Andrew Eisen
PLL is dumb and like mobing things they don't like.

Personally I don't find that much wrong with it other than the game in question is not so bad it needs free BJ's to sell it :P

Lets save that for Jericho!

Something Awful's been through this before, and won. They'll pull through.

Eville1
Well said!

ok sure, the comic is tasteless whatever.

i find it a little more tasteless thatat Jade "look, i have boobs so buy my gam" Raymond's vagina apparently is a very important factor in whether or not Assassin's Creed is a good game. According to Ubisoft, this is so.

to that end, the comic makes its point (even though it's not terribly funny about it). can't AC be a good game on its own merit without knowing what faceless monkey produced the game?

No links to the cartoon, please...

I've got enough lawyers on my back for one week.

:-)

Hahaha... i just saw it, hilarious.

I can see why Raymond would have been upset...but I thought the comic was pretty funny.

People who think the comic is horrible/bad taste/etc... = Americans.

kthxbye.

I actually found it on deviantArt. I would assume that's the original, since people do not take kindly over there to the posting of other people's work. If Ubi really wanted the artist, they could probably just google it instead of hassling SA...

That being said, while I feel bad for Ms Raymond and I'm a little sad at how much this highlights sexual biases in our culture, the comic was clearly a parody, so I'm not sure it's worth Ubi's time to try suing people. It's basically just a political cartoon that happens to be very graphic in its approach.

Parady it may be, I think its very close to slander/libel.

Honestly if his ass got sued I wouldn't be that upset.

Note: This is NOT a link to the comic

All this said, maybe Dennis should take a page from Lawtax's book in his dealings with Thompson. His "legal reply" to the lawsuit is pretty priceless.

GP: no links on this story, thx

Well, wouldn't you be upset if someone posted a nude photo or cartoon of your girlfriend/mother/sister on the internet? And if you're a girl, wouldn't you be upset too? It's a parody, of course, but they've taken it too far.

broken scope
really?
I think this commentary on how some games get sold to the public.

Well, wouldn’t you be upset if someone posted a nude photo or cartoon of your girlfriend/mother/sister on the internet? And if you’re a girl, wouldn’t you be upset too? It’s a parody, of course, but they’ve taken it too far.---

no, i'm not american.

@Zippy
Yes I know what it actually is.

Maybe I'm a not looking at the situation subjectively, maybe its just a personal grudge against the artist.

He made the comic based off this article.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor-smash/jade-in-green-and-
white-striped-bikini-320260.php

Though if his stupid ass actually read the article he would have noticed something else. But that has never been his style. No he did it sheerly to piss people off and be offensive.

From his current news post he seems to think hes hot shit, as I stated earlier hes rather proud of himself because he "Made Jade Cry".

I might be able to see more humor if I actually thought jade was just a pretty face to promote a shitty game.

ah yes I have made a topic in the forum come and bitch and rant people!
:P

http://www.gamepoliticsforums.com/showthread.php?p=55603#post55603

Yeah, I saw the comic, and it's pretty clear why Ubi and Jade are upset. TO be honest, I would be also. It should be interesting to see if this comic is protected under the fair use doctrine as a parody or not.

Having seen the comic, i don't know what everybody is so upset about - really. *shrug* Ubisoft legal totally dropped the ball on this one; had they just ignored the comic, it would have entered and exited the collective Internet psyche without so much as a passing glance. Instead, they're now suffering from the Streisand Effect.

Kingo has a point. All of you Americans need to shut the hell up.

I've seen it myself, and while it honestly isn't that funny, it is certainly a parody. If anything the comic's creator is an admonishment of Ubisoft's promotion tactics, trying to argue that they used Jade's physical attractiveness as a method to win over fans. I'm fairly sure it's safe from legal action, but if she herself feels offended (as she might) I would still say the good thing to do would be to take the thing down and have the author explain his point himself, and perhaps even go so far as to apologize if it offended her. But there's no laws demanding we be nice, eh?

@Natan

You mean like these? http://www.somethingawful.com/d/legal-threats/index.php

It depends, in part, as to how eager Ubisoft were to push the 'look, an attractive woman who works in gaming!' angle in the first place. Is it parody, or is it satire, taking the mickey out of peoples assumptions about computer gamers, and the method organisations use to sell them?

Regardless of whether the cartoon is tasteful or not, the silliest thing to do was draw attention to it, basically, if Ubisoft are going to use hormones as a sales tool, they should not be surprised with one or two reactions such as this.

