And I bet you was one of the many people who wailed and whined at the DMC reboot design. But as soon as someone flags up objectified female characters, they get accused of all kinds of shit. What gives people like you the right to criticise the creator's vision if others can't? Fucking double standards.
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Why does it seem like people have something against sex appeal?
- Thread starter Arc Christelle
- Start date
And I bet you was one of the many people who wailed and whined at the DMC reboot design. But as soon as someone flags up objectified female characters, they get accused of all kinds of shit. What gives people like you the right to criticise the creator's vision if others can't? Fucking double standards.
Austriacus
Member
If you are gona follow this line of thinking then we gotta take all of video games, you will find that its not as bad as you think.
Books, games and movies are similar in this regard, mainstream media is full of all this but if you go down to the indies and unconvetional genres you will see the balance is not as bad as a first look would led you to believe.
And how do you think the book market reached a limit you seem to be ok with?
Eh, that's not really the same thing.
This level is too short. Or there is too much shooting are more quantifiable things. But I will let that go.
But even then, if the developer thinks that the boring levels or the too much shooting was their intent then fuck it. I also found that BSI had too much shooting, and I quickly dropped it. Would I have like the game more without it? Yes. Does Irrational have to make the the game for me in mind? Nope. They made the game with that in mind. I don't consider criticism by itself to be censorship. I find criticism with the idea that it should be taken seriously like right away to be censorship.
Criticism of shitty level design? Cool. Criticism of character design with the hopes of said character design to be changes asap? Not so cool. i found the whole Infamous shit to be super sad because the developer's initial vision was compromised. The whole Heroes of the storm thing also is lame...stay behind your choices and if the fans dont like it then you will have to pay for it. I just feel like the moans of a few shouldn't dictate your ideas..in terms of art.
This is videogames we are talking about, not human rights.
When videogames come up with the equivalent of a century's worth of respected feminist literature. Then maybe there would be no complaints.
Conciliator
Banned
The only thing that bothers me is that so often, especially in Japan(sorry), characters are designed in a fetishistic way without any concern to the character herself or lore or whatever. Like a lot of shit just doesn't make any sense. That's when it bugs me, because it breaks immersion. "What the fuck is she even wearing?" I'm not offended by it per se, it's just stupid. Now, if a game is deliberately stupid in a self-aware way, then this kind of character design can be appropriate. See: Bayonetta. So, if you're trying to tell a dead serious story one of the many things you need to approach in a dead serious way is visual character design. It all just depends on the tone.
EDIT: The other thing that bothers me is reviewers commentators who get practically assaulted if they express something like this in a review or what not. It's fucking sick. If you disagree with someone or think they're wrong, or hell, even stupid, that's cool. Express that. Running virtual mobs on some is gross and childish.
EDIT: The other thing that bothers me is reviewers commentators who get practically assaulted if they express something like this in a review or what not. It's fucking sick. If you disagree with someone or think they're wrong, or hell, even stupid, that's cool. Express that. Running virtual mobs on some is gross and childish.
Too bad since then they are and have been going backwards with stuff like Officer Vi and Snowstorm Sivir. Sure the former could be justified with the whole "bad cop" reasoning, but Snowstorm Sivir would certainly fall under the same reasoning for Sejuani's visual rework, no?
Nope.
I enjoyed DmC..I loved OG Dante and DMC4 was one of my favorite games of the gen so it's not like I was a new fan...but I gave it a chance and found a solid, if flawed game and the Dino didn't bother me.
try again
Austriacus
Member
Do you mean a genre aimed at women?
You don't see something wrong with expecting a medium that hasn't even existed for a century to have the equivalent of a century's worth of respected feminist literature?
Big difference, dawg. If the DmC reboot had good gameplay, I'm sure people would have looked past the redesign and been okay with it. But people's complaints still ended up being more with the gameplay than with the character's redesign, so since both sucked, why not hate on both?
People hating on games for being sexist don't care about gameplay.
Sorry I jumped to conclusions. Even so I'm sure there's some games out there where you didn't enjoy the design choices or thought took a series backwards in a sequel. It's ok to give feedback on this, and if someone finds something offensive or in bad taste in a game it's OK to call the creators out on it too.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I am not convinced of this at all
Sure
Don't care? More like "recognize that gameplay is frequently not what needs to be criticized here". You said it yourself, if both aspects suck then hate on both. If only one does, hate on that
People were complaining about Dante's redesign way before anyone got a chance to play the game.
