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

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Finally they put some muscles on the girl instead of toothpick arms, still would have been nice if they were a bit in between hulked out and toothpicks, ( like real girl arms) but at least she has muscles at all.

 

[EternallyBored]

I just wanted to post this link-

http://thespectacularspider-girl.tumblr.com/post/113010314274/female-portrayals-in-video-games

I find it quite insightful especially when I was one of those people who did view the Overwatch girls had the same body type.

I responded to that article a few pages back; I'm repasting my response here for ease of access.

My main problem with that article is the assumption that what she finds sexy is what everybody finds sexy. That women can't be sexy while fully dressed. That anyone who doesn't want the women she likes is anti-sex. Well, I'll probably be mocked for saying this, but I think Zarya is hot. I like a woman with some heft to her. Zarya is such a breath of fresh air compared to the half-clothed twigs that we see over and over and over. I'd much rather date her than Widowmaker. But when I cheer for the addition of someone I think is sexy, it must be because I hate sex.

My secondary problem is that she lists four male body types when there are five: thin, dwarf, heroic, large, gorilla.

That's pretty much my issue as well, the post focuses too much on attractiveness, which in itself has problems because once again, the fight is over how attractive the characters are rather than their existence as characters. It's like the people who defended the ME3 ending by only focusing on the people that thought it was bad because it wasn't a happy ending, it only addresses a small part of the criticism being leveled against such games, and completely avoids other potential views on the topic other than the easy, "you just don't like overly attractive characters because you are petty and have low self esteem". It's basically attacking the low hanging fruit, and being insulting on top of it. In an effort to counteract petty criticisms she gets very petty and snide herself.

The blog post also has a big issue with assuming that any deviation from the norm is automatically an attack on "sexy", or that people aren't attracted to these characters, rather than just another type of attractive, it is unfortunate that I think she sabotages herself by implying that character's like Zarya are only liked because they are not "sexy", sexy to who? her? She's not the arbiter of what everyone finds attractive.

The Hanzo/ McCree generic buff male pretty boy is the most common model amongst the male characters in Overwatch, but they still get the big characters, the small characters, the non-human characters, and the females get 5 characters of tiny variations of tall, skinny, and well-endowed, three of which are similar enough they could probably trade clothes. That is not a problem in and of itself, those characters, like the baseline Hanzo buff male deserve to exist, and I can even understand them being the average model used for a good chunk of characters. I do not however, support them being the only model with slight variations, I do not condemn Blizzard because obviously the roster wasn't complete at announcement, but somehow I wasn't going to be surprised if the female characters added after the fact were going to be all normal height skinny well-endowed models in various outfits. Meanwhile, the male character not in the game yet from Trishbot's post features a fully armored cyborg ninja and a giant beer belly Mad Max raider in a gas mask.

 

[Ishal]

Anybody that's played a MOBA knows this or even games similar to Skullgirls knows this. Variety will come, if you have the patience to wait for it. Unfortunately, I didn't see much, and it led to this.

This is my thought as well.

The aesthetic of this game screams LoL, Skull Girls, Borderlands, and of course TF2. I doubt it'll be subscription based, since things seem to be moving away from that model. That means there'll be a cash shop with tons of stuff to buy.

Even if Zarya wasn't released now, I'm guessing we would have seen her or something similar down the line. And we'll probably see more. Either sold individually, in packs, or totally some for free in a patch. There are lots of ways they could do it.

I'm guessing they have a TON of characters waiting to be released. Especially if this truly is what remained of the scrapped "Titan" project. They're probably sitting on tons of material.

 

[Bocaj2000]

The problem is that Blizzard is using her as PR to appeal to a crowd that cannot be pleased and giving the impression of coercion.

You know that a lot of the people who were asking for more body type variety are happy with Zarya, right? That the people complaining about her are largely different people?

If Blizzard just released her without waving their dick about how she is "a direct response" to something, then no one would even notice she was different to begin with, which is how diversity should be.

Yeah, that's not how real people work. There was always going to be someone claiming it was a response to this criticism, and there were always going to be people complaining about how "ugly" and "mannish" she looks.

and the analogy... Maybe Alice is...

Well, if you weren't sure why she was doing it, you could have asked. I mean, you had access to the guy who came up with the analogy. But instead, you leapt immediately to the assumption that "Alice is being controlling".

Also, never bring up an extremist as a representative of the whole. I could easily do the same, but it detracts from the actual conversation.

Again, I was trying to bring up the extremists as representatives of the extremists. I accidentally overshot my mark, and apologized.

First of all, on the first page of this thread, you can see people complaining about a "token," a new body type to objectify, offensive stereotypes, a simple gender swap, and that she's not ugly enough. That was just page one. I'm glad that Tumblr likes this girl, but that doesn't mean everybody does. They are probably outliars, so I won't take it too seriously, but you should still be aware. Second of all, I don't know a single person whom is actually against diversity. Only those who don't like it being forced (just like innovation and convention).

And don't use a blanket statement that all people and situations work the same. LoadOut happened with little mention for its diversity in female body types. My assumption is that it's because she fit the style of the game and was just as natural as everything else. The female dwarfs in WoW are stocky, and the barbarian woman in Diablo III is built like a barbarian. These are invisible unless you call attention to it. But when it is shouted from the rooftops that there is diversity in this game, that is all anyone sees. Like I said, I really like Zarya, but I fear she is being used for politics now.

Also, with such little information given to me, I assumed that they were friends at a restaurant ordering food. The kind of person who orders food for another is controlling. I used the information given to me, and if I misinterpreted, then it's the fault of the writer for being vague, not the reader for applying critical thinking.

 

[Chriss_m]

I'm as anti-SJW as you can be, and I greiviously lament that it is their incessant hectoring that has spurred this change. Because, actually, I'd much rather the company had come to these conclusions themselves.

You see, as much as I can't stand the imposing zealots who make up the ranks of Social Justice Warriors, I do actually appreciate diversity. And in a game like this, there's really no reason not to represent as many different shapes, shades, and sizes as possible. And, in fact, this is the way toward diversity: companies not being kowtowed into censoring their current characters, or bowing to pressure to restrict the types of bodies women are 'allowed' to have in games (no tits, no hips, no thighs, etc); but instead, through encouragement, having them experiment and introduce as much diversity to character design as possible - but always through their choice.

So although I don't like how this has come about, I do like the diversity in character design. It keeps things fresh.

What about free market demands and appealing to your consumer base or bringing in new consumers? No one is going to stop making model skinny idealistic women. Ever. In the history of the world. Till eternity. No one. However clearly the free market is demanding more representation and body types.

This is not the free market deciding this though. Nope, this is the evil SJW agenda censoring a company and forcing them into making more diverse characters because when diversity happens it is always part of the agenda and could never possibly be part of new market demands because we are such anti free market.

The constant 'I'm down with the free market!' rhetoric really has no impact on me. I'm not a libertarian. Just getting that out of the way, since you went out of your way to make such a big deal about it.

However, on that, let's talk about it. Polygon recently wrote about a study which found the overwhelming majority of men *and* women couldn't care less about the gender of the character they play as, so it seems highly unlikely to me that they care particularly about the body size. Although some players will indeed, and these players are very, very, to the point of inducing tinnitus, loud.

Not that it really matters. Because I think we all benefit from having as wide a variety of characters as possible. It's exciting, it encourages developers to think outside the box.

But of course your problem, as is very obvious in your post, is that I have the audacity to suggest that it wasn't a commercial decision to appeal to a wider market, but one of appeasement. Which I don't think is even that contentious a point to make, as it is stated in the article that this move is a response to criticism, although perhaps worded a little more gently. The developers are responding to 'feedback' from the community. And that feedback, I highly suspect, comes from that murder of screeching harpies.

Yet even still, I applaud the decision. And being that we agree on the substantive matter, I'm not really sure why your tone is so condescending.

Now, you say companies will never stop making skinny characters. And you're right. I don't think they will, or sexualised characters. But I never thought they would. In this area, my concern is actually our cultural attitude toward these characters. Characters like that can no longer exist without being a controversy. In the eyes of far too many, these characters must be lambasted, and their developers rebuked - we're at the point where, to many influential critics, the existence of a sexualised *female* character is in itself 'problematic'. This is unhealthy. There is nothing harmful about sexualised female characters. And whilst this attitude pervades our culture, it absolutely will exert pressure on developers, and my concern is that developers who strive to make artistic games, or games of cultural merit, will avoid any and all sexualisation. This is puritanical, censorious, and undesirable.

Which brings me back to my original point. I wish the company had, through encouragement, decided to introduce diversity to character models, rather than through Social Justice hysteria (which is the momentum behind this, in my opinion). And that's important because, although the idea of diversity has a firm footing and is perfectly reasonable, Social Justice Warriors do not have a firm footing in reason, hell, in reality, and the more influence they have, the more they can apply cultural pressure on developers to avoid 'triggering' areas.

