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

[sumanoskae]

Let's get the obligatory shit out of the way first - obviously this decision is Blizzard's to make, they're the artists and changing their art is their right. Far be it for me or anyone else to argue that they have some sort of moral obligation to design the game a certain way. I want to make clear that the focus of this comment has nothing to do with artistic rights.

But I do have a question; what was the POINT of removing the pose from the game? I highly doubt that a team who have been toiling away on this product for all this time only just now did a double take on that animation and decided it wasn't appropriate. I'm sorry, but this is obviously not the result of creative impetus, it was a reaction to criticism.

Now taking constructive critique is absolutely part of the creative process, so with that in mind let's examine the critique and determine whether or not it is, in fact, constructive.

The argument, it seems, is that Tracer deliberately flaunting her sexuality is out of character, and reduces her to an object.

Key Element 1: Tracer's Character
So from what I can gather, Tracer could be summarized as an innocent, spritely prankster. A pretty typical Chaotic Good Rogue; the optimistic adventurer type. It's true that I don't really see where showing off her butt springs forth from that description, but I also don't see why it couldn't.

Assuming that a character like this couldn't display flirtatious behavior strikes me as a fallacious assumption. For the most part, sexuality doesn't seem to be a theme in Tracer's character, but sex is a powerful motivating force in human behavior, so strong that it is reasonable to assume that, even though it isn't immediately apparent, sexuality IS a part of Tracer's life.

There is nothing in the character to suggest the nature of her relationship to sexuality, but assuming that she WOULD NOT be open and expressive with it is just as unfounded as assuming that she would.

Key Element 2: Defining Objectification
Objectification is a word I have a conditioned distaste for, because it's a word so often misused that it's become difficult for me to decouple it from it's memetic counter part.

Objectification simply means that you perceive a subject as an object. In other words, when you don't respect or acknowledge the thoughts and desires of another outside of the context of your own. It's when the only thing important about a person is your relationship to them - in your subconscious they don't exist when you're not interacting with them; it thinks of them in the same way you would think of a tool or a piece of art.

You may still value and care about them, hell, you might even care about them MORE than you care about yourself, but during this whole process you never stop to consider that their feelings and perspective could be alien to you.

There is nothing about this behavior that directly relates it to sexuality, but when you hear about objectification, it almost ALWAYS in the context of sex or sexual desire. A lot of people behave as though the fact that their behavior does not specifically reduce women to sexual objects, that they are incapable of objectification entirely.

This fallacy is ASTRONOMICAL, especially considering that objectification is a necessary psychological construct in the maintenance of sanity. Relating emotionally with every person you meet would drive you insane with guilt and obligation.

Here is a list of people that are objectified CONSTANTLY:
Clerks
Waiters
Delivery Boys/Girls
Bankers
Lawyers
Doctors
Politicians
Musical Artists
Actors
And so on

You don't have a problem with these people; you don't think less of them. They're just the people that you know with whom you are not close enough to personally empathize with.

All of these people have jobs that revolve around the service of other people in a professional setting; jobs that require them to interact with large numbers of people without taking a particular interest in any one of them. Some of them do this in person, some of them do it via media. In either case, your relationship is defined by what they can DO for you.

Expecting any sane human being to form a deep emotional bond to someone within 5 seconds of meeting them is nothing short of ludicrous; objectifying someone on first contact is, in fact, totally normal.

Objectification only becomes a problem when the person in question's subjectivity is permanently neglected - when you are unwilling to consider them as something other than an object.

Objectifying a woman sexually does not mean that you merely take note of her sexual appeal, it means that you do so at the cost of everything else. It is not wrong or hurtful to simply take note of or act upon physical desire as divorced from emotional intimacy; no one has the right to tell you how you're supposed to feel.

Conclusion
The prevailing preconception I see with the argument is the exaltation of sexual expression above any other expression in terms of importance - there's all this baggage the writer seems to have about sex that they can't even conceive of being separate from it. So Tracer's character is bubbly and friendly; why does that preclude her from flaunting her stuff? They seem to think that just because the pose is titillating that it will distract from everything else the character has to offer.

