Thank you Deep Silver, you make us look bad >.>

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Is Jean Paul Gaultier's perfume bottle shaped like a torso tasteless or misogynist? No. Nor is the one in this instance. It's not there to titillate, nor to objectify. At most, it's gruesome, intended to shock, no different from splatter scenes in almost all horror films.

If they'd called Dead or Alive objectifying, sexist garbage, I would agree with them. But this time they are mistaken. Dead Island is set on a tropical island. People on tropical island where swimsuits. Women wear bikinis. It is the torso of a woman. Had this appeared as a scene in a movie it wouldn't get any attention.

Grow. The. F**k. Up.

 

[m19]

Every now and again we are reminded that the rest of the world sees out hobby as a juvenile series of mostly violence-fuelled thematically derivative power fantasies with the approximate depth of a tea tray.

As opposed to anything else massively popular? Like 50 Shades of Grey or, you know, trashy porn. Dat juvenile literature and cinema.

 

[D Moness]

Can we all please get fucking over ourselves.

Does that trashy porn movie make the movie industry look bad : no
does 50 shades of gray make literature look bad : no
does a sodding statue of a zombie game make us look bad : no it doesn't

If sex/porn doesn't make any other medium look bad why should ours. It is only because a part of the gaming community is far to afraid of something that might misrepresent them. If we ourselves as a community do not grow up how can we expect other to see it as a mature medium.

Also where was the fucking outrage when this happened(resident evil 6 promotion).

Spoiler: NSFW

No we get outraged when it is suddenly a female body. Stop white knighting it doesn't help this community at all.
Also why aren't you all people outraged when this hit internet.

Spoiler: NSFW again

Unless people get of their double standard the gaming medium will not be taking as seriously as you all want.

 

[Legion]

What are the complaints ? That it's the torso of a woman and not a mans ? That it wears a modern bikini and not full-covering body suit like those women wore on the 1930s ?
In my opinion I'm surprised so many people overreact over such trivial things.

There are two complaints both different:

One is that it is sexualising violence. Sticking a busty torso combined with the gore.
The other is that it is misogynist because it shows "men only think of women as meat".

Personally I think both are missing the point.

It's gory because it's the item for a zombie game.
It's in a bikini because it's set on a tropical island.
It's made because they think people like violence and they like boobs and they knew it'd cause controversy and get attention to the game.

 

[Doom972]

I don't recall even asking or secretly wanting a statue of a dead woman's torso. Even if I would've gotten it by any chance, I would get rid of it as soon as possible (ok, maybe I'd use it for one tasteless prank but that's it).

P.Z. Myers sounds like an asshole trying to get publicity by aggravating us. Don't feed the troll.

 

[Starik20X6]

Expected to embrace? Seriously, what? It's a collectors edition figure... those are NEVER made to appeal to the ALL of the fans. It's usually for the diehards only, so if it doesn't fit your taste, why don't you just move along. More than anything, it's the ridiculous response from the fans in the gaming community that is the problem, not the statue. Whining as soon as something doesn't cater to YOU, blowing up every little issue, outrage this outrage that. Surely movie fans would not have reacted like this if this was included in a zombie horror dvd set. More than anything, we are proving to the outside that we have way too much spare time on our hands. Not only gaming in itself, but arguing and bickering over every little issue, even spending loads of time trying to influence the creative choices of the developers in the business. It's gotten out of hand.

By 'expected to embrace', I meant 'expected to like it more than a razor blade up the butt'.

You're quite right though, I doubt anyone would bat an eye if this thing came with a movie. But it doesn't, it comes with a game. Games and gamers are at the point where we're trying to be 'taken seriously', or at least acknowledged by the outside world as more than just distractions for kids. Games, in the eyes of the general public, are still perceived as kids stuff and/or entertainment for sociopathic man-children. When you're trying to shake that image, it doesn't help having a dismembered bikini torso[footnote]And why the hell was it a girl in a bikini? Why not a hand, or a head? A model of the hanging tree from the logo?[/footnote] floating about.

