Controversial God of War: Ascension Trophy To Be Renamed

[bastardofmelbourne]

Man, we complain about the tiniest fucking things.

The revised joke was funnier, so I don't think anything of value has been lost. Though in all honesty - if you only get offended by God of War's tongue-in-cheek graphic violence when it's directed at a female monster, you have a perspective issue.

I can probably go find a dozen achievement titles from various games that are equally tasteless riffs on the "you just stomped something" vibe, but it feels like because this one involved a spider-lady, it's suddenly offensive. Who cares? This is a game series where you carry around a disembodied head to use it as a flashlight. I didn't even think it would be worth mentioning in a review unless you were trying to use it to support a greater point about how crass and childlike God of War games are.

 

[Kanatatsu]

Holy shit what a massive overreaction.

 

[axlryder]

I don't mind them changing it. It was a PR move, and it's not like the joke was saying something particularly important or integral. They didn't want to risk offending people over them misunderstanding something trivial. I'd probably do the same thing if it was over some accessory feature to my game.

 

[natster43]

Sweet I was right that this would be blown out of proportion really quickly.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Everything about this whole controversy seems just a bit stupid.

The name of it is a stupid frat boy phrase.
The apparent controversy that it has started is rather stupid.
The decision to change the name of it seems rather stupid as well.
But then the inevitable over-reaction of them changing the name of the trophy will be stupid as well.

All in all, unless I've completely missed something it seems everybody is getting needlessly worked up over something...well, stupid.

Agreed. While I expected people to stupidly overreact to the stupid joke, I didn't really expect so many people here to overreact this badly to the overreaction. Seriously, how the hell is there a ME3 argument going on?! I guess I should just start expecting these things...

 

[Randomeaninglessword]

Doesn't Kratos kill thousands of people? What's the big deal about a joke at the expense of one more? I would consider both genders equal, so I'd hazard a guess and say that women can handle a trophy name. It would appear Mr. Sessler feels otherwise.

 

[MrGalactus]

What, why? It's a pop culture phrase that people use, they didn't invent it. It's closer to a quote or reference than a commentary.

 

[Strazdas]

wow, there are revieweds who STILL think God of War is anything but an elaborate frat joke? mind-blown.

People need to learn to take a damn joke.

Sorry I don't find beating a woman funny.

well thats your problem now isnt it?

 

[jcfrommars9]

Man, we complain about the tiniest fucking things.

The revised joke was funnier, so I don't think anything of value has been lost. Though in all honesty - if you only get offended by God of War's tongue-in-cheek graphic violence when it's directed at a female monster, you have a perspective issue.

I can probably go find a dozen achievement titles from various games that are equally tasteless riffs on the "you just stomped something" vibe, but it feels like because this one involved a spider-lady, it's suddenly offensive.

The complaint isn't about the game having violence against women creature things. It's the name of the trophy.

Broes before Hoes? Well I guess that must make the fury a hoe. But how is she a hoe? She/It never does anything sexual, I think, so it's a little jarring to call her that.

It'd make sense if she was an ex lover of Kratos but she isn't.

Hoe is obviously not meant to be taken by literal definition here which is why I never found the term jarring. On top of that, Sessler implies that the scene is borderline not because of the brutality but because the brutality is against a female. I didn't like this because it patently ignores Alecto's own brutality and power. It also enforces the assumption that Kratos is only being so brutal because she's female when such is not the case.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Doesn't Kratos kill thousands of people? What's the big deal about a joke at the expense of one more? I would consider both genders equal, so I'd hazard a guess and say that women can handle a trophy name. It would appear Mr. Sessler feels otherwise.

Thats a good point. If a woman wanted to take a stab at my entire gender I wouldnt cry about it. Id probably take it like a good sport and throw one back at her. Thats my equality.

 

[Ix Rebound]

The trophy, awarded once Kratos has finished pummeling a female antagonist in a shockingly violent scene even by God of War standards,

Sessler has obviously never played God of War 3 and fought Poseiden yet

 

[Chaos-Spider]

People need to learn to take a damn joke.

Sorry I don't find beating a woman funny.

ITS A GAME, Get over it. Its in context to the game plus all this gender differentiation is tearing people apart, if you want everyone to be equal, you have to represent everyone as equal, that means getting to kill female AND male characters in games, among other things.

And where do you exactly draw the line when you use this phrase, it apparently wasn't 'just a game' when PETA made their parody flash game of Mario slaughtering Tanuki Racoon dogs, but it's 'just a game' when a woman is beaten to death. Will it be 'just a game' pray tell if, in five to ten years time if in five-ten years time, this violence was taken to it's logical conclusion a game made you perform acts of brutality and violence that a serial killer would think depraved or unjustified, maybe with the option to put photos from your facebook friends list onto the enemies or the character in question would you still call it just a game?

