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

[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?

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.

All the sexuality comes from the way Tracer was designed, IE with curves and spandex trousers. The pose merely draws attention to that, IE it shows her from behind.

 

[Dragonbums]

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.

I'm getting pissy because I'm tired of gamers talking out of their ass over things they don't know about and making faux outrage over it.
It's especially maddening when they take up the mantle of 'artistic freedom' when really it's only 'support devs on whatever they want unless I don't like it'

[quot]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.[/quote]

Cool, than if your familiar with the process, why is this situation foreign to you? Do you not get feedback from other people during the creation of your writing? Do you not have someone tells you what works/doesn't work, doesn't fit in?
Because if you altered something in your work based on the feedback of anyone than according to gamers this is censorship. You would call it- taking fucking criticism.
In this case you have a single person making a level toned OP post stating that the pose Tracker has seems out of place with her character. Blizzard responded with 'eh, yeah. We didn't like it anyway we will remove it.'
Woe is me, they worked hard on that pose. I'm pretty sure if it takes you insurmountable amount of work to put a character in a single pose, than chances are you aren't experienced or fast enough to work at Blizzard. Yet alone make a game of that tier in a timely and efficient manner.

Never anything that I spent a decent amount writing, say a chapter or entire character.

Hate to break it to you, but the professional art world doesn't operate like that. If multiple people are saying your character is trite shit than it would probably be better for you to change it. Throwing a hissy fit and saying 'no' because you spent time on it doesn't change the fact that it's still shit.
You NEVER get super invested in any product you do. That's the fastest way to get absolutely nowhere in whatever creative endeavors you do.

Pick up a production/concept art book sometime. You'll see that devs would go all the way to the 3D modeling of said character and they decided to scrap it. All those hours down the drain. Doesn't matter because the newer end product came out much better than the original.

 

[Ishigami]

For me the issue is not the pose, neither the removal or replacement of said pose but Blizzards reaction.
I'm fairly certain that many here are also active in at least one forum that belongs to a developer of a game they play.
When was the last time you had concern about something game related and an actually important staff member of a global player, not some community manager or indie, answered directly to your concern? I think the average answer to that will be NEVER.
And some here might have had some actually important concern not some graphical nit-picking.

This indicates for me that there is some serious pressure being put on by the progressives or at least that Blizzard might have thought that if they do not react immediately that they will. What Jeff basically tried is to prevent a shit storm.
His careless replay obviously caused one from the conservatives instead.

Listen: If he actually wanted to replace that animation anyway why not do it as they always do, even if this post may have been the straw to break the camel's back? Simply replace it and mention it in the patch notes. Done.
No, he had to go to the board himself and apologize to a random user.
As I know it you usually need some important issue, some research and prove that it is actually an issue, good arguments why should be changed, some realistic idea how it could be changed and then some thousand supporters to get a community manager to forward the issue to the developers after a 50+ page topic.
When you experience this than you are bound to think "what the fuck" when someone nit-picks some graphics that are a none issue and gets a replay by the game director himself.

His update is bound to be seen as damage control.
Poor performance Blizzard, poor performance. Next time just patch your damn game the way you want and don't apologize for it...

 

[Cheesy Goodness]

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.

I can't say I disagree with anything you're saying.

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).

That's basically what I was saying. She is being sexualized because of her tight pants that insinuates every inch of her ass. The pose has little to do with it.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

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

Then all they had to do was quietly remove and replace it. Then, if people on the Internet kick up a fuss, say these exact words: "We didn't feel like the pose fit her character, so we changed it."

Instead, they decided to make it about inclusivity. They even went out of their way to credit a forum post in their decision to make the change, and that was their mistake. They don't get to make the "we offended someone" argument and then go back and say that the decision was made for artistic reasons; that reeks of damage control.

Blizzard apparently didn't think that the reasons for their change would touch a sore nerve in the gaming community; I would think a Western developer would see the recent trend of content changes and react accordingly.

But, that's Blizzard for you.

 

[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.

All the sexuality comes from the way Tracer was designed, IE with curves and spandex trousers. The pose merely draws attention to that, IE it shows her from behind.

But (heh) how much has does it get focus, either in-game or out, outside of the pose? If there's been more than the pose, fair enough. If not, then I don't think it should be that difficult to see why this one pose is a tad jarring.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

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.

This isn't the politics and religion forum, but the irony of this struck me. The overwhelming point of commonality between Trump supporters is a support for authoritarianism. Trump's appeal to authoritarian principles is what drives the popularity of his campaign. He's not anti-authoritarian. That is, naturally, completely off topic though.

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.

You are correct. That actually supports the argument that this was something they'd already discussed internally at great length.