This is a common mistake; a lot of people seem to think that when you're drawn to someone's appearance you're dismissing them as a person - but why?

Is it really so difficult to appreciate one thing about a person without dismissing the rest? Is it really so strange that their appearance is what you initially value, considering that it's literally the first thing you see? Does interacting with someone on the basis of that first impression make you incapable of potentially developing deeper appreciation for them? I don't think so; people befriend their waiters, bankers and lawyers all the time - why are these emotionally distant interactions all considered perfectly normal and healthy, but interactions based on sexual desire are so often bemoaned?

Why is it so offensive for a character to be designed with the intention to titillate?

Ultimately, I don't think the critique in question is particularly useful; it seems mired in dogma and devoid of nuance. Again, Blizzard has every right to make whatever game they want to make, but I don't think taking a critique as illogical as this seriously reflects well on them.

 

[Shraggler]

EVERY character is based on subjective interpretation.

Yes, to a degree, and I'm saying that degree of interpretation is considerably higher when basing it off poses and animations.

It's a team deathmatch game that goes the Team Fortress 2 route of having strong, identifiable characters instead of the Call of Duty route of having every "character" be interchangeable.

Certainly, that's a fair point. They're not as interchangeable as G.I. Joe #65012.

I saw a few of the TF2 character videos when they came out, but it didn't impact how I played the game or how I perceived any particular character. And why should it? It's not in the game. It's fluff, filler, a gimmick, tacked-on appeal, a cute aside.

I would actually argue that the cars in Rocket League have character (compare them to the purely functional cars in Gran Turismo).

That was exactly my point: one could argue that the cars in Rocket League have character, but does it matter? Does it have any bearing or relevance to the gameplay or how much someone enjoys playing the game in any significant way? No. A majority of people are not going to stop playing the game due the inclusion or exclusion of 'character' - it doesn't matter to the game itself.

Point is, the character argument is a weak one because it's a tangential aspect at best in this particular game. It's not nearly as relevant as, say, Valve giving Gordon Freeman a speaking voice. Just imagine the violent cacophony emanating from keyboards heard across the Internet with that one.

A lot of people posting here have brought up some good points and have made far more thorough posts than my own.

 

[Dizchu]

That was exactly my point: one could argue that the cars in Rocket League have character, but does it matter? Does it have any bearing or relevance to the gameplay or how much someone enjoys playing the game in any significant way? No.

I beg to differ. Unreal Tournament 4 is currently in pre-alpha and is completely playable even though there's only a couple of character models and most of the maps are blocky, textureless placeholders. But until it's actually finished I don't think it provides the full experience.

I'm not going to pretend that the Tracer pose was a huge deal, but you'd be surprised how much little things can affect the overall game experience. I'm sure you've played games that started off alright and somewhere down the line something "clicked" and it became awesome and really pulled you in to its universe.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Indeed, those are the in-game justifications given. I'm arguing that we should look beyond that, to the creator, the one who actually made the decisions.

I do not believe it's a coincidence (or purely a result of organic, in-world reasons) that the only one who needs to have most of her clothes off all the time is a young, sexually-attractive woman, and I don't believe it's a coincidence that the camera pans so emphatically to her butt.

Well, yes. You mentioned and in-universe justification, and received information about in-universe reasons in turn. In addition, you received exposition about considerations external to the game as well (i.e. The End's information being a retcon). Now, unless from here we're going to discuss the merits of Kojima inventing a time machine, going back twelve years, and making sure we're all regailed by gratuitous centennial man-ass just to make sure the Quiet stuff lines up, or seriously start a discussion about the ratio of gratuitous man-ass to gratuitous woman-ass in the most overtly homoerotic game series this side of ChoAniki, I'm not exactly sure what's unclear.