@jccalhoun graduate student - I wouldn't mind a tasteless parody of Cliffy B. He is a marketing guy masquerading as a designer...a hack designer so full of himself and manure that...I'll stop here, the story isn't about Cliffy...

It has already been stated: Something Awful has come up against legal threats before, and came out victorious (in the ones they post). Who knows if they pick which battles to post, leaving out the ones they know they will lose.

They've posted this threat on their site because they are not the creators of the image, nor do they host it. Also, situationally and morally, I do think the image has crossed a line simply because the target does not deserve the humiliation of the image.

It is hard enough for a female to get a job (and keep it) in the game industry. She doesn't need this.

I think the references to South Park are very apt in this situation. That show, perhaps more than any other, really shows the boundaries of parody are very wide open. If Bono can be a walking, talking POS, than anything is permissable.

Unfortunately for Ms. Raymond, by stepping out into public to speak about the game she has given up the privacy that would have protected her. She is part of the public sphere now, and she will need to develope a thick skin. I suspect that there are other comics being written in response to this controversy that will make this one seem mild. These are the interwebs after all, and I thought the comic was a pretty good blend of the internet memes of webcomics, pr0n, and video games. It wasn't funny, but it wasn'tvile either.

Heh, you always get the whole length and breadth of opinion in here, the answer is usually somewhere in the middle :)

@Rammsoldat

It may not even be a question of what she thinks. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if there was some kind of company waiver she signed when she agreed to represent them publicly authorizing them to do this kind of thing. May be it's got nothing to do with her, perhaps they just want to keep AC clear of any real kind of controversy, who knows?

That said, I still find it distasteful at best.

Wait, is this the same comic as the one of a naked Jade giveing a blowjob to the videogame reviewers?

I'm gonna have to jump on the bandwagon with everyone else that is thinking/saying that threatening SA is opening the gates to the Goons. Not a very good idea and really making things THAT much worse. You don't mess with Goons.

I'm actually not surprised that something like this didn't happen sooner because Jade is a very pretty lady, and all those juvenile nerds out there who probably drool over her picture but wouldn't have the cajones to actually talk to her are quite numerous. It's sad really, because again it is because that she is a woman, and a very pretty one at that. Frankly, she looks like she is probably a really nice person (from the interviews I've seen) who doesn't deserve to be humiliated in this fashion. It ranks right up there with the foul and crude things that people do when they find out that a gamer on Live is actually a girl then start to harass them simply for the same reason.

I hate to say it but the gaming community has more than it's fair share of dumbass little twerps who seem to revel in their own vulgarity and sexism. To this day I still don't understand the fascination with online gamers with 'rape', 'your mom', and 'corpse humping'. For the later I normally just say that's the closest thing to sex that they will ever get. As for the first two I chalk that up to pre-pubescent jerks who suffer from a Oedipus complex, and so far they keep proving me correct.

I'm sorry this isn't contributing to the "is it legally 'parody'" argument, but I've got a question that I wanted to throw out there:

So someone that doesn't work for SA posts a link to an image accused of violating privacy rights, and SA themselves are threatened with suing.

What are the major differences between this, and JT threatening to sue GP over a commentor's violent threats?

Perhaps the big one could be Dennis removing the offensive material on his site as soon as he could, while Lowtax has been choosing inaction. However, in GP's case that offensive material was actually on his website. If SA only had a link and not the image itself, could it really be the same situation? I'm not sure if there is a legal precedence for hosting a link to anything considered slander or libel or whatnot.

I wouldn't put it past ubi pulling a PR stunt(the legal threat) to get more press...

Bustahwolf
threats of harm and death are zero tolerance thing they can not be taken lightly because the fools in power take the net "srusly"!

the only reason Something Awful is in trouble instead of Chugworth Academy is because nobody reads Chugworth, so I just sent Ubisoft a message with some info they'll appreciate

@~the1jeffy

She's the producer of the game.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_producer

It's simply because she's a pretty woman that this sexist twerp made the picture. As it stands she hasn't 'whored' herself out in any way at all. Just like the guys at with the makers of Halo 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Mass Effect she has done interviews because she is the one overseeing the completion of the game. They haven't had her were some slinky dress, show cleavage, or wear short skirts at all, just given interviews at game conferences and ViDocs. If she were old and ugly this probably would never have happened, but it's because she is a young, intelligent and attractive woman that the perverts come out of their parents basement to draw hentai of them.

