Strap on your tinfoil hats, we have a video game controversy brewing. I've blogged a little bit about Overwatch recently. It's an upcoming FPS from Blizzard that's been in beta for what seems like forever. The hook with Overwatch is that instead of playing as a generic space marine or vault hunter you get too choose one of several different characters to play as, each with their own personalities and skill sets. Think Halo meets Street Fighter. While I don't have time to participate in Betas or anything, I think the game looks really cool and was hoping to try it out on my new rig when it comes out.
Enter the controversy. Someone participating in the beta complained to the Blizzard developmental team that one of the characters "victory poses" was just a gratuitous ass shot and really wasn't true to the character (see above picture, the pose on the far left). Blizzard agreed and said they were going to change the pose. I know, what you're thinking WHAT A LOAD OF HORSESHIT! I'M OFFENDED AT YOU BEING OFFENDED!
Or if you aren't a Trump supporter, you probably couldn't care less. Talk about a tempest in a teapot. If you look at all of the character designs and victory poses for Overwatch you'll find plenty of fan service, so it's not like Blizzard took away all the butts. They just changed one pose for one character. Of course this led to tons of outrage on reddit and twitter. Suddenly our first ammendment rights to look at digitally rendered asses are being trampled and if you don't agree you're just a tumblrina or dirty SJW. It's so ridiculously silly.
It's funny, since Pac-Man was corrupting the minds of the youths, video gamers have been fighting a battle over how mainstream culture looks at video games. For the most part we've come a long way but every once in a while something comes along like this that just reinforces the basement dwelling, Cheeto eating, virgin stereotypes. Good job "hardcore gamers", this is exactly the kind of attention you want your hobby to attract.
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