Because, in the end, this line of consideration -- while perfectly valid when employed responsibly -- is also reductive, and can be used to override authorial intent and reduce any female character to just the sexual aspects of characterization. Which, amazingly enough, that line of thought is also entirely subjective.

 

[Silvanus]

Well, yes. You mentioned and in-universe justification, and received information about in-universe reasons in turn. In addition, you received exposition about considerations external to the game as well (i.e. The End's information being a retcon).

What matters, rather, is how that information is used and understood to support what we're saying. That characters with similar conditions exist, but do not need to walk around mostly-naked, illustrates that it would be perfectly possible for Kojima to have Quiet in a similar state of dress. The in-universe explanation does not preclude that, does not make it impossible.

That there exist, in-universe, a few little discrepancies between the two situations, doesn't really serve to undo that point. I do not believe it is a coincidence that such discrepancies serve to get a sexy young woman with not much on putting her ass in the camera-- similarly, I do not believe it is a necessity of the plot when the repairman in "Lonely Housewife Needs Help XXX" has to take off his pants because he got an oil stain on them.

Because, in the end, this line of consideration -- while perfectly valid when employed responsibly -- is also reductive, and can be used to override authorial intent and reduce any female character to just the sexual aspects of characterization. Which, amazingly enough, that line of thought is also entirely subjective.

It is perfectly possible to criticise one aspect of a character without reducing them to that alone. Her role in the plot and her voice-acting and her what-have-you are not implicated in what I'm saying.

 

[Paragon Fury]

So this happened yesterday;

http://oddshot.tv/shot/heroes-of-the-storm-201604032644959

For those who can't see the video;

Now a professional cosplayer doing publicity and invited by Blizzard themselves fired straight at them by doing the exact removed pose on Blizzard's live Twitch.tv stream of the Heroes of the Storm Championships. The Twitch Chat goddamn exploded when she did it, and it was hilarious. And the best part?

A real person, in a costume so close to Tracer that she might as well BE Tracer herself...looks perfectly natural and shows the pose suits Tracer just fine.

Yeah.

Blizzard just got slapped on their own freaking Twitch.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

*snip*

So what? I still don't think the pose fits the character, and the design team still has every right to remove it if they share such an opinion. If this single cosplayer has a different view of the character, that's fine, she can do that, just like a million fan girls can insist Kirk and Spock are fucking each other. That doesn't mean the game must be changed to suit hr stance.

 

[johnnyLupine]

Hey well it's totally ok to remove something because a minority of people don't like it because this game is supposed to make everyone feel strong and heroic.Blizzard are in the right here, in fact id like to make another suggestion, if I may. I only feel strong and heroic while I've got my head shaved and am attending events for the national front party so if Blizzard could find it in their hearts to change Tracer just a bit more so I can get in on the heroism feeling I think that'd be just great.

 

[Nemmerle]

Well, I mean, if I'm being honest, Lucio's the Overwatch character I find most attractive, and he does fit a lot of the "effeminate" markers. He even cocks his hips in a fairly feminine gesture, and his outfit kind of emphasises him in ways I think people would call feminine before he even starts moving. I mean, I say this speaking only for myself. Maybe one of the other characters gets a lot of love. It could be that 95% of the femalde population is really into dat Zangief.

But TBH, what I really want is what the guys get routinely. And that's to have characters that look cool or badass. This is not to say that I was being glib before, as the Lucio example may demonstrate. My primary interest when playing a game is usually playing a game. It's just that I'm not averse to some attractive guys at the same time.

The thing where it usually becomes an issue is that most women in games seem to fall intothe fanservice area. At least, prominent characters and the like.

Spoiler

Being honest, though, I'm not really sure this is a problem with Overwatch. Granted, I haven't watched a lot of animation--I haven't followed Overwatch closely and saw this mostly because I was wondering what the hubbub was about--but I definitely see female characters that would fill the niche I'm looking for. Zaryah looks like a boss, Mei and Tracer look cool (both in a sort of adorkable sense), and Pharah's at least decent. Again, this is animation notwithstanding--they could all do strip teases for all I know, but at least on a design level, I can pick out characters I like.

