Blizzard has an absolutely massive fan base with a library of games that most any developer would envy having in their own. The latest is the developers storied line-up is the soon to be released multiplayer FPS, Overwatch.
A few days back, a post went up on the Beta Feedback forum written by one of the beta testers currently putting the game through its paces. In the post the tester went off about an optional pose used by Tracer, one of the Overwatch’s offense characters. They pointed out that this particular pose needlessly flaunted the character’s sexuality and that it should be removed because it reduced Tracer into “another bland female sex symbol. Not trying to be overly inflammatory the poster made sure to mention that Blizzard has done a lot of great work by stating that this pose “undermines so much of the good [Blizzard has] already done.”
Here’s the offending pose:
Here’s a piece of the original post:
WHAT? What about this pose has anything to do with the character you’re building in tracer? It’s not fun, its not silly, it has nothing to do with being a fast elite killer. It just reduces tracer to another bland female sex symbol.
We aren’t looking at a widowmaker pose here, this isn’t a character who is in part defined by flaunting her sexuality. This pose says to the player base, oh we’ve got all these cool diverse characters, but at any moment we are willing to reduce them to sex symbols to help boost our investment game.
Getting art into a triple A game isn’t a small task, it has to go through an implementer, a team lead, an art director, and a creative director. This is a team effort. And I believe the team is responsible for upholding the great example overwatch can set to the rest of the industry for creating strong female characters.
I have a young daughter that everyday when I wake up wants to watch the recall trailer again. She knows who tracer is, and as she grows up, she can grow up alongside these characters.
What I’m asking is that as you continue to add to the overwatch cast and investment elements, you double down on your commitment to create strong female characters. You’ve been doing a good job so far, but shipping with a tracer pose like this undermines so much of the good you’ve already done.
As you can imagine this set off a barrage of posts and responses and on the whole, the opinions expressed by the rest of the beta testers were not very positive. Everything from accusing the poster of attempting to impose personal beliefs on the development team to trolling to being overly sensitive; no accusation was left unexplored.
Finally, after a three day run of bickering and 11 pages of going back and forth, Overwatch‘s Game Director Jeff Kaplan stepped in. In what many felt was Blizzard buckling to pressures that really had no base to begin with he stated that the offending pose as to be removed.
We’ll replace the pose. We want *everyone* to feel strong and heroic in our community. The last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented.
Apologies and we’ll continue to try to do better.
What’s your take on the whole thing? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.