Where to begin.
Much worthier games than A2M’s upcoming Wet have been threatened with premature death on account of the Activision/Blizzard merger that killed Sierra. In fact, some people thought Wet would toddle off into the sunset, unremembered. After all, the game has no publisher, and Activision/Blizzard CEO and super-genius complete moron Bobby Kotick has indicated that his company will only produce 10-year, $100-million franchises from now on. Wet is new IP, and that don’t qualify.
Apparently, though, A2M is still beavering away on this game (pun intended), under the not-misguided assumption that sooner or later someone will come along and publish this action platformer. Rant follows.
Wet’s website tells us that the lass pictured above is named Rubi. Her occupation is listed as “problem solver,” which I couldn’t find on salary.com. The site says that “Rubi is a working class, Jack Daniels, confident, tough, sexy, athletic, deadly fixer/problem solver.” Given the spelling of her name and the lengths to which A2M has gone to make it clear that Rubi is “just folk,” apparently hard-drinking, uneducated trailer trash is the new ideal for game characters. Gordon Freeman, your MIT education isn’t welcome here; it seems gamers want to play a character they’d like to have a beer with. And then of course there’s the overt sexualization of the character.
Hey, look, I’m a hetero dude. I get that Rubi is hot. I wouldn’t toss her out of bed for eating crackers. But honestly, in this day and age, this kind of crap is the best developers can come up with? Between Wet and other appalling entries like Bayonetta, I’m not optimistic that 2009 will change the level of sleaze, objectification, and lack of originality in the games business.
It’s not just the mistreatment of women that bothers me, though the industry should have long since moved passed its adolescence by now. It’s the fact that in addition to reducing female characters to mere masturbatory tools, it’s deleterious also to the potential of games as a narrative medium that should be taken seriously. When nongamers like my Mom look at screenshots from a game like Wet, how do we expect them to react? This is why the game-shame issue remains at large. Grown ups are embarrassed to play games, and frankly, they should be if this is the best games can do. There’s a reason that dudes hide their Playboys and Hustlers. Should gaming be treated the same way? Something to keep in a box on the top shelf of a dark closet, gotten out only when the house is empty and we’re sure no one is looking?
Now, it can be argued that in some ways Rubi is actually an excellent female game character. She’s fully clothed, at least; and that rack does look physiologically possible. And there are other positives here: it says she’s confident and athletic, which are both good things. And she owns her own business, so she’s shattered the glass ceiling. Aside from an apparent drinking problem, the worst thing about Rubi is that she spells her name “Rubi.” Compared to the main character in X-Blades, she’s hardly hypersexualized. Plus there’s nothing wrong with a sexy, empowered female character, right?
Of course not. But my anger doesn’t stem from the presence of a hot, confident female protagonist who could kick my ass. My anger stems from the fact that today, in 2009, this is still apparently seen as a unique and original story by developers. Rubi will be depthless, clichéd, totally without complexity or motivation or emotion. There will be nothing to bond gamers to Rubi (except for her ass), nothing to make the storyline riveting or scintillating or any of the other words I like to use in reviews. How do I know this?
I don’t, for sure. All I know about Wet I gleaned from the website. For all I know it’ll be the Citizen Kane of videogames. But I have a pretty strong hunch it won’t be, because that would require effort and thought and creativity from developers, who increasingly seem to avoid those disciplines.
I spend half my time trying to get games taken seriously, so when I see something like Wet, it makes me mad. Can’t we do better? Isn’t it time we did better? We’ve seen some really important and special games in the past few years, and I’d never advocate for a world where every single game is a Pathologic or a Shadow of the Colossus. I like boobs as much as the next man. But for once, just once, I’d like to see the themes be bigger than the boobs.
And seriously, Wet? How juvenile are these people? 
Ah, Steerpike. Thank you for looking out for us slightly older, slightly more mature, gamers. You are a 21st century game-guy in the position of having to shovel out 20th century game muck.
My first thought was that developers of lame games like Wet haven’t read the studies and seen the statistics that show that the average age of gamers is POST-PUBERTY. But then I figured, nah, they’re not pitching to us, but to those who haven’t reached the age of shaving yet – literally, or figuratively.
My second thought was that there just might be a really, really good story hiding behind those boobs and weapons. Then I decided that it doesn’t matter to me – I won’t be buying this one.
Thanks, and keep up the good shoveling.
I wouldn’t mind games like this if there were more balance in the industry. An example is cinema. Sure there are lots of insipid, stupid movies, some of them even purposefully made that way but you can find an intelligent movie if you put out the smallest bit of effort. Sadly, how many smart, intelligent games can you list? They are out there and it’s glorious to find one but so far the balance is tipped pretty heavily toward stupid.
Firstly I dont think the Big honchos at the studios care for our moms and their view’s.They are definately not the target audiances for PC titles.Its just a case of number of people buying one genere against the other.How many people ran out and bought Grim Fandango or Syberia or Psychonouts vs the kids who lined up and bought action heavy cliche’ story of a well endowed gun slinger part 32?The CEO’s can only read stats…and they are actually good at what they do…maximize profit while minimizing inputs.
