this guy should be the hero of polycount, the place of penis tanks and what not...
it's all about context, man. Modelling a penis tank when you can't sleep and passing it around polycount is one thing - talking about it in a promotional video trying to sell a game with boobies puts it in a different light.
like one of those color-sucking fluorescent lights that destroy shadows and make everything look gray and lifeless. but with a penis. and story-board concepts of butts.
You know you're scrapping the bottom of the barrel, when people who make actual Porn games aren't doing what Overkill just did.
Lets check a few things:
-Porn angles camera shots a la Micheal Bay? ✔
-Penis joke that goes nowhere and has no payoff? ✔
-Badly drawn butts with no sense of anatomy? ✔
-Lesbian innuendo with food munching vagina jokes? ✔
-Stating they're looking for only sexy girls for a small movie? ✔
-Horrible, forced acting with nasal talking in duo parts? ✔
-Overdose of makeup? ✔
-Gamer girlz innuendo about playing a video game which they never even heard of and have to explain? ✔
-Awkward nerd girl who doesn't say anything in the middle as a random trophy? ✔
Seriously, were they trying for strike out or something? And remember, this is Heist we're talking about, a game where a "bunch of masked men rob who banks, and at one point caused the Zombie apocalypse because it's set in the fan-fiction L4D universe", so what the hell do models with long legs and a bust-bust have to do with it?
Then again, if we learned anything from EA and Gajin, is that any sort of 'drama' will get you more attention and enough for you to sell a bunch of extra copies.
Besides, isn't it said that it's "easier to forgive then give permission"? I'm pretty sure Overkill fits in that bill, generate some bad press, people notice you, take off video causing more people to go after you, put out an apology and some nice letter on how you plan on bettering yourself and will try to amend it via gameplay, and voila, suddenly you have people calling you "Mature and Grown up" after the latest fiasco, and selling more copies on good will alone at this point.
God that was bad I feel for the people at Overkill though, I could imagine (and hope) this was probably a decision made by a small isolated group of people with no real connection to the gaming industry or reality.
Has kotaku said shit about this yet? Im surprise I havent heard more buzz past polycount just yet. I cant wait to see the little normal gamer nerds and internet hate flowing like a river of blood over this one.
it's all about context, man. Modelling a penis tank when you can't sleep and passing it around polycount is one thing - talking about it in a promotional video trying to sell a game with boobies puts it in a different light.
i dont know man! the whole video while being pretty lame and all seems like a lighthearted joke of a video which is what penis tanks are all about.
within the context of the video, that guy talking about modeling a penis was clearly a joke so that meme seems somewhat like an over reaction to me in that respect.
Has kotaku said shit about this yet? Im surprise I havent heard more buzz past polycount just yet. I cant wait to see the little normal gamer nerds and internet hate flowing like a river of blood over this one.
Kotaku will delight at anything that's nearly an actual story. God knows how the commenters there will react.
does anyone have a re-up of the video? that trendolizer link didn't work any more.
Mats Alders, Starbreeze representative, gives us an explanation and commentary via email. They are distancing themselves from the video:
We are investigating this very seriously. The company and management do not support this and I want to clearly point out that we are not behind any kind of sexism (i'm not sure about this word) like in this video.
I'm very sorry about this situation and we will get to the bottom on how this has happened and I will let you know as soon as we know more.
That sounds like not everybody, at least not senior management was aware of this video. I've also heard that it was the models/TV-channel that created this on their own accord?
You know, this video was really bad and all, but maybe I just don't get so riled up when other people do something stupid. Like people being all mad that they once worked there? People saying they won't ever buy one of their games? Swedish companies in general "ashamed"?
Wtf people? Who gives a damn? People put stupid shit up on the internet all the time, if a studio made a video that's super sexist, make games that are super sexist, and are generally staffed by a bunch of sexist "bros", then fine. Don't buy that game, let anybody who likes that kind of thing buy it, and if they crash and burn because people tend to not stay 12 forever, then yay.
Maybe they were trying to be silly, maybe it was a few managers who put it together and a ton of peeps just kept working while they filmed a bit at the office and they didn't care. Maybe you people should chill the out and stop whining every time a game does anything that protrays women in a sexist fashion, either lightly or over the top like these guys did. These games won't sell forever, they will die off, either by people not buying them, or the devs get tired of making boob jokes in games.
As for the people who work/worked there, I'm sure no company or coworker will judge you based on something your company put out unless you are very proud and adamant of your contributions to said video.
As a note; I'm not defending it, and I don't like it or these types of games. I'm just getting a bit tired of Polycount becoming a bunch of bitching, complaining, butthurt people who turn into a mob every time somebody does something stupid.
The management must have known something was going on, I mean it went as far as planned, scripted, cast, filmed and edited.
It is a very long process to be not been seen by them.
But the main problem remains, the movie was recorded with the employees of the currant company, is a clear indication that this marketing idea has gone far beyond the idea state and was made to a movie now.
