ronaaz:

feministgamingmatters:

feministgamingmatters:

flamingtrashcans:

feministgamingmatters:

Whilst Overwatch does have some diversity in its female cast, I find myself incredulous that people can’t see the sexism in the predominant tropes: skin tight outfits; boob plates; and very skinny women are the most commonly occuring design choices. There are no conventionally unattractive female heroes, whereas there are male heroes like Winston, Junkrat, and Roadhog. There are good elements to Overwatch’s character design too, but plenty to critique.

THANK YOU and THANK YOU for the tag about the racism

The pants aren’t just tight, either, they’re so tight they practically go up into their assholes, like a reverse camel toe (I wouldn’t be surprised if they made versions with camel toe, just like the artists kept naughty drawings of Jessica Rabbit on their cubical walls). I won’t get into the sexism too much except to add that the combination of infantilizing and sexualising women at the same time disturbs the fuck outta me, and Blizzard did it unashamedly. You can make a character sexy without turning them into a sexual object but apparently Blizzard didn’t get that memo.

And then there’s the racism. What I find absolutely outstanding is that this game was Blizzard’s attempt at diversity and being less sexist. And people (mostly white people, I’ve noticed) have just lapped it the fuck up. As a non-white, non-American I’d like to tell Blizzard to stay in its fucking lane because it’s so painfully obvious that they looked at other cultures and races through a white ‘murican lens that I want to break something. But of course, the fans are very quick to jump on anyone who claims or even mentions it. Nah, there’s nooo problem with the offensive skins, no problem with the white-washing of characters, no problem with the fact that some skins are from the wrong fucking culture to the character it’s on! We’re just being over sensitive! It’s just a fun game! It’s just a stereotype! Eat my entire ass. People would rather bury their heads in the sand than admit that they like something racist. Fun fact, we have an Indigenous tv show here called Cleverman and the writers and producers are Indigenous and had to ask their elders for permission to show the world parts of their culture/history/knowledge before they could begin the project. They had to earn the right to make a tv show like this. Because funnily enough, just having diversity doesn’t get you a get out of jail free card on racism. If the characters and their culture aren’t treated with respect, it means dick all.

In particular, Symmetra broke my fucking heart. My dad is from India, I get a lot of news from India. I grew up with a lot of stories. I have Indian friends. The rape culture is – bad. Very bad. Worse than you can imagine. And I stand with the women of India, who have to fight tooth and nail to be treated like human beings not their fathers/husband’s possessions. Who have to fight even outside of the country. So when I saw her design and broken-doll pose, I felt my heart sink. And when I saw the pathetic attempt at a Kali skin I felt my face get hot with anger. Kali is supposed to be like this:

Kali is represented with perhaps the fiercest features amongst all the world’s deities. She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands bless her worshippers, and say, “fear not”! She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as necklace, and a girdle made of human hands as her clothing. Her tongue protrudes from her mouth, her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are sullied with blood. She stands with one foot on the thigh, and another on the chest of her husband, Shiva.
 –

Subhamoy Das

She’s ferocious power, she’s terrifying, she’s empowering – and what did Blizzard do? Ignore all that (like most men do) and turn the skin into an utterly incorrect, utterly ignorant pinup costume. A sexual object yet again, one of the many things Indian women are fighting against. Her skulls aren’t even on her neck! She only has two arms! They moved her skulls to her hip so they didn’t cover her breasts! The fact that people are going around calling it “the devi skin” says volumes about the utter ignorance surrounding this. Ignorance might not be done maliciously, but it doesn’t excuse people or make it less racist. It just proves that the majority of people don’t care about the cultures that Blizzard is using for profit. 

Thank you for this really important addition.

This post has picked up almost 5,000 notes since the addition which I’m super glad about because the added detail deserves all the attention; but I just want to point out that this is the post where the first thousand reblogs (and my inbox) are full of people telling me that no one cares, or that it’s just a game.

