Summary
Video game advertising used to be the Wild West with shock value and overt sexualization at the forefront. Things evolved in the 21st century, going fromshocking to just downright bizarre.
However, while things have changed, it looks like Blizzard missed the memo, coming under fire for using a character’s feet to advertise a newOverwatch 2skin.
“Yatagarasu Kiriko Has GRIPPERS???”
Tweeted from the official Overwatch Twitter account, the team atBlizzarddecided to advertise a new skin for Yatagarasu Kiriko using her “grippers,” another term for feet. The tweet tells players to drop a foot emoji if they’re “hyped for Kiriko’s new skin in Season 13.”
The marketing team knew the tweet would cause a stir, posting it at 1:30 a.m. ET/10:30 p.m. PT. And that’s exactly what it did, garnering over 1,300 comments in the first hour since posting.
Many of the comments call Activision Blizzard out for being “weird”, with dozens more telling the account to “delete this right now”. Onecommentsurmised the whole situation best, saying, “They tweeted this one late night for a reason. Tryna capitalize on the down bad market.”
There is perhaps one situation that could save Blizzard from any backlash: the company is simply using the tweet to address discussions that have been taking place for years. A quick Google search for “Kiriko feet” (I’m sorry), shows a myriad of conversations on Reddit and theBlizzard forumsabout the character’s dogs, with no clarification of what they’re actually like.
It doesn’t makeOverwatch’stweet less strange, but at least there’s a reason behind it.
Overwatch 2
WHERE TO PLAY
The sequel to Blizzard’s popular team-based hero shooter, Overwatch 2 features a roster of over 35 fighters and over 20 maps. It features team sizes reduced to five, aiming to create faster and more action-oriented matches, while PvE elements add to the options available.
