The gaming company Blizzard is currently in the spotlight regarding its diversity. After women complained about their treatment in Hearthstone, Blizzard is now facing criticism for a skin in Overwatch : Blizzard has now given the Asian character Mei cornrows. Some black women find this offensive: They have missed having a black female character in Overwatch for 5 years.
What’s going on at Blizzard? It’s a strange transformation that Blizzard is undergoing:
- With Overwatch in 2016, Blizzard wanted to make a statement for “more diversity” and move away from the fact that the hero figures in their games are predominantly muscular men with broad shoulders or sexy women in battle bikinis: They aimed to develop a game with a diverse cast of heroes.
- However, in recent months, criticism of Blizzard has been accumulating, accusing them of disadvantaging and belittling groups of people with their decisions. Blizzard has been sharply criticized for inviting only 2 women and 18 men to a tournament with 20 grandmasters in Hearthstone.
- This time, the criticism is focused on a skin for the hero Mei in Overwatch.
This is the problem skin: The legendary skin “MM-Mei” depicts the frost heroine Mei as a “Mixed Martial Arts” fighter. Apparently, this skin is modeled after the UFC fighter Zhang Weili, who also wears her hair in cornrows.
Blizzard commented on the skin: “Since the May Melee is the first Overwatch tournament of the year, we wanted to design a skin that represents the pinnacle of competition. We feel that combat sports like boxing or mixed martial arts capture that tone very well and therefore started creating this legendary skin.”
Blizzard chose Mei because many fans amused themselves with the wordplay “May Mei” in 2020. Therefore, it was clear that Mei should be the hero for the “Mixed Martial” Arts skin.
Black hairstyle in Overwatch, but no black heroine
What’s the problem? The problem that Twitter users have with the skin is:
- While there are all kinds of characters in Overwatch, there is no black woman. Since the development of Overwatch 1 is practically finished, there will also be no black woman – Sojourn is only coming for Overwatch 2.
- However, the new skin features a hairstyle that many directly associate with black women. This, it is said, rubs “salt in the wound” for Blizzard.
Users on Twitter, especially black women, criticize Blizzard for the skin. Many note that Blizzard clearly lacks black developers and their perspective; otherwise, they would have noticed how inappropriate this is.
The skin is perceived as a “PR blunder.”
The Twitter account “Black Girl Gamers” pointed out that Blizzard was already criticized in 2018 for having no black women in the ensemble of 29 heroes in Overwatch. They called it “lazy and misogynistic” back then.
Do some see it differently? Yes, others say: The hairstyle is simply common among MMA fighters and thus appropriate for the skin.
They point specifically to UFC fighter Zhang Weili, who wears cornrows as a “real-life example” that the skin is not culturally offensive.
Some comment under the skin: “This is the reason why Jeff Kaplan left” or “Jeff saw this and submitted his resignation.”
The example of skins for Mei clearly shows how the discussion in gaming has shifted. Five years ago, in the release year of Overwatch, there was also a discussion about a skin for Mei. This feels like a relic from older, innocent days:
