Superhero comics are pretty unsexy in the large scheme of things, to be honest.
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RPS ambushes Blizzard director for objectification of women in Heroes of the Storm
- Thread starter usea
- Start date
Superhero comics are pretty unsexy in the large scheme of things, to be honest.
Eh. Thats not that bad
It's a fair topic but it would have been different if the interviewer was professional and actually tried to have a discussion about it instead of being all aggressive and trying to make a point.
And no this is such a cop out answer. So objectification is wrong no matter what you are. "No bro you've had it good this whole time. Now it's your turn to suffer." Give me a break.
And no this is such a cop out answer. So objectification is wrong no matter what you are. "No bro you've had it good this whole time. Now it's your turn to suffer." Give me a break.
Oh, didn't know that. Only saw pictures of the females. I've seen only very few "brute" type males, but I don't find them attractive, personally.
This is what I'd call some male fanservice:
I'd love to see more of that in games too, even as a power fantasy they appeal to me a lot more than brutes, I just find them ugly, I don't get a "power" vibe out of them, they just look bad.
Hmm, that is true, and your wife has fine taste.
b&jy77VjiKn$#F
Member
Listen to the everyman, everybody! I totally agree!
Japan is definitely going that way.
Riposte
Member
Messages you get could create from Call of Duty:
-A defensive position where you know where adversaries are coming from gives you advantages over those in an offensive position who do not know where their adversaries are.
-Even if you are bad, if you do something long enough you'll eventually obtain means to do it better.
-If you throw everything away, making your way back to the top is prestigious.
-Always check the floor for landmines.
-Dying is okay, you'll come back to life without losing much. (Unless you are playing Search & Destroy, the message there is "YOLO")
-Doing well puts you in a position to continue doing well.
Some of these are kind of useful if you ask me.
-A defensive position where you know where adversaries are coming from gives you advantages over those in an offensive position who do not know where their adversaries are.
-Even if you are bad, if you do something long enough you'll eventually obtain means to do it better.
-If you throw everything away, making your way back to the top is prestigious.
-Always check the floor for landmines.
-Dying is okay, you'll come back to life without losing much. (Unless you are playing Search & Destroy, the message there is "YOLO")
-Doing well puts you in a position to continue doing well.
Some of these are kind of useful if you ask me.
The target audience means the people who are likely to play the game. So, obviously it cannot be everybody. My mother will never play a MOBA. And, one doesn't have to be a gross sexists because they aren't offended by something that may be offensive to someone else. I think applying blame and ulterior motives to people just damages any sort of conversation and discussion that can happen.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
A lot of people would be happy with that, including probably a fair number of feminists. I personally probably wouldn't because I'm not generally a fan of decontextualized gratuitous indulgence in entertainment in general (outside of some well done exceptions), but I know I'm a bit odd there.
The whole industry, including the consumers, want to have their cake and eat it too.
Imperfected
Member
Again, you are falling into the fallacy of false equivalency on this. Heroes of the Storm is also a game in which you're constantly killing things. This is not about whether or not violence or sex in media are appropriate or dangerous, it never was. This is about whether or not the depictions of characters intended to be used as player avatars within the context of that media are sending poor or mixed messages to the players.
RPS was not trying to say that games should be moralistic exercises on the betterment of mankind. They were not saying that games cannot contain depictions of things that are considered socially unacceptable. They were saying, quite specifically, that having all the female characters in a game where you are playing Heroes have skimpy alt-costumes (intentionally or not) sends the message that a woman cannot be "heroic" without being sexualized. Again, I am not saying this is actually the case of HotS - I haven't seen much of the art - but for pete's sake, if we're going to have this already needlessly reductive and emotionally charged debate, let it be about what was actually being quibbled over, and not this completely different tangent you've gone off on.
So the only people who enjoy character designs like that are gross sexists? Oh-kay!
That's the problem with nonsense like this. Gamers are predominantly male. It's probably shocking, but they like women in skimpy things. It doesn't make them sexists. I like the unabashed, unashamed approach mangaka and anime directors take to their craft. They know who buys the stuff, so they don't mind piling on the fanservice. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
It's like when Sega went to gender-neutral colors in Streets of Rage. A totally idiotic move that probably doomed the franchise. Entertainment is allowed to have flair and fun. That's all this is. If consumer dollars went to more conservative designs, then you'd see developers making more conservative designs. You can't fault a business for making a product more attractive to the actual people who buy it. PEACE.
megamerican
Member
They're wasting an opportunity to ask real questions in order to bait someone into drumming up fake controversy.
