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[Chuck Norris]

There is nothing wrong with sexualisation. In fact it is very healthy for a society to be openly sexual.

Do we really want to become moral police on sexualisation now? It reminds me of right wing religious groups of the 90s against the likes of Lara Croft. Women's options to be as sexual or not is entirely up to them but the moment we start taking a hard stance against one is the moment we start becoming too much like other systems of female oppression.

More variety in females is what we need not the complete removal of sexualised females. And I'd think the game industry is on a good path in that regards with the recent likes of Ellie, Lara Croft, Aloy and other leads not relying on a sexualised identity

Could there be better representation of sexualisation? Totally. But to the original point of sex selling, I don't think male sexualisation is as easy as some skimpy clothes as with women

 

[Inferno313]

Huh, I didn't even think that would be controversial. Did you beat the game and all the chapter 2 missions? Did you feel that Venom or any other character had any real character development as Quiet did? The only time I felt any emotion in that story was at the denouement of Quiet's arc.

He's right though. The bar isnt very high in MGS5 but from all the characters she actually has the most realised arc.

Yes, I played through that game to completion, and then some. The fact that Kojima gave the naked, mute, likes-to-roll-in-the-rain-for-your-visual-titilation, sex object that is Quiet a slightly less-shit character arc than the other arcs in the game (something that I don't agree with, for the record) does not somehow magically make her character arc good, or change the fact that Quiet is a walking, not-talking, embodiment of all of Kojima's fetishes.

I literally don't understand how a half-way reasonable person could look at Quiet, a female character who wears next-to-nothing, who has absurdly unrealistic proportions, who doesn't speak, who lives in what is essentially goddamn animal enclosure at a zoo, who is nearly raped for nothing even resembling a meaningful reason for the narrative, who showers in that animal enclosure for the voyeuristic pleasure of all the men in the room, who likes to get naked in the rain in front of everyone because reasons, who is oogled by the camera to a degree that I've never seen outside of pornography and then go "actually, she is good and you are the sexist one."

 

[Nightbird]

I didnt See any marketing in television in europe for Awakening. I wasnt interested in the series cause the old designs looked too oldschool which they changed into more modern waifu anime style and suddenly many of my friends and me back then were interested. Any fire Emblem discussion is about the relationships and prefered waifu. The relationships were a big part which gave the series a New big door in the West which wasnt there before. Hell, german review videos almost all concentrated on that aspect.

I even played with perma death like all my friends so that was never a reason. Awakening is also easy compared to the other games. Even FF Tactics Advance was more difficult.

Edit: also good production values? The characters didnt even have feet lol there were already games like Abyss (ok a Port) and Mario 3D World which had moren of that.

Which is funny, because the tagline of the German commercial (This is Life. This is Death. This is: Fire Emblem Awakening) is still stuck in my head, after all these years

 

[Mega]

You realize there's a difference between a design being sexualized, (she's wearing a skin tight suit), and a pose with a line of action that emphasizes said sexualization. Again,

Please save your stupid condescension for someone else. I own a number of art books from my school days and know exactly what that is, have since a young age. Your over-explanation is unnecessary and doesn't change anything previously stated that Tracer was designed to be both hot and practical. Your examples are comical and reveal how attached/biased you've become to the designs YOU personally like.

I understand you're getting defensive because YOUR waifus aren't as progressive and perfect as you love to imagine.

 

[Euphor!a]

You realize there's a difference between a design being sexualized, (she's wearing a skin tight suit), and a pose with a line of action that emphasizes said sexualization. Again, you don't know what line of action means.

The way the eye is guided through the cover art is not to emphasize her figure, compared to Scarlet Johanssen where the line of action is literally there to emphasize her figure with a wood pose.

It's to emphasize her pose. This is what it looks like when a line of action emphasizes the butt.


compared to:


at this point the model becomes the problem more so than the pose itself

or for an absolutely appropriate direct comparison:


compared to


at a first glance, they're similar, but following line of actions one can see the differences in intention. The end goal isn't to emphasize Tracer's figure, but what she's doing, things like subtle

it's not just the pose either, it's the like subtle particles at the bottom and further cropping drive the point home:


And with that, that's about as much as I'll touch on the Tracer shit.


It appears you missed the point of my criticism but good to know you're trying to keep track and play detective gaf.

This is by far the most bizarre argument I have ever seen to justify liking one sexualized design and not another, congrats.

 

[Carl7]

I totally bought Nier automata because B2 is ridiculosly hot and the game turned out to be great.

