Controversial God of War: Ascension Trophy To Be Renamed

[anthony87]

You are very angry about changing a joke to not be demeaning to women. Think on that.

Except it's not demeaning to women....

That's an interesting argument you have there, you've definitely read my post and responded carefully to the issues I've raised. Good Lord, how wrong I was to find the achievement tasteless, you've sure opened my eyes.

Oh wait. No, you've done that other thing. Contributed exactly nothing to the discussion.

I'd rather contribute nothing than contribute a whole load of "wrong". You say that the joke (if it can even be called that) is demeaning to women, that's wrong. You say "The issue is that the game makes a joke about violence against women BECAUSE they are women.", the game doesn't do this. Wrong again.

What the game does is have a male character choose another male character over a female character that he knows. "Bro's before Ho's" is a term used by friends to express that one should hold his friends in higher regard than his girlfriend and the trophy name is used to illustrate that this is what just happened in the game.

Although it must be said, I'm not a big fan of "Bro's before Ho's". I'm more of a "Chums before Clunge" man myself ^_^.

 

[1337mokro]

You could punch Zeus into a bloody pulp. But when it happens to a woman. MISOGYNY! BRUTAL! EVIL!

The violent act in itself was not the cause of rage (it fits within the narrative, and it's not even as bloody as countless other kills in the series). Lots of female characters in other games have taken far worse punishment without a wave of rage spreading over the internet. Obviously gamers don't have any particular problem with the depiction of violence against women if it makes sense within the game and it's not specifically targeted at women just because they are women.

It's the combination of the violent act and the "Bros before hoes" name which causes the rage. The trophy name was chosen BECAUSE the enemy in question was female. The violence was justified in the game's narrative, but the trophy name turned it into a joke, deliberately focusing on the genders of the characters involved and trivializing the violent act, which would have been alright by itself.

The trophy was basically pointing and laughing and saying "LOL violence against women".

I don't normally like when things get too "politically correct", but there was a very valid complaint here.

So by that logic an achievement. OH I don't know "Your aim is Nuts" awarded for shooting men in the balls 100 times for example would spark similar outrage right? The violence has now because gender based and should spark outrage right? Right?!

No. Nobody gives a fuck about violence to men. That's why a joke achievement about testicular injury is HILARIOUS! But a bros before hos achievement is misogynistic and WRONG!!! Yeah mate that a double standard. Get over it.

Bros before pussy PC behaviour.

You make a good point, that I mostly agree with. This hypothetical "Your aim is Nuts" achievement SHOULD bear equal weight to "bros before hoes". It should be considered just as offensive, or on the other hand even nullify possible offense toward the "bros before hoes" achievement. In a world which just came into existence today with no past history, where women are represented as much as men.

However, we both know that the playing field is not even. Action games are developed by overwhelmingly male development teams, and are marketed toward a mostly-male demographic, so even in the case of that hypothetical achievement, the intent behind it is entirely different.

So the answer is to be positively discriminatory. Great! No solution at all but just to flip the scales for a while in the hope they even out.

 

[CaptainKarma]

Oh me oh my, some of you politically correct crusaders really need to move to the 3rd world or have a war happen to give you some perspective on what is important in life.

I will give you a clue... It is NOT having a hissy-fit over the definition of a word.

Have fun wasting your time fighting a battle that was over decades ago.

It can be misogynistic, or (to get pedantic over it) it can give the game a tone of implied misogyny, without the author's intent. If I make the logo of my company into a swastika by mistake it's still bloody offensive.

Oh me oh my, some of you politically correct crusaders really need to move to the 3rd world or have a war happen to give you some perspective on what is important in life.

I will give you a clue... It is NOT having a hissy-fit over the definition of a word.

Have fun wasting your time fighting a battle that was over decades ago.

Nobody is having a hissy-fit. Sessler expressed his discomfort, they changed the game, some people made a thread on the internet. The only people trying to whip up a fuss about it are people like you who want to make the critics look like frothing PC-lunatics so you can dismiss their valid claims.