Yeah, this doesn't cater to me, at all. I didn't ask it to. I wasn't going to buy this game, with or without the pre-order bonus. But do you know what it has done, that does affect me directly? It's made debating the merits and legitimacy of gaming, as an art form and a pastime, that much harder. Pretend the non-gaming public is a member of the opposite sex you're trying to impress- would that thing be on display at your house the first time they visited?

 

[omegaweapon]

Sometimes, I dare to crawl out of my hive of gaming sub-culture to see what the rest of the world thinks to us. And what do I find?

Well, thanks to Deep Silver's recent PR stunt, the gaming community looks like a bunch of misogynistic children. Take a look at this blog post by the (relatively well known) biologist P.Z. Myers.:

OK, gaming community, could you please grow up a little bit? There?s some new game about fighting zombies called ?Dead Island Riptide? which has come out with a promotional boxed copy that includes a statuette.
A statuette of a bikini-clad woman?s torso, bloodily decapitated and dismembered.
Ugh. Ugly, tasteless, useless crap. Even if it weren?t vilely misogynist, why would anyone want such a hideous and pointless thing? I can only imagine that it?s fuel for fantasies about treating women as dead meat.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/01/15/make-a-striking-conversation-piece-on-any-discerning-zombie-gamers-mantel/comment-page-1/#comment-536319

So according to this guy, "the gaming community" are all children, all male and all have fantasies about treating women as dead meat. It's finding stuff out like this that makes me think that no progress has been made in making gaming be taken seriously by "everyone else." :/

its a most retarded thing i have ever heard, such WELL KNOWN biologist P.Z. myers or whatever, don't KNOW anything about the game, and don't know what's going on, its exactly what anyone, who never played a game see.
when i show him the moon, he just stare in my finger.

hmm lets see, why someone should hold a baseball bat, from when he played baseball? to someone who don't know what's baseball he say: OH it's a symbolized dick. (its very simplified example, it dose not cover everything) when people don't understand something they should not say anything about it. but they do

when my mom see my omegaweapon picture (most of times my avatar is Omegaweapon picture from ff8) say's: are you still a child? are you a monster? do you want to be such a ugly creature? . no mother, no world, i am not a child i just liked those days when i fought omegaweapon (in ff8) it have a great nostalgic feeling for me. i sometimes use a picture from my current game, still that DOSE NOT mean i want to do what that character did and i don't feel any connection with that character. i enjoyed the game, so i want to have its picture.
people who like to play dead island like when they dismember their enemies, and so they get their statue to remember the game. people don't object statue of a naked male man or woman and they praise it's artist, but they don't know what the artist thought when he(she) created the statue. maybe he had the most dirty though anyone had imagine, maybe he masturbate with the statue or even fuck it. but such a thoughts are beyond people's imagination.

people of the world are always like this, they judge everything without any proof. in the end people say whatever they want, before they even want to see the whole picture. so it dose not matter.
i am sorry for my bad English but when i see such a blind and idiots peoples i just can't hold back.

to op if you think act of one publisher can harm your status as a gamer, then i can't say anything.

 

[m19]

LOL. Do some research on P.Z. Myers and feminism in the atheist community. P.Z. Myers is the Anita Sarkeesian of atheism. Hardly a neutral observer.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

So according to this guy, "the gaming community" are all children, all male and all have fantasies about treating women as dead meat. It's finding stuff out like this that makes me think that no progress has been made in making gaming be taken seriously by "everyone else." :/

How does that make us look bad? Most people I know that play video games, even more than I do, had no idea that even existed, let alone people who don't play games. Does the porn industry make Hollywood look bad every time they come out with something?

 

[tahrey]

I think the accusations of misogyny etc in this case are maybe a bit overblown (for a start, you've only really two options, and you can get more beachwear-type clothing on a female body model... if only in order to disguise how you've basically taken part of mannequin, daubed it with red ink and stuck it in the box)... but it's still pretty goddamn tasteless. Who seriously wants something like this to display pride of place on their mantlepiece? It'd be very much gulp-your-tea-and-make-an-excuse time on seeing that...