 

[LOLCats]

I buy a lot of games with sexy characters and will continue to do so.

I like looking at attractive women. If they're wearing unrealistic, skimpy armor, even better.

 

[Mega]

This is by far the most bizarre argument I have ever seen to justify liking one sexualized design and not another, congrats.

It's funny how he doesn't see that he likes one type of clear sexualization but chastises another as being wrong and inappropriate.

 

[Audioboxer]

None of those characters in the OP have hour glass figures. In fact, literally all but one of them are based on digital scans.


An attractive idealised and sexualized male lead fits a romance novel's context. Compared to a nude bikini sniper in a game about anti-violence that wants to move the medium forward. Or an open world RPG meant to be a "fantasy based on reality." where a large majority of the cast is wearing real clothing so why is the a Daisy Duke car wash character?


Fuck this. Use critical thinking skills and stop comparing people wanting to be portrayed like humans as "puritan like" or even remotely influenced by religion.


You're not having sex with Quiet, Cidney, R.Mika, or any other digital character. Nothing they're doing has anything to do with sex. The blatant sex appeals sticks out like a sore thumb when you stick them next to the male cast.


Maybe we should start we "women are people too." They aren't just here for you to fap to.

I don't expect to ever change your mind CE, I see you often posting in any topic to do with anything sexual in gaming in the same ways. However, big debates resulting in comments like the one bolded is what makes your points of view often come across similar to "religious puritanism".

Your scale seems to go from 0 to 100. Nothing in-between. Which is fine as your personal outlook, but your way of arguing often comes across as verging on demanding others think like you or they get resulting remarks like the one I bolded above. An attempt to smear people as "not believing women are people". Or whatever you meant by that comment. Which is ridiculous. Everyone's dials just do not go from 0 to 100 when a bit of skin is on show. I would have hoped the collective result of probably near 1000 words I've posted in here would give you some food for thought from a psychological POV, from someone sex-positive and someone who finds it dear to their heart to live in a world with better sex education for youths to stop a lot of this shaming, guilt-tripping, bastardising and name-calling (earlier we had people automatically called perverts by another poster).

However, as I opened with, I think anyone would be hard pushed to ever get you to even somewhat agree with a differing opinion in a topic like this. Again, fair enough it's how vehemently you're going to defend your position, but at times I think it would be best if you didn't go as gung-ho on others who are maybe at say 50 on the dial. Fairly moderate views that can allow for some sex-positive and/or sexual fantasy to exist, without it all being problematic and needing covered/stopped/changed/shamed.

These are the kind of discussions that I find strange on NeoGaf.

I think this forum is rather unbalanced, because I can complain that I think a character with cleavage hanging out and a belly showing with tight pants is "too sexualized" and I'll be told to grow up or that she's not sexualized at all. An example would be some characters from Gravity Rush.

Then I go here and people are posting pictures of characters that are modestly dressed and saying they aren't sexualized (I agree).

What I'm trying to say is, I don't know how to even effectively communicate any ideas about this topic on this forum without being slammed in some way.

Topics like this are always going to get you slammed by someone. There never exists an oasis where everyone agrees on a large social issue like sex. Best you can do is try to articulate your feelings as best you can, and others will enagage and agree/disagree. Like an overbearing parent or a ring-wing conservative who thinks sex should only happen after marriage, there are going to be contentiously held viewpoints around sex that will kick up more debate than others. Most people are thankfully somewhere in the middle. However, as I rattled on about earlier I see far too many teens and young adults so sex-negative it leads to horrendous mental health problems, shaming, self-hating and generally poor situations for society to be in in 2017.

That's what gets my passion going in topics like this, as general thoughts around... video games, of all things, is the tip of the iceberg to other more deep seated issues around sex, usually. And a lot of young people do end up turning to fantasy like video games, if not tv, movies and ultimately porn when they are seriously repressed and lacking in good education. Not that any of these pleasures are wrong, but when some end up viewing them like it's all there is to life then it can often end up unhealthy.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Please save your stupid condescension for someone else. I own a number of art books from my school days and know exactly what that is, have since a young age. Your over-explanation is unnecessary and doesn't change anything previously stated that Tracer was designed to be both hot and practical. Your examples are comical and reveal how attached/biased you've become to the designs YOU personally like..

Lol if you think that's an over-explanation. This is all incredibly basic stuff. And how are the examples in the OP comical?

What's comical about any of these?

And concerning the bolded. Yea she was, which is why I said the following:

at this point the model becomes the problem more so than the pose itself.