Because if we don't make a stand and say that we don't want this to happen it will, and that will be the last game because YOU will have made the videogame landscape too toxic for anyone else to play.

Think about that the next time you say "It's just a game"

 

[jcfrommars9]

I think he meant that he personally felt uncomfortable. He did say that the violence itself was justified in the game.

But he was nevertheless uncomfortable. Not that I mind that in and of itself, but I do mind it that the brutality against male enemy characters in previous games was less uncomfortable to him than the female enemy characters in this one.

 

[6BlindFolk]

This thread. Lol! No wonder people like us aren't active in our physical communities. We're too busy laughing at this shit. Like it's probably been stated:
Some People: "We find this achievement offensive for the following reasons!"
Sony Person 1: "Did you hear that? Hmm... I guess I can see why that could be offensive to some people. Should we change it?"
Sony Person 2: "Well it could be 'Bro's before Foes' which is gender neutral plus has the benefit of being a clever pun."
Sony Person 1: "Cool let's bundle it in our patch to fix all those other things we were going to fix anyway."
Sony Person 2: "I already changed the 'H' to and 'F' already and checked it in."
Escapist: "This article will get views. Let's post it!"

People with the privilege to generally go through life without ever being called a Ho by people who don't know them:
"AHHHHH! This change clearly marks the coming of the MANPOCOLYPSE in which all MEN will be suppressed by teh WOMAN who cloak their desire for complete gender domination as attempts to ask people to speak politely and see things from multiple perspectives! We must take up arms or ALL IS LOST!"

It really is a small issue. No one is offended by "Bros before Foes". On closer examination the above is actually: "I am angry that Sony did a small but nice thing for a group of people of which I am not a member. This is despite the fact that the end result does not actually affect me in any way except to make me aware that some people are bothered by certain things and to suggest that my viewpoint might possibly be wrong."

To the angry people, please reflect on what this says about how you perceive yourself.

 

[Church185]

Holy shit what a massive overreaction.

By who?

Sony? They changed the name of the trophy, probably took them 10 minutes to incorporate that into a patch

Thank you, they only needed to change one word of a trophy. It wasn't like they changed a core part of the game. Also, the correction was made before I even realized that there was a controversy to begin with, so obviously the team thought it should be changed too, since they jumped right on changing it after the name of the trophy was brought to light.

 

[Mr F.]

People need to learn to take a damn joke.

Sorry I don't find beating a woman funny.

ITS A GAME, Get over it. Its in context to the game plus all this gender differentiation is tearing people apart, if you want everyone to be equal, you have to represent everyone as equal, that means getting to kill female AND male characters in games, among other things.

I don't know what annoys me more. People getting hurt over quite trivial things (Which I find this to be. Quite trivial.) or people getting so ANGRY at the IDEA that people might get hurt by it. A little sensitivity goes a long way.

The only way I can make a real point here is by sounding like yet another pseudo intellectual on the internet. So I am not really sure if I can be bothered. Meh, I will make it brief.

The phrase is offensive to some in the way it demeans women etc etc etc. Using it, in this context particularly, is rather sexist. Ergo: It offends some people. They have the right to be offended and the right to call things out on being offensive, its not trying to ruin anyone's fun, it is trying to stop something from ruining peoples fun. Tbh, I find the wordplay to be inoffensive and slightly more amusing. So its a net gain for everyone there.

And as for your final point "If you want to be equal, you have to represent everyone as equal", Everyone fucking agrees. The anger is not about killing a woman, its the cheap joke at the expense of women and, even accidentally, satirising beating the shit out of women.

Without Joke: Your point is valid.
With Joke: Your point is invalid because men and women are not being treated as equals.

Cya, I am off to write an essay about the War on Terror.

Actually, I am going to drop in with a quick point (Another article I read recently was about self censorship and Political Correctness being worse then censorship.)

Freedom of Speech gives you the right to say whatever the fuck you want. It does not protect you from the consequences. GoW has as much right to use shitty jokes as Adam and others have to tear them down for doing so. I hope all of us were raised by parents (Or guardians and whatnot) who told us to think before we spoke. Why is it that when gaming companies do not think before they speak people march out in their hundreds to defend them?

 

[Brad Shepard]

People need to learn to take a damn joke.

Sorry I don't find beating a woman funny.

ITS A GAME, Get over it. Its in context to the game plus all this gender differentiation is tearing people apart, if you want everyone to be equal, you have to represent everyone as equal, that means getting to kill female AND male characters in games, among other things.

And where do you exactly draw the line when you use this phrase, it apparently wasn't 'just a game' when PETA made their parody flash game of Mario slaughtering Tanuki Racoon dogs, but it's 'just a game' when a woman is beaten to death. Will it be 'just a game' pray tell if, in five to ten years time if in five-ten years time, this violence was taken to it's logical conclusion a game made you perform acts of brutality and violence that a serial killer would think depraved or unjustified, maybe with the option to put photos from your facebook friends list onto the enemies or the character in question would you still call it just a game?