It means these sort of low values exist within the company to let this sort of marketing film to exist.
Unfortunately I can see that modeler loosing his job as part of the scape-goat fingerpointing after this. Instead of taking responsibilty, the official response tries to play ignorance.
Even if the heads didn't know. Even if it was a local TV setup. People they (owners) hired and thus the culture they created thought it was OK.
I'm just getting a bit tired of Polycount becoming a bunch of bitching, complaining, butthurt people who turn into a mob every time somebody does something stupid.
<Glares at the rest of the Polycount Mob, then back at Avanthera>
Unfortunately I can see that modeler loosing his job as part of the scape-goat fingerpointing after this. Instead of taking responsibilty, the official response tries to play ignorance.
Fortunately, Sweden is not the US so that will probably not happen; it's really difficult to fire somebody. It won't go down like that Adria Richards fiasco.
@aventhera - you're absolutely right! i can't believe how full of self-righteous zealotry we all sound! these things shouldn't happen, and somehow will eventually stop of their own accord - it's not worth our discussion. let's all vacate this thread and go back to discussing what happened in the walking dead last night, or something else equally as vastly more important than this.
@MM - i'm sure he was telling a joke, one that would usually be amusing - but probably not entirely useful in a promo video. there's a place, man...and it's called polycount.
@MM - i'm sure he was telling a joke, one that would usually be amusing - but probably not entirely useful in a promo video. there's a place, man...and it's called polycount.
penis.
understood.
however, it is quite ironical for something like that to be OK/encouraged inside polycount and then immediately looked down on when done outside polycount by no other than people of polycount.
@aventhera - you're absolutely right! i can't believe how full of self-righteous zealotry we all sound! these things shouldn't happen, and somehow will eventually stop of their own accord - it's not worth our discussion. let's all vacate this thread and go back to discussing what happened in the walking dead last night, or something else equally as vastly more important than this.
That's a really contrived point and backhanded one to have, I can argue right now that spending time and fixing your community, being active in your groups or helping women in India is more important then complaining about a video on the internet that amounted to just crass humor with a bunch of well off models that most likely were making their own lines on the time considering how awkward it all was.
That's like having a bunch of rich footballers cry because they lost a match, at the end day, you're the one working up for nothing, those peeps are going home in their long muscular legs and having a sniffle in their jacuzzi.
And frankly speaking, Avent. does have a point. Everyone seems to content complaining in text on the internet about something and forcing it into submission rather then actually talking about WHY this happened in the first place and what we can do to prevent this issue, as much as it's a minor thing in the grand scheme of things in life.
Would it have been better to actually know what this video was made, instead of getting it booted? What exactly did we learn hear, other then having a shouting match?
But hey, you don't get to become a real-life Dr. House with a Rubik's complex without making sophomoric complaints about everything.
Am I defending the video? No, if you look at my previous post, it's just shoddy, but artists, OTHER PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY are saying "Oh, woes is us, shame on my family and everyone around me" is just being melodramatic and playing the (and I can't believe I'm saying this) the "victim" card when no one was hurt in the first place.
Seriously? being a "Game Artist" is now something of a marginalized group thing, and if someone does something bad, it represents everyone as shameful in this industry? Talk about being self conceited for no reason at all, and being entitled to being offended.
It's also extremely sad as to how many people are passive-aggressively hoping for someone to get fired, the irony of people claiming they want diversity and tolerance, yet want to hurt people in the most unstable way possible with which they might never recover from, a job.
EDIT: Sorry, about the latter part of the post, that wasn't aimed at you, just in general on how everyone on the sociopathic internosphere is acting on this video is frankly disgusting.
Am I defending the video? No, if you look at my previous post, it's just shoddy, but artists, OTHER PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY are saying "Oh, woes is us, shame on my family and everyone around me" is just being melodramatic and playing the (and I can't believe I'm saying this) the "victim" card when no one was hurt in the first place.
It is a closely knit community, especially the swedish games industry where everyone ends up knowing everyone, and it does come with shame when you find out your games industry family has been fritzling it up behind closed doors, especially when people have been working so hard together to work against these kind of things.
And in the end it will just end up a: "we are sorry that you found out".
Things like this are good, it send a clear message that it´s not acceptable.
People are not calling for people to get fired, people are calling for the people in charge to distance themselves from things like this, including the web series that have been casting for bikini-models.
I really wish the GDM quality of life survey had analyzed employee satisfaction by gender to see if the game industry really is the misogynist hellscape everyone seems to think it is.
You know, this video was really bad and all, but maybe I just don't get so riled up when other people do something stupid. Like people being all mad that they once worked there? People saying they won't ever buy one of their games? Swedish companies in general "ashamed"?
