To preface: If you are an LGBT+ person and you aren’t satisfied with representation, you should absolutely be asking for more acknowledgement in game.
Quietly adding a “Rainbow” icon is not good representation. Blizzard refusing to even call it “Pride” is a silent nod to the LGBT+ community without risking liability by pissing off the homophobes. Big countries like Russia and China come to mind.
“They want to look like a good ally, without puting the effort in.” - Niandra
Even Riot games, who is almost entirely owned by a Chinese company, had a fully fledged pride event in League of Legends. Blizzard’s reluctance to show support for pride lays out their intentions for everyone to see.
So, what can be done?
The simplest thing Blizzard can do right now is change the name of the icon to “Pride”. If this causes troubles in certain parts of the world, Blizzard should put the effort in and prove that they care about the community by standing up for what’s right.
Niandra made a short video on this topic, and is worth the watch.
They have two openly gay characters, a flag icon, and lore around it. I mean, how much is enough? BTW, they are less worried about Russia (which is 1/3 the US POP btw) and China than religiously minded homophobic regions like Africa and the Middle East.
FWIW, I am sure they are not done yet with “representation”.
What can be done is for you to take the Rainbow icon and use it in the manner that you wish, which is to presumably support equality and acceptance, right? Well do it. You don’t need the rainbow icon to be named a specific thing in order to do that.
I don’t see why it would need to be renamed to pride. It is perfectly fine as a rainbow and nobody has copyright or ownership over a rainbow which was a neutral symbol of variety long before this therefore it shouldn’t be attached to a singular movement
That is why it’s an issue. They didn’t want to draw attention to it. They didn’t want to piss off the homophobes. The same reason they caleld it Rainbow, instead of pride like everyone else
You can’t own the rainbow. What you can do is to use the rainbow to promote and send a message of equality and acceptance, if you can be bothered to do so. So, go out there and do it and maybe put less effort into trying to get big gaming companies to “piss off the homophobes” while you’re at it.
when compared to the other video game companies that are taking leaps and bounds ahead of overwatch, they are lacking and deserve to be called out on it, especially when their central message is diversity.
apex legends for example has the proper pride flag (named pride), has multiple lgbt characters who are named from the beginning.
valorant has multiple pride flags, labeled as such.
and on top of that overwatch didn’t even mention that icon was added to the game. Lgbt people deserve to call them out on it.
“take it or leave it” is something privileged people say because they don’t need the rep.
because it’s obviously supposed to be pride flag. do not act like having a rainbow during june isn’t related to the lgbt community.
what it was “before” doesn’t matter bc in this context, it means something else all together. acting like it’s otherwise is just playing dumb. it’s the equivalent of having a black fist raised up during a blm protest and claiming that fist has nothing to do with blm despite that being the symbol.
Wait im supposed to be angy there’s apride flag here i see you guys are more mad the world that doesn’t bend at knee , honestly gay bi straight whatever do you long as your happy.
I feel bad for developers in general these days lmao so much controversy to wade through and moral dilemmas when all they wanna do is make games. I think a small part of the OW team probably regrets outwardly stating their diversity goal lmao in their efforts to please everyone, even those who weren’t looking to be pleased, they keep making people angry, let down, and they literally can’t win ever lmao.
