The Twitch streamer Asmongold also comments on the “woman to fruit” incident in World of Warcraft. He is disappointed and upset.
With Patch 9.1.5, Blizzard is making a lot of changes to World of Warcraft. Not all of them only affect gameplay, as some also change artistic aspects of the game. The latest outrage is the change of 2 portraits that are being altered. While one of them could at least roughly pass as “HD version”, the second image replaces a woman with fruit.
Even the big Twitch streamer Asmongold has something to say about it and has a clear opinion. For him, it is something that is done for “people with mental illnesses”.
This is the controversial change in WoW: In Patch 9.1.5, some images in World of Warcraft are being changed that show depictions of women. A lady in a red coat with a deep neckline is dressed significantly more modestly. Elsewhere, the image of a scantily clad, reclining woman is completely replaced – specifically by an image of a fruit platter. This had already provoked significant criticism in the WoW community.
Who is Asmongold? Asmongold was for a long time the biggest streamer for World of Warcraft and still has a large community that is very interested in WoW, even though he is currently primarily playing Final Fantasy XIV, “until Blizzard gets its act together”.
He therefore repeatedly addresses changes to WoW and statements from the developers.
You are no longer playing a fantasy game, but a vehicle for ideals and moral goals
What did Asmongold say? A lot. He spent nearly 20 minutes discussing the topic in his stream and had much to say. He explained why he finds these changes “pathetic”, why he sees them as bad, and why exactly such things lead to a very strange image of sexuality.
The way they solve the problem with women is by removing the women from the game. […] But why am I so sad about it? Let me explain:
If you see such changes in a game, then you are no longer playing a fantasy game. You are playing a game that is a vehicle for the ideals and moral goals of the people who created the game. You are no longer playing a fantasy game. There is no longer a willing suspension of disbelief.
With this, Asmongold refers to the fact that players like to dive into a fantasy world and enjoy it. However, this is no longer possible once the ideals and views from the real world are too strongly transferred into the fantasy work, leading to a break in immersion, and one constantly has to think of real incidents.
He then further states that hardly anyone cared about such things being changed in the game. People want the employees to be treated fairly; it was not about images in the game. He explains this angrily:
The individual in the picture is not real. She is not being sexually exploited. That is not a problem. Nobody cares about it, except for a few people with mental illnesses, probably on Twitter. […] And the fact that the game is being changed in a way to satisfy these people takes us further away from a fantasy world.
Later, Asmongold goes on to express his fear that a kind of vicious circle is developing here. Now there are people at Blizzard who have to find such “mistakes”. The problem here is that these employees must find mistakes repeatedly to justify their job. Therefore, these adjustments will extend to more and more details until at some point there is a completely sterile world that has nothing to do with a fantasy game.
[…] They are essentially saying: Not covering up is bad in itself. Because by removing something from the game retroactively, they are actually saying that bringing it into the game originally was bad or that something has changed since then, making wearing clothing in this way [as shown in the image] unacceptable. […]
You know what they should have done? They should have left this image as it was and added another one of a guy who isn’t wearing a top. They should have done that. That’s what Final Fantasy does, and everyone finds that okay.
He then goes through a few other changes, such as the Hearthstone incident, where Jaina was dressed more modestly. Asmongold sarcastically remarked:
Obviously, there is nothing that expresses “Female Empowerment” more than telling women that they can’t wear certain clothing.
What do you think of Asmongold’s opinion? Do you agree with the streamer? Or do you have a completely different view on the topic?