That would be unfair of me. But in a decades old medium where I've seen very little progress over the last few years in terms of treatment of female characters, compared to say the technological progression, yes I find it worrying.
TC McQueen
Member
I think it's partly a reaction to how over the top some of the sex appeal stuff is presented, burnout from the sheer saturation of every medium with some form of sex appeal material, and a generation of gamers that has grown jaded to sex appeal thanks to easily accessible internet porn.
Personally, my reactions to sex appeal stuff in media covers a spectrum from "Why the fuck is this shit in here?" to "I give no fucks" to "I can fap to this." The first two options are generally how I react when anything treats itself seriously or could succeed without sex appeal/sexual content, while the third covers porn. In general, the less necessary and more obnoxious the sexual content, the more likely I am to get annoyed/pissed off by it.
Personally, my reactions to sex appeal stuff in media covers a spectrum from "Why the fuck is this shit in here?" to "I give no fucks" to "I can fap to this." The first two options are generally how I react when anything treats itself seriously or could succeed without sex appeal/sexual content, while the third covers porn. In general, the less necessary and more obnoxious the sexual content, the more likely I am to get annoyed/pissed off by it.
Zuhzuhzombie!!
Member
Sex appeal is fine. Exploitation and caricature is what bothers people.
It's normal considering how long it takes to develop a game and the risk involved when you deviate to something new.
That's why the progress is more apparent in the indie scene.
Nothing off the top (I guess I have been lucky that none of my favorites have been taken out back and changed lol).
But lets say I am the biggest Bomberman fan in the world. Act Zero is an abomination to everything. I can call out the dunce who made that decision all I want...but I don't hide behind the flimsy idea that I don't want to make sure the next Bomberman game isn't like that...but only want him to think about it. I would want him to change it but that doesn't make me right, in fact it makes me wrong and kinda selfish. I have no right to damn near demand that the developer does what I want them to do. The only thing I can do is make sure I no longer support their bullshit...and hopefully the shit sells will show that I was right. Otherwise, if the games kept selling, then I guess the new design was accepted and I am not the best sign of the audience. DmC bombed. It was a solid game. I still say Capcom should have called it Angel May Weep or some shit because the fanbase had spoken with their wallets and it seems like we won't get another DmC. If it had of suceeded then, why should the obviosu majority that enjoyed it be punished because of the load whining group of fans who cant let things go?
That is my may issue here I agree that there should be more games for Women and other groups but not exactly at the expulsion of the groups who do get pandered too. I don't like FPS, and maybe EA or Activision would make a game I do like in place of Battlefield or COD but is that fair to Dude McBroDude? You can say, he can go play the remaining one but what if COD was his game and he hated battlefield? I think that the groups who aren't getting pandered too get their games along side of the Boobs and Gunz crowd too. It shouldn't be a situation where one group gets shafted to please the group that doesn't. Nor should a develper's vision be punished to appease this.
Didn't the first trailer showcase both Donte and the gameplay? 'cause I'm pretty sure I remember people hating the gameplay right off the bat.
Also: There's a difference -- and this may sound silly, I know, but listen. When people complain about Donte or stupid shit like that, they know it's not gonna change anything. It's just them venting, voicing their annoyances. With sexism, however, it has been showcased that their complaining actually will change things, which sucks for the rest of us who actually enjoy sexy video game characters. It's just annoying knowing that my hobby is being tailored to people who aren't losers like me, even though it was before.
EDIT: Though in the end, at least there's still Japan. There will always be Japan...
John Kowalski
Banned
It seems weird that the common understanding among bystanders on these issues is that people are trying to diminish what ought to be possible for a developer, where in fact the argument is strongly inclined towards asking the developers for more diversity in their interpretations of the female gender.
People aren't asking for there to be absolutely no sexy video game characters though, just more diversity.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
You're responding to posts in this thread as if it was possible for some oppressive establishment to suddenly outlaw the male pandering in video games. Nobody's advocating this. It's obvious that nobody will ever outright force male pandering to end.
