Without a hubbub because a stated earlier, men are buying the games and the games are made for men. Why would a man raise a stink about a hot female character if it doesn't bother him and generally appeals to him? Do you complain that romantic novels cater almost exclusively to women? I don't... I just read something else because I'm reasonable and understand that genre isn't catering to me and never will because most men just aren't into that stuff.
(Not attacking you, just using it as a point to start from).
Romance novels are a genre, not a medium.
Not liking Romance novels doesn't mean you can't ever read a book again, it just means you might have to focus on something other than romance to get your kicks.
Games is a medium, not a genre.
If an entire
medium is male focused there's not exactly somewhere wider for them to go. That's why it needs a little adjusting to be more accepting.
because majority of its audience are male. Yes, there are more female gamers than ever but still alot more male gamers.
Same thing as why there are so many sexualize YA novels cater to ladies only but not to men. Because the audience for that medium is primarily females.
No. Just No.
YA is a demographic, and not all YA novels are for ladies.
If you can't find YA books for guys you're not fucking looking.
For every Gallagher Girls there's an Alex Rider.
For every Nightworld there's a Heroes of Olympus.
For every Twilight there's a... okay, there
might be a shortcoming when it comes to male aimed romantic vampire fiction. If you're prepared to branch into manga though there's Rosario+Vampire and a ton of monstergirl harem books which I'd say hit a similar note.
There are female focused books, and male focused books, and books that work for both. If the book you're looking at currently isn't for you, there will be other books.
If the
genre you're looking at currently isn't for you, there are other genres out there.
If the entire medium is alienating a wider audience though, it has serious problems.
Sex (with respect to straight women) sells to them too. In other industries you have items advertised with beautiful women (woman want to be her) so why wouldn't that work with games either?
I only have a couple of anecdotes of women who were interested in playing the attractive female character, but I'm sure it's not some super rare thing.
In the same way male protagonists aren't neckbeards, attractive female characters aren't just beneficial for male gamers.
As for this being an issue, I'd rather devs focus more on representing attractiveness in more forms rather than deliberately making unattractive characters. I mean, that would be bad for business anyway.
Attractiveness and "Sex" don't have to be the same though.
A character can be attractive (
and sexy) without the game having to shout
LOOKHOWSEXYTHEYARELOOKATTHEM!!! at you. That ideal doesn't have to be shoved to the forefront.
Let me borrow RM8's nurses for a moment.
I'll illustrate my point of view with nurses. Seems like the obvious thing to do!
In gaming culture, this is puritanical:
And this is perfectly okay, normal, and an acceptable default:
These nurses are
both attractive.
They're both attractive, and both sexy, but they give off completely different vibes.
Nurse 1 is a nurse first. She looks professional and smart.
Nurse 2 is sexy first. She looks sexy, and she wants people to think sexy things about her.
A lot of Female Characters in gaming have an awful lot of Nurse 2 in them, where the sexy part is focused on before the female character part.
Gaming could use a bit more Nurse 1, where the character is focused on before the sexy.
I like playing as female characters. I do.
But if the game does not treat the women in their games with some measure of respect then
I don't want to play as them because if the game does not respect it's characters then it doesn't understand or respect my desire to play them.
Characters look better to me when the camera stops leering over them.
Take a look at Aloy.
She's able to be attractive and strong and have a bum without having all that undermined by the camera oggling it going "oooh, take a look at thiiiiiiiiis"
Because technically the camera doing that wouldn't actually change her character, but it would absolutely change my perception of her as a character. And I prefer the version where the camera isn't a dick.
Maybe guys don't notice it as much, but leering cameras are really,
really offputting to me.
Quiet's interaction with the camera is
just as problematic as her attire.
Changing her clothing wouldn't change the fact the camera needs to fuck off.
I mean, her actions are problematic too, I guess.
But seriously.
The camera sucks.
("Jokey" Male versions subbed in because I wasn't
entirely sure about the SFW-ness of the originals).
The terrible camera doesn't excuse the fact the clothing is terrible as well though.
If male characters looked like this then people would think it's kind of weird and out of place.
But if a female character looks like this then somehow it's fine and not all that abnormal.
I mean, if nothing else it looks
silly.
Is Aloy less interesting because she isn't presented like this?
I don't think so, and I'd certainly hope that isn't a common opinion.
Surely this can't actually be needed to make games sell when you could have perfectly reasonably presented attractive (or unattractive!) characters instead that are able to be
more interesting because you can actually take them seriously.