Well, clearly, we care. Don’t let anyone tell you you shouldn’t.

Hey, @bikiniarmorbattledamage, what are your thoughts on this?

Anyone who followed us for extended amount of time would know that we agree entirely. We’re sick of Overwatch being given all the credit for doing diversity right/doing women better when at best it’s just the minimal token effort, sprinkled generously with overt sexism and racism on top. 

All the while competing games with comparably more care about representation fall into obscurity, by the virtue of not being made by a huge studio with big marketing budget and overzealous fanbase. 

Speaking of which, Blizzard fandom is easily one of the most belligerent ones, consistently replying to any post we make about their games with defiance, trolling and abuse. And often insisting that their headcanons should be accounted for in judging the quality of OW’s designs, story and characters. 

@feministgamingmatters‘ and @flamingtrashcans’ posts above are almost 4 years old and no less topical than they were back in 2016. If anything, the amount of problems with Overwatch piled on since then and we have an archive of posts to prove it. 

Further BABD reading on the game’s problems with representation and diversity

(Note that vast majority of the links here are dated after the original publication of the above post. And it’s by no means a complete list of all the problems with sexism/racism the game has.) 

~Ozzie 

Some stats, counting out of 30 heroes, since Bastion doesn’t have gendered pronouns:

Total female-coded characters: 14

Women of color (robots don’t count): 6

Lady characters who are not human: 1 (counting the robot) (vs 3 men)

Lady characters whose entire face is hidden: big fat 0 (not counting the robot) (vs 5 men, also no robots) 

-Icy 

darthputa:

scp2008:

trilllizard666:

darthputa:

What could have been if Blizzard and Overwatch had women of color on their teams and cared about their black fans…

….i don’t know how to break this to you

but that’s clearly a character with albinism of some kind

she could feasibly be any race, but with albinism

which is a remarkably rare medical condition

albinos of every race exist

also….isn’t it kinda very racist to put bigger lips like that in a “black” racebend? lmao

that is true op why did you make the person have bigger lips?

because im a black woman and I have big ass lips and wanted her to have big ass juicy lips

[click on images to see them, if you’re not viewing from Tumblr dashboard]

So let me get this straight…

  1. Overwatch churns out like third white chick in a row.
  2. Fed up fan of color racebends her to show what it would look like if Blizz actually cared to have black female representation.
  3. And, according to rabid Blizzard fanboys, now SHE is the racist one, because this albino character might as well not be intended to be white?

If you don’t see anything wrong with that logic, unfollow our blog immediately. 

Seriously. We don’t want you here. 

~Ozzie 

Firstly, I definitely recommend everyone read this piece by Black Girl Gamers.

By far the most common certain demographic response seems to have been to claim that it’s fine that literally none of Overwatch’s 25 playable characters is a black woman because line up includes robots, an ape and a hamster… so naturally is the most diverse range possible.

That of course, is not even vaguely what “diversity” is about and even Blizzard executives Chris Metzen (now retired) and Jeff Kaplan (definitely not retired) understand that:

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The problem is: Overwatch got prematurely rubber stamped for “good diversity” primarily for having higher than the (abysmal) industry standard for female, brown and old lady characters. (ie, some characters exist).

Now they’ve got that kudos, they’re not interested in actually delivering on promises or even maintaining the baseline. 

Well it’s either that, or they decided that a key demographic who needs over representation is conventionally sexually attractive white women.  Specifically ones who are almost identical to Widowmaker. [link]

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(Again, I remind you – it is a stated goal of Blizzard to make this game about better representation for everyone, especially women, and they have leaned into every ounce of the abundant of praise they have received regarding representation and diversity in the past three years)

And if all of that wasn’t already bad enough:

There is seriously no way that anyone can believe that Blizzard, as a company, have any interest in good representation and making everyone feel welcome beyond sound bytes and quick stunts they can do to seek publicity boosts.

