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:
– 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 37 (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
re: this post on double standards of body type diversity in SMITE and Overwatch
(yellow)
cited: our first post about Zarya
CLEARLY, Zarya can not be a step in the right direction AND a token exception AT THE SAME TIME, because… Uh… It’s so not like she’s literally the only female Overwatch character who is not conventionally pretty*, thin and/or sexualzied, right?
…right???
How about “she’s BOTH a token exception and a step in the right direction”, then?
~Ozzie
Okay… well, if we limit ourselves to just athletes in say… Olympic level condition… this is a sample of the body and features diversity we might expect:
Given that Blizzard has said they’re making this game to improve representation for women in video games and even address things like “why all the bikinis?”
Zarya is currently the quick “we fixed it” response from a company with a long history of going back on their “fixes”. They’re preaching that they want to fulfill the desire for diversity – but the sexy purple skinned assassin lady, a robot, a gorilla all got priority over so many types of real people.
Currently they are only vaguely close to meeting their stated goals due to a few isolated, individual characters. Pretty much all the tokenism alarm bells are ringing loud and clear.
“Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.“ – Edward H. Harriman
– wincenworks
*Not to say that Zarya is ugly. She’s still “unconventional” in the safest way possible.
more on character design | more on Blizzard | more on Overwatch
A friend’s request for a bodily comparison of the gods and goddesses of Smite.
I’m having a flashback to this Overwatch silhouette comparison (pre-Zarya, the token exception, that is):
original source: [x]
Eyup. Typical. Men tend to be all shapes and sizes, while women are just slight variations of the same “shapely” figure.
[x]
[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:
– wincenworks
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