The pose isn't problematic or sexualized. That statement doesn't exclude the fact that the character design is sexualized to a degree. Idk why that's so hard for you to fathom.

This is by far the most bizarre argument I have ever seen to justify liking one sexualized design and not another, congrats.

This is by far the most transparent example of "i don't know you to address anything you just said." ITT

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Yeah, Eden has a way of trying to force his views...unsuccessfully? Like when we were arguing about Fenix, and he was just flabbergasted that Marcus Fenix had attractive features, and I listed them, and then Eden questions my sexuality because 'How can I find an unattractive character attractive!?'.

It's fucked up.

wait is eden trying to argue that tracers model attractiveness has become more of a problem than the poses she makes

the fuck

 

[Extollere]

Honestly, I don't believe that having more sexualized males in games for women is an excuse to not have better diversity and representation of female characters in general. But it seems that we are doing better than we have in the best, if some of the better examples in the OP are to go by.

I still hold by my opinion that the best way to correct this course isn't to limit creativity, nor to create a mindset that sexualized characters (female or male) are inherently wrong - but to allow more women in the game industry, and create an atmosphere of respect and equality because we need them. With the creative input of more women in the industry I think we will see better designs, and more diversity - and I think that would go a lot further to correct our course than to arbitrarily allow men to set standards - whatever they may be.

 

[yurinka]

Designs like this are puritanical and conservative now?

In the recent years many AAA devs have been very careful with body shapes and clothing for female characters, in addition to make sure they include a certain percentage of female and non-white NPCs, to make sure that are no females/ and to include a female lead/co-lead (and if possible not white) if made sense.

Mostly to avoid controversies, they want to be politically correct.

Honestly, I don't believe that having more sexualized males in games for women is an excuse to not have better diversity and representation of female characters in general. But it seems that we are doing better than we have in the best, if some of the better examples in the OP are to go by.

There has been "sexualized" male and female characters since the 8 bit gen or before, but I only remember people complaining about female characters.

Instead of calling them "sexist designs" or "sexualized characters" I think it would be more accurate and less agressive and offensive for devs to call them sexy characters or designs and beauty ideals for devs/artists.

 

[Wulfram]

I didn't say they were ugly. No one is advocating for the ugly-fication of characters.
.

I didn't say you said they were ugly. But I don't think they make gaming more diverse when they're such a cookie cutter default hollywood style of attractive.

 

[Euphor!a]

Yea she was, which is why I said the following:

The pose isn't problematic or sexualized.



This is by far the most transparent example of "i don't know you to address anything you just said." ITT

You're right, I have no idea how to address anything you just said. Just like I don't have any idea how to address other crazy bullshit I hear on occasion.

 

[Horp]

They spent more time visually on her washing the car than actually fixing it or doing anything remotely resembling a mechanic. And no, jean shorts are not what a mechanic would wear, do you know anything about mechanics?

Umm. I think you should read posts before you qoute and reply to them. (He was agreeing with you if you're still too lazy to read it).

 

[Mega]

I don't expect to ever change your mind CE, I see you often posting in any topic to do with anything sexual in gaming in the same ways. However, big debates resulting in comments like the one bolded is what makes your points of view often come across similar to "religious puritanism".

Your scale seems to go from 0 to 100. Nothing in-between. Which is fine as your personal outlook, but your way of arguing often comes across as verging on demanding others think like you or they get resulting remarks like the one I bolded above. An attempt to smear people as "not believing women are people". Or whatever you meant by that comment. Which is ridiculous. Everyone's dials just do not go from 0 to 100 when a bit of skin is on show. I would have hoped the collective result of probably near 1000 words I've posted in here would give you some food for thought from a psychological POV, from someone sex-positive and someone who finds it dear to their heart to live in a world with better sex education for youths to stop a lot of this shaming, guilt-tripping, bastardising and name-calling (earlier we had people automatically called perverts by another poster).

However, as I opened with, I think anyone would be hard pushed to ever get you to even somewhat agree with a differing opinion in a topic like this. Again, fair enough it's how vehemently you're going to defend your position, but at times I think it would be best if you didn't go as gung-ho on others who are maybe at say 50 on the dial. Fairly moderate views that can allow for some sex-positive and/or sexual fantasy to exist, with it all being problematic and needing covered/stopped/changed/shamed.

Thank you. I've been saying as much, albeit not as eloquently.

