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Hard to believe it’s been a week since we posted the Jade Raymond article. What was posted as a simple opinion on my part somehow ballooned out of control and became a huge “news story” on N4G and Digg, which it so wasn’t. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this “attention” is that people who are nice are still nice and the jerks are still… well, jerks! We know, considering we had to blacklist a dozen IPs and delete a truckload of comments simply because they were downright disgusting.
Going through the comments, there’s so much I want to address, but I fear if I start getting into it, all the other stuff I’m working on will just get put on the back burner. While it looks like we’ve got a dozen people linking to the site, all of them, wonderfully, coming together to try and address retarded sexist “gamers” everywhere, others still believe gaming still hasn’t come out of the Dark Ages when women were just supposed to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. Honestly, if I start playing a game, I don’t give a rat’s ass as to who made it - it just has to play right. And if I am playing online, I don’t care what sex you are - you just have to play right! Gender should never matter in an industry where you rarely ever see the people behind the scenes or on the other end of the internet connection.
Now, before any of you start screaming all over again, yes, I’m a guy and I am straight. So I am just as much turned on by any good looking member of the opposite sex as I rightly should be. I watch porn, I try to get sex as much as anyone else and if I see a good looking woman on the street, yes, I’ll look twice. However, while someone might appreciate it if you walked up to them and said “Your girlfriend / wife is cute!” they’d punch the living snot out of you if you made a derogatory comic about them. Sure, I know the comic was a take at Ubisoft. Sure, I know Jade is a producer and hasn’t worked on a lot of big budget titles before. The only problem I have is with the way the point was made!
So, what’s happened to everyone in the last one week?
Me:
I spent 10 mintues on that article because I was outraged that someone would so something so cheap just because she’s a woman, never mind the fact that she’s helping deliver one of the greatest games ever made. I’ve never paid much attention to the comments everywhere after Day 1, thanks to a massive workload, friends, family and a truckload of games just waiting to be finished! I’m not a pro-feminist, white knight or hypocrite or any such thing. I’m just a gamer. Period. End of story!
The ANGRY Pixel:
We’ve gotten a crapload of traffic and comments every which way here, on N4G and at Digg, some of which we can’t even read without throwing up. Frankly, we just love the game and don’t fucking care if it was made by a four-foot Quasimodo with no face and genital warts or the sexiest woman that ever was, is or will be! Thank you, come again!
Dave Cheung and the comic:
Yes, that image is from his website. The comic has since disappeared from his DeviantArt gallery, and the artist has chosen to write an FAQ on “moralfags” who, according to him, can’t seem to stomach the fact that the comic was made with artistic license, even though Jade’s just “collateral damage” and apparently, “a joke is just a joke”. Dave also claims that Jade just worked her way to “a cushy position like “Executive Producer”, it really is the ideal job; since all you do is sit around doing nothing and get paid for it.” I don’t have the time to get into another argument, but this just smacks of sheer sexism. I’d suggest he at least take the time to get acquainted with the game development process and all the billion and one tasks a producer is expected to do.
UbiSoft and Something Awful:
Business as usual. Ubisoft goes back to focusing on its games and making sure the comic gets taken down everywhere, while SA.com makes sure only people who’ve paid to use their forums can view the page. I am not gonna pay $10 to follow up this story on SA.com, but I think it’s safe to assume they’ve moved on to other things now.
The Blogosphere:
After all this brouhaha, the Internet’s become yet another moral war-zone, with people echoing the exact same arguments they’ve been arguing all this while. There have been a number of insightful articles, which I’ve been able to read because of the trackbacks, including Luke’s blog at Shrub, videogame design student Andrea’s blog and Roy’s blog at No Cookies For Me, all of which deal with the issue with far greater eloquence than what I can hope to achieve. The idiots, though, still continue to leave sexist comments and would rather blame the victim than the perpetrator.
