Anyone willing to explain this "a girl character having a visible ass is out of character and sexual" thing to me?
The argument is not 'her ass is visible', it's 'her intentionally drawing attention to her ass is out of character and sexual.'
I generally think this whole argument is dumb. I had no problem with the original pose and I think the reaction was dumb, but I also think that everyone freaking out and making images like this because of the removal is also dumb.
Anyone willing to explain this "a girl character having a visible ass is out of character and sexual" thing to me?
tl;dr Everyone and everything are oversensitive to any and everything and are spending way too much time and effort into trying to psycho analyze every single little thing for the sake for some political like it's a life or death issue. And I mean every. Single. Side.
There has to be a point where both sides have to stop and realize just how utterly ridiculous they are looking making such a big deal about the addition or removal of a digital butt.
There's a point where this needs to stop, and we didn't just pass it, we are in a completely different universe.
The entire argument over this is ridiculous. Blizzard thought the pose wasn't... "SQUEE!" enough for her, and made a replacement pose. Then they fucked up royally and said, "we're removing this," and they're may or may not have been a complaint about the pose (but really it's largely irrelevant). And gamergaters jumped on it with their modus operandi of "OMG CENZORSHIPT! [insert random rape threat to a woman here]" and on the other side of things people got mad about what they saw as "OMG SHE HAS AN ASS, WE CAN'T HAVE THAT!" which was also false, because Blizzard and the Overwatch team are not at all above needless sexualizing of their female characters, just look at the sniper.
The pose was innocuous and not overtly sexual at all, just think of if a male character with non-clingy pants was in that pose. It was removed for being slightly too calm/composed for Tracer... or something like that. Then people got mad for no good reason.
TL;DR: Idiots love gettin' mad at videogames over nothing.
Honestly I feel it is more of a general backlash response to what seems to be an ever growing group of people who don't believe in the existence of self-censorship and a growing degree of over-sensitivity. Although on the same note the backlash is also growing overly sensitive as well, but that's pretty normal in arguments to double down on the side you're on.
Over-sensitivity though is an ever growing problem, particularly on University Campuses. It's been causing changes in the academic environment of Universities and is actually beginning to stifle teaching. The goal of Universities and Colleges was to expose people to differing ideas and viewpoints, but people are becoming more and more intolerant of things that disagree with their viewpoints and could "cause them distress".
I didn't plan on commenting, but I suppose I'll talk about this from what I've seen so far.
That pose of a character from behind is an optionally selectable pose, one that also appears to be available to some other male and female heroes, if not all of them. Some of the user's complaints in that forum post mention (in regards to Tracer's character) "it's not fun, it's not silly, it has nothing to do with being a fast elite killer". That's one thing I can see. But it could be solved by not selecting the pose.
The larger complaint from her (which she placed more focus on in her forum post) says that this pose "just reduces Tracer to a bland female sex symbol". If that's one of her takeaways from a generic view from behind that isn't exclusive to this one hero, the problem lies with her, not the pose itself. One problem that is also solved by simply not selecting the pose. Tracer doesn't have much of an ass to show off, anyway.
From what I notice, the thread had far more people opposed to, than for the OP's opinions after it was posted. This sentiment is further reflected in the responses of fan art of Tracer in that pose or just her ass, alongside people (both men and women) basically saying "I had no problem with it".
Regardless of the majority of the thread disagreeing with her, game director Jeff Kaplan opted to "replace the pose". This turned something in a game that had little to no controversy, into a situation that drew far more attention to it than needed, a situation that has repeated itself across other games. And no one seems to learn from it.
Jeff and/or Blizzard are allowed to leave in and remove things as they please. However, the way Jeff initially responded to a minority of complaints was badly handled, with no foresight. He says in a later response that it's not "caving", but that's exactly what this looks like. That's what people take issue with. If there was any intent to cover up something before it blows up, that's an even bigger failure on their part. Whatever spin that could be applied to them, they were bad calls.
