Women and Minorities in Geek Culture Redux

[protar]

I made this thread yesterday but the forum ate it :3

Anyway, I remember this series of threads from a while back and I thought it was time to reopen it. We have the Video Game thread, we have the Feminism and LGBTQIA threads, but nowhere to really discuss the intersection of the two.

I'm opening this as a general thread but I was specifically prompted to open it because of a game called Overwatch. It's an upcoming FPS by Blizzard entertainment and I'm unhealthily excited about it. From day one Blizzard announced that there intent was to begin a new focus on diversity which is a pretty big deal coming from Blizzard. They've always given off this teenage boy atmosphere to me. But true to their word Overwatch is nationally and ethnically diverse.

Blizzard came under a little bit of (not unjustified) flak for the lack of variety in female character designs, immediately after them say that they were striving to sexualise their female characters less. But in response they gifted us with Zarya, a female weighlifting champion from Russia. And at Blizzcon 2015 one of the newly announced characters was Mei - a chinese climatologist. And boy do I love Mei's character design. It's the kind of female character design so rarely seen in these kinds of games. This is Mei: http://eu.battle.net/overwatch/en/heroes/mei/

When you look at a character like Zarya, her physique is just as unattainable as some of the other female characters in her own way. Mei actually has an average figure, she's dressed practically for her work, completely unsexualised. And kudos for Blizzard for creating a busty character with really no attention whatsoever on her chest. She's a complete cinammon role as well. I love Mei and I wish more games had characters like her. 

The second bit of SJW news from Blizzcon was that Overwatch is confirmed to have multiple gay characters amongst the main cast. As someone who has watched Blizzard hmming and haahing and question dodging for years over gay representation, it was very heartening to get a definite yes. The only character I would be wary of them making gay is Zarya because her masculine phsyique and demeanour combined with being gay would be incredibly stereotypical. However with multiple gay characters confirmed that would be mitigated to an extent. Big difference between a cliche being our only representation and it being just one facet of representation.

Blizzard have made a few missteps on the road to diversity and mindfulness of objectification. But I truly believe that they are committed here and I think that is what counts. This has even began to feed back into their other games a tiny bit. They've given Sylvanas in World of Warcraft some more clothes. And having one of the biggest names in the indsutry committed to this topic is a big deal. 

TL;DR I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on Overwatch, and Blizzard. And on female characters and minority representation in games in general.

 

[TerraPrime]

Overwatch is the Blizzard version of LoL, right? I tried it a couple months ago and found the gameplay to be very shallow without the itemization aspect of LoL. So I hope they are tuning and enriching gameplay as well as stepping up on character diversification. I am indeed tired of League's female toons all being very sexualized and fanserviced.

 

ETA:

I am glad they didn't put chopsticks in Mei's hair. But, seriously, stop with that shit. Most Asian women do NOT wear a hair pin like that, no more than most Swedish women walk around daily in bikinis.

[TrueMetis]

Heroes of the Storm is their version of LoL. Overwatch is an FPS.

[protar]

Overwatch is the Blizzard version of LoL, right? I tried it a couple months ago and found the gameplay to be very shallow without the itemization aspect of LoL. So I hope they are tuning and enriching gameplay as well as stepping up on character diversification. I am indeed tired of League's female toons all being very sexualized and fanserviced.

 

ETA:

I am glad they didn't put chopsticks in Mei's hair. But, seriously, stop with that shit. Most Asian women do NOT wear a hair pin like that, no more than most Swedish women walk around daily in bikinis.

it's a FPS, though it does have MOBA like qualities, in that it has distinct characters with their own distinct abilities. More comparable to Team Fortress 2. No beta invite for me so I can't really speak for the gameplay.

On the hairpin...it is stereotypical but then almost all the characters are national stereotypes, at least on the surface. Mei really got off pretty light on that front. It is an aspect of the game which I am not overly keen on but it is equal opportunity national stereotyping. I mean the American hero is a cowboy so yeah. Still, I hope that Blizzard adds more depth to the characters than the cliches. Their writing is hardly shakespeare, but I think that they do a pretty good job of putting all the cliches into a blender so that what comes out is somehow original.

