HitomiTanaka.gif
Googling that would be NSFW
Oh mah lawd you destroyed me.
All we need is for her to put a witch hat on. Smh
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Gearbox Artist trashes Dragons Crown art style
- Thread starter ArtHands
- Start date
Oh mah lawd you destroyed me.
All we need is for her to put a witch hat on. Smh
What kind of thing? Hypersexualized characters or criticism within the medium?
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
You are welcome LOLedit: So I was just talking with a female friend of mine on AIM and she had this to say
:lol
Devolution
Member
I don't think taking a hard line stance such as this reinforcing the status quo outside of its particular context makes for better art or better games. When you say a character is part of the problem no matter what it seems to be you're ignoring the real issues that make sexualized characters a problem, which is lack of agency and basically being weak tools. How do you feel about Bayonetta?
This.
The day I saw Nicki Minaj literally popping her ass vividly like a damn pornstar in her music video on MTV (she nowhere near the first but ill be damned if it wasnt softcore..), THAT's when I thought about Sexualization of Women.
But that's what sells apparently. So what do I know.
This issue is truly bigger than games. Its pervasive in ALL mediums. I wouldn't be surprised if it's in books
Devolution
Member
It's an issue that spans many mediums and is quite complicated because there is the debate over whether a woman owning her sexuality is merely selling out or in fact a conscious choice of her own that should be respected and is in independence of sexual objectification from outside forces. The same thing happens with clothing and makeup. Most feminists tend to agree that choice is better than limitations.
enigmatic_alex44
Whenever a game uses "middleware," I expect mediocrity. Just see how poor TLOU looks.
I mean this kind of thing with developers trashing each other publicly lately, it's so class-less. Megan Fox did it to Michael Bay and was unceremoniously fired and her career is just about dead now (not to defend the monster that is Bay, but it IS unprofessional).
Yes, what could possibly be the issue.
Sexualization (or rather objectification through that) is a more overt problem in visual mediums, but writing has its own long standing cliches and tropes that promote problems.
I could try and expand on that, but I'd just be an asshole.
I am 'okay' with Bayonetta. I've shifted between praise and simple acceptance for her over the years and I'm not quite sure where I stand. The biggest pro really is how they choose to have her act and her mannerisms. She's aware she's sexy but her mannerisms doesn't reflect that she's just a piece of meat or eye candy made by the creator (yes, in some instances it seems obvious she's supposed to be eye candy) but every time she expresses herself, it is with power and dignity. And most of the time, Platinum didn't really treat her as simple eye candy. There were some silly ass shots in the game but most of the time it was incredibly tongue in cheek whenever she "acted sexy" (like the dance off scene).
I understand I am basing most of my knowledge of this Dragon's Crown character mostly on gifs, concept art, and a few seconds from trailers and the like, so I don't have a firm understanding of the sorceress' character. Perhaps my opinion would change somewhat if I sat down and gave the time to understand if there is any interesting nuance in the character.
This may be neither here nor there, but she's sorta playing April O'Neil in the upcoming Michael Bay TMNT movie. So.. yeah.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1291150/
This is stupid because its saying vote with your wallet is the only valid way to protest something and talking about it a waste of time or ineffective. I'd say vote with your wallet is far less effective.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
It will be much better if you petition him to make an art book. Its much better and easier to appreciate his arts than having to boot up the game every time.
I created this to offer an idea of how an artist within the industry view this matter(Of cause, i am not agreeing with the way she expresses the comment either but that is a forum post in the first place. I thought everyone will look pass this but I guess not). I didn't create this for a witch hunt, a raid on her portfolio, personal insults, or gamebox hate fest.
I'll much prefer if you start a petition to have him release an art book. It is much easier and better to appreciate his art in book form. I will certainly add it to my collection.
Above is the work of an artist.
Above is you be the judge.
The game in discussion here is not muramasa, and the "judge" here is not responsible for the characters in the borderland games. Also, her comment is solely only on dragon's crown, not including his previous works.
Wow whats up with all the talks about "sexualized" characters recently. I dont bother reading all this stuff, but how big of a problem that can be? Whats the fucking problem? I thought games were free of this whole "art" talk. Let it be just an pure form of entertainment please. Man up ffs.
/rant
/rant
In the industry right now it seems like money talks the loudest.
Why can't they just get the pornstar to do it and save us all some time?