From what I notice, the thread had far more people opposed to, than for the OP's opinions after it was posted. This sentiment is further reflected in the responses of fan art of Tracer in that pose or just her ass, alongside people (both men and women) basically saying "I had no problem with it".
Regardless of the majority of the thread disagreeing with her, game director Jeff Kaplan opted to "replace the pose". This turned something in a game that had little to no controversy, into a situation that drew far more attention to it than needed, a situation that has repeated itself across other games. And no one seems to learn from it.
At the time it was literally only one person who complained. Everyone else was against it, yet they changed it anyway because of over-sensitivity. Then the damage controlling that followed behind it just made things worse. Streisand Effect and all that.
It's crazy that one forum post can completely remove something from the game and have devs bend over, regardless of what it was, regardless of how "big" or "small" the issue was. That's why there is such a big counter reaction toward it: one person crying sexism got a pose removed (not even a mob mind you like usual, just one person). It's starting to get ridiculous and people are getting tired of it, which is why you are seeing bigger and bigger reactions against it. And it won't stop any time soon.
It's not about the butt itself (Tracer has no butt lol) but it's all principle. The current culture of fear in the gaming industry is getting out of hand if something like this can fly. It's going to keep snowballing and keep getting worse, especially if people continue to be apathetic about it.
Silver-lining though: I'm loving how all these fan-artists and SFM people are taking to the task.
Okay, but is it "fear of SJWs" though? Do we have confirmation that they changed it because someone complained? I make arbitrary, meaningless changes to stuff all the time without anyone saying a thing. As I joked about on another picture like this one, Widowmaker still exists, and was unchanged, so it's not like Blizzard is purging T&A from Overwatch, they're just saying that maybe that shouldn't be every girl in the game.
Okay, but is it "fear of SJWs" though? Do we have confirmation that they changed it because someone complained? I make arbitrary, meaningless changes to stuff all the time without anyone saying a thing. As I joked about on another picture like this one, Widowmaker still exists, and was unchanged, so it's not like Blizzard is purging T&A from Overwatch, they're just saying that maybe that shouldn't be every girl in the game.
SJWs. We call them oversensitive and overprotective over pointless things back here. Claiming to protect fictitious victims from exaggerated dangers and making a big deal out of something that's isolated and personal.
Thankfully there's still gaming companies that knows how to say GO FUCK YOURSELF to SJWs.
Doesn't matter how they are or what buzzword, honestly.
All we know is that there is a growing trend of people using their feelings of getting offended to change art to fit their ideological worldview. SJW, Political Correctness, Oversensitive, it doesn't matter at this point.
Before people tried to use a more conservative worldview to censor the medium, now people are using progressive views to do the same. Different ideological groups, same old shit.
The argument is not 'her ass is visible', it's 'her intentionally drawing attention to her ass is out of character and sexual.'
I generally think this whole argument is dumb. I had no problem with the original pose and I think the reaction was dumb, but I also think that everyone freaking out and making images like this because of the removal is also dumb.
Thing is, I liked the pose and thought it made her look cool. If they remove it from the game I probably wont buy the game at all.
Her ass is fine. It DOES fit the character cuz it's like she ran past you. We should be complaining about Widowmaker. Her boobs and ass are completely generic and have nothing to do with being a sniper.
Yeah, no. Let me stop you right there. Don't say "we" or "we should be" as if you're speaking for anyone else here, and days afterwards.
I'm under no obligation to start calling any female character "generic", "bad", or even "sexist" for having sizeable breasts and/or ass just because an easily repeated, flimsy notion has unfortunately become the defacto (Internet) standard for this sort of "criticism".
The idea of instantly writing off any female character simply for having these sort of curves (along with calling said curves "unrealistic", which is extra foolish) is so ass-backwards in itself; and terribly ironic, seeing as this comes from the same sort of people that would gladly posture on about not judging others by appearances.
Men like sexy women. As it turns out, a lot of Women also like sexy women, too! And not every adult of either gender flinches at seeing a pair of tits and/or ass, so let's stop pretending like that's entirely the case any time people try to take issue with character designs.