Wtf people? Who gives a damn? People put stupid shit up on the internet all the time, if a studio made a video that's super sexist, make games that are super sexist, and are generally staffed by a bunch of sexist "bros", then fine. Don't buy that game, let anybody who likes that kind of thing buy it, and if they crash and burn because people tend to not stay 12 forever, then yay.
Maybe they were trying to be silly, maybe it was a few managers who put it together and a ton of peeps just kept working while they filmed a bit at the office and they didn't care. Maybe you people should chill the out and stop whining every time a game does anything that protrays women in a sexist fashion, either lightly or over the top like these guys did. These games won't sell forever, they will die off, either by people not buying them, or the devs get tired of making boob jokes in games.
As for the people who work/worked there, I'm sure no company or coworker will judge you based on something your company put out unless you are very proud and adamant of your contributions to said video.
As a note; I'm not defending it, and I don't like it or these types of games. I'm just getting a bit tired of Polycount becoming a bunch of bitching, complaining, butthurt people who turn into a mob every time somebody does something stupid.
That's respectable eld. That should be what this thread is about, not people going off the deep end, including myself :poly128:(though I still stand by what I said, I do tend to get a bit aggressive sometimes. ).
It's sad that these kinds of advertising campaigns are still happening in 2013, but it is getting less, and that at least makes me happy. I hope the folks over at starbreeze learn from their mistakes and the devs aren't hurt too bad from this trip up.
I really wish the GDM quality of life survey had analyzed employee satisfaction by gender to see if the game industry really is the misogynist hellscape everyone seems to think it is.
In case anyone missed this, these are female game developers tweeting their "number one reason why" there are so few female game developers.
Trying to measure satisfaction through an outlet exclusively dedicated to farming negative anecdotes is about as logical as judging the ratio of good to bad things happening in the world by watching the news.
GDM does a survey every year which is why I brought it up, it wouldn't be hard to separate the results between genders and identify trends.
Another thing worth looking at is the difference in turnover rate between women and men in the industry, especially when compared to other tech/entertainment industries with better male/female employment ratios.
Sure, it would be great to have a survey, but since we do not, anecdotes from actual women is what we have. And while I am never one to imply anecdotes are better than data, it is definitely better than you, as a dude, using hyperbole to imply there is no sexism in games.
I was implying that "people" (gernalization) seem to imply that the gaming industry is a mysoginist hellscape based on threads like this.
I don't know how bad it is. That's why the entire premise of my post was a desire for more objective information about the subject. Something you might have picked up on if your reading comprehension was anywhere near as strong as your confirmation bias.
Edit: For the record this is in reply to your original response that you edited after the fact to be more relevant. I considered editing mine to match but seeing as how you left in your stupid strawman I'm not going to bother.
I was implying that "people" (gernalization) seem to imply that the gaming industry is a mysoginist hellscape based on threads like this.
I don't know how bad it is. That's why the entire premise of my post was a desire for more objective information about the subject. Something you might have picked up on if your reading comprehension was anywhere near as strong as your confirmation bias.
Fwiw I, nor any of the female gamers / game dever's I've worked with have ever felt like it was. And an interesting side note, when I was in Taiwan for about 10 days on a short teaching stint, the studio we were at (xpec) was 60% women, 40% male artist ratio - something that was clearly obvious walking around in the studio (the amount of overloaded with cute figurine cubicles blew my mind) a stat they were very proud about, with an even higher % of women in leadership roles - 3 of the 4 producers we worked with there were female.
Also sure this vid sucks, but its 1 in amongst the thousands that ever stoop to this level. Yeah I know it doesnt make it right, but yay for getting out the pitchforks for the ~.1 %
I think a lot of us gals don't speak out because we're afraid of losing our jobs.
Edit: I'm glad to see that there even is a discussion on these topics including the tropes of women in video games. Two years ago the common response was "You need to take a joke" when I'd confront these sort of issues. That being said however, it is awkward having a forum of mostly guys discuss something as serious as sexism in this industry and probably have little or no direct evidence of it. It's just a lot of theories in that case. But if us gals were to speak out a lot about it, we're some sort of unhire-able dramatic damsel.
For the most part working in the industry has been a rewarding experience and most people are great to work with.
And yes, this video is totally ridiculous. It's far more laughable than it is offensive. I mean how on earth did they think that was a good advertisement?
Also sure this vid sucks, but its 1 in amongst the thousands that ever stoop to this level. Yeah I know it doesnt make it right, but yay for getting out the pitchforks for the ~.1 %
i won't speak for anyone else, but that's why i'm against it. i think bringing the feminist debate into this is sending the wrong message and unecessarily dividing people, as the video paints both the men and women in stereotypical colors. my pitchfork is out (heh penis joke) because it sends a very wrong message about what game dev culture is about, whether the recipient of this message is male or female.
and i'm glad that overkill seem to have done as eld implored and distanced themselves from it.
