Sony apparently forgot that there are, surprise, women who play video games. More importantly, they forgot that feminists play video games and can raise a big stink on the interblogs if they they think your game is unfunny, sexist, and more out of touch than George W. Bush...
Fat Princess is a capture-the-flag game with a twist: you can thwart capture attempts by locking the once-thin princess in a dungeon and stuffing her full of cake, thereby increasing her girth and making her harder for your enemies to haul back to home base.
The ladyblogs had trouble deciding what to attack first...
Melissa McEwan of Shakesville writes: "Congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes."
Zing! Wait, what does that mean?
Feminist Gamer's "Mighty Ponygirl" suggests a simple gameplay switcheroo would solve the problem (and change the title). "Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest," she says, adding, "The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry."
That's a great idea! Then again, Sony isn't interested in having their video games make sense or insulting fewer than half the population of the world. Nope, they just say "let those feminists eat cake-- literally." And male gamers are apparently backing them up-- check out the comments on Joystiq:
Fat women would be better served by getting up and exercising and eating less. They would have more energy, better self image and feel more confident. They might find a boyfriend, even perhaps, love. But you know, its like hard to do that stuff, and its easy to complain on the internet!
Women will cry about anything.
They are piss because they lack a penis.
If it were "Fat Prince" and you had to carry an obese dude around nobody would care. Except maybe Prince.
However, a female commenter had a reaction similar to ours:
If anything, I think they're attacking the wrong concept. Who cares if she's fat or gets fed? It's way more offensive that the princess is treated as an object (in replacement of a flag) and helpless (she can't even move on her own) and unable to do anything about her situation (or refuse food). But I know that the designers weren't being pig-headed, they were just trying to be creative, and they succeeded.
There are far too many memorable (but not necessarily intelligent) comments to post here, so check out the original post.
Via Joystiq and Yahoo!
