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Crystal Dynamics

The Mary Sue Exclusive

When Professionals Aren’t: The PAX East Tomb Raider Cosplay Harassment Story

by Jill Pantozzi | 12:31 pm, March 28th, 2013

Convention harassment is just an off-shoot of regular, old harassment but seeing it invade your “safe space” can be tough to stomach. And some people have had enough. At PAX East this past weekend, a journalist (I use that term loosely) decided to interview a group of Lara Croft  cosplayers at the new Tomb Raider video game booth. What followed was not a professional interview of fans but rather a chance to treat women in costume not as people, but as sex objects. The Mary Sue spoke with one of the cosplayers involved as well as PAX management about the situation – a situation we’re hearing about far too often these days. 

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Essay

Ask Me Again In 2013: Thoughts on Tomb Raider and the Woman Writing It

by Becky Chambers | 12:27 pm, July 17th, 2012

If you get me talking about my early gaming years, you will learn very quickly that I love Tomb Raider. The original game was a favorite of mine back in middle school, and I was over the moon when the reboot was announced in 2010. When the rape scene controversy hit, several friends and acquaintances asked me for my two cents. I gave them all the following answer:

I don’t know. I haven’t played the game yet.

The controversy has had its back and forth between press, bloggers, and developer Crystal Dynamics, and one part of that back and forth was the reveal of Rhianna Pratchett as the game’s head writer, which many seem to interpret as either a panacea absolving the game of any poorly presented gender issues, or that her appointment as head writer was obviously primarily so it could be interpreted as a panacea absolving the game of poorly presented gender issues. I’m not fond of either of these reactions.

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