner", because that's exactly what it looks like. Then Jeff has the gall to act surprised by it and tries to explain the full reasoning behind their decision...is he dense? It's far too late to undo the damage.

This shit is all over the web on every gaming forum/reddit, and everyone is backlashing their disappointment with another developer who has caved in to oversensitive sheltered whiners. The kind of typical backlash that is getting increasingly common.

Even /r/Kappa, a subreddit community dedicated to fighting games (namely Street Fighter), is talking about it and making mockery of Blizzard.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I really doubt this was a case of Blizzard caving to a single whiner.

Jeff Kaplan himself said that this was a change the dev/art team had already decided to make a while ago. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and take his word on it. Minor artistic decision, adjustment made, job done, no biggie, move on.

Yes, YES!! If they had said that this was the reason for it, or if they had said nothing about it, some people would've complained about it. But that's it! No shitstorm!

BUT!

What I don't understand is how they handled this one particular complaint. Blizzard's standard practice of simply not responding to 90% of stuff would've worked perfectly fine here, but instead they went out of their way to apologize. OF COURSE everyone assumed they "caved in to 1 whiner", because that's exactly what it looks like.
Then Jeff has the gall to act surprised by it and tries to explain the full reasoning behind their decision...is he dense? It's far too late to undo the damage.

This shit is all over the web on every gaming forum/reddit, and everyone is expressing their disappointment of another developer who is caving in to oversensitive whiners who get offended by the sun rising in the morning.

...But instead, the director wanted to toot his own horn and show the whole world about how progressive and inclusive he and his team was being, throwing his art and animation teams under the bus while he was at it. The decision might have been a group effort, but if you ask me, the entire shitstorm can be blamed on one person: Jeff Kaplan. In his eagerness to pat himself on the back, he failed to consider that altering content for sketchy reasons would touch a nerve in the gaming community.

So...yeah. I'm just gonna assume stupidity on one person's part for this.

 

[The Material Sheep]

I really doubt this was a case of Blizzard caving to a single whiner.

Jeff Kaplan himself said that this was a change the dev/art team had already decided to make a while ago. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and take his word on it. Minor artistic decision, adjustment made, job done, no biggie, move on.

BUT!

What I don't understand is how they handled this one particular complaint. Blizzard's standard practice of simply not responding to 90% of stuff would've worked perfectly fine here, but instead they went out of their way to apologize.
OF COURSE everyone assumed they "caved in to 1 whiner", because that's exactly what it looks like. Then Jeff has the gall to act surprised by it and tries to explain the full reasoning behind their decision...is he dense? It's far too late to undo the damage.

This shit is all over the web on every gaming forum/reddit, and everyone is backlashing their disappointment with another developer who has caved in to oversensitive sheltered whiners. The kind of typical backlash that is getting increasingly common.

The backlash is warranted at this point. Socjus, and puritanical views towards sexuality are becoming all the more pervasive among devs and journalists in the gaming industry. In large part though, the majority of gamers either don't care or are in disagreement with many of these sentiments. So when the media and other devs over amplify the vocal minority of people who advocate for these kind of things, the majority have realized they have to have a vocal backlash against it for their opinions on the subject to be heard at all. There isn't a large voice in media speaking for view points of the majority so a good chunk of gamers have realized they have to speak up every time they see something they don't like. This leads to problems like every nontroversy getting turned into a battlefield but this is what happens when you use media to isolate unpopular opinions.

This is quite the nontroversy. I always thought part of Tracers design was partially inspired by airplane pinup girls, so her having a few sexy poses seemed fitting to me. It seems that this was a planned change to begin with, and a dumb ass dev wanted to score progressive points with an audience that largely doesn't care or actively despises that kind of pandering. By and large I think everyone sees this as a fairly obvious foot in mouth moment and we can all have a good laugh at the situation. If it weren't for this vastly skewed perception of their audiance on the part of the devs, and the active obfuscation of where exactly popular opinion lies in the gaming community by the media, this would have been a simple change with no issue. Here we are though. A relatively small change, turned into a horridly over blown PR nightmare for blizzard and overwatch.

 

[Cati]

@EternallyBored - i admit usage of that phrase may be different based on location or environment, so yeah that particular bit could be a stretch. I hear it used all the time, so not seeing it said - especially when it's relevant to the discussion - raises some suspicion.
And I've seen more than enough from men on the topic of women an female characters in games, to know when one isn't being entirely honest with their intentions.


Besides, none of that changes the fact that he used women's issues, and specifically his daughter, to give his complaint more weight.

And whether he intentionally omitted the fact he was a man or not, that doesn't excuse everyone else for assuming he was a woman and therefore was some authority on how women and girls feel about characters like that. Nor does it excuse them ignoring all the actual women who objected to the original, sexist complaint and Blizzard's response to it.

 

[Areloch]

This topic's fairly beaten to death at this point and everyone's firmly entrenched in their opinions and it's not going to change anyone's mind on this, but for giggles I thought it'd drop in to link a quick Google search:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...oga+pants+butt&btnG=Search+by+image&oq=&gs_l=

As a counterpoint to the people claiming that 'pants don't conform to the butt like that'. Real life seems to disagree.