 

[Iwata]

I'm curious as to why this was received like this, yet there was no outcry about the DVD community needing to "grow up" when they released this:

The violent content is there. The blood and gore are present. It's a severed, bloody zombie body part, except this one has as screwdriver stuck in its eye. The only remarkable difference that would justify the outcry is the fact that Dead Island's body part is female, and has boobs.

So, who really needs to grow up here?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

For a scientist, he's rather quick to jump to conclusions without any research. Gaming community largely agrees that it's disgusting and retarded.

 

[tahrey]

That's a pretty androgynous head, really.

And I'll have to run it past a zombie-mad friend of mine to see if even he would be sick enough to find something like that an attractive piece of home decoration.

 

[anthony87]

What's all this "us" nonsense?

 

[havoc33]

Expected to embrace? Seriously, what? It's a collectors edition figure... those are NEVER made to appeal to the ALL of the fans. It's usually for the diehards only, so if it doesn't fit your taste, why don't you just move along. More than anything, it's the ridiculous response from the fans in the gaming community that is the problem, not the statue. Whining as soon as something doesn't cater to YOU, blowing up every little issue, outrage this outrage that. Surely movie fans would not have reacted like this if this was included in a zombie horror dvd set. More than anything, we are proving to the outside that we have way too much spare time on our hands. Not only gaming in itself, but arguing and bickering over every little issue, even spending loads of time trying to influence the creative choices of the developers in the business. It's gotten out of hand.

By 'expected to embrace', I meant 'expected to like it more than a razor blade up the butt'.

You're quite right though, I doubt anyone would bat an eye if this thing came with a movie. But it doesn't, it comes with a game. Games and gamers are at the point where we're trying to be 'taken seriously', or at least acknowledged by the outside world as more than just distractions for kids. Games, in the eyes of the general public, are still perceived as kids stuff and/or entertainment for sociopathic man-children. When you're trying to shake that image, it doesn't help having a dismembered bikini torso floating about.

Yeah, this doesn't cater to me, at all. I didn't ask it to. I wasn't going to buy this game, with or without the pre-order bonus. But do you know what it has done, that does affect me directly? It's made debating the merits and legitimacy of gaming, as an art form and a pastime, that much harder. Pretend the non-gaming public is a member of the opposite sex you're trying to impress- would that thing be on display at your house the first time they visited?

But you see, now you are really reaching here. Why does this COLLECTORS EDITION of a video game that targets a small core audience ever influence society's impression of gaming as a whole? It just doesn't, they're totally oblivious to it. I'm sorry, but I think you're taking this a tad bit too serious. Maybe it's you that need to be secure about your own gaming habits in regards to other people? Plus, if I were ever the kind to buy such a collectors edition with a statue like this, I certainly would be confident enough in my own skin to be able to defend such a memorablia sitting on the shelf. In fact, if the girl TOTALLY would oppose to me having such a thing in my house, then she wouldn't be worth my time anyway. Not that I would ever bother to buy something like this, it's just not my thing, but I think you understand the point I'm trying to make here. We all can't like the same things and instead of trying to cater to everyone, we should stand up and be proud about whatever curious traits we have that are part of what makes us all exciting and unique individuals.

BTW, I would actually think with the way society is today, people would be offended of having such memorablia was because of the VIOLENCE, and NOT because it's two DD breasts. Come on now.

I'm curious as to why this was received like this, yet there was no outcry about the DVD community needing to "grow up" when they released this:

The violent content is there. The blood and gore are present. It's a severed, bloody zombie body part, except this one has as screwdriver stuck in its eye. The only remarkable difference that would justify the outcry is the fact that Dead Island's body part is female, and has boobs.

So, who really needs to grow up here?

Quite frankly, this post just ended the thread right here.

