You know. I’m getting really tired of this shit.
I have been interested in video games since I was about 12. In that time I have seen countless tropes and stereotypes. I have nearly always had to play as a white straight male. I have almost always, only been given female titty babes, and rarely more than one or two per game.
In all of that time, you want to know the one game that even remotely started down the path Overwatch has gone? Fable 2. I could be gay, bi, straight, or ignore sex all together. I could play as a man or a woman. The gypsies were a bit of a stereotype of the romani but it was also a game set in preindustrial England, and through that lense they were percieved. The main mentor npc was the wise old crone trope, the first time I was exposed to it actually. One of the 4 main side characters was a scholarly black mage guy. Another was a brick shit house barbarian type woman who wanted to live in a monestary.
Fable 2 was the most diverse game I’d played for over 6 years before Overwatch came out. Now what we have before us makes Fable 2 look fairly conservative, and I do not say that lightly.
Yet despite the fact that almost no other games have ever been this visually unique and diverse, despite the fact that almost no other game developer is willing to try to give us what we want and Blizzard delivered on release day plus 6/7 times post release, y'all want to bitch about the first white character they added to the game post release. No Moira does not count: She is Irish, a native Gaelic speaker no less, and is a respectful representation of a minority group hated, pillaged, and called drunkards for centuries.
Yall sit there and act like they have a quota to fill and that you paid $60 to be catered to. You paid $60 once, and recieved a splendid cast of 21 characters, 12 of whom are unique additions, in context, to the video game industry. 5 of the other 9 are all from different countries in west europe. 2 of whom are more typical US tropes. 2 are australian.
Post release we recieved: an Egyptian old crone, a mexican hacker lady, an omnic made by a little african girl, an african man who makes street fighter refferences (which I’ve personally not seen before), the forementioned Irish woman who’s rather androgynous, another swedish character (gasp oh no, her character design was finished first and made sense in story that she was linked to Torjorn and Reinhardt), and space hampster.
Now we have our second spaghetti western character who happens to be a white lady because how southern US culture blends with the spaghetti western tropes, and how all that fits into the established world of Overwatch.
Yes, the Overwatch team deserves fair critism. Let’s do some!
That the game has many diverse characters
That you put effort into researching the cultures you refferenced
That you didn’t pull a LOL and pump out stereotypes and tropes as fast as possible for no reason
Jeff, these could use some work:
The female designs have far less variation than the male designs
The female designs need stronger ethnic features
Mercy needs better balance so she’s less hit or miss
More african characters that make subtle refferences to the different african cultures
Another south american character
Even though most of the organizations involved in your game are in some way military or we get to interact with the espionage aspects of them, it’s not reasonable to expect 26 out of 27 humans to be highly physically fit
Feel free to add more, but don’t waste your time trying to “debunk” what Blizzard has done that no other game developers have done for you. Infact. Make it like a roses and thorns thing. Add one thing you like, one thing you want adjusted, and one thing you’d like to see.
theartofmadeline
gracieabrams
stormborns
germansingergirl