I've seen the comic and I say that it's very disgusting (not in goatse kind of way, but then goatse didn't actually insulted anyone) and totally lacks taste. I know that some will say that it's just a parody, freedom of speech and that nobody should be sued because of it.
You are probably right...but then you could say the same for goatse.

But looking at the comic makes me believe that the creator is a total loser who has never seen a pussy in his whole life and that the only lover he ever had was his hand.
And I'm probably right too :-)

@Bustahwolf
"I’d have assumed Ubisoft would think to track down the IP address of the actual page with the image and give a C&D to that person"

They have. Nearly all of the links on Something Awful no longer work, as the image hosting sites have banned the accounts who uploaded the image. The original (which I reported) is one of the few left.

@Kincyr - My mistake! Currently I'm in a place where I cannot view the image, so I wasn't fully aware of that situation.

@Jack - Assuming the content is slanderous or violating someone's rights, I think your example would need to show "intent" from the webmaster. I think the lawyer would have to prove that A) the owner of the website was aware of content placed by other people, and B) the owner chose to allow access to that content to his/her audience through his/her inaction.

That's a possibility here. Lowtax has clearly stated that he considers himself to not be responsible, and will not act on the C&D. Now could that be construed as some sort of web-based "conspiracy to distribute", assuming that the image isn't ruled parody? Dunno... but you're right, that would be interesting.

@Eville1

"Where are the interviews with the actual game creators?"

Now that's not entirely fair. It is QUITE common in promoting a game to spend lots of time talking the higher portions of the chain of command, as opposed to talking to individual developers. Seriously, think about it, When Bioshock came out there were maybe half a dozen voices TOPS. Most of the articles, videos, previews and hype were falling all over themselves to talk to Ken Levine. It doesn't surprse me that Ubisoft and Assassin's Creed aren't much differenty

@Bustahwolf, who wrote:

"@Jack - Assuming the content is slanderous or violating someone’s rights, I think your example would need to show “intent” from the webmaster. I think the lawyer would have to prove that A) the owner of the website was aware of content placed by other people, and B) the owner chose to allow access to that content to his/her audience through his/her inaction."

A) Proof that you know or should know what the content of the site is accomplished once it's proved that you own/manage the site. You can't be both publisher and claim ignorance of what gets published in your publication. Ain't nobody buying that.

B) That's the pothole, right there. Once you know or should know that you got some hinckey content in your publication, you gotta take it down. And if you don't take it down (even if you didn't put it up yourself), you might be on the same hook as whoever put it up in the first place. And, again, if you own/manage the publication, the "I didn't know it was up there" defense probably ain't a winning defense.

@Bustahwolf:

That's why a smart attorney immediately sends a cease and desist letter to the publisher. Lets 'em know: (A) the hinckey stuff is up and (B) they gotta take it down. Two birds, one stone.

Raymond has a computer science degree from McGill University and her first job was programming games for Sony. A few years later, she moved into a producer role at EA, and she has since been producing games. Currently, Jade Raymond is the producer of Ubisoft's action-adventure game Assassin's Creed With a specialty in creating and designing online games, Jade began work at EA as a producer and went on to be the Producer behind one of EA's most popular online games to date, The Sims Online. Since then Jade has moved on to Ubisoft, located in her home town of Montreal, where she became the producer for Assassin's Creed.

@Jack,

That's true, however... now that I've seen it, I'm inclined to join the "it's just a parody" group that thinks a lawsuit wouldn't hold up.

Please don't take that as a positive on the comic at all. Aside from being obscene, it's also immensely unfunny and stupid. But poorly done satire is still satire, and I'd consider this image as one.

If this was the absolute worst way to make this joke, then for a counterpoint I'd consider the VG Cats comic "Coco Beans in Warm Water". While not actually showing anything, one of the gags was an implication that Hilary Clinton was giving fellatio to Jack Thompson during a press interview. When I first saw this, I felt it was funny and good commentary for what I'd consider political pandering over the video game. I'd understand if Senator Clinton would be offended by the image. I also understand Thompson's offense, though I didn't support his take on the ensuing email conversation he had with Scott Ramsoomnair. If I think that was a parody, then I'd be hypocritical to say differently for a comic attempting the same type of gag.

Still, I wouldn't want to stop Jade or Ubisoft from expressing their outrage... I dunno, if I were Ubisoft, I think I'd make a statement. Say that while I understand the freedom of expression, I wish to condemn this image that I find highly offensive of our employee, who doesn't deserve to be imaged in this way, etc.

ive seen it. Its not that bad really. reminded me of CAD's art style too

@Father Time

Seeing some of the other stuff this guy has done in the past I doubt he could do it without being vulgar.