Fwiw I, nor any of the female gamers / game dever's I've worked with have ever felt like it was. And an interesting side note, when I was in Taiwan for about 10 days on a short teaching stint, the studio we were at (xpec) was 60% women, 40% male artist ratio - something that was clearly obvious walking around in the studio (the amount of overloaded with cute figurine cubicles blew my mind) a stat they were very proud about, with an even higher % of women in leadership roles - 3 of the 4 producers we worked with there were female.
Also sure this vid sucks, but its 1 in amongst the thousands that ever stoop to this level. Yeah I know it doesnt make it right, but yay for getting out the pitchforks for the ~.1 %
That though goes into Bibendum counter argument that certain select personal or group experience or viewpoint cannot be used how much the industry is or isn't sexist as a whole
Even if the Taiwan industry is like that throughout. Does that same attitude happen in most Western Countries? In most Studios?
But to avoid big general sweeping statements, I'll only relate my personal experience and those experiences of several female game developers I have worked with who are good friends, and whom I've had at-length discussions with about this whole topic on multiple occasions. All of them love working in this industry and they all kick ass at what they do 2 are in lead roles at well known studios.
I think it’s important to say, that this kind of thing (original video) is in the minority - this is not what our industry is all about at all. I think the worst possible thing that could come of stuff like this and of this whole movement is that any female game developer who is currently on the fence about even considering working in video games - is being put off. And the glorification of what’s wrong and broken about it isn’t helping.
Get more positive stuff out there, spread and discuss that and be part of a positive change - Or not. Whatever floats your boat!
I'm sorry but that's total BS. It's not like some publisher held a gun to there head. And if there was pressure from someone/something with money, you can still stand above that.
The only BS I see is that last sentence. Also, it's *their head. I know you're not a native speaker, just for future reference.
People make stupid mistakes, they don't deserve to be ruined for it if it really doesn't hurt anybody.
You know, this video was really bad and all, but maybe I just don't get so riled up when other people do something stupid. Like people being all mad that they once worked there? People saying they won't ever buy one of their games? Swedish companies in general "ashamed"?
Wtf people? Who gives a damn? People put stupid shit up on the internet all the time, if a studio made a video that's super sexist, make games that are super sexist, and are generally staffed by a bunch of sexist "bros", then fine. Don't buy that game, let anybody who likes that kind of thing buy it, and if they crash and burn because people tend to not stay 12 forever, then yay.
Maybe they were trying to be silly, maybe it was a few managers who put it together and a ton of peeps just kept working while they filmed a bit at the office and they didn't care. Maybe you people should chill the out and stop whining every time a game does anything that protrays women in a sexist fashion, either lightly or over the top like these guys did. These games won't sell forever, they will die off, either by people not buying them, or the devs get tired of making boob jokes in games.
As for the people who work/worked there, I'm sure no company or coworker will judge you based on something your company put out unless you are very proud and adamant of your contributions to said video.
As a note; I'm not defending it, and I don't like it or these types of games. I'm just getting a bit tired of Polycount becoming a bunch of bitching, complaining, butthurt people who turn into a mob every time somebody does something stupid.
+1,000,000. Polycount is not deviantArt, people.
This is a pathetic video. But no bandwagons, pitchforks, torches or defaming are required. After all, when that Polish studio released pics of the special edition Dead Island severed torso, did you guys call for their heads on spikes? No. When someone on here posts triple-D big titty babes, do we blacklist them? No.
This is either a bad case of bi-polarism, or hypocrisy, I'm not sure.
This is a pathetic video. But no bandwagons, pitchforks, torches or defaming are required. After all, when that Polish studio released pics of the special edition Dead Island severed torso, did you guys call for their heads on spikes? No. When someone on here posts triple-D big titty babes, do we blacklist them? No.
This is either a bad case of bi-polarism, or hypocrisy, I'm not sure.
When someone keeps doing something stupid that he was told previously to not do on polycount he eventually gets banned here on polycount. The bits of sexism in this community is one thing, but when you take a big company acting in an official sense then there is really nothing to blame anymore.
And again, important to note: this surfaced in the worst possible time here in Sweden, important discussions have been going on about equality and females in the games industry, and what we have do to fix things.
This is simply not just a "stupid mistake", it is more indepth:
Do note that the quite bad dead island collectors item was quickly removed after the uproar, this is how you fix things, quickly.
This all also begs the question: how are things fine if the industry is filled with things that while they never were released still happened, it says quite a bunch about keeping a tidy surface while having shit like this go on every day.
Exactly; repeated twitfuckery get you banned here. This is the first time these guys made this idiotic move. If they insisted on repeating it, fair enough, they should be seen as a studio to avoid working for or supporting.
Do note that the quite bad dead island collectors item was quickly removed after the uproar, this is how you fix things, quickly.
Actually as far as I'm aware they are still going to be releasing that edition; though I could be wrong. I read somewhere that they stopped promoting it but still plan to go ahead with it.
