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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.
| Print article |
- CmdrSlack.com » A Brief Word About The Whole Jade Raymond Situation
- Blog Suicide « SNBlog
- Feminists of the Internet – ignore Jade Raymond « The Sound of EmCeeKhan
- Hrm. I May Have Been Wrong About Our Wee Industry. « Eating Bees
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- Flight Papers » Blog Archive » Male gamers suck. Story at 11.
- Dear Mr. and Mrs. Cheung: Can We Talk? « Mercury Rising 鳯女
- Epilogue One: Women In Geek-Culture And The Men Who Actively Despise Them
- Flight Papers » Blog Archive » “Feminist gamers” might just turn out to be an oxymoron, and other small notational difficulties
- The Life and Times of a Video Game Design Student » Game designing while female
- Flying Low : I Don’t Like Comic Book Stores
- Expressing a little dissent – Castle in the Air
- “You talk about laws? I AM THE LAW!” « Broken Toys
- Jeff Freeman » Oh Yeah, That’s the Stuff right there
- MMOG Nation » Fire And Brimstone Over Stupidity
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
Let me be the first to say that Lum has gorgeous breasts.
about 2 years ago
Man, whatever happen to Stevie Case? Was that her name? Stevie? Jesus.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
I’d hit it.
(I keed, I keed….)
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
I’d just like to rage about the fucking wordpress snapshot pop-up fucking windows. Fuck they’re annoying. FUCK!
about 2 years ago
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. ;>
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
“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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
Pretty much anyone can become good looking by going to the gym and wearing nice clothes / caring about their appearance. Take notes!
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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?
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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].
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
Lum,
Lead us to the promised mmog and save us from all this ;p
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
“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!
about 2 years ago
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…
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
lol estrogen. get back to the kitchen and out of my C++ Visual Studio!
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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
about 2 years ago
Surprisingly, there are more than several asshats on the internet.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
“no photo shoppings of her onto hardcore have come up yet.”
/b/
about 2 years ago
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.
about 2 years ago
“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.
about 2 years ago
AC is fun. Once. For a bit. Last night I taught my friend how to counter. He went from thinking “fun game” to “AMAZING GAME” to “wow, this is stupidly easy and non stealthy now” in about 30 minutes.
I feel bad for Ms. Raymond on a personal level. She seems like a nice person who doesn’t need this nor deserve this. I dislike Ubi because it seemed like any time someone tried to ask about difficult game mechanic questions they immediately pulled the “HEY, Enough with that line of questioning, here’s an attractive woman!” card. It’s an old PR trick to have your PR rep be an attractive woman in hopes that for the most part guys will throw softballs. Tends to backfire if any girls in the press audience figure out what’s going on and decide to attack, however.
AC isn’t what it was hyped to be, at all (it’s a sandbox without any sand, and a stealth game without any need for stealth)
about 2 years ago
It’s sad that Ubisoft can’t send a PRODUCER for a game out to talk to the gaming public and not get slammed for it because the PRODUCER turns out to be an attractive female. It is so easy to cast Ubisoft as the evil empire here, but the facts just don’t add up.
1. Assassin’s Creed was a massively hyped game before Jade became a factor. There was little to no need for any “marketing scam” to further the game’s popularity.
2. Charismatic and well-spoken developers (of all positions) often give interviews about their game leading up to launch.
3. Games that aren’t marketed well, fail. Crappy games, marketed well, can and will sell a ton of copies.
4. Jade was actually doing her JOB, you know, that little thing that gets her a paycheck at the end of the month. Shame on her for BEING GOOD AT IT and being recognized by the company for BEING GOOD AT IT.
5. There is nothing to show that Ubisoft “propped her up and used the ZOMG a girl made a game”. In fact, the real “sex” perpetrator is not Ubisoft, it is the creator of the comic. But that is what the Internet does best, making non-issues into issues.
This is just another example, in a long list, of why developers should avoid these trashy websites. There are plenty of reputable outlets that exercise a medium of control over their writers, so no need to feed websites like Kotaku or Joystiq just because they manage to get press badges.
about 2 years ago
Damn! She is just so hot! Cute face, body built for sin – and she’s a competent video game producer too!?! Where can I get me one of those? LOL
Really folks, it’s normal procedures and damn good marketing to use her looks and personality to market the game. It is shame about some of the creepy guys out there though.
about 2 years ago
Enhance your calm, John Spartan.
about 2 years ago
Great post. Very interesting read.
about 2 years ago
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
Yeah, because clearly a game with R (not NC17) content and making comments about a game producer smelling pretty in news stories is the same thing.
AC is fun. Once. For a bit. Last night I taught my friend how to counter. He went from thinking “fun game” to “AMAZING GAME” to “wow, this is stupidly easy and non stealthy now” in about 30 minutes.
Eh. I like the feeling of being a nigh-unkillable ninja killing dozens of redshirts. Your mileage may vary.
about 2 years ago
Beauty and Brains is always threatening. That’s all!
Joyangel123
http://123lidsoftheworld.blogspot.com
about 2 years ago
I just think the combat gets far too easy, to the point of my preferred method of entering a new town is to walk up and stab a gate guard, then kill everyone who comes to stop me.
