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[Data West]

Both men and women like playing as beautiful women, and Blizzard knows this. Looks how they deal with female races in WoW. I'm sure they have data that backs up their designs.

Yep. I've never met a female player in WoW that used any female troll face but 'the hot one'

 

[Izayoi]

Yeah, this is why I'm going to assume that she will have an alternate outfit that shows her unmasked (if the look in those few pieces that have been floating around is what they're going for). In terms of the way they publicize all the characters I'd say only Torbjörn is owning the old look wholesale. I do hope Blizzard takes it all into account for future characters.

Eh? I'd say Rein and 76 are sporting the "old" look as well.

Besides, what's wrong with them being beautiful? Is this thread implying you can't be old and beautiful?

Mei and Zarya are attractive as well...

I don't see any problem with it - you know, being a videogame and all...

 

[N° 2048]

I don't want to play as old and ugly Heroes. What Griss said.

 

[Sou Da]

Pharah isn't a sniper, though?

Well i'm glad we can tell who played the game itt.

Pharah's mom was a sniper, the new character Sombra is a sniper. People think they're going to be the same person because of this. That is what I was asking.

Nice reading comprehension.

 

[GametimeUK]

I see nothing wrong with the characters. How about they are just designed that way with no sexism intended?

 

[charsace]

I have heard that Mercy might be the oldest character in the game.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Mercy is the one that really gets me. She's almost forty but doesn't looks like she's that far beyond her late twenties/early thirties. No explanation either other than "the wonders of modern medicine" I suppose (which in that case, why does ANYONE look old?).

Hopefully when more heroes get added Blizzard adds some less traditionally attractive women to the roster. Or at least some robot women (and not the ME3 Edi kind).

So what you're saying is that it's impossible for a woman in her late 30s to early 40s to look like they're still in their 20s? Merely changing the front digit on an age suddenly gives you more wrinkles?

 

[unknownhero]

If those hints are true, Pharah's mother don't even shows her face? It would be an safe way to not show an old woman.

She could have a maskless costume like reinhart.

 

[Steejee]

Having not played Overwatch, your descriptions of the lengths they've gone to to explain the female characters' youth is pretty hilarious and sad at the same time.

Fits with ZP's quip about the roster being focus grouped to hell.

 

[Nirolak]

Mercy looks no older than anyone else.

I think the issue is less that the 30-37 year olds don't look like they're the appropriate age - the woman in the image below is 37 - but that they don't have any women in their late 40s or 50s who would look quite a bit older.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/travel/Holidays/article333613.ece

 

[ZeroGravity]

Eh? I'd say Rein and 76 are sporting the "old" look as well.

You mean two characters who have their faces covered by masks?

 

[blitzwolf215]

I believe one of the upcoming characters is a female robot.

But yeah we are severely lacking any young men in this game.
Let's bring these kids backs:


Give them a gauntlet, keep them young, or would older people fighting kids is considered a no no?

The older brother did seem like an eventual future hero that will join Overwatch.

 

[Henkka]

I was kind of preparing to roll my eyes, but I had no idea several of the female characters have been literally frozen in time. That's pretty funny.

 

[TheGeniusArcana]

I see nothing wrong with the characters. How about they are just designed that way with no sexism intended?

It doesn't necessarily have to be intended one way or another to be sexist. The situation is still the same.

 

[Griss]

You do know that older women can be beautiful right?

Also, Junkrat and Roadhog both clearly break the "well everyone is beautiful regardless of age" thing. It is just ageism directed at women.

I'm still not convinced by that in development screenshot because the pose is literally Widow's. Would be disappointing if they covered her face though.

'Can be', sure. But younger women from 18 to their early thirties are almost universally considered more beautiful than older women as a general rule. This is true across all cultures. Youth is simply considered a part of female beauty in a way it isn't with men.

Junkrat and Roadhog are men. They are not designed to be beautiful, whatever their age.

 

[Syril]

That reminds me of the thing I hated with the character roster in Soul Calibur V, where every would-be returning female character who would have been over 40 with one exception was either replaced by a younger character who played just like them or was immortal so they didn't have to look older.

 

[Sou Da]

You mean two characters who have their faces covered by masks?

Even ignoring that most of Reinhardt's dialogue is about him being old and all of the maskless alts, 76 is still running around with gray hair and a receding hairline.

 

[Kintaro]

You do know that older women can be beautiful right?

If they made older women "too beautiful" (whatever that means), they would probably be accused of something else.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

While nothing you're saying is wrong, I do think Overwatch generally did better than a lot of games do in terms of diversity, and this particular aspect of it didn't really jump out at me as a problem. I'm not saying it isn't worth discussing, but I think they're making progress and I'd hate to overshadow that with complaints of "not enough!".