As I'm sure plenty of people here are aware I find the sexist and misogynistic facets to this industry and gaming culture in general to be extremely uncool. But I think talking about blacklisting these guys over one stupid decision is a little uncool too. Let them learn from it and we can all move on.
Official statement. This is why I also feel the whole pitchfork and torches show, together with "I will NEVER buy their games" statements are not appropriate. They did not order, want or approve this thing.
Exactly; repeated twitfuckery get you banned here. This is the first time these guys made this idiotic move. If they insisted on repeating it, fair enough, they should be seen as a studio to avoid working for or supporting.
The first time it went out in public, I think we'll have a second wave of facepalming once the web-series goes live, I doubt it'll change the direction it intended.
Actually as far as I'm aware they are still going to be releasing that edition; though I could be wrong. I read somewhere that they stopped promoting it but still plan to go ahead with it.
As I'm sure plenty of people here are aware I find the sexist and misogynistic facets to this industry and gaming culture in general to be extremely uncool. But I think talking about blacklisting these guys over one stupid decision is a little uncool too. Let them learn from it and we can all move on.
My initial comment on blacklisting was on the scenario where the studio would not make their outmost efforts to clean this up and make sure it does not happen again (and not in the corporate fashion of cleaning up)
The lesson learned is usually "make sure nothing surfaces in the future, and if it does try to make it seem that no one was responsible"
Official statement. This is why I also feel the whole pitchfork and torches show, together with "I will NEVER buy their games" statements are not appropriate. They did not order, want or approve this thing.
Lots of emotions spark up, and in current times it was even more likely.
There's still questions popping up: why are they still working with the people who suggested this, why did it take as much as going through with recording the entire video to realize what a bad idea it was, why is that project still apparently gathering these bikini-girls.
But to avoid big general sweeping statements, I'll only relate my personal experience and those experiences of several female game developers I have worked with who are good friends, and whom I've had at-length discussions with about this whole topic on multiple occasions. All of them love working in this industry and they all kick ass at what they do 2 are in lead roles at well known studios.
I think its important to say, that this kind of thing (original video) is in the minority - this is not what our industry is all about at all. I think the worst possible thing that could come of stuff like this and of this whole movement is that any female game developer who is currently on the fence about even considering working in video games - is being put off. And the glorification of whats wrong and broken about it isnt helping.
Get more positive stuff out there, spread and discuss that and be part of a positive change - Or not. Whatever floats your boat!
Just so that I understand, sorry. You say that we should ignore a fact brought up by women in the industry, so that we don't scar away others? All my women friends and colleges that work in the industry tells a different story then you describes, and sure you can only speak from your own experience. But seriously, the glorification? These are people describing fucked up shit in their professional life. How is that not relevant listening to that and help bring that to the surface?
I think that there is other industries fighting with even bigger sexism issues, though that doesn't mean we should ignore or diminish the problems in our own.
How much people hate hearing about feminism and the discussions around it it's not something that just popped up the last few years. The world is a very male oriented place how much you twist and turn. And yes, I know that a lot of people thing that's bs and just a bunch of whine.
The argument "just let it pan out, it will solve it self" is not a new one, and it's total bs. That can be related to racism or any other oppressive instance in our or past society. You need to speak up and put down you foot if you actually believe there should be a change.
It feels like that meme is more of a friendly joke. (I didn't do it, for the record). But I mean, if you actually drop jokes like that, I believe that he could take a meme joke. Though that kind of joke itself isn't something unusual in the industry, or any other industry containing mostly guys. It's a wide spread jargon, not very inevitable to women.
Like Eld mentioned earlier. One of the reasons why this blows up (in Sweden) is cause we have an active discussion on the subject in general. To add to that you have the owners of Overkill, former Grin brothers. Without saying to much, there's a lot of bad blood there.
Just so that I understand, sorry. You say that we should ignore a fact brought up by women in the industry, so that we don't scar away others? All my women friends and colleges that work in the industry tells a different story then you describe
You're going to find this with some artists on the internet; here, deviantArt, CGHub, wherever; they're just trying to justify their preferred art style; unfortunately for them but fortunately for everyone else and the culture of gaming in general, I feel the tides are changing and we as developers and fans are growing up and expecting a more 'respectable' way of how we express ourselves and how we treat others. I think this is a very good thing. :thumbup: Overall I'm pretty happy to see how people are reacting to this, though I do feel feel pretty sorry for the Starbreeze guys at this point.
I find it hard to believe the company and management didn't know about this . A huge amount of preparation and paperwork would have to go into the camera tour, hosts, contacts, station setup, NDA's, video edits, approvals, ect.
Unless Overkill went rogue on this and didn't go through corporate... which would give any company lawyer a heart attack.
Replies
The video will not play for me :poly142:; anybody have another link?
