HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
.... by advocating for safe birth control measures and less rape?
You're putting "less rape" in with "no gays".
You know that.
Right?
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RPS ambushes Blizzard director for objectification of women in Heroes of the Storm
- Thread starter usea
- Start date
.... by advocating for safe birth control measures and less rape?
You're putting "less rape" in with "no gays".
You know that.
Right?
The problem is "how are you going to change this?" is not criticism.
Squirts Macintosh
Member
Does anyone really feel "weirded out or even objectified" by characters in heels and roller derby outfits? Like actually?
Haven't seen any complaints.
Haven't seen any complaints.
I just don't understand why this is such a huge issue in gaming and nowhere else in entertainment media. Women aren't abused on Xbox Live and PSN because that Elf in WoW is sexualized, they're abused because Xbox Live and PSN are full of sexist arseholes who have the advantage of anonymity.
If it helps, they're both problematic:
I don't know. I'm speculating. But given the common thread that binds the models of female characters in WoW as illustrated by the images littering this thread, my speculation isn't exactly baseless.
I'm saying it can aid in characterization, but doesn't here. I'm not sure what the contradiction in that statement is. You obviously know more about this character than I do, but frankly none of your explanations regarding why she is depicted in this manner are all that cogent. I can appreciate that mages typically won't be depicted as wearing bulky armor, but am unsure how that explains why she chose to commission a robe which bears her midriff, much less why she chooses to wear it.
...it is a big issue in other media. Games are simply a particularly stark example of it.
Well they're free to answer "we won't".
Finaika
Member
I have never seen a single female playing StarCraft II.
Yes, that's exactly what I mean, birth control is the only aspect of human sexuality. It's not as if the movement has a history of treating women as the stupid victim who just isn't smart enough to understand how much she's being exploited or men like the evil predator when it comes to anything sexual trying to shame both genders into obeying its puritanical standards.
michaelius
Banned
Looks like another self made controversy by RPS.
If they were interviewing Twilight author would they be asking her why is she objectifying men ?
If they were interviewing Twilight author would they be asking her why is she objectifying men ?
A pretty big part of the Blizzard userbase is female, and they play SC II too. Most of them play WoW though.
Squirts Macintosh
Member
It's so much easier to fight against imaginary problems though.
Sorry, I simply can't agree with that. Women are explicitly sexualized in film all the time and you don't hear anywhere near as much discontent with it as you do with games. It doesn't help that this feminist "movement" if you will (I'm not sure if that's the right word) in the gaming industry seems to only have recently become as big as it is.
I should clarify I'm not saying I'm against this, quite the opposite actually, but I don't get why gaming needs to be put on a pedestal for gender equality when it should be a blanket attitude.
Wow, was reading that interview when it was posted on their site and couldn't make it all the way through with the awful way he phrased his questions anyway.
Now I understand why. He was just so giddy that he was going to ask that question about objectification near the end that he couldn't stop the smug from flowing through him before even getting to that point.
Now I understand why. He was just so giddy that he was going to ask that question about objectification near the end that he couldn't stop the smug from flowing through him before even getting to that point.
Riposte
Member
I don't know what you are referring to, but did it also end with the interviewer going on a rant about this point of view?
Never heard of the Bechdel test? There are entire websites devoted to it and film.
Likewise, gaming is put on a "pedestal" to the extent that it is because sexism in gaming has a way of being particularly egregious.
Because the resolution stuff was much more relevant than this? You can ask this question to 99% of the gaming industry, why ambush blizzard by doing this?
Yeah, they're pretty dated at this point, but luckily they're updating all the original WoW races next year. They showed a few of the new models at Blizzcon and they looked fantastic.
Riposte
Member
I thought they were bad from the start. Especially when compared to FFXI's :3.
AHHHHHH MY EYES!Does anyone really feel "weirded out or even objectified" by characters in heels and roller derby outfits? Like actually?
Haven't seen any complaints.
TaroYamada
Member
One is technical and objective, the other's a guy chasing after his own moral agenda.
I wonder why the latter hasn't been received as positively?
I laughed at that too, I often dislike Blizzard games (more of a Relic guy as far as RTS goes) but their art direction and presentation are phenomenal and I still think they put out fine product most of the time.
RedQueensAce
Member
RPS has become something IO don't read much at all these days.
I'm referring to the Metro.co.uk interview with the CoD:Ghosts developer, where the journalist kept "bugging" the guy with questions the dev obviously couldn't answer.
This comes off more rant-y, but i'd say that's also because the issue is so fucking exhausting to follow in general, right now.
Who should they start with? At least Blizzard can take it.
A smaller team could have more problems handling the heat.
I don't see a question like this as an "ambush".
Again, developers should be able to explain their design decision, it's not a big deal.
The RPS could've been less aggressive, but still, the questions themselves are not a big deal at all.
And? Again, it's not written anywhere that the Blizzard dude had to concede anything to him.
I would've taken a "we like this design, that's why it's there" as an answer.
Asking the question is not weird to me, however.
The Lamonster
Member
smh RPS.
I KNOW.
That blue really isn't his cover at all. He should have picked a saucy lime green number.
cutmeamango
Banned
Glad that RPS won that one.
