The Lounge: Official Spamzone Community Thread

This pose isn't as big a deal as outfit changes or removing options for player character customization.

 

actually I think Blizzard handled it very well and gave a satisfying explanation as to why they outright removed it (surprise: it's not just because someone posted about it).

 

Wat ? Do said studies come from said feminist circles ? Because last time I checked there was about as much proof for the former as for the later. Meaning absolutely none. The last time we discussed this topic you were so busy deflecting anything and everything I said that I forgot to mention, there is such a thing as feminist academia in my country. And the funny thing is, apparently they' re extra suspicious of anything that comes from your country' s feminist "academia" : they know from experience most of it is pure undiluted bollocks.

I would link the exemple I found via Thunderfoot' s chanel to illustrate, but long story short my computer is being a pain in the ass tonight. Just trust me when I say the whole "study" was pure comedy gold, no one in his right mind would need me to point the bulshit out for them.

 

Ok, I respect Jeff and the team behind the game a ton (obviously as I preordered the game and plan to buy and play it and so do a few of my friends) but to think that this was just a coincidence is kind of ridiculous.

I'm not going to say that they did the wrong thing as artists, but the change that's occurred most certainly is because someone posted about it.

@Patman , do you see the US as being more reactionary as your country?

 

@Hayabusa : that is hard for me to say. All I have to base my judgement on are the medias (and we both know how litle I can trust those) and my few interactions on places like this forum. On some levels the US definitely seem more reactionary than France. For instance your widespread social aversion for blasphemy comes to mind. But the truth is, I often see more paralels between our countries than I like to let on. An American might have an easier time than I spotting the ways in wich my country would be the reactionary one. I guess our hate speech laws would be a good place to start.

 

all of the studies i've read over the years re:violence in video games has supported the notion that violence in video games does not cause violent behavior, only that it brings it out in otherwise violent people.
portrayals of women in video games however is less of a psychological effect and more of a social one (thus, one that can be harder to point to concrete proof). still, there are a ton of studies within and outside of academia to suggest that the way women are portrayed in video games is damaging. at the most basic level, one can look at how toxic and exclusionary the video game community as a whole is towards women despite women encompassing about half of the consumer base. there's also the low numbers of women employed by developers, suggesting an industry-level problem with women
deeper than that, there's plenty of academic study on the effects. a simple google will turn up thousands of results, both from feminist circles and outside. a few of those results...

canada's center for digital media and literacy

(this also includes analysis of violence in video games)

journal of comparative research in anthropology and sociology
basic explanation of how media affects our views of the social world (soc101)

how anonymous survey respondents feel women are represented in video games

consequences within the industry (which then allows it continue to be exclusionary towards women)

An Examination of Violence and Gender Role Portrayals in Video Games: Implications for Gender Socialization and Aggressive Behavior, university of florida
an interesting analysis on the correlation of violence in video games and gender representation:

reddit isn't an academic source by any means but this is a good breakdown

tl;dr version because i'm tired of googling for you guys: it's basic sociological fact that the way media represents certain groups affects the way we see & treat them in our daily lives. academic studies about video games have supported that they function similarly to television, magazines, etc. in this way, perhaps more so given their immersive element
i don't really see what this has to do with your "france is better than america" thing but ok, trust me, i know i live in a garbage country

one of the key values the creative team behind overwatch had in developing the game was to make it an inclusive and diverse experience. that was their creative ****ing vision. i don't see why they would lie about being concerned about the pose pre-beta, but they put the game out that way anyway, saw that people echoed their concerns, and decided to change it.
which is the whole idea behind having a beta. like i said, it's the same as if players pointed out that a particular enemy was too powerful or a gun too powerful or whatever and the developers decided to nerf it thanks to that feedback. it's called a developer being responsive to the community, which clearly blizzard is trying to be responsive to community feedback of all kinds re: overwatch, even if it's a difficult topic like gender.
also, what i wrote was:

the group of people being portrayed are the best judges of whether the portrayal is positive or negative. others can and should have opinions on it, but that group should be at the forefront. as a white person, i'm not gonna walk around deciding that x portrayal of black people is good and healthy and non-problematic, especially when actual black people are telling me otherwise. i don't have the racial experiences to make that call, and it's not my place to make it for them. likewise, if a man is telling me that he doesn't think a way women are portrayed within a game is problematic but a woman says it is, then i'm probably going to side with the woman; she is the one targeted. if a kid is being bullied on the playground and the bully says they're just messing around and the victim is taking things to seriously, do you side with the bully? or the kid being bullied?

idk what blizzard's creative team behind overwatch looks like in terms of gender but if it's anything like the rest of the video game industry it's a bunch of dudes. and i think it's really admirable that they're trying their best to include women in overwatch and be careful about their portrayals of women. but part of being inclusive is listening to their audience. there was plenty of division within their community on the pose issue and the creative team chose a side based on their values and beliefs with the game. i don't think it's up to someone on kingdom hearts ****ing videos dot net to tell me what the creative mission of overwatch is and to say that the developers are somehow being disingenuous or capitulating to the pressures of evil SJW witches when the developers themselves are clearly stating that it's not the case.
moreover it's not as though blizzard is coming out and saying "sex and boobies are bad and we're removing them from the game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" they're saying that, for this specific character, they don't feel that a sexy pose works or fits in with how they envisioned her personality. because there's another character with a nearly identical pose and more of an ass to show off that's remaining in the game. so don't worry, there's plenty of cgi tiddies and ass to go around

also a nice read:
http://www.pointandclickbait.com/2016/03/developers-creative-freedom/


thanks khv for making me read and type a lot about a game i'll never play
i'm not gonna reply anymore so have fun hating me. bye babes

 

Coming in late to the topic, but I think the whole violence/misogyny trend in games > violence/misogyny in actual society has always been a flawed premise. Neither one necessarily leads to someone deliberately acting it out in person, but it definitely desensitizes the audience to it. However, misogyny is much more subtle than violence in games and that's why I think it's more effective at naturalizing anti-women societal standards in the audience's mind. On top of that, it's much more common-place all throughout society than violence because it's so subtle.
There's always the talk about feminism in films and the role women play. I just saw Batman v Superman so I'll use that as an example: the violence in the film was obvious in the fight scenes, but the female portrayal was very lackluster. Yes, we had Wonder Woman -a huge female icon who not only kept up with the boys, but probably did better in general- but then we had Lois Lane who, as the actual female lead, was not just helpless, but had to be rescued three times within the film's present narrative even once when she was trying to save the day herself and her role (as well as Martha's) was only meant to lead up to them being used against Superman. You have both Mercy and Senator Finch, one who is there to wordlessly help Luthor before both are blown up, needlessly in Mercy's case. Those two, I'll grant you aren't leads so they're not vital to the film in the grand scheme of things, but when the entirety of their roles is just to push Luthor's agenda up to that moment, eh. We have Jenny who is virtually nonexistent in both films except to have two lines in this one so we know she exists and to be there enough so her rescue matters in Man of Steel. And then there's Batgirl who got cut from the film entirely even though Snyder really just wanted this to be Batman's film, apparently, but only had room for one of his related characters. What should have been a win for Wonder Woman and her status as a feminist icon was undercut by the use of the rest of the women in the film and the fact that her first film appearance is as a "glorified cameo" in Batman's Superman film.

That was a bit wordier than I had meant it to be, but my point is that the subtlety of anti-woman works because it works on a subliminal level. You see it all around day-to-day in how they're portrayed in all forms of media, what's marketed to them and how it's marketed, how they're treated in the workplace, and so many other instances and don't even question it as anti-women, but violence is virtually always blatant and obvious. (Same thing for racism, but that's not the topic at hand).
It reminds me of something I read about women in comic books:
Meninists say it's okay for superheroines to be dressed overtly sexualized and scantily dressed because the male counterparts are drawn overtly muscular, handsome, and badass. The thing is: those are both male fantasies.

