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

[Travis Fischer]

This is the problem in three nutshells.

1. It's not sexual
She has her back to the camera. That's where the ass lives. She's not sticking her butt up in the air and wiggling it around. She doesn't have "Juicy" stamped across her cheeks. You cannot claim sexualization based on nothing but the fact that the camera settled somewhere in the 180 degree range behind her.


2. Even if it was, so what?
The OP that started this idiocy proclaims that she has a problem with Tracer having this pose specifically. Not Widowmaker, because she's a femme fatale character. Just Tracer.
That's not better.
What they are essentially saying is that being sexual is a trait reserved exclusively for "bad girls" or "women of loose moral fiber." That a character acknowledging their own sex appeal is a visual shorthand to show that they are a bad person. It's okay for Widowmaker to be sexy because she's an amoral assassin. But Tracer is a "good girl" and thus, cannot dirty herself.
This is where slut-shaming comes from. It's straight-up puritan nonsense that should not be encouraged in a modern society.


3. Blizzard Responded
One person makes a complaint. A complaint that the vast majority of other players disagree with. And within three days the goddamn director of the game is there apologizing and promising to make it right?
Where the hell was this kind of response when I was playing Blizzard games and people were pointing out issues that actually mattered? Where's my apology for Blizzard crippling Warriors at the start of every expansion? Where's the community wide apology for Tol Barad being terrible? How about Star Craft II's Swarm Hosts? We didn't get an apology and a promise to do better after those monsters destroyed the PvZ game.
Of all the actual issues that I assume get pointed out every single day in the Hearthstone forums, THIS is what Blizz decided to put a spotlight on. A non-issue that the majority of people don't feel is a problem to begin with.

Jeff Kaplan ignored the bulk of the Overwatch community to capitulate to a single Tumblr Snowflake that everybody disagreed with.

The only responsible course of action at this point would be to replace the Over the Shoulder pose with an R. Mika Butt Slap.

 

[Geisterkarle]

Oh noes, a woman showed a little sass. Let's twist it around and make it a thing.

Yeah, exactly right.

Why can't some assholes just keep their mouths shut and let everyone have their fun

Because we are on the internet!
Keeping tactical popcorn reserves ready ALWAYS pays out!

 

[bladestorm91]

This is one of those situations where I don't know who I hate more. People that were outraged by a fictional character's pose or people that were outraged that a pose was removed. It doesn't matter either way.

Not outraged per-say, but I'm very upset at the devs who are being such spineless wusses for caving in to such a non-issue.

 

[Politrukk]

Seems fair. The pose is still very much in game for other characters both male and female, it's just being changed because it was pointed out that it doesn't fit Tracer's character.

But it wasn't "just" because of that.

Cue the cries of "censorship" and "SJWs ruin everything" (which, naturally, wouldn't occur if we were talking about something like a male character thrusting his ass at the camera) in 3, 2, 1....

It's a very petty change and Jeff made it explicitly about the way it could be perceived at first.


I take my stance with the ladies who commented on this on twitter that they felt it was an offense, as if being quirky would mean they're forbidden from posing like that.

This is the problem in three nutshells.

1. It's not sexual
She has her back to the camera. That's where the ass lives. She's not sticking her butt up in the air and wiggling it around. She doesn't have "Juicy" stamped across her cheeks. You cannot claim sexualization based on nothing but the fact that the camera settled somewhere in the 180 degree range behind her.


2. Even if it was, so what?
The OP that started this idiocy proclaims that she has a problem with Tracer having this pose specifically. Not Widowmaker, because she's a femme fatale character. Just Tracer.
That's not better.
What they are essentially saying is that being sexual is a trait reserved exclusively for "bad girls" or "women of loose moral fiber." That a character acknowledging their own sex appeal is a visual shorthand to show that they are a bad person. It's okay for Widowmaker to be sexy because she's an amoral assassin. But Tracer is a "good girl" and thus, cannot dirty herself.
This is where slut-shaming comes from. It's straight-up puritan nonsense that should not be encouraged in a modern society.


3. Blizzard Responded
One person makes a complaint. A complaint that the vast majority of other players disagree with. And within three days the goddamn director of the game is there apologizing and promising to make it right?
Where the hell was this kind of response when I was playing Blizzard games and people were pointing out issues that actually mattered? Where's my apology for Blizzard crippling Warriors at the start of every expansion? Where's the community wide apology for Tol Barad being terrible? How about Star Craft II's Swarm Hosts? We didn't get an apology and a promise to do better after those monsters destroyed the PvZ game.
Of all the actual issues that I assume get pointed out every single day in the Hearthstone forums, THIS is what Blizz decided to put a spotlight on. A non-issue that the majority of people don't feel is a problem to begin with.

Jeff Kaplan ignored the bulk of the Overwatch community to capitulate to a single Tumblr Snowflake that everybody disagreed with.

The only responsible course of action at this point would be to replace the Over the Shoulder pose with an R. Mika Butt Slap.

Damn thee for taking the words out of my mouth.

 

[Travis Fischer]

Did I jump the gun by assuming any significant number of people whined and bitched about it, or was it really only 1 forum poster and maybe a handful of airheads agreeing with her? If I was presumptuous, forgive me - I REALLY didn't anticipate Blizzard caving to the unreasonable dumbassery of single-digit protests.

It was literally one forum poster and a handful of airheads.

 

[Dragonbums]

I'm more curious to know why they would remove something they put manpower, time, and money into because one person said they didn't like it.

Because that's how it is in the creative process. Shit gets changed, altered, or deleted. But who fucking cares because at the end of the day your banking your fat check anyway.

As someone who is a creative individual and aspires to do this for a living these kinds of topics are absolutely mind numbing. The amount of non creative people who DON'T understand what it means to be in the creative entertainment industry talking about 'artistic freedom' and 'censorship' pisses me off.
You want to do all the T&A you want? Go fucking freelance and cater to your niche, and fuck whoever says otherwise.
Just like with Capcom, Blizzard explicitly stated that it wasn't just this ONE PERSON who forced them to change the pose. The pose itself was already in disfavorable view with the team. It was just that the women who made the thread was enough to get them to finally remove it.
So you have a case here where a company decided that they didn't like a thing and they fixed it. If they thought the pose was fine all around in the dev studio Blizzard wouldn't of given two fucks about the complaint and do nothing.

Not that it fucking matters anyway. Capcom removed a camera angle on R. Mika's ass slap with zero complaints, and zero people making complaint threads on it. And gamers STILL accused Capcom of bending to the will of SJW's even though they explicitly said that the only people who influenced that decision was themselves.

I cannot wait for this phase of faux outrage to die in the cesspit along with every other stupid controversy gaming has to cook up.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

http://techraptor.net/content/tracers-shoulder-victory-pose-removed-complaint

Well Blizzard has issued a statement about this "controversy" and it looks like they had been discussing replacing it for a while now, just the forum post helped them decide. So once again alot of angry words over basically nothing

This makes a lot more sense given Blizzard's previous stances on similar complaints. Honestly, I would probably do the same in their position, given that I'm not overly keen on the pose as a pose.

 

[Therumancer]

I think the issue is not so much what they did as why they chose to do it in this case. Had Blizzard removed the pose on their own and never even told anyone it existed nobody would care, this would be a genuine change because "it didn't fit the character". Editing the game after the fact because of messages complaining about it is pandering and censorship, especially when it's something this tame. There is nothing at all wrong with sex appeal, and any genuine feminist who knows what feminism actually is, and what it stands for, should actually be opposing this kind of censorship. People tend to forget that Playboy is/was a feminist publication for example, part of feminism is women showing off their bodies and being sexy. Anything that changes that is by definition not feminist no matter how people want to argue in terms of "waves". The kind of argument made here goes back to what feminism was intended to oppose with women being forced to cover themselves and be portrayed in a demure fashion.

