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If fighting games want to be mainstream esports, they need less fanservice

So sexualized and full of fanservice....

That's a silly argument to say that normal sports overtly sexualize women to any degree or extent that video games in general do. The women in beach volleyball choose what they wear, and their attire has a functional purpose. The models in fighting games do not. What they wear is chosen for them by the designer. Show me a female who battles on the front lines in a war or fights wearing clothes like Cammy or Laura. Even female UFC fighters wear clothing that is functional.
The point is not what is functional or not or whether the designs are good or not. Female beach volleyball attire is almost all bikinis and broadcasts constantly zoom on their butts.

The idea that something like Cammy is too much for television in general is ridiculous.
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
I predict the more likely result is characters with only "fanservicey" costumes just to stick it to the ESPN.

You're dealing with guys like Ono and Harada here.
 

Gator86

Member
Control+f: censorship - no results found

Pretty surprising. I assumed hysterical GAF would have already jumped all over this.
 

Lyte Edge

All I got for the Vernal Equinox was this stupid tag
If no one cares about scantily clad ladies in WWE then why should we care about fictional game characters wearing skimpy outfits as well? FYI, WWE has plenty of children watching too.

WWE toned down the outfits that their female performers wore when they went 'PG'. They used to be a lot skimpier. TNA (Now Global Force Wrestling) kept it going though.
 

Number_6

Member
014Olympic2012Beachfront.jpg


So sexualized and full of fanservice....

That's a silly argument to say that normal sports overtly sexualize women to any degree or extent that video games in general do. The women in beach volleyball choose what they wear, and their attire has a functional purpose. The models in fighting games do not. What they wear is chosen for them by the designer. Show me a female who battles on the front lines in a war or fights wearing clothes like Cammy or Laura. Even female UFC fighters wear clothing that is functional.

Right, but you can see just as much underneath in some of these volleyball outfits as on Cammy's default.

So fix the camera, fix the poses, fix the direction, but I see little problem with her outfit itself. (As far as ESPN censorship goes, that is).
 

DrArchon

Member
I predict the more likely result is characters with only "fanservicey" costumes just to stick it to the ESPN.

You're dealing with guys like Ono and Harada here.

Tekken 7 seems to be a lot better than SFV in the fanservice department. I don't see anything as bad as Cammy's expertly modeled ass crack with copious zoom-ins in T7.
 

zoukka

Member
Right, but you can see just as much underneath in some of these volleyball outfits as on Cammy's default.

So fix the camera, fix the poses, fix the direction, but I see little problem with her outfit itself. (As far as ESPN censorship goes, that is).

That beach volley outfit is practical. The cammy outfit is pure nonsense.
 
Fighting games don't need to stop leaning so hard into fanservice because of esports.

They need to do it because fanservicey designs generally just suck. Netherrealm realized this with MKX and their female designs suddenly went from laughably bad to actually pretty damn decent. Capcom hasn't gotten the message yet apparently.
 

Zekes!

Member
Was Zangief hit with the censor too? Saw that Itabashi was rocking the alt, but I don't know if he had been using that skin prior.
 
ESPN is happy to look the other way when showcasing cheerleaders dressed scantily during basketball or football games. If they have an issue with titilating CG, perhaps they're not the best partner to broadcast esports.
 

KHlover

Banned
WWE toned down the outfits that their female performers wore when they went 'PG'. They used to be a lot skimpier. TNA (Now Global Force Wrestling) kept it going though.
They're still running around in what basically amounts to a bikini and boots.

Asuka_bio.png


Charlotte_bio.png


Eva_Marie_bio.png


Those are from the roster on the official site btw, that's what WWE is clearly comfortable with. Doesn't seem to be a problem for them, so I don't see where SFV etc have too much fanservice for esports.
 

CookTrain

Member
They're still running around in what basically amounts to a bikini and boots.Those are from the roster on the official site btw, that's what WWE is clearly comfortable with. Doesn't seem to be a problem for them, so I don't see where SFV etc have too much fanservice for esports.

I mean 90% of the men are running around in Speedos as well...
 

