Posted by Josh Katz to findingDulcinea
Sony unveiled a new capture-the-flag-like PlayStation game over a week ago called Fat Princess, sparking anger from some in the online feminist community.
The game is based on the format of capture-the-flag, but the flag is the princess. To protect one’s princess from capture, users can fatten her up by gorging her with cake to make her harder to carry away.
Feminist bloggers did not see the humor. In the Shakesville blog, Melissa McEwan tells Sony that she’s “positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative [jerks].”
The Feminist Gamers blog suggested an alternative strategy to the game. “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. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry,” said Feminist Gamer’s “Mighty Ponygirl.” She went on to say, “Oh, but that’s not as ‘cute’ as cake and fat chicks. Right.”
But on the technology blog SlashGear, Abby McVay argues that the feminist bloggers are overreacting, and says, “It couldn’t possibly be that it’s just an innocent game and you women are just looking for the latest and greatest thing to [complain] about.”
Fat Princess joins a number of other video games that have recently generated controversy. Some people have charged the newest version of Grand Theft Auto with encouraging violence and sex, and politicians have rebuked the Nintendo Wii game Beer Pong for the promoting binge drinking.
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