If SJWs have a mantra they repeat to themselves during their daily hot yoga sesh, it’s probably something like, “Everything is problematic.” Now they’ve come back for our darling Overwatch. After Blizzard bent over backward to appease these people and make the game one of the most diverse and least problematic to date, Overwatch is still dogged by charges of sexism. This time it’s that the female characters are too young compared to the male ones. Please kill me now.
Tech Times published an article, “The Oddly Humorous Form Of ‘Sexism’ That Exists In Blizzard’s ‘Overwatch‘,” criticizing the game because some of the female characters were cryogenically frozen or stuck in a time warp and thus are younger than the male characters. (The author didn’t even get some of the characters’ names right, making it pretty unlikely she actually played the game extensively or has any love for it other than as a vehicle for feminist naval gazing.)
And to boot, Overwatch is a multiplayer-only shooter with almost no backstory revealed in the actual game. So picking apart the copy on Blizzard’s website intended only for the game’s super fans has to be the lowest form of game criticism.
But many of the denizens on the progressive game forum echo chamber NeoGaf seemed to agree with the sentiment.
“I found it amusing that for all its posturing on inclusivity among body types (which is essentially six Barbies, a thicker Barbie in a parka, and a short-haired weightlifter), the game sports a glaring juxtaposition in age gaps between those of its male and female protagonists, even when keeping backstories part of the same, original team.”
“Amazing and insightful. This is the kind of stuff that we don’t even think about that much, but it has an great impact in our culture.”
But there were some heretics.
“I don’t want to play as old and ugly heroes.”
The criticism is absolutely insane considering the lengths Blizzard took to appease the politically correct. After Anita Sarkeesian harped on the game for not including women of differing body types, they added a muscle-bound Russian woman to the cast, despite one character already on the larger side and another clad in armor obfuscating the shape of her body.
Then there was the whole Tracer pose controversy. When an SJW complained about the sexual nature of an unlockable “victory pose” for the female character Tracer, Blizzard decided to change it.
For a while it seemed that Overwatch would be the first game celebrated by gamers and SJWs alike — given its healthy mix of different races, genders, and body types. But the truce lasted barely more than three weeks, and the game is sexist once again.
If there is a lesson to this whole ordeal for game developers, it is to give up capitulating. You are never going to appease these people. Just put on some noise-canceling headphones, design the game the best you can, and let the SJWs complain as much as they want on NeoGaf. They’re going to do it anyway.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks.
