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Aquamarine · Nov 23, 2013

Pistolero said:
How about those big, cut and sometimes shirtless male protagonists? Nobody seems to take offense at them being objectified...

You can't apply the same line of thinking to both genders. Women have endured centuries of objectification. Men have always been the ones in the position of power and privilege.

There's a difference.

antitrop said:
There isn't a good answer, it's gotcha journalism. RPS usually does good work, but this is some Kotaku level shit.

Pretty much. The point feels like a generic "Aha! You've done something wrong!" moment without any constructiveness behind it.

I feel that's mostly due to the situation. It's just poorly timed.

The Technomancer · Nov 23, 2013

24FrameDaVinci said:
I have never heard such fucking drivel in all my days. Empowerment? If you're deriving self-empowerment from a fucking MOBA, all I can say is you're missing out on some wonderful other things in life.

People do often feel empowered by depictions of characters in media.

Goby · Nov 23, 2013

Oh no! The patriarchy is behind this all!

Brave heroes are RPS. They fight for all those women who are literally enslaved by Blizzard.

A female showing skin? Impossible! Women never show skin in real life!

Guys it's media.

And here is a spoiler for you all.

Guys want to look at skimpy girls and girls want to look at hot guys.

Gays want the same thing as well just switched.

aeolist · Nov 23, 2013

mobas generally have really shitty exploitative female character design, even compared to the rest of the industy, and valve isn't perfect with dota 2 either

it's something a game designer in this space should be thinking about

Gbraga · Nov 23, 2013

Gannd said:
There have been studies that show that women are not excited the same way the men are. Men and women are different. I don't think that if we hyper sexualize men the same way women are that we're going to get more girls playing games. Men and women tend not to be turned on the same way.

Oh I'm not talking about getting girls to play games at all, the same way that despite being like GOT DAYUM looking at some LoL boobs I still have no interest in playing it.

It's just that although the argument is fair, a lot of the times it seems like people don't necessarily want equality, but lack of sexualization, which shouldn't be an issue if it wasn't offensively one sided (males are fucking awesome dudebros with so much muscle that only gym addicts would be impressed, not any woman but women are pretty and sexy).

I agree with the person before me that said it's a lot more common in japanese games to just find attractive people in general. The FFXV cast is full of good looking gentlemen and I love that. Enough brutes >_>

Riposte · Nov 23, 2013

aeolist said:
mobas generally have really shitty exploitative female character design, even compared to the rest of the industy, and valve isn't perfect with dota 2 either

it's something a game designer in this space should be thinking about

What if they thought about it and concluded "Nah"?

HK-47 · Nov 23, 2013

Gbraga said:
Also, I've said this before, but I really wish some of the equality would be given with more male sexualization, instead of just making everyone wear "realistic clothes".

Not gonna lie, some fanarts and artworks got me interested in LoL's female characters, but I'd love if we had some sexy motherfuckers as well.

Eyecandy for everyone.

I'm pretty sure LoL has that but they all combine it with male power fantasy archetypes so they dont alienate either gender. Most lol characters are sexy female with huge boobs, good looking badass males or cute midgets with a few monstorous characters sprinkled in.

Gannd · Nov 23, 2013

hardcastlemccormick said:
Games are not a single collective, with one single political opinion. Neither are developers, but somehow their output manages to stay uniform.

Which tells me that in the abstract, gamers tend to have specific tastes and desires that is backed up by market research and sales data.

UrbanRats · Nov 23, 2013

antitrop said:
This is seriously what he brought up as the prime example of female objectification in Heroes?

Fuck RPS, I'm ready to take back everything good I've ever said about them.

I don't have a problem with them asking that kind of question at all, the Game director should be able to justify their design choices, even if only with "we like our design and are confident in it".

