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

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.

Enhance your calm, John Spartan.

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.

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.

found the description at Feministe. Never mind.

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.

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*

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.

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.

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)

“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.

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.

Roy says it all so I don’t have to:

Jade is the public face for Assassin’s Creed because it’s her game. It’s not “parading her around” when she gives interviews, because that’s her fucking job. Nobody jumps on other producers for promoting their games: no criticism of Konami when Kojima gives one of his crazy interviews full of weirdness and mystery, accusing them of “parading” him around like a pony, because that’s his job. No criticism of Miyamoto or Nintendo when he trots out another Mario interview. Raymond’s job was to give interviews and help get out information on the game she was producing. It’s her job to be the public face. The fans jumped on it because she’s “the hawt chick making games” and made it a big deal. I never saw Ubisoft out there going “Hey! Over here! She’s HOT! Look!”

[...]

What’s abhorrent is the way that fanboy morons drug her through the dirt, went on and on about how much they jerk off to her picture, and she gets criticized for it, as though it’s her fault that a bunch of sexist assholes can’t seem to control their penises. Assassin’s Creed was promoted on the virtue of the game- it wasn’t until fanboy dipshits started going on about how hot Raymond was that it stopped being about the game.

“Trying to make this into anything else is simply, at best, ignorant or, at worst, a cheap and abusive attempt to promote a personal agenda.”

Unlike ignorant, intellectually dishonest attempts to excuse and justify repeated attempts to drag her through the mud by placing the blame at her feet for daring to be a woman who is the public face of a game? Please, tell me more about personal agendas.

[...]

“Is your position that it’s different to say horrible things about a woman on the internet than it is to say horrible things about a man on the internet? Because if you are famous on the internet, people will hate you automatically.”

People have said shitty things about Romero primarily because of his association with Daikatana. Raymond is being harassed and targeted because she is, apparently, too hot to be working on games.

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?

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…

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.

D-0ne on November 19, 2007 said:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.)

You are stupid. You, yourself.

She is hot. I’d hit it.

Thomas