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Blizzard’s butt that broke the internet is proving to be a pain in Tracer’s ass

Another week, another controversy. This time the sights are on Blizzard and a butt that broke the internet.

Overwatch

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Another week, another controversy. This time the sights are set on Blizzard and a butt that broke the internet.


Blizzard has been the focus of the major gaming controversy this week when they announced they would be removing a winning pose from one of their characters (Tracer) in the upcoming game, Overwatch.

This, of course sparked outcry from fans and people that have never played the game and honestly has evolved into a big ugly mess. How did things get so messy so quick? Was this character the only offender of this issue? What is Overwatch? Buckle up, boys and girls, because here we go!

Tracer

Overwatch is in many ways Blizzard’s answer to the popularity of Valve’s Team Fortress 2, but with MOBA-style characters. These characters each have a unique feel and their own stories to boot, which is nice because I am a sucker for a well-told story.

One of these characters is Tracer, a former experimental test pilot that pretty much broke time and was a living ghost until the giant gorilla-scientist Winston built a devices to help her keep a corporeal form. She’s fast and quirky, it’s not hard to see how this pixie-like character has become one of the faces of Overwatch.

A few days ago, a post was made on Blizzard’s official Overwatch forum that was titles ‘Overwatch’s Strong Female Heroes and that one Tracer Pose‘ that basically says that while Blizzard has created some really cool and fun female characters, Tracer’s over-the-shoulder pose undermines the playfulness of her character and makes her a sex object instead. A couple days after this post and the discussion around it, Jeff Kaplan, the game director, posted the following:

We’ll replace the pose. We want *everyone* to feel strong and heroic in our community. The last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented.

Apologies and we’ll continue to try to do better..

Holeeeee shit.

Now, like Tracer’s ability to jump back, let me rewind here a second.

I do agree that her winning pose really didn’t fit the theme of her character. To remove it completely on that merit is cool. There is another character that is named Widowmaker that OOZES sexiness and has a much similar pose. If Jeff were to show up and say, yeah that doesn’t really fit Tracer and we’re going to find a winning pose that better suits her character, I wouldn’t think anything of it. Hell, any outcry over it would be silly in my eyes. Instead, Jeff apologizes for making someone feel unhappy and issues the statement that they’ll try to do better.

windowmaker-victory-pose-4-over-the-shoulder

That is a load of bullshit.

We live in a day and age where this younger generation seems to find a reason to get riled up about the silliest of things. Some of these more-outspoken individuals have earned voices and reputations from trying to disrupt the status quo. They do it under false pretenses of feminism and equality and bastardize those realistic stances into something much more radicalized.

My mom was 70’s era feminist and she can’t stand any of this. To turn around and apologize for a simple pose of a character with the pretext that they don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented is stupid and irresponsibly on Blizzard’s part. It opens up a door that didn’t need to be opened.

Will Widowmaker be deemed too sexy? Is Zarya too butch and not gay enough? It’s understandable that people want to connect with these characters but Jeff Kaplan’s response to Tracer’s butt turns this small issue into something it never needed to be. He goes on to backtrack and say that it was a misunderstanding, but it’s a little late for that.  The next time someone feels unhappy with a character design choice, this will now set the precedent of what an extreme view expects to happen. When it doesn’t, there will be significant pressure on Blizzard to make the changes to appease those people. They may not be a majority, but that minority is sure as hell vocal.

Jeff, you really should be ashamed, and it shouldn’t be over a butt.

Overwatch comes out May 24th, preorder it now for PC, PS4 or XBOX One.

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Longtime games journalist and Florida resident. I'm a Guinness World Record holder, wordsmith extraordinaire, MOBA fan, devoted dad and husband. I'm here to spread the gospel of video games.

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