In recent years we’ve seen a rise in the number of games featuring a female protagonist, which is great, but this push towards greater representation in games has coincided with increased saltiness regarding diversity in the industry, which is not so great. With Horizon Zero Dawn receiving rave reviews ahead of its release, a spotlight has been placed on the game’s feminist themes by the typical band of self-described “anti-SJW” folk, so let’s go down this wormhole together.
I’ll preface this by noting that I haven’t actually played Horizon Zero Dawn, and therefore don’t know much about its story other than what I’ve heard second-hand from those who have. I know it stars a red-haired heroine called Aloy who is part of the Nora tribe, a matriarchal group that worships an omnipotent goddess they refer to as the All-Mother. I know that a large portion of its story is devoted to Aloy attempting to figure out who her mother is and the origin of the metallic beasts that roam the world, which were seemingly borne out of the cataclysmic event that sent humanity back to the quasi-Stone Age. I also know that there’s an implication that men were responsible for this event, which inevitably leads us to those currently expressing their frustration at the game’s concept.
The backlash started bubbling over on GamerGate’s unofficial subreddit KotakuInAction, which serves as a central hub for self-described “anti-SJWs,” with posts emerging from users criticizing reviews of the game (which they haven’t played yet) and its reportedly feminist plot. One of the top-rated posts on the subreddit has seen users stating that the game has received great reviews because of “virtue signalling” and not because of the quality of the game itself, which they know nothing about because, again, they haven’t played it yet.
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Others criticized Ashly Burch’s involvement in the game, with her providing the voice work for Aloy. “The usual suspects are going to praise it to high heavens and give it all the good scores because they’re friends with Burch and various of the SJWs involved in making the game, but it’ll likely turn into “Virtue Signalling – The Game,” one user wrote. “SJW’s aren’t known for being good game designers. That’s why most of them end up making walking simulators or visual novels. Their intersectional feminism degrees didn’t provide them with the technical skills to actually create a game that a majority of people want to play,” another added.
Someone also posted a photo of their pre-order cancellation, citing The Guardian‘s comment that it was “the feminist action game we’ve been waiting for” as the reason behind their decision. Other users also stated that they were no longer going to buy the game as a result of its apparent feminism.
The general theme of these complaints is that Horizon Zero Dawn is going to be “another Ghostbusters,” meaning that it will focus too much its female characters and their feminism, something which makes them uncomfortable. Of course, those of us who actually watched Ghostbusters knows that the movie wasn’t an exercise in “man-hating,” and that the level of hatred it received was massively disproportionate compared to the content of the film itself.
Unfortunately, the negativity that routinely encircles games which dare to tackle political themes (aside from war, which is a-OK because those games feature a fuckton of men) is approaching once again, and will inevitably only increase when these folks actually play the game for themselves rather than just reading about it. It’s questionable that these are the kind of people who fight for developers’ creative freedom when it comes to Tracer’s backside or Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3‘s breasts, yet they’ll happily boycott a game if it doesn’t feature politics that align with their own, but udging by its high review scores, their inability to tolerate its feminism will cost them the chance to play one of the best games of the year thus far.
Take a look at the WORST gaming ads of all time:
Worst Gaming Ads of All Time
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Neo Geo
There are a lot of retro ads that imply the player will reject sex with beautiful women after buying a new console, but this one ranks above them all in terms of sheer awfulness. Note how the man is holding the Neo Geo's cumbersome controller above his pelvis in order to make it look like he's twiddling his penis, while a phallic-shaped monster is displayed on the TV in the background.
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Daikatana
Daikatana was a disaster on multiple levels, but this ad in particular will go down in history as one of the very worst pieces of video game marketing. Doom creator John Romero was one of the biggest names in gaming prior to Daikatana's release, so he decided to place himself at the forefront of its marketing campaign by insisting that he was going to make players "his bitch." Unfortunately, not enough people bought Daikatana to adequately assess whether this statement was true or not, with it being one of the gaming industry's biggest commercial flops ever.
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PS Vita
Sony has a habit of producing ads that skirt the line of offence, and the marketing for the PS Vita was no different. Featuring a woman with two pairs of boobs, its slogan "Touch both sides for added enjoyment" unnecessarily excluded potential female buyers of the handheld console, though this would unfortunately be only the second most offensive Vita ad the company produced.
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Battlecruiser 3000AD
During the '90s scantily clad women were used to sell just about everything, including intergalactic trading simulators. Battlecruiser 3000AD's "sexy" marketing didn't encourage anyone to pick it up, and this ad was later revised to show the model wearing underwear and not covering her genitals with the game's box.
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Sega Saturn
The Sega Saturn didn't do so well, but according to this ad for the console its processing power would make you forget all about boobs when you feasted your eyes upon its graphics. Unfortunately for Sega this wasn't the case, as everyone promptly forgot about the Saturn and everyone still remembers boobs.
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Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar was an abject failure and proof that plugging your console with power isn't always the key to victory. Atari's ugly marketing, complete with the insistence that you'll "blow chunks" while playing it (which is a good thing, apparently?) failed to get it off the ground.
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Game Boy
Nintendo is now much more kid-friendly when it comes to its marketing, but a few decades ago they were very much in the business of putting out "edgy" ads to rival the likes of Sega. This one is particularly questionable, as not only does it seemingly depict a euphemism that doesn't actually exist, but it also implies sexual activity between a young man and his rodent. Yeah, we'll pass, Nintendo.
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Sega Genesis
Masturbation was somehow a popular domain for advertisers back in the late '90s, as if the target demographic of teenage boys wasn't doing enough of that already. This ad for the Sega Genesis was one of the more unsubtle attempts at comparing buying a new console with furiously jacking off.
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PlayStation's anniversary
Sony decided to anger religious groups in Italy with this ad marking the tenth anniversary of PlayStation, with its translation reading "The Passion of PlayStation" while a man is depicted wearing a crown of thrones. After a wave of controversy, the company was forced to pull the ads.
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PS2
Sony produced a ton of eye-catching ads for the PS2, but among the console's memorable marketing campaign were a handful of duds which disturbed consumers more than it did convince them to part with their cash. This skin-crawling ad is one of them.
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PS2
Taken from the same abstract PS2 marketing campaign, no one really knows what Sony was getting at with this image of a woman giving birth to a grown man. Was this supposed to make people want to pick up Tekken Tag Tournament, or just gross them out enough that they'd buy a PS2 to prevent Sony from marketing the console?
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PSP
Arguably the most offensive video game ad ever created, this PSP billboard may have been trying to sell the handheld console's new white color variant, but in reality it looked like a call to arms for white supremacists. Sony was inevitably forced to pull the ad.
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Rayman 3
Rayman is now best known for starring in two of the very best platformers of the past decade and -- ugh -- the Rabbids, but around the launch of Rayman 3 Ubisoft was hard at work trying to instill in us the idea that their limbless mascot was packing serious heat.
