Chances are you’ve heard about the “pornographic” web comic that depicts Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond as a bikini-clad fellator–for which Ubisoft has issued a cease and desist. The implication, of course, is that the admittedly attractive G4 host is using her sex appeal to promote the game. Alternatively, the implication is that Jade’s real talents lie outside the realm of game design–that her success has been bartered for in the bedroom.
In discussing the comic, many, even nastier things have been said about Jade Raymond. The most alarming among them is that “she deserves” this sort of treatment. For what, being a beautiful woman in the industry? That’s straight-up rape mentality.
Still, as a fellow gaming female, I can’t say I side with Jade one hundred percent either. Her face, however beautiful, has been used to promote Assassin’s Creed to an unreasonable extent. Game producers aren’t celebrities, and they shouldn’t steal the spotlight from the rest of their teams. With that said, is Jade to blame for the bad PR, or her company, Ubisoft?
I don’t know Jade myself, but to hear Jane Pinckard talk she is indeed a smart, competent industry member who deserves her current position–even if her beauty gives us suspicions to the contrary. With a computer science degree from McGill and experience at both Sony and EA, she’s got to be more than a pretty face.
Unfortunately, it’s that pretty face that the industry (or more accurately, its young, male consumer base) loves to love, but also loves to hate. Jade is welcome as a sex symbol, but not as a creative presence? Is this comic a sign that we as a community are too hung up on beautiful women, or that our masculine majority feels threatened by them? It’s a complicated issue, true–but any way you look at it, it doesn’t bode well.
At least somebody’s happy. Shortly after the controversy broke out over the comic, its creator posted this Xbox360-style gloat: “ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Made Jade Cry.”
November 21st, 2007 at 8:32 pm
“Her face, however beautiful, has been used to promote Assassin’s Creed to an unreasonable extent. Game producers aren’t celebrities, and they shouldn’t steal the spotlight from the rest of their teams.”
I disagree - Jade’s doing the same thing as Gabe Newell, CliffyB, Raph Koster (does anyone else even work at Areae?), Richard Garriott (of “Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa”), Sid Meyer (of “Sid Meyers’s x”), Peter Molyneux … and maybe this Will Wright guy actually has some other smart people on his team, but nobody’s ever cared enough to check.
Anyway, it would be nice for the biz if game producers WERE celebrities (or, greater celebrities than they already are) - it works for the rest of show business …
November 21st, 2007 at 11:26 pm
The comments that follow every you tube video with Jade Raymond in it contain the same mentality as that comic.
I don’t think Ubisoft has done bad PR at all. Jade is a very good interviewee she communicates well, she is clearly smart, she speaks French to the canadian and French press. If anything she’s a positive role model. It’s irrelevant that she’s good looking or not, if she was “ugly” she’d get a different be somehow closely related attitude towards her.
To me she represents another game company seeking a closer relationship to it’s players. Why shouldn’t she be the face of Assassins Creed? There are PR guys that sound like they don’t know a thing about the games they hype. Why why why should being a women have anything to do with it?
Just because some people think it’s manipulative marketing doesn’t mean it is. A poster of a naked women in the middle of an icecream is exploitative marketing, ubisoft’s approach hardly compares. And in that case, I still blame the consumer, not the women in the add.
There are plenty of male faces representing a single game on their own. The idea that she has somehow done something wrong is the same foul argument that people use against women who bashed or assaulted while jogging and looking great. There are people who claim they somehow deserve it, or they were “asking for it” by going out alone. Or “she was stupid to wear that jogging outfit”, it’s incredibly disturbing that that side of the coin is the first side people see.
It’s blame the victim all over again.
The thing I’m most annoyed by though is, a lot of people will look at this comic and think it’s sick, they’ll see it as sexist and so on, but still they’ll think that somehow Jade has “used” her good looks to manipulate people. If a gorgeous man was doing the PR, no-one would blink an eye.
PR is always a form of manipulation, but we somehow see that if a women is at the hand of it, it’s evil. Women manipulators are evil, nasty and cunning. Men manipulators are powerful, doing it for the good of Man-kind. Those same stereotype pop up in Hollywood and TV every day. The only good women on TV and in movies are the weak ones, otherwise they are evil or have some kind of character flaw that a good man needs to correct at the end.
If we are going to question Ubisoft’s or Jade’s motives at all, we shouldn’t be asking if the marketing is manipulative, we should be asking if it is exploitative. And the marketing most certainly isn’t exploitative.
Things like this just expose our societies for what they are under the harsh bright light that is the impersonal or anonymous nature of the Internet. It’s certainly not a special thing for gaming, you just have to browse youtube for half an hour to see that.