I don’t think that’s the intended gameplay, nor does it at all follow any of the whole assassin concept.
The control scheme is great, the plot device annoys me (your mileage and whatnot, I know a lot of people who love it), and the gameplay can be fantastic at times. But it just seems unintended that instead of running and finding a place to hide, the far easier approach is to just kill 20 guards at once. I like that type of gameplay, it just doesn’t really fit in the setting.
I also have a torn heart on the art direction for Altair. I love the design, but how does anyone NOT spot him as a heavily armed dude in a city that’s been suffering from a rash of some heavily armed dude in a while outfit killing people. The art seems to be done for the player, while the game presumes none of the weaponry is actually showing.
about 2 years ago
well, now I want to see the rest of the comic. Thanks.
about 2 years ago
found the description at Feministe. Never mind.
about 2 years ago
I’d be able to take the Game Girl Advance position on the subject more seriously if she hadn’t been the one that posted the article 5 years ago about masturbating with a Rez controller. The article with accompanying photos. Either it’s impossible to exploit yourself or after 5 years you gain the wisdom that posting panty shots isn’t what you do when you want to wield the Flaming Sword of Righteous Indignation. I currently have a +5 Flaming Sword of Unfounded Indignation that I always seem to roll 1′s with.
about 2 years ago
Re: Razor
What does the Rez vibrator article even have to do with the validity or ‘seriousness’ of the points being made in the GameGirlAdvance editorial today? Jane wrote that article in 2002 as a sex-positive piece piece of fluff, to showcase an alternate (and fun) use she found for a game peripheral. She posted pictures because she was comfortable enough with her sexuality to do so. Could you realistically call Dave Cheung’s comic sex-positive and ‘fun’ (Not ‘funny’ — the comic is not remotely funny at all.)?
Furthermore, even if you truly believe that Jane is exploiting herself, that doesn’t make any of her current concerns about what’s happening to Jade Raymond now any less valid. From what I’ve seen, Jade has never acted in any manner other than professionally in regards to her promotion of Assassin’s Creed.
about 2 years ago
she might be an excellent producer, but ubisoft knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to hoist their marketing upon her secondary skills/talents as a spokes-model. how many other games have a single producer (who lacks an established reputation upon which the game’s marketing is largely banked) playing such a prominent role in every promo vid, conference seminar, interview, etc? the answer you are looking for is NONE. they know their market. and just like the tools that used to line up around the girth of e3 to have game mechanics explained to them by booth babes hired the night before from LA strip clubs, the lonely game gamers of the world are fawning for jade. let’s not forget that ubisoft created the FRAG-DOLLS. they have no right to sue anyone over this, and i for one am glad they got called out for such a weak ploy. oh, and nice photo of the actual hard working developers and world class (amazing) game animators; i can almost see them in the distant shadows, behind jade’s winning smile.
about 2 years ago
I never even knew who she was. Until the news of UBI suing.
I like the destructoid post where that user did some investigative blogging (lol) on the internet and used that information to explain how UBI just used her attractiveness and skill as a public speaker. The same time she was working at UBI she was a host on G4 cable channel too? Then lastly pointing out her work experience doesn’t explain much either on how she landed the job.
I never really followed the game because I was just going to wait for reviews. I have kind of quit consoles so I was waiting on the PC version to get reviewed.
Seeing all this internet heroism for her at one end that only uses the argument “boys are mean and to stupid to handle a pretty gal in their industry”. Then on the other end pointing out all the coincidences in her career and her job….leads me to just really ignore it. The game’s physically here right? It was not her fault for it being a little shallow.
Do I think that the comic went to far? Hell no. Who ever made it had every right. I think everyone is confusing it with the stupid people who formulated their opinion based on the comic.
Is it a pity that all the events that followed happened? Yes. But thats life sometimes.
Do I want to hear the truth even though there might be the possibility of not handling it?
No I don’t. There will just be another turn of events full of blog posts and coincidences/pointing fingers on MORE REVEALED ABOUT JADE RAYMOND articles. Waisting my time which should be spent on reading real news! (real news imo I guess though).
I am all for women in the industry and as leaders. We deserve them Scott! Sucks this happened. But the comic obviously doesn’t represent everyone.
I am happy she got the job. Beyond that I really don’t want to formulate to much opinion on Jade because I don’t want to care beyond this: I hope the best for Jade Raymond’s well being following all the strife on the internet over her. But I never knew who she was until the news about UBI suing, so I don’t feel all that inclined to get all preachy about the subject.
But I also hope the author of the comic maker enjoyed his “an hero” status and made many a lulz. I just don’t want to read anymore into the matter. Because I really, really, don’t think there is much more to be said -_-;
Lastly. If CliffyB is next up for this kind of spotlight. That would be awesome. What a douche. And damn anyone in general ruining my PC gaming because console’tards praise you as a god (I’m all up for industry hatin’ when it comes to this). *shakes fist*
about 2 years ago
Heartless_:“It’s sad that Ubisoft can’t send a PRODUCER for a game out to talk to the gaming public and not get slammed for it because the PRODUCER turns out to be an attractive female. It is so easy to cast Ubisoft as the evil empire here, but the facts just don’t add up.”