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
To be fair about one point: television doesn't have a widespread reputation for being extremely tilted towards one audience. You can find literally every kind of TV show imaginable, and more importantly, variety in big time programming: mainstream, lots of advertising, money, marketing, and a large audience.
I think it's fair to observe video games stick out compared to most other general entertainment mediums due to the lion's share of the big money going into a surprisingly narrow range audience: males age 18-30, with a huge emphasis on shooters and sports.
What exactly this means and the implications of that is its own conversation.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
the best way i can summarize my feelings on all of this is that if this is something that people REALLY feel is somehow holding back the gaming industry, holding back it's potential to appeal to all kinds of people, and is somehow barring women from being included, then i don't think they're looking at the industry as a whole. only the ones that apparently make them uncomfortable.
but IF we just go ahead and give them that one as a 'gimme', i still believe that saying the games need to change for the players is far, FAR more damaging to the industry than the thing that's being complained about. once you start changing things and censoring things for only a certain group, it only leads to other groups wanting things changed too. before you know it you end up with a laundry list of no-no's that game design "has" to adhere to in order to not offend people. politically correct isn't even a good enough way to put it. pandering is what it really is. and i know that's a hard pill to swallow when you're throwing that word at a movement that is generally aimed at doing good (feminism), but if you really think about it the pandering and censorship doesn't even do them any favors. when you change something JUST to get a group of people off your back, you're not really changing anything. when someone tells you "i love you too" JUST because you said "i love you", it cheapens the sentiment. it becomes obligation.
so what do i think is what REALLY needs to happen? culture just needs to change. the mindset of the masses needs to change. once the offensive (to some) female imagery in games is no longer an appealing part of games, and thus becomes a non-reason to buy or be interested in a game, THEN change has taken place. you have to change the people, and then the content in the games will follow. same with comedians. when people get offended by certain jokes a comedian tells multiple times, nothing is going to really stop him from joking about it, or at least wanting to. but when people in the crowd stop laughing, he's failed at his job, and he'll figure out what to say to get people laughing again. when games don't sell and research can point definitively to it being because women aren't portrayed in a way that large amounts of people are comfortable with, you'll start seeing less and less of it. period. game companies want to make money. this sorceress everyone is flipping shit about isn't designed that way to sell the game, the artist made that quite clear. but if you're SO pissed about it, then don't buy it. tell others that you think would be offended by it to not buy it either. do that with every other new game coming out, because each time you get mad and buy the game anyway, your message and your feelings don't count.
i've spent far too much time tonight typing this out, but i've been thinking about it since this whole debacle started, and i've been on GAF almost exclusively on my phone. im going to bed. i can't wait to play Dragon's Crown.
but IF we just go ahead and give them that one as a 'gimme', i still believe that saying the games need to change for the players is far, FAR more damaging to the industry than the thing that's being complained about. once you start changing things and censoring things for only a certain group, it only leads to other groups wanting things changed too. before you know it you end up with a laundry list of no-no's that game design "has" to adhere to in order to not offend people. politically correct isn't even a good enough way to put it. pandering is what it really is. and i know that's a hard pill to swallow when you're throwing that word at a movement that is generally aimed at doing good (feminism), but if you really think about it the pandering and censorship doesn't even do them any favors. when you change something JUST to get a group of people off your back, you're not really changing anything. when someone tells you "i love you too" JUST because you said "i love you", it cheapens the sentiment. it becomes obligation.
so what do i think is what REALLY needs to happen? culture just needs to change. the mindset of the masses needs to change. once the offensive (to some) female imagery in games is no longer an appealing part of games, and thus becomes a non-reason to buy or be interested in a game, THEN change has taken place. you have to change the people, and then the content in the games will follow. same with comedians. when people get offended by certain jokes a comedian tells multiple times, nothing is going to really stop him from joking about it, or at least wanting to. but when people in the crowd stop laughing, he's failed at his job, and he'll figure out what to say to get people laughing again. when games don't sell and research can point definitively to it being because women aren't portrayed in a way that large amounts of people are comfortable with, you'll start seeing less and less of it. period. game companies want to make money. this sorceress everyone is flipping shit about isn't designed that way to sell the game, the artist made that quite clear. but if you're SO pissed about it, then don't buy it. tell others that you think would be offended by it to not buy it either. do that with every other new game coming out, because each time you get mad and buy the game anyway, your message and your feelings don't count.
i've spent far too much time tonight typing this out, but i've been thinking about it since this whole debacle started, and i've been on GAF almost exclusively on my phone. im going to bed. i can't wait to play Dragon's Crown.
