UPDATE: Tracer’s pose has been changed to something somewhat similar to what it was originally, so this particular outrage about her specifically is not a huge deal anymore, but I still maintain this general viewpoint about changing things to suit the minority of players and sex in video games.

I’d imagine this will be a touchy subject to some, but it’s something that’s been running through my head on and off for quite some time now. I’ve somewhat addressed sexual content in games before (check my Directory), but I’ve never really spilled out everything I want to say. For some reason, Blizzard’s removal of a simple pose in Overwatch, for a female character named Tracer, struck a chord in me and made me want to just… talk. It’s not, by any means, some life-changing, eye-opening occurrence for me, personally. It’s more like the straw that broke the camel’s back. This is just a tangent that’s been building up in me. I can’t guarantee a coherent layout to this post, as it’ll be very stream-of-consciousness, but I’ll try my best.

First off, about Blizzard’s removal of the pose; Tracer is not the only character with it. In fact, she’s not even the female character with the biggest butt who can do it (see: Widowmaker). Male characters can do it, too. Tracer was given special treatment, because she, specifically, was pointed out by the player who complained about the pose, claiming sexual objectification. Despite dozens of other people in the same thread saying otherwise, Jeff Kaplan responded with confirmation that he’d remove it, and even apologized for it – in the same thread as the many who asked to keep the pose intact. Since then, the Overwatch Beta Feedback forum on Battle.net has been flooded with statements asking to reverse the decision.

I’ve seen people saying things like “video games aren’t a democracy and the devs can do what they want” and “it’s not censorship if they change it willingly.” First off, who’s to say it’s a willful change, not fueled by fear of moral outrage or critical backlash? Second, if a single complaint was all it took for them to remove the pose, then why did they give it to Tracer to begin with? Why’d they give it to her if their conviction towards their own game’s design is so weak? “They care about player feedback and want to make everyone happy”, I hear some say. If that were true, Kaplan should have listened to the dozens of other people scrambling to urge him to keep the pose – not the one or two people trying to make a mountain out of an anthill. Obviously, that would have pleased the majority, and the people who don’t care either way would continue to not care. “Pleasing everyone” is simply not possible in any consumer-based or art-based industry where subjective perception of the product is key.

This type of behavior continues to set the awful precedent that you can easily change anything you want about any game you wish by raising your eyebrow and claiming “sexism” or “racism” or any “-ism” that bares a negative connotation. This type of behavior has way too much power over the people who should simply have all the creative freedom they want. It goes deeper, as one person in the thread claimed that, despite Tracer being 26 years old in-universe, her emotional and intellectual development could be stunted due to being adrift in time. Now, humanizing a fictional character is reasonable, and necessary to sympathize with/relate to them within the context of their plot, but trying to give them real life human rights to protect them from their own creators is taking it a step too far.

Another damning aspect of this issue is this part of Kaplan’s message: “The last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented.” An admirable statement… Unless you happen to like that pose for Tracer – which, again, was most of the people in that thread – then fuck you.

This whole debacle bridges me to my next statement, which is the crux of this post: sex in video games is not inherently immoral or detrimental to the medium in the general. The presence of sex in video games doesn’t make people perceive the entire industry to be “immature”. If someone does perceive it that way, they’re the closed-minded ones. Sex is a basic need in all human beings – we all want or need it, barring asexual individuals. Sex is present in every consumer-based artform. Film has it. Photography has it. Literature has it. “Music” (or just audio in general) has it. Sex can be bought and sold all over the world. Video games are not a special snowflake form of entertainment that needs to be coddled because it’s the youngest. Video games have nothing to prove. It’s a 100 billion-dollar (annually/globally) business and growing.

Pornographic games are exactly that – porn. They’ve porn first and video games second. A game is not automatically aimed at people of all ages and demographics by virtue of being a video game. And, like with real porn, you ignore the types you’re not into. Simple as that. As a lifelong gamer, one of my absolute biggest pet peeves is a person playing a game despite already deciding that they hate it before they even pick up the controller, and, surprise, they trash it when they’re done (usually about an hour or less in). It’s a confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy, and pretending to be an authority on that game after your predetermined hatred only misleads and is fundamentally dishonest.

Sex in video games isn’t even a recent occurrence. Have we forgotten Custer’s Revenge back in 1982? There was an outrage about that game, too; including some hyperbolic morons trying to insist it incurred a “rape epidemic” against Native American women. How about the Leisure Suit Larry franchise? To this day, I see people citing their own children for reasons of their concern (this includes the person who complained about Tracer’s pose) and I can only wonder if they forgot that ESRB ratings exist. Yes, ratings boards like ESRB or MPAA can be full of shit sometimes (like giving an AO for sex, but not grotesque and excessive violence), but they’re there for a reason.

Sure, sex in games used to be extremely odd from an arousal standpoint back when human characters were just globs of pixels. But now, 16 years into the 21st century, 3D models can be made to be alarmingly realistic with software available for free. The gap from flesh and blood to pixels and polygons will only close more and more as years pass to the point where photorealism is accomplished with ease. That’s how technology progresses. Now, with virtual reality on the horizon, sex in video games will feel more tangible than ever.

You’re not helping the video game industry grow in a natural manner by lobotomizing it and keeping it stuck in a perpetual state of political correctness. Just let it do its own thing and it’ll evolve on its own – in all directions. It’ll reach a point where the industry will be so huge, you’ll nave no incentive to go back to any company or series you’ve abandoned; assuming it’s not at that point already.

Recently, the UN tried to crack down on Japan for having media – live action and otherwise – that contains sexual violence against women. Japan responded logically by saying “stop trying to give real life human rights to fictional people” (paraphrasing, of course). This notion was supported by many Japanese women, including yaoi manga artists and novelists, college professors, and lawyers. They even went the extra mile to say that male characters are often victims to sexual violence too, and should therefore not be considered a problem exclusive to women. Fiction does not violate any human rights. If anything, fiction is definitively removed from human rights entirely. Trying to censor or remove fiction does not help real, living, breathing people who have suffered any sort of abuse or objectification. I’m glad one first-world country has some sense regarding this topic.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading my rant. I hope it was understandable, and I hope you see where I’m coming from. I’m not trying to purposely step on toes. I’m just venting my thoughts on things that I feel shouldn’t need such a passionate response to begin with, but here we are.

For full disclosure, my beliefs on sex in media also extends to cartoons. Not just hentai, but western stuff as well. Don’t even try to bullshit me and insist cartoon porn was a recent thing too. Betty Boop was considered a sex symbol in the fucking 1930s.