I think the biggest problem with this sort of thing in gaming is that most developers don't even realize they're doing it, nor will they acknowledge that their choices have consequences on how their product is perceived. And why does it have to be exclusive? Is it really valuable enough to us males that we must make sure that male pandering is always there, to the detriment of interesting the other half of the population?
If a creator wants to knowingly make a product that is basically just a pair of floating boobs, then go for it, but I would say we have the right to criticize that work, and allow for voices to oppose such media. For free speech to truly be "free" in all aspects, the consequences of said speech must be always attached. This doesn't mean banning or forcing the creator to change their work, and suggesting that anyone is advocating such an act is foolhardy and silly.
And I think this is a key point here: I think your self-interest is far less important than diversifying the culture, options and innovation in video games, and as such opening the medium up to a wider variety of voices. It's frank but true. I simply don't care about your desire for sexy characters.
Hm, don't misunderstand it - many ramp up the sex appeal because they want to dig into mens pockets - welcome to capitalism, it's their business and their call. That sucks. That's life, life sucks, that's why many of us play games.
I'd like to see less campaigning against things and more campaigning in favour of alternatives - a distinction. Of course when someone does make a game with a legitimately awesome character (IMO) such as Nilin in Remember Me, hardly anyone buys it. It was a good game too, picked as one of my generational top 20.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
Pilgrims.
I'm not sure why you'd make any sort of criticism if you didn't want it to be taken seriously. At that point, you'd just be talking to yourself.
Ultimately, nobody here can force the developers to make changes to their games. All we can do is present our ideas and reasoning. If the developer sees that and doesn't think it's meaningful, then so be it. If they agree with it, then they should do what they think is best to make the game better. If they don't, then I guess I'll be less likely to buy their product.
Games (or at least, most games) are products of design, things built to be consumed. Developers care deeply about how people play their game and what they think. That's the point of playtesting, betas, and getting outside opinions. When the developers of Thief 4 removed XP and QTEs from the game based on fan feedback, were they being censored by short-sighted fans, or did they take something valuable from an outside perspective that they might not have been able to recognize themselves, and used it to improve their game?
I'm not trying to start a giant boycott campaign here. I trust developers enough to know how to properly process criticism of their product, separate the stuff that's constructive and well-reasoned from the stuff that's stupid, and use that knowledge to make a better game.
My question is...what do you want to happen from your criticism?
That's what I am not understanding.
I will never claim to be an expert on this stuff so I am legit asking for what do you want to come from this criticism.
I bought Remember Me too, and I agree that there should be a lot done to give the alternatives attention. I do remember quite a few threads on NeoGAF about the game so it's not like no one talked about it.
It's a business, but that does not mean that no criticism or discussions can be had. Otherwise, most threads on GAF would end with: "Yeah, but you bought it anyways so what's the point of complaining about X issue?"
As a feminist, that's definitely news to me.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Developers to rethink how they make games. More developers either going "we can sell more games if we aren't alienating as many women" or more developers going "oh, we understand what you mean now about how much one-sided objectification there is and we agree that that's a bad thing". Hell, I'd love both but I'll settle for either. In a pinch I'll settle for "we should stop pissing people off" but its not an ideal solution by any means
Conciliator
Banned
Ok, well, everyone here, and almost everyone who is concerned about this stuff, feminist or or otherwise, don't agree with evil feminist conspiracy you are referring to.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
Feminism has become a very large and vague word that is increasingly less definable as time passes by.
I want developers to realize they don't have to do things one way. Right now video games are in a rut with designs for women; the art designer goes right to sexy boob goddess and nothing ever new comes from that. Same with the bald space marine, the massive muscled bro, the wizard with a big beard. These are all unquestioned cliches.
What I want is for those cliches to become questioned. Right now the video game industry doesn't have an answer for why. It just does it. I want developers to choose them mindfully, so then when an interviewer says, "so why did you decide to have your secondary female character to have massive boobs," there is actually an answer.
Or in the best case scenario, developers start wondering how to expand their audience outside of sex-craving male adolescents, and the market expands to - not only what we have now - but entire new genres, innovations, pathways to more interesting and diverse voices. So we have equal amounts male pandering AND female pandering, and copious amounts of everything in between.
This is where I guess the things I care about differs.
I don't place gameplay and technical things like framerate and graphics on the same scale as say artstyle and artistic choices.
Gameplay, for the most part, is capable of being just outright bad. I think it is safe to say that Superman 64 is a bad game and not exactly an artistic choice (I hope) whereas A character wearing nothing but a thong and nipple pasties is. The former should be changed as it is bad, the latter is up to the viewer to decide what is bad but doesn't have to be changed.
I think for me it comes down to, I can see how getting rid of QTEs in Theif would improve it. I don't see how a character design changing improves anything.
i don't place the same value on gameplay and design.
That's why criticizing shitty gameplay practices is okay with me whereas being mad about a silly design is less so. That comes down to taste. It's like music to me, I can't in good faith tell someone who listens to Ke$ha that their taste is bad and mine is great, but I can tell someone that the camera in their game is borked.
Aesthetics are on a different level for me as they are often artistic choices and if you don't like them it comes down to taste. Gameplay and stuff is different.
(sorry for rambling, I have a lot of thoughts on this)
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Would changing the character design make it worse? A lot of people in here seem to think so. If it can make it worse, surely it can make it better as well, or worse for some people and better for others
Gameplay can be just as much about taste as visual design preferences though. Just because something is subjective doesn't mean it is any less valid to discuss.
Context is important. Why is that character wearing nothing but a thong? What message is that artistic choice intentionally or non-intentionally sending?
...but isn't that kinda asking them to change? This is my dilemma here. You want to think about it, to understand where you are coming from, to see your side to understand that it can be bad....and the end game is for them to now make products that no longer appeal to one side. Isn't that asking them to pretty much not make what they are currently making and make something else...in a roundabout passive aggressive as hell manner?
I agree with the rest of your post, so I'm not ignoring it.
But, why do they need an answer outside of "Because I fucking wanted to?". Why do creator's need to explain why they did something design wise outside of they simply wanted to? That is a loaded as fuck question as it simply is setting up for one of two answers; "Because dudes loves big tittays" or some longwinded weak story based reason to mask that it was basically done for the same reason most things are done ...i.e the creator thinks its a good design.
Just an aside.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
I think you seem to be under the impression that a video game mechanic has a certain level of objectivity behind it, whereas aesthetics do not.
I would not agree with this, I would think they are equally subjective. Just because you can get most people to agree that Superman 64 is a bad game does not make it so. It's just a consensus of subjectivity. This is how mediums mature, how we define cultural taste.
If you were to say that video game aesthetics tend to be more arbitrary, then I partially agree, if only because we don't often think about them with the depth that we do with game mechanics. Games seem to be designed much more carefully on the backend, with more finesse and craft, whereas the art design tends to boil down to the collection of two or three cliches.
Considering how much money and effort is spent on video game assets, it tends to reflect a very little amount of forethought. I would say that game mechanics are more important, but it would be nice to see more well considered aesthetic designs.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
If the result makes it more approachable to more people? Yeah, sorry, I am going to push for that. I push for this in large part because I think the medium will benefit more from the advances it makes then it will lose from people who just really really badly needed to have tacky sexualization in their games.
I mean, this is kind of a baffling position you're taking on general terms: so one should never talk with the creator about their work for fear of influencing their future work? Thats kind of how the creater-consumer dynamic works. Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly through criticism and sales and other things.
SolidSnakex
Member
I don't agree with this at all. If anything, right now you're seeing more well designed female characters than ever before. And it's weird that we don't really see developers doing that being given credit. You'll see far more articles and reviews criticizing Grasshopper for Killer is Dead than you will see credit being given to Naughty Dog for TLoU. And the same goes for your bald space marine comment. I think that was basically gone from this generation by the time that we reached the middle. Developers got tired of hearing about it and moved away from it.
I'm not sitting here saying everything is perfect. But I definitely feel that there's a decent amount of variety when it comes to female designs nowadays. Things could be better, but they seem to be drifting in the right direction.
I guess this is where I differ then.
The furry artstyle of Dust basically made me pass on it until it was like 5 dollars on Steam (it is also quite boring.....)but that doesn't mean a different artstyle would make it better, it just would mean it would appeal to me.