Can you really ask this question to 99% of the gaming industry though? I don't doubt that sexism is a big issue behind the scenes, but in games and especially when it comes to character models like this it just feels forced, for a variety of reasons.
Also, I'm not really sure what their goal is. Does RPS want all games to be "politically correct"? If so, what does that mean for games in general? I'd guess about 90 percent of games are about killing other humans or at least human-like figures and I bet there are A LOT of people out there who aren't comfortable with that and feel "weirded out" by such games. Why isn't that issues pressed?
I'm fine with that.
I'm saying asking the question wasn't wrong and i don't see it as an "ambush".
michaelius
Banned
Yes that's usually whole point of feminism agendas like this. They aren't asking for diversified products that appeal to diffrent userbases instead they want everything dumbed down to cookie cutter safe bland and boring one product for all audiences aproach that Holywood uses.
I agree with you, I merely said 99% because (as you said) people try to force sexism too much in games. Honestly, we are coming to a point where people are complaining about sexism being a problem in every game out there.
It only does the exact opposite, people take the issue less seriously. And that's not good, because the issue does exist...
TaroYamada
Member
I've been thinking about that, I'm interested to see how Blizzard treats RPS in the future. Their position on feminism and how they handled it is honestly something I'd expect to see on Fox News, except you'd replace feminism with violence in video games.
I'm pretty sure the "sexy" female character models are also the most popular with women in WOW. Nobody chooses the "ugly" female races, neither men nor women. It's not like the game doesn't have alternatives.
Yeah it's pretty much the perfect response to such questions (that are really just statements).
antikythera
Banned
Hahahaha, that turned from an interview to a lecture quickly. "The goal is to let people have fun in an environment where they can feel awesome without being weirded out or even objectified.": RPS telling Blizzard what their goal is rather than asking them... in an interview.
Oh brother.
So basically your post shows you don't understand feminism and have made up your own version of it where men are these poor victims being mistreated by those horrible feminists.
Accepting your premise (problematic as it is), what do you think this proves, exactly? You and several others have stated it as if it speaks for itself.
jakonovski
Member
Games journalism is shit, but the moment someone asks games devs a real question, Neogaf explodes in a dozen page thread. Not exactly our finest hour.
Those aren't real questions. They're statements. The more I think about this article, the worse I think of it.
jakonovski
Member
Of course it's a real question, sexism in the video games industry is probably their worst problem right now.
Yeah, it's getting repetitive but if they handled that coverage like other news media, make a big circus for a few days on the first case and then forget about it, it wouldn't change anything. As annoying as it may be it reminds you that this handling of women is not some sort of natural default state and maybe you'll think about not following the tropes the next time you design a character. It'll take time and it won't be too pleasant to read about this all the time but little by little it'll make us remember that we are thinking inside a box and maybe it's worth going outside of that.
Jornalists are being annoying as of late, they need to lay off Tumblr for a while.
It's this simple:
1) Target demographic is mostly male. Which means power fantasy for male characters, curvy female characters.
2) The design looks cool. Females have nice curves, both genres agree with this, It's appealing to the mass market, it's appealing to the creators. Why doesn't anyone cry over the muscular, pretty looking, rough men in HotS ? I'm sure a lot of chubby and skinny male players are crying over it right now...
3) Pandering to a small minority of people who dislike your work won't happen. If you tell me you hate my design because of an over-sensitive "feminist"-argument-of-the-month, I won't change the design, I'd even make the female with larger thighs just to make a point. HotS is all about fanservice, pandering to the fans and yourself (devs), a fun exercise. Nothing more, nothing less.
EDIT: I've never seen any male friend complaining about Snake's ass or Raiden being naked in MGS2, or any jornalist for that matter (other than jokingly mentioning it). There are real and larger issues these people should be targeting
It's this simple:
1) Target demographic is mostly male. Which means power fantasy for male characters, curvy female characters.
2) The design looks cool. Females have nice curves, both genres agree with this, It's appealing to the mass market, it's appealing to the creators. Why doesn't anyone cry over the muscular, pretty looking, rough men in HotS ? I'm sure a lot of chubby and skinny male players are crying over it right now...
or not
3) Pandering to a small minority of people who dislike your work won't happen. If you tell me you hate my design because of an over-sensitive "feminist"-argument-of-the-month, I won't change the design, I'd even make the female with larger thighs just to make a point. HotS is all about fanservice, pandering to the fans and yourself (devs), a fun exercise. Nothing more, nothing less.
EDIT: I've never seen any male friend complaining about Snake's ass or Raiden being naked in MGS2, or any jornalist for that matter (other than jokingly mentioning it). There are real and larger issues these people should be targeting
But that's not because of the content, it's because of the people that consume the content. Toning down the sexualization of any given material is not going to change the modern male gamers attitude towards women. I'm not sure that can be done, to be honest.
Blackage
Member
When WoW came out they gave Sylvanas a placeholder Night Elf model, I think for Wrath they gave her another place holder model which was basically a Blood Elf female with red eyes wearing some tier armor, which tier I don't know. Her final model is probably the closet thing to her Dark Range/Warcraft 3 look. It's not like they gradually started showing more skin over time, the 2nd one there didn't even make it through beta.