Here’s the top ten games from the current UK all-formats chart. For how many of them (other than AC, natch) can you name the PRODUCER without looking it up?
Assassin’s Creed
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The Simpsons Game
WWE Smackdown! Vs. RAW 2008 Featuring ECW
Super Mario Galaxy
Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?
FIFA 08
High School Musical: Sing It!
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?
about 2 years ago
Coming out of left field as a Producer isn’t that uncommon. Coming out of left field with no producer experience on a highly funded AAA title is … odd. But hey, she could be just That Badass, we’ve all seen it with other jobs.
What’s odd about the entire hype engine is that she came out of nowhere, with no hit behind her name that she was the driving force for, no real celebrity status, and was used as a high profile spokesperson. That screams on every deep and fundamental level that Ubi noticed she was attractive, and decided to MAKE her a celebrity producer.
She may just be That Good, she’s quite probably very qualified for her job and a very nice girl. It’s pretty blatantly obvious that Ubi tried to use her as marketing material, and that will have some level of backlash. Again, I feel bad that it’s after her as a person (which really has nothing to do with anything), when the complaint is pretty much that I want to be sold a Game, not sold a person involved in a game. And the gaming press didn’t help at all with getting accurate and useful information about the game out, and gave far too much screen time to Jade, when in any other situation with a developer, you’d get a ton of video of the game with the dev talking over it. Which is good. With AC, I saw a lot of Jade with little screens running a demo in the background. And that’s the press buying into Ubi’s plans again, not a reflection on Jade as a person.
about 2 years ago
Simond: “For how many of them (other than AC, natch) can you name the PRODUCER without looking it up?”
That’s because their PRODUCERs can talk about their games without it becoming a huge internet spectacle.
dodecadon: “oh, and nice photo of the actual hard working developers”
Because of course pretty girls can’t be hard working, they get everywhere in life because of their looks, amirite?
about 2 years ago
Simond: Mario Galaxy? Miyamoto.
And I’m pretty sure that Mark Rubin was the producer for CoD4, but I could be mistaken. He’s certainly given interviews about it.
Now, how many of those games were as hotly anticipated as Assassin’s Creed?
Oh, right. Mario.
about 2 years ago
“Here’s the top ten games from the current UK all-formats chart. For how many of them (other than AC, natch) can you name the PRODUCER without looking it up?”
None, but that doesn’t mean anything about Ubisoft or the game, that says something about us. You’re falling into a logical fallacy there. Just because you remember the name of a pretty girl, doesn’t mean that person was used only because she was pretty.
Did any of those other games use the same spokesperson for interviews? of course they did. Just like them Ubisoft used a producer that actually worked on the game. Maybe the fact that she looks good played some part on who they picked, but seriously who cares as long as that person is qualified and actually a producer?
That’s like saying good looking people are not allowed to work in your industry.
There are many attractive woman at work, it doesn’t mean anything. They don’t hide and have someone else do their job for them just because they are good looking.
I fail to understand why using the producer to talk about a game, which everyone does, is somehow evidence of some deliberate purpose on their part just because she happens to be nice to look at. What we can only use ugly men now?
What is this the 12th century?
It’s the same idea that some countries have that women who show their face and don’t cover up, speak well and pursue public careers are deliberately flaunting their sexuality and somehow asking for trouble. They want to keep women hidden behind veils and to shut up, and say it’s because of “respect” for women.
Yeah I don’t buy that one either.
about 2 years ago
This reminds me of the crap done to Kathy Sierra that forced her to stop her “Creating Passionate Users” blog. Her attackers figured that since she was a cute blond with a techgeek blog, she deserved to have her home phone, address and Social Security number posted online, along with a few death threats. But of course she was “whoring” herself so she deserved it. Right, boys? And she had the word “Passionate” in her blog title, so she was asking for it, the slut! Gang splooge! (/snark)
about 2 years ago
‘It’s pretty blatantly obvious that Ubi tried to use her as marketing material, and that will have some level of backlash”
Again, why? why do you care? why is backlash justified just because the spokesperson is good looking? If that person is qualified, and actually did the job they claim they did, then why care at all?
about 2 years ago
“Because of course pretty girls can’t be hard working, they get everywhere in life because of their looks, amirite?”
not at all my point. in fact, i am a hard working game developer myself (we can leave my dashing good looks out of the discussion if you like), and i’d be well miffed to have a producer get such disproportionate attention in association with my labors. and with AC and its predecessors, the animators and anim system developers are the real stars. i’d love to see more attention given to their roles, as they are true industry pioneers.
about 2 years ago
I fail to understand why using the producer to talk about a game, which everyone does, is somehow evidence of some deliberate purpose on their part just because she happens to be nice to look at.
Yeah. If she were a guy, nobody would care — unless she was a good-looking guy, which would send the regressive adolescents into fits of jealousy.
What is this the 12th century?