This is such a non issue. Both male and female characters are stylized to have attractive qualities associated with their gender. Now there is something to game narratives, or women's roles in games, but attacking character design usually is just trolling.
Dougstyles
Banned
RPS continues to render themselves irrelevant. A shame, too, as they used to be one of the few sources I trusted on PC gaming.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
I take issue with the idea that those concepts are in conflict. It's not "unartistic" to be pulpy.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
I don't see me calling for tongues cut out or hands severed either? Just remarking that these critics voices have become high pitched indeterminable whines from banging the same drums at every opportunity all year that I will actually be desensitized to such topics when something legitimately disgustingly objectifying comes round again like that Dead Island CE statue thing.
It's mentioned every single time. Multiple times already in this thread.
Hi. The questions was unexpected and somewhat hostile. I don't mean to make a value judgment about it, that's just what it seemed like to me. I mean, it's gaming journalism. How often do they ask real questions like that?
I'm glad he asked it. But I don't think it's too much of a stretch to call it an ambush. I'm sure Dustin Browder felt ambushed.
TouchMyBox
Member
Everybody wants to have their cake and eat it too.
If you showed me roller derby nova and asked me to tell you who that was I'd have no fucking clue. At the very least the alt costumes should not make it so that at a glance I can't tell who a character is.
Similarly at first glace mecha Tassadar is just wtf.
Several heroes had alt skins that just feel a bit too out there due to how much they change how a character looks.
http://www.gameskinny.com/zytoh/heroes-of-the-storm-hero-and-skin-list-that-we-know-so-far
I do like like the alt costume for the demon hunter from diablo 3 though.
I don't think this was the right time or way to bring up issues with how blizzard ( among many others) costumes women. As a female myself I have a lot of issues with this sort of thing and how god damn pervasive it is but I don't like how this interview was handled.
Similarly at first glace mecha Tassadar is just wtf.
Several heroes had alt skins that just feel a bit too out there due to how much they change how a character looks.
http://www.gameskinny.com/zytoh/heroes-of-the-storm-hero-and-skin-list-that-we-know-so-far
I do like like the alt costume for the demon hunter from diablo 3 though.
I don't think this was the right time or way to bring up issues with how blizzard ( among many others) costumes women. As a female myself I have a lot of issues with this sort of thing and how god damn pervasive it is but I don't like how this interview was handled.
People shouldn't confuse power fantasies with sexualized fantasies and think they are the same type of fantasy.
Marcus Fenix or Duke Nukem are not sexual fantasies, they are power fantasies (male). Closest to the sexual fantasies projected at males in gaming come 'that one male race of strippers in that MMO Tera'. Coincidentally, finding a power fantasy for females is just as hard. Titania of Fire Emblem? I would call her empowered, but that's it. I honestly have no clue. On the flipside, sexual fantasies (female) and power fantasies (male) happen in every other game.
BUT, I agree that this is not the place or the time to grill Browder about this. The three latest questions came way out of the left field. No follow up, no open ended questions. Grayson's questions are framed in a way that his opinions shine through. Now, it's RPS so that shouldn't come to anyone's surprise, but it's not proper journalistic practice. Grilling Browder is fine, but he's like a dog with his bone, settled on getting a point across and everything has to make way.
Marcus Fenix or Duke Nukem are not sexual fantasies, they are power fantasies (male). Closest to the sexual fantasies projected at males in gaming come 'that one male race of strippers in that MMO Tera'. Coincidentally, finding a power fantasy for females is just as hard. Titania of Fire Emblem? I would call her empowered, but that's it. I honestly have no clue. On the flipside, sexual fantasies (female) and power fantasies (male) happen in every other game.
BUT, I agree that this is not the place or the time to grill Browder about this. The three latest questions came way out of the left field. No follow up, no open ended questions. Grayson's questions are framed in a way that his opinions shine through. Now, it's RPS so that shouldn't come to anyone's surprise, but it's not proper journalistic practice. Grilling Browder is fine, but he's like a dog with his bone, settled on getting a point across and everything has to make way.
RiccochetJ
Gold Member
Saintguine
Member
I'm simply arguing that violence in videogames causing/giving rise to/influencing violence in real life is just as credible as sexism in videogames causing/giving rise to/influencing sexism in real life (which is a point that has been argued).
