What absolute bullshit.
Hey, be nice. He’s just trying to keep up with how fast games change their depictions of women. I mean who else gets dizzy looking at this image?
I imagine it’s tough being an “old mid to late 20s +” person trying to figure out why girls want to play games with smelly boys anyway. What’s a gentleman to do when he’s no longer able to protect women from being shot at and killed in games?
This front page article was written before EA/DICE made their statement. It is not based on any of the PR or interviews after the reveal event.
I don’t think politicians or journalists has much to do with this. Women play games. The I don’t care if women play games so long as they don’t change ANYTHING for me… is not realistic. Having female avatars, models… it’s a basic ask not an extreme one.
The historical accuracy crap, well that comes up pretty much every time and is one of the weakest arguments out there.
Thanks, @Telefrog. I will point out that EA/DICE are the source of those claims at the reveal event linked in the article. The headline could have said “EA/DICE claim…” or that clarification placed in the article text (Headlines are always gonna pop).
What claims? I watched the full event and got the initial PR. None of it mentioned the reaction some gamers had to the trailer premiere. In that Twitch stream, you can see gamers going off on the fact that there was a woman featured in the trailer. Twitter and Reddit were popping with #NotMyBattlefield and similar variations almost immediately.
@Navaronegun is certain that EA either manufactured the controversy here or is marketing off of it, which is simply not true.
I can’t believe I’m being forced to defend EA’s marketing team. I mean these are the people who actually did attempt to manufacture religious outrage for Dante’s Inferno.
But that’s not what happened here.
My misstatement, after the event.
The latter (marketing off of, and blowing out of proportion of) not manufacturing. And you just nailed it regarding the the integrity of EA’s marketing team.
I guess we’ll agree to disagree about “blowing out of proportion,” because here’s how I see it:
- EA announces the game
- A bunch of internet idiots complain about women being in it and start a movement in an attempt to get EA to reverse the decision (or get people to boycott the game)
- EA says women are staying no matter what these idiots say
The end.
Given that game companies in the past have bowed to this sort of pressure, including EA themselves (remember the Mass Effect 3 ending drama?), committing to the design decision makes sense.
Concur.
I don’t see why it’s not perfectly possible, even likely to have both money-grubbing and social responsibility share space in marketing/design decisions. Hell, the Civil Rights movement in the US got huge boosts from greedy business people in places like Montgomery deciding that segregation simply wasn’t worth the business lost from the boycott. And all those ads that used to be full of white males and stereotypical white, hetero, suburban families, that are now full of a comparatively wide variety of people? Madison Avenue didn’t wake up one morning and decide to become socially aware. They realized they were leaving money on the table not marketing to non-whites, not-heteros, non-males in mainstream media.
And this has unfortunately made some white, hetro men very uncomfortable. Suddenly (well, not really, but in their minds) there are TV shows, movies, games, etc. not targeted to them. Their total control of society is being reduced to just 90% control, and that’s just not OK.
I think it absolutely is both factors. The marketplace has always been the real engine of social change since Adam Smith (made us conscious of it).
Ok, Let’s rip the band-aid off and discuss that elephant in the room:
- ELECTRONIC ARTS.
EA released a Star Wars game (Battlefront 2) that was as much focused on ‘gambling’ and skinner-box mentality as it was Star Wars. EA have also chronically hoarded the Star Wars licence & are letting it go to waste… among other practices (Wilson loot box, cancellation of projects etc). It was even rumoured that Disney (possibly Kathleen Kennedy)* phoned up the people in charge of EA and told them that EA had to change the business model, because of how much damage it was doing to Star Wars as a brand - it could be a contribution to why The Last Jedi was received divisively by the public.
EA burned a lot of public goodwill.
…So, having ahistorical representations of gender roles in a historic-themed game is basically a slither of nice tasting icing on the chocolate dog-turd cake that is EA and their business decisions.