– wincenworks

BABD highly recommends you consider supporting:

Black Girl Gamers ( www | twitter | twitch )
I Need Diverse Games ( www | twitter | twitch | patreon

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

theworstblogdotgeocities:

lowpolyhighfun:

A friend’s request for a bodily comparison of the gods and goddesses of Smite.

bikiniarmorbattledamage

I’m having a flashback to this Overwatch silhouette comparison (pre-Zarya, the token exception, that is):

image

original source: [x]

Eyup. Typical. Men tend to be all shapes and sizes, while women are just slight variations of the same “shapely” figure.

image

[x]

image
image

[x]

~Ozzie

With a very few exceptions, pretty much every time I see a game brag about diverse body shapes – I wonder if they hired the same “expert” consultant that Levi’s did:

image

– wincenworks

more on double standards | more on character design | more on SMITE | more on Overwatch

Since everyone can predict us talking again about Overwatch in the near future, this week’s throwback is the video game industry’s bafflingly narrow definition of what “diversity” among female characters looks like.

~Ozzie

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

This is why we find it difficult to celebrate Blizzard’s baby steps towards progress – they are already so self-congratulatory about it that they basically gave up before they started.

Okay, yes, baby steps, Blizzard has got a long history of being terrible and a lot unlearning to do.  But they could at least try to show some self-awareness of this.

Dirty Bomb, a game which I feel we have actually tragically under-represented in our positive examples, has managed to incorporate diversity and gear equality without making it a novelty item.  How? By making diversity a genuine priority – that’s why their line up looks more like this:

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– wincenworks

And it’s not only body diversity which seems to be a challenge for female Overwatch characters, so is their AGE!

D.Va is actually the youngest in the whole ensemble (19). Female characters don’t get older than 34 (Mercy), while male ones range from 20 (if you count Zenyatta, a robot) or 25 (Junkrat) all the way up to 61 (Reinhardt).

The overall design of D.Va is perplexing on so many levels, too. What new is she supposed to contribute? Yet another young, thin, conventionally pretty woman in a catsuit… something the game (and the industry as a whole) so totally lacked before! Even her silly pseudonym rubs in that she’s a diva. 
The idea of a Korean professional gamer-turned-mecha pilot is very cool (even if the backstory rips off Evangelion/Pacific Rim), but why make her look so generic… and paint her mech pink? 

My most optimistic guess: one of many Blizzard’s Creepy Marketing Guys saw Zarya and said “So, we’re doing female tanks now? Okay, but next one is gonna be the SEXY tank! And make her more PINK!

~Ozzie

more on Overwatch | more on Blizzard

Remember when Blizzard was doing female characters better in Overwatch?

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Yeah, me neither.

We will be doing a full post about the new Widowmaker skin, but until then, we just wanted to throwback to this post about all the effort Blizzard is putting into their diversity.
It still doesn’t make sense for Widow to wear those clothes because, 

  • a) she is a sniper and that top just screams nip slip; and 
  • b) she’s a sniper, who’s she going to be ‘distracting’ exactly from 2 miles away?

It also just looks really ugly? It really looks like someone designed a practical suit for her, and then Creepy Marketing Guy walked in and told them to cut a third of it off, so they just did, without any design adjustment.

-Icy


edit: Since a lot of replies ignore that the original post is almost 1,5 years old and mentioning newer characters is beside the point Icy is making about Widowmaker, let’s quickly address this: We do acknowledge how Ana Amari is a cool non-sexualized old lady (even if squarely within OW’s established beauty standards) and Orisa is a cool female robot.
That said, there are still problems with how old characters continue to be depicted and adding new heroes doesn’t change that.

~Ozzie

PS: Mercy is 37, not 34 – my bad. She looks neither age, regardless.

Orisa

Many excited readers informed us of the new Overwatch tank character, Orisa, as well as her child prodigy creator, Efi.

