Discussing God of War’s ‘Misogynistic’ Trophy

The industry is always in an uproar over something, sometimes for good reason, sometimes for stupid reasons, and sometimes because no one knows what is going on. Yesterday, everyone was incensed about SimCity’s awful DRM, and today the hot topic is misogyny in games. Daily Reaction discusses whether God of War: Ascension’s infamous trophy was intended to cross the line, and if there even should be a line in the first place. - Daily Reaction

[Foolsjoker]

Exactly, It was just a trophy, get over it people.

[doctorstrange]

Ding!

[Relientk77]

Trophy unlocked

[Cupid_Viper_3]

Listen guys,

Whatever your views are regarding the trophy, can we at least agree that it doesn't warrant us having to see Adam Sessler wearing nothing but a creepy grin and a pair of glasses?

Sheeshhhh...How do I unsee that?

[miyamoto]

Its not the review or the scores....

...its the misinformation campaigns I am concerned about.

Even reviews and review scores have price tags because at the end of the day its all about money,clicks, hits and business.

We need critics not reviewers.

Just in YouTube alone anyone can be a reviewer.

There are tons of ways to go around this problem.

If seeing is believing and if you are personally skeptical, at least, go to You Tube and see for yourself.

Hence the PS4 Share button was made.

[knifefight]

This is the internet, dude.

[doctorstrange]

Holy crap, it is?

[Derekvinyard13]

Viper I was wondering the same thing!

[joab777]

Its not even that...there is nothing to get over. It wasnt a woman that was having its head smashed in...and it was a video game. As i wrote elsewhere, maybe video games are having an effect on us because we r having a hard time telling reality from entertainment. As far as the trophy name, i think we can agree that it was a play on a common cultural saying. To be honest, while we r pretending to be high and mighty about everything with r absurd political correctness, our society is degrading morally. Its fact and niche wrote about it.

When we chose relativism over absolutism, we destroyed all truth and morality. As Niche wrote, if u throw God over the bridge, you cant rob his pockets first. It doesnt work. No offense to females as i know many wonderful women that have made my life a joy, but he wrote that they wouldnt even want to play this. At work today i asked all of them about this and they laughed. They either thought it was funny or absurd but none were angry. U cant create a culture that allows a 6 yr old to access porn in 30 seconds on any device and cry foul over this.

[MeatAbstract]

Nietzsche

[Amplitude]

...the hell are you talking about

[Cupid_Viper_3]

"U cant create a culture that allows a 6 yr old to access porn in 30 seconds on any device and cry foul over this."

I'm not sure I get your point here. I'd much rather my 6 year be watching porn than having to witness gruesome, gory acts.

But this is a game that's rated mature, by that the devs reserves the right to be as explicit as the they see fit.

[pandaboy]

hold on a minute there cupid, did you just admit that you'd want your 6 year old to be watching porn? you people are fucking sick.

[jeeves86]

Although your writing skills are terrible, you do make some good points.

I think if anything, this trophy name makes me want to play the game even more.

[joab777]

Writing skills aside, at work on a smartphone with auto correct, I didn't write anywhere that I wanted a 6 year old to watch porn. And u would rather your child watch porn than see you play God of War? And the rest is quite simple to grasp. When we have come to accept, as a society, that truth is different for everyone, then there is no truth. Everyone does what they want and has a reason for it. Slowly, we devolve,like Rome into chaos. So, I think it's funny that these games are promoted (which I have no problem with), God of War is fine but not the part when Kratos kills a demon figure that bears resemblance to a woman, but we pick and chose what crosses the proverbial line. My only point is that a moral opinion can come off quite unbalanced in a relativistic society.

And yeah, it was probably just to get hits.

[TrendyGamers]

Another great Daily Reaction!

[Foolsjoker]

Definitely a good one!

[dbjj12088]

I'm gonna get disagreed with over this, but I think I agree with Sessler to an extent. God of War did always seem kind of literary in the previous games, despite itself of course. The way they fit Kratos in with all these different Greek myths and gods was always well thought out. I though Kratos was more mature.

Uh, except for the sex minigames. Those were very immature.

[doctorstrange]

The only literary thing that annoys me is that Furies are Roman mythology. They should be Erinyes, which are greek.

/nerd history out.

[TwoMinTy]

@ Strange

I believe the terms are interchangeable. but i could be wrong.
Greek Mythology > Roman Mythology.

[doctorstrange]

The Romans borrowed a lot of their mythology from the Greek, including these, so if this was a Roman game, then it'd be interchangeable yeah. But the other way around, technically nope, Erinyes comes from the Greek ἐρίνειν.

[rpd123]

They also use Hercules which is Roman. Heracles is the Greek name.

[Foolsjoker]

You cannot pick and pull sections of the game to determine the maturity of the title, God of War has you dressed as a angry half naked man running around in the ashes of his dead family killing everything.

[Y_5150]

"God of War has you dressed as a angry half naked man running around in the ashes of his dead family killing everything."

Seriously this is funny! XD

[GenericNameHere]

Correct me if I'm wrong (or slap me if I'm VERY WRONG), but wasn't Greek history full of inbreeding and incest and sex? Because if it is, these sex minigames are not immature (ok, they may seem immature as you just see things on the side shaking), and just something that happens once in each game anyways.