I understand that not everything should appeal to me. I am okay with Furry stuff existing for those who it does appeal to. Same with moe Anime and pure fanservice shows. That doesn't make it problematic, sexist, or any of that. It just means I don't like it...thats it. Doesn't make it trash, bad, or any of that.
Why do I have to put the criticism of pandering aside? You asked why people have something against sex appeal. And that's one of the biggest reasons. A lot of the time sex appeal in games doesn't even make sense. But they put it in there because gamers are primarily young males.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
If different mechanics can make a game "better" or "worse" then different aesthetics can make a game "better" or "worse" unless we literally limit ourselves to pure functionality, i.e is the game glitchy. I mean, how can any reviewer claim to review anything if the only measure of quality is functionality? How can two equally functional games with different gameplay be of differing quality in your system?
I mean, if you really take the position "all reviews and criticism are ultimately meaningless and that includes how I feel about games" thats nice and high minded but sorry, I won't believe it for a second.
John Kowalski
Banned
Just wanted to point out that there is such a thing as bad design (as well as bad music, bad movies, and bad gameplay), and taste is never a measure of how effective art design is. Gameplay and artistic languages operate on different senses but neither is more dependent on personal taste than the other (though i'd say art design has more room for displaying the mind of the artist). For example, Remember Me's (which was mentioned already) art is very strong with a clear sense of direction, but the design falters sometimes, because at some points in the game the art is very busy and difficult to discern (even harming the level design at times). None of those aspects are a measure of the artist's personal favorite style, but a measure of his skill in expressing his work to the audience. Gameplay works in exactly the same way, but its vocabulary is so unique (and a fair bit more complex) that we could consider it wholly separate from visual mediums, but it's still a method of expression with the intent of reproducing a certain feeling in the audience.
Of course different people are more keen to notice one aspect of a game more than the other, but they're no less affected by the entirety of work put into the game. For example, and using Remember Me as an example again, players can not be consciously aware of the soundtrack, but they will still be subconsciously influenced by it's "futuristic" influences, and thus feel like the game is in some sense showing him something that's meant to be understood as futuristic. Same thing with the lore, the art design, the character development, and so on.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
The single answer "because I wanted to," is not necessarily a wrong answer. But when it becomes the only answer, across all developers, that is something to wonder about. When such an answer points to a single trend in video games - the sexualization of women (and partially the blandifcation of men) - then it shows an institutional train of thought, an unquestioned loyalty to a specific set of cliches.
I believe that maturation of a medium is the continued questioning of things that nobody considered wondering about. That is where progress lies. That's where we find new genres, new modes of thinking about the medium, and forward motion.
We should demand more from our content producers than just "I thought it was cool." Not everybody will aspire to something better or more complex, and not everybody has to. But the option, the opening of such avenues for discussion are valuable and necessary.
Once again this is where I guess I differ.
I haven't had a game ruined for me by an artstyle I didn't like but I have had it ruined by shitty cameras or shitty controls. Those kinda things are quantifiable to me. That doesn't come down to taste. A camera is either bad or not. Something is either broken or not. But music (outside of of some Nocture as shit), artstyle and such is in the eye of the beholder. Its fine to put that in a review that you don't like the designs and that the music is bad or somehting...that's cool but for that part of your criticism I can put that aside if that doesn't apply to me and just look at the parts I can't judge without playing the game.
That is just how I look at things. There are somethings I see as universal and some things that are up to taste. The latter I see as artistic choices most of the time and the former are things that can be done perfectly so to speak. Asking someone to change their artistic choices to appease you is shitty. Asking someone to fix their shitty camera and other broken aspects is less so.
I could be wrong. I never claim that my point of view is absolute. But that's where I am coming from.
So I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this then
Not really. Here, enjoy the 4200+ replies DmC announcement (+ first trailer) thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=407379
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Sure but gameplay criticism isn't nearly limited to "the camera didn't work". For example, I expect that I won't find a single person (maybe one) who disagrees that The World Ends with You is a better game then say, Nostalgia (that DS JRPG) even though both are "functional" and don't suffer from say, camera angle or control issues.
Aesthetics are more subjective perhaps but I don't think that that then makes them immune from criticism or critical discourse because of the "target audience" argument