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[The Technomancer]

Especially when i didn't buy Remember Me, because it was a shitty game, but publishers are going to assume i didn't because the main character was a female.

This is why I don't buy into the "vote with your wallets" argument. There's nothing wrong with straight up telling people what you don't like

 

[Durask]

I agree that there are characters that are far too overly sexual. Even comic characters (most of them) that are adapted into video games, just look at Wonder Woman. None of that suit is practical, at all. While it isn't much better, most of the skin tight spandex stuff is what I prefer over that (e.g. Invisible Woman).

In terms of a warrior character, let's compare Sif to Wonder Woman:

Sif's got (mostly) practical armour, the breast plate isn't even that exaggerated. On the other hand, Wonder Woman's (Iconic) armour is ridiculous and doesn't exactly leave much up to the mind.

Actually Sif's outfit is just as ridiculous. It's just bikini armor over a T-shirt and pants.
Not only it offers no protection but it will conveniently deflect blows to your upper torso right into your unprotected upper chest.

 

[BloodMoney]

No idea OP, I'm a fan of legs, tits, and box.

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

I love sex appeal

 

[Plywood]

I've got not major problem with it, but depending on the ingame context it can stick out like a sore thumb, I think most of my problems actually come down to make up:

Dead Space 3 Ellie:

Did she really apply makeup in the middle of all this necromorph shit going down or does she have one of the greatest natural complexions of all time?

Mass Effect 3 Ashley:

Just got the shit beat out of her yet still looks like her makeup is still applied under the beating.

 

[UrbanRats]

This is why I don't buy into the "vote with your wallets" argument. There's nothing wrong with straight up telling people what you don't like

Indeed.
I only have a problem with that when people are being obnoxious or condescending or dicks in general (as long as the other parties aren't being dicks, too, of course).

Courtesy will generally arrive to more accepting ears.

I've got not major problem with it, but depending on the ingame context it can stick out like a sore thumb, I think most of my problems actually come down to make up:

Dead Space 3 Ellie:


Did she really apply makeup in the middle of all this necromorph shit going down or does she have one of the greatest natural complexions of all time?

If you start addressing simple make up, you're going too far deep into the rabbit hole, lol.
Let's take one step at a time.

Spoiler

I don't disagree, although in more fantasy settings i can see the point of it, actually.

 

[The Technomancer]

I've got not major problem with it, but depending on the ingame context it can stick out like a sore thumb, I think most of my problems actually come down to make up:

Dead Space 3 Ellie:


Did she really apply makeup in the middle of all this necromorph shit going down or does she have one of the greatest natural complexions of all time?

Mass Effect 3 Ashley:

Just got the shit beat out of her yet still looks like her makeup is still applied under the beating.

Honestly thats the kind of stuff I'd chalk up more to laziness than anything else. As in "we already have this texture and we don't want to redo it, lets just stick the bruising and scraping on top"

 

[Arc Christelle]

I love sex appeal

No idea OP, I'm a fan of legs, tits, and box.

Maybe people take video games too seriously?

I mean you have so many people trying to put real life limitations on fiction and fantasy right now.

 

[Deified Data]

I'm reposting something I posted in the Dragon's Crown review thread ages ago:

Call it the Chell Effect:

The phenomenon which sees otherwise rational gaming enthusiasts demanding asexual depictions of women in games as an alternative to more sexualized depictions, totally oblivious to the notion that what they demand is every bit as sexist as the alternative.

The first step to throwing off the shackles of sexism in the gaming community is to stop focusing so much on appearance and focus more on character. It's my belief that a female character could run around totally nude and flaunt her sexuality flagrantly and still be an interesting character with depth so long as she's written that way. Her appearance isn't what's holding her back - it's the mindset of the men (probably) writing her.

Now, can appearance lend itself to having that negative mindset? Absolutely. Seeing sexualized caricatures of women can hammer home the belief that women are meant to be sexual objects. But the depiction is not the source. That rests in family, community, culture, what have you - videogames are the last place people should expect to receive accurate depictions of women (or anyone, for that matter) from, but it is what it is.

I think we can all agree that women need and deserve more varied representation in gaming - they shouldn't all be sexual objects or chaste, asexual Nice Guy fantasies of what they presume an empowered woman should look like.

 

[RustyNails]

Bayonetta is the worst offender. In charge of her sexuality? aka Hooker dressed up as Librarian from a porn shoot. There is no defending this teenage boy wank material.

 

[The Technomancer]

Chell doesn't look asexual. Chell looks normal (okay, normal for a person wearing an orange jumpsuit)

 

[Coxy]

The whole argument about it not being practical is stupid. Things can be designed just because they want to look cool.

Putting the whole sex aspect aside for a second, a genre I'm very interested in is Mecha and people have been making the same argument of practical and realistic mechs vs fantastical super robots that are just designed to look cool for literally decades. It's a moronic argument and both are simply stylistic choices.

 

[Arc Christelle]

Bayonetta is the worst offender. In charge of her sexuality? aka Hooker dressed up as Librarian from a porn shoot. There is no defending this teenage boy wank material.

Troll bait to the max.

 

[Plywood]

If you start addressing simple make up, you're going too far deep into the rabbit hole, lol.
Let's take one step at a time.

