Blizzard "Trying Not to Oversexualize" Female Overwatch Characters

[Daaaah Whoosh]

Anyone remember how Bungie has been putting in non-sexualized female playable characters since back in Halo 3? No? That's because they don't make a big deal out of it. And that's how it should be, if we ever hope to live in a world where this kind of thing isn't news-worthy.

 

[cikame]

It's a tricky issue, historically video game characters have more often than not been male, over time developers introduced more and more female characters as the industry matured.
But here's the thing, if we go too far with this and i'm given a choice between an awesome unrealistic male character, or a generic true to life female character, i'll choose the male one... and is that still good for female characters in games, to make them less popular?

I like characters to be sexy, be it a half naked muscular male who dominates everything through sheer power or, because i'm a man, a confident lady who is good to look at.

 

[Skeleon]

I'm... surprised that Metzen would be so clear on the issue. I mean, he's the guy who drew all these overly masculine warrior and sorcerer pictures for the Warcraft and other handbooks, the very Warhammer-ish style of overblown pauldrons and tons and tons adornments and so on, all very macho and whatnot. He certainly didn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd worry about such things, but maybe he's grown along with his family. Or maybe I'm unfair to him. I mean, I did think his stuff was awesome when I was younger, despite how utterly ridiculous much of it looked, but it certainly struck me as very juvenile even back then. Also, the sniper at the very least in this trailer is quite sexualized. Though I guess there's no reason not to have any, just ensure it's not nothing but. I guess?

 

[Lightspeaker]

I like how racially diverse it is. Germans, Swedes, Egyptians, Indians, Nepalese... Pretty good so far. Just needs a few black and Hispanic characters and it'll be set.

Spoiler

In the cinematic trailer, we see this image where there is indeed a black guy. Whether or not he'll be playable is up to guess, but I'm tempted to that that he will be, it's just that blizzard hasn't implemented the whole roster of heroes to pick from yet, hence why he wasn't seen in the gameplay trailer.

That's awesome, it looks like there's a female robot in there as well, which would be the first non-human female character. I mean, I know robots don't have genders, but it looks like she'll have a female personality like the robot monk has a male personality.

If I get a choice of characters, I always prefer the black guy. I'm happy to see there is at least one. I just hope they don't take a super long time putting him the game (like Rexxar in HotS).

Reading on team liquid I noted an interesting post on this subject. Firstly the full splash image is here (via Forbes):

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/insertcoin/files/2014/11/overwatch111.jpg

You've got that robot you mentioned, plus a female-looking character to the right of Reinhardt right at the back. However there's also a bunch of ambiguous characters.

Noteworthy: Bottom left ambiguous Hazmat suit, could be male/female/black/white/whatever. Reinhardt-like counterpart in massive red armour on the right also ambiguous. Just off Reinhardt's shoulder flying armour person rather like Pharah but NOT her (its an Overwatch image and she was never Overwatch).

Nothing to say anything about any of these characters' race or gender. The apparent assumption that "ambiguous therefore white male" is pretty sexist to be honest. Any could easily be female or from any race.



Anyway, I read the first page of comments and I'm not reading any more beyond that because frankly its pretty awful reading. My god there's a lot of miserable people on this forum. I'm just going to stay hyped over Overwatch and go back to poring over the gameplay trailers.

 

[DrOswald]

and in Warcraft news as a part of the graphic update Underboob added to armor.

Try failed.

The vast, vast majority of female clothing in world of warcraft is modest. If you want a sexy set of armor you are going to have to track that shit down and you are going to spend either a lot of time or a lot of gold doing it. World of Warcraft has female player characters with a wide representation of body types (everything but fat is represented), NPC females with every conceivable body type, and a vast and varied array of modest clothing to choose from. And it still isn't good enough, because someone somewhere can obtain armor that shows some underboob.

This leads me to the following conclusion: Nothing but complete and total elimination of female sexuality is good enough for you. As long as the option even exists for people to make their avatar sexy you are going to complain.

 

[theNater]

That's actually a really good point. When you ask most women about their ideal body image, it's always hulked-up...

Most women? No. Some women? Yes. Do a Google image search for female bodybuilders and you'll see a number of women who do think hulked-up is the ideal.

What's wrong with having a character who looks like that alongside Widowmaker and Symmetra, for those who prefer it?

Never mind that many other game devs have been doing the exact same thing but didn't feel the need to make it a Press Release over it.

Blizzard didn't make a press release about sexualization. It was mentioned during the press event at which Overwatch was announced; and if I remember rightly, it was in response to a question.

For evidence, let's look at the kind of man who appears on the cover of women's erotic novels:

Spoiler: Possibly NSFW

Or, what about the kind of men who women actually pay good money to see strip?

Spoiler: Ditto

The men usually pointed at as "oversexualized" are generally as or more muscular than those gentlemen; Kratos is on the top end and Marcus Fenix is more heavily muscled than almost all of them. Meanwhile, I'm having a hard time thinking of a sexualized male character built like the young man on the cover of Kangaroo Voyeurs who wasn't also a vampire. To me, this suggests that matching these appearances is competing with some other factor in the design of those characters.