However that costume seems very tame to me, i actually kind like it, even.
The chest-plate is the only thing i'd change, maybe.
--

Also, stop saying "comics" to mean Superhero comics, thank you.

aeolist · Nov 23, 2013

Riposte said:
What if they thought about it and concluded "Nah."

i have no idea what you're getting at here

The Technomancer · Nov 23, 2013

This thread is like semiotics and media 101. Seriously. Entertainment media always carries an intrinsic message whether deliberately or not. The way things are presented matters.

element · Nov 23, 2013

Uggg. I hate these crusades that RPS goes on.

hardcastlemccormick · Nov 23, 2013

Gannd said:
No. The objectification of women happens a lot more in video games. Core video games are consumed primarily by (young) men. If I'm trying to sell my product to a group of (young) men, why would I objectify them when most of them are interested in women? Men are objectified in media/products that target women. They are not objectified the same way because what gets goose going isn't the same as what gets the gander hot and bothered.

Citation needed on the bolded.

If I had to choose between getting sexually excited over the ridiculous, immature oversexualized characters in video games (which I can assure you never happens), versus having more females in the gaming community, feeling more comfortable and wanting to play video games instead of feeling alienated in a "boys only" club, I'll take the women.

Gannd said:
Which tells me that in the abstract, gamers tend to have specific tastes and desires that is backed up by market research and sales data.

Because the way to expand your market is to keep on attacking the same demographic. Why try to get the other half of the population to want to play video games? Who cares about women, they don't matter.

Saintguine · Nov 23, 2013

domlolz said:
that's a big leap but yeah it may be a contributing factor to violence in society same with films and a lot of our popular media, its not about seeing the difference between fantasy and reality.

No more bigger leap than sexism in videogames and real-life sexism. In fact, violence in videogames often nets you rewards such as killstreaks in Call of Duty, creative kills in Bulletstorm, money rewards in Counter-Strike for killing and so on, so there's a stronger connection than sexism in videogames causing real life sexism.

Last time I've heard, there's no UAVs for beating a woman into submission.

Gestahl · Nov 23, 2013

Pistolero said:
What the fuck? What the hell are you talking about? I'm talking about the objectification, in media in general, of both sexes, with one being somehow unacceptable by a pseudo-professionally offended group and the other not even hinted at...and your answer is bringing centuries old gender inequalities to the discussion?

It's almost as if a lot of the objectification of women in videogames and modern media has its roots in decades and centuries of stereotypes and prejudices against half the world population whereas a man with his shirt off...has none of those lingering feelings of resentment??? Woah

Gannd · Nov 23, 2013

Gbraga said:
Oh I'm not talking about getting girls to play games at all, the same way that despite being like GOT DAYUM looking at some LoL boobs I still have no interest in playing it.

It's just that although the argument is fair, a lot of the times it seems like people don't necessarily want equality, but lack of sexualization, which shouldn't be an issue if it wasn't offensively one sided (males are fucking awesome dudebros with so much muscle that only gym addicts would be impressed, not any woman but women are pretty and sexy).

I agree with the person before me that said it's a lot more common in japanese games to just find attractive people in general. The FFXV cast is full of good looking gentlemen and I love that. Enough brutes >_>

I think that when it comes to attraction, especially what women are attracted to, they tend to have more varied tastes than what (in the abstract) men are attracted to. My wife, would not find any of the JRPG/Japanese male designed characters attractive. She isn't attractive to that. She is attracted to Nathan Drake on the other hand.

HK-47 · Nov 23, 2013

kiunchbb said:
"Attention horny males, we have sexy female in this game"

I don't see what's wrong with that, if sexualizing their characters will bring more income for the company, why should they throw money in the drain? As long as it is legal and bring in money, people will do it, and continue to do so.

The fault lies with the buyers, not developer.

People should just propose a law to ban sexualization of both male and female in all medium, game developers do not deserve this special treatment.

Game devs arent getting special treatment. Youll see the same complaints in hollywood or fashion or whatever. You are on a game forum though so every mention of it gets thrown on Gaming.

Jinko · Nov 23, 2013

Lets tip this on the head and ask why nobody has a problem with roided up meat heads when it comes to male characters.

This is just silly.

Haunted · Nov 23, 2013

usea said:
I think this is fair position (although I think "pulp" gives them far too much credit), and his answer kind of went in that direction. I wish they'd sit down and have that conversation. I don't believe Blizzard would be as open about it as you're implying they are.

I'm glad somebody is at least making some noise about the problem though. I definitely don't have a problem with Blizzard's style existing, but I don't think it's because of a tongue-in-cheek angle or something. It's pandering plain and simple.

