New Overwatch Hero Is a Response to Body-Type Diversity Criticism

Tsun Tzu

Feuer! Sperrfeuer! Los!
Legacy
Jul 19, 2010
1,620
83
33
Country
Free-Dom
Well, it's obvious pandering.

I mean, look at the blatant tumblr hair cut, and that's not even mentioning Blizzard's "we're trying reeeeally hard u guise" comments.

But...so what if it's pandering? Everybody deserves to be pandered to, imo. So, the hell with it, she offers variety and doesn't 'replace' the other characters.

No problems here. :D
 

iller3

New member
Nov 5, 2014
154
0
0
LostGryphon said:
I mean, look at the blatant tumblr hair cut
WTF does tumblr have to do with that style???
Were you even conceived by the time Punk/Ska music was gaining momentum in the 80's??
your own avatar has pink hair ffs....

EDIT: I just googled "Tumblr Hairstyles" ... they're all long and wavey / braided Pagan/wikkin hippy styles ... EVEN ON THE DUDES... lol, that's the OPPOSITE of this character's punk style
 

OtherSideofSky

New member
Jan 4, 2010
1,051
0
0
I'm fine with anything Blizzard does as long as they never create another brawler, because Death and Return of Superman was a crime against nature.
 

Gizen

New member
Nov 17, 2009
279
0
0
kael013 said:
No, they're definitely going through a checklist too. That's why I had a parenthesis calling out publishers for executive meddling. Sure, on some level the devs think it's cool, but there were limits put in from the beginning. I hate that.
There will always be limits. Budgetary limits, time limits, content limits. These will always be there, they can never be removed, and when you try to remove them, it often makes the result worse. Duke Nukem Forever was a game born of no limits, because the developers had all the time and money in the world, and as a result it was never properly finished because there was always more that they wanted to do with it, until one day it finally just collapsed under its own weight.

Thing is, while limits certainly can stifle creativity, they can also encourage it, as properly set limits will breed creative solutions to get around them. Silent Hill 2's dense fog made the game a better horror game, but that fog wasn't initially put there to make the game scarier, it was a means to get around the PS2's meager power and rendering capabilities.

1. Implying that only the safe, formulaic approach makes money. It doesn't. Otherwise we'd never innovate and would still be committing genocide a la Doom.
You're absolutely right. The thing is, adding diversity isn't the safe, formulaic approach. It's the opposite really. If games with more diverse casts made a more regular appearance, people wouldn't be demanding to see more of them so fervently. In essence, they have self-imposed the limit of not taking the safe, formulaic approach.

2. Game design for large studios is, by definition, design by committee. It's impossible to get everyone's ideas into a game. The idea is to get the ones that the majority likes, that the majority thinks are interesting and cool. No, not everyone will like the end result or be interested in it, but that will always happen, so why not try to get something good that (most of) the studio is genuinely interested and proud of out of it?
Because doing things this way gives the samey/safe/formulaic result. It's called 'safe' for a reason, because it's what little the majority can agree on. Thing is, not every developer/designer/artist is going to work on every part of the project, and by assigning different people to different tasks which suit their skillsets and interests, it's possible to find the room to get more people's ideas into the game. More things end up in there that appeal to a smaller subset of the population, but the larger variety means that an overall larger portion of the population can find something in there worth liking. In the end, it all comes down to there being multiple different valid approaches to creative works, but people often like to act or assume that there's only one right way to do things.

And that's good. That's what I want, game devs to create varied things [i/]because[/i] they want to create varied things. But their statement read like they were trying to vary things up solely to please the crowd. To some extent that's fine, but letting the consumer base tell you what should be at the core of a character's design is just as bad as letting the publishers tell you.
Did you notice that there was no name attached to the quote in the initial article? It was just attributed to Blizzard in general. Which means it was marketing speak. So of course it's going to come across as doing something just to please a crowd. That's the marketing department's entire job. To spin any and everything the company does as being in the consumer's best interest and solely for the consumer. You can't read one comment and immediately write everything off as being a crime against artistic integrity.