[KiDisaster]

I am indeed tired of League's female toons all being very sexualized and fanserviced.

Most people are I think. Riot are getting better though, their newer female characters are far less sexualized than they used to be. This is the latest champion announced: http://oce.leagueoflegends.com/en/page/champion-reveal-illaoi-kraken-priestess

They've also made some small improvements to older characters when they did visual updates on them to fit the new updated game graphics. Less revealing splash art in a few cases for one thing. 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Overwatch is the Blizzard version of LoL, right? I tried it a couple months ago and found the gameplay to be very shallow without the itemization aspect of LoL. So I hope they are tuning and enriching gameplay as well as stepping up on character diversification. I am indeed tired of League's female toons all being very sexualized and fanserviced.

 

ETA:

I am glad they didn't put chopsticks in Mei's hair. But, seriously, stop with that shit. Most Asian women do NOT wear a hair pin like that, no more than most Swedish women walk around daily in bikinis.

Overwatch is Blizzard's re-make of Team Fortress 2. Their take on MOBAs is Heroes of the Storm. Unfortunately, their entire MO is basically dumbing down popular game styles and adding a shiny coat of paint to make them seem new (see: Hearthstone). 

It seems kind of weird to make story and character elements such a big part of a multiplayer first person shooter game, but it looks like they're doing a lot of media tie ins with Overwatch, so I guess it has a point. It will be interesting to see whether the graphic novels expounding upon the story elements will be successful. 

Not sure I agree about the hairpin. Obviously most Asian women don't wear one, but then, that's not what they're representing. We're still dealing with a visual medium and the goal is to have some visual flavor that also serves to identify key characteristics of the characters. The question is then - is the hairpin a problematic stereotype? I'm not convinced that it is, although I'm certainly open to arguments otherwise. 

 

 

[TerraPrime]

Re: KiDisaster

The new champion's skin looks pretty cool.

The thing with Riot is that they do have champions that are done right, like Leonna. She's a tank type support so she gets armor and her boobs are not half hanging out. I was half surprised, and pleasantly, they didn't make Kalista with big boobs so they jiggle and bounce as she hops. So that's good. But then many of the other female champions are in the mode of pin-up dolls - Miss Fortune, Janna, Morgana, Irelia, Katarina, Lux, Sona, etc. Some of the variant skins are just... awful.

So the fact that they could treat a female champion right, like in Leonna, but so frequently doesn't, makes it actually worse, over all.

 

Edit:

Yes Heroes of the Storm is what I tried. It was subpar.

 

[protar]

 

Overwatch is Blizzard's re-make of Team Fortress 2. Their take on MOBAs is Heroes of the Storm. Unfortunately, their entire MO is basically dumbing down popular game styles and adding a shiny coat of paint to make them seem new (see: Hearthstone). 

Well you can't deny the formula works. 

It seems kind of weird to make story and character elements such a big part of a multiplayer first person shooter game, but it looks like they're doing a lot of media tie ins with Overwatch, so I guess it has a point. It will be interesting to see whether the graphic novels expounding upon the story elements will be successful. 

Overwatch is rumoured to be the remnants of Blizzard's old project Titan, so if that is true there would have been a lot of left over story. I'm glad they're separating the story and gameplay though. I think that's often a downfall of story telling for them and just video games in general - the gameplay gets in the way of the story. I'm hopeful that without the constraints of gameplay the storytelling will improve.

[Lyanna Stark]

Hah, loving the MMO Champion douches complaining about Sylvanas' new clothes. Nice additions though protar.

[Castel]

When you look at a character like Zarya, her physique is just as unattainable as some of the other female characters in her own way. Mei actually has an average figure, she's dressed practically for her work, completely unsexualised. And kudos for Blizzard for creating a busty character with really no attention whatsoever on her chest. She's a complete cinammon role as well. I love Mei and I wish more games had characters like her. 

Well..I thought the point was variety, not "attainability"? A lot of heroes look inherently unattainable. 