Its pretty painful to watch.... -_-
am i missing something ?
this guy should be the hero of polycount, the place of penis tanks and what not...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=polycount.com+penis+tank
SltrOlsson: Thank you. That quote deserved a meme :P
That was the most bizarre PR video i've seen. I've wanted to hide myself under my desk after watching this.
it's all about context, man. Modelling a penis tank when you can't sleep and passing it around polycount is one thing - talking about it in a promotional video trying to sell a game with boobies puts it in a different light.
like one of those color-sucking fluorescent lights that destroy shadows and make everything look gray and lifeless. but with a penis. and story-board concepts of butts.
Lets check a few things:
-Porn angles camera shots a la Micheal Bay? ✔
-Penis joke that goes nowhere and has no payoff? ✔
-Badly drawn butts with no sense of anatomy? ✔
-Lesbian innuendo with food munching vagina jokes? ✔
-Stating they're looking for only sexy girls for a small movie? ✔
-Horrible, forced acting with nasal talking in duo parts? ✔
-Overdose of makeup? ✔
-Gamer girlz innuendo about playing a video game which they never even heard of and have to explain? ✔
-Awkward nerd girl who doesn't say anything in the middle as a random trophy? ✔
Seriously, were they trying for strike out or something? And remember, this is Heist we're talking about, a game where a "bunch of masked men rob who banks, and at one point caused the Zombie apocalypse because it's set in the fan-fiction L4D universe", so what the hell do models with long legs and a bust-bust have to do with it?
Then again, if we learned anything from EA and Gajin, is that any sort of 'drama' will get you more attention and enough for you to sell a bunch of extra copies.
Besides, isn't it said that it's "easier to forgive then give permission"? I'm pretty sure Overkill fits in that bill, generate some bad press, people notice you, take off video causing more people to go after you, put out an apology and some nice letter on how you plan on bettering yourself and will try to amend it via gameplay, and voila, suddenly you have people calling you "Mature and Grown up" after the latest fiasco, and selling more copies on good will alone at this point.
i dont know man! the whole video while being pretty lame and all seems like a lighthearted joke of a video which is what penis tanks are all about.
within the context of the video, that guy talking about modeling a penis was clearly a joke so that meme seems somewhat like an over reaction to me in that respect.
does anyone have a re-up of the video? that trendolizer link didn't work any more.
I got contacted by this guy the other day to work for that studio :O
http://blog.svd.se/spelbloggen/2013/03/25/en-forlegad-manniskosyn/
translated with my basic Swedish:
That sounds like not everybody, at least not senior management was aware of this video. I've also heard that it was the models/TV-channel that created this on their own accord?
Wtf people? Who gives a damn? People put stupid shit up on the internet all the time, if a studio made a video that's super sexist, make games that are super sexist, and are generally staffed by a bunch of sexist "bros", then fine. Don't buy that game, let anybody who likes that kind of thing buy it, and if they crash and burn because people tend to not stay 12 forever, then yay.
Maybe they were trying to be silly, maybe it was a few managers who put it together and a ton of peeps just kept working while they filmed a bit at the office and they didn't care. Maybe you people should chill the out and stop whining every time a game does anything that protrays women in a sexist fashion, either lightly or over the top like these guys did. These games won't sell forever, they will die off, either by people not buying them, or the devs get tired of making boob jokes in games.
As for the people who work/worked there, I'm sure no company or coworker will judge you based on something your company put out unless you are very proud and adamant of your contributions to said video.
As a note; I'm not defending it, and I don't like it or these types of games. I'm just getting a bit tired of Polycount becoming a bunch of bitching, complaining, butthurt people who turn into a mob every time somebody does something stupid.
It is a very long process to be not been seen by them.
But the main problem remains, the movie was recorded with the employees of the currant company, is a clear indication that this marketing idea has gone far beyond the idea state and was made to a movie now.
It means these sort of low values exist within the company to let this sort of marketing film to exist.
Even if the heads didn't know. Even if it was a local TV setup. People they (owners) hired and thus the culture they created thought it was OK.
Avanthera..... grow up.
<Glares at the rest of the Polycount Mob, then back at Avanthera>
GET 'EM :poly127:
Fortunately, Sweden is not the US so that will probably not happen; it's really difficult to fire somebody. It won't go down like that Adria Richards fiasco.
@MM - i'm sure he was telling a joke, one that would usually be amusing - but probably not entirely useful in a promo video. there's a place, man...and it's called polycount.
penis.
understood.
however, it is quite ironical for something like that to be OK/encouraged inside polycount and then immediately looked down on when done outside polycount by no other than people of polycount.
That's a really contrived point and backhanded one to have, I can argue right now that spending time and fixing your community, being active in your groups or helping women in India is more important then complaining about a video on the internet that amounted to just crass humor with a bunch of well off models that most likely were making their own lines on the time considering how awkward it all was.
That's like having a bunch of rich footballers cry because they lost a match, at the end day, you're the one working up for nothing, those peeps are going home in their long muscular legs and having a sniffle in their jacuzzi.