Well, yeah. They do what they think is cool, and they get this great ~~circlejerk~~ feedback at Blizzcon each year, with people cheering and hollering when they show an Elite Tauren Chieftain Hearthstone card with those shitty generic rock samples, and I just think it's the most cringeworthy maybe-it-was-cool-in-the-90's thing possible.

Agreed on your second paragraph.

kanuuna · Nov 23, 2013

KorrZ said:
I wish developers could just design their characters how they want too without people throwing out stupid questions like this. This story should be over and done with at "We're making characters that we think look cool".

.

Riposte · Nov 23, 2013

aeolist said:
i have no idea what you're getting at here

I don't believe you want designers to "think about it", I think you want them to do it.

HK-47 · Nov 23, 2013

UrbanRats said:
I don't have a problem with them asking that kind of question at all, the Game director should be able to justify their design choices, even if only with "we like our design and are confident in it".

However that costume seems very tame to me, i actually kind like it, even.
The chest-plate is the only thing i'd change, maybe.
--

Also, stop saying "comics" to mean Superhero comics, thank you.

Thats what comics are to most people. Especially in America.

drproton · Nov 23, 2013

The Technomancer said:
This thread is like semiotics and media 101. Seriously. Entertainment media always carries an intrinsic message whether deliberately or not. The way things are presented matters.

But does every message deserve to be criticized just because it doesn't necessarily conform to some people's worldviews?

I don't think the value of art depends on the politics that it supports or a lackthereof.

hardcastlemccormick · Nov 23, 2013

Jinko said:
Lets tip this on the head and ask why nobody has a problem with roided up meat heads when it comes to male characters.

This is just silly.

People have plenty of problems with those characters too. They're often derided and made fun of. Constantly.

SargerusBR · Nov 23, 2013

RPS trying to get attention? Shocking news.

VXLbeast · Nov 23, 2013

kiunchbb said:
"Attention horny males, we have sexy female in this game"

I don't see what's wrong with that, if sexualizing their characters will bring more income for the company, why should they throw money in the drain? As long as it is legal and bring in money, people will do it, and continue to do so.

The fault lies with the buyers, not developer.

People should just propose a law to ban sexualization of both male and female in all medium, game developers do not deserve this special treatment.

A company's highest moral imperative is to make money for it's share holders. You are absolutely right, a safe way to appeal to their target audience is through innate human urges. Of course, today male sexual drive is seen as somehow gross or immoral.

The Technomancer · Nov 23, 2013

KorrZ said:
I wish developers could just design their characters how they want too without people throwing out stupid questions like this. This story should be over and done with at "We're making characters that we think look cool".

Which would be awesome except it seems like 90% of the industry is interested in making characters of extremely similar designs. Homogeneity is only "fine" if your the group that its all aimed at.

Saintguine · Nov 23, 2013

Imperfected said:
Not quite the right comparison.

The proper rejoinder here would be, "Just like Call of Duty sends messages to me that brave, heroic individuals are almost always gruff Caucasian men who casually swear?"

Disclaimer: Not saying this is the case or not, just that a proper tit-for-tat in this instance would be about the messaging created (intentionally or not) by choices in character design, rather than some largely-unrelated side argument about whether or not video games influence behavior.

Nope, the message I get from Call of Duty that I'm a hero for killing men (and women if we're counting Ghosts) who probably had loved ones and I'm actively rewarded for doing so. That's far more disturbing and chilling to me than any skimpy outfits.

UrbanRats · Nov 23, 2013

HK-47 said:
Thats what comics are to most people. Especially in America.

It's still bullshit.
Also i wouldn't know about "most people".

Delusibeta · Nov 23, 2013

Incidentally, there was a follow-up article. One thousand and two hundred-ish words of pure games_journalism.txt.

HK-47 · Nov 23, 2013

Jinko said:
Lets tip this on the head and ask why nobody has a problem with roided up meat heads when it comes to male characters.

This is just silly.

Dudebros, space marines and white middle age brown haired protagonists all get regularly derided here. Seems a silly thing to complain about.

