Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The Point:
The OP
Often times during equality discussions a common rhetoric among the gaming community is a well worn and frankly outdated phrase that doesn't quite make sense in the current climate of video games, and that phrase is that "sex sells."
This is inherently a self defeatist mindset not only meant to stifle discussion of equality and criticism of developers who put problematic elements in their games, but also problematic in how poorly sex is actually represented in this medium compared to sexualization, objectification, two things that at best, boil down to sexism and in the worst cases, boil down to misogyny. See the following:
The core issue with the argument that "sex," which to reiterate, is out of place sexism, is that many times characters like the above, their designs, and what they're doing has very little to do with actual sex and typically, like most sexualization in gaming, these characters are really obvious examples of sexism in a medium that has tons of issues with representation for anyone that isn't straight, white, and male.
Even if for a second we start to believe that notion that a sexualized female character design that sticks out from the main cast, (despite compelling evidence to thecontrary that people might actually like nuanced portrayals of women in games instead of objects), will help sell a game, that still doesn't mean that
a)devs can't do better for representation and are incapable of appealing to straight male gamers
b)that we should just accept objectification as something that shouldn't be questioned because "that's just the way it is." and that devs should never be criticised ever for appealing to a perceived audience of straight men at the expense of women who might otherwise, be invested in the project.
So why this argument pops up over and over, is beyond me, as it's part of why the discussion of representation is not where it should be. As myself and others feel that we constantly have to go over basic feminism 101 principles to even get into the nitty gritty of why things are the way they are.
While we're here, I actually wanna address this notion. There's this thing called heroic idealism, in the context of video games characters are rarely fully unattractive, but rather they're ideals, characters are typically in shape, have great figures, and accomplish amazing feats. The character in a game is typically meant to be a self insert for a player. In this sense the player is meant to want to be Nathan Drake, thus he's not ugly, on the same cloth, he's not sexualized either as that would likely interfere with the self insertion. As we know, game devs go to absurd lengths to desexualize male characters in games.
For women, I imagine this is what the equivalent of male character heroic idealism looks like:
This characters are all attractive in their own right, but they aren't sexualized to any degree, and thus, aren't off-putting for the audience. That's the difference between actual sexualization and just being an attractive individual.
I only ever see "sex sells" used in defense of stuff like characters with appearances that make no sense in the context they're in outside of sex appeal. The only reason to use that justification (beyond a bypass of any actual discussion) is if the person genuinely believes that that character design is making a very notable difference to sales beyond a couple of % either way.
Again, if that isn't what people who spam "sex sells" to any analysis or criticism of certain designs mean, then it's a literally meaningless thing to say, or an intentional attempt to derail. I mean, even shitty things frequently sell on the basis of morbid curiosity of just how shitty they are.
The OP
Often times during equality discussions a common rhetoric among the gaming community is a well worn and frankly outdated phrase that doesn't quite make sense in the current climate of video games, and that phrase is that "sex sells."
This is inherently a self defeatist mindset not only meant to stifle discussion of equality and criticism of developers who put problematic elements in their games, but also problematic in how poorly sex is actually represented in this medium compared to sexualization, objectification, two things that at best, boil down to sexism and in the worst cases, boil down to misogyny. See the following:
The core issue with the argument that "sex," which to reiterate, is out of place sexism, is that many times characters like the above, their designs, and what they're doing has very little to do with actual sex and typically, like most sexualization in gaming, these characters are really obvious examples of sexism in a medium that has tons of issues with representation for anyone that isn't straight, white, and male.
Even if for a second we start to believe that notion that a sexualized female character design that sticks out from the main cast, (despite compelling evidence to thecontrary that people might actually like nuanced portrayals of women in games instead of objects), will help sell a game, that still doesn't mean that
a)devs can't do better for representation and are incapable of appealing to straight male gamers
b)that we should just accept objectification as something that shouldn't be questioned because "that's just the way it is." and that devs should never be criticised ever for appealing to a perceived audience of straight men at the expense of women who might otherwise, be invested in the project.
So why this argument pops up over and over, is beyond me, as it's part of why the discussion of representation is not where it should be. As myself and others feel that we constantly have to go over basic feminism 101 principles to even get into the nitty gritty of why things are the way they are.
While we're here, I actually wanna address this notion. There's this thing called heroic idealism, in the context of video games characters are rarely fully unattractive, but rather they're ideals, characters are typically in shape, have great figures, and accomplish amazing feats. The character in a game is typically meant to be a self insert for a player. In this sense the player is meant to want to be Nathan Drake, thus he's not ugly, on the same cloth, he's not sexualized either as that would likely interfere with the self insertion. As we know, game devs go to absurd lengths to desexualize male characters in games.
For women, I imagine this is what the equivalent of male character heroic idealism looks like:
This characters are all attractive in their own right, but they aren't sexualized to any degree, and thus, aren't off-putting for the audience. That's the difference between actual sexualization and just being an attractive individual.