You could of course choose to view Blizzard's explanation and any evidence supporting it as a smokescreen, but when you start to accept the absence of evidence as evidence for your theories, you're headed down a pretty tricky psychological slope.

 

[EMWISE94]

Anytime I see a thread like this I'm usually in here for two reasons:

- The people who see these kind of changes (a developer making a change, whether prompted by some feedback from an external fanbase or the internal team) as another mortar strike from the 'Censorship Army' or whatever they choose to call it, that superpower that goes around bringing devs to their knees and FORCING them to make changes!

- To possibly gather what few snippets of actual debate might be happening around the subject matter, actual debate, not people pointing at shadows and tossing blame but sitting down and discussing the events that have transpired and what can be learned from them in any way.

But for the most part I'm done with these kinds of topics, not because these kinds of threads quickly derail into the usual mud slinging affair of "Curse those evil non-video-game-playing SJWs ruining mah games", but usually because for me when a thing like this happens I'd personally like to know, from a design standpoint, WHY?

Okay Blizzard you changed the pose, not because you were forced to but because you wanted to after somebody pointed it out and made the final click in your heads where you went "yeah that was a bit much lets change that.", but what I wanna know is while designing Tracer was this not something that somebody on the team maybe pointed out earlier? I'd like to know why Tracer pants hug that tightly around her cheeks in her 3D model? was it a conscious design decision or was it short hand similar to how a lot of female character designs (not just in Overwatch) have that similar design trait at times?

Hell it extends beyond Blizzard, Capcom, the supposed reason as to why the camera angles on R. Mika's super and Cammy's intro were to increase the number of audiences you appealed to with the game[footnote]http://www.usgamer.net/articles/street-fighter-v-changes-made-internally-to-reach-larger-audience[/footnote] but if that were the case what of Laura's intro? Was her design cemented to have that intro no matter what? or the angle for Chun Li's super which in her 'battle costume' gives a very saucy view of her assets, was this also taken into consideration with the changes made to appeal to a larger audience? Said changes which I'm assuming were to cut down on too much titillation with the female characters.

Like seriously, I'd kill to know,and I should probably point out that yes, I am somebody that finds pointless titillation in games a turn off BUT I will NEVER demand it gets changed if its the developers decision to have it in there, I mean sure I'd love for Cammy to have some form of redesign concerning her clothing cause I think that skin tight leotard was always dumb, but I'm not gonna go demanding Capcom change it, its just a thing which strikes a minus on a good package but nothing I'm gonna throw a fit about, same way I didn't throw a fit when R. Mika was announced and her trailer dropped (with my thoughts being "wow, they made this character bear it ALL, not my thing, her playstyle looks cool though.") nor did I do it for Laura... who i just think is a lazy design somewhat.

Back back to the topic on hand, one thing that always gets to me is when people rage at a developer for making a change based off feedback like this one, usually painting the people that made the feedback as totalitarian dictators out to ruin the video game world as we know it. It always gets to me because... really? Do you honestly think that a big developer like Blizzard would make this change if it wasn't something they also agreed upon? Some previous posts mentioned how they ignored feedback on some other crucial gameplay related stuff like nerfs to character classes in WoW, but they chose to ignore that because as a team, they made that decision and chose to stick with it because they believed in it. Hell I've never heard of a developer going "we made these changes because external forces MADE us do it and we couldn't do anything about it... it sucks cause we really wanted to go through with it." Well, actually the Xbone launch comes to mind but in that case the changes literally saved that console's run out the gate, and even so MS in the end decided to make those changes, they could have chosen not to, but they did.

Anyway this post ran on longer than I wanted it to but I got my piece out there.

 

[Naldan]

Snip

I've never said the contrary. I personally think that he's lying most of the time. And Trump -makes the impression- that he were anti-establishment. As always, the authority people are against is the authority they don't like, of course. But as soon as it's not against them or violates their opinion, it's a-ok.

But this gets off-topic since people don't see that this is a tiny part of what drives people to someone so popularistic.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

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

Except it isn't. At all.

People keep using that word. "Cave" Implying that they did all of this unwillingly. The concept of willingly changing your work because of feedback seems to be an alien concept on the internet nowadays.