 

[Jenvas1306]

gaming has a problem of not being as inviting to female players as to male players. Its not everywhere the same, but it is a problem. So is oversexualisation.
I think our 'culture' is showing progress with things like this, currently in form of a bit of over compensation. Its a process you can observe often and it will hopefully regulate itself soon.
We are that culture. We act mature and the culture will mature.

(isnt it fascinating?)

 

[Flippincrazy]

I still don't understand why Mr.Dipshit or whoever wrote that blog post seems to think that a game developers decision and their decision alone (to release this memorabilia) is entirely representative of the 'gaming community' and now the 'gaming community needs to grow up a little bit'. Did we march down to their place and demand they make this? No, of course not, so how the fuck are any of us responsible for this? This is incredibly unfair.

I agree with you that this guy's opinion is entirely unjustified and quite frankly ridiculous, but that's not to say that this isn't the view of a lot of people outside the gaming community. Unjustified opinions based upon misinformation can be annoyingly powerful when set in the right environment.

...That said, take a look at some of the responses to this thread and others like it and try tell yourself that certain members of the gaming community need to grow-up. I certainly do, as evidenced by feeling the need to make this post.

In response to the OP, keep in mind that this is just the opinion of one man. Hell, even if this was the mainstream perception of gaming, so what? People will believe what they will believe about things that they don't fully know, and who's to say that there aren't aspects of video games that should be judged quite harshly?

As with most matters, this whole 'fiasco' can be likened to morally grey swirl full to the brim with a wonderful mixture of ignorance and bias responses from both 'sides'.

If people were sensible they'd pick up on the fact that the collector's edition model was a completely non-serious piece of tasteless zombie-memorabilia catering towards die-hard fans who'd see it as the silly lump of plastic it is. But people are people, and therefore feel the need to blow things hugely out of proportion and then go on to make generalized statements about sexism and misogynistic tendencies in gaming culture, or perhaps make a thread stating your dislike of an opinion of one random 'biologist'.

Can we please all move on? Actually, don't, where would the fun be in life if we didn't make mountains out of mole hills?

 

[havoc33]

gaming has a problem of not being as inviting to female players as to male players. Its not everywhere the same, but it is a problem. So is oversexualisation.
I think our 'culture' is showing progress with things like this, currently in form of a bit of over compensation. Its a process you can observe often and it will hopefully regulate itself soon.

What do you mean not inviting? Gaming has been predominantly a male hobby and there is a reason for that. Research has shown that we're genetically disposed to liking different stuff, alas guys have always been more concerned about technical stuff and all that. If you put a baby girl and a baby boy in the same room with a set of toys they are genetically disposed to grab different stuff. So it's not about us desperately trying to keep girls away from it, I have rarely heard of anyone not liking the idea of more girls playing videogames. In my experience though, it's more that they don't want to, and it's only in recent years you really start to see that turning around. But then yeah, you can't be upset about the fact that most games still cater to guys, because that's been the main demographic playing it from the get go. This will change over time though, slowly but surely.

 

[Jenvas1306]

gaming has a problem of not being as inviting to female players as to male players. Its not everywhere the same, but it is a problem. So is oversexualisation.
I think our 'culture' is showing progress with things like this, currently in form of a bit of over compensation. Its a process you can observe often and it will hopefully regulate itself soon.

What do you mean not inviting? Gaming has been predominantly a male hobby and there is a reason for that. Research has shown that we're genetically disposed to liking different stuff, alas guys have always been more concerned about technical stuff and all that. If you put a baby girl and a baby boy in the same room with a set of toys they are genetically disposed to grab different stuff. So it's not about us desperately trying to keep girls away from it, I have rarely heard of anyone not liking the idea of more girls playing videogames. In my experience though, it's more that they don't want to, and it's only in recent years you really start to see that turning around. But then yeah, you can't be upset about the fact that most games still cater to guys, because that's been the main demographic playing it from the get go. This will change over time though, slowly but surely.

that might just affect what games girls play, but I doubt it really makes them genetically less likely to enjoy games. Playing is in the human nature, not just bound to the Y chromosome.