Apparently. “She’s asking for it just by existing! She deserves it! She planned it! Oh, and she should be happy that we’re honoring her with our verbal splooge, the nasty little beeyotch!”
about 2 years ago
I rather like this game.. really I do. I haven’t finished it yet, don’t really care to much at this point in time. I want to take my time with it as I know it is short. But that’s not the issue… So Ubisoft is using Jade there to make money from Assassin’s Creed you say? That’s what I gathered from it. This will let you know that after reading this, it is the first time ever I have heard anything about this. They are using a pretty girl to make money and sell their game.. no harm in that. Look at the Axe commercials. They do the same thing. Sex sells, plain and simple. I’m not saying I agree with it either. However, look at it this way. What if it were a similar situation, making money by any means, but you weren’t using a girl to sell your game. You were completely redoing the dialogue from English.. to Spanish.
While that in it’s own right, is not wrong, it’s a clear attempt by a company to make more money by reaching a demographic that otherwise can not understand the language in the game. And yes, that game is being sold in America. I’m sure other countries as well. What is this game you ask? Madden NFL 08. Don’t believe me?
http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=200385
Now forgive me if I’ve completely missed the issue on your topic. My, ignorance, comes from never having seen this before.
about 2 years ago
Ah marketing… somehow they think putting a pretty face behind the game will actually give it credit. Now, the game is kickass and could have been marketed on its own, but instead they try to play up the fact that the producer is a woman.
IMHO, they shouldn’t focus so much on her gender. It’s that kind of crazy ass attention that keeps women from achieving serious roles in the game industry without men thinking “oh, she must have slept her way to the top,” which of course we all know isn’t true. It bothers me to think that if I somehow achieve a role greater than “software engineer” that I will be looked at as someone who performed favors. It isn’t the same for a man…
about 2 years ago
Roy says it all so I don’t have to:
about 2 years ago
“Here’s the top ten games from the current UK all-formats chart. For how many of them (other than AC, natch) can you name the PRODUCER without looking it up?” – simond
ROFL, and could you have, two weeks ago, named the producer of Assassin’s Creed? I highly doubt it. Until some retard made a comic and a few non-journalists talked about boobs, Jade Raymond was a non-issue. She was just another PRODUCER giving interviews about the game they work on.
Guess what, the guy’s who blog you are posting on, will probably give interviews about his game when it gears up for launch. I’m sure if there is a well spoken PRODUCER on his team, he/she will also give interviews. As stated, most charismatic and well-spoken members of a development team spend a lot of time in the hot seat giving interviews.
Again, Jade Raymond was just another PRODUCER until some non-journalists decided that an interview with her about Assassin’s Creed should have “boobs” and “smells nice” in the headline.
In the end, remember who spilled her name all over the net with sex-laden headlines, because it sure the hell wasn’t Ubisoft.
about 2 years ago
So is it correct to assume that Jade Raymond was basically a nobody in the creation of the game until some journalist saw her and decided to play up the sexual angle?
about 2 years ago
Which Sexual is that?
about 2 years ago
I am very glad you cited the gaming press articles here. While the last straw may have been the comic, we should not have stood idly by and allowed these articles to pass unfettered.
Some of these people are supposed to be journalists! Joystiq and Kotaku should be ashamed. They have played a role in playing up her looks over her talent.
When something so offensive comes from the blogger community, who sits idly at their keyboard thinking their anonymity protects them, there really isn’t much we can do. It’s deplorable, but as they say, “don’t feed the trolls”.
It is okay that Jade Raymond is pretty. But it should also not matter. It shouldn’t get her interviews or coverage, or be the reason why she is or isn’t a producer. If there is a silver lining here, it is that the sick comic didn’t come from a game development insider. The game development profession must continue to uphold Raymond and others like her as role models for ALL aspiring game developers… men or women. If we have to endure the sickness of the internet’s masses, so be it.
But the examples you gave from supposed “game journalists” are deplorable. It should have never happened. Guess I never noticed because I don’t read many gaming rags…
about 2 years ago
That ridiculous comic isn’t where the sexism started.
It isn’t up to me to point fingers, the finger pointing must come from Jade and perhaps as regrettable as it may be, she may need a mirror for a tiny share of some of the blame.
I dare say, and I did try and call out the likes of Amber in my previous post, that some attractive women on the Internet are taken seriously.
Forgive me but using Amber Knight as an example, it’s pretty clear an attractive woman can be taken seriously in this community.
about 2 years ago
I don’t understand where in this Jade needs to take blame. Because she should have realized that her appearance would cause less-minded forum posters’ pants to light fire? If an article about Assassin’s Creed appears on a gaming site and the first five posts are some variation of “I’d tap that ass” from the forum mouth-breathers, is that her fault? On the same article, supposedly an update on Assassin’s Creed, a headshot of her is featured which is larger in size than the text itself. Is that Jade Raymond’s fault or the fault of the site? This shifting of blame onto Jade herself annoys me, especially when you scroll down to her quote in the article and she’s talking about the graphical differences between the PS3 and the 360 in relation to the game.
about 2 years ago
Of COURSE the world will change, if people refuse to back down on the issues. Women are actually the majority of internet users, according to the Pew Institute, and will eventually come to dominate even currently male-dominated areas such as gaming, by simply outnumbering men. It will take time, though. And silence never changed the world.
about 2 years ago
For fanbois who do not know… women exist. Attractive women exist. They have for thousands of years and they will continue to exist until the human species becomes extinct. Some of these women even do things other than being attractive, such as using the Internet and developing and promoting video games. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it already or you will never be worthy of respect.
about 2 years ago
That ridiculous comic isn’t where the sexism started.