[quote/]But then there's also this to take into account. Any one who's focused on creating, anyone who makes art of any kind, whether it be visual, or audio, or writing, if all you ever do is make the same thing you like non-stop, your work will eventually stagnate. Good artists force themselves out of their own comfort zone and force themselves to create things that maybe they normally wouldn't think to, and maybe might not even normally enjoy, because it forces them to utilize and improve different skills than they normally would. Not everything they make will be a hit out of the park, but in the long run it leads to improvement.[/quote]
Since I draw as a hobby, I know this. What you seem to misunderstand though is that while they may not like the things they create outside of their comfort zone, the end result is usually something they're proud of and would like utilized, so the end result is the same.[/quote]

I'm not misunderstanding anything, no part of this conflicts with what I've said.

What I'm saying is that devs should listen to the consumers, but keep it secondary in their design decisions. If they come up with a lithe character that they like, they should add it. If they come up with a heavy-set design that works better and they like it as well, they should scrap the lithe one - remembering the consumers' demands - and add the heavy-set one instead. The consumers' opinions are heard, but don't influence the design decisions any more than just trimming down the potential designs - something that the devs have to do anyways.
And here comes the most wrong thing you've said thus far. Because when they come up with two varying designs like that, unless it would cause them to otherwise go over-budget or miss their release, they should use both. That's the entire point of diversity. In the very example you've given, they like both the lithe and the heavy designs, so instead of being a zero-sum game where only one gets used, there's room to use both and satisfy more people. This is especially true in a game like Overwatch where the game will feature a wide variety of different characters to play as anyways so it becomes even easier to find extra space in the cast to utilize both designs.
 

Callate

New member
Dec 5, 2008
5,118
0
0
All BS aside, there's really only one question: Will people play her?

If so, awesome.

If not, don't expect to see her like again soon.

...No, no, I'm being silly. I'm sure "complain harder" is really what's called for, here.
 

Loonyyy

New member
Jul 10, 2009
1,292
0
0
iller3 said:
LostGryphon said:
I mean, look at the blatant tumblr hair cut
WTF does tumblr have to do with that style???
Were you even conceived by the time Punk/Ska music was gaining momentum in the 80's??
your own avatar has pink hair ffs....
Cannot stop laughing. Well said sir. And it's definitely not like anything of the sort happened in the 90s either. Kool-aid crystals anyone?
 

iller3

New member
Nov 5, 2014
154
0
0
Callate said:
All BS aside, there's really only one question: Will people play her?
Are you kidding? Look at those physics... that Fusion Mortar? ... Not only will ppl play her, they'll use her as the main heavy for Pressure Meta in Tourneys. Even better than that, all the stuff she does is non-gimmicky so it's gonna be really hard for Blizzard to ever nerf her if any of that stuff gets popular in Pub-level too.
 

disgruntledgamer

New member
Mar 6, 2012
905
0
0
Blizzard, can you please stop listening to SJW idiots....... They will never be happy as they're only happy when they're complaining, there is no discussion among players just SJW %&$# wits whining most of which aren't gamers to begin with. You're trying to appeal to a demographic that isn't even your prime audience and never will be.
 

Wuvlycuddles

New member
Oct 29, 2009
682
0
0
I can't help but feel like this is an "Ankle Tattoo". Ya know, an attempt to be different/cool but in the safest way possible. Diversity in a big cast of characters? Big whoop! Call me when she has her own game.
 

LazyAza

New member
May 28, 2008
716
0
0
Eh the fact she's russian is still a little too steriotypical for this character archetype but ah well its a silly shooter game and the visual variety is what matters most and it's at least nice to see such a character.

I do think its pretty disgusting their are people who automatically jump on the sjw label hate bandwagon for this kind of thing. God forbid we encourage companies not just do the same old thing or to be consciously aware that their are different people in the world with different interests and the more variety in your character designs the higher chance their is of appealing to a wider audience or reaching one previously neglected to alarming degrees.

Apparently doing that is just a hollow gesture or a marketing move right? couldn't possibly be a genuine desire to acknowledge the interests of people outside of the typical audience that are marketed to 24/7.
 

iller3

New member
Nov 5, 2014
154
0
0
MarsAtlas said:
I saw this video posted a few times since Friday, ended up giving it a watch, and at the given time the player who got to play it early to hype it for their channel (and presumably playtest) made a chart giving their impressions of Zarya (and the other characters), in which it put her has a mid-tier character.


Should jump to 7:47 if it doesn't.
Yeah but there's no such thing as an established Meta in BETA... Not even in an open beta.
People aren't experienced enough at any game to know that something sucks unless it's been in open beta for 6+ months.

