God of War Team "Pulling Back" From Violence Against Women

[1337mokro]

Seriously? Your games have treated women like sex puppets sitting on beds waiting for men to bonk em.

Please don't tell me that suddenly you're all up for feminism. Because that's the wrong way to go. Long as you don't sexualize the violence against women, which until now you haven't done (you have used women for nothing but sex), it's all right.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

In the words of Gordon Ramsay, "For fuck's sake..."

Look, I'm all about equal rights. Keyword being EQUAL. If it's all right to rip a man's head off and use it as a soccer ball, it shouldn't be any more offensive to do the same to a women.

 

[axlryder]

I can appreciate the outcry at the mysoginystic nature of this blatantly pandering yet apparently misguided change in direction for Kratos; however, in the dev's defense, violence against woman in real life is a real problem. For a man to brutalize a woman is still a poignant issue in the public sphere of consciousness. It's also biologically factual that woman are, on average, weaker than men. Men would generally be able to do more damage when they get physical and woman generally aren't as physically able to defend themselves, so I think a lot of people take that into account when they see violence against woman.

Now, we all know that in GOW land it makes no difference if you have a dick or not, Kratos is gonna fuck you up either way. We also know that female on male violence and male abuse is actually a very prominent and underplayed issue in the REAL world. We also know that some woman are stronger than many men and many men are weaker than a lot of woman, so slapping on "no violence against woman" sticker really makes less sense than slapping on a "not attacking the relatively weak and helpless" sticker. However, I can understand where the creators are coming from, as they're not trying to pacify just the people who are looking at this from our perspective. They're trying to pacify the people who look at violence against woman and say "THAT'S WRONG!", as I imagine those are the people with the biggest megaphones and may have some brutal real world experience with the issue. I'm not saying they're doing the right thing here, but I don't think what they're doing is really deserving of all that much criticism. They just don't want to be perceived as beating on woman, because even if they say "no, woman can take care of themselves just as well as men", they'll still, ironically, get called misogynistic and such. I think them ANNOUNCING it, however, was really stupid. I also think them actively singling out woman (and not just the defenseless) was also stupid.

I also like the softer version of Kratos idea. I think it opens up the story to more dynamic writing. I just wish it wasn't executed this way.

 

[Frankster]

I honestly thought this was a joke at first, digging at how Kratos is going to be less brutal in that playstation all stars game or w/e...

Needless to say I find this idea retarded, for reasons others will explain far better no doubt.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Kratos has also done all of those things with screaming, helpless, non-combatant men. All they're doing is reinforcing traditionalist ideas about gender and calling it progressive.

If they want to improve the way they deal with women, maybe they should start by taking out the pointless sex minigames involving nameless NPCs who serve no other purpose?

 

[-Dragmire-]

Even if they'd planned this for Kratos' characterization from the beginning, the timing of this news among the recent controversies makes their claim hard to believe.

 

[nohorsetown]

Younger Kratos, huh? It'd make sense if he had a problem with violence against innocents / civilians, regardless of sex. This is just throwing more sexism on the fire.. purportedly to quench it? Of course it's reactionary bullshit (Tomb Raider trailer, etc.)

Never should have had the bone-the-ladies-for-health minigame. This guy is consumed by rage, blindly slaughtering everything in his path. He's an engine of destruction, nothing more. I have no problem with him slaughtering women, but taking time off to have sex just doesn't fit. *That* was the sexist "male gaze" part. They already done fucked up.

 

[joshuaayt]

I don't get this- violence is never a positive thing. A violent, murderous character can never be a good person (morality wise), and it really doesn't matter who they slaughter- I don't see how you can have problems with harming one demographic, but be totally OK with harming another.

Distinguishing like this is probably more harmful, if you ask me- making note of a particular sort of violence and singling only it out as "Too far" just legitimises everything else.

 

[weirdee]

Hey, don't look at me, it was yall's directionless fury which basically shifted gears from "nothing is sacred" to "nothing is sacred, but we're going to sidestep the women issues because it would be the easiest thing for us to do, instead of risking our jobs to attempt to do this right because chances are anything we do will get us all fired, and then killed, and then sued".

which is ironic because this trend which wanted to push the dialogue more out into the open is just going to end up putting all the developers into an old fashioned bomb shelter miles below the surface until it goes away

and i wouldn't use the historical argument, because i've had that thrown back in my face with "well, it would be nice if they decided to take it in a different direction for once" to which you can't really say anything because that is the desire to make things better by trying to bury history with new attitudes, and there's really no way to outright disagree or agree with that situation without being wrong somehow

at the most fundamental levels, it's not that the game needs a "few changes", it's that people want an entirely different type of game (you can already tell that this shoehorning of antiviolence attitudes into what is already a deep bloodbath that it's not going to work out), and it seems rather much to expect a developer to do that after everything has already been set into motion

 

[Brad Shepard]

It starts... This crap is going too far, i mean, why is this changed, because Feminism is so big now?

 

[Hagi]

If the devs were so concearned about equality, they'd focus on giving the female NPCs an equal fighting chance against Kratos as the men.

This is the exact opposite. They're moving closer to the traditional role model. Makes sense too as the intended audience are men.

Hey, don't pin this on all us men.

Just because someone's male doesn't mean they automatically prefer the traditional role model.

There's plenty of men, including myself, who freaking hate the traditional role model. And not even just because it's unfair to women, it's equally unfair to many men who don't identify with the traditional macho alpha role where you have to be a manly man and do manly man things lest you be ridiculed and found undesirable.

 

[Darkmantle]

If the devs were so concearned about equality, they'd focus on giving the female NPCs an equal fighting chance against Kratos as the men.

This is the exact opposite. They're moving closer to the traditional role model. Makes sense too as the intended audience are men.

this is what being afraid of pointless controversy does to a studio.

 

[Phasmal]

Meh.
I can understand why they'd want to sidestep controversy.
I find it a bit silly, though, seeing as Kratos is a human blender and certainly not a role model, but...

I'm not going to get all riled up about it.

 

[sonofliber]

If the devs were so concearned about equality, they'd focus on giving the female NPCs an equal fighting chance against Kratos as the men.

This is the exact opposite. They're moving closer to the traditional role model. Makes sense too as the intended audience are men.

yeah cause, men all think alike and they are all pro traditional model of the woman in the kitchen, its not like they can have different opinions............

 

[devilmore]

If all the women equality "organizations" (also known as frustrated housewives in most cases) had any real interest in what they say they want they'd complain about this too. Demand for women to be murdered equally brutally.

But they're not gonna do that because they are hypocrits...

 

[Epona]

In a few years the only enemies we'll be able to fight in games are white males in their mid 20s to late 30s.

No, any white male will do. Age doesn't matter, even children are killable as long as they are white and male.

I wonder if the feminists will stand against this. You know, them being all about equality and all.

 

[Epona]

Violence against men = Entertainment, often humorous entertainment (like when a man gets kicked in the nuts)

Violence against women = omg sexist

Fixed it for you.