You are using a lot, a LOT of loaded language. Trying to tilt what happened to make it look like what it isn't. DOAX3 wasn't barred, nothing is stopping the publishers from releasing it. They decided not to. Because of poor sales.
The company said that, but people are more concerned with what playasia said. As opposed to the people who actually made the game. Likewise, GTAV was not barred, the store willingly stopped carrying it. A store that didn't have games as its main product. And then there's "Bullying" because apparently it's impossible that the devs wanted to do this. Street Fighter was because of a completely internal decision, right out of the developer's mouth, but like with DOAX3 people ignored that. And then started a petition to get the butt slap put back in. Because apparently that isn't bullying but everything else is. Double standards...double standards. Nintendo of America made a lot of changes to Fire Emblem, trying to make Nohr less obviously the bad guys, making a lot of the characters more likable by changing their personalities, and all of this was described as being par for the course. The changes to the petting were a part of that package There was no "bullying" And the text in Pillars of Eternity was changed after the devs got permission from the guy that put it in. And then he put in something saying "Fuck you" to everyone who had disagreed with him. So yeah. I'm not seeing any evidence of the bullying that apparently is such a big deal. Frankly it sounds more like you don't like the changes and that's it. And as for Dues Ex...well, they apologized because something that they said didn't come off the way they meant it to. but stood by it. That's it.

I'm ignorant? Begging your pardon, you're the one that seems woefully uninformed on the matter. And I'd like it very much if you didn't insult me by accusing me of lying or being ignorant. While we're at it, I'd like it if you stopped using loaded language too.

What's everywhere? Nontroversies with people overreacting? You're not wrong there.

You're generalizing too, but for some reason it's more acceptable when you do it. And to be frank I feel like my generalization is more accurate, considering I've never seen Donald Trump bring up censorship, espically censorship that turned out to be independently made decisions in video game development. Well, I actually live in the country he's running to be president of. That's a start. I live with a father who is highly sympathetic to him and keeps hammering it into my head that the reason that he's so popular is that he's promising to do something about that. Oh and that wall he's promising is just about the only thing he's consistent on and keeps hammering in. That's why. Is it everything? No, but it's a core part of his support.

I never got this argument. "I know one black person who says this isn't racist." Yeah...and I know that there are black people who think that it is racist. Does the opinion of the person you know matter more than everyone else's? I swear I keep seeing this. People seeing one woman say she doesn't like feminism and apparently that disproves feminism entirely. (Plus his racism is more directed against hispanics than Africans)

When that actually happens, let me know. You're using loaded language again. No one is saying that they MUST do something. A willing change happened. You just don't like it. Well he IS racist. The guy said the majority of people coming in from Mexico were rapist and criminals "And I assume some of them are good people". Some. A minority. Yeah. He's racist.

In my opinion, your opinion is poorly formed. I don't really see the connection. At all. I've heard Trump supporters talk about a lot of things, and depiction of women in media NEVER comes up. Ever. And don't accuse me of exaggeration with all of the loaded language in your arguments.

And once again, I must refuse your wish. I will not "fuck off" despite your desire that I do so.

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

those trousers make her legs look like carrots

 

[Naldan]

...

Read the Techraptor article. There was evidence before this? Well, not where you linked to.

No. Instead, it was first said by themselves, as quoted even in this article here on the escapist, that it was exactly because they want everyone to be happy with it. Need that quote again?

We?ll replace the pose. We want *everyone* to feel strong and heroic in our community. The last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented.
Apologies and we?ll continue to try to do better.

Then he said that it wasn't because of this. Instead, (read the articles), he stated that

That the pose had been called into question from an appropriateness standpoint by players in our community did help influence our decision?getting that kind of feedback is part of the reason we?re holding a closed beta test?but it wasn?t the only factor. We made the decision to go with a different pose in part because we shared some of the same concerns, but also because we wanted to create something better.

They reacted to the thread opened with this:

WHAT? What about this pose has anything to do with the character you?re building in tracer? It?s not fun, its not silly, it has nothing to do with being a fast elite killer. It just reduces tracer to another bland female sex symbol.

So they produced the pose. They created the pose, they approved the pose internally.

They released the pose.

They got backlash.

They then agreed with the backlash, previously they were all blind to themselves creating "another bland female sex symbol".

They themself say that they did this in reaction to the feedback.

And now you are here trying to tell me that this is all for the sake of creative freedom?

Sorry for not bothering with the rest. Your statements about the DoAX3 fiasco bear so many half-truths like missing the statement about them fearing backlash from the press or that DoAX3 sold best in the west that I don't bother answering to the rest.

Have your opinion, I have mine.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

OMG, AND THE MINORITY BLACK LOOKING (really Brazilian) CHARACTER JUST LOVES TO DANCE! ARE YOU SAYING ALL US BLACK FOLK LOVE TO DANCE?
[/Totes sarcasm, y'all]

Here's a prevailing thought for all the crusaders who want to rid the world of decadence.

If you don't have an example of what not to be, then people do not know what not to be like. Simply put, if you didn't have a Miley Cyrus, you don't have an example to point to children and say "That woman have no respect for herself".

Also? My high school cheerleaders were more sexually provocative. If you just see a bit of the female form and all you think of is sex, then you're the one with the problem. Not everyone else.

