Tanner Banks, April 7, 2016, at 9:04 p.m.

Rejoice, my fellow gamers! The Tracer pose controversy has seen the light! Bask in the bounty that our savior Blizzard has bequeathed to us, for it shows bright days ahead. Before I get accused of blasphemy I’ll go ahead and say that the Overwatch team knocked this one out of the park. Ever since this whole stupid controversy started, Blizzard has been caught in the middle of two groups that seem to be offended by anything.

What started as a simple criticism over a rather mundane pose became an all-out shitstorm. With people slinging poo all over the place, with nasty words like “censorship” or “over-sexualized,” Blizzard’s team was put in a place nobody wants to be. If they removed the pose they’d be seen as bowing down to the easily offended minority. If they kept it, they’d be seen as willing to sexualize anybody just because they’re female.

They decided that it would be better to take out the pose and replace it with something else. This was met with anger by the side claiming censorship. They believed their voice was being ignored in favor of a vocal minority. The controversy and ridiculousness only amped up from there as Blizzard quietly stepped away. When they came back with the new pose though, they answered all the critics  with a middle finger pointed every which way.

Those cheeky bastards at Blizzard decided to get tongue-in-cheek about the whole controversy. They told the censor haters that they run the show, and they told the puritans that if Tracer’s ass-ets are shown, it’s their choice. The pose itself is based off a pin-up shot, which were commonly painted onto warplanes during WWII. Now the great thing about the pose is that it addresses what the original criticism, while making fun on the ensuing controversy.

The original pose was said to be “out of character” and not fitting her “spunky” attitude. With Tracer’s origin story describing her as a former pilot, she’d have to know about pin-ups like this. And as someone whose body “seems to be comprised of 95% spunk,” Tracer would probably have a little fun about this situation as well.

The pose itself is fun, relevant to the character, and keeps the  controversial derriere right there.

I’ll be the first to say I was probably a little harsh on Blizzard about bowing down to the calls for change. And man, this is why Blizzard makes games while I just write about them. The pose is an absolute improvement over the original, and they’ve managed to keep Tracer’s character intact while having fun with the situation.

Good job Blizzard, you kicked ass on this one.

Written by Tanner Banks, April 6, 2016

Let’s a-go! Mario is leaving the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi for the New York Stock Exchange and Gordon Gecko. If you haven’t been watching the news, you’re in for a shocker: video games are big money these days. Wall Street seems to be looking for some golden coins, with the latest ETF by PureFunds, the PureFunds Video Game Tech ETF (GAMR). Now you can tell your family that you aren’t wasting your life playing video games (you’re not anyways), you’re just researching volatile, high-yield index funds. When you think about it, you aren’t duking it out with Master Chief or Jak and Daxter, you’re going up with Bill Gates and Kazuo Hirai (CEO of Sony).

The gaming industry is big. Like trending towards $100 billion big. There’s a reason why companies like Amazon have stepped into the fray, purchasing Twitch for $1 billion, and releasing the Amazon Lumberyard engine. Video games are truly a facet of nearly every piece of life. Video games are becoming professional and collegiate sports. It’s been in education for over a decade now, and the military has an odd fascination with duct taping Playstations together to make super computers. Heck, Facebook ruined bought the Oculus Rift for quite the pretty penny. Why? Because video games are dimes.

So what does GAMR look like? Eighty percent of the 36 different funds are made up of gaming companies. The top 10 companies comprise about 55 percent of the volume of the ETF, with Activision (9.46%), NCSoft, a South Korean company (5.85%), and Konami (5.72%) rounding out the top three. Other companies involved include Square Enix, Nintendo, GameStop, and *shudders* Ubisoft. So why pick up this ETF and not just invest in them individually? Because roller coasters are fun at the park, but not when you’re investing. Individual companies are volatile, while the industry is growing steadily. High profit margins and a continuously growing market are the key to GAMR.

As for PureFunds, here’s a snippet from their website about the index fund:

Exciting trends such as the shift to digital distribution of software, proliferation of HD and 4K displays, cloud content and streaming, virtual/augmented reality, motion tracking, episodic content, and diversified monetization models, are stimulating innovation and offer expanded opportunities for entertainment, education, simulation, and other game tech applications.

This index fund looks like it will be more of an entry into the investment world for gamers, and an entry into gaming for investors. With so much value tied into so few assets though, and a .75 percent expense ratio, it could be cheaper to do the index fund yourself. (Investing note: percent expense ratio is fancy talk for what a company charges you to maintain the fund.)

If you’re looking to get into the ETF world, this isn’t a bad choice, and as of April 4th, it’s trading at $26.48. It’s fairly affordable, the first of its kind, and you can brag you own dozens of gaming companies to your buds while you’re out for drinks. If you don’t feel like doing your own portfolio, there are certainly worse choices.