I reiterate: let's introduce representation through encouragement not through censure.

 

[iller3]

I think the article you linked to is interesting, but partially misguided. At least 4 (maybe 5, without the armor) of the girls are cut from the same cloth, with similar, but not quite identical, builds.

Stop Artist-Shaming

They're no where near all close to the same builds and if you think they are then it's b/c you haven't properly studied Anatomy as an Artist. The Egyptian has very broad exaggerated thighs while Tracer has almost none at all. Pharah's "silhouette" emphasizes much more upper body (Even their facial features are diverse). The sniper is just ... alien but arguably among the only 2 that actually fits the beauty pagent mold but atleast her breast size is realistic and actually on the small side compared to a number of real women you'll meet at gamer/fantasy conventions. TBH, I actually think the Sniper fits the Futanari mold a lot more so I don't even see hir as standard pandering unless you consider that alien from MassEffect to be a stereotype reinforcer too. Only hir and Mercy have the same overall profile. And Honestly?...Mercy is the only one I'm actually disappointed in and that's only b/c I'm a career "Healer" in gaming and I much prefer a very compact player model that makes it a lot easier to go unnoticed longer by enemy players.

The only thing they all have in common is fit waists.... which 5 of the Males characters ALSO all have in common. ...Actually make that 6, the huge melee dude with the Hammer also has an hourglass waist for some reason?? I also find it funny that the character with the greatest surface area of bare skin, isn't female either, it's a GeorgeClooney/Elf dude.

 

[Namrok]

Ordinarily I might find this sort of pandering offensive. But from the very start, Overwatch had a very design by committee feel. I never felt the characters were part of any sort of cohesive artistic vision. Sooooo whatever I guess. If I had to be unhappy about something, which I'm not, I'd be unhappy about Blizzard explicitly saying they did this to appease people. Just do it quietly and at least pretend it was something you were going to do anyways.

 

[theNater]

First of all, on the first page of this thread, you can see people complaining about a "token," a new body type to objectify, offensive stereotypes, a simple gender swap, and that she's not ugly enough.

Yes, there are still complaints. That has never been in question. But the suggestion that the complaints are from a single unpleaseable crowd rather than the result of different people having different opinions is wrong, and borderline disingenuous.

And don't use a blanket statement that all people and situations work the same. LoadOut happened with little mention for its diversity in female body types. My assumption is that it's because she fit the style of the game and was just as natural as everything else. The female dwarfs in WoW are stocky, and the barbarian woman in Diablo III is built like a barbarian. These are invisible unless you call attention to it.

Have you considered the possibility that people weren't talking about this with respect to LoadOut because they weren't talking about LoadOut at all? This is literally the first time I've heard of the game. I'm sure the folks at Edge of Reality are good designers and lovely people, but the fact that they aren't getting as much press as freaking Blizzard isn't exactly surprising.

As for WoW and Diablo; people have been calling attention to body diversity in both games. For years. I'm not an Escapist historian, so I can't speak to whether it was talked about here, but on Blizzard's forums, discussions of the appearances of characters have always been a hot topic. I don't recall seeing the phrase "body diversity", but stuff like "it's awesome they have a beefy woman", "I think it's good that they have dwarves and elves, for people who like those things", and "c'mon, let us play as Pandaren; I want a belly" have been there since the get-go.

Also, with such little information given to me, I assumed that they were friends at a restaurant ordering food. The kind of person who orders food for another is controlling. I used the information given to me, and if I misinterpreted, then it's the fault of the writer for being vague, not the reader for applying critical thinking.

How about a deal? I won't blame you for making an erroneous assumption if you don't blame me for failing to take twenty minutes to insure I had properly set the scene for a four-line joke. We'll just call it a no-fault miscommunication.

You can still blame me for targeting it at you, if you like. Incidentally, I'd appreciate an acknowledgement that I have apologized for that(you don't have to have to officially accept or reject the apology, I'd just like to be sure that you saw it).

 

[Garlador]

I think the article you linked to is interesting, but partially misguided. At least 4 (maybe 5, without the armor) of the girls are cut from the same cloth, with similar, but not quite identical, builds.

Stop Artist-Shaming

They're no where near all close to the same builds and if you think they are then it's b/c you haven't properly studied Anatomy as an Artist. The Egyptian has very broad exaggerated thighs while Tracer has almost none at all. Pharah's "silhouette" emphasizes much more upper body (Even their facial features are diverse). The sniper is just ... alien but arguably among the only 2 that actually fits the beauty pagent mold but atleast her breast size is realistic and actually on the small side compared to a number of real women you'll meet at gamer/fantasy conventions. TBH, I actually think the Sniper fits the Futanari mold a lot more so I don't even see hir as standard pandering unless you consider that alien from MassEffect to be a stereotype reinforcer too. Only hir and Mercy have the same overall profile. And Honestly?...Mercy is the only one I'm actually disappointed in and that's only b/c I'm a career "Healer" in gaming and I much prefer a very compact player model that makes it a lot easier to go unnoticed longer by enemy players.

The only thing they all have in common is fit waists.... which 5 of the Males characters ALSO all have in common. ...Actually make that 6, the huge melee dude with the Hammer also has an hourglass waist for some reason?? I also find it funny that the character with the greatest surface area of bare skin, isn't female either, it's a GeorgeClooney/Elf dude.

That's not Artist-Shaming. That's just good old fashioned opinionated criticism. You're way off if you think that statement was "artist-shaming".

And you seemed to have ignored the commentator's preamble:

I still think they do IN COMPARISON TO THE MEN.

And that is most definitely true. I notice the comment also says "similar, not identical", which is also true. I think the criticism is fair and stands. Even Blizzard themselves agreed, which is the reason Zarya was created in the first place, so it's not like the developers didn't think so as well.

Also, I don't know about Trishbot, but I AM an artist with over a decade of anatomy lessons and training. I do comics for a living. I agree they are definitely close to the same builds, especially compared to the exaggerated features of many of the male characters.

 

[EternallyBored]

I think the article you linked to is interesting, but partially misguided. At least 4 (maybe 5, without the armor) of the girls are cut from the same cloth, with similar, but not quite identical, builds.

Stop Artist-Shaming

Seriously? Is this sarcasm? The rest of your post suggests it isn't. Is this really how far the bar has fallen on what qualifies as shaming? I really hope Blizzard's artists aren't that emotionally fragile, that the really tame criticism that Trishbot dished out could be considered anything close to shaming, otherwise they will all have collective aneurysms the second a real negative critic comes along.

Trishbot didn't even call out the artists of Overwatch or try to cast aspirations on them, the post talked entirely about the characters themselves, and not even really in a negative fashion, so I don't know where the hell you got shaming out of, well, any of that post.

They're no where near all close to the same builds and if you think they are then it's b/c you haven't properly studied Anatomy as an Artist.

If you have to be an artist and studied anatomy to tell the "drastic" differences between the female characters, then Blizzard has failed to differentiate them enough for a mainstream commercial product, especially in comparison to the male characters where the differences are obvious to anyone at first glance, which again, Trishbot pointed out that they were samey in comparison to the MALE characters.

The rest of your post is just rambling about minor differences and comparing widowmaker to a futanari for some weird reason, that you fail to elaborate on, but I'm sure is absolutely hilarious, none of that really changes the fact that the female frames are all much much closer to each other than the male frames.

The average person is going to immediately notice that all the female characters are fitting a very similar mold while the male characters are ranging from super skinny buddhist robot, to short Swedish Dwarf, to giant German power armored knight, to a frigging space gorilla, and all those comments about thigh and breast size look like basically minor variations on the same thing.

Off on a tangent, digging further in also reveals the odd age discrepency between characters, even the two most average (Hanzo and McCree) looking male characters are 3 and 4 years older than the OLDEST female characters, with Reinhardt and Torbjorn ranging into their 50's and 60's. Meanwhile, Mercy is the oldest female character at 34, which I guess is nice as a lot of similar games slot the entirety of their female roster in their 20's and seem to exist in a universe where women stop aging at 30. I don't have a serious problem with it, just thought it was interesting to point out.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

 

[EternallyBored]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

Eh, honestly both of those look pretty dumb, the long hair one especially looks stupid, I know they are just edits, but the only good one I saw was earlier in the thread with dark brown/black hair.

Kind of a weak comparison to Tumblr though considering that she is based off of one of Blizzard's artists, whose picture was also posted earlier in the thread, pink hair and all, which looks more punk than Tumblr. Despite how much of a hate boner some people on the internet get over a website, I don't think they've yet reached a point where they get to start co-opting hair dye.

 

[Erttheking]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

The average Tumblr user looks like a five hundred pound bodybuilder?

And all those edits do was change the hair color. The long blonde one just looks weird.

 

[Redryhno]

The average person is going to immediately notice that all the female characters are fitting a very similar mold while the male characters are ranging from super skinny buddhist robot, to short Swedish Dwarf, to giant German power armored knight, to a frigging space gorilla, and all those comments about thigh and breast size look like basically minor variations on the same thing.