LakeEarth

Member
ESPN lucky that no Laura's made it to top 8. Her costumes start at inappropriate, and goes to ridiculous and gravity-defying.
 

zoukka

Member
I mean...it's a leotard. As if those don't have any practical purpose.

Are you saying it's a practical outfit and not fanservice? I don't even oppose fanservice in general, but this discussion about the leotard is disingenuous as fuck.
 

moeman

Member
ESPN is happy to look the other way when showcasing cheerleaders dressed scantily during basketball or football games. If they have an issue with titilating CG, perhaps they're not the best partner to broadcast esports.

Plenty of people take issue with cheerleading in sports as well. Aside from barely being paid to do their jobs, cheerleading serves little purpose and nowadays is an outdated sports relic that should be done away with. These aren't mutually exclusive topics and saying "but cheerleaders!" or "but beach volleyball!" still doesn't excuse esports from the same crime. They can all be criticized together.

Even with those issues, the cheerleaders are not the main players and the constant center of attention. The amount of screen time cheerleaders get in a football game or basketball game is less than two minutes total in a 2-3 hour broadcast.
 

Zekes!

Member
No, that's the main skin he always uses. Made me laugh whenever "ZANGIEF CENSORED" would show up in chat though.

Figured as much. Thought it be funny he had been too haha

Anyways, as much as I love Laura, she and some of the other girls need way better standard outfits. Laura's isn't even that hard to fix. Just give her a spandex undershirt or something.
 

Number_6

Member
Are you saying it's a practical outfit and not fanservice? I don't even oppose fanservice in general, but this discussion about the leotard is disingenuous as fuck.

Oh, she's definitely used for fanservice. I'm saying the outfit is fine, but the posing, the photography, the lingering on certain parts of her body, is less so.

I can totally see, besides fanservice, a reasoning for the outfit. Her body is her weapon, she needs to be both flexible and aerodynamic.
 
Another reason why Dragon Ball FighterZ is going to take over the fighting game esports community. The only woman that they could even conceivably make into a sexist caricature like the costumes in the OP would be Caulifa.
 

Lyte Edge

All I got for the Vernal Equinox was this stupid tag
014Olympic2012Beachfront.jpg


So sexualized and full of fanservice....

That's a silly argument to say that normal sports overtly sexualize women to any degree or extent that video games in general do. The women in beach volleyball choose what they wear, and their attire has a functional purpose. The models in fighting games do not. What they wear is chosen for them by the designer. Show me a female who battles on the front lines in a war or fights wearing clothes like Cammy or Laura. Even female UFC fighters wear clothing that is functional.

The point is that "scantily clad" women can be found on TV including on ESPN. As for the attire...it's fantasy. This is not real. The physiques on the females and males are often not "real." The fighting moves are not real. Everything is exaggerated- it's an interactive cartoon and it has the appropriate rating.
 

Platy

Member
Beach volley has the fact that the camera is always on the same place when showing a match

compare any non "focused on butt" super here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-ipxpQYE6M

With the actual ingame and you will see that even with the same clothing it looses a lot of the sexy appeal simply because it lost the male gaze

But what makes more sense : Making better costumes or boring camera ?
 

Sheentak

Member
Why not both Oh wait sf5 has costumes for both, not seeing this as a issue just play another costume and allow perv fans to enjoy what they paid for
 
I'll note in advance that I'd be perfectly fine getting rid of fanservice altogether. But in the spirit of compromise, I feel like this problem can be easily solved at the design level. As esports becomes more prolific and it becomes clear that your game might be exposed to bigger audiences that might want something more traditional or conservative, classify outfits in one of two categories: Everything mode and Family Friendly mode (or something more clever than that, I'm not really an ideas man). Basically, anticipate that this might air on network television or something similar at some point and have a toggle for it.

I honestly think toggles like this would just in general be beneficial and should be able to be handled at the client level for things like online so that if you're an adult who wants the sexy outfit playing against a kid whose parents would rather have a "cleaner" version for their kid to play, you'd see your sexy outfit and the kid would see an alt costume. This doesn't necessarily have to apply to just fanservice. Things like Mortal Kombat's violence and fatalities could also be handled this way.

I'm just spitballing here.
 

