We've had a few discussions go on prior to releasing this, including a major one in the administrative forums on this website. As I indicated, we knew there'd be at least some controversy over this because we know it's a controversial image. In other words, we expect some people to disagree w/ us posting it. With that said, let me jump into some of the rationale as to why the decision was made.
Gender Disparity & Sexuality Issue
There are a few things that are important to cover here. First and foremost, this image may be offensive to some because the women appear as secondary characters to the men. Second, it may be offensive to some because the women are less clothed. To be clear, I respect both of these criticisms and consider them fair.
The perspective we've taken is:
- The artist respected our position that we would not allow sexually provocative poses or nudity of any sort in the image. While the females may be wearing less than they ought to, they were clearly not designed explicitly with prurient interest, and are each engaged in an action in step with the game world.
- Without dismissing what some may find offensive about the image, it is also worth noting that the male in this image is also the only character that is a tank. The other two represent DPS and Healing characters. For this reason, it is not entirely fair to infer that they have less armor simply because of gender.
While there's nothing that can be said to ease concerns of those who are concerned about this -- and while I would disagree with people who think you don't have a right to be concerned about this -- I will illustrate that this is well within the standards of what World of Warcraft already offers.
Blizzard Fan Art Program
In the Blizzard Fan Art program, the very first image (as of me posting this) is significantly more provocative than the background image here. This is true throughout much of their posted artwork.
Warrior's Embrace - Item - World of Warcraft
As seen above, there are many examples in the game where armor is modeled entirely differently for males and females. The above is the most commonly cited version, where a full chestpiece becomes a Xena breastplate.
http://static.wowhead.com/uploads/sc...rmal/72322.jpg
Though we've concealed the thigh shots from our own background, it's clear that artwork like this has been created in Warcraft and you've likely seen people running around in it yourselves.
This does not remove your right to be concerned about it, we did make the decision based on the knowledge that nearly everyone who visits this website is playing a game where they've voluntarily accepted worse.
Workplace Computers
We know a lot of our users visit the website from work or other public places. Much of our traffic is a result of people who can't access WoW and want to learn more about it in their down time. The flip side of this is new workplaces filter our site every week.
We would like to offer a different background for our visitors to choose from. Unfortunately, our forum templates are set up in such a way that styles cannot be readily switched for our visitors.
The reason we don't consider this as major is because we've placed a 20% safe margin around the page in which there is nothing identifiable other than two faces in the image. This means that running a browser at 1280x resolution will not show anything inappropriate for a workplace. While it's never enjoyable to turn around and say, 'user, you can solve this on your own,' this is a case where it's within reason to expect our users to be able to not have a fullscreen browser if they're concerned about coworkers. After all, if you're not comfortable being seen on a videogame website in the first place, aren't you better off concealing it a bit anyway?
Night Elf Removal
I am very likely to remove the Night Elf in the near future. This is because I absolutely cannot find good placement for her that does not also put her body directly in the background (where she's mostly not seen anyway). As in the linked wallpaper, the two elves were originally on either side of the orc, but for the website it makes the most sense to put the orc in a very dominant position since he also represents the tank.
Understand that this removes the Alliance entirely when an image with only two characters realistically should have a balance between the factions. I may switch it and remove the Blood Elf in favor of the Hunter if this feels too awkward.
Closing
This is a significant investment of time and money. The decision to make this was not based on our demographics; however, based on our demographics, the great majority of our visitors should appreciate the background artwork. For these reasons, please understand that we will continue to do what we can to strike a healthy balance between people who love the image and people who take issue with it. We've already made adjustments to positioning and are likely to make more. With that said, we have no plans to remove the artwork.
Encounter in Northrend -- New TankSpot Artwork!
Thanks for keeping the website fresh.