[protar]

Well..I thought the point was variety, not "attainability"? A lot of heroes look inherently unattainable. 

Why not both? It's fine to have unattainable characters, especially in such an exaggerated setting. But also having some average physiques is nice. 

[Castel]

Why not both? It's fine to have unattainable characters, especially in such an exaggerated setting. But also having some average physiques is nice. 

Fo' shizzle, I guess I read exclusivity into your statement when it wasn't there.

[David Selig]

Hah, loving the MMO Champion douches complaining about Sylvanas' new clothes. Nice additions though protar.

Among all the whining there are some pretty hilarious posts making fun of the idiots. Like this one - "To the people who are genuinely upset: don't worry, your waifu pillow will not change too. "

[Theda Baratheon]

Among all the whining there are some pretty hilarious posts making fun of the idiots. Like this one - "To the people who are genuinely upset: don't worry, your waifu pillow will not change too. "

:lol: 

 

I honestly can't get over how lame some of these guys are that they'd actually complain about this

[Theda Baratheon]

Theres no laughing emoticon now !?!! God dman this site 

[KiDisaster]

 

Works for me  

[Theda Baratheon]

Aaaahhh!!! I've gone right back to being total noob!!!

[Shryke]

It seems kind of weird to make story and character elements such a big part of a multiplayer first person shooter game, but it looks like they're doing a lot of media tie ins with Overwatch, so I guess it has a point. It will be interesting to see whether the graphic novels expounding upon the story elements will be successful. 

Not sure I agree about the hairpin. Obviously most Asian women don't wear one, but then, that's not what they're representing. We're still dealing with a visual medium and the goal is to have some visual flavor that also serves to identify key characteristics of the characters. The question is then - is the hairpin a problematic stereotype? I'm not convinced that it is, although I'm certainly open to arguments otherwise. 

It's not really weird since the point is to make the game more appealing and more memorable by adding alot of personality to all the characters. While initially people had thought it would be more MOBA-like, it's actually more TF2-like in that you can have multiple of any character running around and you can switch at any time. They function more like classes then characters. But the characters serve to anchor the design of each character and make people like them more. It's TF2's strategy taken even further basically.

And part of that is that all (or at least most of) the characters are broad stereotypes in many ways. The tough russian women, the korean pro-gamer, the american cowboy, the Australians are Mad Max villains, etc, etc. But all are more loving and non-insulting stereotypes and are trying to be diverse in representation. It's a step in the right direction.

 

I've said so before, but I think Blizzard's art team was mostly just unconsciously displaying bias towards standard cheesecake crap and when people started pointing it out they didn't fight it and more just went "Wow, you are kinda right" and have been trying to turn that around in recent titles.

HOTS, as another example, while constrained by being based completely on existing characters, has been doing it's best to add more women and more diverse bodytypes and ethnicities when they can. To the point of changing the sex of Starcraft units added to the game (like Sgt Hammer, a buff take-no-shit lady who pilots the Siege Tank), adding ethnicity to characters that previously had none (the Medic was named Morales to imply hispanic descent) and switching the sex of several Diablo characters so that ones that were previously by default male in most marketing material became female and of non-standard bodytypes too (Crusader and Barbarian).

 

 

 

Overwatch is Blizzard's re-make of Team Fortress 2. Their take on MOBAs is Heroes of the Storm. Unfortunately, their entire MO is basically dumbing down popular game styles and adding a shiny coat of paint to make them seem new (see: Hearthstone). 

Well no, the MO is more taking existing game types and polishing the shit out of them with good visual design and accessibility and looking hard at the design and asking what parts are really necessary for a fun game. That's been their MO with games back to at least WoW (ie - the filthy casual MMO that realised that maybe you shouldn't punch your audience in the reproductive bits)

[TrueMetis]

If HOTS is dumbed down I never want to play any of the other MOBAs. Fucking Illidian man.

[TerraPrime]

If HOTS is dumbed down I never want to play any of the other MOBAs. Fucking Illidian man.

It is indeed a step down from League of Legends, imho. The game just didn't feel as deep, or as balanced, and the roles aren't as well defined. But to each their own.