Spoiler

I don't disagree, although in more fantasy settings i can see the point of it, actually.

I agree with your spoiler, again for me it's all about the right context.

Honestly thats the kind of stuff I'd chalk up more to laziness than anything else. As in "we already have this texture and we don't want to redo it, lets just stick the bruising and scraping on top"

Bioware

 

[Orayn]

The whole argument about it not being practical is stupid. Things can be designed just because they want to look cool.

Putting the whole sex aspect aside for a second, a genre I'm very interested in is Mecha and people have been making the same argument of practical and realistic mechs vs fantastical super robots that are just designed to look cool for literally decades. It's a moronic argument and both are simply stylistic choices.

I see this as a very weak argument because there are different implications associated with designing robots and human characters, and mecha designs generally make sense in context whereas characters' designed for sex appeal often don't.

 

[Deified Data]

Chell doesn't look asexual. Chell looks normal (okay, normal for a person wearing an orange jumpsuit)

I disagree that "normal" was at the forefront of Chell's design philosophy. I believe she has a very utilitarian, blank slate look about her. If we're talking "normal" I'd say maybe Ellen Page from Beyond: Two Souls...

...though I haven't played the game so I don't know how far that "normal" representation extends.

 

[UrbanRats]

Chell doesn't look asexual. Chell looks normal (okay, normal for a person wearing an orange jumpsuit)

What about the foot fetishists though?

 

[Fried Food]

I don't want a boner every time I play a game.

I don't want to think that the devs put that stuff in because they think they know what I want, and that I'm so easy to please.

 

[MHWilliams]

No, i did read through whole thread.

Problem with sex appel is connected to sexualization debate because sexappeal is just word used to describe "tasteful" sexualization of character. Like suddenly changing character attire from bikini to nice dress change character meaning. No it doesn't change that character in skimpy bikini and nice dress can be same character wise. It tell more about our tastes rather than it sets what is sexualization or not.

People seems to fight delusional ethic war with nature of human.
Books didn't won that war, movies either and i am sure as hell games won't be different.

If people want to change industry they should vote with their wallet.

The Last of Us had non oversexualized theme and where are those 20mln sales to show anyone "look!!! no boobs ! and it sold 20mln !! we should fallow that theme"

Main AAA industry game focus is male. Because mostly males play those AAA games. Women do play games but their choice of games is mostly different and it isn't different from movies or books. Men have their own games, movies, books same as women have their own different tastes for those mediums. That is only natural.

To change AAA gaming industry you need:

1st. Gaming community where women will actively buy and play games from AAA industry
2nd. Women devs in much much much greater scale than now. Most of the time now dev is male.

Without above two things done we are looking at situation where sheep is trying to tell wolf to change its nature and be vegetarian. Talking won't do jack a thing unless someone either will stop buying games with sexualized themes or start buying games with non sexualized themes.

DEVS are least of people who should be on spotlight of this issue since they are the ones who put money, work and their life on line. Asking them to change things because you don't like it is hypocritical if you will be supporting games with such themes or won't buying games that do not have those themes.


Debate over if sexualization is even a problem is whole other thing from it.



Sure better to point what i don't like in someone post and add nothing to discussion myself.

/s


I think simply we are victim of our small own world. We act like Call of Duty, God of War, Gran Turismo, Dragon Age, Skyrim or Persona is GAMING itself where games like Farm Ville, cooking mama, mobile games, facebook games and so on ARE NOT GAMING.

Our AAA industry is just mainly male but whole gaming is not. We are essentially trying to change male spectrum of games to be somewhat more metrosexual.

For every sexualized game like Sould Calibur there is Cooking Mama. There is wide spectrum of games and people are fighting ehtic war with playboy like spectrum of it.

If you don't think looks are a part of characterization, you are incorrect. The character is defined by their actions: what they say and what they do. The act of putting on clothes is part of the latter bit.

You probably wear certain types of clothes everyday. That's because of how you were raised, what job you may have, so much effort you put into your clothing choices, etc. Changing that - on a consistent, regular basis - is literally a change of who you are as a person.

If I say the character is one thing and their clothing tells me something else, that's poor characterization. Just as much as if I said the character was one thing, and their actions in the story were contrary to that.

In some of these cases, the problem is we're presented with one character and the clothing is telling us a different story.

Alternatively, there's designing the character for looks, and then going back and making up a story to justify those looks. That's a harder nut to crack.

I think we can all agree that women need and deserve more varied representation in gaming - they shouldn't all be sexual objects or chaste, asexual Nice Guy fantasies of what they presume an empowered woman should look like.

That's that general idea.

And I'm unsure why you think Chell is asexual.

 

[Arc Christelle]

I don't want a boner every time I play a game.

I don't want to think that the devs put that stuff in because they think they know what I want, and that I'm so easy to please.

lol for real?

I see this as a very weak argument because there are different implications associated with designing robots and human characters, and mecha designs generally make sense in context whereas characters' designed for sex appeal often don't.

Some people like to make shit that looks cool, some people like to make people that look sexy.