TaroYamada
Member
Even if it is juvenile (I disagree with that), at least it isn't stolen!
Well for one thing sexualization isnt just an art or entertainment thing and this isnt even an "art" debate. The discussion doesnt change based on whether DC is art or mere entertainment.
Also sexuality in game and art debates happen regularly on GAF...so watch out!
I'm sort of a big liberal, but this is one of those things where I figure the market will work itself out... If it's true that almost everyone playing video games are young men, then it's no surprise what's in the games. This is true for movies and tv shows that are marketed towards young men. Ever turn on Spike TV? It's juvenile and male centric as fuck. That's what it's trying to be.
If the video game industry is basically Spike TV, then so be it. If you're saying that there are lots of female gamers trying to get games made that appeal to them, and so far there aren't -- Again, I think this is where the market will work itself out. If there's a big demand for female centric video games, someone will figure this out and capitalize on it.
More to the point of the subject at hand, I honestly think there are far better examples of sexism in video games than anything in Dragon's Crown or other VW games. VW games always feature a diverse cast of exaggerated characters of all archetypes set in various whimsical fantasy universes. I honestly think it's pretty inocuous.
Maybe she does.
Winterfang
Banned
Are they?
And many times loud discussion or outrage has caused things to change for fear of the outrage hurting the bottom line. Why do you think bad movies try to avoid prescreenings or video games embargo reviews or even delay review copies?
Kite
Member
There was a girl at my junior high school who was bullied pretty bad and had many things implied about her because she was naturally well endowed at such a young age.. this was back in 1996, I don't know how things are nowadays. But controversies like this make it seems like there is something wrong with women with large breasts.. making people even more self conscious about their bodies just seems like a huge disservice.
Dragon's Crown seems to have women of many different body types so I just don't see the problem. Now if all/most the females here ridiculously voluptuous seductresses *cough*QueensBlade*cough* I would agree that the game deserved some shaming.
Dragon's Crown seems to have women of many different body types so I just don't see the problem. Now if all/most the females here ridiculously voluptuous seductresses *cough*QueensBlade*cough* I would agree that the game deserved some shaming.
If Moxxi is anywhere on the screen I can see her tits. I'm not complaining at all (it's nice) but she's got some bs double standards going on.
And that's not always a good thing.
I believe without irony or sarcasm that the porn star would be better in the role than Megan Fox.
Good points as well and yeah there's a choice, it's not forced - but there's of course an audience and an age-rating for it.
I've already said too much on it earlier but I think we're making too much out of this, even if DC has taken things somewhat to the extreme, which is quite rare here.
Whether its good or bad is subjective on a case by case basis. Regardless complaining about discussion occurring is pointless. Especially on a forum.
Green Mamba
Member
This is ridiculous. She didn't design Borderlands' characters, nor do its characters have anything to do with what she's saying. She's merely stating her opinion of Dragon Crown's art.
Does she have to include an aside about the characters other people in the company she works for every single time she decides to voice her opinion on some other artwork? This is nonsense.
Well, sure. Discussion will happen, whether it's productive or not.
But she's like a hypocrite that clearly has control over Gearbox's art department. Its not fair if she doesnt slag them off every time she as an opinion.
that looks... awesome, i have the weirdest boner
not psycho
Member
I thought about this, and I ended up with:
You just described every fictional character ever made.
It sounds bad with the "she doesn't choose", but that's what it means to be fictional. By your reasoning, I think it would be impossible to ever make a sexy fictional character, because they would always be unable to choose being sexy.
The very fact that so many people find it off putting should be the first sign that the artist ranked his artistic vision as more important than the widest sex appeal.
For the rest, I would just take issue with your use of the word "simply." That seems to imply a reduction to only sex appeal.
The sorceress was designed as an exaggeration and twist on the sexy witch archetype (a twist because necromancers are not usually under that category). That itself is slightly different than being created to be sexy, though I won't belabor that point. But I will say that being created to be sexy does not imply a reduction to only that.
I think because of influences outside the game, we are conditioned to expect that anything created to be sexy is only that. It can't be anything else as well. But that is our own bias. A sexy character may be strong and just as deep as the other characters. A sexy character may fit perfectly into an art style. A sexy artwork can be just as valuable as a non-sexy artwork.