I had a similar discussion with a friend a while back who was strangely focused on the lack of black representation in Mad Max: Fury Road.

 

[Kalentan]

I was kind of preparing to roll my eyes, but I had no idea several of the female characters have been literally frozen in time. That's pretty funny.

What? Literally only Mei was frozen.

 

[NotLiquid]

Eh? I'd say Rein and 76 are sporting the "old" look as well.

I meant in terms of defaulting to the main character designs. Reinhardt being old isn't particularly a thing that comes across that immensely in his design, you only get that from his alternate costumes.

I'm not saying that as a bad thing though, I just imagine that's a similarity Sombra could potentially share, which is fine.

 

[moojito]

Nonsense essay material. "is not" ≠ "can not".

 

[LiK]

Mercy looks normal for her age. Maybe you guys know old looking women in their 30's more than me. My sis is 37 and she looks exactly the same as when she graduated from college. Not all women age poorly.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Has Blizzard ever featured a aesthetically older woman in a game? Even in Warcraft I'm only remembering a young and naively idealistic female cast.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Pharah's mom was a sniper, the new character Sombra is a sniper. People think they're going to be the same person because of this. That is what I was asking.

Nice reading comprehension.

Dude, you wrote it confusingly. Stop being a dick about it.

 

[jediyoshi]

Where's my Christmas cake.

Western audiences aren't ready.

 

[Zaventem]

Mercy looks normal for her age. Maybe you guys know old looking women in their 30's more than me. My sis is 37 and she looks exactly the same as when she graduated from college. Not all women age poorly.

Maybe they all work in factories or only know heavy smokers.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

If they made older women "too beautiful" (whatever that means), they would probably be accused of something else.

Almost everyone in the Overwatch cast is attractive so I don't think it would be too out of place.

'Can be', sure. But younger women from 18 to their early thirties are almost universally considered more beautiful than older women as a general rule. This is true across all cultures. Youth is simply considered a part of female beauty in a way it isn't with men.

Yes, because of sexism and ageism, and so we need to dismantle the ideas that men are allowed to age naturally like fine wine but women should stay eternally youthful to remain attractive.

It's literally only that way because it is currently that way, and media has the power to change it.

 

[semiconscious]

Not really thought about it until now.

& that right there's the beauty of the whole thing ...

 

[DannyDanger]

not even tryina be edgy, i had no idea "ageism" was a real thing

 

[Akuun]

You're not wrong, but that's TV and media for you. Everyone on-screen has to be impossibly attractive.

I think Overwatch already does break the mold a little with Zarya and Mei not having the bodies of models (though there are plenty of other female characters that do). And second, I suppose the argument can be made that you generally don't want old people fighting on the front lines. The game goes out of its way to point out that people like Reinhart are kind of too old for this shit.

I wouldn't be surprised if Overwatch creates an old lady character later on, but I bet any attempt at such a character would be played less because she's less attractive. She'd have to have something REALLY cool to make up for it. It's shallow but that's how games and TV are.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

If they made older women "too beautiful" (whatever that means), they would probably be accused of something else.

Or, you know, maybe they wouldn't.

 

[NightShift]

I would love a Sigourney Weaver/The Boss type character in the game. Older women are secretly the most badass.

 

[Izayoi]

I have heard that Mercy might be the oldest character in the game.

It's purely conjecture at this point. Based off of what, one of her taunts? I think it's a stretch.

You mean two characters who have their faces covered by masks?

They both have maskless skins (granted, 76's is from when he was still a young lad).

 

[mindsale]

What? Literally only Mei was frozen.

Tracer was also frozen in time, literally. And Widowmaker's probably figuratively frozen in time with her weird blood thing.

 

[Zaventem]

Or, you know, maybe they wouldn't.

We have people itt complaining about the females not "looking" like they're in their 30s.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

not even tryina be edgy, i had no idea "ageism" was a real thing

Many younger people despise the old, and many older people despise the young. I'm sure you were aware that that was a thing, you just didn't know the word for it.

 

[Intheflorsh]

Wow, that's some contrived BS. Older women get no respect.

 

[Nirolak]

Tracer was also frozen in time, literally. And Widowmaker's probably figuratively frozen in time with her weird blood thing.

Tracer is still 24 and was only out for about a year. That's not really a de-aging thing.

 

[Henkka]

What? Literally only Mei was frozen.

Well, Mei and Tracer from what I understood. Tracer was frozen in a temporal vortex, not literal ice.

 

[Izayoi]

I meant in terms of defaulting to the main character designs. Reinhardt being old isn't particularly a thing that comes across that immensely in his design, you only get that from his alternate costumes.

I'm not saying that as a bad thing though, I just imagine that's a similarity Sombra could potentially share, which is fine.