 

[1337mokro]

You could punch Zeus into a bloody pulp. But when it happens to a woman. MISOGYNY! BRUTAL! EVIL!

Oh please! You could get a trophy for banging all the women in the game, who I would like to remind you are nothing more but sex objects in these games. No misogyny here. Nothing to worry about.

Fuck you! Lara Croft gets impaled through the head on spikes and I didn't see Adam Sessler stirring up a storm for this controversial unnecessary brutality that actually made me a feel uncomfortable. A pointless trophy in a franchise that prides itself on ultra violence and sex is what gets highlighted instead.

To get worked up over this is to get worked up about the Chinese store in my neighborhood that still has a giant sign over it saying Oriental. Because we collectively decided that Oriental was now offensive to.

Fuck Sessler and all the other PC pansies out there.

Did you even read the article? Or watch the video? The issue is explicitly NOT about beating up a woman. It's about a tasteless joke that implies that it is funny to beat up a woman SPECIFICALLY because she's a woman. That's gross.

Yes and it loses on BOTH fucking fronts. It is both an act of violence that is overshadowed by other acts of violence AND jokes like these are RAMPANT about male death/mutilation. Do I have to point out the Nutshots in Saints Row, Sniper Elite, a slew of other online shooter which are basically a joke on themselves about physical injury to males? Do I have to go through lists and lists and lists of achievements to gather a nice bag of joke achievements involving violence to men? I think I don't need to because we both know they exist.

Where was the uproar there? There was none because violence against men is funny! If you don't believe me watch Django unchained. Try not to laugh during the last shoot out and then compare the MASSIVE amount of violence to the way a woman dies in that movie. Day and fucking night because people get squeamish about female death/mutilation merely by the fact that it is a woman.

PC garbage is what this is nothing more.

You are very angry about changing a joke to not be demeaning to women. Think on that.

The issue, as the review said, as the article said, as I have said, as every fucking sensible person has said, is NOT that the game endorses violence against women. It is NOT that the game makes violence against women a joke. The issue is that the game makes a joke about violence against women BECAUSE they are women.

Yes, there are jokes made about male-specific violence (I won't lie, nut-shots are funny). But there is a difference between violence committed by men against men. In action movies and games etc nearly all violence is from a male perspective. It's men doing it, it's men receiving it. It's not a scene in which "a man gets shot in the nuts", it's a scene in which "a person gets shot in the nuts". The male is the default so the sexual nature is less of an issue. In a world without sexism we could make jokes about EVERYONE being shot in the genitals (and what a world that would be), but the problem with the achievement is that it implies a nasty "haha take that, wimmin!" attitude.

Anyway if you're passionate about your work you should resist self censorship wherever possible.

What? Why? How is self censorship a bad thing? Self censorship just seems to me to be the ability to step back and think "is this saying what I want it say, and ONLY what I want it to say, or is going to be hurtful/insulting in a way I don't intend". That's a damn good thing to do.

You seem to forget that this thread has over 100 replies.

And? That's nothing. It's a tiny thread. It's all irrelevant anyway. People could be massively overreacting and it wouldn't magically make the joke any more tasteful. I apologise if I'm misinterpreting you, but it does seem to me that you're using "you're overreacting" as code for "the original achievement is fine" which is a nonsense argument.

I would like to know how you got anger from text. What you perceived as anger was in fact just apathy and disdain for PC bullshit. You don't get anywhere by being PC. Man vs Woman violence is WRONG! Man vs Man or Woman vs Woman or Woman vs Man, that's all cool. But don't you dare have a man put one over on a woman. Though I find it funny that you view the man as the default when really it is only the default BECAUSE of the attitude towards women getting shot.

People requested women in games more than once and companies were reluctant as HELL to put them in because it hurts their bottom line. Positive discrimination is not a solution it just creates more problems.