It is this outside bias that causes the extreme reactions to this game. In every other sense, this game is a very poor example of problems in the industry. It was created by a company with a wide variety of designs (the sorceress is not typical for them), and with a lot of playable female characters. It was made by an artist who is the president of his own company and following his own muse. I don't see how you can criticize it without this context. With the context, I have a hard time understanding "sure, they have a wide variety of designs, but if your artistic vision involves even a single sexy witch character that's unacceptable".
But the sorceress, being so exaggerated, pings our "created to be sexy" radar more than the games which actually have all those problems, and instantly we conclude "created to be sexy" -> "Bad! Can't be anything else! Can't be good art! Can't be valuable!"
^ Good post, worth reading, and then scrolling back up as well - which is also a good post for many reasons.
Tbh I bet women or girls would find it more off-putting in general but then not every game has to appeal to everyone.
Quite the talent he has.
Tbh I bet women or girls would find it more off-putting in general but then not every game has to appeal to everyone.
Quite the talent he has.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
THIS.
i just saw a bunch of elizabeth and moxxi cosplay photos earlier. they must have been forced to dress up like that, right down to the titty-tat.
i wonder if a lot of these upset people would get huffy puffy by some of my fiance's artwork if i told them they were my drawings instead. some of them make moxxi and the sorceress look a little tame in comparison.
TaroYamada
Member
I'm usually firmly planted in the opposite camp on these debates, except when it pertains to that game.... So glad that didn't make it in, would have made my stomach turn.
So Dragon Crown is the sole offender of this? It's called being accountable. Her employer has made a game guilty of the same things she's criticizing. She had no part in that creation process but she didn't even acknowledge it when she took a shot at DC. This "issue" has been a DC pile on (for better or worst) and it seems everyone wants to crucify this game Adam Orth-style. Why hasn't the discussion been broadened to encompass multiple games guilty so we can grasp what the root of the problem is?
Did Nobody see my previous post??
*Digs in pocket*
Me said:Yeah, Dragon's Crown has some serious sexual pandering going on but when you look at the bigger picture, The ENTIRE game's art design is exaggerated Every single character. This argument is worth its weight in gold if everybody was designed normallly except the sorceress.
Call it what you want but you can't fire at one and pass the other. Nobody has been this outraged at Dead or Alive and the women in that game have been tits since Day 1
Where the hell was the Women Video Game Sexualization Task Force when this game came out?
Here is a Google Images link to the game. (CAUTION: NSFW)
If nobody isn't going to call bullshit on that, Then drop your sword and get some perspective.
Im not saying this isn't an issue. Im saying if you want to actually make a difference, everyone should be held accoutable. EVERYONE
I don't remember Kasumi being quite so large back in the Dreamcast days, but I've never been much of a DoA fan.
If society were a bit more empathetic, we wouldn't need to call it empowering. It would just be what she decided to wear. The problem with our own culture though is that even fashion is dominated with certain appeals to male sensibilities which are a result of being raised under patriarchy. If she wore a hoodie to the event and that wasn't part of the character she was portrayed as, she would be ridiculed. That's the real problem.
Also, making assumptions about her as she would exist in a videogame is far more problematic, given that you're hypothesizing sexism which doesn't exist.
If we're talking about Tits. DoA's got it in spades.
And them thangs bounce. Violently.
Makes Sorceress look like starlet in training.
But I never saw the task force nor faux "professional" Kotaku articles calling for a stand..
Devolution
Member
This is a woman with large breasts choosing to wear what she wants in a public appearance. No one forced her.
This is fine. This is empowering. It's pure girl power, I bet.
If someone put her into a video game, it'd be sexist and juvenile. Seems a bit unfair to her, honestly.
This is a gross simplification of a woman choosing her attire vs how some designers pander.
faceless007
Member
There have been thousands of posts over the years talking about certain specific games and the problem of sexism. Have you replied to every single one of those posts?
This is a ridiculous standard to hold any thinking person to.
Green Mamba
Member
She said nothing of Dragon's Crown being the sole offender.
Again--I don't agree with her opinion, at all, but this is one woman's opinion on one game's art style. The characters of Borderlands have nothing to do with what she's saying.
She didn't say "Dragon's Crown art is awful, but everything else especially including the stuff made by my employer, is fine." She said, "Dragon's Crown's art is awful." She said nothing of Borderlands either way. Maybe she does have reservations about Borderlands' art. Maybe she doesn't. Who gives a shit?
You can't respond to everything with everything all the time. No person can be reasonably expected to bring up the entire fucking history of sexism in video game art whenever they feel the desire to voice their opinion on one particular example. This is just nonsensical.