One thing we can say from the start is that Orisa is easily the first female-identified character in the game to whom “can I fap to her?” obviously wasn’t a design priority. So there’s no robo-ass or boobs to show and sexualize.
That said, she’s a modified battle robot, so unless Blizzard lowered their standards to super sleazy, it was a given she wouldn’t have arbitrary secondary sex characteristics. 

That said, Omnics having gender in the first place is pretty complicated issue, storytelling-wise, as some are considered non-gendered machines (Bastion) and other are mechanical people (Zenyatta), which makes it akin to “Why does Goofy wear pants, but Pluto doesn’t?” sort of philosophical problem. 
Though Orisa’s story, given that Efi converted her from one kind of robot into another, seems to explain her being female quite well. 

It’s also nice to see how since the open beta, number of female tanks in the game rose from 0 to 3 out of 6, making it the first currently the only gender-balanced class in Overwatch. 

Efi herself being an African girl is good in terms of diversifying cast, though we’re still yet to see a black female character who is also playable

~Ozzie

If we are to engage in the oddity of gendered robots it’s good that the explanation be something outside of gender roles or excuses for literal objectification of women.

It’s really good to see Blizzard actually applying some of the principles they’ve been talking about at the GDC.

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It would however, be even better if they remembered that while it’s important to have diversity in your secondary cast, it’s even more important to have it in your primary lineup.  That and robots are not (yet) an audience for your games.

– wincenworks 

more Overwatch on BABD | more Blizzard on BABD

edit: Thanks to @randomentalist for pointing out that support class used to be gender-balanced after introduction of Lúcio, but before Ana.

The Rigged Slot Machine – Overwatch’s Female Character Creating Engine

Every time we criticize female sexualization in Overwatch, we’re sure to get at least a single reply along the lines of “What’s wrong with having ONE sexy assassin/pilot/etc. in the game?”, to which our answer would be “Nothing. But where’s that ONE person you’re talking about? We see a whole bunch.  Also why no male character is coded unequivocally sexy with his design and/or clothes and/or posing and/or personality?”

I figured the best way to illustrate this is a rigged slot machine, in which slot devoted to describing character design lands on “sexy” 6 out of 8 times.

All heroes in the game have unique ethnic and cultural backgrounds, backstories and personalities. Most of them look quite diverse. The problem is that for women in Overwatch, more often than not,

the visual design compromises that in one way or another, in favor of making them conventionally attractive for the presumed cishet male gamer. 

It might be a single thing, it might be the whole way character looks, dresses and is animated, but most of female Overwatch heroines suffer from gratuitous sexualization and obvious double standard when compared to their male colleagues. And a single step in more varied female representation should not be glorified as massive progress when everything else remains unfixed. 

While a few of the game’s problems listed in old articles like this or this one got resolved by expanding the lineup, sadly, year and a half later

a lot of them remain true.

~Ozzie

more about Overwatch on BABD

Breakdown of all the concerns we have with characters under the cut:


Symmetra, the Sexy Indian Architect: (yes, we know the in-universe word is architech, but isn’t really relevant nor is it our job to explain Blizzard’s convoluted lore). Everything about her pantless costume and non-dance related posing is devoted to accentuating her hourglass figure, especially the thighs and hips. Also she’s wearing thigh-high high heels for no reason other than to look sexy to the audience – even Blizzard knows this.

D.Va, the Sexy Korean Mecha Pilot: D.Va is a teenage gamer celebrity. She’s girly, flirty, flamboyant and confident. Being a sexy character suits her personality and backstory. Her biggest sin is that she was revealed very late in the beta, so among all the gratuitously sexualized women, her genuine sexyness doesn’t stand out. Overwatch missed an opportunity when they didn’t make her THE sexy female character in the cast of diverse women with varying degrees of femininity.

Mercy the Sexy Swiss Healer: She’s a doctor devoted to heal the wounded with the help of her high-tech suit… suit that is so skin-tight it involves a boobplate. We can assure there’s nothing high-tech about separate boob bumps in a rigid breastplate meant for protection. Also, angel-themed character just happens to be a pale, blue-eyed blonde? How subtle!

