Blizzard Explains Why They Removed Overwatch Butt Pose After Fan Complaint

After an Overwatch player complained about one character's butt-centric victory pose, the game's director said that they're removing it.

When Overwatch's closed beta returned earlier this year, Blizzard put skins, emotes, poses for characters, and among those, fast-talking, faster-walking time traveller Tracer got a victory pose called "over the shoulder", which looks like this:

The post ignited a controversy, and it began with an argument made by a player called Fipps. Here's some of the complains that they posted on the Overwatch forums:

"What about this pose has anything to do with the character you're building in tracer? It's not fun, its not silly, it has nothing to do with being a fast elite killer. It just reduces tracer to another bland female sex symbol."

"We aren't looking at a Widowmaker pose here, this isn't a character who is in part defined by flaunting her sexuality. This pose says to the player base, oh we've got all these cool diverse characters, but at any moment we are willing to reduce them to sex symbols to help boost our investment game."

"I have a young daughter that everyday when I wake up wants to watch the recall trailer again. She knows who tracer is, and as she grows up, she can grow up alongside these characters. What I'm asking is that as you continue to add to the overwatch cast and investment elements, you double down on your commitment to create strong female characters. You've been doing a good job so far, but shipping with a tracer pose like this undermines so much of the good you've already done."

While some users argued against it, saying that her pose is non-sexual and in-character.

Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan agreed with the topic starter, however, saying:

"We'll replace the pose. We want *everyone* to feel strong and heroic in our community. The last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented. Apologies and we'll continue to try to do better."

Fans expressed confusion and outrage in response to Blizzard's decision, reasoning that Blizzard kowtowed to a relatively minor concern instead of following their vision, and wondering why the company allows violence but not cartoon sexiness. They also pointed out that sexiness could be empowering. There's even a petition to keep Tracer's pose.

The victory pose isn't even over-the-top, but I understand how some players might see it as out-of-character. Tracer was mostly presented as silly, but the pose clashed to the image Blizzard built for her, and the developer ultimately agreed to fans who thought it didn't fit

Blizzard's Kaplan wrote a follow-up post last night on the Overwatch forum, noting that the team already "weren't entirely happy with the original pose" and had been creating a new pose "that we love and we feel speaks more to the character of Tracer." He asked for a "respectful" discussion about the topic, saying: "We understand that not everyone will agree with our decision, and that's okay. That's what these kinds of public tests are for. This wasn't pandering or caving, though. This was the right call from our perspective, and we think the game will be just as fun the next time you play it."

Via Kotaku