I’m not sure I see where anyone suggested it was. I think that there’s more than enough sexism within the gaming community to go around. Personally, I’m not particularly interested in pointing fingers at “where it started”, because it seems to me that it’d be a fruitless and frustrating exercise. Sexism has been a problem for a hell of a lot longer than there have been video games.
It isn’t up to me to point fingers, the finger pointing must come from Jade and perhaps as regrettable as it may be, she may need a mirror for a tiny share of some of the blame.
Yeah, how dare she do a producers job and promote the game and give interviews, and to do so while in possession of a vagina, and while not doing everything in her power to make herself unattractive. tsk.
about 2 years ago
I really hate to defend Joystiq, but in all fairness, Scott kinda misrepresented the site when he referenced their article about Jade Raymond on the front page.
The “Jade” that the text in the first paragraph refers to is the lead character from Ubisoft’s “Beyond Good and Evil”.
The actual article is decent and doesn’t come off distasteful like the Kotaku crap. http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/02/joystiq-interviews-jade-raymond-of-assassins-creed/
Sure, one could make the point that the author is using that text about the “Beyond Good and Evil” character to indirectly say those things about Jade Raymond. However, I think that within the context of the entire piece, that’s kind of reaching to make it more than it really is.
about 2 years ago
If you flip out sexually or in some other way about a woman in general, and you allow it to effect something completely unrelated to that. In this example, your opinion of a game she worked on, you are a subhuman who is using my air. Please stop, me and my friends need that to breath, you obviously don’t, being a non sentient.
about 2 years ago
No one feeds trolls quite like lawyers do *laugh*
Really, this field needs competent PR managers (I mean more of them) in a desperate way. Had Ubisoft had some, no one would be talking about this now. Joystiq’s lapse(s) would have earned an eyeroll or two, Kotaku’s ‘social experiment’ would have received a few derisive comments, and the ‘comic’ (yay, cartoon pr0n! :p ) would have been an unfortunate but obscure reminder of Rule #34′s power. Instead, in the manner of well-meaning idiocy, the flames have been fanned into a nice breeze
Oh, and nice ‘ethnicity rainbow’ in the picture there, Ubisoft. “All right! Women and Minorities to the front! Anyone not projecting the progressive, PC image stand behind someone that does!” You should have had everyone holding little flags for extra effect.
about 2 years ago
@Joey – actually, the context makes it worse because mentioning Jade from Beyond Good and Evil had no place there. It was a set-up so they could flirt with Jade Raymond and then – HAHA! – take it all back. Pretending to talk about someone else when you really are talking about them is an old and tired trick and deserves to be lumped in with the other poorly behaved examples of how such sites have treated Jade Raymond.
about 2 years ago
Eh. This post contributes to an UbiSoft win.
No one can tell me that anyone who knows anything about how the Intarweb works (and I would assume UbiSoft does) would say that a link on an open-membership forum is actionable. That C&D wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on and sure as hell not worth the postage. It obviously didn’t scare LowTax, and UbiSoft never thought it would.
If I were Jade, I’d look for new employment NOW. The C&D is not only a publicity stunt but it’s actually spreading something that she has said is offensive to her at a massive rate of Intarspeed, and UbiSoft so knew that going in.
This is of the assumption, though, that Jade is NOT actually in the full knowledge of the decisionmaking here and is NOT calling some of these shots and IS actually offended. And is NOT interested in the explosion of her personality cult blossoming right now.
It’s kind of a big assumption.
-Sutro
about 2 years ago
“At somepoint, after the 50th blag article talking about your beauty and scent that you realize whats going on. ”
Yes, and when she realized that every article was going to take a third-grade sexist tack she should have a) used her control of all media to change the spin and force them to take her seriously or b) declared that she would no longer be a party to any of this and was going to refuse any more interviews, failing at her job to promote the game, so we could all laugh and say what a whiny, hysterical, incompetent crybaby, and that’s why women shouldn’t be producers, they can’t hack it and they run away crying to keep from doing their jobs.
about 2 years ago
It was such a non-issue until people fed into it more than needed be. Ubisoft, the game sites, the lawyers …
The reality is that you can avoid this type of negative stereotype if you stuck to the normal way of presenting the producer. However, no one did that. They thrust her out upon the front of the group in a way that tells me, “Hey, we want you to take notice of her awesome figure because it helps snap attention to this hottie producer we have!”
Also – when your resume for producing includes one of the greatest flops in the gaming industry (Sims Online), you really don’t want everyone to see that. Because that actually hurts your credibility as a good producer.
(NOTE: BBCode does not work in WordPress. Stop using [ ] brackets when trying to bold something.)
about 2 years ago
“Yeah, how dare she do a producers job and promote the game and give interviews, and to do so while in possession of a vagina, and while not doing everything in her power to make herself unattractive. tsk.” – Roy http://tinyurl.com/2op4zs
If Jade didn’t have editorial rights of some kind over the other interviews she’d done, if she didn’t have approval rights of some kind, then you are right.