But I can't speak for other people. They may not be satisfied. This is where coexisting gets a little more tricky, and especially so in a market where mainstream games have a variety of sexy women and not necessarily a lot of sexy guys. Hell, it was only about a year ago the news hit they were toning down Mevis' attire in that Final Fantasy mobile game. Now, I think FF costumes are ridiculous, and pretty much none of them do it for me, but his outfit was kind of in line with the way a lot of women end up designed, and it made people uncomfortable and needed to be changed. It always seems to go the other way. When WoW redesigned their races, for example, you got an even larger dispiarity between orcs/trolls on a male/female basis. When I checked out those models, I was thinking "wow, wouldn't it be great if modern computers had the capacity to do both?"

Which brings me to the frank issue about Tracer and her pose. I'm not losing any sleep over it being removed. If Blizzard decided tomorrow to bring it back, I would lose no sleep either. When I saw the news article, I was sort of incredulous. Like, "that's it?"

Admittedly, the meta argument interests me more than the specific one. They keep it in? Fine. They take it out? Fine. I'm generally in favour of more options. At the same time, Blizzard seems to have agreed that this was inappropriate for their character, and as I don't really care much one way or another, I'm fine with their decision. Though one of her other poses still shows off her butt quite well. Forget which. So I'm not entirely sure this changes anything.

But back to that meta argument for a moment, there's still an issue of conflict. Say I want strong female characters and someone else wants sexy, and our values of the two words end up being incompatible. We essentially have to coexist in the same space, so how do we proceed? Even a handful of women who aren't eye candy seems like it's too large a concession to make and that doesn't even get into male characters.

Again, that doesn't necessarily apply here, but you made a comment as to what women wanted, and I think that touches upon it.

I also don't think there are many characters in gaming designed with women in mind, period. Whether male or female, power fantasy or just plain fantasy, I think the industry tends to design around a male ideal of what women like. That doesn't mean there are never attractive characters (Classic Dante comes to mind), just that I don't think anyone was thinking "we need to appeal to the female base" when the design process was happening.

And it's possible that I'm no longer coherent because it's almost 2 Am. Hopefully this was actually coherent outside of my head.

Seems coherent to me.

I don't know. There are plenty of games that aren't built around sex-appeal, so I don't see why there'd be a show-stopper with stronger female characters in those. To a certain extent people have to decide which sort of game they want to make/play, and that's how one would deal with it. Not that there can't be attractive characters in those games, but not every attractive is prancing around in a bikini.

Stronger female characters do seem to be a good thing, at least as a subset of strong characters - which seem lacking in general in the industry. It's lazy story-telling, 'Oh look, your knuckle dragging male-character-proxy is rescuing the helpless female-character-proxy. Stop me if you've heard this one before.' Male stereotypes map well onto that sort of trite violence, unfortunately.

I'm not sure men would have that much of an issue with it if it's presented from the start with stronger female characters. Like I don't recall too many men going 'Oh yeah, female Commander Sheppard, she should totally be in a bikini.' Most of the feedback I remember on that front was how much better her voice actor was than m-Shep, (which is certainly why I played that character.)

If they make a big song and dance about it, or backtrack something they've previously shown, then I can totally see people kicking off about it. But if they just include normally dressed women from the outset, treat it as a non-issue, I don't imagine it would be too dramatic. :/

 

[Metalrocks]

So this happened yesterday;

http://oddshot.tv/shot/heroes-of-the-storm-201604032644959

For those who can't see the video;

Now a professional cosplayer doing publicity and invited by Blizzard themselves fired straight at them by doing the exact removed pose on Blizzard's live Twitch.tv stream of the Heroes of the Storm Championships. The Twitch Chat goddamn exploded when she did it, and it was hilarious. And the best part?

A real person, in a costume so close to Tracer that she might as well BE Tracer herself...looks perfectly natural and shows the pose suits Tracer just fine.

Yeah.

