When my buddy cthulhu sent over this article, I thought [Message Deleted] : Microsoft, Rape Jokes, and the Next Gen of Gamer Culture was about comments or how a live comment feed made it into a demo in the key note (or a twitter feed or something) where of course the dumbasses are going to be spewing hate and stupidity (what is it about fuckwads and anominity?). Turns out not so much, seems that during the keynote demo someone made a great rape (note: this is sarcasm) joke.
Normally this would be chalked up to an embarrassing gaff by a big company, apologies would be issued, etc. However it is (in theory anyway) elevated because of the stereotype of “hard core” online gaming (ie: XBox) being full of hate speech, threats, racial slurs, and pretty much anything in between. When this is the norm for your gaming platform not only should you be doing something about it, you sure as hell don’t egg it on by doing the same thing on possibly the most important (or at least most watched) keynote for your company in the decade. Seriously, someone needs a bit of Jobs-like attention to detail here, or hell, anyone with a bit of sense to look over this stuff.
In the embedded video, the Tropes of Women in Video games is examined, the “Damsel in Distress” in particular.