Ah, I see what you mean. No worries then, mate.

 

[TheGeniusArcana]

Mercy looks normal for her age. Maybe you guys know old looking women in their 30's more than me. My sis is 37 and she looks exactly the same as when she graduated from college. Not all women age poorly.

I feel like there's more to Mercy's age than they're telling us, because she would literally have to be 7 years old when Overwatch was originally founded, which makes no sense with Mei's line that says she looks the same as back then.

 

[redcrayon]

Tangentially relevant but I always liked adventuring with Wynne in Dragon Age. Her age and gentle encouragement out of combat always made me listen to her. That and the stern willpower towards enemies and amusing observations always reminded me of my gran.

I'm now old enough that it seems like lots of female characters in computer games are young enough to be my daughter, which presumably is, if market research has recognised where the NES generation are in their lives, why we see more parent/child relationships in games now. It's a shame it's usually manifests as father-as-violent-protector role though, conveniently allowing the same indulgence in combat, whereas the potential for mother/middle-aged female roles in a similar role is overlooked. I wonder if that's because because the idea of a female character having had a sexual relationship with someone other than the PC, rather than being a quirky, youthful, ego-stroking fantasy girlfriend, is seen as less appealing.

Even the view of male characters seems weird sometimes. I read a thread about FFX recently where someone said Auron was 'old', but he's the same age as me. And I played Tales of Hearts last year, where one tedious character in his 30s (the guy with the silly glasses and the pony tail) and presumably younger than me, spend most of the game saying how ready for retirement and handing things over to the younger characters he was. I mean, I look at the work experience people in my office and don't think I'll be handing over the reins quite yet!

 

[Kintaro]

Or, you know, maybe they wouldn't.

Nah, we'll find something wrong with this game forever. Which is fine. It's how we take steps forward.

 

[Forkball]

Mei is 31? I thought she was a teenager. I was also surprised to learn that Mercy was in the original Overwatch team, yet she looks exactly the same.

I agree with you though. While there is a tremendous amount of diversity in terms of both race and gender, all of the women are hot, yet the men are more diverse in their appearance. There's no female equivalent of Roadhog or Junkrat when it comes to straight up ugliness. But Blizzard has always designed schlocky female characters aimed at teenage boys. Though the same thing happens in other "hero" games. All of the girls in Dota 2 are hot except for like, Broodmother. I'm gonna assume the same is true for LoL.

 

[SerTapTap]

I hadn't considered this specifically but it's pretty clear the game focuses on the "model" physique. It's made very apparent by how the men look and how out of place the two actually body diverse characters are.

...and Mei and Zarya are still hot as hell so I mean, it's not like "they have to be hot" even necessitates the lazy route.

Also those 30 year olds totally don't look 30. I never really understood this, and Anime tends to do it too. Why bother totally blatantly lying about age, and if you ARE going to blatantly lie about age, why do a few characters have weird dumb explanations for their ages?

I think this is a very good point and should definitely be brought up. There were complaints about the lack of body types for women after the initial game reveal, and they seemed to add Zarya and redesign Mei from her initial concept art outline in response.

If Zarya was added because of complaints I'm going to complain SO much more lol. Her and mei are by far the best characters.

 

[Croc]

Baby steps folks...

Overwatch is one of the few games that has respectable gender and racial diversity. Hell, even Mei is the type of female character you wouldn't have seen a few years ago because she isn't overly sexualized like most (ignoring Tumblr and DA).

Yes, there is a problem, but maybe jump down the throats of the games that don't try at all, vs the ones that are at least putting in some effort.

I don't see it as jumping down throats.

To me it seems like people are bringing up issues like this precisely because Blizzard is trying. Most games/devs don't even acknowledge these issues at all so when Blizzard is actively trying to address them I think people see it as an opportunity to let them be known.

 

[Henkka]

Many younger people despise the old, and many older people despise the young. I'm sure you were aware that that was a thing, you just didn't know the word for it.

It definitely happens, but I dunno if it needs a word that brings to mind sexism and racism. Not really on the same scale.

 

[Izayoi]

Western audiences aren't ready.

Mercy fits the bill, doesn't she? I mean, if we're going by the traditional definition, anyway...

 

[Kalentan]

Tracer was also frozen in time, literally. And Widowmaker's probably figuratively frozen in time with her weird blood thing.

I mean... Tracer is only 26... So even if she wasn't "frozen in time" she would look identical. Unless you expect her at 26 to look insanely older for whatever reason. Widowmaker is also only 33...

Do people think when you reach 20+ or 30+ that suddenly you look like your in your 50's or 60's?

Well, Mei and Tracer from what I understood. Tracer was frozen in a temporal vortex, not literal ice.

As another said, Tracer at most was out for a year. She's still only 26. Not old at all.