He's young and this is the umpteenth topic revolving around the same flawed arguments and flimsy tangentially related evidence. I'm not expecting much progress in the way of open-mindedness. We're all sexist perverts fawning over "waifus" (a word only he likes to use so much), apparently... unless we absolve ourselves of our sins and fully stand behind his conservative worldviews.

 

[mbpm1]

Yeah, Eden has a way of trying to force his views...unsuccessfully? Like when we were arguing about Fenix, and he was just flabbergasted that Marcus Fenix had attractive features, and I listed them, and then Eden questions my sexuality because 'How can I find an unattractive character attractive!?'.

nothing wrong with some fenix in your life

 

[Astral Dog]

I bought DmC in part because of Dante's sexualisation, beyond being attractive. That was before I found out about the homophobic presentation slide, when I thought it looked like he was marketed in part towards a queer male audience. But the unusualness of a sexualised man in games would have played a part in it being an exception.

i thought that was a reference of DMC3 wich already had a similar scene way more fun just not as uh, colorful on the good old PS2,Dante looks hot in a jpop kind of way with this shirtless leather coat and pants, you see the very first scene with him shirtless talking on the phone until he plays the music and starts to dress while fighting demons,ending still shirtless the whole game (!).

The only other part were DmC Dante is 'sexualized is when Bill says he is a known sexual deviant though we only see him sleeping with those demon strippers.

Spoiler

EEEWWW

.

But i get it, handsome characters are more appealing,just not normally the way games sell big numbers if they happen to go too far

 

[Crossing Eden]

Yeah, Eden has a way of trying to force his views...unsuccessfully? Like when we were arguing about Fenix, and he was just flabbergasted that Marcus Fenix had attractive features, and I listed them, and then Eden questions my sexuality because 'How can I find an unattractive character attractive!?'.

It's fucked up.

wait is eden trying to argue that tracers model attractiveness has become more of a problem than the poses she makes

the fuck

Because you're equating "I find this character to be attractive" to "so this character is thusly, attractive." And absolutely ignoring the fact that the devs intentionally made him ugly, they intend for him to be ugly, they went out of their way to make him an unattractive, in the same way that Trevor from GTA is not meant to be attractive, i'm sure there are still people out there who find people attractive. It's basically a "nuh uh" despite the words of the devs. Which I specifically quoted. But because YOUUUU find the character attractive, that means that the recurring regular on multiple "ugliest video game protagonists" list isn't ugly. :| How is that pertinent to discussion?

In the recent years many AAA devs have been very careful with body shapes and clothing for female characters, in addition to make sure they include a certain percentage of female and non-white NPCs. They want to avoid controversies

The idea that devs are including more minorities and more diversity for women is actually quite laughable when you factor in how a dev environment works. Because it certainly isn't that.

You're right, I have no idea how to address anything you just said. Just like I don't have any idea how to address other crazy bullshit I hear on occasion.

How about being specific about what was "crazy" about any of that. Include specifics please. Because like how you interpret the OP as "sex never sells ever," I think you're interpreting that post as "Tracer isn't sexualized at all," when it's saying "Tracer on the the cover of overwatch isn't an example of over sexualization. On the contrary they seem to have done a lot to avoid that considering several factors like path of action, the cropping itself, and how the eye is meant to follow the page" So how exactly is any of that crazy?

 

[TheEndOfItAll]

Yes, I played through that game to completion, and then some. The fact that Kojima gave the naked, mute, likes-to-roll-in-the-rain-for-your-visual-titilation, sex object that is Quiet a slightly less-shit character arc than the other arcs in the game (something that I don't agree with, for the record) does not somehow magically make her character arc good, or change the fact that Quiet is a walking, not-talking, embodiment of all of Kojima's fetishes.

I literally don't understand how a half-way reasonable person could look at Quiet, a female character who wears next-to-nothing, who has absurdly unrealistic proportions, who doesn't speak, who lives in what is essentially goddamn animal enclosure at a zoo, who is nearly raped for nothing even resembling a meaningful reason for the narrative, who showers in that animal enclosure for the voyeuristic pleasure of all the men in the room, who likes to get naked in the rain in front of everyone because reasons, who is oogled by the camera to a degree that I've never seen outside of pornography and then go "actually, she is good and you are the sexist one."

Kojima openly admitted that Quiet is there to be the sexy sniper. I don't think that point is up for debate. The real question is whether it's okay to use these characters in the gaming world.

 

[RM8]

I didn't say you said they were ugly. But I don't think they make gaming more diverse when they're such a cookie cutter default hollywood style of attractive.

