The Twitch streamer Asmongold has been making critical remarks about women in recent weeks, getting upset about female voice actors, developers, and journalists. His fans also don’t appreciate it when he engages too much with women. But now he and his fans have finally found a woman they like: In the new game on Steam, Vindictus: Defying Fate.
What’s up with Asmongold and women?
- In recent weeks, Asmongold has been involved in some controversies, and it’s noticeable that his anger is often directed at women: Regularly he complains about women and their opinions on games and how these games should be: usually more diverse and female.
- Although Asmongold himself has had a woman in his life for some time whom he likes, his fans are not really impressed.
- But now it seems that Asmongold and his fans can agree on one woman: The female model in the new Steam game “Vindictus: Defying Fate”.
Game of the Year
This is his reaction to the new game on Steam: In a two-minute video, a YouTube clip from one of his Twitch streams, Asmongold looks at the female character and her various outfits in Vindictus: Defying Fate with a smirk. The new game is an action spin-off of an MMORPG from Nexon. On March 19, a pre-alpha for Vindictus: Defying Fate concluded on Steam.
While the first outfits are still normal, outfit 2 already puts the playable warrior in a mini skirt. Outfit 3 shows her only lightly dressed and gives the fighter high heels and more underwear than armor. This outfit will quickly become a favorite of Asmongold and his community.
While the Twitch chat raves about “AAA quality” and “Game of the Year,” Asmongold can hardly contain his grin and eyebrows as he says: The combat looks much smoother than he had expected.
The video titled “Game of the Year” reached 713,000 views in less than a week.
Cultural conflict between East and West regarding women in video games
What’s behind it: For the game, Asmongold’s video is nearly priceless advertising. Such a level of attention would normally have cost Nexon several hundred thousand US dollars in marketing budget. For most of Asmongold’s fans, such a video is harmless fun.
However, there is a real conflict behind it in a way: Because such highly sexualized characters are still popular in Asia, where Vindictus: Defying Fate comes from, while there is a movement against such characters in the Western gaming industry. This movement is led by exactly those people and forces with whom Asmongold has been having issues recently. While Asmongold sees himself as a voice for the very players who oppose such changes and see it as an undue influence on their games
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We have already discussed the debate about game characters that set unrealistic beauty standards in the PS5 game Stellar Blade:
