Clearly, We Do Not Deserve Nice Things And/Or People

Because this entire episode has convinced me that gamers are really, really stupid I’m going to use very small sentences and lots of pictures.

Assassin’s Creed is a really fun game.

Assassin’s Creed was made by a fairly large group of people.

As you can see from the last picture, one of them, the producer as it turns out, is a fairly attractive, and well-spoken young woman.

Ubisoft marketing took advantage of one of the team members being well-spoken and photogenic. The gaming press reacted…

…well… let’s just say restraining orders may be needed.

In fact, you might wonder if Jade Raymond’s Assassin’s Creed was an actual game, or if the entire purpose of creating a next-generation free-form adventure game set in the Crusades was simply an excuse to post pictures of pretty girls. The Internet is apparently short of these.

Hey, look, more!

This is from the unofficial Jade Raymond fan site. I wonder if my producer will ever get an unofficial fan site. Since he’s not very pretty, probably not.

But this is all just harmless fun, right? Right? Surely we can take the genre-bending spectacle of an actual gee-she’s-purty she-smells-nice can-I-see-the-rabbits-george woman in a significant game development role and not make something awful from it?

Yeah, whatever. This is the Internet. We break everything.

That vile little comic (trust me, it gets a lot more offensive) is now famous because Ubisoft is trying to sue it out of existence. Apparently they only like creepy Jade Raymond fanservice if it’s happy creepy fanservice. Or if it’s done by real game journalists.

By the way, Assassin’s Creed is really fun. For some reason I thought I should bring that up again. You know, in case seeing pictures of a real girl makes you forget. Apparently this is a problem many people have.

Other commentary on how we can’t have nice people (warning: both are apparently written by real girls and as has been shown, we just can’t handle this):
Game Girl Advance
Feministe

The always readable Sanya Weathers (who is also a real girl, but moreover also can and will kick your ass) has well-thought-out points as well.

http://www.damnedvulpine.com/ J.

See, you were supposed to let this all blow over.

Now we have to keep talking about it on public channels.

See what you’ve done? Groan.
Matthew

I don’t really know what to say here.

That Kotaku topic pretty much sums up the internet’s inability to deal with women gamers / game creators. Why does that happen? I don’t know.

Will it change? I doubt it.
mystery

Let me be the first to say that Lum has gorgeous breasts.
VonKaiser

Man, whatever happen to Stevie Case? Was that her name? Stevie? Jesus.
http://ambernight.org Amber

I was going to write some rage about the comic. Then I was going to write some rage about the Kotaku stupidity. Then I was going to write some rage about the Ubisoft stupidity (both counts). Then I just got sad.
http://www.damnedvulpine.com/ J.

The difference here is that Stevie Case ruined her own career by posing for Playboy, while Jade did nothing to deserve this besides be hot and have a big personality. Problem was no one could see past the look-good factor, hardly anyone knew her game development history before she went on G4, there was a rumor she was going to pose for Maxim that turned out not to be true, and someone posted a copy of that comic to the Your Console Sucks forum on Somethingawful. And Ubisoft slapped Lowtax with a cease & desist.

Jade Raymond is only going to keep her career if people who actually care about her well-being shut up about this whole hellish mess. This is the last word from me on the subject.
Kaalinn

It’s even spilled over into the real world here in Germany. What once was a serious, and even historically/politically important, weekly magazine with academic and political discussion has, over the last few years, turned into little more than a tabloid, and, lo and behold, they did feature an entire little extra booklet about “Culture” with her on the cover and title story. I have no idea how people like Richard Garriott escape them, although they should be much more well known (be it for their genius or craziness), but the moment an attractive women pops up they gotta interview her.

Also, if this has truly made it to SA as J. suggests, and even involved Lowtax, this will never ever be forgotten. In the end being a girl on the internet may only be a good thing if you don’t want to be succesful on your own.
http://dropbearsguild.net Athryn

This whole thing makes me fume with anger. I kinda wish I could go to the NY comic con so I could give Chugworth a good hard kick in the groin, on behalf of all women in the gaming industry.
http://www.thejadedgamer.net Joey

I’d hit it.

(I keed, I keed….)
Goedel

So first Ubisoft uses an actual female producer as a marketing gimmick. Then they stoke the flames and issue a C&D to SA, making sure everyone on the interweb sees the comic. Someone in their marketing department must be getting a raise.
Horse

I’d just like to rage about the fucking wordpress snapshot pop-up fucking windows. Fuck they’re annoying. FUCK!
Sachant

Heaven forbid she be an intelligent, well-spoken, attractive female without every jealous sob coming out of the woodwork to berate her for it.

Heaven forbid Ubi choose a spokesperson that is articulate, well-spoken and passionate about the game she’s a producer for. Yeah, they’ve had some shady dealings before, but come ON… this woman has an education and work history to back her up as someone worth listening to about this particular game.

That’s all I can possibly say about this without ranting which I gave up long ago. ;>
Staryx

Assassin’s Creed is pretty good, but definitely doesn’t live up to the hype. It’s gorgeous, but only because everything looks simple and rather plain. The gameplay isn’t nearly as deep or engrossing as I was expecting. Essentially you run around climbing to the top of towers so you can get a nice panoramic view, then you dive into a pile/cart of hay, run around and rescue people being harrassed by guards and then do various tasks to gain information on your target. Do this for 9 different targets, and if you’re really desperate to spend hours running around this relatively empty world, you can collect a few hundred flags in each city for bonuses and achievements. Thankfully, the story is actually interesting and I continue to play to see how it all pans out. I’ve still got 6 more targets to take out. And probably the most satisfying thing in the game is running up to a guard facing away from you, pouncing and stabbing them in the back of the throat with Altair’s hidden blade. Also, the controls aren’t nearly as confusing as the reviews I’ve read have suggested.

Oh, Ms. Raymond is quite the hottie.
http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

I feel nothing and have no opinions one way or the other in regard to right and wrong…
All I know for sure is that Jade must not have been around this community over the last ten years or she’d never have let anyone post her picture.

For those women who do not know… If you are the slightest bit attractive and want to be taken seriously by the gaming community, hide your image or your thoughts will ignored, completely.
VPellen

Videogames are played predominantly by adolescent males. Story at 11.

I can’t get mad ad the adolescent wankers involved here, I just can’t. We -know- that young horny males play video games, we -know- they’re extremely vocal about it, and we -know- that the internet re-enforces this kind of crap to the Nth degree. We don’t have to -like- it, but complaining about it is roughly equivalent to shaking our fists and stamping the ground; It may make us feel -slightly- better, but in the end it’s probably not going to do much other than make our hands and feet sore.

The question is not a matter of if the reaction by the gamers is reasonable or fair or morally just. We know it’s not. We know it’s ignorant filth. But I can’t help but wonder why she was put on the pedestal on the first place.

If she was put up there because she genuinely did have a strong influence on the game, and by “A strong influence” I mean “The strongest influence”, then this whole incident is just kind of regrettable.

If, however, she was put up the front because she was nice to look at, I have much less sympathy. It’s still sad what happened, but if her publicity was intentional and not incidental, then whoever’s idea it was to make her a public spectacle really should have known better.
Scott(Not Lum)

Meh. The whole “ZOMFG GIRLS PLAY GAMEZ” thing is almost more cliqueish than anything these days. Xbox live mouth breathers still pop this off, but in reality, having women play games if not make them is old news now.

Sites like those mentioned above, in the negative category, are pandering to that base. Two seconds reading other published articles there show that. Publishers like hype, and the majorty of games are still marketed towards teenagers. Teenage males, in particular. Teenage males are horny. Why is every video card covered with either an image rooted in violence, sex, or both? Because it sells.

I think Jade stands out this time because Assassin’s creed is a distinctly unsexy game. There aren’t any female archetypes to produce effective boners, tho they do have the violence covered. Ubi found a great way to cover the sex angle with the game’s producer. If the assassin was a half naked leather strapped blond with lara croft proportions, I think Jade’s coverage would be reduced.

It needed sex, so they sold her.
Jeremy Dalberg

“It needed sex, so they sold her.”

Which is why I can’t imagine working for Ubisoft, ever. This sort of attitude seems to be typical of them.
esquilax

This is merely the result of Ubisoft whoring Jade out to promote their game and their fans calling them out for it. It is hardly the one-sided mass eruption of misogynism that you seem to think it is.
http://ve3d.ign.com/ Apache

Pretty much anyone can become good looking by going to the gym and wearing nice clothes / caring about their appearance. Take notes!
Gilles Russell

Ubisoft in Montreal, Quebec, Canada is the gameshop that made the game. Jade, like me, was also born and raised in Montreal. Last night, she was a guest on a popular talk show in Quebec (Our own version of Johnny Carson, if you will, called “Tout le monde en parle”, it is in french) where one of the main topic was how she was dealing with the ordeal.

She was pretty eloquent, and mentioned that no one would have asked a male producer if he was a marketing piece for Ubisoft. She recite her pedigree, her work at “The Sims online”, and other things. She was mentioning that EA also opened a game shop in Montreal, and that the city was trying very hard to established itself as an international mecca for the gaming industry (I am not surprised there, the local talent, the multiculturism, 4 universities, usually weak canadian dollar, etc.. makes it an ideal location) . Most of the other guests on the show, who were not gamers (a french rapper, a quebecer who is a bad french version of Bob Dylan/Leonard Cohen, a 60 year old elite from France talking about wine, etc) didn’t hear a word she was saying because she was just radiating a mezmerizing kind of charisma.

The reaction of all the males in the audience, and the guests was universal, and went beyond the boundaries of the gaming world.

One of the funny moment of the show was the host trying to get her to publicize her XBox360 handle. Anyhow, good moments, she seemed very smart and knowing.
Corwin Loa

Although not put as eloquently as I might have, Esquilax hit the nail on the head. Even casually checking gaming sites I think I’ve seen more pictures of Jade then I have screen shots of the game.

When you say “Check out this cute chick, she worked as the Producer on this game”, I would agree that it falls under “Whoring [her] out” (Esquilax’s words). The fellow who drew the comic called them out on it. It does suck that she got caught in the crossfire.

Of course, its not as though this is the first time game producers/developer/etc has been a target for parody. Seriously, a quick perusal though PA comics alone will show this is nothing new.
http://www.independentcreator.com Matt

It’s not just Jade– this unfortunate fact (teenage boys cannot handle girls/women/attractive looking produce) dumbs down the entire industry, from development to press to the activity of gaming itself. This may be a particularly high profile case, but women developers and journalists I’ve known have encountered some level of this kind of crap as long as I’ve known them.

It’s gotten better in the office– I don’t see as many fuck dolls and vibrators lying around studios as I used to (true story)– so there’s been forward progress.
Merkwurdigliebe

Back in my olde tyme days, we just sat back and played Karateka and didn’t think about the people behind the game. Clearly, life was better.
BadMisterFrosty

Everyone who has witness how people behave towards female community managers could have seen that coming. There is the dark side of the gaming industry, where it is still most visible. I guess, still a long way to walk until it’s matured.
http://wowpanda.blogspot.com/ wowpanda

Matt, are you serious? I was going to post something then I saw your post and forget what I was trying to do.

I still remember my old lab mate told me once they hired a stripper to the lab, never happened in my 4 years.
Lucas

I really don’t know why I’m choosing to write my very first post on your blog (after 9 years of lurking) on this particular subject, but really, that is just filth and insulting. I totally agree with the other guys in here who spoke about this particular “dark side” of the industry. I was going to write some more useless raging curses and what not, but hey, the whole matter is just sad.
Makaze

What’s telling to me is that she’s a producer. Designers? I can name dozens and regularly follow or avoid games by certain ones. Producers? I couldn’t even name one, excluding those I’ve worked with. The fact is that if she wasn’t hot, we would have never even heard of her. That’s clearly Ubi pimping her out. Just look at the first photo, when’s the last time you saw another team photo where the producer is out front like that?
http://www.greypawn.com GreyPawn

Ubisoft promoting attractive women in order to sell games? Surely you jest! I for one am outraged! And I’m sure at least 6 out of 7 Fragdolls would agree with me on that.
Freakazoid

If this isn’t some genius marketing ploy, I would say there was a white knight in the office hoping in vain to score with jade someday.

Anyway. There is a fully nude version of that comic. It’s kinda fap worthy. I’m still waiting for the A material, though. And by A I mean anal. Deep anal. With two cocks. Lesbian sex with chobot is fine, too.
hsinclair

Come on, every company at some point heavily features interviews and promo work with their lead designers/senior producers, depending on who is more influential and who is less of a blubbering idiot. Nobody thinks twice when they see an interview with a male lead about a game, because they’re paying attention to the game. Having a female lead do the same is not the same as pimping, it’s having her [b]do her job[/b].
Scott(Not Lum)

While I understand that leads are responsible for interviews in regards to the game, but there’s a line that gets crossed as soon as your press releases include headshots of said lead designer / producer.