Gamers aren't big on doing anything that will work, but I recommend refusing to support Overwatch until they choose to restore the animations, even if that means never playing the game. I've refused to purchase or support a lot of games over the years due to censorship.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

There seems to be this strange, insecure section of the keyboard warrior clan that compulsively views any expression of sexuality or femininity as objectifying. Why? Sure the pose highlights the character's butt, but why would having an attractive butt all of a sudden reduce a person/character to nothing more than a sex symbol? There's nothing wrong with celebrating attractiveness. Or, as people do in the real world, show off when they feel good (i.e. after winning). This sounds like a problem with the person drawing this conclusion more than the design done by the devs.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Seems fair. The pose is still very much in game for other characters both male and female, it's just being changed because it was pointed out that it doesn't fit Tracer's character.

But it wasn't "just" because of that.

Okay, what else was it because of? From what I can see, that person made a level-headed post and the people at Blizzard agreed with them.

 

[09philj]

Seems fair. The pose is still very much in game for other characters both male and female, it's just being changed because it was pointed out that it doesn't fit Tracer's character.

But it wasn't "just" because of that.

Okay, what else was it because of? From what I can see, that person made a level-headed post and the people at Blizzard agreed with them.

Level-headed? Hardly. It's a slightly unhinged and worryingly sexist rant.

 

[reciprocal]

Without looking at her profile, I'm going to make some predictions:
1) By the end of this year (2016), the woman who complained will have played the game less than 50 hours if she bought the game at all;
2) By the end of this year (2016), at least one of the persons opposed to the removal will have played the game more than 100 hours;

Entitled gamers at least play the game.

 

[Therumancer]

http://techraptor.net/content/tracers-shoulder-victory-pose-removed-complaint

Well Blizzard has issued a statement about this "controversy" and it looks like they had been discussing replacing it for a while now, just the forum post helped them decide. So once again alot of angry words over basically nothing

I personally believe this is just damage control, bowing down to PC/Feminist complaints while trying to make it seem like it was something they wanted to do all along. If that was the case this would have happened quietly without anyone hearing anything about it.

As far as attempts to spin go, I've seen worse, but I think people need to be careful about letting companies have their cake and eat it too like is what we're seeing here. The pose made the cut, we've all seen it, changing it now after a complaint of this sort amounts to PC censorship. Blizzard is not in a position of restoring the artwork and animations and pretty much saying "buzz off" to the SJWs or not doing so and pandering to them. I don't envy them, they should never have acknowleged this kind of "complaint" to begin with or made changes in regards to it, now they have pretty much dug their own grave.

Me, personally, I won't support a product that has been censored and cut sexual/violent content due to complaints, this means Blizzard won't be getting any money from me unless they restore the content. I recommend others do the same.

I'm somewhat "infamous" for having refused to play Silent Hill 2 despite it's rave reviews and my massive Survival Horror fanboyism due to the fact that the game was censored following complaints about the demo. I eventually did buy a used copy down the road, but only because in doing it the way I did I ensured Konami received no money from me at all.

Gamers need to draw a line where if the industry engages in censorship they make no money off a product, no matter how good it is, or how little the censorship "matters" in the scope of the product. Until this happens, we're going to continue to see incidents of content censorship.

Plus let's be honest, we've all seen this kind of thing before, especially with fighting games. "Oh my gawd, the girls in Soul Calibur are so indecent, Ivy Valentine is an offense to feminist ethics, how dare a girl with a figure like that be portrayed as wanting to show it off".

Censoring "Petting" mini-games, R. Mika's butt slap (the Ivy Valentine of the current moment I guess), it just goes on and on. I mean it bugs me that we have people wanting to regress society to the 1890s in 2016. It also disturbs me that this is one of the areas where I'd expect to be more allied with liberals than clashing with them, yet for whatever reason the whole "social justice" crowd has long ago lost it's way and forgotten part of what it's supposed to stand for.