Its also the difference between a sexual and power fantasy.

antitrop · Nov 23, 2013

Saintguine said:
Nope, the message I get from Call of Duty that I'm a hero for killing men (and women if we're counting Ghosts) who probably had loved ones and I'm actively rewarded for doing so. That's far more disturbing and chilling to me than any skimpy outfits.

You would probably like Spec Ops: The Line, if you haven't played it already.

Pimpwerx · Nov 23, 2013

The target audience probably has no problem with it. I don't see a problem. Then again, I like manga and anime, so this sort of thing is my bag. PEACE.

ShinMaruku · Nov 23, 2013

While I can understand what they are trying to do I feel they are going too far. When is Blizzard EVER the company to be pushing out massages like that. It's just entertainment. This is just looking for something not even on the development team's mind.

Jinko · Nov 23, 2013

hardcastlemccormick said:
People have plenty of problems with those characters too. They're often derided and made fun of. Constantly.

For completely different reason though .. right ?

Gannd · Nov 23, 2013

hardcastlemccormick said:
Citation needed on the bolded.

If I had to choose between getting sexually excited over the ridiculous, immature oversexualized characters in video games (which I can assure you never happens), versus having more females in the gaming community, feeling more comfortable and wanting to play video games instead of feeling alienated in a "boys only" club, I'll take the women.

Because the way to expand your market is to keep on attacking the same demographic. Why try to get the other half of the population to want to play video games? Who cares about women, they don't matter.

If we look at the ESA studies they show roughly 45% of the gaming audience being female but they include all sorts of games not just core games. As soon as you take a step into the core gamer world the ESA study completely falls apart.

Here is a link: http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/19/gender-inequality/

Michael Pachter, the omnipresent video game industry analyst from Wedbush Securities, offered more specific ideas. People who play console games and buy dedicated consoles are core gamers. People who play them excessively are hardcore gamers, he said. Core is probably average age 30 and 60-40 male. Hardcore is average age 25, and 85-15 male.

Now. I am on the outside because I don't think there is this large audience of females just wanting to play games but are being kept out by the boys club. I think if we made every change that you ever would want, we still would not see a huge uptick in the core/hardcore audience breakdowns. I think that men and women (in the abstract) are different and have different hobbies and tastes. If there was this pent up demand that existed but isn't being severed, some entrepreneur would come out and produce content and clean up. The fact that that hasn't happened tends to make me think the market isn't there.

partyphone · Nov 23, 2013

Delusibeta said:
Incidentally, there was a follow-up article. One thousand and two hundred-ish words of pure games_journalism.txt.

How so?

partyphone · Nov 23, 2013

Pimpwerx said:
The target audience probably has no problem with it. I don't see a problem. Then again, I like manga and anime, so this sort of thing is my bag. PEACE.

Who's the target audience if not everyone? Are you saying Blizzard is targeting gross sexists?

FACE · Nov 23, 2013

antitrop said:
What a waste of Dustin Browder's time.

If you think that's bad, have a look at this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/02/cdp-on-cyberpunks-trailer-social-commentary-in-games/

outunderthestars · Nov 23, 2013

Not sure how a video game journalist actually asking legitimate questions qualifies as an ambushing.

XANDER CAGE · Nov 23, 2013

Jinko said:
For completely different reason though .. right ?

People pull the "b-but I'm objectified too!" argument all the time. Thing is, they tend to blame feminism et. al for ignoring the problem, even though feminists typically don't like the "men have to be big stoic strong meaty masculine kings all the time" societal pressures either.

VXLbeast · Nov 23, 2013

Jinko said:
Lets tip this on the head and ask why nobody has a problem with roided up meat heads when it comes to male characters.

This is just silly.

Because apparently as a male I like that, and so it doesn't count. You have to throw out a lot and make up even more for these arguments to work.

But bless your soul if you try to point that out.

Pie and Beans · Nov 23, 2013

I see that now any male game designer is going to have to meet RPS 'personalities' accompanied by a female staff member to ask "do you honestly like this artwork? oh you do?" and then witness the uncomfortable "you don't know what you like! empowerment!!" fractal of an argument that seeps out the cracks.

This year has just been endless dreary dog with a bone shit that does more harm than good.