That has been the point I've been arguing ever since I've got into this thread.
ShinMaruku
Member
I find this whole "The games industry can do better" thing really irritating. Just because it hit big time does not stop it from being run by the human element. I mean I can point at a huge assortment things that should be better. But I am just pragmatic.
I agree. And I understand the point RPS is trying to make, but damn the method is stupid. How can't they see that being so overtly aggressive will only polarize the opinions even more?
On one side, people sweeping the issue aside without even taking the time to think about it, and on the other side, people ambushing devs they see as guilty on every occasion they get.
TyrantGuardian
Member
Bit of a side-note, but anyone scoffing at the idea of games making you feel empowered most certainly has not played through the original Deus Ex.
More on topic: people criticizing this interview need to read the follow-up article. This isn't about politics or your precious little right to "not make a message out of everything" (what the fuck?), it's about actual people being alienated out of communities in part because of the environment this kind of sexism helps create. Or, to put it differently: have you ever been in a moba game where a female had dared to use the voice chat functionality? I have. Game developers need to step the fuck up and start designing games that don't pander to that sort of thing.
More on topic: people criticizing this interview need to read the follow-up article. This isn't about politics or your precious little right to "not make a message out of everything" (what the fuck?), it's about actual people being alienated out of communities in part because of the environment this kind of sexism helps create. Or, to put it differently: have you ever been in a moba game where a female had dared to use the voice chat functionality? I have. Game developers need to step the fuck up and start designing games that don't pander to that sort of thing.
If they really wanted to bombard someone about this point in an interview, they could've actually picked a game that is blatantly sexing up their female characters. Accusing HOTS about this really seems like a reach when you have MOBAs with stuff like this:
Nobody's playing SMITE
no Clickz to be gained
oconnomiyaki
Member
Rock Paper Shotgun always writes with that pretentious tone of someone smug in their self-belief that their opinion is fact. It's detrimental to this crusade it's on because it comes across as condescending zealotry.
Depending on what your frame of reference is, i'd say superhero comics have less outright sex and nudity, but much more casual or passive sexualization, mostly through female's characters design.
Personally when someone says "comics" to me, i think about either franco-belga ones or what some people call graphic novels, because that's what i usually read anyway.
Is there even any real stone cold proof that this is actually the case? I mean I'm all for accepting this if you can prove it, but I really don't understand how a fictional character can objectify a woman. Especially when said fictional character isn't even human.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Maybe its just me but those questions didn't sound overly aggressive. If thats what qualifies as aggressive then journalists really can't talk about anything
This is the first time I have read anything from them that was this eyeroll worthy. They have a point about objectification, but way to be a douche about it. The entire interview was awful.
Yeah buddy its definitely just you. If you didnt read that and feel the aggressive tone from the start I dont know what to say. I love RPS, but it was very obvious what they were out for in this one.
The problem is they didnt seem to want to have a back and forth, they just wanted to club someone over the head. And they wouldnt be the first, I just expect more from them, so its disappointing.
RPS is getting more and more stand offish with these questions. Which makes me wonder if they want to just point the finger and rant or actually have a discussion. Not that I think Bowder would have been all that open either way.
shinobi602
Member
Another reason I completely ignore RPS.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
All fiction is a reflection of reality on some level, or perhaps a reflection of culture is a better way to put it. Thats why people find it emotionally compelling. The more people can connect the material to their own reality the more they connect to it emotionally.
I think Smite is pretty fun. Embarassing art design but fun.
Don't rock the boat
b&jy77VjiKn$#F
Member
Now that's more like it.
Read their X-Com: Declassified preview. Or actually, don't. I don't think the game is particularly good, but the way they wrote it is the snarkiest, 'having a giggle', I'm working on my college newspaper's humor column writing I've ever seen. It is awful.
TwiztidElf
Member
Hyper-sexualised? Wha?
Interviewer with an agenda.
ShinMaruku
Member
If this backfires I wonder if they will look up tacts. Aiming at Blizzard.... They could have picked a harder target (Maybe not since most NA devs have ass art departments IMO)
You're kind of agreeing with him. He said she's a one-off so far and fine by herself. He then asked how they planned to approach it with the rest of the cast, considering the context of the sexualization going on in the genre's other games.
Blizzard has one of the best art departments in the industry.