I won't even go into what a huge PubStar _Star_ is. He LITERALLY makes money on Spectacle and little else while his very first words in this is "Push" .... PUSH PUSH PUSH. Aka Breaching and Pressure.... He literally "tiered" all of these by how good they are against players with bad Awareness or no communication. How do you think that's going to turn out against a team on TS together?
 

ki11joyace

New member
Nov 16, 2014
20
0
0
webkilla said:
1) Its basically a female version of the TF2 heavy... wow, so original

2) I think she looks cool enough, but Unreal Tournament had super-butch women in their player character roster, and that was a long time ago, so... wow... so original

3) The only 'negative' thing I can see about this is that convos like this can crop up:

http://41.media.tumblr.com/b0a7f015cf0a9d8e5f65aaf93b013181/tumblr_nkwqlkH8dq1rpwlvxo1_1280.png

Artur Gies is a writer for Polygon

Micheal Hartman is the CEO of Frogdice, and has been making games for 20 years.

Guess which one of them is saying that you should NOT be allowed to make 'sexy' female character designs because it somehow depresses people.

I much more like the game dev saying that you should allow both kind of designs - the butch and sexy (heck, it is possibly to combine the two) female character designs, so everyone can have something. He says that to exclude one type of character design to cater to the preferences of just one group of gamers is selfish and unacceptable.
I can't get too annoyed when someone says that this new Overwatch character is a good thing. It may be made under questionable circumstances, but its not harming anyone or taking away anything. At most, it might delay some previously planned characters.

When someone says a certain type of character is a "step back" (read: "not progressive enough for my ideology") then there is a huge problem in the line of reasoning. Let there but muscles, let there be tits. It is all good.
 

Westaway

New member
Nov 9, 2009
1,084
0
0
MarsAtlas said:
I never said women could never get big. They can't get as big as men, but they can get big. Even then, a male and female powerlifter who are at the same level (in terms of weights they're lifting and size of person) will have different bodies, obviously besides tits. But it looks like they put a woman's face on a man's body/game model. It looks bad. As in, I don't even care how big they made her because it's fiction, but she doesn't have a woman's "big" body. Either way I don't really care because it's a cartoony video game I'm not even interested in, so it's no big deal.
 

disgruntledgamer

New member
Mar 6, 2012
905
0
0
IndicateCheckTurn said:
I like the character design. Looks good, conveys effectively that this character is a "Tank".
And on Steroids lots and lots of steroids. Even bodybuilding women aren't that big unless they're on a shit ton of Steroids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF-YeWnIJfU FYI she loses 2 out of 3
 

Nixou

New member
Jan 20, 2014
196
0
0
Westaway said:
These people realize sexual dimorphism is a real thing present in human beings right
Sexual dimorphism also happens to be
1. Much lower in Humans than among the other hominids: the average weight of women is 85% of men, the average weight of a female chimp is 70% of a male chimp, the average weight of a female gorilla is 50% of its male counterpart.
2. Often exaggerated in fiction.
 

Erttheking

Member
Legacy
Oct 5, 2011
10,845
1
3
Country
United States
disgruntledgamer said:
Blizzard, can you please stop listening to SJW idiots....... They will never be happy as they're only happy when they're complaining, there is no discussion among players just SJW %&$# wits whining most of which aren't gamers to begin with. You're trying to appeal to a demographic that isn't even your prime audience and never will be.
You know there are a lot of people right now on Tumblr that are really happy by this. Kind of contradicts your statement.

Also, not your prime audience? That's a claim that requires some statistics to back up. Do you happen to have any?
 

iller3

New member
Nov 5, 2014
154
0
0
MarsAtlas said:
She seems fine to me, and I know three women who are weightlifters, but everybody has got their ownperception, if it irks you, it irks you.
This I agree with completely. And mainly because we ARE talking about the FUTURE here... After Gene-Therapy is perfected: the old systems of relying on hormones may be seen as a time of "Fitness Barbarianism" much like how we regard Bloodletting and sawing off Limbs in this modern age....

...coincidentally, we may also regard sexuality arguments the same way and look back at "SJW Progressives" the same way we look at Puritans / Victorians today... It's definitely not a stretch to compare some of their beliefs to religious fervor.