So by now most of us have heard about the demo of Killer Instinct for the XBox One yesterday, but if you haven’t let me give it a quick run down. MS brought out a man and a woman to demo the game yesterday and the woman admitted that she couldn’t beat her adversary to which he responded, “Just let it happen. It will be over soon.”….
Yep, you read that right…rape language. Almost the exact same phrasing that we get in Tomb Raider (and don’t get me started on Penny Arcade and dickwolves) if you get the fail state in the initial cave in the introduction…but the demo guy kept it going with the rape justification (egged on by the laughter of the audience) “Wow, you like this”. And our insulted and assaulted woman was left with only one response. The response of the victim, “No, I don’t like this.”
This brings a number of questions to mind for me…the biggest one being (of course), WTF? The internet is up at arms. People want to know if rape jokes can ever be funny, if women/feminists are too sensitive, if this is yet more proof that women have no place in the video game community.
But the larger question is why won’t people see this latest episode for what it is? A symptom of a disease that is running rampant through the gaming community and will eventually (in my mind) kill said community if we find a way to address sexism and misogyny in the community.
Just a rant. Discuss?
[Edited to add video with audio of the exchange]
http://youtu.be/P75YQHFnyKY
3 thoughts on “Quick Rant: It Won’t Be Over Soon:Or, Rape Still Isn’t Funny”
Yeah I was very much like wtf when it happened. Stuff like that should not have a place in our community and certainly not by professionals. I feel very sorry for the lady on stage at that point.
I think you hit the nail on the head that it’s a symptom of a disease in the gaming community. I wish more gaming lobby’s would shun people for this kind of talk instead of laughing and joining in. 🙁 I wonder if maybe Xbox One’s new reputation system will help at all or just get abused?
Microsoft has been making a bit of noise for a while about cutting down on the harassment and abuse on XBL and one can only hope that some of these measures will actually be built into the XB1!