 

[CaptainKarma]

I'd rather contribute nothing than contribute a whole load of "wrong". You say that the joke (if it can even be called that) is demeaning to women, that's wrong. You say "The issue is that the game makes a joke about violence against women BECAUSE they are women.", the game doesn't do this. Wrong again.

What the game does is have a male character choose another male character over a female character that he knows. "Bro's before Ho's" is a term used by friends to express that one should hold his friends in higher regard than his girlfriend and the trophy name is used to illustrate that this is what just happened in the game.

Although it must be said, I'm not a big fan of "Bro's before Ho's". I'm more of a "Chums before Clunge" man myself ^_^.

Really? Do you want to say WHY I'm wrong, or are you just going to make blind statements of fact. Repeatedly saying I'm wrong doesn't make me so.

 

[anthony87]

I'd rather contribute nothing than contribute a whole load of "wrong". You say that the joke (if it can even be called that) is demeaning to women, that's wrong. You say "The issue is that the game makes a joke about violence against women BECAUSE they are women.", the game doesn't do this. Wrong again.

What the game does is have a male character choose another male character over a female character that he knows. "Bro's before Ho's" is a term used by friends to express that one should hold his friends in higher regard than his girlfriend and the trophy name is used to illustrate that this is what just happened in the game.

Although it must be said, I'm not a big fan of "Bro's before Ho's". I'm more of a "Chums before Clunge" man myself ^_^.

Really? Do you want to say WHY I'm wrong, or are you just going to make blind statements of fact. Repeatedly saying I'm wrong doesn't make me so.

Bolded part is why you're wrong.

And you just accused me of not reading your post. Funny...

 

[CaptainKarma]

^^^^^^ And this is put alongside beating the shit out of a woman. Which carries the implication that we should side with men to beat up women because male bonds are better.

I would like to know how you got anger from text. What you perceived as anger was in fact just apathy and disdain for PC bullshit. You don't get anywhere by being PC. Man vs Woman violence is WRONG! Man vs Man or Woman vs Woman or Woman vs Man, that's all cool. But don't you dare have a man put one over on a woman. Though I find it funny that you view the man as the default when really it is only the default BECAUSE of the attitude towards women getting shot.

People requested women in games more than once and companies were reluctant as HELL to put them in because it hurts their bottom line. Positive discrimination is not a solution it just creates more problems.

Though I find it funny that you view the man as the default when really it is only the default BECAUSE of the attitude towards women getting shot.

I'm gonna pull this bit out. I don't think we can fruitfully discuss this point, it's very chicken-and-egg and I think we'd go round in circles.

For the rest of your post - again you're misunderstanding the criticism. The issue is NOT that Kratos does violence to women. That's fine, equality and all that jazz. The problem is that the joke singles her out for violence BECAUSE she is a woman. I am totally fine with Kratos beating up the furies and whats-his-face coming to save him. The problem is with the achievement (y'know, the bit Sessler most objected to, the bit that got changed, the bit I'm criticising) making it seem that he does this BECAUSE they are women. It implies we should be ready to put-down women, beat them up if necessary, because male-bonds are just better. And that's kinda creepy.

 

[KelDG]

It can be misogynistic, or (to get pedantic over it) it can give the game a tone of implied misogyny, without the author's intent. If I make the logo of my company into a swastika by mistake it's still bloody offensive.



Nobody is having a hissy-fit. Sessler expressed his discomfort, they changed the game, some people made a thread on the internet. The only people trying to whip up a fuss about it are people like you who want to make the critics look like frothing PC-lunatics so you can dismiss their valid claims.

First off I did not mention Sessler at all in my post... did I? Go on have a quick check. Secondly I was posting in response to the people commenting on the board, you only have to look at the first couple of pages to see the PC-Rage clutching at every straw just so they can have a fight and feel empowered.

Oh and "People like me" eh? Nice . "People like me" do not need to make the PC-Crowd look like frothing lunatics, they are doing quite a good job of that themselves. This crap really is the fight of the bored and the contented.