You're missing the point entirely, though, those designs have an actual character to go along with them and their sexual parts aren't assaulted by the camera on a regular basis. If you look at them, you'd be hard pressed to think "slutty Halloween costume parody". The argument that we should have a bigger variety of female bodies is one I agree with you, but it's not one that puts Faith and Rainbow Mika in the same box.

 

[mbpm1]

Because you're equating "I find this character to be attractive" to "so this character is thusly, attractive." And absolutely ignoring the fact that the devs intentionally made him ugly, they intend for him to be ugly, they went out of their way to make him an unattractive, in the same way that Trevor from GTA is not meant to be attractive, i'm sure there are still people out there who find people attractive. It's basically a "nuh uh" despite the words of the devs. Which I specifically quoted. But because YOUUUU find the character attractive, that means that the recurring regular on multiple "ugliest video game protagonists" list isn't ugly. :| How is that pertinent to discussion?

they said they made him to be ugly?

 

[Euphor!a]

And absolutely ignoring the fact that the devs intentionally made him ugly, they intend for him to be ugly, they went out of their way to make him an unattractive,

Do you have literally any proof of this from the developer and/or artist? Or is this just more of you twisting reality for your own ends?

 

[Kinyou]

It appears you missed the point of my criticism but good to know you're trying to keep track and play detective gaf. And yes it is.

Considering that each outfit gives her a shit ton of armor by the end game. This is heavy armor:

that armor's progression literally adds armor everyone else but that vital spot. Doesn't make much sense considering how much thought went into the other outfits.

Actually they don't unless you consider a shirt heavy armor.

Most of her outfits aren't actually focusing on heavy armor which kind of makes sense since when a T-Rex like creature strikes at you it's better to be mobile than heavily armored.
Another reason why it's in there is simply that it looks cool, just like those horns on her head look cool despite being absolutely impractical.

That such a small amount of skin already throws you off simply gives the impression that you don't like anything sexualised.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Because you're equating "I find this character to be attractive" to "so this character is thusly, attractive." And absolutely ignoring the fact that the devs intentionally made him ugly, they intend for him to be ugly, they went out of their way to make him an unattractive, in the same way that Trevor from GTA is not meant to be attractive, i'm sure there are still people out there who find people attractive. It's basically a "nuh uh" despite the words of the devs. Which I specifically quoted. But because YOUUUU find the character attractive, that means that the recurring regular on multiple "ugliest video game protagonists" list isn't ugly. :| How is that pertinent to discussion?

I mean, he has attractive features? Like I mentioned, square jawline, even the permanent scowl can be seen as attractive to some. Muscular features are also welcomed in attraction.

So yes, in this case since those things are seen as positives(See previous links of studies that say square jawlines are a positive), Fenix is objectively attractive?

Travis is a whole other story. He has no attractive features to him. Except I guess his crazy personality, but that is more subjective than square jawlines and muscular builds.

It's pertinent to the discussion that 'sex sells'. You made the thread after all. Your parentheses not withstanding, we are free to discuss the matter of sex sells. And yes, it does.

they said they made him to be ugly?

They failed IMO. They could've gone with a shitty face that didn't have a jawline, and make him lanky and like a twig, if they really wanted to succeed.

Actually they don't unless you consider a shirt heavy armor.


Most of her outfits aren't actually focusing on heavy armor which kind of makes sense since when a T-Rex like creature strikes at you it's better to be mobile than heavily armored.
Another reason why it's in there is simply that it looks cool, just like those horns on her add look cool despite being absolutely impractical.

That such a small amount of skin already throws you off simply gives the impression that you don't like anything sexualised.

Yeah, the most 'realistic' heavy armor aloy has is the outfit with the metal plate over her breasts. But then I see high end armors that are just either thin shirts or a few bones on her shoulders, and I'm thinking 'Yeah this is a video game'.

 

[Euphor!a]

How about being specific about what was "crazy" about any of that. Include specifics please. Because like how you interpret the OP as "sex never sells ever," I think you're interpreting that post as "Tracer isn't sexualized at all," when it's saying "Tracer on the the cover of overwatch isn't an example of over sexualization. On the contrary they seem to have done a lot to avoid that considering several factors like path of action, the cropping itself, and how the eye is meant to follow the page" So how exactly is any of that crazy?

It's crazy bullshit because you are defending a character wearing pants so fucking tight you can basically see her asshole.

 

[mbpm1]

Travis is a whole other story. He has no attractive features to him. Except I guess his crazy personality, but that is more subjective than square jawlines and muscular builds.

