Nov 21
Fire And Brimstone Over Stupidity
As happens, this post started out as a comment. In this case, it was over on Sanya’s blog, in response to her post about the Jade Raymond … thing.
What drove me over the edge into commenting was this:
Game “journalists†made this mess. I expect the real journalists to clean it up. If I have to be a credit to my gender against my will and principles, surely some of you nice boys out there can take one for the team. Stop painting her as a victim, because that marginalizes her even more than the original “articles†did. Also, through all the drama, anyone who actually listened to HER noticed she was not even remotely a “poor me†kind of lady. She’s tough and funny in the few interviews I’ve seen. So let’s call a do over. Let’s see some interviews with this producer that never once mention her femininity in any respect save the usage of the feminine pronoun, let’s police the comment threads a little more stringently, and let’s vow to do better this time.
My response is below. It’s behind a cut because it is full of swearing. If you have sensitive eyes, don’t continue on. If you’ve met me in person, and I went off on a full-blown rant, this will sound somewhat familiar. You’ve been warned.
The bottom line, for me, is that I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE that anyone posting on the blogs thought it was A GOOD IDEA to buy into Ubisoft’s ’she has boobs’ advertising scheme. “She smells pretty” was part of a Kotaku headline, and it made me want to fucking gag.
WE PLAY GAMES, damnit. That’s what we FUCKING DO. EVERYTHING ELSE IS SHIT. From the blogger’s perspective, everything the company tells you is shit. Everything the marketing wags tell you is shit. EVERYTHING YOU DON’T SEE FOR YOURSELF IS SHIT. Is Jade pretty? Yes. That’s easy to see. IS A PRETTY WOMAN A GAME FEATURE? GODDAMN FUCKING NO!
Assassin’s Creed is not a great game because a beautiful woman produced it. Assassin’s Creed is a great game because the she, along with the designers, artists, programmers, etc. put their heart and souls into it. I don’t want to downplay Ms. Raymond’s efforts, but her beauty has NOTHING to do with the game’s success or failure AS A GAME.
Jeezus fucking CHRIST. I’m one of those goddamn sensitive pony-tailed guys, so this whole shitfest just pisses the crap out of me. Bloggers and Game Journos are not an elite crowd, we aren’t monks in a fricking cloister, but for the most part I think the group of us as whole does a better job that we’re given credit for … until I see crap like this happen.
I don’t even have the words to express my disappointment and frustration at this whole thing. Lum’s post really sums up the shittiness of this whole thing, in pictures for the slow. I (of course) didn’t need the pictures because I READ EVERY GODDAMN POST that goes up in the bloggospherosphere. Slow motion evacuation of my stomach, I tell you.
Lum’s right. We don’t deserve nice things or people. Every game should be produced and marketed by pasty-faced,single, white, tubby 40-somethings with a recurring acne problem and bad breath. Named something like “Chet”. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about idiot headlines – we could see coverage of the actual goddamn games.
Feh.
8 comments8 Comments so far
Reminds me a bit of the whole Paula Zahn thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Zahn#CNN
This stuff happens all the time, not that it isn’t reprehensible. Just when we think we’ve become enlightened, it happens again.
Well posted.
/agree.
10/10 on the rant but I’m not exactly sure what all the anger is about? Are you upset that people fell for UbiSoft’s marketing ploy? Aren’t you kinda feeding into the whole thing be being another blogger with an emotional opinion on this fiasco?
I really am not trying to be belligerent. But a ten paragraph post about how you are upset people are posting about something seems counterproductive.
Besides, as long as marketing departments continue to exist, and bloggers continue to thirst for content, psuedo-events like this will continue be fed into. In fact, it is only going to grow along side the gaming industry as a whole.
Imagine chastising the hollywood press for writing about actors personal lives, and not focusing on the movies. Seems silly huh? Ethical, but silly.
I never said I was particularly bright, Union. :)
I know it’s going to happen, I just like to rant sometimes. Plus, they really – really – really fell for Ubi’s bait, and that chaps me.
I missed the majority of this, having been buried by work over the past few days. Thank god.
Definite /agree to the rant. (Quality vintage, I’d say.)
I don’t think I’ve ever made any secret about my dislike for Kotaku’s editorial style. Part of me wonders whether they did it ironically, whether they knowingly did it to pander to their readership, or whether they genuinely fell for it. I’m not sure which would be worse. The former completely belittles their readership’s intelligence and the latter shows them as oblivious. It’s not just the Kotakus of the internet that fell for it either. Joystiq (which I like) and others were also guilty of the same to some degree. I tend to agree with you, Michael — they all fell for it, and it’s very sad.
After linking here from Virgin Worlds, I followed the links around and read up on this. This entire incident sickens me. Someone makes a quality game, does their job promoting it, and has to deal with this sort of utterly assinine bullshit because they happen to be female and of above average appearance.
Agree with the rant 100%.
I think they’re onto us…
they know we like cute males/females, and they’re using that fact against us.
It’s not enough anymore to simply have cute models in-game…
everyone associated with a game has to be good looking.
The developer, the publisher, the play-testers…and even the person serving you the game.
God help you, if you want to play their game with a mouse-mat that doesn’t have a –picture of a hot male/female model on it–…and the name of the game written in ultra-small letters on the back…somewhere.
Concentrated insanity, cherry flavor.
/agree