 

[Something Amyss]

I mean, this is how my paladin looks nowadays:

Spoiler

I want those glasses!

On a more serious note, I take it WoW doesn't do things like cosmetic/functional, then? Most of the MMOs I've dabbled with (which, admittedly, hasn't been many) allow you to upgrade appearance and function with some level of independence. I'm a fan of this approach because you can literally choose your style and not be punished for it. And honestly, it seems like everybody wins. You can look like a badass or a booth babe, or anything in between.

It just seems like literally the easiest solution, too.

 

[Ticklefist]

TBH it looks like a transmog someone posted on the internet and you in all your naivete have taken the picture and fabricated a story around it.

It is indeed a picture I just googled of the armor I got at the time, but with some diferences that I am sure you just pointed out -and I also played a Dranei-, but I had no intention of resubscribing to the game, download and install it just to get a screencap for a single post on this forum... Is that honestly what you would expect me to do?

You're a liar and should be ashamed.

You're a shithead for asuming I lied. It has been like 6 or 7 years since I played that game; so sorry I didn't keep a screenshot for all this time so that a person I didn't even know existed until now wouldn't think I was lying.

While I totally believe everything you just siad to me, you passed that picture off as your own. You weren't being straight about it. Now you are. Better late than never.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I mean, this is how my paladin looks nowadays:

Spoiler

I want those glasses!

Only reason I took up Engineering.

Edit: Yeah, there's a transmog system in the game. It's limited to items that share an armour class, mind you.

 

[Dogstile]

I mean, this is how my paladin looks nowadays:

Spoiler

I want those glasses!

Only reason I took up Engineering.

Edit: Yeah, there's a transmog system in the game. It's limited to items that share an armour class, mind you.

That's a good thing, to be honest. Seeing if someones wearing plate or cloth changes how you fight massively.

 

[Ticklefist]

I mean, this is how my paladin looks nowadays:

Spoiler

I want those glasses!

Only reason I took up Engineering.

Edit: Yeah, there's a transmog system in the game. It's limited to items that share an armour class, mind you.

That's a good thing, to be honest. Seeing if someones wearing plate or cloth changes how you fight massively.

Well that's one of the limitations. You have to stay within your armor class.

 

[Ticklefist]

While I totally believe everything you just siad to me, you passed that picture off as your own. You weren't being straight about it. Now you are. Better late than never.

I never said that picture was my own, and I don't understand why there is a need for me to specify it wasn't. Like pretty much anyone else posting pictures to a forum discussion I had a need for a visual aid because it would make it so much easier than having to describe the armor using only words, so I did a very simple google search and picked the first picture to pop up that was close enough to what I remember having in the game.

But ok... I did NOT screencap the image posted myself, I just googled it. I DID screencap my avatar myself, but I did not draw it and was in no way involved in the production of that particular Kim Possible episode or indeed any other Kim Possible episode or other Disney license. It is only there as a way for me to convey a little bit of what I enjoy to other people using the forum, and also it's a cheeky and adorible expression and Shego is a major girl-crush of mine.

That's right, I'm the asshole. Oh well, at least you stopped lying.

Ooops, you edited your post...

Indeed, you ARE the over-reacting asshole. And I didn't specifically state that the image I used was not my own, so I guess I am too. I won't drag anyone else into this discussion by quoting posts where they too use images that they did not screencap themselves without specifying it, but there are plenty... Just look around! I'm sure you'll have fun calling them all liars.

I edited it again even. Look, I don't wanna argue with people. You could have been clearer about it, I could have been nicer about it. Have a good day.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

Way to cater to a tiny minority Blizzard. Who keeps saying feminists have no influence?

Honestly art design is art design, if they want to make characters however they want, who cares. Blizzard has a rep for quality gameplay, not flashy graphics or supermodel characters.

But this sets a bad precedent. Feminists are never happy with anything. Give them an inch and they take a mile. Expect endless "empowerment" discussions. Expect arguing over every female character's role in the story. Expect arguments over femininity vs masculinity. Expect gay and trans characters being demanded. Expect accusations of "heteronormative hegemony." Expect a cavalcade of endless bullshit.

In short, gaming becomes a feminist battleground, which is exactly what they want. Feminism drives men away, hobby stagnates and dies, and feminism looks for its next victim. People will say I'm crazy, this is a slippery slope argument, I'm a misogynist, etc. Whatever. I'm calling it now. This shit is bananas.

(edit: grammar)

Are you sure that's what happened? Because based on the interview, your version sound a little like fiction. Maybe it's true, but it certainly is not based on the interview and therefore baseless speculation.

Here's what I get.
A) Game developers became fathers, and the reactions of their daughters is starting to shift the developers views. (As I elablorated more in a previous post.)
B) Female game developers within Blizzard have been speaking up. Which is what most naysayers argue to shut down critiques on female portrayal: "Then make your own game." These female employees are literally doing that within the context of a large gaming company; they are making their voices heard on the sort of game they want and Blizzard is starting to shift.