Assassin’s Creed:
The game is still selling great, and people who get it still don’t do so because of Jade, but because it’s a great game. As of November 17, it’s sold over 800k copies in America alone and it’s still going strong, unlike what some people claim at GameGuru. The PS3 version of the game still runs into problems and while some people claim that the new 2.01 firmware update fixes the white screen of death, people are still complaining about the freezing and the framerate issues. Ubisoft has promised two days back on the official forums that they are working to fix the problem, but if it’s anything like Rainbow Six: Vegas, people are going to be waiting for a long, long time.
And finally, the focus of all this attention:
Jade Raymond:
After wrapping up the game, Jade is back on GameTrailers doing post-release interviews with Geoff Keighley on Bonus Round, still beaming. In the latest episodes (Part 1 / Part 2) Jade talks about the game, the design cycle, her role as the producer, content that was cut from the game and the inevitable question about her being seen as a celebrity and getting all this attention. Interesting to see her responses on the issue and how Patrice Desilets apparently gets as much attention as she, even though I’d have thought Ubi and GT would have at least have learned enough from all of this to at least have them on the show together. And yes, she looks like she’s gonna take a much needed vacation after three years on the Assassin’s Creed project and will hopefully be back soon to work on the rest of the trilogy.
Keep watching GT for the upcoming Bonus Round with BioShock producer Melissa Miller and G4/GT GameOne’s Amanda McKay (what, no Portal’s Kim Swift?) on women in the videogame industry. And in case you’re wondering, yes, the sexist comments have already begun. Check below the videos at GT for some disgusting deja vu.
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November 25th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Aftermath:
Me: im such a moron that i actually read it….
November 26th, 2007 at 1:00 am
seriously nothing has changed..
November 26th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hey, i know - maybe GG.IN will now post a Jade Raymond article
November 26th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
And for the love of God and all things pure and holy, please no one Digg/N4G this! I’ve had enough of this media circus and I just want to get the site back to gaming, not become a gossip column. This article is just for closure!
November 27th, 2007 at 11:38 am
oooh….so I see you’re using the C word now!
November 27th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
stupid poetic justice
November 27th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Hehe, yeah, i HOPE jade saw all this…Considering TAP gets one of the first results when i google the string “Jade raymond Nude comics”… Good job folks
We are SUCH the knights in shining armor… That and, also my rant on the Transformers OST (shameless buttplug,lol 
)
As for the game itself, sucks that it is going to be late for the PC
November 28th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Assassin’s Creed is a good game, and very pretty, possibly the prettiest game I have ever seen, but it’s actually fairly shallow, repetitive, and (dare I say?) frustrating. To say that sales were nothing to do with Jade is ridiculous. Whether it’s a good thing or not, a lot of young men will buy this game because subconsciously they think it’ll get them in with a hot girl. And Miss Raymond’s not only attractive, she’s an attractive gamer, who MAKES GAMES! That’s the “holy grail”!
It’s not that far removed than liking a mediocre band because “that girl’s got awesome boobs and she likes that band so I’ll talk to her about it”. Anybody who claims to have never done that is either lying or so lacking in self-awareness that it quite frankly disgusts me.
PS: Jade, if you read this, I can’t afford the game right now, but I’m still a catch, OK?
November 28th, 2007 at 8:04 am
@ Loz : ROFL.. good one.. and it actually makes sense…
November 28th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
FUCK, i have gone to movies ranging from Kuch kuch hota hai, Mohabattien to the recent sawariya ( 2 FUCKING times) just for the sake of the ladies in my life. Hell, i have even acted all emo at some parts of these movies just to appear all sensitive…
Whatever helps to nail that romp in the sack, i guess…hehe
So yeah, LOZ’s comment does kinda clicks….
November 29th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Exile - you’re a sick bastard. If its a romp in the sack you can buy one! The only reason you act like a sensitive faggot is because you are one!
November 29th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Takes one to know one, fucktard