Politicisation In Gaming

The most controversial image to ever exist ever
The most controversial image to ever exist ever

I rarely talk about controversial topics in the gaming community that state themselves purely on social issues however some things have to be said. This is ancient news now but I am reminded of when this particular Tracer pose, showing off the behind that everyone who browses r/34 should know well, and when the developer removed it from the game there was an absolute outrage.

Now you might ask why were people upset? Well when Blizzard got an email from a father asking if it could be removed due to his daughter playing and finding Tracer to be a role model the design team had a rethink as to what the character traits for Tracer were. In the end they found that the pose didn’t really match her quirky and silly personality and so they removed it. Then came the legions of angry internet misfits that claimed that Blizzard were “Pandering to the SJW’s”.

Here’s where I see the problem of politisication in gaming. People always think that developers choosing to leave certain things in or taking bits out or censoring is some type of political statement towards current social trends. Now this could certainly be true for some games but I find problems in immediately pointing towards that as the first point of reason. In this case it was simple a way of retaining artistic integrity towards a character who, in the end, was not meant to be sexualised in any way, they have Widowmaker for that. I miss the times in which gaming was just for entertainment and education and not for people to yell at developers due to their political or social views. Ahh well, that’s just life as it has developed now, we just need to hope that it just stays as yelling at each other on the internet and doesn’t escalate further than that.

That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.

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