From the looks of it this is without doubt the last round of PC upgrade for me…dont really see any sensible stuff comming out on PC from now on to justify the cost.
The only solase for me is that I still have some preety good old titles(storywise),to keep me occupied,to bother about these “new IP’s”.
Is it possible we’re over-reacting a bit in anticipation of this game? Would you, Steerpike, feel better if this was a male in this role? I think of WET as a fighting game and am rather looking forward to it. Sort of Lara Croft meets Kill Bill. No More Heroes for the Wii and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the DS weren’t really that different. At least the heroine is fully clothed, unlike some of the scanty outfits we see with RPG and other “non-violent” titles. Call me agnostic on this one until we see the final product.
Old Rooster
To be honest, Rooster, I don’t find the female protagonist of Wet overly exploitative, for all the reasons both I and you mentioned. Certainly compared to others there’s little offensive about her, though there’s also no doubt that she exists in this form as a tool to sell copies, not because anyone considered what sort of presence would be most appropriate for the story and themes they had in mind. They sat down and said “let’s make an action platformer.” And then someone else said, “Then we’ll need a hot chick in tight clothes.” Then they made the game.
No, my problem is with the cookie-cutterism of the thing. As Scout pointed out above, every year there is a welcome crop of movies whose role is to entertain us with sheer, shallow bombast. I love them. I see them all the time. But I also want to see films that make me think or feel. And Scout’s right: currently, game development is skewed way too far toward the “explosive summer action blockbuster!” and veers away from more intelligent fare like Bioshock, Portal, STALKER, and others.
I don’t have an issue with Wet specifically, aside from the name “Rubi,” the title “WET” and the website’s insistence that uneducated, hard-drinking trailer trash represents a demographic we should look up to. The game looks great in screenshots and with luck it will turn out to be a good release. My rant was more meant along the lines of “do we really need another Wet?” than “Wet is wrong.”
I’m with Steerpike on this one. Not only is the character cliche, the whole screen shot is. I bet the next screen shot will be Rubi slowly walking away from something as it explodes behind her in the background.
It would help immensely if the game wasn’t called “WET” and her name wasn’t “Rubi” with an “i”. It’s a totality of the circumstances thing. You add to that the fact that this game will apparently be released, while the expansion to “World in Conflict” does not, it’s just more salt in the wounds.
Fear not, Ajax. Ubisoft has bought Massive Entertainment and the World in Conflict expansion will be arriving in a few months.
Boo. I’d like to have a beer with Gordon Freeman.
I don’t know about that one, Phlebas. While Gordon Freeman’s ass-kicery is second to none and would certainly come in handy if a bar room brawl broke out, I think his whole “I don’t ever talk” shtick would make him a bit of dull drinking partner.
Excuse me? Bayonetta? Appalling? WTF? W.T. F? The girl wears glasses for Allah’s sake. That AND she stars in a supercinematic, superstylised videogame where notions of sexuality and objectification would make sense if everything in it wasn’t already stylised/ cliched to the point of overdone camp. I mean, you HAVE played Devil May Cry, yes? I fully understand Steerpike’s rage at repeated failures of the industry at large to stop designing games for the lowest common denominator population by churning out stereotype after stereotype year after year but dragging Bayonetta in here is a bit too much.
Ignoring that for a moment, I fully expect Wet to be a bad game but that’s the only reason I will probably not play it for longer than twenty minutes or so. If Wet turns out to be a fantastic combat game then no amount of garish sexual objectivisation and horribly cliched storytelling won’t keep me away from it. Isn’t Ninja Gaiden’s Ryu even a worse cliche than Rubi (dressed head to toe in shiny black fetish gear, goddamnit)? Isn’t Devil May Cry’s Dante a caricature of a stereotype? And yet I adore both those game series because they offer excellent gameplay even when their storytelling leaves a lot to be desired.
So, what I am saying is while I fully support ‘Pike’s rant about immaturity of the industry in terms of visual design/ narrative quality of games and would indeed like to see MORE Shadow of the Collossuses and Pathologics, I don’t feel this is a central issue when it comes to games and I don’t feel that we should feel ashamed when playing games that look like they are aiming at pubescent males IF those games actually offer good gaming qualities. Games are not a predominantly narrative medium and a spectator deciding that the game is unworthy of attention, based on the visual design/ narrative alone, while ignoring the game mechanics and gameplay in general, is simply wrong. I mean, I spent the last two weeks playing Persona 4 for hours every day. I am a 37 years old male and the game LOOKS as if it was made for 14 years old girls. But the looks are deceptive!!!
Also, perhaps this is due to me not being a native speaker, but the title Wet doesn’t really make me immediately think of a sexually aroused woman. I thought the game had to do something with water at first. Then I realised I’m thinking Hydrophobia… Shows how focused I am…
Hi Meho,
Sorry, I don’t consider the addition of eyeglasses to be an acceptable panacea for blatantly overwrought sexualization of female characters. Yes, Bayonetta wears glasses.
She also wears a bodysuit made out of her own hair, which she frequently uncoils to employ as a weapon, leaving her buck naked while her tresses swirl about, striking down foes.