Sometimes its a theme, sometimes its just represented as a singularity. Some people have a respect for sex appeal and want to make something attractive. Sometimes the attractiveness is used as a method of getting what they want from playing on the desires of others. Sometimes it's a mechanism for romance themed plots (I wish more games centered on Romance like Pandora's Tower, which in a sense was like a tragic waifu sim but I enjoyed it.) Sometimes sex appeal is a form of that character's expression.

There are plenty of functional usages. It's almost like some people argue as if it has no place at all.

 

[JordanN]

As for whether it is designed to appeal for men or women, it's as simple as being aware of the cultural reality that defines the context in which the game was developed. It's possible to have a strong understanding of what media understands as "designed for males", because years of study and application have garnered a body of work that can pick up when an artist is, whether consciously of subconsciously (perhaps not that simple, but the fact is that artists do employ these design choices, even if they lack the training as artists to verbalize why they do so) design their characters in ways that reinforce the male perspective on the male and female genders.

I can agree with a lot of this because I can imagine there being a scientific basis behind all this. However, I still see a type of "jumping the gun" when it comes to knowing the intent by the artist. Take your skimpy female design. Is it possible anyone who draws that and shows attention to it wants to appeal to males? Definitely. Biologically, we know what each gender is attracted to (however, if you take into account sexual orientation, you're leaving out bisexual or gay women who can equally find said art appealing) . But what if someone draws it just as an artstyle or preference? I'm not the one to say "well you're only doing that because you want males to look at it". Kinu Nishimura is a female Japanese artist who did the design for Code of Princess but I'm not in the power to know who she designed it for or if she intended for other women to not look at it. That type of thinking itself can actually be seen as sexist.

But the situation itself is much more complex than simply that. If we want to be pragmatic about it, there are a lot of other stuff to consider. Sometimes these designs exist because of marketing. Sometimes they exist, but no one in the team can see what's wrong with them (even if they themselves created it). Sometimes these designs are created by female designers, and they still may suffer from "designed for male" stuff. Sometimes the developers just aren't willing to break the status quo, though they may recognize that there's something wrong in their designs. There are a lot of possible situations that can help the status quo remain unchanged.

See the above. I don't think it's wrong if the artist has full control over it.

You'd be a pretty bad artist, really

The core of any art is communication, and each medium has its own vocabulary as to how to communicate certain things. Painting has them, photography has them, video has then, music has them, games have them, books have them, all of these have their very specific way of communicating with the audience. Some artists may be hard to read because the artists themselves aren't very good at their job, or because they simply can't express themselves in such a formal way. Moreover, you can get an ever better sense of how the artist communicates himself by studying his body of work, how his work relates to that of his contemporary peers, how it grows from the generation behind him, and better yet, sometimes the artist has the good sense of explaining his own work and what he intends with it (if they're not in the "fine art" culture that is, i swear those people speak a different fucking language).

There really is no such thing as a good or bad artist. What makes Picasso's work better than Claude Monet? You would be hard pressed to find an answer. You can like someone else's art better but you can't discriminate someone else's when their intent can be totally different from what someone else achieves.

You also say communication, but the world of art has myriads of ways to express yourself. There is no one standard every artist has to follow when it comes to the end result.

 

[Deified Data]

That's that general idea.

And I'm unsure why you think Chell is asexual.

Strong facial features, drawn-back hair, unisex jumpsuit - I can't be the only one to think asexuality was the foremost guiding principle in her design? You're free to have a different opinion but I'm fairly certain of mine.

Anyway, the entire point of the post is that there's a vocal minority of commentators on the internet who would combat the perceived sexism of sexualized female designs with overtly desexualized designs, people who submit characters like Chell as an ideal that all female characters should strive for - I feel both approaches are counterproductive. Sexiness is normal. At the same time, no one is sexy all of the time. There's a middleground to be found. I don't mean to imply that anyone in this thread is a proponent of making every female character asexual (I haven't read the whole thread) - just giving my 5 cents.

 

[Doran902]

I don't understand the complaints towards over sexual characters nor have I ever bought something because it had these characters or style in them. However I am not a part of the demographic that might find it offensive. I do think it all comes down to artistic vision however and not all artistic vision is pro choice.

 

[Arkadios]

I think that the claims that "99%" of games feature sexualized women is also helped by games with this characters having huge marketing budgets, so they tend to appear a lot more. The Just Dance franchise is very welcome in that regard, being successful with its female audience and being fairly good promoted as of late.

Several games handle the diversity/equality issue pretty well, but they don't get much attention regarding this at all. I think people who want diversity should be more vocal about what they think are good examples instead of only pointing what they dislike.

 

[Winterfang]

I think that the claims that "99%" of games feature sexualized women is also helped by games with this characters having huge marketing budgets, so they tend to appear a lot more. The Just Dance franchise is very welcome in that regard, being successful with its female audience and being fairly good promoted as of late.

Several games handle the diversity/equality issue pretty well, but they don't get much attention regarding this at all. I think people who want diversity should be more vocal about what they think are good examples instead of only pointing what they dislike.

Often I find that people know what they don't want for a character, but don't really know what do they want to replace it with. So you end up having either plain, boring or God forbig ugly/unappealing designs in order to have a "good" female character.

 

[Arkadios]

Often I find that people know what they don't want for a character, but don't really know what do they want to replace it with. So you end up having either plain, boring or God forbig ugly/unappealing designs in order to have a "good" female character.