What's next? Burning artists who get too erotic at the stake? Or maybe just branding their hands for doing the devil's work? Sound like I'm going too far? Well, we're heading in that direction in the name of *ahem* feminism, ironically doing away with the fact that feminists fought long and hard so women could be portrayed sexually. Now it seems people can't run in the other direction fast enough. I mean OMG... T&A in a video game, forum complaints, quick change it before there is a Jihad!

Blizzard should either restore the animations, or place a mandatory Hajib on each and every female character in every one of their games. I mean why go half way with it? They are either on one side or the other, forget this middle ground spinning. Personally, I think we have a greater chance of this than Blizzard recanting on censorship. Personally I can't wait to see how Kerrigan looks and fits it over all the blades and spikes.

 

[Something Amyss]

Not outraged per-say, but I'm very upset at the devs who are being such spineless wusses for caving in to such a non-issue.

If it's such a non-issue, why are you upset?

 

[Mister K]

I wonder what would've happened if Blizzard said that she is a lesbian/post-op male to female transvestite?
Would we have heard cries of "You go gurrl! Stick it to The Man"?

Just a random question.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Seems fair. The pose is still very much in game for other characters both male and female, it's just being changed because it was pointed out that it doesn't fit Tracer's character.

But it wasn't "just" because of that.

Okay, what else was it because of? From what I can see, that person made a level-headed post and the people at Blizzard agreed with them.

Level-headed? Hardly. It's a slightly unhinged and worryingly sexist rant.

Oh right. Because I read it again and it seems fine to me. They're not exactly filling the forum with expletives or anything. They've made a criticism and backed it up with some evidence. Now you can disagree with that evidence, but I don't think it approaches anything near "slightly unhinged" or "sexist rant".

 

[Travis Fischer]

Not that it fucking matters anyway. Capcom removed a camera angle on R. Mika's ass slap with zero complaints, and zero people making complaint threads on it. And gamers STILL accused Capcom of bending to the will of SJW's even though they explicitly said that the only people who influenced that decision was themselves.

"There's a bear sitting in the living room, but it's not a problem because nobody is going into the living room... on account of the bear."

 

[Mister K]

Not outraged per-say, but I'm very upset at the devs who are being such spineless wusses for caving in to such a non-issue.

If it's such a non-issue, why are you upset?

I'd say that people are upset about it because those non-issues can in the end lead to issues. What I mean is if developers changing small things in games on a whim of a single person, which became a trend now, will it lead to people forcing developers to change major things in near future? For example, forcing Capcom to change Ryu's gender, or something.

While I agree that developers SHOULD listen to their audience, there must be some sort of limitation to the ammount of things that can be changed by pressure from the outside.

Also, am agreeing with people on the following:
- It seems that killing characters is fine, but showing their backs is a sin against mankind and more importantly CHILDREN (Which is absurd)

- So it's OK for a bad girl to be sexy, because sexuality is evil apparently, but good girls must wear burkas? Double standarts much?

- This is a teen game. This womans 8-year old should even come close to this game, ESPECIALLY with parent encouraging her to do so.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

"Caved" implies they didn't want to do it. Something that always seems to be looked over in these events is the possibility that the dev completely agreed with the change.

Hell, apparently Blizzard was already talking about taking it out

http://techraptor.net/content/tracers-shoulder-victory-pose-removed-complaint

 

[Bad Jim]

And yet they wont listen to people about removing Macro Mechanics in Starcraft 2.

Macro mechanics in SC2 are not a one sided issue though. On the one hand, the original Starcraft was an extremely macro heavy game where the winner was generally decided by who could build units faster. Making macro easy makes it a game that is fundamentally not Starcraft.

On the other hand, a lot of people feel that a strategy game should be won by outwitting the opponent rather than outbuilding the opponent. In the original game, doing clever stuff, or even scouting, would distract the average player from their macro enough to make them worse off for doing it. It's very easy to sneak up and psi storm a bunch of enemy units only to find that you forgot to build pylons and that it will cost you more than the psi storm cost your opponent.

Either way, Blizzard has to disappoint a substantial number of players.