Off on a tangent, digging further in also reveals the odd age discrepency between characters, even the two most average (Hanzo and McCree) looking male characters are 3 and 4 years older than the OLDEST female characters, with Reinhardt and Torbjorn ranging into their 50's and 60's. Meanwhile, Mercy is the oldest female character at 34, which I guess is nice as a lot of similar games slot the entirety of their female roster in their 20's and seem to exist in a universe where women stop aging at 30. I don't have a serious problem with it, just thought it was interesting to point out.

Don't you know? Women stop aging at 29, that's why(sarcasm incoming) every (sarcasm departing)female character in the history of gaming is in their twenties.

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

That second one just has me thinking of Caesar Zeppeli...and now I wanna go be sad again...

And it also makes me want a Jojo's inspired character now...

 

[EternallyBored]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

The average Tumblr user looks like a five hundred pound bodybuilder?

And all those edits do was change the hair color. The long blonde one just looks weird.

To be fair, that first one also drastically reduces the size of her facial scar as well, no idea why exactly, personally I like the big scar, but apparently some people don't.

EDIT: actually, maybe it's just the size of the picture, but her face looks narrower as well, so the first picture may have been a deliberate attempt to make her face look more feminine.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

Eh, honestly both of those look pretty dumb, the long hair one especially looks stupid, I know they are just edits, but the only good one I saw was earlier in the thread with dark brown/black hair.

Kind of a weak comparison to Tumblr though considering that she is based off of one of Blizzard's artists, whose picture was also posted earlier in the thread, pink hair and all, which looks more punk than Tumblr. Despite how much of a hate boner some people on the internet get over a website, I don't think they've yet reached a point where they get to start co-opting hair dye.

pink short hair and tatoos LOOK ridiculous, thats trying too hard, imagine the Heavy weapons guy from TF2 with piercings and a mohawk, it would be stupid

thats the main problem with her design, its trying way too hard (tough not as much as that edgelord they also added into the game), i mentioned heavy, since TF2 is a great point of comparison, is the to-go cartoon shooter out there, "but Heavy is a man! is not the same" you might think, then take a look at Zhanna, Heavy's sister

Spoiler

just like her brother she is extremely strong, admiting to have killed and tortured countless men alongside Heavy's other sisters

besides another point i consider very important when designing a female character, atleast in my opinion, aim for a feminine shape, men and women have different body shapes and a muscular momen is not just a strong man with boobs, check some pics of weight lifting women

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

That second one just has me thinking of Caesar Zeppeli...and now I wanna go be sad again...

And it also makes me want a Jojo's inspired character now...

boyo you better not be spoiling me i want to watch that anime

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

The average Tumblr user looks like a five hundred pound bodybuilder?

And all those edits do was change the hair color. The long blonde one just looks weird.

no tatoos, no pink hair, different hair style or being a ginger

i explained in another post that the main problem with her design is they its trying to hard (a problem not limited to her character), being more subtle in the display of strength i believe yields better results

also i like the long hair blonde

 

[Redryhno]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

That second one just has me thinking of Caesar Zeppeli...and now I wanna go be sad again...

And it also makes me want a Jojo's inspired character now...

boyo you better not be spoiling me i want to watch that anime

Crap...I'll just say that events(births, deaths, triumphs, etc) are somewhat telegraphed and you'll cry manly tears and roar manly man roars through your watching of it. You'll also either love or hate the poses. Johnathan Joestar's eyes are far too attractive on a guy...

 

[Erttheking]

i relly dislike the design, i looks like your typical tumblr user


some people made made some changes and i think their edits are sooo much better

Spoiler

The average Tumblr user looks like a five hundred pound bodybuilder?

And all those edits do was change the hair color. The long blonde one just looks weird.

no tatoos, no pink hair, different hair style or being a ginger

i explained in another post that the main problem with her design is they its trying to hard (a problem not limited to her character), being more subtle in the display of strength i believe yields better results

also i like the long hair blonde

So the average tumblr user has tattoos and pink hair? Somehow I doubt it.

Also trying too hard is something I don't put a lot of stock into. Trying hard? Why in the seven hells is trying hard a BAD thing? Trying hard is an indicator that the developer CARES.

How does long blonde hair and the lack of tattoos make strength more subtle? They don't exactly make her muscles look smaller. And you had to point out that her tattoos were missing because I didn't notice it. Frankly they were hardly noticeable on the original design. Also the second one has red eyes, hardly something I'd call subtle.