It was at the point where it became less about the game and more about the attractive female producer in interviews that it became a pimp / ho situation. At somepoint, after the 50th blag article talking about your beauty and scent that you realize whats going on.

I’d accept an arguement stating that she’s simply becoming a notable producer… But again, it’s for the wrong reason. No one reads an interview with Raph in hopes that he might don a thong and proceed to jiggle while talking about the design of virtual worlds.

Granted that men are essentially walking erections and have basically simulated sex with women in almost any state of dress or undress and that would make the average gaming journalist incapable of conducting an interview with the producer for Granma Jo’s Knitting Simulator without some kind of reference to her status as a GMILF. All this little tiff shows is which sites have some kind of actual objectivity and which are trying to find a reason to sell sex themselves.

Why you all expected sites known for pranking each other with tubgirl and producing shit porn to take the high road when they see an attractive woman is beyond me.
UnSub

The first problem is that David Cheung created the comic, degrading Jade Raymond to the status of bimbo-only-for-male-gratification.

The second problem was sending a cease and desist letter to SomethingAwful.com, who thrive on this kind of thing. Given that 1) the lawyers hit the wrong target and 2) they probably don’t have a legal leg to stand on regarding the comic, all in all it means that the comic has legs it never would have originally.

The third problem is that apparently a whole lot of people seem to think this kind of thing is okay. From everything I’ve read that has been attributed to Ms Raymond, she’s been nothing but professional and well-spoken. Her attention has been on Assassin’s Creed. The male game journalist, however, has been all about putting up photos of Ms Raymond, thus fuelling the fire. That Ubisoft put up a qualified producer in front of their game in order to promote it isn’t whoring her out because WE WOULDN’T EVEN BE USING THE TERM ‘WHORING’ IF IT WAS A MAN DOING THE SAME JOB.

J. – as for your Stevie Case comment: I’d personally say that less career damage was done by her posing for Playboy than was done by keeping close to John Romero, who became person non grata thanks to Daikatana in very short order. Her being publicly naked shouldn’t have made that much difference to her career.
UnSub

Oh, and just to add – I hope that Jade Raymond continues to have a career in game development following this incident. Hopefully she’ll still want to.
Skelanth

Lum,

Lead us to the promised mmog and save us from all this ;p
John

I’m sorry, but Ubisoft did indeed “whore out” Ms Raymond. I thought that was pretty obvious from the start of the Assassin’s Creed hype machine.
Aufero

Clearly, we need obsessive cheesecake articles and nude comics about Scott’s producer. It’s the only way to stop this kind of thing – apply an even bigger squick factor.
ubvman

“No one reads an interview with Raph in hopes that he might don a thong and proceed to jiggle while talking about the design of virtual worlds.”

DAMN YOU!!!! IMAGINARY IMAGE SEARED INTO THE NEURONS OF MY BRAIN!!!!!!1!!1!
http://www.plaguelands.com krones

What a shining star! Jade is giving CliffyB a run for his money. He better get a tummy-tuck, and Kotaku can get the inside scoop. After that Something Awful can be awful as usual, and find a link to some retarded SL age-play. I’ll reblog it on Massively since we are now the unofficial official SL blog. Track-backs ftw. That’s quite the clever cut off point on Ludwig’s post to help make your point! Genius. Oh, and “real” game journalists — good one chap. I laughed, then I cried in the shower after I tugged one out. If I could only draw…
http://codylogan.net Cody

I have to agree with the general sentiment: gamers are pretty immature. I know, I’ve played Counter-Strike.

