So remember the outcry that somehow a zoom in shot of Rainbow Mika (R. Mika)’s butt slap was so critical to the game that it’s remove was an act of vile censorship? Well we now have the official word from the Street Fighter team on what led to that memorable day:
“We didn’t make any change because of external influences,” he says. “Those changes came up internally. We decided to remove that because we want the biggest possible number of people to play, and we don’t want to have something in the game that might make someone uncomfortable.”
The even better news is that those who were enraged that such an amazing act of censorship could occur have pretty much re-affirmed the point. After a month and a lot of publicity, the petition only gathered 6,300 signatures (and at least one duplicate I noticed). Most of these guys still don’t seem to believe that the developers actually decided on this change on their own…
and they’re probably all going to buy the game anyway:
I can’t imagine why the developers may choose to try to appeal to people outside of this demographic… oh wait, I can.
– wincenworks
Today’s throwback: reminder that “self-censorship” isn’t really a thing and maybe a developer doing the bare minimum to not alienate potential audience pre-release is neither “pandering to the SJWs” nor literally a vile act of censorship? ?
Honestly we’re way overdue in promoting some newer @pointandclickbait articles, but the satire of the ones we featured before stands the test of time (un)surprisingly well, as the game/nerd culture continues being as toxic as ever, if not more.
Amazingly, occasional video game with a female portsgnidts protagonist (or two) haven’t yet made gaming industry any less profitable (at least to the big company CEOs and basically no-one else) and being critical of the stuff one enjoys haven’t yet killed anyone.
Yes, that the first tweet refers to notes under this very post. Have fun reading those, but be warned of the headache-inducing lack of self-awareness on the part of Toxic Masculinity Brigade (aka WH40k fandom).
“One might think this is because women didn’t serve combat roles – which isn’t true – but according to former DICE coder Amandine Coget, it’s because the project leads thought boys wouldn’t find it believable.
…Coget adds that DICE made several decisions for Battlefield 1
which have nothing to do with historical realism – including how tanks
function or the lethality rates of early parachutes – but female
soldiers still wouldn’t appear in multiplayer.”
Heavy sighing. (h/t @cypheroftyr via Twitter.)
What’s a worse argument to not have women in your combat-heavy game than “they’re too hard to animate”? “Historically, female warriors are unrealistic”, of course! And how to add to the injury? Insult your intended demographic by saying THEY are the one who won’t believe it! It’s not like games have potential to educate and widen the player’s horizons, right?
Considering the developer is so totally concerned with “realism” (as understood by pubescent boys), @pointandclickbaithas a great suggestion to what historically accurate thing should be included instead of soldier women:
This week in throwback: Remember how two years ago Battlefield 1 developers insulted their intended audience by basically claiming that boys are too stupid and sexist to accept women in a World War I game? Well who would have thought it, they were right!
If you’re interested in quality game journalism in print form (or PDF, because Australia Post’s shipping costs are intimidating), there’s a week before the campaign closes.
So it turns out we have The Onion for video games now. It’s called Point & Clickbait and so far it seems pretty awesome… and worryingly accurate in ways.
And although the developers have promised to fix the models, they haven’t explained how the models have ended up in the game in the first place.
-Icy
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Every time I see someone say, “Who cares?” about either my own posts or those of other tumblrs on the subject of female representation in comics, I want to point out to them the over 5000 people who’ve subscribed to lesstitsnass (holy crap over 5000?!), the other thousands and thousands of people who follow eschergirls, all the other blogs that do redlines, The Hawkeye Initiative’s slew of participants, the multitudes of articles and comments on all the online magazines that discuss the subject, and say, “Them. They care. There’s a whole lot of them. So get your head out of your butt and try to see what they see.”