What’s the phrase? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t? Well that’s probably how the folks over at Blizzard feel right now. Eight days ago, beta tester “Fipps” did exactly what they’re supposed to do when beta testing. Leave feedback. Specifically Fipps left feedback on one of the victory poses for the character Tracer, where she’s got her back to the screen and looking over the shoulder. In fact, the pose is literally called “Over the Shoulder.” To Fipps it was overly sexual and out of character.

Below is a part of the post which you can read in full by clicking here.

“…let’s talk about Tracer. From a marketing standpoint, she’s the star of the show. She’s a great hero. When we look at the way she’s portrayed in promotional media, lore, and art in game we know a few things about her..

She’s Fast.
She’s Silly.
She’s Kind.
She’s a good Friend.
Her body seems to be comprised of about 95% spunk.”

Fipps goes on to praise the build up around Tracer’s design, poses, and animation. After that they accused the pose above to be out of character, pointlessly sexual, and a continuation in the trend of pointlessly sexualizing every female character in video games. For a while, it’s a normal civil conversation between the beta testers; Fipps clarifies that the comments weren’t trying to be “sex-negative,” and that stuff like that for more obviously sexual characters like Widowmaker and D.va, because it fit the characters.

From my perspective, it doesn’t look like anything other than a common pose. Besides, if people don’t like it, there are other poses available.

Later on the director of the game Jeff Kaplan came out and responded:

“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,” he wrote. “Apologies and we’ll continue to try to do better.”

After that, people came out of the woodwork for this one. (Sorry if we’re too late to the boat!) On the boards it was mostly against Fipps, who some accused of being a shrill SJW Tumblrina. In a later comment, Fipps specifically mentioned not being female or a Tumblr user. 

Once the poo-flinging started, Jeff came back with a pretty lengthy response. The most important part, in my opinion, came in the middle with:

“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.”

Personally, I call bullshit. Not about having other poses ready; some speculate that it was nothing more than a placeholder pose because most characters have it. What I do think is bullshit is if you like another pose better, then put that one in first. And if you, the game designer, are not entirely happy with the pose, don’t include it. Or, if you’re not sure, post some of the “iffy” poses on the message boards you created and have people give feedback. 

Social media arguments were being thrown every which way. Some said that it wasn’t sexual at all. Some said that it shouldn’t matter if it is sexual. Some said that it was awesome that it was sexual. Others said that it was unnecessary fan service. Others said that it was a dumb pose in general. Some said the whole issue was stupid. I agree on the last one. Regardless, this has gotten out of hand very fast.

Blizzard actually had to start locking threads and allegedly deleting posts about it on the subreddit. Speaking of Reddit, there are two large camps that I’ve seen on this issue. Reddit and Tumblr. (What a surprise…) Regardless, the main arguments that I’ve seen are, “This is stupid censorship because of SJWs! They’re trying to ruin the fun!” and “Shut up, you fat neckbeards! It’s just a pose and it doesn’t matter!”

On the whole, I’ll restate that I don’t think the pose is bad. What I do think is bad is the way the community has dealt with the situation as a whole. The majority seems to be against removing the pose, looking at the message boards, Reddit comments, and tweets that I’ve seen have been against the deletion of the pose. Videos have been made mocking the situation. One women explained how she felt empowered by it.

Basically, everyone is freaking out about what should have been nothing. Blizzard should be applauded for listening to the feedback, regardless of if its positive or negative feedback. It means they’re listening. And here’s the thing: just because people are in the minority, that doesn’t make their opinions invalid. And if a developer chooses to change it, it’s the developer’s choice.

Do I think that the Overwatch team really had a problem with it? No, not at all. My best bet is that they saw the potential controversy and wanted to nip it in the bud. There’s just one big problem about it. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, people are going to bitch about it. If it wasn’t for Fipps’ complaint, it probably would have been replaced, explained as a placeholder and there’d be no controversy. It’s a damn shame too, because the amount of work and care that the team has put into this game is amazing. There’s great variety in the characters, its gameplay is good and easy to pick up, it looks gorgeous, etc.

If it were me, I would have removed it as well, but I’d own up to it and directly say I was avoiding controversy. I think Fipps had the right idea and wanted to provide what they thought was constructive feedback, but worded it wrong. I think Jeff and the rest of Blizzard had the right idea and wanted to make sure that everyone’s voice was valid, and were put in a bad situation. The communities, however, have taken a really promising game and made it about a really stupid controversy. Because at the end of the day, it’s an ass.

Best of luck, Blizzard. You’re going to need it.