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

[Erttheking]

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Yes. I defend it. I defend a creator's decision to change their own. Freaking. Work. Apparently that makes me a horrible person now.

And they did do it of their own free will. Because they were apparently talking about changing it before this ever happened.

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

After release? No. Not after release. The game is in beta. It has not been released. Hell, the point of a beta is to get feedback and change things. So yeah, this has nothing to do with censorship, a word that the internet seems to think means "Change I don't like." I'm a writer. Part of the creative process is putting in things, realizing they sounded better in your head, and then changing it. This is not censorship. This is part of the creative process.

How do you know? How do you know that they're lying? If they're lying, kindly prove it. I just don't get why everyone is reacting like this. The devs got a complaint, they clearly agreed with it (if they bowed to every minor little complaint, we'd know) and everyone is screaming censorship because for some reason T&A being taken out of something, no matter the reason, is an attack on freedom of speech.

This is an apt comparison. People vote for Donald Trump because they oversimplify things and scapegoat a group for all of their problems. That's exactly what's happening here. "people like you." Who's that? People like me who think artists should be allowed to change their game as they see fit?

...Ok, I don't really see Donald Trump getting up on a podium saying "Blizzard has taken out an ass shot in a game, this is what is wrong with America." I have no idea why you keep bringing Donald Trump into this. His voters...don't really care about devs changing a video game. They're busy screaming that they want a wall built to keep all of the brown people out.

Oh and no. I will not fuck off. (Kind of ironic. You talk about censorship so much and then you censor yourself saying the word fuck.)

 

[zidine100]

So in a game where people blow other people up, shoot them, push people of cliffs, and just generally kill them.

A sexy pose is too much. *sigh*

 

[Erttheking]

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It's not about good or bad. It's simply a matter of being sexy fitting Widowmaker's character more than Tracer's.

 

[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.

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".

The poster's logic appears to run that because Tracer has one mildly sexualised pose, that undermines all the rest of the character development and just makes her a sex object. Is this not just slightly mental?

 

[Elfgore]

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Might I suggest taking a chill pill? You are getting far, far to angry over something like this over someone who neither condemned the developer for doing this and in this topic in general.

And "non-creative"? Snip at me or everyone else in the thread who disagrees with you? Man, really shouldn't have wasted all that time writing mostly original stories back in the day if I'm un-creative. I know how the creative process works. The most I've ever changed in any thing has been a sentence or two. Never anything that I spent a decent amount writing, say a chapter or entire character. So something that took me five minutes to right and I keep a majority of the original and change a word to make it flow better.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

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.

I 100% agree on you on that point. blizzard is going to get shit no matter what they do at this point.

Ironically GamerGate wanted to make developers feel safer but It kind of feels less safe for creators now more then ever.

 

[maninahat]

I remember this situation once were a Call of Duty player asked that a certain asset be removed from one of the multiplayer maps; a religious picture was in a bathroom in one of the houses, and the (muslim) player complained they found this offensive and asked the devs to remove it. So they did without a shrug, and at no inconvenience to anyone.

But naturally the player base exploded. The most polite summary of their complaints would be: "How dare this guy be offended when we are not?", "This is censorship", and "We can't have developers abandoning their artistic vision!". Of course these people complain about people being entitled or thin skinned with one breath, whilst damning everyone with the other.

Same shit, different day. No one cares if you aren't offended by the butt pose. It doesn't matter if you think it is trivial. It equally doesn't matter if the devs accept a criticism and do a minor change to a game. There is literally no point to beta testing if people are forbidden from recommending improvements to the devs.

 

[Cheesy Goodness]

I was just out this weekend and noticed a lot of women wearing yoga pants. I'm a man in my prime; sue me. In fact, I suspect that they weren't even going to workout at any point. I think they just like wearing yoga pants, and it has become an accepted form of attire nowadays. You can literately see every curve of their asses in them, whether you want to or not.

All I see from this screenshot is a cartoon character with unrealistic body proportions wearing yoga pants. It seems to me that the pose is only sexual because Tracer's ass is visible from yoga pants. If anything, the pose isn't the problem here. The character needs to redesigned in different clothes.