That is very true, sadly, but I think with more feedback becomes easier to quantify certain desires. A mountain of positive feedback is a lot more motivational to filter and create a new character than loads of hostile claims that you makes you think you made something terribly wrong.

 

[Opinionatedfish]

When I saw the title, I figured this was another gender politics post. Then I read through the first few pages. Some pretty good points, but I have to say that sex appeal is subjective. We live in a world of "Rule 34," so what may have been traditionally appealing for both men and women may not apply. We also live in a world where a few of the developed countries have some sort of recognizable social status for people who may be attracted to the same gender or multiple genders. This is a world where some women and men view an extreme variation or emphasis on their physique to be a sign of feminine or masculine power. There are people who find that clothes are a sign of an oppressed mind. We live in a world where people swing, people dress to emphasize gender differences that are not what they were born with, and there are people who would rather not exude sexuality as a whole.

I would commit to a fact that sex appeal is subjective. Many people tend to "have something against sex appeal" because they may view some variations or emphasis of "sex" to be offensive, oppressive, exploitative, demeaning, or so forth. It is really easy in a visual culture to deem something as bad, then build up a clique of people who will also condemn it. This is easy to do with an image because that image can not tell you if they feel empowered or demeaned by their portrayal. The choice of this is taken out of the hands of the artist and into the hands of fan interpretation. I will leave it up to you to decide if that is a good, bad, or neutral thing.

Too often, these conversations become something that reflects an attitude of "I was told this is wrong and therefore everyone should think it is wrong." That is subjective in nature. There are -always- a few horrible leaps of logic in these threads too: "What's wrong with boobs?" "It's all rape culture!" "The Patriarchy/Matriarchy/Liberal/Conservative blah blah is forcing stereotypes on the children." "Think of the children!" All of those leaps are amusing to read and I -subjectively- enjoy reading them and reading people respond to them.

A few points.

• Art direction should not be the same as Marketing.
• Everyone has and is capable of having an opinion.
• Sex Appeal is subjective and -while a lot of it is based on math- there are variances.
• Millions of video games are released every year across a wide range of platforms. Please do not judge the entirety of the video game industry off of a handful of games.
• All statistics are subjective and may contain errors/bias.

Of course, my opinion is completely subjective too and I expect people to disagree.

I do like to see strong female and strong male characters in video games. Not everyone has to be an extreme, but extremes do not bother me if the game is fun to play.

 

[Arc Christelle]

When I saw the title, I figured this was another gender politics post. Then I read through the first few pages. Some pretty good points, but I have to say that sex appeal is subjective. We live in a world of "Rule 34," so what may have been traditionally appealing for both men and women may not apply. We also live in a world where a few of the developed countries have some sort of recognizable social status for people who may be attracted to the same gender or multiple genders. This is a world where some women and men view an extreme variation or emphasis on their physique to be a sign of feminine or masculine power. There are people who find that clothes are a sign of an oppressed mind. We live in a world where people swing, people dress to emphasize gender differences that are not what they were born with, and there are people who would rather not exude sexuality as a whole.

I would commit to a fact that sex appeal is subjective. Many people tend to "have something against sex appeal" because they may view some variations or emphasis of "sex" to be offensive, oppressive, exploitative, demeaning, or so forth. It is really easy in a visual culture to deem something as bad, then build up a clique of people who will also condemn it. This is easy to do with an image because that image can not tell you if they feel empowered or demeaned by their portrayal. The choice of this is taken out of the hands of the artist and into the hands of fan interpretation. I will leave it up to you to decide if that is a good, bad, or neutral thing.

Too often, these conversations become something that reflects an attitude of "I was told this is wrong and therefore everyone should think it is wrong." That is subjective in nature. There are -always- a few horrible leaps of logic in these threads too: "What's wrong with boobs?" "It's all rape culture!" "The Patriarchy/Matriarchy/Liberal/Conservative blah blah is forcing stereotypes on the children." "Think of the children!" All of those leaps are amusing to read and I -subjectively- enjoy reading them and reading people respond to them.

A few points.

• Art direction should not be the same as Marketing.
• Everyone has and is capable of having an opinion.
• Sex Appeal is subjective and -while a lot of it is based on math- there are variances.
• Millions of video games are released every year across a wide range of platforms. Please do not judge the entirety of the video game industry off of a handful of games.
• All statistics are subjective and may contain errors/bias.

Of course, my opinion is completely subjective too and I expect people to disagree.

I do like to see strong female and strong male characters in video games. Not everyone has to be an extreme, but extremes do not bother me if the game is fun to play.

I fucking love you.

 

[The Technomancer]

^Sorry, but while I agree that sex appeal can be subjective 95% of the time if the developer is trying to make a character have sex appeal you can tell. It is not that hard to say "this person (or team) created this with the intent of making it sexual" and then we can evaluate it in the context of the rest of the work.

Also I'm really getting sick of this line of reasoning:

The choice of this is taken out of the hands of the artist and into the hands of fan interpretation. I will leave it up to you to decide if that is a good, bad, or neutral thing.