Pharah, the Sexy Egyptian Soldier: Personality-, animation- and story-wise, a professional and devoted soldier in every inch. Design-wise… her (obviously Samus-inspired) battle suit includes what looks like a metal thong.
And funny how a female soldier character in gender-ambiguous armor just happens to have long, luxurious hair and perfectly made up face under that helmet. If she was a man she’d have the battle hardened, probably scarred, grizzled Male Protagonist™ look, including the buzzcut that conveniently cuts down on polygons while conveying military pragmatism.

Widowmaker the Sexy French Assassin: Some say she’s justified in looking sexy, as her design coveys a femme fatale. While it’s not wrong to have a femme fatale in the lineup (as long as it’s played as more than “good is chaste, evil is sexy”), we don’t see how that connects to this particular character, given her personality and story.
Why someone who was kidnapped, brainwashed and turned into a perfect unemotional killer would dress in something that looks like bodypaint with impossibly deep cleavage and high heels? How is such look helpful for her job as a sniper? Why does every male character from this archetype look totally different than her?

Tracer, the Sexy British Speedster: She’s playful, cute, energetic… and for some reason, whenever there’s a chance, her butt is put in the spotlight. Blizzard couldn’t give it up even when they admitted her previous victory pose was objectifyingthey replaced it with a more playful, yet still butt-focused literal pinup.

Zarya, the Beefy Russian Gunner: The first attempt for a different female body type in Overwatch. Why does her suit includes boobplate, though?  Much like Pharah, she doesn’t seem to have any of the grit we come to expect from heavy duty soldiers when they happen to be men.

Mei, the Curvy Chinese Scientist: Only problem with her is that we don’t know for sure whether she is significantly chubby/curvy (compared to all the thin women around) or if her thick arctic clothes make her look that way.  She certainly doesn’t have her body type conveyed to the same extent as, say, Roadhog.

ALL OF THEM: They’re all young (19-34), with conventionally pretty faces (even Zarya and Mei, who are supposed to be somewhat masculine and chubby, respectively, don’t veer off any far from Western beauty standard). There’s very little body type variety. Literally half of the women are ethnically white, while two East Asian characters sport pale completions.

lightlunas submitted:

League of Legend’s newest champion, Taliyah, the Stoneweaver, is another step forward towards more diversity and non-sexualized female champions for them. As usual, this was accompanied by a big outcry of some players about Riot Games not making sexy lady champions anymore, as seen in a lot of comments on her reveal video. Interestingly, Taliyah’s lead designer addressed this on twitter

I hope they continue to fill the huge gaps in diversity first and if they make a sexy champion eventually again, treat it as the exception that it should be.

Good news: League of Legends, released another female champion, after Illaoi, who is neither objectified nor looks like a repainted clone of all the other characters. People who love Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender or Terra from the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon will likely enjoy her a lot! 

Bad news: Apparently inclusion of a unique female character caused enough vile reactions among the dudebro crowd to make one of her creators respond to it directly on his twitter account.

We’re very glad that Riot developed self-awareness and is openly addressing their design problems and willingness to fix them.

And while nastiness and paranoia among entitled gamers is quite worrying…
Maybe it’s a sign of some real cultural shift happening right before our eyes: The guards of sexist status quo throwing hissy fits whenever there is the smallest evidence they’re not being pandered to as they were before.

~Ozzie

h/t: @i-got-nose-for-2 & @mosenwraith 

The AAA industry is so diverse and creative with their female-led action games, huh?

Found the first picture by as a one-off joke in badassoftheweek article and @wincenworks proposed we made more.

I’m disproportionally proud of how they came out.

Not pictured: Hot chick with a chainsaw (Lollipop Chainsaw) and Hot chick with a sword on a dinosaur (Golden Axe Beast Rider).

~Ozzie

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– wincenworks

PS: Font credits:

My apologies for not including this earlier. ~Ozzie