Blizzard Entertainment has been criticized in the past for the way it has sexualized female characters, particularly in the earlier days of World of Warcraft when male armor models looked at least somewhat practical while many female armor models were essentially metal bikinis.

Blizzard has worked hard to overcome that reputation, which might explain why the studio was so quick to address player complaints about one of the victory poses available for Tracer, a hero in the upcoming team-based shooter, Overwatch.

In Overwatch, victory poses are cosmetic character models shown for the winning team at the end of the match. The poses can be unlocked either by purchasing them with in-game credits or by randomly finding them in loot boxes. Some poses are serious and meant to look cool, while others are silly and lighthearted.

A few fans took issue with one of the victory poses available for Tracer, which they considered to be too sexual for her goofy character.

Screenshot by Eric David | SiliconANGLE

“What about this pose has anything to do with the character you’re building in Tracer?” user Fipps said in a post on the Overwatch beta forums. “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.”

It would be easy to dismiss Fipps’ complaints as an example of over-sanitizing game media for the sake of not offending anyone, but the user makes a strong argument for why the pose simply doesn’t fit Tracer’s character.

“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.”

Fipps added, “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.”

Blizzard’s hasty response

Game Director Jeff Kaplan personally responded to Fipps’ comments less than two days after they were posted, saying that he agreed that the pose did not fit for Tracer and that “the last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented.”

Kaplan said that the pose would be replaced with a different one, which sparked an argument between Overwatch fans who agree with the removal and those who think the pose should stay.

Last night, Kaplan responded to user concerns over the pose in a somewhat more detailed post to the forums.

“As the game director, I have final creative say over what does or does not go into the game,” Kaplan said. “With this particular decision, it was an easy one to make—not just for me, but for the art team as well. We actually already have an alternate pose that we love and we feel speaks more to the character of Tracer.”

“We weren’t entirely happy with the original pose, it was always one that we wrestled with creatively. That the pose had been called into question from an appropriateness standpoint by players in our community did help influence our decision—getting that kind of feedback is part of the reason we’re holding a closed beta test—but it wasn’t the only factor. We made the decision to go with a different pose in part because we shared some of the same concerns, but also because we wanted to create something better. ”

Screenshot by Eric David | SiliconANGLE

It is important to note that while Tracer’s “sexy” victory pose is being removed, there are a few others that remain intact, including one for Widowmaker that is nearly identical. Of course, as Fipps argued, this pose makes sense for Widowmaker’s character, which is supposed to fit the femme fatale archetype.

Kaplan admitted that the decision to replace Tracer’s victory pose might not be popular with everyone, but he also said that Blizzard has no plans to cater to every whim of the community.

“We wouldn’t do anything to sacrifice our creative vision for Overwatch, and we’re not going to remove something solely because someone may take issue with it,” Kaplan said in his post. “Our goal isn’t to water down or homogenize the world, or the diverse cast of heroes we’ve built within it.”

“We have poured so much of our heart and souls into this game that it would be a travesty for us to do so.”

Image courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment Inc