And that's coming from a straight man who LOVES the female form.

 

[Something Amyss]

But for the most part I'm done with these kinds of topics, not because these kinds of threads quickly derail into the usual mud slinging affair of "Curse those evil non-video-game-playing SJWs ruining mah games", but usually because for me when a thing like this happens I'd personally like to know, from a design standpoint, WHY?

Well, you're not going to get an answer from them here.

Ever create anything? I'm a writer and a musician and I occasionally edit together shitty videos. Sometimes, when I'm making something it seems fine. And then I go back and look at it/read it/listen to it/whatever and it doesn't sit as well with me. Maybe it's the larger picture. Mabe it just doesn't look right when I'm not in that moment. It seemed a good idea at the time, as it were.

Keep in mind, this wasn't about her tights being so tight. The commenter in question even uses an animation of her in the same outfit and calls it amazing.

It's not about sexuality. Tracer is contrasted with another character in that regard.

It's about it fitting with the character itself.

Personally, I don't give a crap. I've never played Overwatch and it doesn't look iteresting to me and in fact I probably wouldn't be in this thread if I didn't wake up to people talking about the game and I hadn't therefore clicked on the news story to see what the controversy was. So maybe the character argument isn't a valid one,I don't know. The post that spawned all of this is literally all of the Tracer I've seen, so she could have framed it in a consistent but dishonest way, I don't know.

The tights might not seem like such a big deal in other contexts, though.

 

[RaikuFA]

Never even heard of this game until now. Looks like shit, is probably shit and will only sell because its got Blizzards name on it.

Now I'm going back to kicking ass in Senran Kagura. Or Hyrule Warriors as Linkle.

 

[kurupt87]

Man, it's hard enough getting titillated in this tit-centric world as an ass-man.

Now they get rid of one of the rare examples because they saw a good excuse for some sexploitation PR.

Fuckers.

 

[EMWISE94]

Well, you're not going to get an answer from them here.

Ever create anything?

Actually yes, being an artist I create a lot and one the things I do an unhealthy amount is doodling and drawing character designs so thats actually why I burn with an unhealthy to know the resigns behind a design. Anytime I sketch up a character design I always ask myself why, why this colour pallete? why are they dressed like this and does it fit their profession? why is this design suited for this particular story universe and not the other?

Shoot one day if the stars align or what have you I'd like to grab all the character designs that I like but one thing or another about them maybe irks me and sit down with their designers and just figure out whats the dealio.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

A general statement explaining the general idea behind the change, and then a clarification because the internet takes itself too seriously. I fail to see the contradiction. And I read the post. It was a very civil, detailed and polite post. It even started off by praising Overwatch overall before moving on to criticize one teeny tiny part of it I fail to see what's so terrible about it. "Previously they were blind" Except for the article that claims that it was controversial internally and they had been heavily debating about it. Do you need the link again? I'll give you the link again. Yeah I do. It's a change followed by PR control because people on the internet mistake creative freedom as censorship and fancy themselves champions of freedom.

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

As the game director, I have final creative say over what does or does not go into the game. With this particular decision, it was an easy one to make?not just for me, but for the art team as well. We actually already have an alternate pose that we love and we feel speaks more to the character of Tracer. We weren?t entirely happy with the original pose, it was always one that we wrestled with creatively

They announced that it wouldn't be sold in the west MONTHS before controversy happened, and poor sales was the source cited. No one had a problem with it then. The game that wasn't released in the west sold best in the west? I beg your pardon? Oh you mean the previous games in the series, yes they sold better...because they were exclusive to Xbox and Xbox 360, which sold poorly in Japan. DOAX3 isn't. So...yeah.

Oh and if you're not going to "bother with the rest" then don't bother replying at all, because half responses that ignore my points are a waste of my time.

It's not your opinion when you claim things that are inaccurate.

 

[BX3]

Oh, sure... they can remove the pose. But no matter how many animation alterations they make, they will never remove... Tha booty.
http://www.entravity.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/space-dandy-anime1.jpg

...

...er... unless in a later patch they, in fact, decide to remove tha booty.

Then, all will truly be lost. For now though, meh, it's just a pose. They clearly still want her to have a small bit of sex appeal, otherwise they'd change the tights. The whole "We don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable" thing comes off as disingenuous though, and seems to have made the situation worse. If you no longer like the pose, just say you no longer like the pose, my dude. I don't like a lot of things about my work.

Honestly, the only thing that REALLY irks me about this news is that if my friend finds out about it (and he WILL find out), I'll have to hear him ***** for ANOTHER full on hour about censorship while farting out the term "SJW" numerously and un-ironically... again. That'll be fun....