Overwatch, the multiplayer shooter that is looking like the next big hit for Blizzard, suffered from a bit of controversy earlier in the year. Some gamers claimed that some of the title's female characters, most notably Tracer with a winning pose that accentuated her backside, were overly sexualized.
As probably expected by some, Overwatch slowly made its way into porn, hatching a new genre of erotic content focused on the game's characters. Blizzard, however, is not having any of it.
Redditor spornm posted on the online forum an image of a message that he had received from porn website Pornhub regarding a video that he uploaded featuring Overwatch's Tracer and Widowmaker and Mass Effect's Liara.
The message states that the video has been removed due to the material being an infringement of copyright.
"It's the same as Blizzard taking down that tracer art work you drew in class. Its them pick and choosing which content they want people to see," spornm wrote on his Reddit post, calling for Blizzard to allow the content to be distributed and for the company to stop policing the Internet.
Spornm is not the only uploader of Overwatch porn that has been served the takedown notice, as several other creators also received similar messages. The claims are coming from a company named Irdeto, which is speculated to be hired by Blizzard to scour through the Internet for Overwatch porn and have them removed.
While Blizzard has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the matter, the main issue is probably the fact that the Overwatch porn is being created through Valve's Source Filmmaker kit. As such, the creators of the content are essentially stealing Overwatch character models to create the porn scenes, which when taken as is could make good grounds for Blizzard to hand out copyright infringement claims.
While porn for Overwatch could be considered free marketing, it is unlikely the kind of activity that Blizzard wants its new gem to be associated with, especially as the game has just recently launched.