As for me, this is a complete nonissue. I doubt Tracer's ass is going cause the end of the world, and I thought the complaint from the forum post was a little dumb. The fact that Fipps has a daughter adds nothing to the conversation either. What does that have to do with yoga pants? However, I care so little that I almost didn't even want to pipe in about the issue. Do whatever you want with Tracer's design. All I care about is if the game is actually any good.

 

[Travis Fischer]

Right out of the gate? There's over gap larger than 48 hours between the thread being made and the developers making a statement on the forums. Its almost like they took this opportunity to shop around the notion to people inside the office to get each other's opinions, HMMMMMMMMMMM.

Blizzard has the trademark on "soon." In more than a decade of playing their games I've never seen them move this quickly to respond to ANYTHING. The response time on this matter is virtually unprecedented.

 

[Erttheking]

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Widowmaker is a very sexual character and it makes sense for her to pose like that, while Tracer is more happy go lucky and it doesn't fit her that much.

I fail to see how the Madonna Whore complex applies, considering no one is calling Widowmaker a slut or demanding that Tracer take off those tight fitting pants of hers, or that Mercy's boobs shouldn't be on such display, or that Symmetra shouldn't be showing off her legs that much. I just...where are you getting all of these arguments from? But then again, when in doubt, just call anyone who ever criticized anything sexual in a game a puritan.

 

[2xDouble]

The main problem, from what I can tell, is pants. Widowmaker, wearing her "bootylicious" bodysuit, still looks like she has pants on, however tight they may be. Tracer, despite wearing a similar skintight suit, looks like her tights are so far up her bum she could probably taste them. Slightly less cheek-clevage would show that she is, in fact, wearing clothes and not body paint. The little twerky-tilt in her hips could be a little more upright, drawing less attention to the butt/crotch area and more toward her back/pack (to be fair, I'd probably stand that way too if my shorts were that far up my bum).

 

[09philj]

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Widowmaker is a very sexual character and it makes sense for her to pose like that, while Tracer is more happy go lucky and it doesn't fit her that much.

I fail to see how the Madonna Whore complex applies, considering no one is calling Widowmaker a slut or demanding that Tracer take off those tight fitting pants of hers, or that Mercy's boobs shouldn't be on such display, or that Symmetra shouldn't be showing off her legs that much. I just...where are you getting all of these arguments from? But then again, when in doubt, just call anyone who ever criticized anything sexual in a game a puritan.

The pose does work for Tracer. It's a cheeky backward glance towards the player/her comrades which is slightly flirtatious. Both of the other standing poses she has have a similar feel.

 

[Travis Fischer]

Widowmaker is a very sexual character and it makes sense for her to pose like that, while Tracer is more happy go lucky and it doesn't fit her that much.

She's. Just. Standing.

It makes sense for anybody to pose like that because it's literally just standing and looking over your shoulder. You are sexualizing... standing.

 

[Baresark]

I'm a bit confused. They are removing the pose but it reads like, "we decided to do it, you have nothing to do with it".

I doubt they had nothing to do with it. Because if no one said anything I have every confidence that the pose would still be there. I love how people are like, "it doesn't fit her character anyway". From everything I have seen, it does seem to fit her character, though I will never claim to be an expert on the games lore.

Also, for the sake of argument: There are people in real life who take very much pride in their physical appearance (and yes, how sexy they are, both sexes do this though not everyone in each sex does it). It's fine if they wanted to remove it, I don't really care. But I love how a bunch of morons treat this like some kind of victory. You aren't changing life, you are just making it so characters in games can never be compared to some people in real life. But I guess I must take into account the only type of woman I am ever to respect are ones who are essentially victims. Ones who are downtrodden and hideous, landed by fate into life situations that are terrible. I am not to respect women who care about and are proud of what they look like, are confident and hard working and aren't held back by anything.

 

[Therumancer]

I was just out this weekend and noticed a lot of women wearing yoga pants. I'm a man in my prime; sue me. In fact, I suspect that they weren't even going to workout at any point. I think they just like wearing yoga pants, and it has become an accepted form of attire nowadays. You can literately see every curve of their asses in them, whether you want to or not.

All I see from this screenshot is a cartoon character with unrealistic body proportions wearing yoga pants. It seems to me that the pose is only sexual because Tracer's ass is visible from yoga pants. If anything, the pose isn't the problem here. The character needs to redesigned in different clothes.