Freedom of expression is not freedom from response, and there is nothing wrong with the response being "I don't like that you did this" or, in this case, "I don't like that so many of you are continuing to do this"

 

[bengraven]

An artist draws a nude woman in a suggestive pose, it's called "erotic art".

An artist draws a woman with a string bikini in a suggestive pose, it's called "sexualization".

*shrugs*

I would have zero issues if there were hundreds of media examples of men in ridiculously sexy clothing running around.

 

[The Technomancer]

An artist draws a nude woman in a suggestive pose, it's called "erotic art".

An artist draws a woman with a string bikini in a suggestive pose, it's called "sexualization".

*shrugs*

I would have zero issues if there were hundreds of media examples of men in ridiculously sexy clothing running around.

Context and tone, above all else context and tone

 

[dezzy8]

Because if you live in America, sexy is bad and guns are good.

 

[C.Olimar788]

There is nothing wrong with sex appeal. What's wrong is when sex appeal leads to objectification or shallow characters. That's why Bayonetta and the characters in Skullgirls are great examples of female characters in video games despite their sex appeal.

 

[PseudoKirby]

I feel like characters have become over sexualized over the years. Take Final Fantasy for example. Sure Tifa has abnormally large breasts, but she wasn't half-naked like they are now.

 

[IAmRandom31]

There is nothing wrong with sex appeal ....

I think they go so over the top in Dragons Crown though it is almost comical with the sorceress

 

[Opinionatedfish]

^Sorry, but while I agree that sex appeal can be subjective 95% of the time if the developer is trying to make a character have sex appeal you can tell. It is not that hard to say "this person (or team) created this with the intent of making it sexual" and then we can evaluate it in the context of the rest of the work.

Also I'm really getting sick of this line of reasoning:



Freedom of expression is not freedom from response, and there is nothing wrong with the response being "I don't like that you did this"

One could say that 40% of the time, 80% of fan interpretation could be wrong 95% of the time on 20% of the subject and someone may dislike it 100% of the time. Percentages are fun to use because it makes what is being written sound like it is fact and not opinion.

As for response from fans, that will always happen with any art. Because we internalize our own responses and seek out confirmation of our own responses with other people. A lot of people look at Lara Croft as a symbol of sexuality, even though her creator stated that to not be the case. Of course, he internalized that it is not the case and the majority internalized that it is the case. Nothing wrong with that, but it is just opinion. Popular opinion is not always "right" for everyone or even appropriate in every situation.

As for video games? I see a lot of examples of both ends of the spectrum and we should be happy that we live in market where I can be offended by a game while enjoying games that don't offend me as well. The presence of one game does not mean the absence of another anymore. We democratized the means of production in the mobile and PC markets. Everyone can cook and everyone who wants to cook should be allowed to cook. I just might not want to eat what they cook, but there is someone out there who is hungry for what they are cooking.

 

[The Technomancer]

One could say that 40% of the time, 80% of fan interpretation could be wrong 95% of the time on 20% of the subject and someone may dislike it 100% of the time. Percentages are fun to use because it makes what is being written sound like it is fact and not opinion.

And one can say "both sides are wrong guys the truth is somewhere in the middle because everything is subjective". Ambivalence is fun to use because it makes what's being written sound like its fair

 

[John Kowalski]

I can agree with a lot of this because I can imagine there being a scientific basis behind all this. However, I still see a type of "jumping the gun" when it comes to knowing the intent by the artist. Take your skimpy female design. Is it possible anyone who draws that and shows attention to it wants to appeal to males? Definitely. Biologically, we know what each gender is attracted to (however, if you take into account sexual orientation, you're leaving out bisexual or gay women who can equally find said art appealing) . But what if someone draws it just as an artstyle or preference? I'm not the one to say "well you're only doing that because you want males to look at it". Kinu Nishimura is a female Japanese artist who did the design for Code of Princess but I'm not in the power to know who she designed it for or if she intended for other women to not look at it. That type of thinking itself can actually be seen as sexist.

I see your point, but you're coming into this argument from a different paradigm. You're thinking of the artists as unique entities, capable of distancing themselves from their context and that it should be their privilege to behave as such without being blamed of reinforcing cultural and artistic ideas that are ultimately harming to the audience (and by harming, i'm specifically talking about reinforcing unhealthy gender representations that harm men's and women's own relationship with what is expected of their gender role). Which is simply not the case, because humans simply don't behave that way. We grow through reaction to our environments, and as an audience, every work of art that we consume inevitably relates itself to whatever else we have consumed before. That's how criticism works as well, and how it has evolved together with art throughout the centuries. That's how we can see art movements developing over time, and pretty much all movements are reactions to the paradigm that was set by the movements that came before.