And frankly speaking, Avent. does have a point. Everyone seems to content complaining in text on the internet about something and forcing it into submission rather then actually talking about WHY this happened in the first place and what we can do to prevent this issue, as much as it's a minor thing in the grand scheme of things in life.
Would it have been better to actually know what this video was made, instead of getting it booted? What exactly did we learn hear, other then having a shouting match?
But hey, you don't get to become a real-life Dr. House with a Rubik's complex without making sophomoric complaints about everything.
Am I defending the video? No, if you look at my previous post, it's just shoddy, but artists, OTHER PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY are saying "Oh, woes is us, shame on my family and everyone around me" is just being melodramatic and playing the (and I can't believe I'm saying this) the "victim" card when no one was hurt in the first place.
Seriously? being a "Game Artist" is now something of a marginalized group thing, and if someone does something bad, it represents everyone as shameful in this industry? Talk about being self conceited for no reason at all, and being entitled to being offended.
It's also extremely sad as to how many people are passive-aggressively hoping for someone to get fired, the irony of people claiming they want diversity and tolerance, yet want to hurt people in the most unstable way possible with which they might never recover from, a job.
EDIT: Sorry, about the latter part of the post, that wasn't aimed at you, just in general on how everyone on the sociopathic internosphere is acting on this video is frankly disgusting.
It is a closely knit community, especially the swedish games industry where everyone ends up knowing everyone, and it does come with shame when you find out your games industry family has been fritzling it up behind closed doors, especially when people have been working so hard together to work against these kind of things.
And in the end it will just end up a: "we are sorry that you found out".
Things like this are good, it send a clear message that it´s not acceptable.
People are not calling for people to get fired, people are calling for the people in charge to distance themselves from things like this, including the web series that have been casting for bikini-models.
Amen
It's sad that these kinds of advertising campaigns are still happening in 2013, but it is getting less, and that at least makes me happy. I hope the folks over at starbreeze learn from their mistakes and the devs aren't hurt too bad from this trip up.
I wondered this too!
https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%231reasonwhy&src=tren
In case anyone missed this, these are female game developers tweeting their "number one reason why" there are so few female game developers.
GDM does a survey every year which is why I brought it up, it wouldn't be hard to separate the results between genders and identify trends.
Another thing worth looking at is the difference in turnover rate between women and men in the industry, especially when compared to other tech/entertainment industries with better male/female employment ratios.
I don't know how bad it is. That's why the entire premise of my post was a desire for more objective information about the subject. Something you might have picked up on if your reading comprehension was anywhere near as strong as your confirmation bias.
Edit: For the record this is in reply to your original response that you edited after the fact to be more relevant. I considered editing mine to match but seeing as how you left in your stupid strawman I'm not going to bother.
Fwiw I, nor any of the female gamers / game dever's I've worked with have ever felt like it was. And an interesting side note, when I was in Taiwan for about 10 days on a short teaching stint, the studio we were at (xpec) was 60% women, 40% male artist ratio - something that was clearly obvious walking around in the studio (the amount of overloaded with cute figurine cubicles blew my mind) a stat they were very proud about, with an even higher % of women in leadership roles - 3 of the 4 producers we worked with there were female.
Also sure this vid sucks, but its 1 in amongst the thousands that ever stoop to this level. Yeah I know it doesnt make it right, but yay for getting out the pitchforks for the ~.1 %
Edit: I'm glad to see that there even is a discussion on these topics including the tropes of women in video games. Two years ago the common response was "You need to take a joke" when I'd confront these sort of issues. That being said however, it is awkward having a forum of mostly guys discuss something as serious as sexism in this industry and probably have little or no direct evidence of it. It's just a lot of theories in that case. But if us gals were to speak out a lot about it, we're some sort of unhire-able dramatic damsel.
For the most part working in the industry has been a rewarding experience and most people are great to work with.
And yes, this video is totally ridiculous. It's far more laughable than it is offensive. I mean how on earth did they think that was a good advertisement?
i won't speak for anyone else, but that's why i'm against it. i think bringing the feminist debate into this is sending the wrong message and unecessarily dividing people, as the video paints both the men and women in stereotypical colors. my pitchfork is out (heh penis joke) because it sends a very wrong message about what game dev culture is about, whether the recipient of this message is male or female.
and i'm glad that overkill seem to have done as eld implored and distanced themselves from it.
That though goes into Bibendum counter argument that certain select personal or group experience or viewpoint cannot be used how much the industry is or isn't sexist as a whole
Even if the Taiwan industry is like that throughout. Does that same attitude happen in most Western Countries? In most Studios?
But to avoid big general sweeping statements, I'll only relate my personal experience and those experiences of several female game developers I have worked with who are good friends, and whom I've had at-length discussions with about this whole topic on multiple occasions. All of them love working in this industry and they all kick ass at what they do 2 are in lead roles at well known studios.