I doubt she didn’t have pre-publishing review and some editorial rights before publishing.
This has nothing to do with her vagina at all… Seriously, this is about her being responsible for her image to a degree.
about 2 years ago
You are stupid. You, yourself.
about 2 years ago
Not gamers!
about 2 years ago
She is hot. I’d hit it.
Thomas
about 2 years ago
Loved the screen shot. – Sue Orkin
about 2 years ago
If UbiSoft hadn’t sued, the boys here would be saying “See? They’re not offended!”
Since they did sue, the boys here are whining “See? It’s a publicity stunt! She deserves all the psychic splooge she’s getting, the slut! (Besides, this is the only way I can score with a hot chick like her. But I can’t say that out loud because that gives the game away.) ”
about 2 years ago
Who the hell is doing her PR work?
–I can’t figure out if she just likes the attention or not… she certainly seems to be in the middle of every picture she takes, and in the middle of everything else as well.
Geoff
http://shutterlife.wordpress.com <– Explore Planet Earth (My Blog)
about 2 years ago
If Ubi hadn’t sued, boys here wouldn’t be saying anything, because it wouldn’t be in the spotlight. Ubi took an obscure offensive comic and put a GIANT NEON SIGN on it by sending SomethingAwful a C&D letter. You just don’t do that, anyone who has been on the internet for any amount of time should know this, a Gaming Company should distinctly know this.
And no, I don’t want to sleep with Jade Raymond. Contrary to popular belief, an attractive woman is not an instant sex toy in every guy’s mind. She’s not at all my type. I simply have an honest aversion to people trying to market things with sex appeal. It’s frankly degrading and makes the marketing people look bad, the product look hollow, and myself feel like there’s absolutely no way for me to find out anything about a product anymore without busting out a screwdriver on my own to figure out what the holy hell is going on with it.
about 2 years ago
Yet another example than comics and Islam should never mix.
about 2 years ago
Any claim that this, categorically, is -not- a potential publicity stunt by Jade/UbiSoft is a sexism in and of itself. It’s loaded with the inference that women can’t be equally as manipulative of the media as men.
Jade’s getting all sorts of e-sympathy now for being the ‘victim’ of a cruel Internet cartoon. It’s a phenomenon that absolutely wouldn’t have happened with a male ‘victim’ of a cruel Internet cartoon, and in fact if C&D letters would have been sent on on his behalf, many would already be calling the media manipulation card. Or that he’s actually Derek Smart in disguise.
Note that I’m not saying that Jade IS manipulating things in this fashion, I’m just saying that trundling blindly along the victim primrose path is 1.) a sexist attitude and 2.) possibly wrong.
I mean, there’s all sorts of confounds against the legal validity of even suing the cartoonist that even a first-year law student would know. If presidents of 1-2k enrollment colleges are considered “public figures” for the purposes of adjudicating if a campus newspaper cartoon is appropriate for the public figure satire defense, there’s no question that a publicized face (of a massively publicized game from a massively publicized game studio which will have box sales in the hundreds of thousands) meets the same qualification for public figure satire defense.
If it is actually conscious manipulation by Jade, I’ll be the first to give her mad props. Well played ma’am, well played. You just exploded your marketability.
-Sutro
about 2 years ago
And we wonder why there aren’t more women in gaming, when this is what they have to look forward to. Still, I can imagine the team while taking that photo….
Jade: “Me in the front? Oh boy, let’s make an Internet shitstorm everyone!”
Everyone else: “Ah hyuk hyuk, good ol’ Ubi marketting!”
It’ll wear off a couple more games from now, just like Rockstar’s shock value wore off. Then someone else will fill the void with something else.
Yeah, I know, that doesn’t make it better.
That there are women in the gaming industry is obvious. That some of them are good-looking is inevitable. Someone said on Gamegirl’s blog that it is a positive image, that we can see “non-freaks” in this industry, and think it’s a respectable profession. (Compare with, say, game designers in Korea who are practically treated like rock stars.)
And yeah, I know, that doesn’t make it better, either.
This whole “Women in (fill-in-the-blank)?! Inconceivable!” is so incredibly old, I don’t think it’ll ever go away. I hope not, actually. I really liked working in advertising, where I could pay the bills by pandering to lowest common denominators like that. Yay!
about 2 years ago
I love the fact that you leave out the entire reason that Dave gave for making the comic, the fact that Jade agreed to pose for Maxim was left out of this article. And anyone trying to convince me that Maxim is a clean mag, I will direct you to a pile of them in the bathroom of almost all their subscribers. In the end I do not blame Jade or Dave, I blame Ubisoft, but being so stupid to not have seen something like this coming, or worse, which will happen. This comic would have blown over pretty quickly if they would have done nothing, now, well, who knows, lets see how fast Ubi can dig their own hole.
about 2 years ago
Uh, Jade did not agree to pose for Maxim and never did. That was a vicious rumor in and of itself that was personally debunked by Jade.
about 2 years ago
Artist Dave Cheung Responds To Jade Raymond Drama:
http://www.thebitbag.com/index.php/2007/11/20/artist-dave-cheung-responds-to-jade-raymond-drama/
about 2 years ago
Jen: It was debunked AFTER Chugworth made the comic.