LordKasual

Banned
I don't get how people complain about Cammy when characters like Urien, Zangief, Ed, Alex, ect are in the game

She's ripped as hell and shows her body off, like every other character in the game in one costume or another
 

Lyte Edge

All I got for the Vernal Equinox was this stupid tag
They're still running around in what basically amounts to a bikini and boots.

Those are from the roster on the official site btw, that's what WWE is clearly comfortable with. Doesn't seem to be a problem for them, so I don't see where SFV etc have too much fanservice for esports.

I'm at work and I'm not about to go and look for old WWF images, but those outfits are pretty tame compared to what some of them used to wear and the cut of their trunks are often lower than what the guys wear, with some exceptions. Before the PG era, there used to be bra and panties matches, thongs, and lots of shorts crammed up butts.
 

Emarv

Member
A digression but I hate that "fanservice" essentially now means hypersexualized animated women and what that implies about the "fans" of the medium.
 

Lyte Edge

All I got for the Vernal Equinox was this stupid tag
I see a lot of people listing Mortal Kombat, but honestly Mortal Kombat X was already reigning it in a lot compared to Mortal Kombat 9.

It's funny to me how MKX toned down the T n' A compared to MK9, but upped the violence and gore considerably.

Was Mortal Kombat ever on ESPN? I can't imagine them allowing fatalities and such on TV either.
 
I see a lot of people listing Mortal Kombat, but honestly Mortal Kombat X was already reigning it in a lot compared to Mortal Kombat 9.

Yeah, if you look at MKX costumes compared to MK9 its a huge leap. Mileena's sort of a weird case though, they went from really weird fanservice outfits (Flesh Pit!) to trying to make her more attractive (I think).

I guess you could argue that they only gave her lips for that one scene
where Dvorah kisses her and kills her
.
 

DrArchon

Member
I'll note in advance that I'd be perfectly fine getting rid of fanservice altogether. But in the spirit of compromise, I feel like this problem can be easily solved at the design level. As esports becomes more prolific and it becomes clear that your game might be exposed to bigger audiences that might want something more traditional or conservative, classify outfits in one of two categories: Everything mode and Family Friendly mode (or something more clever than that, I'm not really an ideas man). Basically, anticipate that this might air on network television or something similar at some point and have a toggle for it.

I honestly think toggles like this would just in general be beneficial and should be able to be handled at the client level for things like online so that if you're an adult who wants the sexy outfit playing against a kid whose parents would rather have a "cleaner" version for their kid to play, you'd see your sexy outfit and the kid would see an alt costume. This doesn't necessarily have to apply to just fanservice. Things like Mortal Kombat's violence and fatalities could also be handled this way.

I'm just spitballing here.

Sounds like a fantastic idea. Only problem I see is people protesting it because they part of the appeal of buying costumes/doing fatatities is knowing that the opponent is also seeing them. I'm pretty sure that's 100% of the reason anyone cares about costumes in Overwatch.

If you can get past that though, having a switch in the options menu (or even better, a system level switch for all applicable games) would be nice.
 
I think the fact these are games and not real people freaks viewers out. The cheerleading comparison doesn't work because they are real people.

Designers are gonna have to lose the fan service shit for a place on TV and in general media.

Fanservice/relationships/romance etc in games is just creepy as shit in any circumstance. A wild idea on a hardcore games forum, I know.
 
So not even having costume alternatives is enough of a concession?

When people complain in threads about the semantics of "censorship" and deliberately having options taken away, they're talking about arguments like the OP.
 
So not even having costume alternatives is enough of a concession?

When people complain in threads about the semantics of "censorship" and deliberately having options taken away, they're talking about arguments like the OP.

I think the argument presented is just that if you give people the options, they're going to want to use them even if the stage includes being televised on a network like ESPN2. I would however concede that I think there are other ways one can handle this without simply removing the options. But there would still be some concerns. Like right now, we're just concerned with the live play of top 8, right? But if the Cammie outfit is deemed inappropriate and that's the only outfit I use, then you can't show any earlier footage of you playing in the tournament.

Is this even a problem? I don't know. *shrugs shoulders*
 
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