 

I'm going to go ahead and ignore the last part of your post because of what respect I still have for you. Needless to say I found it below you (if you care what I think anymore.)

Their creative vision has been in a playable beta form for over a year now, and only now they decided to act on it.

I never said Blizzard "lied" about not being concerned: I'm saying, once again, that their motivations for this specific action are questionable to me. NOT BECAUSE I THINK THEY LACK CREATIVE BACKBONE. But because in the very same thread that this controversy was born in, I'm willing to bet that at least some of the pose's supporters were women. Are their opinions not worth listening to as well? Could an option to have such a pose not have worked out for every party of any mindset?

Tell me when I told you what the creative mission of Overwatch is, by the way. Tell me where I said that Blizzard is being disingenuous. I did not say that they never thought about it beforehand: the forum post just made them do it at least sooner and in a more publicized way, and I'm just overall not a fan of options being taken away, regardless if I agree with them or not.

(also gameplay balancing =/= character depiction so please don't try equating those)

I think both subjects, violence and sexuality/misogyny, generally deserve more conversation, but it's frustrating how only the second keeps making headlines. Anyway:

In both Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, I really liked Lois Lane as a character (less so in BvS)...until both films decided to strip away all intellect and agency from her in order to promote Superman as a hero in the third acts. That really pissed me off because she was probably the most sympathetic character for me in both stories.

Mercy....I'll be honest, I'm bewildered why they did what they did with her in BvS. It seemed so needless and unsympathetic to someone who could have been an interesting character to flesh out both herself and Lex. But we got what we got.

Finch was fine. I didn't find her role noteworthy. Nothing about her felt sexist or misogynistic

...who's Jenny?

Wonder Woman...eh. Her out-of-costume stuff wasn't very good and felt out-of-character as far as I understand her from cartoons, but in costume, I really liked her action scenes. Just wish they used her far better than they did.

Spoiler

Like, WHY DID SUPERMAN NOT JUST GIVE HER THE KRYPTONITE SPEAR??? THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SMART AND COOL.

I don't think I got your perspective though on the Tracer thing? What do you think about it? Personally, I don't think it's an issue to have a tiny bit of butt on her when she's portrayed as a confident, non-submissive character, but we've already seen some other people's thoughts on that. Maybe if some of the male characters had the booty too we could have avoided so much controversy, and I'd be totally fine with man butt in the game too, because I agree with you that male character too often don't get the same treatment and that can be (and has been frequently) problematic. Not that any sex/gender deserves to be degraded but I don't think Tracer's butt is degrading?

Sorry if my post isn't worded too well, I'm supposed to be reading about the history of mass media and I'm probably a bit dehydrated.

 

At work on my phone so I'll savbe my detailed response when I get to my laptop but really wanted to respond to this:

Exactly.

Spoiler

The girl from The Daily Planet (was she an intern?) who everyone thought was a female Jimmy Olsen in Man of Steel and her initial storyline was "Here's Jenny. Here's Jenny again. SAVE JENNY FROM THE FALLING BUILDING." In BvS, she was given a line when Perry told her to write a headline down and then another line later on, but that was it.

 

...uhh...I think I remember seeing her in like one shot?

I'm not a fan of how Zack Snyder and the films' writers did changes like that and Lex as if just to be contrarian. If you change something, fine, but do it for a good reason, not because it's different.

 

Not sure what that is referring to in the quoted post? If it's the part about her being a FemOlsen, that wasn't true in the end (unless you're of the train of thought that it was the intention and then changed after backlash). He ended up being the guy with Lois at the beginning of BvS but Om not happy with that either

 

I think it's kind of unfair to force people to play it a certain way when it should be totally optional. I personally am by uncomfortable with it, but some people are and that's fine, but when it butchers a character I think that's where it's crossing the line.