 

[ThisGuyLikesNoTacos]

You people are still talking about this like a man made the joke? Has no one read my link on page one?

image snip

Your sex doesn't give you some sort of authority and make it okay, nor do you represent your own sex as a whole so don't act as if you did.[footnote]Generally speaking here BTW[/footnote]

OT: Context wise it seemed slightly disturbing for me, but I am surprised that they actually bothered to change it.

I'm not really sure is it the right way to go however. Sure it's offensive, but are we really that scared of offending people? If people get offended, then let them. It's not some sort of sign for the end of the world.

I can't really put my finger on it but all this 'censorship' (for the lack of a better word) just seems off to me.

 

[CaptainKarma]

It can be misogynistic, or (to get pedantic over it) it can give the game a tone of implied misogyny, without the author's intent. If I make the logo of my company into a swastika by mistake it's still bloody offensive.



Nobody is having a hissy-fit. Sessler expressed his discomfort, they changed the game, some people made a thread on the internet. The only people trying to whip up a fuss about it are people like you who want to make the critics look like frothing PC-lunatics so you can dismiss their valid claims.

First off I did not mention Sessler at all in my post... did I? Go on have a quick check. Secondly I was posting in response to the people commenting on the board, you only have to look at the first couple of pages to see the PC-Rage clutching at every straw just so they can have a fight and feel empowered.

Oh and "People like me" eh? Nice . "People like me" do not need to make the PC-Crowd look like frothing lunatics, they are doing quite a good job of that themselves. This crap really is the fight of the bored and the contented.

There's naff-all straw clutching. The joke is kinda tasteless, it got changed. We move on with our lives. Hooray!

Edit: Ok that was kinda low-content. Just saying "not a big deal" doesn't make the joke suddenly not tasteless. You're not actually engaging with any criticisms of the achievement, just acting superior to everyone else for not objecting to such minor things. Yes, it is minor. But this is a gaming discussion site, everything on here is minor and trivial.

 

[jcfrommars9]

I'm not up in arms, but Sessler regarded the term "Bros before Hos" as misogyny without any regard for it's context. I can't respect his criticism or his opinion if he can't respect context. Practically anything can become offensive if context isn't relevant.

Its the context he is complaining about.

Specifically the context is that it underlines a sequence where you brutally beat a woman, and her son sides with you, by giving you a nudge and going 'Dude, bros before hos, amirite?'. It turns the whole thing into a joke, a poor, tasteless joke that undermines the moment, and can be argued to be making light of violence against women.

If you see the scene for yourself, then no it cannot possibly be argued that it is making light of violence against women. Furthermore, the trophy is never associated with beating up Alecto or any other woman. You can't complain about the context when you don't know what the context actually is. Especially when it is ignored or accepted that it isn't relevant to understand why Kratos was fighting her at all.

 

[anthony87]

^^^^^^ And this is put alongside beating the shit out of a woman. Which carries the implication that we should side with men to beat up women because male bonds are better.

No, you're beating the shit out of one of the Furies.

Ugh, I'm suddenly reminded of Bob talking about how the Hansel and Gretel movie was misogynistic because it had the pair killing witches among other things.

And "carries the implication that we should side with men to beat up women because male bonds are better"? Leave some straws for other people to clutch at.

 

[KelDG]

It can be misogynistic, or (to get pedantic over it) it can give the game a tone of implied misogyny, without the author's intent. If I make the logo of my company into a swastika by mistake it's still bloody offensive.



Nobody is having a hissy-fit. Sessler expressed his discomfort, they changed the game, some people made a thread on the internet. The only people trying to whip up a fuss about it are people like you who want to make the critics look like frothing PC-lunatics so you can dismiss their valid claims.

First off I did not mention Sessler at all in my post... did I? Go on have a quick check. Secondly I was posting in response to the people commenting on the board, you only have to look at the first couple of pages to see the PC-Rage clutching at every straw just so they can have a fight and feel empowered.