This comic should be seen as further evidence that Feminism is still incredibly relevant. There’s so much more to be done.
November 22nd, 2007 at 2:35 am
Unless somehow the male-female majority in gaming is flipped, or until the day that people can perceive the opposite sex equally by instinct, I don’t think things like this will ever stop. I think its a damn shame, and appalled by the fact that it was the chugworth artist, of all people (though I admit, I don’t read their damn comic to begin with).
Jade hasn’t appeared and represented Assassin’s Creed any more than any other male producer out there, as the first commenter noted. Not only that, but she’s the PRODUCER, meaning that’s part of her job’s criteria: to get the word out!
While I understand the comic from a social commentary perspective of how the male demographic perceives her, I think it was incredibly unnecessary to make a comic about it. The comic is an insult to all, but isn’t perceived as such by most, and that is the flaw of the comic (or perhaps, of the audience).
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Fact 1: Sex sells. We are used to see sexy bodies, both male and female bodies, in two out of three advertisements and TV spots. Fact 2: Jade Raymond is sexy. So, the thought of her trying to sell her game with her curves and her pretty smile as much as with facts and screenshots is quite obvious. It’s that easy.
Unfair? Yes. Life is so unfair! As if that was anything new. Geez, I’m sure if anyone knows how unfair life can possibly be, it must be an intelligent, successful and pretty woman, right? Of course no one should be allowed to treat that pretty girl like… let’s say… other business people in the public eye, say, Bill Gates. How many nasty cartoons depicting Bill Gates are out there? How many unfair accusations? Well, he deserves it, he’s a male. There’s no such thing as meninism, perhaps because men are not supposed to have feelings. Can’t treat a woman the same though, she has to be treated equal. Wait… oh, nevermind.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:15 am
I’ll just say this, Chugworth is one of the best drawn anime-type web-comics out there and I probably will still buy his artbook if I get the chance.
Total asshole though.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:36 am
She SHOULD use her looks to promote a game. It worked, didn’t it? This is a business, and treating it as such gives people no excuse for personal attacks. Should she have expected it? Probably, yes. If she’s as savvy as her supporters would indicate, she probably stays the hell away from the internet. I notice she rarely gives interviews either — smart gal. Should gamers be absolutely fucking ashamed of themselves? Yes. Games journalists and devs alike have plenty of reasons to hate the audience they work for. And then these fucking fanboys are displeased with the industry.
Also, Bonnie — shouldn’t it be “fellatrix”? :D
November 27th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Oops, that was me posting above. Who else would say “fellatrix?”
November 27th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Also I’d like to point out one more thing: This kind of criticism is not uncommon, would there be a furor if he hadn’t drawn the comic but instead just posted a text statement?
November 27th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
First thing that I think gets lost in the shuffle of people comparing Jade to CliffyB or Will Wright is that those people are designers, the ones most intimately responsible for game creation in the idea sense. If they are paraded out it is because it was their idea and their vision that drove the product. Patrice Desilets fills that role on Assassin’s Creed. Jade was put out there more than your average producer and it was undoubtedly because of her looks. The comic is what it is and it is certainly in poor taste. However, Ubisoft shouldn’t have drawn attention to it, that was colossally dumb, do they not know the internet at all?
I think that Ubisoft is responsible for pandering to a stereotype about gamers and using Jade’s appearance to heighten their own PR. Maybe Jade was complicit maybe not, but the point is, she was obviously pushed to the forefront of the PR campaign for the game.
It’s a shite situation and it upsets me that so many of the gamers have responded with the idiotic notion of how she deserves it. Gamers are idiots so often that I often wonder why I would even work in this industry. But hopefully it will keep changing. Until then, this situation won’t be the last. I guarantee. If you are a good looking woman in the industry prepare to be held up to a microscope.
November 28th, 2007 at 3:22 am
Thank you, Leigh. Now I have to find excuses to use the word “fellatrix” on a regular basis :).
First thing that I think gets lost in the shuffle of people comparing Jade to CliffyB or Will Wright is that those people are designers, the ones most intimately responsible for game creation in the idea sense.
As much as I’d like to support Jade as a strong, sexy woman, I have to agree with this. Business sense or no business sense, games are still an art form, and there’s something a little unsettling about seeing energy and attention directed away from the creative source. Not that it doesn’t happen in other art forms, too–I’m thinking of movies, specifically–but still.
However, Ubisoft shouldn’t have drawn attention to it.
Seems to me that’s another good point. Then again, maybe it’s a reverse psychology business sense. You draw more attention to the “sex appeal” of the game’s producer–and thus to the game–by publicly getting angry…