Anyone who says "this is totally out of line" was obviously not paying attention to the way that Ubisoft hyped Jade Raymond's Breasts - ah, excuse me, I meant to say "Assassin's Creed".

Seriously. It's crude, but it was coming.

can it really be protected by the 1st amendment if the creator of the comic lives in the UK?

I'm finding it very interesting how many comments on this page are of the "Ubi Soft shouldn't have used Jade Raymond's attractiveness so much" variety. Jade Raymond is the producer of the game. As noted above, she has a degree in computer science and her first job was as a game programmer. And it is usual for producers to do interviews and publicity for their games. During the development of Eternal Darkness, Denis Dyack was giving interviews to the press and taking questions on the IGN message boards seemingly constantly. David Jaffe gave dozens of hours worth of interviews when God of War was in development. And lest you think that Jade Raymond was the only person anybody ever talked to about Assassin's Creed, I only have to do a brief Google search to find several interviews with a man named Patrice Desilets who was the game's creative director.

It's as if certain people here (not everyone, but you know who you are) have seen Ms. Raymond's picture, noticed that she's quite attractive, and immediately assumed, "She must be giving out interviews because she's great eye candy," never once considering that maybe it's because she's the person most knowledgeable about the game. How many of you have actually read the interviews, I wonder? How many of you have taken the text of her interviews and put them next to that from an interview with a male producer so that you could judge for yourself whether there was anything more to her than a pretty face?

Very few of you, I would wager. It's much easier to just assume that she's a strumpet. I say again that I don't mean this to be a blanket accusation. This post is really only addressed at those of you who have harrumphed that Ms. Raymond dared to give interviews talking about her game while simultaneously possessing an attractive female face. The nerve of the woman! At the very least, though, this has served to remind me that even though I hold this blog in very high regard, it's no more immune to occasional bouts of sexism than any other male-dominated blog.

This is apparently the e-mail Lowtax sent in response to Ubisoft's legal threat (as posted on the Awful Forums, oh and heads up, some may find it very offensive).

From: Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (webmaster@somethingawful.com)
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 9:06 PM
To: 'Anderson, David' Cc: A BUNCH OF FRENCHIES
Subject: RE: NOTICE: Infringement of ASSASSIN'S CREED Mark and Jade Raymond's Personal, Privacy, and Publicity Rights

Please let it be known that hereforth I have read the express mail and email sent thereforth by Famous Lawyer David Anderson of the Famous Lawyer Law Business of Nixon Peabody LLP, and furthermore a declaration shall be expressed on the part of Internet User Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka that thatforth herethrough I have conducted rigorous tests implemented through a vigorous barrage of legal studies, and furthermore hitherthrough these rigorous tests have therefore proven Famous Lawyer David Anderson of the Famous Lawyer Law Business of Nixon Peabody LLP shall be recognized as a man of the fag persuasion.

Pursuant to the United Dairy Council

Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka Internet

X, Eville1,

Yes. I watched her interviews. I'm not seeing your issue. Sure, not very deep in terms of content, but I've seen many producer interviews - and not all are as outspoken. This is a tried and true case of sexism, even down to the defense of "She deserved it!" No, she didn't. She only got that treatment because she's an attractive female, and no one that 'supports' this comic has taken two seconds to look past that to her obvious professional merits.

If Jade Raymond was really so bothered by the comic why didn't she make it a persona lawsuit, instead of Ubisoft trying to threaten away something miniscule which is never the less a stain on their producers gameselling face. Since this started I've been thinking, like alot of other people that it's jut some idiot trying to look useful in the legal department and Jade was not even really involved.

And to think. I saw the comic before all the hooplah on the original site. Haha. It's not even in his archives, he just posted it on the front page whilst doing his regular updates.

I'm gonna go see if he still has it up.

@Jade

I think this is DISGUSTING, you must be very upset.. if you need somebody to talk to about it, i'm available.. perhaps over drinks ;)

And people wonder why women shy away from game development. Look what happens to you if you're successful and don't hide in the studio away from cameras and your fan-base. -_-

All the articles I saw that were LOOK A GIRL! were by online news outlets that Ubisoft wouldn't have had any direct control over. Want to make a point about gamer culture's issues with women, mock the dude over at Kotaku who can't write about a female game developer without referencing her scent in the title.

And the maxim thing was a rumor that Ubisoft and Raymond have denied. It's not evidence that she was really whoring herself out.

