At Penny Arcade Report, Ben Kuchera reports on Cross Assault. A "fighting game" reality show sponsored by Capcom, creator of the classic Street Fighter game series, it was a disaster of sexual harassment, casual racism and adolescent nastiness.
Aris Bakhtanians, the coach of the Tekken team … stated that sexual harassment and the fighting game community are “one and the same thing.”
“The sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community… it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude. These things have been established for years,” Aris stated. He then noted that … it’s unfair for anyone to tell fighting game fans they can’t viciously mock women.
“That’s what you’re trying to do to the fighting game community and it’s not right,” Aris continued. “It’s ethically wrong.” This may be the first time in the history of video games that someone had said that removing sexual harassment is ethically unjust.
The Street Fighter series is a world tour of crude national and ethnic stereotypes to beat up—what exactly do we expect? The really insane thing is Capcom's cluelessness trying to sell the ass end of gaming culture as television.
Sexual harassment as ethical imperative: how Capcom’s fighting game reality show turned ugly [Penny Arcade Report]