As for me, this is a complete nonissue. I doubt Tracer's ass is going cause the end of the world, and I thought the complaint from the forum post was a little dumb. The fact that Fipps has a daughter adds nothing to the conversation either. What does that have to do with yoga pants? However, I care so little that I almost didn't even want to pipe in about the issue. Do whatever you want with Tracer's design. All I care about is if the game is actually any good.

To me that shows some skewed priorities and exactly why the gaming industry is in the position it is right now. Censorship needs to take priority over whether a game is good or not because if people buy censored products there is no incentive for the industry to not continually censor every time someone decides to get offended. Cow towing to the easily offended who take the time to be offended becomes the path of least resistance. The ongoing problems with censorship are a bigger deal in my opinion than even a couple hundred hours of enjoyment from a video game.

Of course I've been saying this since the release of "Silent Hill 2" which was censored based on reactions to the demo, games keep selling as people run out lemminglike to buy them after censorship, and thus it doesn't take much time at all nowadays from things to go from complaint to censorship. Cutting a piece of artwork 48 hours after a feminist rant about it is disturbing, especially for a company like Blizzard that drags it's feet about everything, and shows exactly how casual the biggest companies have become over slicing content.

 

[Naldan]

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Oh and no. I will not fuck off. (Kind of ironic. You talk about censorship so much and then you censor yourself saying the word fuck.)

Yeah, this is the escapist's forum, not mine. I sometimes can't see why the mods warn people, so I took precautions.

1. Your link doesn't work.

2. I clearly stated that this particular case is "just" very suspicious.

3. If you deny that this outrage->cave-in is carried out frequently and makes cases like this seem to be very unlikely to happen because of this bullying, then please explain to me:

Why was Pillars of Eternity changed? Why was DoA Xtreme 3 barred from a release in NA? Why was GTA5 barred from Target in NZ? Why was the new Fire Emblem changed? What about Deus Ex: Mechanical Apartheid? What about Street Fighter 5?

Just from the top of my head.

So what happened? Do you think these were done for the artist's sake? If so, you're either lying or ignorant. And both does create resistance.

And this is everywhere, not just in gaming.

You generalize again. Why do you think that you'd know why people support Trump? Everybody because of one reason? Because he rallies racists with his remarks?

Yes. This definitely creates pushback. Ignorance especially. We're just talking about the gaming industry here. I've seen black people supporting Trump. I know of one game dev who's black and supports him. If he'd blame his misery (whatever that may be in your opinion) on people who are against racism, and he'd support Trump, it wouldn't make much sense now would it?

A huge deal of people are fed up with authoritarian people who even come into industries and tell devs that they must delete an optional pose they deem sexist for example. They're fed up of people who call all of them racists because they support Trump, because apparently, Trump is a racist.

So yes, in my opinion, stuff like this produces Trump supporters. I think this is horrible. But I don't know if you're a horrible person. Why you exaggerate so much is beyond me. I hope there is more to you than that.

 

[MHR]

Someone plz tell me where the female sex symbol stops and the female empowerment begins? If Tracer wanted to pose that way, and all the other characters get to pose that way, why can she now not? Because a single other woman said she can't? Would it help if a female dev made the pose? Because just by staring at this picture of an ass, it's been awful hard for me to tell who should be offended by it objectively, and I want to know which paperwork to file for PC permit.

And I'm not buying that developer post implying it being entirely their own decision, especially not when the other characters have the same pose, but inexplicably, the sexy character now doesn't. This sort of stuff breeds an atmosphere where nobody ends up keeping nice things. It's easy to laugh at the idea of the SJW manipulating your shit from the shadows just by whining, but this is a real example.

 

[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".

The poster's logic appears to run that because Tracer has one mildly sexualised pose, that undermines all the rest of the character development and just makes her a sex object. Is this not just slightly mental?

Uhhhh, no. Because the pose, considering there's no other hints of sexuality from Tracer from what I'm aware, does kinda make it tonally inconsistent with her character. Is it a minor thing for someone to pick up on? Sure. But I don't think their logic is wrong, necessarily.

 

[Erttheking]

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No no no, you don't seem to understand how it works. You're both being calm and rational. You're supposed to call me a puritan or something to that effect.

To be perfectly frank I myself don't think it's THAT sexual. I'm just explaining the difference between her and Widowmaker and why accusations of double standards don't really work.