For example take this SFV clip. The character shown is a really over-the-top character who uses her own sex appeal as a selling point to her wrestling career. They removed the butt slap and overall made the character less fun to play (in my opinion). They also removed the grabbing of the legs, which kind of takes away from how lethal the move is. I couldn't find a clip comparing the two, but here the original one is and I'd like everyone to think about it for a bit too, as much as the over watch one.

 

I mean if they did go with the concept of her being femJimmy. But I'm also venting how I didn't like their Lex but that's subjective and such.

And yeah, I'm not happy with that decision either.

The dumber part about this is, as you pointed out, the part where they changed R. Mika's grab, an ACTUAL WRESTLING MOVE, because of how it might be misconstrued?

 

Okay, here we go:

I mean, aren't things like that expected during betas? I don't play betas ever so I can't speak for the actual changes companies tend to make between betas and the actual releases and I have absolutely not followed Overwatch (though the gifs I see around do seem really ****ing awesome) so my opinion means jack ****, but isn't it plausible that they had this one thing during the beta and after it's been seen so many times and Blizzard themselves seeing in play so often, maybe they just felt like it didn't work and actually agreed with the feedback and decided to change it.

I understand the logic here and -in most cases- agree with it. But with this specific instance, it seems highly impractical. Giving one character an option for a different victory pose? Especially a pose that apparently "doesn't fit the character." Now, to reiterate: I haven't followed Overwatch so I don't know how customizable these characters are, if they're completely customizable like MMORPG characters or if they actually have relevant backstories and personality traits. If they're blank slates and the characters are highly customizable, then sure, an option for all characters to choose a victory pose may work (I remember DCUO let you choose a "personality" trait which was really just how your character stood). But to keep a view of a female character's wedgie as an option just seems unnecessary.

What's the issue exactly with them doing it now because of the post as opposed to doing it later for altruistic reasons? I think they had to publicize it at least to make respond to the feedback; if they did it silently, then it'd go unnoticed for too long and they would have to deal with the negativity of a pose that didn't exist anymore. Though I agree with you with options being taken away sucking (though I'm probably not as against it as you since some options shouldn't be there anyway), from what I understand, it was never an option to begin with. It was one thing and now it's another altogether. The choice wasn't there to begin with.

Depends which headlines you're reading, honestly. Also, I agree with what Misty said about conversations about feminism conversations being derailed. Not that you're doing it now, mind you, just that topics of misogyny are topics of misogyny and other unrelated topics don't belong in that specific discussion. I absolutely loathe how much airtime the Kardashians and their ilk get; I wouldn't go to a thread about their clothing lines to talk about how we should talk more about politics and not them.

I'm a little biased because Smallville's version is to date, my absolute favorite and I think Erica Durance set the bar high for her portrayal, but after some getting used to, I did like Amy Adams as her if we would have had more of her actually doing Lois stuff. But she was the female lead in BvS and what the hell did she do there?

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I could have taken or given Mercy as a character. I would have really preferred to keep her with a damn good role, but if she was just reduced to a normal assistant, then fine. But what sense did it make for Lex to kill her? Did I miss a scene where she pissed him off?

Not saying her role specifically was sexist or misogynistic. Originally, I thought she was going to be a political antagonist, but she was far more reasonable in the film than I expected. However, she was set up to be Lex's antagonist and her role was reduced to an obstacle for Lex to conquer by killing her along with his own female assistant. Alone, it's not as significant, but considering how it was paired with Mercy's needless death, it's another thing. Now one can argue that Lex himself is misogynistic and what I've been saying was supposed to be a way to subtly show that, but that didn't come across as that at all. Every scene Finch was in, the focus was on her reaction to Lex and Superman. The female senator could have been a legitimate ally or antagonist to either Lex or Superman and was instead reduced to Lex's stepping stone. Alone, it wouldn't be a big deal, but it's enhanced by the way the other women were portrayed.