I could see somebody liking the dirty look

 

[Crossing Eden]

they said they made him to be ugly?

YES. They specifically couldn't come up with a look for him. That was the hardest part, the way they came into a final design was the following:

The early iterations of Marcus's face just didn't have character. Then J-Hawk [Jay Hawkins, an Epic artist] sketched out this rough, crazy head with scars and acne on the back of his neck and the bandanna — and that was Marcus. He just appeared." Getting Marcus to this place was the stuff of solid, nuts-and-bolts design. Giving him neck acne? That was a stroke of genius.

Unless neck acne is supposed to be what society deems attractive now? >>

His figure is also unrealistically buff, not to the point of human idealism but more because "hey dudes we can have agnostic animations for the locust and humans if they're all designed to be this buff.."

It's funny because his son is actually much more attractive video game male character:

with his perfect skin, nice blue eyes, square jaw, more realistic albeit still stylized build, and perfect hair.

 

[AlexFlame116]

Eden you might want to calm down. You're becoming more and more irritated and unhinged which is making you assume things that might not be there. You're making all of the people who disagree with you get more upset at you.

Take a breather and come back to your topic if you have more to say when you've calmed down.

This is just my opinion though and I don't know if I'm blocked from you or not but I hope you can read it.

 

[Euphor!a]

YES. They specifically couldn't come up with a look for him. That was the hardest part, the way they came into a final design was the following:



Unless neck acne is supposed to be what society deems attractive now? >>

His figure is also unrealistically buff, not to the point of human idealism but more because "hey dudes we can have agnostic animations for the locust and humans if they're all designed to be this buff.."

It's funny because his son is actually much more attractive video game male character:

with his perfect skin, nice blue eyes, square jaw, more realistic albeit still stylized build, and perfect hair.

That quote doesn't say they designed him to be ugly.

 

[Inferno313]

Kojima openly admitted that Quiet is there to be the sexy sniper. I don't think that point is up for debate. The real question is whether it's okay to use these characters in the gaming world.

Oh! I'm so sorry. I didn't realize Kojima had admitted that. Guess it makes it totally fine, huh?

Like, I'm sorry, but what is the actual point of this post? I think anyone with a functioning eyeball might be able to get, I don't know, a small clue, a little hint, that Quiet is meant to be the sexy sniper. Maybe, just maybe.

There's a massive difference between creating a sexy character, and creating a walking fucktoy who just so happens to have a condition REQUIRING that she parade around a battlefield in a goddamn bikini, that she shower in a goddamn tiger cage for all the men, that she likes to get naked and roll around in the rain in public for funsies, and who DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING TALK.

Like, HOLY SHIT! Kojima created the goddamn perviest character in the world, and decided that wasn't enough, he needed to remove any way for the character to express herself or have any agency. That's probably the most disgusting part of it all.

 

[RM8]

I guess regardless of the character, someone out there will find it attractive. But ewww at Marcus Fenix. Ugly face, acne, scars, terrible facial hair. And big muscles =/= attractive, this is why Hot Ryu is (accidentally, lol) a thing but not Hot Zangief.

 

[mbpm1]

YES. They specifically couldn't come up with a look for him. That was the hardest part, the way they came into a final design was the following:



Unless neck acne is supposed to be what society deems attractive now? >>

His figure is also unrealistically buff, not to the point of human idealism but more because "hey dudes we can have agnostic animations for the locust and humans if they're all designed to be this buff.."

It's funny because his son is actually much more attractive video game male character:

with his perfect skin, nice blue eyes, square jaw, more realistic albeit still stylized build, and perfect hair.

None of this says he was made to be ugly though. Just...rough and buff and over the top?

 

[TheEndOfItAll]

Lots of talk about design and lines of action and that sort of thing in this thread.

I think it's important to note that a design can be aesthetically pleasing while not at all being sexually attractive. There are objective reasons for concept art looking the way it does.

 

[RM8]

Since you use overwatch fan reception as a barometer of how totally sexualized that game is, how about the radio silence about Marcus Fenix and his supposed attractiveness? Lol.

 

[Fudgepuppy]

I'm not against sexualized female characters in general, it's just that they're so played out that they turn me off on the prospect of buying the game.

I want fresh stories, characters and experiences that I haven't had before.

Also, there's definitely a bias in media regarding how men and women are portrayed differently. Until it evens out, I will support the products that do things differently.

 

[4Tran]

In the recent years many AAA devs have been very careful with body shapes and clothing for female characters, in addition to make sure they include a certain percentage of female and non-white NPCs, to make sure that are no females/ and to include a female lead/co-lead (and if possible not white) if made sense.