I see nothing wrong with this stupid though a bit amuzing comic...its a parody, you can make make an ass out of anyone in a parody, remember??? Its this original freedom of speech idea...

Obviously Jade would be offended but compared to political parodies this isn't that bad... Just wait till 08s hilary parodys and get ready to throw up...

I don't even see why Ubisoft can demand that links be removed, it isn't even pornogrpahic and obviously the controversy will boost their sales so I don't see why they would be mad about, oh wait now I know why there is a problem to start with, Ubisoft wants free publicity...

I'm sure the those on the moral crusade to save some poor wittle girl will take offence to what I'm about to say. But such is life.

Men in the public spotlight are insulted every day of the week. Political cartoons are the norm. But here we have people reacting as if the comic was showing the likeness of Mohammed or some such.

To be honest I can't say if Ms. Raymond is qualified for the job or not. And that is THE PROBLEM. We can talk until we are blue in the face about how sexism in the game biz keeps the power wittle women out. But doesn't that erode the basic foundation of gender equality?

As long as the masses, like sheep, feel that modern, free and independent women must be protected from the world, we will live in a world where women are treated as children.

Is the comic rude? Very much so. But does it also point to the very heart of the issue? Very much so.

A cynic would note the irony in a attractive woman being the first female game-producer of note this console generation. What does that say about our corporate overlords? What does that say about us? What does that say about equality? Should the pretty girl get ahead? Should the pretty boy?

If looks count, then does that mean we can judge people by what they look like? History shows what kind of mess that causes.

I do not know this Jade person. I am not privy to the rational used by the company in it’s choice to attack, rather than ignore, this political cartoon. But I know this much.

The game industry, like all of entertainment, is no less ruthless than any other part of corporate America. Some people fail, some succeed. Some are mocked by the public for the most minor of reasons. That is the nature of business.

But as long as America is unwilling to see women fail, then none of their successes will be real. Women will continue to be reduced to advertising, items used to directly or indirectly improve the company’s bottom line.

The appearance of something is much cheaper than the real thing. Take a walk behind any theatre’s set. But until the social norm is willing to let everyone fail, then we don’t have equality, just the appearance of it.

X,

"And I'm right!"

Umm, no. You have that opinion, and nothing to back it up. You think she has no skills, I disagree. Perhaps you should scroll up to where a kind person linked to the Wikipedia and educate yourself on what a Game Producer does. And then watch other producer interviews. You'll find that some are better than Raymond, some worse. Unless you can link to specific cases where she's just being eye-candy, I'm calling bullshit here. Every behind the scenes with Raymond (on Assasins Creed) I've seen (linked from her fansite, and googled) is fairly standard Producer fare, and at very least can be labelled professionally competant.

I'm not saying you are sexist, but your judgment is either sexist, ignorant, or baseless opinion - take your pick. Sensational? I don't think so - try researched and rational. Equals? That remains to be seen. I doubt it, but have been known to err on the side of ego. I will leave that judgement to others that read this thread.

@the1jeffy

Equality is what it is. You cannot pick at it and try to just take the good parts.

My post is what it is. Do not think we agree because you pick at it and take what you consider to be the good parts.

I think you've missed my point all together.

"As long as the masses, like sheep, feel that modern, free and independent women must be protected from the world, we will live in a world where women are treated as children.
"

Sexism will exist as long as women (and their male "protectors") cling to the old rules.

Nothing worth having in this life comes without pain or sacrifice. When women are robbed of their chance to fail, when people are too quick to rally against the 'sexist', half the human race is robbed of true achevement.

Is that what you want?

I've seen nothing to indicate that she's failed as a producer yet. As far as I can tell the only things she's failed at is being male.

I don't think anyone is arguing that she needs some white knight to swoop in and save the day. The lack of a protector is not the problem. The over-abundance of baseless attacks is the problem. Were the attacks based on her actual conduct it would be a much different story. I have yet to see anyone disagree with anything specific she has said. I've only seen dismay at the fact that there are pictures of her and vague accusations of her being unqualified.

I do think the gaming industry has its share of the blame. The now dead E3 is the only professional conference I've ever heard of that manned their booths with models rather then, you know, professionals from the industry.

"The lack of a protector is not the problem. The over-abundance of baseless attacks is the problem. Were the attacks based on her actual conduct it would be a much different story."

@laterose

YES, because somehow, overnight, Something Awful + Chugworth Academy became this pinnacle of journalism that is responsible for creating civilized public dialogue!