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[lightskintwin]

This episode examines the general lack of female representation among standard enemies as well as in the cooperative and competitive multiplayer options of many games, and the ways in which, when female enemies do exist, they are often sexualized and set apart by their gender from the male enemies who are presented as the norm. We then highlight a few examples of games that present female enemies as standard enemies who exist on more-or-less equal footing with their male counterparts.

Are Women Too Hard To Animate? Tropes vs Women in Video Games

More Tropes vs Women in Video Games from our favorite feminist.

 

[Geist-]

This is a subject I was waiting for.

 

[Rikudo]

Ah thanks Watching now.

 

[GhostTrick]

I can't even animate an inanimate carbon rod. So, answer is yes for me :")

Spoiler

Although, yeah, throwback to Ubi's statement, I guess this was a lame excuse.

 

[charsace]

Haven't watched it, but why would women be harder to animate than multi legged creatures which would have more to consider?

 

[Watevaman]

Not after valve added jiggle bones to the source engine.

 

[SirPinkyNose]

Not too hard. They just double the budget needed to animate the npcs.

Spoiler

And hitting a woman is considered a taboo in a big part of the world.

You have some hideous female bosses in your all time favorite game DmC tho.

 

[Mega Caprison]

for NetherRealm Studio it is

 

[Garrett Hawke]

Haven't watched it, but why would women be harder to animate than multi legged creatures which would have more to consider?

Ask Ubisoft 🌝

Watching now

 

[gafneo]

Smart channel. They block comments and like bars from psychopaths that get angry every time someone challenges their way of thinking.

 

[Htown]

fuckin' Kojima, lol

 

[Velkyn]

Just finished watching. Solid episode; this subject has bothered me for a while

 

[Htown]

Very good explanation of the difference between women who are involved in violence and gendered violence against women.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

Oh my god, she did it - 2:50

I'm so glad she addressed this, so many people try and spin female combatants as "triggering" or some shit in an effort to try and exclude them so it's awesome that she has just shut it down.

 

[Geist-]

Very good explanation of the difference between women who are involved in violence and gendered violence against women.

It's weird that so many people have a hard time grasping the concept.

Good video. Considering women make up half of the population on Earth, you'd think studios would be more interested giving them proper representation.

 

[Auctopus]

Pretty low hanging fruit for a title, no?

Everyone knows women are no harder to animate than men, Ubisoft were ridiculed when they used that excuse.

 

[wingedlegion]

Haven't watched it, but why would women be harder to animate than multi legged creatures which would have more to consider?

Females are no harder to animate than males, but often alien creatures or animals can be easier to animate as we have less frames of reference for them. Humans are harder to animate because it's much easier for us to identify when something is not quite right and slip into the uncanny valley.

The video doesn't mention that even if you don't have bespoke female animations, it doesn't prevent you from rigging a female character model to the same base animation set which would take no time at all - it's a bit lazy compared to adding new animations but it would provide the player with options which is better than nothing at all.

 

[Zukuu]

Haven't watched it, but why would women be harder to animate than multi legged creatures which would have more to consider?

It's about doing more work. You can copy and paste the same male model for all human-like enemies / characters in most games, which is sufficient enough (at least from a gameplay perspective). You have to create a female body on top of that, which means extra animation work. I think that is what they meant by that statement. It's mostly lazy bullshit tho.

However, the mere depiction of beating / killing and shooting women is to this day is still not accepted by a vast group of people and is still carefully handled even in media. So I can understand, why some devs rather choose not to bother with that, in particular in earlier times.

That's why we still have "catfights" in god damn EVERY MOVIE in existence. I actually cheered when the female antagonist in Guardians of the Galaxy popped up for the final confrontation and just got a rocketlauncher to the face, just because of how refreshing it was to not have a catfight between the female of the hero group and the female of the antagonist group... or so I thought. Of course she had to reemerge later and guess who fought her 1-on-1... urgh.
Seriously, this is by far my most hated trope. I'm SO sick of seeing it. It's so god damn predictable.

 

[MrCunningham]

for NetherRealm Studio it is

I don't think the animation is the problem for Neither Realms, it's the character models that they struggle with.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Pretty low hanging fruit for a title, no?

Everyone knows women are no harder to animate than men, Ubisoft were ridiculed when they used that excuse.

The title is further ridicule

 

[Crossing Eden]

Pretty low hanging fruit for a title, no?

Everyone knows women are no harder to animate than men, Ubisoft were ridiculed when they used that excuse.

This was actually never said by anyone at Ubisoft. Someone misconstrued what a dev said and created a hashtag that unfortunately caught on.

 

[Tokyo Rain]

 

[Velkyn]

This was actually never said by anyone at Ubisoft. Someone misconstrued what a dev said and created a hashtag that unfortunately caught on.

The fact still remains that they said they would have to do 8000 animations to include female assassins.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

Pretty low hanging fruit for a title, no?

Everyone knows women are no harder to animate than men, Ubisoft were ridiculed when they used that excuse.

Looking at Ubisoft's recent output, the "hard to animate" joke is outdated.

It should be replaced with Naughty Dog jokes as they apparently had trouble with PS3 memory when trying to have female combatants in The Last of Us. Looking at Uncharted 4, they must have trouble with PS4 memory too!

 

[Lyn]

The points she touches on are good, but I feel this video derailed pretty quickly. Only the first 2.5 minutes seem dedicated to animation talk and the inclusion of women in games, but then it go into violence against women in games and how they are represented.

She certainly makes good points, no argument there, but it seems like there is hardly any real talk about what all is involved when it comes to adding characters. She doesn't really touch on any of the technical aspects, or discuss just how easy/complicated it is to add women to a game. It would have been nice if she had dedicated more time to this and helped really explain what all is involved.

 

[Platy]

Cool episode, but I expected more, like showing that swapping the animation of male combatants is not wrong because women NEED to swing their hips or something.

Like those Laura/Nash or Necalli pallete swaps that are awesome

 

[Blues1990]

I'm always 50/50 with her analysis videos, but I'm enjoying what I'm watching so far. I wondered if she had commented on Overwatch's design philosophy?

 

[xealo]

They're not harder to animate, its just an excuse to do less animation work since sticking a male animation on a female character can look really odd.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

What does this mean?

Her points are invalid because you don't like how she looks? Or something else?

 

[Zukuu]

I'm always 50/50 with her analysis videos, but I'm enjoying what I'm watching so far. I wondered if she had commented on Overwatch's design philosophy?

Wasn't there a "women aren't allowed to age" article about Overwatch's female characters? I'm not sure if it was by her or by another site, tho. That said, with the inclusion of Ana, that statement is mostly not longer true - at least for Overwatch.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

You'll grow up one day. Hopefully.

 

[OniBarubary]

Oh my god, she did it - 2:50

I'm so glad she addressed this, so many people try and spin female combatants as "triggering" or some shit in an effort to try and exclude them so it's awesome that she has just shut it down.

As someone who likes that Anita is making these videos but often finds the content barebones or not fully explored sometimes, her hitting on this and explaining it PERFECTLY made me very happy.

 

[Orthogonal]

Pretty low hanging fruit for a title, no?

Everyone knows women are no harder to animate than men, Ubisoft were ridiculed when they used that excuse.

To be fair, didn't they actually say that it was because adding a female set of animations was additional work and requires resources they hadn't committed rather than it being hard?

Edit: beaten

 

[Crossing Eden]

The fact still remains that they said they would have to do 8000 animations to include female assassins.

They didn't say that either. What they specifically said is

A female character means that you have to redo a lot of animation, a lot of costumes. It would have doubled the work on those things… And I mean it’s something the team really wanted, but we had to make a decision. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a reality of game development

It's more of a budget and time issue, considering that naturally they'd want to divert just as much time and attention to both in an ideal scenario with the customization options Unity offered, however, this would make little sense considering that the player always sees themselves as Arno. Or they could've cheaped out and just female models on male animations, which....well looks incredibly awkward.

Spoiler

What really must have sucked is that the Syndicate devs at that point in time already had the twin mechanic decided and couldn't say anything about it due to NDAs

Speaking of this is a great video and I was mistaken, they did specify 8000 animations

 

[Mman235]

 

[Moff]

as usual, good points
what I especially like is that they have shown several positive examples in gaming, I didn't notice that a lot in earlier videos and I really think it helps to show the difference and get the point across

 

[Henkka]

Wasn't the reason for the AC Co-op debacle that everyone sees themselves as the main campaign protagonist? It's not a different mode where you get to choose a character. Everyone sees themselves as the protagonist, and you see your co-op buddies as random male assassins. To have a playable female option in that mode would have meant having a female option at the very beginning of the game, which would have meant doing all voicework and animations twice, especially for cutscenes.

 

[Kinokou]

There is certainly some laziness going on, don't know how animation related it is, but I find it very striking in Pokemon Go that the male shirts have actual different designs while the females is just recolors.

Will watch the actual video later.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

As someone who likes that Anita is making these videos but often finds the content barebones or not fully explored sometimes, her hitting on this and explaining it PERFECTLY made me very happy.

Same, I love the long form videos more because she is able to explore the concepts she's discussing in far more depth, but she really was really succinct and clear on that topic.

 

[chaobreaker]

Cool episode, but I expected more, like showing that swapping the animation of male combatants is not wrong because women NEED to swing their hips or something.

Like those Laura/Nash or Necalli pallete swaps that are awesome

She addressed hip swinging on her body language video.

As someone who likes that Anita is making these videos but often finds the content barebones or not fully explored sometimes, her hitting on this and explaining it PERFECTLY made me very happy.

She's has become very good at addressing the bullshit arguments used by her detractors.

 

[Blues1990]

Wasn't there a "women aren't allowed to age" article about Overwatch's female characters? I'm not sure if it was by her or by another site, tho. That said, with the inclusion of Ana, that statement is mostly not longer true - at least for Overwatch.

Maybe she might cover that in a future video? I'm happy that Ana is included in the game, but I can understand the complaint about some of the older female characters that don't exactly look their age.

 

[Crossing Eden]

The best thing she touched upon in the video is the fact that female enemies are usually dressed in pandering outfits. Some would say this makes them "unique," but that hurts their depictions and breaks immersion WAY more than "but female combatants don't exist" said by people who lets be honest don't know shit about actua mercenary groups of the military.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

The best thing she touched upon in the video is the fact that female enemies are usually dressed in pandering outfits. Some would say this makes them "unique," but that hurts their depictions and breaks immersion WAY more than "but female combatants don't exist" said by people who lets be honest don't know shit about actua mercenary groups of the military.

Syndicate was excellent for not doing this. The only thing I wish they would have done is included a big enemy type for the women, seeing as they had one for men. Although I think they might've had an exclusively female enemy type iirc (the snipers with the arm bands)

 

[UristMcDwarf]

Or they could've cheaped out and just female models on male animations, which....well looks incredibly awkward.

Spoiler

Am I wrong in saying that it doesn't look awkward to me? It looks like someone projecting power through stature, which a combatant would do regardless of gender, IMO

In any case, once again knocked it out of the park. I've always discussed issues like this with my younger brother.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

There is certainly some laziness going on, don't know how animation related it is, but I find it very striking in Pokemon Go that the male shirts have actual different designs while the females is just recolors.

Will watch the actual video later.

The male sweaters are practically all same. They just have different pockets.

 

[LordofPwn]

i prefer You-be-soft, not oo-be-soft.
I think saints row was a bad example for this video.

Everything else i liked.

 

[Henkka]

Am I wrong in saying that it doesn't look awkward to me? It looks like someone projecting power through stature, which a combatant would do regardless of gender, IMO

In any case, once again knocked it out of the park. I've always discussed issues like this with my younger brother.

I once saw someone demonstrate some motion capture synced to 3D characters in real-time. The demonstrator was male, and when they put his movements on a female avatar, it looked very strange. There's definitely small nuances in the way men and women walk that make them distinct, and I'm not talking about cartoonishly exaggerated hip sway. Maybe it could work in a cartoony game, but the AC games aim for realism.

 

[Ferr986]

They didn't say that either. What they specifically said is



It's more of a budget and time issue, considering that naturally they'd want to divert just as much time and attention to both in an ideal scenario with the customization options Unity offered, however, this would make little sense considering that the player always sees themselves as Arno. Or they could've cheaped out and just female models on male animations, which....well looks incredibly awkward.

Spoiler

Honestly, I'll rather hey use male animations for female NPCs than just not including them because "excuses". After all, it's not like males and females walk that differently.
The awkwarness comes simply because the male animations aren't that good for starters.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Syndicate was excellent for not doing this. The only thing I wish they would have done is included a big enemy type for the women, seeing as they had one for men. Although I think they might've had an exclusively female enemy type iirc (the snipers with the arm bands)

I agree. They actually did create a female brute enemy too. The boss of the highest level borough was a ridiculous swole woman. Who I wish they used in place of the male brutes sometimes.

Am I wrong in saying that it doesn't look awkward to me? It looks like someone projecting power through stature, which a combatant would do regardless of gender, IMO

In any case, once again knocked it out of the park. I've always discussed issues like this with my younger brother.

Compared to her normal walk cycle it's much more awkward. Her body stiffens up as it tries to translate a different walk cycle. To see a women projecting power through stature, look at Evie Frye's walk cycle.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Another good, reasonable video.

I can't wait to see people going apeshit over it and discrediting the entire thing over a measly little thing, perhaps in how she pronounced Ubisoft or something. xD

Very glad she addressed the distinction between "violence against women", and violence against female combatants!