Certainly I’ve played Devil May Cry. I find it sexist, overwrought, and annoyingly difficult to control. I also feel that coming from Hideki Kamiya, the creator of Okami and Viewtiful Joe, both Bayonetta and much of the DMC series is frankly beneath him. It’s developers like Kamiya we must look to to create exceptional narrative and design experiences, not the usual boobs-‘n-guns that we see so much of.
You are quite right that games are not primarily a narrative medium, and that narrative can take a back seat to great play. Heck, that’s why no one really cares that Half Life 2’s narrative is such a load of nonsense. But just because games are predominantly experiential doesn’t mean that developers shouldn’t struggle to improve the narrative quality within them. I guess what it really comes down to is that while there’s definitely a place for boob-n-gun games (I’m a great fan of Heavy Metal FAKK2 myself), we simply see too much of it these days, and we need developers to expand their horizons or risk miring the entire medium in adolescent fantasy land forever.
As to your final point, “wet” can be used to describe sexual arousal, yes. I would normally have assumed that the game was called “Wet” because Rubi is a killer – a profession sometimes referred to “wetworks” on account of the blood and stuff – but the game’s website says “Rubi is wet” like eighteen times without any context suggesting that she’s wet because she’s drenched in blood.
Hi, ‘Pike. Been reading your website for years and loved it for the highly personal (and VERY literate) approach to writing about games. Also, love your IGDA columns.
But!!! While I can agree that Devil May Cry is sexist (in an over-the top, campy way as far as I am concerned) and possibly overwrought (but this is a game built on excess!) I would beg to differ in the ‘difficult to control’ column. And I am not nitpicking here, I am trying to prove a point: DMC is a game that how ever its presentational layer may look repulsive to an adult, mature, thinking, yada yada yada person, actually manages to be extremely satisfactory through the virtue of its excelent combat system and the deep and complex control scheme provided to the player. Sure, it’s (on the surface) more complicated to control Dante than it is to control Joe in VF but the sense of precise mathematical beauty you get when you actually get good at it and start taking names of your enemies in increasingly stylish and efficient fashion is simply overwhelming.
The point probably lies in this precise mathematical beauty that is in the core of all good games, be they combat games like Ninja Gaiden or vast intergalactic conquest sims like Sins of the Solar Empire. At least I think I feel the same spiritual (SIC) pleasure when doing well in them.
What I am trying to say is that, while certainly appreciating games with good narrative, characters and themes, I think I still give preference to games that communicate their beauty primarily through gameplay. In that sense, juvenile themes, oversimplified characterisation, gender, race and other cliches certainly need to be addressed but they, for me do not tarnish the real worth of a game in question (the gameplay worth) if there is one to start with.
Of course, I am not saying I am 100% immune to these things and that a game where the objective would be raping puppies while setting fire to refugee camps would be my game of choice if its mechanics were excellent (though I’d probably be in two minds about it) but I think I just reacted strongly to Bayonetta being called ‘appalling’ whereas I thought that a bespectacled female character using her hair to fight was actually a breath of fresh air compared to all those Bullet Witches and Blood Raynes with their guns and blades. Then again, I always play Guilty Gear as Millia Rage so I might have a hair fetish I wasn’t aware of up to now… Hm hm hm….
Anyway, I do not disagree with the point of your rant: I would love to see games also mature in their narration/ characterisation etc. I was just sligthly surprised to see Bayonetta being singled out when there are tons of other better examples. I mean, knowing Kamiya, Bayonetta will be really strong in the gameplay department and I am perfectly ready to overlook its characterisation/ narrative shortcomings in the name of good gameplay. Also, I actually love how Kamiya switches between different aesthetics: from Resident Evil, through DMC and Viewtiful Joe to Okami and Bayonetta – he can do it all apparently (unlike, say Cliffy B. and Epic who are pretty much stuck in their gravel-chewing marine rut since Unreal).
I am aware of the term wetworks and know what it means. I am also aware that ‘wet’ is commonly used to describe female arousal (hey, I watch and sometimes even read porn in English!!!), but I wasn’t aware that the tagline for the game says ‘Rubi is wet’. Well, that certainly justifies ranting and I fully support what you said about it. Again, if through some miracle of fate the game turns out to actually be good, I will play it in a jiffy!!!
OK, since I typed so much (and I am supposed to be working!), here’s a bonus idea: I would love to see an article/ blog post dealing with Platinum Games’ (the same developer as for Bayonetta) Wii transgression called MadWorld. I keep hoping it will turn out to be this year’s God Hand but I doubt it will have the same level of depth Clover’s final game had. However, the art direction and general audio/ visual design with its emphasis on ultra violence and stylish carnage certainly deserve a well thought out write up by a writer like you who is interested in broader meaning of context and art direction in games and who is capable of writing in an informed and informative way. Think about it!!! Sorry for typing this much!
All good points, Meho, and I definitely agree with much of what you’ve said. Perhaps I find DMC difficult to control because I suck at it; stranger things have happened. 🙂
I’m watching Madworld with great interest, and I’m hoping I can coax someone here to do a review of it when it arrives on the scene. Lacking a Wii, I won’t be that someone, but others may step up.