Anyway, it’s only a fucking webcomic. Why do people put so much emphasis on them?
about 2 years ago
That Dave Cheung’s reply is a joke, right?
about 2 years ago
Err, silly question. Would we have seen the same sort of up-in-arms response from everyone had it been a MAN in the comic? I seem to remember a huge number of equally insulting pictures/comics/shops of John Romero back in the day, and don’t remember the moral crusade against people poking fun at him.
EVERYONE who shows up in the spotlight on the internet deals with unwanted attention.
I guess I fail to see why everyone is up in arms to protect Jade based on the fact that she is a woman. I mean, its alright to take shots at male producers/developers, I would assume it is equally alright to take shots at females in the industry? At the point you take up arms to protect Jade because shes a woman, you’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot, are you not?
corwin.loa AT gmail.com if anyone reading cares to explain the difference to me, I would appreciate it.
about 2 years ago
Wait… isn’t chatting-up the press a producer’s job? I mean… the producer’s job, surely.
I hadn’t assumed they were “taking advantage” of the blessings our Lord has bestowed upon her, so much as just having her do her job.
If I were the boss of everybody, my company’s public face would be a Betty Crocker. I’d swap him or her out with a fresh one every few years.
And you’d never hear about my community manager “moving on”, either. His name would be Professor Forym, no matter who sat behind the keyboard, until some scandal or such brought up the need for a public execution. Then my community guy would change handles, to appease the mob.
Just grabbing some employee whose job was something else, to be Betty Crocker for me, free, would be taking advantage, but that’s not the case here.
I’ve been watching a lot of TMZ lately. Entertainment “news” isn’t much different than this crap – movies and television just have more hotties. Way more. Seriously, even some of the guys are pretty.
But whether a person’s job is to act, sing, dance, or be Paris Hilton, there is a constant focus on their appearance, if they are hot.
Except for Beauty Pageant contestants, ’cause that’d be… well, ok, I don’t know why. But for the one group of people whose job is to be beautiful, there’s a focus on never mind about their looks, they are also human beings, blah blah etc.
Pretty people have fan sites, even if being pretty is about all they do. I’m a fan of acting, but more of gaming. Why shouldn’t my pretty girl fansite patronage go to one that makes games, rather than one that acts, or one that is just pretty?
Otherwise, hrm. The Internet meets Entertainment News. So, duh. No one expected Alien vs. Predator to be a romantic comedy.
We can have nice things. It’s just we’ll also have prison porn, and now you don’t have to go to prison to see it.
She is OK!
And really, there’s nothing going on here that didn’t happen pre-internet. It’s just, now you don’t have to go to the truckstop bathroom to see the graffiti. It comes right to you. Plus can be more niche.
But in terms of content, it’s not particularly worse or better than it was before.
Anyway… uhm. So what’s up with Ubisoft? Was it actually just a cease and desist? ‘Cause, that’s how lawyers ask for things like, “Please delete that post,” or “Stop using my art on your website,” etc.
UO GMs had worse than this. Is it sexist to get worked-up just because the victim happens to be a female?
Ohman, I hope not.
I’m gonna go on now thinking it was just a web comic, and that was just a request to delete the post. SomethingAweful made ‘em look stupid, and that’s ok too because that’s what SA is for.
That’s easier for me to file away in the ol’ brain than, “Ubisoft has never used the internet,” anyway.
Oh one more thing: you described her as “fairly attractive” and “photogenic”, etc. C’mon, now… she’s ranging from seriously attractive to absolutely beautiful depending on the photoshop time.
A journalist is supposed to act like he can’t see that? How foolish would that make him look?
She’s not a beauty pageant contestant.
about 2 years ago
“Oh one more thing: you described her as “fairly attractive” and “photogenic”, etc. C’mon, now… she’s ranging from seriously attractive to absolutely beautiful depending on the photoshop time.”
Meh. She looks like your average (to take a college reference) Chi Omega member, marketing major to me. Were she in the marketing or PR department of UbiSoft, no one would think twice about it.
The Photoshop remark, however, is dead-on. Watch her producers’ video blogs and she’s on the high side of average in appearance, and the only qualification for that is just not to have remarkably ugly features, hit the gym a bit and don’t pound Big Macs. Yet Ubisoft’s staff pictures of her… sweet Jesus.
about 2 years ago
The lession to be learned; next time use one of the (male, overwheight, bald & with 3″ thick glasses) coders who hasn’t seen daylight for years to do the PR talks.
about 2 years ago
Oh, for gods’ sakes. Isn’t it possible to have a single conversation about this without somebody pointing out whether or not they think she’s hot?
If Jade didn’t have editorial rights of some kind over the other interviews she’d done, if she didn’t have approval rights of some kind, then you are right.
I doubt she didn’t have pre-publishing review and some editorial rights before publishing.
This has nothing to do with her vagina at all… Seriously, this is about her being responsible for her image to a degree.