Agreed. "Glorified cameo" is what they called it and that's what it was. It was handled poorly. The Superman/Lois scene should have been

Spoiler

Lois getting the spear to Wonder Woman without almost drowning.

That would have solved two problems right there. I'm guessing we're on the same page about what I said regarding Wonder Woman's feminism icon status and how it was handled poorly since you didn't counter it?

I gave my opinion earlier in this post, but originally I didn't since, like I said, I haven't kept up with Overwatch and I felt like my opinion itself wasn't well-informed enough to share. Regardless, I've now said it. I'd like to add that it isn't necessarily degrading in this instance (in my opinion), but it's highly intensified by how often the "wedgie" look is used elsewhere where it's completely impractical and unnecessary and literally just there to show that the character has an ass. That is the whole point of the feature: "this character has an ass."
In other instances, it's highly unnecessary and a bad artistic choice that I think gets made because the artist/creator doesn't see it as emphasizing a backside because they're so used to seeing it. Either women are wearing yoga pants or they have wedgies that are never noticed.

Honestly, I would have much rather they went with the concept of a femJimmy than what they actually did to both Jenny and Jimmy.

 

Edit: 10 bucks I regret posting this when I wake up the next morning. HERE WE GO. NOT REPLYING TO A SPECIFIC PERSON AND IF THIS SEEMS ALL OVER THE PLACE ITS JUST BECAUSE I AM RANTING.

Maybe this is my white man ignorance, or maybe I just shouldn't talk about this ever (probably that one) but I DO NOT understand the constant theme of "overly sexualizing women will make men treat them more like an object".

First of all they are a bunch of pixels. If someone's artistic vision is to make a game with huge boobs all over the place, go for it. I say this because I live in a world where every woman that's close to me gets an advantage in terms of respect, overall treatment, etc. I don't mind this at all actually. Treating the women in my family with respect is something I strive for, same with my girlfriend. Same with my friends back when I was in high school / the friends I made on this site. Most of them girls, and most of them I did whatever I could to help them. Not because they couldn't help themselves, but because I wanted to. Hopefully some of you remember that.

All of this while I play League of Legends which is filled to the brim with "ohey look more boobs". I'm rather insulted that people think "men" are so weak minded that we can be molded in such a way without a second thought. The reason I get pissed off about this sort of stuff is this is going to be brought up until the end of time, all the while the people with certain "agendas" are going to focus more so on the negative aspects that support their claims, and effing ignore the people who bend over backwards for people (regardless of gender because it doesn't effing matter) everyday. Of course majority of what I am talking about is extreme cases. I cannot speak for everyone in a certain group because no matter what, everyone's beliefs will vary to some degree. I love disclaimers. And walking on egg shells. And being PC.

My apologies, khv, and my apologies to anyone I offended. I have nothing against any of you personally. Believe whatever you wish. I should have learned that sharing certain opinions of mine is a sure fire way to start trouble.

 

anyone got any ideas on how to find a person that will draw for you
as disappointing as bvs was it revived my interest in writing comics
and i cant draw ****
thinkin about just wandering around the art building and seeing if i can find anything

 

I'd like to mention how I like this current conversation switching seamlessly between feminism and critique of the BvS film lol.