And as for the trophy, IT'S JUST A TROPHY NAME!! Your parents see it and get mad? Too bad, it's an M-Rated game, so you shouldn't have bought it anyways. Your friends see it? Some people might chuckle at it, and others might call you immature but they'll still chuckle too anyways. I hear people saying "Bros before hoes" almost every week, and even hear it in movies, TV shows, and other media. It's just a small dumb thing people say and write once in a while. No biggies. Don't get why freaking Adam Sessler made this out to be such a huge thing :/

[Wedge19]

I'm hit and miss on this. On one hand, if this is your gripe, I think you have a lot more problems than just this game. On the other, it is kind of a step in the wrong direction as far as equal rights etc.

[porkChop]

The thing is, the God of War creators have always claimed that they do things in ways to respect the mythology, and that the games deal with these things, including violence, maturely.

To bash in a realistic looking female face isn't all that new for the franchise, God of War has always pushed the boundaries in terms of what is acceptable in games.

But to immediately-after throw the player a trophy called "Bros before Hos"... that really just undoes what the creators worked so hard to create over the course of this franchise. It reduced all that maturity and artistic value to some stupid joke. That trophy wouldn't be considered comical by anyone but a teenage boy. It isn't funny, and a lot of people expected better from SSM.

[TwoMinTy]

I don't think they intended the trophy to get much recognition from the player or the public. In every game, a trophy has been awarded for every major antagonist you defeat, this is no different. All they did was throw in some humor (funny or not) in with awarding the trophy. i think everybody is overcomplicating and overreacting... IMO

[porkChop]

Oh I agree, there should be a trophy after every boss battle. But the problem is the name itself. They could have come up with something that better fits the context of that boss battle, and isn't as offensive.

I like the idea of adding humor to the trophies, such as "Tell Me How You Really Feel", and "No Drake. You can't have these". But the humor shouldn't come at the expense of the artists integrity.

[Riderz1337]

People are overreacting. It's a trophy ffs you guys need to calm down. I'm sure if it said "Hoe's before Bro's" no one would be complaining -.-

[yazter]

I prefer men over women so that mantra is superfluous to me anyway.

[Jadedz]

Though it isn't targeted at ''your demographic.''

They should be asking ''women'' about this topic in general.

[MeatAbstract]

I suppose this is the 'hot' issue at the moment and we'll probably see several more of these articles before another issue pops up. So for now, every time I see an article relating to this trophy issue, I'm going to say the same thing;

It's not a big deal.

Much like at the end of Good Will Hunting 'It's not your fault' I'll keep saying this until you break down and weep in my arms. Because it's not a big deal. It's a silly joke.

People have complained the trophy isn't fitting to the God of War games but please play through the collection and see how many trophy's break the 4th wall and say little jokes that don't at all relate to the franchise. Let's not forget the trophy in GoW 3 for killing the Poseidon Princess "I Didn't Do It...But I Wish I Did" but no one blinked an eye at that. This is solely because some big reviewer mentioned it in review and some White Knight mouth-breathers decided to agree with what sounded like a plausible argument.

Once again people; it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal.

[Williamson]

Its just a trophy and did Sessler actually mark down gow ascension because of a trophy? If he did then just wow!

[Hicken]

See, the first thing i'd need people to explain is the misogyny in the saying "Bros before hoes." As I understand it- and I'm a man, so I think I have a pretty good grasp on this- the phrase has NO correlation to putting down women, but instead highlights that the bond between men comes before a bond any involved man has with a woman.

It's no more sexist than how breaking up with your girlfriend means you can no longer associate with any of her friends, and often her family. It's stupid, but it's not sexist.

And that's the problem: people don't understand what the phrase means, or do and don't care, because they want to make something out of nothing. This is, truly, a non-issue that has become a BIG issue because Sessler decided to pretend he was an idiot for a moment. Then, true to the internet, a bunch of people took his brief period of forgetting he had a brain and ran with it.

And here we are.

I'm sick of hearing about maturity and how games need to "grow up." The only thing keeping them at a level of immaturity is the mindset of those who still BELIEVE gaming is NOT mature. It's no more or less mature than any other entertainment medium out there; it's just treated as less.

The worst part? That people who are a part of it all- particularly the fans- frequently come to the aide of those who down the industry.

[TheOneEyedHound]

Why the hell is he shirtless, is he consider a model in the gaming world?

[wenaldy]

what a disturbing picture..

[KillrateOmega]

It's just a trophy title. Rewarded for stomping on a digital female face. There is nothing sexist about it. If you can't handle something as little as this, then maybe you shouldn't be playing this MATURE-rated game in the first place. This game that is part of a series with a tradition of sex mini-games -_-

Sometimes people can be just so...ugh! One little thing and all of sudden somebody has write an essay basically detailing just how butthurt they are and how the devs have betrayed both themselves and us. So much drama...

[SOULJER]

Why show that gay looking picture. Then proceed to talk about a misogynistic trophy. Serious.

[firelogic]

Sessler is a hypocrite. He gave God of War 3 a 5/5 and never mentioned the "I didn't do it, but I wish I did" trophy.

What is that trophy you ask? Well, it involved you dragging around a topless human female with her breasts bouncing all over the place and using her to prop open a gate. She eventually gets dragged into the gears and gets turned into ground beef. Then a trophy pops, "I didn't do it but I wish I did" which roughly translates into, "I didn't kill her but I wish I was the one that ripped her female human body into little bloody chunks."

So....not even a mention of that but he felt like he was "gut punched" when Bros before Hoes popped up on the screen? Get out of here.

I expressly asked Sessler why he was fine with that trophy and not this one on the Rev3 youtube channel and he never replied. But he did reply several times to people who agreed with his outcry. Go figure.