Pistolero · Nov 23, 2013

You can't apply the same line of thinking to both genders. Women have endured centuries of objectification. Men have always been the ones in the position of power and privilege.

Not only is your premise simplistic (because anyone having read and explored a bit of History would know that it has never been strictly about men versus women, but it always centered around a tiny group of men -and women sometimes,believe it- opressing the majority of people, regardless of their gender), but even if it were true -which I don't necessarily accept, at least not without reserves- it wouldn't matter one iota in judging the situation today.
It would be like giving a guy from a certain ethnicity today a free pass for doing or saying things that would otherwise be totally unacceptable, simply because the group he belongs to was, in the past, the victim of abuse and prejudice.

Saintguine · Nov 23, 2013

antitrop said:
You would probably like Spec Ops: The Line, if you haven't played it already.

Yeah, I played it and for all it's flaws I especially loved how they really took the story and characterization in that game to new places and deconstructed the macho-military fantasy.

Really makes a difference when the targets you're exterminating panic and such in English rather than the typical safe foreign language that provides a nice guilt free safety barrier for the audience.

Delusibeta · Nov 23, 2013

partyphone said:
How so?

He seems to think there's a correlation between the character designs and the toxicity of the community, for start, when in reality it's the game mechanics and the fact that one bad player can sink the entire team in most of the MOBAs out there. He's also visibly mad that what he sees as a Vitally Important Issue!!!! was casually swatted away. Also, seems to think that Standard Internet Responses can be changed.

drproton · Nov 23, 2013

partyphone said:
Who's the target audience if not everyone? Are you saying Blizzard is targeting gross sexists?

You don't have to be sexist to not be offended by sexualized video game characters.

Just an anecdote here, but every time I've played tabletop RPGs with women, they create sexy characters. Why? Because being sexually attractive is also a power fantasy for them. Give women a character creator and most of the time they make a female character she'll be attractive too.

Road of Ease · Nov 23, 2013

Delusibeta said:
Incidentally, there was a follow-up article. One thousand and two hundred-ish words of pure games_journalism.txt.

I really liked this article. Especially this bit:

Countless others have cut down the “It’s just a game” argument (or variants like Browder’s “We’re not sending a message to anybody. We’re just making characters who look cool&#8221, but – even as games become more and more culturally powerful – it keeps rearing its ugly tangle of hydra-like heads.

So, briefly, let’s break this down: most of us would say games are art, yes? Or, if not whatever your entirely arbitrary definition of art is, then important. Significant. Better in some ways than TV, film, or literature. Gaming has hit the big time. Gaming is legitimate. But it’s like the most quoted dead uncle in human history once said (shortly before dying, as he was wont to do): with great power comes great responsibility.

Maybe hypocrisy is a strong word, but this is something that has been bothering me for a long time. How games are obviously art, but when something negative appears, the same people come out and say "it's just a game!".

Gannd · Nov 23, 2013

hardcastlemccormick said:
Because the way to expand your market is to keep on attacking the same demographic. Why try to get the other half of the population to want to play video games? Who cares about women, they don't matter.

Yes. Because, I obviously do not think women matter. You got me! You are wasting your talents here. There are unsolved crimes just waiting for you to attack with your superior powers of deduction! Go forth, hero! Save us!

If you think there is this expanded audience just waiting to be served then the right thing to do is invest in a product that serves that audience and find out. Companies like Take2, EA, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, and any other major publisher spend a whole lot of money on market and demographic research. Why waste millions of dollars (which is what a core games cost to make) on a wish?

Nintendo has done more to expand the audience through the DS and the Wii and which of their games had the largest female audience? It wasn't Metroid.

The Technomancer · Nov 23, 2013

Pie and Beans said:
I see that now any male game designer is going to have to meet RPS 'personalities' accompanied by a female staff member to ask "do you honestly like this artwork? oh you do?" and then witness the uncomfortable "you don't know what you like! empowerment!!" fractal of an argument that seeps out the cracks.

This year has just been endless dreary dog with a bone shit that does more harm than good.

Blizzard is free to do whatever they like. RPS is free to say whatever they like and ask whatever questions they want. That's how criticism works

Every other artistic medium has come to terms with this.

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