Both causes of the partial shift in Blizzard's thinking are quite natural and hardly nefarious.

 

[NoX 9]

I edited it again even. Look, I don't wanna argue with people. Have a good day.

Fair enough, I didn't really want to have an argument myself -certainly not this kind of argument-, just add my small voice to this whole discussion. There's just something about your pointelessly agressive response to my initial post that kicked me into defensive mode...

I'm sorry, I am not as horrible as I may have seemed just now. Or maybe I am, but I TRY not to be. Have a good 'un.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Hey now, he did say "oversexualised" not "sexualised" so it's ok then!

 

[Grampy_bone]

In short, gaming becomes a feminist battleground, which is exactly what they want. Feminism drives men away, hobby stagnates and dies, and feminism looks for its next victim. People will say I'm crazy, this is a slippery slope argument, I'm a misogynist, etc. Whatever. I'm calling it now. This shit is bananas.

Ahh yes, the "feminist takeover" that's been coming for something like twenty years now.

It's the gamer equivalent of end of the world prophecies, or liberals taking away American guns.

Hey, remember in 2012 when the world ended after Obama forcibly rounded up all our weapons? Oh, right, that was a bunch of unfounded nonsense and scare mongering.

You notice how music, film, television, and so on are still around? Weird how your predictions have no real-world predictive value.

Obama, gun control, music, film, and television, were not mentioned at all in my post. Hey why don't you stop putting words into my mouth there chief? Also: I am a liberal.

For the record, feminism has ruined: Tumblr, the national forestry service, science fiction and fantasy writing, atheism communities, academia, all major western religions, Canada, Sweden, divorce and marriage laws, rape laws, any male-only club in existence, and the bill of rights in regards to free speech and due process. Feel free to debate each one point by point, but I feel that would be off-topic for this thread.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Particularly nice since it's Blizzard. One of their developers through a proper hissy fit when RPS asked about some of the stripperific Heroes of the Swarm designs (they weren't even too bad, but the developer just said the stupidest things in response. Blizards PR team had to step in and give him a talking too)

To be fair to the developer he thought he was doing a little PR chat about their new game when RPS kind of ambushed him with gender equality issues. He handled it poorly, for sure, but RPS actually apologized for how it handled the situation too, becoming part of the news and not just reporting it.

EDIT: I was thinking about it, and if any game is easy for them to do this with, it is this Pixar-like TF clone.

 

[Ishal]

Pretty late to the party, but yeah... I actually like this.

Maybe I'll even have time to get a better computer good enough to play it by the time it comes out. It seems like Overwatch is trying to find it's own place in the genres it's occupying. It's cartoony, but not TF2 levels of cartoony. It's charming and funny, but again, not TF2 levels of it. Which is good, imo.

I like the characters, too. Some of them are sexualized like Widowmaker and uh.. the portal girl, uh... Symmetra. But, I dunno, I like them. I'm glad they're drawn that way. Kinda makes them look cool and confident. But Tracer and Pharah are pretty cool, too. Variety and all that. I'm just glad the tone is a bit more serious and... moderate, i guess? Than something like Borderlands. BL is too far in the other direction for me.

Yeah, looks like a lot of fun.

 

[Falling_v1legacy]

In short, gaming becomes a feminist battleground, which is exactly what they want. Feminism drives men away, hobby stagnates and dies, and feminism looks for its next victim. People will say I'm crazy, this is a slippery slope argument, I'm a misogynist, etc. Whatever. I'm calling it now. This shit is bananas.

Ahh yes, the "feminist takeover" that's been coming for something like twenty years now.

It's the gamer equivalent of end of the world prophecies, or liberals taking away American guns.

Hey, remember in 2012 when the world ended after Obama forcibly rounded up all our weapons? Oh, right, that was a bunch of unfounded nonsense and scare mongering.

You notice how music, film, television, and so on are still around? Weird how your predictions have no real-world predictive value.

Obama, gun control, music, film, and television, were not mentioned at all in my post. Hey why don't you stop putting words into my mouth there chief? Also: I am a liberal.

For the record, feminism has ruined: Tumblr, the national forestry service, science fiction and fantasy writing

As those two are my genres of choice, I am actually curious in what way you think that has happened, but perhaps it would be better if you replied in pm so as to not take it off-topic (If you don't mind.) I'm not particulary interested in a debate so much as I am genuinely curious why you that is the case.

 

[PirateHeaventime]

I edited it again even. Look, I don't wanna argue with people. Have a good day.

Fair enough, I didn't really want to have an argument myself -certainly not this kind of argument-, just add my small voice to this whole discussion. There's just something about your pointelessly agressive response to my initial post that kicked me into defensive mode...

I'm sorry, I am not as horrible as I may have seemed just now. Or maybe I am, but I TRY not to be. Have a good 'un.

Nah you went into defensive mode because you were caught in a lie trying to make a game seem sexist. :^)