I think it’s important to say, that this kind of thing (original video) is in the minority - this is not what our industry is all about at all. I think the worst possible thing that could come of stuff like this and of this whole movement is that any female game developer who is currently on the fence about even considering working in video games - is being put off. And the glorification of what’s wrong and broken about it isn’t helping.
Get more positive stuff out there, spread and discuss that and be part of a positive change - Or not. Whatever floats your boat!
The only BS I see is that last sentence. Also, it's *their head. I know you're not a native speaker, just for future reference.
People make stupid mistakes, they don't deserve to be ruined for it if it really doesn't hurt anybody.
+1,000,000. Polycount is not deviantArt, people.
This is a pathetic video. But no bandwagons, pitchforks, torches or defaming are required. After all, when that Polish studio released pics of the special edition Dead Island severed torso, did you guys call for their heads on spikes? No. When someone on here posts triple-D big titty babes, do we blacklist them? No.
This is either a bad case of bi-polarism, or hypocrisy, I'm not sure.
When someone keeps doing something stupid that he was told previously to not do on polycount he eventually gets banned here on polycount. The bits of sexism in this community is one thing, but when you take a big company acting in an official sense then there is really nothing to blame anymore.
And again, important to note: this surfaced in the worst possible time here in Sweden, important discussions have been going on about equality and females in the games industry, and what we have do to fix things.
This is simply not just a "stupid mistake", it is more indepth:
(google translated)
http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fspelbyrakraten.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F03%2F25%2Fvilka-ar-payday-production%2F&act=url
Do note that the quite bad dead island collectors item was quickly removed after the uproar, this is how you fix things, quickly.
This all also begs the question: how are things fine if the industry is filled with things that while they never were released still happened, it says quite a bunch about keeping a tidy surface while having shit like this go on every day.
Actually as far as I'm aware they are still going to be releasing that edition; though I could be wrong. I read somewhere that they stopped promoting it but still plan to go ahead with it.
As I'm sure plenty of people here are aware I find the sexist and misogynistic facets to this industry and gaming culture in general to be extremely uncool. But I think talking about blacklisting these guys over one stupid decision is a little uncool too. Let them learn from it and we can all move on.
Official statement. This is why I also feel the whole pitchfork and torches show, together with "I will NEVER buy their games" statements are not appropriate. They did not order, want or approve this thing.
The first time it went out in public, I think we'll have a second wave of facepalming once the web-series goes live, I doubt it'll change the direction it intended.
True, which is a bit sad.
My initial comment on blacklisting was on the scenario where the studio would not make their outmost efforts to clean this up and make sure it does not happen again (and not in the corporate fashion of cleaning up)
The lesson learned is usually "make sure nothing surfaces in the future, and if it does try to make it seem that no one was responsible"
Lots of emotions spark up, and in current times it was even more likely.
There's still questions popping up: why are they still working with the people who suggested this, why did it take as much as going through with recording the entire video to realize what a bad idea it was, why is that project still apparently gathering these bikini-girls.
Just so that I understand, sorry. You say that we should ignore a fact brought up by women in the industry, so that we don't scar away others? All my women friends and colleges that work in the industry tells a different story then you describes, and sure you can only speak from your own experience. But seriously, the glorification? These are people describing fucked up shit in their professional life. How is that not relevant listening to that and help bring that to the surface?
I think that there is other industries fighting with even bigger sexism issues, though that doesn't mean we should ignore or diminish the problems in our own.
How much people hate hearing about feminism and the discussions around it it's not something that just popped up the last few years. The world is a very male oriented place how much you twist and turn. And yes, I know that a lot of people thing that's bs and just a bunch of whine.
The argument "just let it pan out, it will solve it self" is not a new one, and it's total bs. That can be related to racism or any other oppressive instance in our or past society. You need to speak up and put down you foot if you actually believe there should be a change.
It feels like that meme is more of a friendly joke. (I didn't do it, for the record). But I mean, if you actually drop jokes like that, I believe that he could take a meme joke. Though that kind of joke itself isn't something unusual in the industry, or any other industry containing mostly guys. It's a wide spread jargon, not very inevitable to women.
Like Eld mentioned earlier. One of the reasons why this blows up (in Sweden) is cause we have an active discussion on the subject in general. To add to that you have the owners of Overkill, former Grin brothers. Without saying to much, there's a lot of bad blood there.
You're going to find this with some artists on the internet; here, deviantArt, CGHub, wherever; they're just trying to justify their preferred art style; unfortunately for them but fortunately for everyone else and the culture of gaming in general, I feel the tides are changing and we as developers and fans are growing up and expecting a more 'respectable' way of how we express ourselves and how we treat others. I think this is a very good thing. :thumbup: Overall I'm pretty happy to see how people are reacting to this, though I do feel feel pretty sorry for the Starbreeze guys at this point.
Unless Overkill went rogue on this and didn't go through corporate... which would give any company lawyer a heart attack.
You should ignore this video. There are more "sexism" out there in other games with female characters pretending to be a man.