EA did not invent female avatars in games, not even a World War 2 multiplayer FPS game, since CoD:WWII actually did it last year (Ubisoft changed their model after a campaign to critique Assassin’s Creed: Unity’s lack of female avatars). Most people didn’t care about the Activision decision, because a lot of people don’t care for CoD anymore, and also because Activision didn’t put it at the FRONT AND CENTRE of their game marketing.
EA/DICE did, and, with a lofty, arrogant attitude on the part of EA/DICE spokespeople, are ignoring critique about their creaking franchise (that, as I previously highlighted, titles featured numerous bugs and glitches that always take a whole year to fix post-release), in favour of generating immunity by stoking up the controversy, including dropping trailers with all the subtlety and grace of the V1 rocket featured in the trailer - (that is to say, not much grace at all).
Remember, over 100 million people died in WWII, and all they got was this lame Battlefield trailer… haha look somebody got crushed to death with comic timing.
Why are EA being given such benefit of the doubt, when their previous EA/DICE game ((Star Wars: Battlefront 2*) was such a sh*t show that even governments and legal departments had to get involved in examining the effects of EA model loot boxes?
Everything from the Wilson Loot Box model in Sports games and gambling + EA disregard for new creativity has been well documented.
EA are spring-cleaning out their old audience, who they think won’t buy yet ANOTHER copy of the same/similar game again, in favour of finding a new audience that will lap up new promises, and, more importantly, an audience that hasn’t experienced as much EA bullsh*t or CoD style FPS malaise - much like how political campaigns & election promises to the public work. Also, there is the possibility that anybody who doesn’t give Battlefield V a positive review, when it comes out, will be accused of sexism, because that is how the internet works.
It is amazing just how quickly people are willing to conveniently forget the reputation of EA…
This ‘women controversy’ reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons, where Lisa spends ages explaining all the flaws of the Malibu Stacey doll as a role model… and the reply is “… But she’s got a new hat!” In this case, ‘Malibu Stacey’ is EA’s Battlefield franchise.
Continue to purchase the new Hattlefield game, shoot many female avatars in a WWII (DICE quote:) “sandbox”, and carry on thinking about how it is ‘saving’ the games industy from ‘mysogynistic dinosaurs’, if that is what it takes to maintain a level of happiness & integrity that perhaps I just don’t understand or am beneath. EA will be laughing all the way to the bank.
The Market decides. Have a dice life. I hope EA treat you dicely 😆.
What? Where did you get this? Kathleen Kennedy had nothing to do with it in any report I’ve seen. It was all Iger and Pitaro.
The decision came after executives at Disney, which owns “Star Wars” and licensed the videogame rights to Electronic Arts, grew upset at how online outrage over the costs of gaining access to popular characters such as Luke Skywalker reflected on their marquee property, a person familiar with the matter said.
Even Chief Executive Robert Iger was alarmed. Ultimately, Disney’s head of consumer products and interactive media, Jimmy Pitaro, sent a message to Electronic Arts this week outlining Disney’s concerns, the person said.
My apologies, I thought Kathleen Kennedy was responsible for the Star Wars brand at Disney, so made a guess. What I mean was ‘an important executive responsible for Star Wars @ Disney’.
The main point was that, as per the article posted, Disney were very annoyed at EAs actions, so I’m trying to point out that EA are well known for their shenanigans, that they even annoyed one of the most powerful media companies on the planet; It takes a lot to get that level of attention.
Okay. I’m not clear on what that has to do with this game. EA sometimes makes bad or short-sighted decisions. I think we can all agree that large companies screw up sometimes.
What does that mean for Battlefield V adding women, customization options, and not being “realistic” enough for some dudes?
Ok, so i watched some trailer, and saw folks with robot arms and stuff. Was that the trailer folks are talking about?
I don’t get the idea of complaining about the women due to historically accuracy. I mean, there were robot arm people. Was that supposed to be WWII?
I feel like i missed something.
But i also don’t care enough to try and figure it out.
Absolutely nothing, other than it gives him a reason to rant about EA.