Blizzard just got slapped on their own freaking Twitch.

great pic. she really does look like a real tracer. its amazing how a company could listen to one complaint who is full of crap and actually uses her daughter as an excuse. how old is that daughter of her anyway? must be really young and still allows her to be look up on people who actually kill lots of people but showing some butt, oh my god, the horror. i know i would have pointed that out to her and pretty much gave her the finger what i think of her PC crap.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Naw, it's like this:

There was an unofficial poll, with two options, 1) keep tracer pose 2) remove tracer pose.

about 90% voted to keep the tracer pose.

If this poll was done officially by blizzard, that would make it more official and thus harder to ignore the results.

But now it isn't official so it's easier to dismiss.

So should every design decision be based on a poll?

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Sorry, gotta rant a little.

ohmahgah! They deleted tracer's ASS!... no wait, it's still there! They changed all the cameras so we can't see i-, no we can still see it. There won't be any porn of i-, wait prolly will be.
But Blackwidow doesn't have a neck line plunging like Doomsday falling from orbit!... Wait, it's still there. I wonder if she still has her inflatable butt? Anyone know? Seriously. Anyone remember that?

BUT THE SJWS WANT ALL T&A GONE!! Butt it's still there in the game minus one pose! IMPOSSIBLE!!! Surely they want to damage the game more?! I'm all triggered coz something happened that seems to benefit the SJWs more than me!!!!

Seriously, I think a lot of these complaints are coming from people thinking with the wrong head. Sure tracer doesn't flash her butt in pants that may as well be painted on because the Devs figured they could do better, but does it really destroy the game here? Do you really need it that badly?

Yeah, I get the sexual liberation angles, anti-censorship (Not that this is censorship) and other angles as much as people obsessed with ass exist, but a whole lot is tainted by the loud people who want to sexualize women, against SJWs no matter what, trolls., and generally the loud mobs that don't want anyone else ever pandered towards in any way shape or form.

Funny how the "Let the Devs do what they want!" crowd can change their tune when it works against what they want. I'm certainly not saying everyone is like that. I'm not against the decision, and I firmly feel like the devs should do what they want. Yeah, Tracer has a great booty, but if the Devs feel character development, and character integrity is more important, why argue? I mean a lot of the anti-SJW people demand women be well done if they're to be included in my experience (Yeah, like women will be written better than guys? There's going to be bad, and good writing no matter what) so here we are, the Devs trying to do that, and here we are, people crying foul because the Devs made a decision for character integrity.

Like a lot of things, the pose will be kept alive in some round shape or form. Modders will likely put it back in somehow.

I guess people really do need their monsters to rail against.

 

[The Material Sheep]

Sorry, gotta rant a little.

ohmahgah! They deleted tracer's ASS!... no wait, it's still there! They changed all the cameras so we can't see i-, no we can still see it. There won't be any porn of i-, wait prolly will be.
But Blackwidow doesn't have a neck line plunging like Doomsday falling from orbit!... Wait, it's still there. I wonder if she still has her inflatable butt? Anyone know? Seriously. Anyone remember that?

BUT THE SJWS WANT ALL T&A GONE!! Butt it's still there in the game minus one pose! IMPOSSIBLE!!! Surely they want to damage the game more?! I'm all triggered coz something happened that seems to benefit the SJWs more than me!!!!

Seriously, I think a lot of these complaints are coming from people thinking with the wrong head. Sure tracer doesn't flash her butt in pants that may as well be painted on because the Devs figured they could do better, but does it really destroy the game here? Do you really need it that badly?

Yeah, I get the sexual liberation angles, anti-censorship (Not that this is censorship) and other angles as much as people obsessed with ass exist, but a whole lot is tainted by the loud people who want to sexualize women, against SJWs no matter what, trolls., and generally the loud mobs that don't want anyone else ever pandered towards in any way shape or form.