Mostly to avoid controversies, they want to be politically correct.

Nah, it's not about avoiding controversies. Developers have been fairly forthright about viewing greater diversity as an admirable goal in and of itself.

 

[Inferno313]

As someone who just came into this thread, it's taking a really gross turn. You guys have gotta play detective-GAF and attack Eden's character? Pick apart her arguments, sure, but the character attacks are really gross and not what I expect, or want, to see when I get on GAF.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Eden you might want to calm down. You're becoming more and more irritated and unhinged which is making you assume things that might not be there. You're making all of the people who disagree with you get more upset at you.

Take a breather and come back to your topic if you have more to say when you've calmed down.

This is just my opinion though and I don't know if I'm blocked from you or not but I hope you can read it.

People are trying to tell me that a character who was given a literal default scowl, face ruining scars, neck acne, isn't by design made to be ugly in a medium where the majority of male game characters look almost exactly like Nathan Drake. While also simultaneously missing the point behind a large detailed post about posing just like they're missing the point in the OP. That is absolutely frustrating so you're right.

Since you use overwatch fan reception as a barometer of how totally sexualized that game is, how about the radio silence about Marcus Fenix and his supposed attractiveness? Lol.

But you see that doesn't count tho. >>

 

[TheEndOfItAll]

Oh! I'm so sorry. I didn't realize Kojima had admitted that. Guess it makes it totally fine, huh?

Like, I'm sorry, but what is the actual point of this post? I think anyone with a functioning eyeball might be able to get, I don't know, a small clue, a little hint, that Quiet is meant to be the sexy sniper. Maybe, just maybe.

There's a massive difference between creating a sexy character, and creating a walking fucktoy who just so happens to have a condition REQUIRING that she parade around a battlefield in a goddamn bikini, that she shower in a goddamn tiger cage for all the men, that she likes to get naked and roll around in the rain in public for funsies, and who DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING TALK.

Like, HOLY SHIT! Kojima created the goddamn perviest character in the world, and decided that wasn't enough, he needed to remove any way for the character to express herself or have any agency. That's probably the most disgusting part of it all.

Where in my post did I say this? You and the others were arguing back and forth about the sexual design of the character, and I gave you a rare factual basis stating, yes, it was a sexualized character. Argument over, right? That was the point of my post. FFS

 

[pizzacat]

Marcus is hunky

So is his son

I have videos

 

[hurricanes]

I think some people in this thread confuse attractiveness to sexualization. A game can have super attractive characters without sexualize them, and vise versa.

The argument that sex sells is true with games focus heavily on the sex appeal(senran kagura). However, the more "mainstream" games do not necessary benefit from having sexualized people. For one protential customer sexualization attract, another is turned away.

 

[AESplusF]

Your tone is so unbearably self-righteous, but you make some good points.

The argument that sex does not sell games is inherently flawed; you're being way to broad.

The argument that sex sells games, in defense of sexualized, poorly characterized, female characters is not an acceptable argument either; and I think you're correct, it is self-defeatist. Sexy character design/presentation and underwhelming character development and or stereotypical characterization, are not mutually exclusive.

Ideally, for every sexualized female character, there should be a sexualized male character.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Since you use overwatch fan reception as a barometer of how totally sexualized that game is, how about the radio silence about Marcus Fenix and his supposed attractiveness? Lol.

I don't think I've used fan reception as my argument just yet

I think some people in this thread confuse attractiveness to sexualization. A game can have super attractive characters without sexualize them, and vise versa.

The argument that sex sells is true with games focus heavily on the sex appeal(senran kagura). However, the more "mainstream" games do not necessary benefit from having sexualized people. For one protential customer sexualization attract, another is turned away.

Attractiveness is the basis of sexualization. You cannot have one without the other.

 

[Griss]

As someone who just came into this thread, it's taking a really gross turn. You guys have gotta play detective-GAF and attack Eden's character? Pick apart her arguments, sure, but the character attacks are really gross and not what I expect, or want, to see when I get on GAF.

It's not an attack on character but a question of general philosophy / taste.

Eden hasn't answered whether there is any kind of sexualised female design he thinks is appropriate. If there isn't one, then he's just at an ideological impasse from most of the rest of us, pretty much, and he's coming from a very sex negative place. At that point there's not a lot of discussion left to be had.

So that's entirely relevant to the discussion, imo. Audioboxer put it better than I could further up the thread, but CE hasn't responded to that, presumably because it would be difficult.