And also, videogames are largely commercial enterprises, so the developers can't merely exist within the artistic world, they also have to work towards existing in the entertainment business. Their work is inevitably strictly judged by a gigantic number of possible buyers, who themselves exist in a culture that unapologetically reinforces mass consumerism. The relationship with the audience and with the medium is very different for videogames than it is for, hum, fine art photographers for example. You'll excuse me if i constantly refer to photography, that's the one medium i'm most knowledgeable about. So, if, say, Gregory Crewdson does a project that clearly displays archaic gender roles, should he be held accountable for reinforcing generally considered bad stereotypes? His audience is very well defined, they're art gallery goers who are likely to be familiar with his work. Let's talk about another one, then. Garry Winogrand is commonly thought to be one of the best and most influential street photographers, but part of his work is clearly about exploring female moments of public fragility ("It's the fear of having a brief moment of physical vulnerability in a public place - a broken blouse button, a dropped handbag, a taxi exit in a dress - and watching that moment show up later, in a humiliating way, because of some jerk with a camera."). Winogrand's audience is a fair bit bigger than Crewdson's, and his influence is still felt today. And unlike Crewdson, who mostly works with fictional scenes, Winogrand's work is documentarian, reflective of the society he observed and captured. Can he be held accountable for having an artistic direction that sought to display females in an unapolagetically bad light? How does each of these artists influence their audience? Differently? And if so, to what degree can they held responsible for that influence? You see what i'm getting at? There can be no one question to save them all. You shouldn't be able to ask "but is that what they were really thinking?" when their work touches controversial subjects, because that question provides no real answer. It takes nothing about the artist's context into account, it doesn't help the artist be clearer about his message, and it doesn't put any possible discomfort to rest. It's a "bad" question. If people are having problems with what they're consuming, then that problem exists whether we want it to or not.

As an aside, i do really love the art of Code Princess. The whole king and queen theme with Solange is awesome and somehow very well mixed. But it's really iffy nonetheless, and though i still haven't played the game (and thus can't really comment on it), i understand why the design might have meant someone not buying the game.

See the above. I don't think it's wrong if the artist has full control over it.

Hum, well, see the above as well!

There really is no such thing as a good or bad artist. What makes Picasso's work better than Claude Monet? You would be hard pressed to find an answer. You can like someone else's art better but you can't discriminate someone else's when their intent can be totally different from what someone else achieves.

There is such a thing as a bad artist. Why isn't there? There are bad photographers, there are bad writers, there are bad musicians. Why shouldn't there be bad painters? Picasso certainly wasn't as good a painter when he began his career as he was when he finished it. Same with Monet. Old Monet was probably a better painter than young Picasso. Same with Da Vinci, same with The Beatles, same with Robert Doisneau, same with every artist that sold their lives and souls for their artisanship.

What you might be thinking, and this is a perfectly understandable situation to find yourself in, is that if all these people worked in different stuff, how can they be compared to each other? And that's actually the case. Well, photographers took a lot from painters and cinematographers took a lot from photography and painting. But neither took anything from music, or from writing, or from acting, etc, right? But the thing is that, even though they work in different mediums, they all aim for the same thing. A sad photograph aims for the same thing that a sad movie and a sad song aims for. They may use a different vocabulary, and they may work with different senses, but they all have sadness in common. And therein lies the one thing that you can measure commonly measure. An artist's skill is the relationship between what he knows, how he uses what he knows, and how effective he is at using his knowledge to his desired intent.

You also say communication, but the world of art has myriads of ways to express yourself. There is no one standard every artist has to follow when it comes to the end result.

But to express yourself is to communicate, isn't it? I don't mean to say that communication is a theme common to all art, but act of using your skills to create art and to display your art is in and of itself an acting of communication between the artist and the audience.

Holy shit, i really outdid myself with this one. In any case, i'm happy you didn't just tell me to fuck off like many would. Thanks brah.

 

[Opinionatedfish]

And one can say "both sides are wrong guys the truth is somewhere in the middle because everything is subjective". Ambivalence is fun to use because it makes what's being written sound like its fair

Fair = Subjective.

There aren't absolutes, especially on the internet. There are rules, but those only apply inside a sphere of influence and may not apply to a case by case, person by person basis.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I think women are scared of other women who are far more attractive than they are, especially in a non-realistic environment where they couldn't possibly compete.

With men you've got muscles, you've got money, you've got confidence.. there's a list of things you can work on to be 'attractive' but when a woman tries to attract a man it's pretty much all just in the way she looks. From my experience they generally just stand there looking pretty and dare us to come up to them and look like fools.

So I think thats why there's an uproar every time theres a sexy woman in a video game. Its the mothers and the sisters.. and often also their boyfriends/husbands who are forced in to complaining about it at knife point. Because 'looks dont matter' ..as long as the woman saying that statement is the sexiest in the room...

I call Poe's law on this one.

No, that's not it. I would've thought this 13/14 year old old stuff would've stopped when Jason Schreier got blown up over it when he accused Kamitani of being a 14 year old. It does absolutely nothing for these discussions.

What about calling people prudes? Think this adds something to the discussion? Like this asinine garbage:

One thing I've observed in the past few years of posting here is that GAF has a huge number of prudes.

Ultra-violence is okay, but sex is bad! This is not unlike how movies are treated too in the Western world, interestingly enough.

Ugh.

I agree, something like that MGS5 character seems ridiculous to me, because it looks silly within the context of the game.

However, something like objecting to the character design of Dragon's Crown merely because the character has great breasts seems equally ridiculous to me.