Don't apologize for your opinion unless you think it's actually offending someone.
Also, and this is on a much more personal note, I don't understand what it is with you wanting to avoid sharing your opinion, then sharing it while talking about how you probably shouldn't because it'd be controversial or something. Just something I noticed that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Sexuality is fine, but when it comes to females (and don't get me wrong, I see a lot of chick-flicks do it with men, but the issue is how overwhelmingly it's used to market females to males), it tends to reduce them to only their sexuality. I'll concede that individual instances these days aren't as bad as they've been, but when you look at the history of it, it's there and subtle and it's a result of an anti-woman history that people try to hide. It's like racism: it's institutionalized and it's almost always subliminal. Drug laws are overwhelmingly used against African-Americans and the history of Blacks in America have led the laws to be manufactured towards "drugs in general," but the target is almost always low-income Blacks who, because of a much more racist history, are in the place they are now. Does that mean the lawyers and cops are running around yelling the N-word everywhere? Of course not. Most of them aren't racist at all and are probably damn good and moral people, but they're a part of an institutionalized system that has racism [and social warfare] subtly integrated throughout it. Sexism is the same thing. It's not a singular trend that you only see in one industry, it's an omni-present trend that's found virtually everywhere and most people don't even see it consciously and it becomes a norm to them.

Good for you. Glad you treat women with respect. I try as well whether it's my fiance, my kid sister, my mother, or my employees. But here's the thing: How you and I treat women individually doesn't amount to ****. Were you one of the attackers during GamerGate? I'm willing to bet not, but that doesn't erase the fact that women were horribly, unfairly, and viciously attacked just for being women with opinions in a male-dominated industry. Doesn't matter if you or I had anything to do with it, but it's evidence that there is an anti-women sentiment. Like Haya (or was it Misty?) said before, I can't speak for Blizzard's [or anyone else, really] creative vision, but in this particular case, from what I've personally read about the whole fiasco, showing a character's ass is not and was never their artistic vision to begin with and they're fixing it to better align the character with their vision.
Hell, look at the whole outcry is actually about: we can't see the outline of a character's ass anymore. That's it. That's the whole issue. We could before and now we can't and people are pissed about it. Is it all men? No, I'm sure there are female players (or non-playing but opinionated spectators) who think that Blizzard is taking away a form of empowerment away from Tracer. That's all fine. But the overwhelming majority of the outcry, from what I can see, is people mad that they're "censoring" a singular character's ass."

You saying LoL (if I'm understanding the undertone correctly) has not affected how you treat women isn't entirely relevant because LoL is a prime example of treating women like sexual objects (maybe. I don't play LoL and never have, but I'm going from your comment of what it's filled to the brim with). My point is that if it does affect how you treat women, it's on a much more subtle and subconscious level due to society around you doing the same thing. In addition, it's not exactly how these things makes you (or anyone) treat women, but how it makes you think of them. It's the whole "friend zone," "nice guys" thing for instance. Now you may never have had a sexist thought at all, even one you didn't even know was sexist, then good for you. But a few good apples do not erase the issue.

Exactly. No one can, but there is a point where that group is trying to speak for themselves as a group and their opinion gets brushed aside. And it usually gets brushed aside by deflection.
For example: "Black Lives Matter!" "No, All Lives Matter." I'll let anyone reading this apply it to the current topic themselves, but there was something I've seen before that said #AllLivesMatter is like sitting down for dinner and seeing a delicious cake and everyone but you gets a slice so you say "I think I deserve a piece of cake" only to have your dad say, "Well, everyone deserves a piece of cake." Which is a good sentiment in itself, but it was kind of your point to begin with.

Same. Someone in one of my classes suggested going to artistic communities (there are some Facebook pages they suggested but I can't remember them) like DeviantArt since you might find someone who can draw, but doesn't have something to draw. We should cowrite something sometime.

 

BvS was good and I need to finish rewatching the last season of smallville as I tried binging it earlier this year and didn't have what it takes to finish that.

As for me walking on eggshells, talking about it, then speaking anyway. Ever since I came back to khv I had to do my best to not be too overly opinionated or say anything that'll piss anyone off because I came back on a short leash, and I struggle with wanting to jump into the conversation, but I know it'll bite me in the ass. I was more so conveying my inner thoughts into text. Historically me opening my mouth lead to people either loving or hating what came out of it, which is rather annoying to deal with due to backlash. Doesn't help that I wear my heart on my sleeve, but still.