Funny how the "Let the Devs do what they want!" crowd can change their tune when it works against what they want. I'm certainly not saying everyone is like that. I'm not against the decision, and I firmly feel like the devs should do what they want. Yeah, Tracer has a great booty, but if the Devs feel character development, and character integrity is more important, why argue? I mean a lot of the anti-SJW people demand women be well done if they're to be included in my experience (Yeah, like women will be written better than guys? There's going to be bad, and good writing no matter what) so here we are, the Devs trying to do that, and here we are, people crying foul because the Devs made a decision for character integrity.

Like a lot of things, the pose will be kept alive in some round shape or form. Modders will likely put it back in somehow.

I guess people really do need their monsters to rail against.

It wasn't that the dev changed something. It was the dumb ass virtue signalling he gave as the reason for the change. If they had quietly changed it maybe saying they didn't feel the pose was really in her character, NONE of this would have happened. As I've said before in this thread, the reason the bite back at this crap is this fierce at this point is because the gaming public can't trust the media to hold devs to task for any questionable behavior. This is the majority making its will known the only way it really can outside of a straight up boycott. So... you are absolutely missing the point of why this became a thing. People might have been disappointed in the removal of the pose, but that is not why there was an outrage. The outrage was over the reasons given for the change.

 

[Dalisclock]

*Looks at screenshots and pictures*

*Reads threads on the escapist going on and on about this*

 

[EternallyBored]

Sorry, gotta rant a little.

ohmahgah! They deleted tracer's ASS!... no wait, it's still there! They changed all the cameras so we can't see i-, no we can still see it. There won't be any porn of i-, wait prolly will be.
But Blackwidow doesn't have a neck line plunging like Doomsday falling from orbit!... Wait, it's still there. I wonder if she still has her inflatable butt? Anyone know? Seriously. Anyone remember that?

BUT THE SJWS WANT ALL T&A GONE!! Butt it's still there in the game minus one pose! IMPOSSIBLE!!! Surely they want to damage the game more?! I'm all triggered coz something happened that seems to benefit the SJWs more than me!!!!

Seriously, I think a lot of these complaints are coming from people thinking with the wrong head. Sure tracer doesn't flash her butt in pants that may as well be painted on because the Devs figured they could do better, but does it really destroy the game here? Do you really need it that badly?

Yeah, I get the sexual liberation angles, anti-censorship (Not that this is censorship) and other angles as much as people obsessed with ass exist, but a whole lot is tainted by the loud people who want to sexualize women, against SJWs no matter what, trolls., and generally the loud mobs that don't want anyone else ever pandered towards in any way shape or form.

Funny how the "Let the Devs do what they want!" crowd can change their tune when it works against what they want. I'm certainly not saying everyone is like that. I'm not against the decision, and I firmly feel like the devs should do what they want. Yeah, Tracer has a great booty, but if the Devs feel character development, and character integrity is more important, why argue? I mean a lot of the anti-SJW people demand women be well done if they're to be included in my experience (Yeah, like women will be written better than guys? There's going to be bad, and good writing no matter what) so here we are, the Devs trying to do that, and here we are, people crying foul because the Devs made a decision for character integrity.

Like a lot of things, the pose will be kept alive in some round shape or form. Modders will likely put it back in somehow.

I guess people really do need their monsters to rail against.

It wasn't that the dev changed something. It was the dumb ass virtue signalling he gave as the reason for the change. If they had quietly changed it maybe saying they didn't feel the pose was really in her character, NONE of this would have happened. As I've said before in this thread, the reason the bite back at this crap is this fierce at this point is because the gaming public can't trust the media to hold devs to task for any questionable behavior. This is the majority making its will known the only way it really can outside of a straight up boycott. So... you are absolutely missing the point of why this became a thing. People might have been disappointed in the removal of the pose, but that is not why there was an outrage. The outrage was over the reasons given for the change.

Doesn't make it any less stupid than when people flipped out over Ubisoft's, "making female characters is too much work" line. Basically a bunch of empty posturing over a PR blunder that Blizzard, like Ubisoft will proceed to ignore, and the "majority" will lose interest in the controversy in a couple weeks while the genuinely outraged will be incensed that most people were just in it to make jokes or have a laugh at Blizzard saying something stupid.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

So should every design decision be based on a poll?