Oh and "People like me" eh? Nice . "People like me" do not need to make the PC-Crowd look like frothing lunatics, they are doing quite a good job of that themselves. This crap really is the fight of the bored and the contented.

There's naff-all straw clutching. The joke is kinda tasteless, it got changed. We move on with our lives. Hooray!

Edit: Ok that was kinda low-content. Just saying "not a big deal" doesn't make the joke suddenly not tasteless. You're not actually engaging with any criticisms of the achievement, just acting superior to everyone else for not objecting to such minor things. Yes, it is minor. But this is a gaming discussion site, everything on here is minor and trivial.

Thank you for agreeing with me, you are right, the argument about this trophy is "minor and trivial". But it has the pro-PC crowd defending it like it is a massively degrading misogynistic problem, just look at the first few pages. That is my point and my stance. People got wound up about this enough to actually complain to the developer about it and that is just sad.

 

[CaptainKarma]

^^^ But the trophy is still tasteless, yes? That's all I've ever argued.

No, you're beating the shit out of one of the Furies.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's safe to say it's a duck.

 

[anthony87]

^^^ But the trophy is still tasteless, yes? That's all I've ever argued.

No, you're beating the shit out of one of the Furies.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's safe to say it's a duck.

If it looks like a Fury, quacks like a Fury, swims like a Fury, it's safe to say it's a Fury. What's your point?

 

[jcfrommars9]

^^^ But the trophy is still tasteless, yes? That's all I've ever argued.

No, you're beating the shit out of one of the Furies.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's safe to say it's a duck.

In context, you're beating up a woman who is as every bit as violent and murderous as you are. She intends to capture and torture you mentally and physically forever because you will not serve a man who with her help, tricked you into killing your own family. Furthermore, she's letting you do it so you can be fooled into thinking you've won.

 

[CaptainKarma]

^^^ But the trophy is still tasteless, yes? That's all I've ever argued.

No, you're beating the shit out of one of the Furies.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's safe to say it's a duck.

If it looks like a Fury, quacks like a Fury, swims like a Fury, it's safe to say it's a Fury. What's your point?

The Furies are based on women. They look like women. They're women. If they aren't women then the original achievement isn't just non-offensive, it's completely nonsensical. WHy would you say Bros Before Hos if they weren't female?

 

[jcfrommars9]

^^^ But the trophy is still tasteless, yes? That's all I've ever argued.

No, you're beating the shit out of one of the Furies.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's safe to say it's a duck.

If it looks like a Fury, quacks like a Fury, swims like a Fury, it's safe to say it's a Fury. What's your point?

The Furies are based on women. They look like women. They're women. If they aren't women then the original achievement isn't just non-offensive, it's completely nonsensical. WHy would you say Bros Before Hos if they weren't female?

The same reason people assumed that despite Bros and Hos being plural, it was referencing one man beating up one woman. It didn't seem to cross our minds that it contextually makes absolutely no sense.

 

[anthony87]

^^^ But the trophy is still tasteless, yes? That's all I've ever argued.

No, you're beating the shit out of one of the Furies.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's safe to say it's a duck.

If it looks like a Fury, quacks like a Fury, swims like a Fury, it's safe to say it's a Fury. What's your point?

The Furies are based on women. They look like women. They're women. If they aren't women then the original achievement isn't just non-offensive, it's completely nonsensical. WHy would you say Bros Before Hos if they weren't female?

Just because it's a female doesn't mean it's a woman. Or are we really getting to the stage where people will try and defend a female monster just because it's female?

 

[Yarkaz]

I'm normally opposed to people getting so worked up over small, trivial things like this (from what I've read it sounds like Kratos has a darn good reason to be beating her up), but the new name is so much funnier anyways I can let it slide.

Seriously, that should have been the original name. The guy who thought of it deserves a raise.