Most people do not have editorial rights over their interviews- most writers don’t give them, and she certainly doesn’t have editorial rights over the forums on a site where fanboys are talking about how fuckable or not she is.
about 2 years ago
Well, that was really the point I was trying to make: No. We can’t.
about 2 years ago
Wonder what Dave Cheung’s parents think of his reinforcing racist sex stereotypes about Asian and Eurasian women?
about 2 years ago
Does it matter what Dave Cheung’s parents think about him being sarcastically sexist?
I’m starting to tire of the feminazis. Seriously.
about 2 years ago
Well, then, EmCee, why don’t you go look up Mr. and Mrs. Cheung and show them their darling child’s oeuvre, if you think that they’d be proud of him for pushing the “Asian women are brainless sluts” stereotype? For that matter, what might they think of the community in which he works, where he’s cheered on and Ms. Raymond and/or her company were somehow “asking for it” when she and UbiSoft were only doing what every other MALE producer and company have done?
Granted, I’m not sure that filing a lawsuit was the smartest thing for UbiSoft to have done, but of course we all know that if they hadn’t, then the same regressed adolescents currently taking up the “she asked for it!” cry would be shouting “hey they didn’t sue, so they must not really be offended!”.
about 2 years ago
Interesting enough, I didn’t really have her pegged as looking Asian until you point it out there. Nice one, lets make this not only about gender but race as well and see if we can make it go another round.
about 2 years ago
Really, no, let’s not.
about 2 years ago
Mordur, awesome.
I think the bottom line here might be:
There are three kinds of people: Tankers, Nukers, and Healers.
Now, Healers don’t like Nukers. Because Healers get nuked by Nukers.
But Nukers also nuke Tanks.
Or maybe that’s the bottom line to some other discussion.
Whatever.
about 2 years ago
JADE RAYMOND JADE RAYMOND JADE RAYMOND JADE RAYMOND JADE RAYMOND JADE RAYMOND JADE RAYMOND JADE RAYMOND
about 2 years ago
Ubisoft should have let it slide. I mean, really, who cares? Chugworth Academy is a repulsive wet turd of a comic, ordinarily beneath the notice of intelligent people. Aside from being well-drawn (depending on your standards, I suppose), CA’s only conceivable value is its ability to piss people off. Cheung knows he isn’t a good or funny writer, so this is how he gets his attention. Ignore him — he may not go away, but at least he’d be stuck in the wind tunnel he deserves.
Meanwhile, I’m disappointed in Lowtax for bowing to Ubisoft’s pressure about this. That’s not the belligerent SA that I used to know and love, particularly since Ubisoft is completely in the wrong. Where’s Leonard Crabs when you need him?
about 2 years ago
OMG ! jade =>
http://img106.imageshack.us/my.php?image=duoubipetitye9.jpg
about 2 years ago
LOL
Lotax did not bow to Ubisoft – his proclamation was satire and totally false.
Later on in another thread about the same topic, he “accidentally” posts the link to the Chugworth comic. Again.
about 2 years ago
It still doesn’t matter whether or not Assassin’s Creed is a good game, it’s Ubisoft that’s keeping me from buying it. Never mind the fact that Splinter Cell is almost entirely ripped off from Metal Gear Solid whenever it can(Snake gets CQC… now Fisher gets CQC! Snake’s old… now Fisher’s old! Fuck you Ubi).
It’s the fact that Ubisoft’s had a history of trotting out hot female gamers to try to get fanboys to buy their products. FragDolls. This was in oh, 2003? 2004ish?
Now, fast forward to now. Jade Raymond is brought out as the producer for Assassin’s Creed and now the video game fan boy press can’t keep from dry humping Jade Raymond’s leg. Instead of stopping nonsense articles titled similarly to “Jade Raymond smells pretty” Ubisoft sits by and lets it boil over until some one on the Something Awful forums gets the impression that she’s just being brought out like meat for fan boys to fap it to and draws a comic expressing that opinion. While Jade should’ve stood up in the first place and said something about it, if Ubi’s going to get upset at this stage in the game, they should’ve gotten upset at the drooling, fan boy dry leg humping phase to make sure it didn’t go that far. Instead, Ubi, with it’s history of chosing to pander to fanboys rather than what’s right for the community at large, let the press run free with it and then it got too far.
Fuck you Ubisoft.
about 2 years ago
While Jade should’ve stood up in the first place and said something about it, if Ubi’s going to get upset at this stage in the game, they should’ve gotten upset at the drooling, fan boy dry leg humping phase to make sure it didn’t go that far.
And this is what makes Cheung’s comic, unfunny and crass as it is, such a masterful troll: Ubisoft couldn’t simply ignore it with a nod and a wink as they had the rest of the unseemly drooling.
Yet by responding to it, they revealed the extent to which they had been tacitly enjoying hype and publicity focused on the person rather than the game while stroking their white cats and muttering ‘eeeexcellent’ under their collective breath.
Maybe they’ll have learned something from all this, I’m not holding my breath though.
about 2 years ago
She is hot though. Roar.
about 2 years ago
I wonder how wide eyed Jade went into all this. It would be truely sad if she has been purely and simply exploited. I haven’t really read any lude comics about this issue, but from the teaser on this site, is it at all a commentry on the phenomena itself dealt via sarcasm or is it purely just a lude partriacial reminder than things have not really changed?