No one objected because the sorceress has large breasts. They objected because:
- her breasts are larger than her head;
- her spine is bent in a centaur-like shape so that her ass sticks out;
- her various animations, such as when running or falling, make sure to show those breasts bounce and jiggle in the most grotesque cartoonish ways (the Amazon has similar problems, her "stunned" animation has her spine badly twisted to make sure her ass is shown very clearly on the screen);
- the game has tons of creepy vacant-eyed sexualized female NPCs (including a fully clothed female monk with her legs open like an eagle spread and who makes a creepy moaning sound), as well as tons of unlockable artworks featuring half-naked females.

At some point it's just so overdone, it's tiring and obnoxious.

Spoiler

I'm a fan of the game and I beat it on Infernal mode. With a solo Amazon.

To me it looks like pseudo white knighting issue.

Oversexualization in games is used because this is what MEN like. They are main target and i am pretty sure most of MEN like beautiful women in skimpy wear.
If you want to start talking about this issue you need to first start with issue WHY there are only beautiful people in games. Especially WOMEN. The reason is same as above and skimpy wear problem is just extension of that problem.

There is no medium book, movie, games or whatever where WOMEN AND MEN were treated realistic in therms of their look. James Bond is always beautiful for women same as his girls to men. Only beautiful actors mostly reach star status.

If game makers would include only realistic looking women which means most of them would be fat dwarves in their 30-40-50 and so on and realistic looking men which means ton of them having additional belly "muscle" most of people would enjoy less games.

MEN like boobs, tits and so on. This is their nature as males. Same as girls liking hot men.

If you want to fight it DO IT. Just don't buy that game and if you will be taken to focus testing on some game just say it look bad to you.

Reason why i said it is PSEUDO white knighting issue is that most of debate is driven by MEN who will after hours fap to their porn stash.


This debate for me is like debate going on about fashion models and why fashion models needs to be beautiful or wear fancy clothes where most of us are fugly and won't wear nice clothes all time.

I call Poe's again. No way this isn't satire, right?

I love the whole "vote with your wallet" argument. And then the same people will say "those games are targeted at men, because men are the majority audience, #dealwithit". So when we do vote with our wallets... then we can't complain because we're "not the target audience". Lose-lose.

 

[The Technomancer]

No one objected because the sorceress has large breasts. They objected because:
- her breasts are larger than her head;
- her spine is bent in a centaur-like shape so that her ass sticks out;
- her various animations, such as when running or falling, make sure to show those breasts bounce and jiggle in the most grotesque cartoonish ways (the Amazon has similar problems, her "stunned" animation has her spine badly twisted to make sure her ass is shown very clearly on the screen);
- the game has tons of creepy vacant-eyed sexualized female NPCs (including a fully clothed female monk with her legs open like an eagle spread and who makes a creepy moaning sound), as well as tons of unlockable artworks featuring half-naked females.

At some point it's just so overdone, it's tiring and obnoxious.

But like, all of those things are subjective man. We can't be sure what the developer intended or speculate on how they wanted people to react, certainly not enough to talk about it or anything. There's just so much grey area we need to focus on

 

[Morrigan Stark]

You forgot, "why do you hate breasts? And sex? Are you a prude or something?"

 

[The Technomancer]

In all honesty I don't really like taking a mocking tone, but in these kind of debates the voice of "everything is subjective so we shouldn't really be trying, things just are what they are" just is...frustrating

 

[JordanN]

You're thinking of the artists as unique entities, capable of distancing themselves from their context and that it should be their privilege to behave as such without being blamed of reinforcing cultural and artistic ideas that are ultimately harming to the audience

----

You shouldn't be able to ask "but is that what they were really thinking?" when their work touches controversial subjects, because that question provides no real answer. It takes nothing about the artist's context into account, it doesn't help the artist be clearer about his message, and it doesn't put any possible discomfort to rest. It's a "bad" question. If people are having problems with what they're consuming, then that problem exists whether we want it to or not.

Well what kind of context is there? The context for a female design doesn't have to be black and white. As stated before, there's nothing stopping it from being an art preference or having it viewed by both genders. I also don't believe artists have a responsibility for who views there art. Either their job is to design things as according to the art director, or if they are the art director, they come up with what they think is ideal or represents their vision (at least when it comes to video games). In general, it's the same thing. Art has no barriers. It's how you want to express yourself.

There is such a thing as a bad artist. Why isn't there?

I think it's because when you say "bad artist" you are narrowing down art to certain extremes when art never started out that way. Unless your goal in life is to make Picasso art, you are not a bad artist if you attempt something wholly different. I could argue bad art could later becomes "good" art. Cartoons for example, are a huge descent from looking like real people. They do a bad job of capturing them, but isn't that point? It actually becomes a skill to know what parts of the human body to exaggerate. Different exaggeration leads to different form which leads to different art (i.e, caricatures, anime, kids drawings, comic books etc).

Look at how many people still put Mario above other games. Am I suppose to say they're wrong or that the other games have bad art?

 

[Village]

Maybe people take video games too seriously?

I mean you have so many people trying to put real life limitations on fiction and fantasy right now.

Art and media in general influence and are a reflection of our culture. Our culture seems to be a might bit sexist in many ways, and it reflects that in our games.

Its almost never too serious, if you wish to avoid debate, wish to avoid those who feel jilted by their media, their culture. Go in a cave and stop interacting with others, people will always wanted to be treated and be represented fairly. And it wont stop until we get there.

that's it and that's all

 

[Riposte]

Actually Sif's outfit is just as ridiculous. It's just bikini armor over a T-shirt and pants.
Not only it offers no protection but it will conveniently deflect blows to your upper torso right into your unprotected upper chest.