Based on what I've written, what do you understand my position to be right now?

You haven't said enough for me to get a full picture.

 

[rosac]

Fun loving girl poses smugly in manner that is only considered flirty due to her outfit.

I'm not fussed about this being removed as I can't play the game but still, imagine if the person who made the complaints daughter the complaint saw a British student night out.

Not a direct comparison as after all tracer can be seen as a role model and will be seen more frequently but nevertheless girls who don't normally "flaunt" can choose to do so if they wish. It's their body, it's their choice, it's what they do.

 

[The Material Sheep]

It wasn't that the dev changed something. It was the dumb ass virtue signalling he gave as the reason for the change. If they had quietly changed it maybe saying they didn't feel the pose was really in her character, NONE of this would have happened. As I've said before in this thread, the reason the bite back at this crap is this fierce at this point is because the gaming public can't trust the media to hold devs to task for any questionable behavior. This is the majority making its will known the only way it really can outside of a straight up boycott. So... you are absolutely missing the point of why this became a thing. People might have been disappointed in the removal of the pose, but that is not why there was an outrage. The outrage was over the reasons given for the change.

Actually I'm pretty sure Capcom removed (or changed the camera angle) a brief animation from one character in their latest Street Fighter and people turned it into a outrage nontroversy, like they did with this.

So it has nothing to do with reasons given, as gamers have made it clear that developers can't even do something quietly without them screeching from the rooftops for months. Probably about SJW's and "censorship".

The situations aren't comparable in scale in the slightest. For example my google search for the capcom issue brings up like 8 hits before you start seeing stuff about the tracer change, where as the Tracer change has a fair bit more traction and outrage. Even ignoring the subjectivity of google search, I went threw and read a number of the articles on it and the following comments. I'm sorry but it wasn't a huge outrage. It was some fans who made a stink over the beta. That's all it amounted to. Let me also state this. There are a lot of gamers who run on the autism spectrum, and are die hard fans of certain game series. Because of that there will always be a small subset of gamers in any community who will be upset at any change and throw a tantrum over it. I do not think it is valid to say that because the gaming community is somewhat anathema to change in general, any and all controversy concerning a minor change can be discredited as being without merit.

 

[The Material Sheep]

It wasn't that the dev changed something. It was the dumb ass virtue signalling he gave as the reason for the change. If they had quietly changed it maybe saying they didn't feel the pose was really in her character, NONE of this would have happened. As I've said before in this thread, the reason the bite back at this crap is this fierce at this point is because the gaming public can't trust the media to hold devs to task for any questionable behavior. This is the majority making its will known the only way it really can outside of a straight up boycott. So... you are absolutely missing the point of why this became a thing. People might have been disappointed in the removal of the pose, but that is not why there was an outrage. The outrage was over the reasons given for the change.

Actually I'm pretty sure Capcom removed (or changed the camera angle) a brief animation from one character in their latest Street Fighter and people turned it into a outrage nontroversy, like they did with this.

So it has nothing to do with reasons given, as gamers have made it clear that developers can't even do something quietly without them screeching from the rooftops for months. Probably about SJW's and "censorship".

The situations aren't comparable in scale in the slightest. For example my google search for the capcom issue brings up like 8 hits before you start seeing stuff about the tracer change, where as the Tracer change has a fair bit more traction and outrage. Even ignoring the subjectivity of google search, I went threw and read a number of the articles on it and the following comments. I'm sorry but it wasn't a huge outrage. It was some fans who made a stink over the beta. That's all it amounted to. Let me also state this. There are a lot of gamers who run on the autism spectrum, and are die hard fans of certain game series. Because of that there will always be a small subset of gamers in any community who will be upset at any change and throw a tantrum over it. I do not think it is valid to say that because the gaming community is somewhat anathema to change in general, any and all controversy concerning a minor change can be discredited as being without merit.