Because if we don't make a stand and say that we don't want this to happen it will, and that will be the last game because YOU will have made the videogame landscape too toxic for anyone else to play.

Think about that the next time you say "It's just a game"

Ill say its just a game like others say its just a movie or just a book or just a cartoon, People need to learn to take a damn joke.

 

[Edl01]

I'm honestly more irritated by the immature and idiiotic responce this incredibly minor change has got.
Why does a single letter in a trophy name being changed warrant a full thread of crying and moaning, does it negatively affect the game? No? Well what is your problem with it?

 

[jcfrommars9]

People need to learn to take a damn joke.

Sorry I don't find beating a woman funny.

ITS A GAME, Get over it. Its in context to the game plus all this gender differentiation is tearing people apart, if you want everyone to be equal, you have to represent everyone as equal, that means getting to kill female AND male characters in games, among other things.

I don't know what annoys me more. People getting hurt over quite trivial things (Which I find this to be. Quite trivial.) or people getting so ANGRY at the IDEA that people might get hurt by it. A little sensitivity goes a long way.

The only way I can make a real point here is by sounding like yet another pseudo intellectual on the internet. So I am not really sure if I can be bothered. Meh, I will make it brief.

The phrase is offensive to some in the way it demeans women etc etc etc. Using it, in this context particularly, is rather sexist. Ergo: It offends some people. They have the right to be offended and the right to call things out on being offensive, its not trying to ruin anyone's fun, it is trying to stop something from ruining peoples fun. Tbh, I find the wordplay to be inoffensive and slightly more amusing. So its a net gain for everyone there.

And as for your final point "If you want to be equal, you have to represent everyone as equal", Everyone fucking agrees. The anger is not about killing a woman, its the cheap joke at the expense of women and, even accidentally, satirising beating the shit out of women.

Without Joke: Your point is valid.
With Joke: Your point is invalid because men and women are not being treated as equals.

Cya, I am off to write an essay about the War on Terror.

Actually, I am going to drop in with a quick point (Another article I read recently was about self censorship and Political Correctness being worse then censorship.)

Freedom of Speech gives you the right to say whatever the fuck you want. It does not protect you from the consequences. GoW has as much right to use shitty jokes as Adam and others have to tear them down for doing so. I hope all of us were raised by parents (Or guardians and whatnot) who told us to think before we spoke. Why is it that when gaming companies do not think before they speak people march out in their hundreds to defend them?

Regarding this matter, for the same reason. Mr. Sessler as well as many others who were quick to criticize Santa Monica didn't think before they spoke. Hell, some people still think that you actually got the trophy for beating up a female character even though that contextually makes no sense. In part, that was thanks to Adam taking the scene out of context and his ridiculous use of the word misogyny. If Papy is telling the truth, then the idea came from a woman. Man or woman, it was seems much more likely that it was a joke, a tasteless joke but certainly not a "gut punch of misogyny".

I'm honestly more irritated by the immature and idiiotic responce this incredibly minor change has got.
Why does a single letter in a trophy name being changed warrant a full thread of crying and moaning, does it negatively affect the game? No? Well what is your problem with it?

My problem with it is that it shouldn't have been criticized in the context that it was in the first place.

Spoiler

For instance in Bioshock Infinite, there's this quartet singing and there's a sign next to them that says "Columbia's gayest quartet". Now if taken out of context, people can assume that they're being insulting to gay people. But in it's proper context, people can understand what was actually meant was Columbia's brightest and most pleasant quartet. And make no mistake, people have already questioned it. If someone like Sessler flies off the handle and fails to take the scene in it's proper context, that could be changed too for no good reason.

 

[Frankster]

And where do you exactly draw the line when you use this phrase, it apparently wasn't 'just a game' when PETA made their parody flash game of Mario slaughtering Tanuki Racoon dogs, but it's 'just a game' when a woman is beaten to death. Will it be 'just a game' pray tell if, in five to ten years time if in five-ten years time, this violence was taken to it's logical conclusion a game made you perform acts of brutality and violence that a serial killer would think depraved or unjustified, maybe with the option to put photos from your facebook friends list onto the enemies or the character in question would you still call it just a game?

Because if we don't make a stand and say that we don't want this to happen it will, and that will be the last game because YOU will have made the videogame landscape too toxic for anyone else to play.

Think about that the next time you say "It's just a game"

That has got to be one of the most epic slippery slope reasonings i've seen in a while.

Also please don't try and impose your own tastes and sensibilities on OTT gory immature products if you don't like them.
The idea of you applying this reasoning to other games is one i find far more toxic then the scenario you described.