Do you know what chainmail is?



Also there isn't any objectivity in language. There is no such thing as objectivity, period. Only accepted rules that have been beaten into people while they were growing up and these rules become more disseminated and vaguer as you move away from letters, numbers, basic shapes, and colors. Art is "about communication" in so much it is about people using senses to feel things. Messages, however, are created by the viewer in a completely subjective manner (the only manner anything can occur).

 

[OmahaG8]

I dunno.

Underage or abuse stuff is pretty uncool and deserves the negative attention it gets.

I don't see any reason why the world can't have infinite boob torpedoes ala Dragon's Crown. If you wanna draw that and someone is up to buy it, cool.

 

[Village]

Also there isn't any objectivity in language. There is no such thing as objectivity, period. Only accepted rules that have been beaten into people while they were growing up and these rules become more disseminated and vaguer as you move away from letters, numbers, basic shapes, and colors. Art is "about communication" in so much it is about people using senses to feel things. Messages, however, are created by the viewer in a completely subjective manner (the only manner anything can occur).

I am an artist, what is this madness?

 

[The Technomancer]

Also there isn't any objectivity in language. There is no such thing as objectivity, period. Only accepted rules that have been beaten into people while they were growing up and these rules become more disseminated and vaguer as you move away from letters, numbers, basic shapes, and colors. Art is "about communication" in so much it is about people using senses to feel things. Messages, however, are created by the viewer in a completely subjective manner (the only manner anything can occur).

This is maybe accurate on the purely scientific level but also feels like it leads to reductionism to absurdity. We unconsciously think of things in objective terms all the time. I don't go around worrying that other people are seeing a different sun then me.

The relationship between the creator and the viewer being a one way street is just a weird idea to me. I mean, the process of artistic creation and evolution being an iterative synthesis just seems so fundamental to me as to be almost self-evident. Artists are influenced by their culture and their art influences the culture that then influences them or other artists, and I just don't buy that that process is so completely opaque that any discussion of it is useless. That...kind of negates all criticism that aspires higher then functional consumer advocacy.

 

[Arc Christelle]

Art and media in general influence and are a reflection of our culture. Our culture seems to be a might bit sexist in many ways, and it reflects that in our games.

Its almost never too serious, if you wish to avoid debate, wish to avoid those who feel jilted by their media, their culture. Go in a cave and stop interacting with others, people will always wanted to be treated and be represented fairly. And it wont stop until we get there.

that's it and that's all

Then do it. Make your own shit. I don't care whether or not if you have the time for it or not. If you really want change, that's what you do. Or just be an armchair developer. I'm not discouraging discussion but regardless what you say, this is reality.

Second of all, I'm questioning that people have a hard time just accepting fiction for what it is and perhaps overanalyze certain things, while there are exceptions that can prove their case, not every piece of work up for questioning completely fix their narrative.

Don't be gettin' defensive. I don't care about patriarchal oppression, sexism, or sexist views or whatever, and for those that do, that's fine, feel free to talk about it in the thread, all though after telling you how I feel about it already you should know better than to discuss gender politics with someone that may feel apathetic about it for whatever reason.

I simply ask why do people find a hard time enjoying sex appeal. Do you really need a ton of suggestive works of the opposite sex just to say, "Oh this looks nice."?

I'm question people who may view suggestive imagery as perhaps something perverted or deviant. The art that actually does have more going on for it than "lol bewbs" the actual enjoyment of sexuality and sexual nature.

But many people seem to confuse that with objectification and exploitation which I find problematic, yes those exists, and there are those that are very bad, which I don't even bare in mind due to the fact that it's so shallow that it shouldn't be acknowledge, but why is it brought up so damn much through out the entire discussion?Maybe because it's easy to think of and people want to feel smart, mature, or above something, despite the fact that they are discussing a shallow subject. I ask that are people capable of enjoying sexual content for what it is.

This is why I feel that perhaps we take video games too seriously. People come looking to be immersed and shit, forgetting that its just a game. There are plenty of life lessons you can learn from some games, but I'm pretty sure how to treat the opposite gender or interact with them isn't one. These video games aren't our parents. they are not our spouses, they are not people. They're simply forms of entertainment of various depths and direction. They are hardly the same, and they all function in their own way, and despite influences from life and society, at the end of the day, it's fiction man.

Perhaps learning about endurance, and simple things that make you wonder are nice. But you can only go so far with it. You have other influences and experiences that are not solely tied down to Super Big Titty Ninja All-Stars.

You can watch porn but it doesn't define your view on women, for some people they just want something to jerk off to. Then out in public they're out being manner-able and respectful.

But at the end of the day, if you want change, no matter what race, religion, gender, etc. You make something. You work to create. Just like everyone else has done. You can complain about it, but you can't expect a perfect change to your tastes by being an armchair developer, life will never work that way. That's why we're free to debate. Just like people can say they don't have a problem with it, there will be people who say they either don't, are apathetic, or just enjoy it.

Not to everyone sex nor sex appeal is a form of oppression.