I disagree. Your point was this wouldn't have happened under different circumstances, and a recent outrage shows that's not the case. Hell I'm pretty sure you can even go into the GiD part of this forum and find a thread about it in less than 5 minutes.

EDIT:

Went to test for myself. The 5 minutes I gave was generous, it took me about 10 seconds to find this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/663.884723-Petition-For-Capcom-To-Reverse-Censorship-Over-Removed-Butt-Slap?page=1] in GiD.

A thread made back in november when the event happened that has only 4 pages? Lets compare this page that has been up for a little over a week I think and it's at 15 pages with a number of comments on outside sources weighing in. While the tenor of the discussion might be similar, it does not mean these events are even remotely comparable in terms of size.


I suppose NEVER would have happened was too strong a statement, because I said earlier if you change anything of anything in the gaming community some small group of people will be upset about it and make it known. However, you can't use that fact about the gaming community to dismiss the larger point of why this in particular had such a big back lash. I seriously doubt that if they had done a quiet change and not started virtue signalling for PR, people outside of maybe a few really dedicated butt lovers would have even noticed or cared. Blizzard brought this to everyone's attention as a matter of PR, and it rightly blew up in their face.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

It wasn't that the dev changed something. It was the dumb ass virtue signalling he gave as the reason for the change. If they had quietly changed it maybe saying they didn't feel the pose was really in her character, NONE of this would have happened. As I've said before in this thread, the reason the bite back at this crap is this fierce at this point is because the gaming public can't trust the media to hold devs to task for any questionable behavior. This is the majority making its will known the only way it really can outside of a straight up boycott. So... you are absolutely missing the point of why this became a thing. People might have been disappointed in the removal of the pose, but that is not why there was an outrage. The outrage was over the reasons given for the change.

From what I gather:
Person 1 (Who's literally 1 person): Hey, I don't think this pose fits the character.
Team 1: NO! FUCK YOU! YOU RESPECT THE DEV'S DESIGN!!
Blizzard: Hey, Person 1, we think you're right. We were on the fence ourselves. We're going to change it like we wanted to anyhow.
Team 1: NOOOO! DAMN SJWS!! FUCK YOOOOOUUUUUU!!!! WE CAN'T RESPECT THE DEV'S DESIGN DECISION!!! *Tantrums, makes polls, creates protesting fanart, seeks attention off it, trolls.* FUCK YOU AAAAAAAAAAALL!!! HOW DARE YOU!!! SJWS WANT TO DESTROY ALL T&A!!! Even though they haven't said as much, nor is any more T&A disappearing! NO! They want it all gone! They want the game to be boring!! BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY!!!!!

There's no way Blizzard could have done this quietly. Absolutely no way. People are playing the beta, and seeing Tracer's poses. A change would have had people asking questions, and going ape shit because they can't see Tracer's butt anymore. It'd still spread, and become a similar monster. It doesn't matter if the developers want it that way. They'd still rage against the SJW Boogeyman.

Why's "Because we want to" a questionable behavior when it concerns Devs when it's adjusting a character to be more in line with what they want her to be written like, yet not so when it's, frankly, keeping her sexy?
The "Media" shouldn't be telling developers what to do, especially when anyone in either camp expects developer freedom. They're welcome to voice disapproval, but holding them to task? That's not their job. It removes developer freedom. I, frankly, can't recall a time where the Media actually pressured someone to change how the game is designed directly, granted my memory is pretty horrid, but still, I'm pretty on the pulse of situations like this, especially since they're so damn hard to miss.
Yeah, the climate of gaming might be changing from general acceptance of women being in dental floss and 3 doritos to something of wanting women to not always be dressed that way, but direct pressure to make them change something? When has that happened?
And why is it that there's call for it when the Developer admitted they wanted it this way? Are you looking to strip developer creativity in favor of seeing a character's butt?

I may be missing the point, but frankly, I'm calling things as I see them.