Anyways, I honestly do not understand the whole surprised at women involved in games thing. I know plenty of women gamers, and while they may not be as ubiquitous as 13-year-old pimply guys who live in basements and live through World of Warcraft, they do exist. People need to learn that 1) it’s not unusual, and 2) it’s not a big deal. Play the games and fantasize about the female developers and gamers on your own time. Jeez.
guy

lol estrogen. get back to the kitchen and out of my C++ Visual Studio!
Simond

Stupidity on all sides, really: Ubisoft for using pretty_producer_person to hype up their game (instead of, you know, the game itself, pretty_producer_person for agreeing to go along with it without considering the blindingly obvious consequences, comic-artist for, well, being that one person to do the obvious joke (except of course if it wasn’t him, it would have been somebody else), Ubisoft again for the C&D letter, and the attack-feminists for assuming that this is “Internet picking on a woman” instead of “Internet picking on corporate-promoted attention whore….who happens to be a woman”.

Hypothetical: If the producer had been a man and the comic was otherwise the same, would the uproar be identical? If not, that’s sexism on the parts of the white knights everywhere. Naughty, naughty.
Toastrider

I think I’ll just solve this one by mailing a taser to Jade Raymond. With suggestions on who to use it on.

Remember kids, just because Ubisoft is practicing questionable marketing doesn’t make it acceptable to be a retard in turn.

–TR
John

Surprisingly, there are more than several asshats on the internet.
xaldin

Basic reality is that if Ubisoft pimps out their producer like they have then yeah she’ll get mocked and treated like a street walker. That pretty much means that its open season for the jokes and mocking. The world is harsh and the internet is a big place. Given the situation I’m surprised at the restraint…. no photo shoppings of her onto hardcore have come up yet.
http://www.nerfbat.com/ Ryan Shwayder

I’ve been surprised by the lack of “Scott Jennings: Sexy Man, or the Sexiest?” posts around the internet. There are plenty of people who like an attractive man who should be posting far more naughty comics, fan shrines, and insinuative subjects about the man we knew as Lum.
Slink

The most interesting thing to me about this is not who’s at fault for what. It’s that about a week ago, this site points us towards playing the game The Witcher, of which I’ve basically heard two things. One, is that it’s a basically competent RPG, and two there’s some sort of sex collection card game. (Disclaimer: I have not played The Witcher, and have no idea how sex is handled in the game.) I think, and I could be wrong, that games utilizing that sort of draw help reinforce the culture we have today. Sorry for using you as an example Lum, but you make a great one. I think we have a very strong culture of sexism in gaming, and even most of the people in gaming that try not to be sexist, often ignore the sexism simply to play games.

I think the gaming press and corresponding culture formulated by that press has a fair amount of fault in this. I think Ubisoft is also guilty of at least dangling raw meat in front of starving hounds. Don’t be surprised if you get bit by doing this. Jade herself may or may not be innocent in all of this, I don’t know and will likely never find out. Regardless, I get the feeling that she’s perhaps the only one who will pay for it, in the possible ruins of her career. Maybe not, if we’re lucky, because most of the noise I’ve heard about Assassin’s Creed has been positive.

Anyway, the only real takeaway I’m getting out of this is that someone in some position of power at Ubisoft does not understand the internet at all. Sending C&D letters to Lowtax at SA? Way to make this a much larger issue than it needed to be. It’s the only reason I heard about it.
Crask

Two points come to mind

1. Assassins creed is actually a really mediocre game with sloppy game play and the single stupidest plot device I have ever heard of. Its a sandbox game that only has the illusion of freewill that constantly rips you out of anything vaguely akin to immersion.

2. Ubi brought this on themselves. They propped her up and used the ZOMG a girl made a game to pump the hype machine and get as much press as possible.

Honestly this is all just backlash to a shitty over hyped game that fell on its ass. She allowed the cult of personality to form around her for the game, and when it fell flat got burned.
Simond

“no photo shoppings of her onto hardcore have come up yet.”

/b/
Steve

Given that Ms Raymond is a) a producer, and b) someone I will never have sex with, I don’t really care about her on either a professional or personal level. The only important thing is how Assassin’s Creed stands up to games like Thief and Hitman. And from what I’m hearing, it doesn’t do very well.
JuJutsu

“I’ve been surprised by the lack of “Scott Jennings: Sexy Man, or the Sexiest?” posts around the internet. There are plenty of people who like an attractive man who should be posting far more naughty comics, fan shrines, and insinuative subjects about the man we knew as Lum.”

Yes. I’m sure there are people who read an interview with Lum in hopes that he might don a thong and proceed to jiggle while talking about the design of virtual worlds.

Broken Toys

Random Comments About Gaming And Tractors

Clearly, We Do Not Deserve Nice Things And/Or People

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