I don't disagree with everything he says - I agree with him on both Tracer's 'action line' and Marcus Fenix, for example. But I do suspect that he is not okay with any kind of sexualised imagery of females in games and I do wonder what's behind that aversion, because I don't think it can be fully explained by a quest for equality.

 

[Inferno313]

Where in my post did I say this? You and the others were arguing back and forth about the sexual design of the character, and I gave you a rare factual basis stating, yes, it was a sexualized character. Argument over, right? That was the point of my post. FFS

Again, I think just about everyone in the whole world could probably tell you that Quiet is a sexualized character, with or without Kojima's help.

Well... Everyone except for Quiet.

 

[Audioboxer]

Thank you. I've been saying as much, albeit not as eloquently.

He's young and this is the umpteenth topic revolving around the same flawed arguments and flimsy tangentially related evidence. I'm not expecting much progress in the way of open-mindedness. We're all sexist perverts fawning over "waifus" (a word only he likes to use so much), apparently... unless we absolve ourselves of our sins and fully stand behind his conservative worldviews.

In one sense I don't think age is important. In that regard, though, I will give a compliment and say at the very least having such passion at a young age can be a good thing, and he does spend a lot of time articulating points and trying to reply to everyone. However, I do wish there was a bit less of the petty dark assumptions of people with differing views. As I said above I spoke to another poster earlier who went straight to "perverts".

At times I just think people throw around words without either knowing the meaning or not caring

Pervert

a person whose sexual behaviour is regarded as abnormal and unacceptable.

synonyms: deviant, degenerate, debauchee, perverted person, depraved person;

I'm sorry, but when people start saying any sexualisation, any skin and any fantasy involving sex appeal/idealised body and face shapes and so on is automatically "abnormal and unacceptable" that plays right into my beef with the things I say above. Sexual repression, negativity, shaming, and other religious like puritanic states which do NOT help mental health. They actively erode and divert people into states of anxiety and depression around anything involving sex. You will literally end up with people "scared" to say they looked a sexy photo and didn't give themselves 10 lashes for sinning.

As I said, the dial, 0 to 100. There's 99 numbers in between of situations where most will criticise over-sexualisation, say some of it is out of place but other times be okay just chalking up a piece of adult content that may not be right for them (go figure if you dig through my post history far enough you'll see lots of frustration aimed at Kojima and Quiet). Or hey, maybe even some can just enjoy some sexiness from time to time! It doesn't mean every game, or every book/tv show/movie you ever consume must all have something sexy in it. There is diversity in the world, and it's always important to have it, but diversity means diversity.

I've already gone into enough of the "science" behind the human mind, male/female generalised differences in consumption and what roles things can play for marketing in long wordy posts earlier in the thread so I won't regurgitate those points again now.

 

[Crossing Eden]

It's not an attack on character but a question of general philosophy / taste.

Eden hasn't answered whether there is any kind of sexualised female design he thinks is appropriate. If there isn't one, then he's just at an ideological impasse from most of the rest of us, pretty much, and he's coming from a very sex negative place. At that point there's not a lot of discussion left to be had.

So that's entirely relevant to the discussion, imo. Audioboxer put it better than I could further up the thread, but CE hasn't responded to that, presumably because it would be difficult.

Dude there's nothing sex negative about critiquing out of place sexualization of women in games. The idea that people like you question whether or not it comes from some sense of puritanism or sex negativity has as much basis in reality as the idea that the women in ME:A were designed to be "ugly" or that they hir ed minorities and women over "talented" people. As in, not at all and quite laughable. Even more so, it is derogatory how people try to take my past posts COMPLETELY out of context for the sake of a gotcha in a desperate attempt to prove the bolded in my posts.

Attractiveness is the basis of sexualization. You cannot have one without the other.

It's a bit more nuanced than that as Asexuality flies in the face of this idea. There is absolutely a difference between attraction and sexual attraction.

 

[AlexFlame116]

People are trying to tell me that a character who was given a literal default scowl, face ruining scars, neck acne, isn't by design made to be ugly in a medium where the majority of male game characters look almost exactly like Nathan Drake. While also simultaneously missing the point behind a large detailed post about posing just like they're missing the point in the OP. That is absolutely frustrating so you're right.

I got ya. I know it's frustrating but I just wanted you to know. I'm not disagreeing with you or anything but there is a difference when you type when you're either calm and in control or extremely upset and frustrated.

Just throwing my two cents. But I'll stop if it's not helping the conversation at all sorry.