Dead or Alive 5 Director: A Lot of Fans Want Bigger Breasts

[RandV80]

Nothing wrong with a bit of "fanservice" IMO.

Transformers had Megan Fox "fixing" a car. Where was a mass outrage?

If you don't like it, don't buy it.

They can change the series removing what made it (in)famous to try to reach a broader audience (and appease the whiny people who got "offend") but they risk alienating their current fan base - and if they fail to reach the "broader audience" in the process, it's more or less game over for the series. It's really up to the developers who they want to target and appeal to.

The difference is in a game like Dead or Alive and others of it's kind (Tera) every woman is Megan Fox fixing a car. And Dead or Alive is at least a legitimate 'movie', but then Team Ninja goes and makes a game where it's nothing but Megan Fox's fixing cars. As much as I like women it gets to the point where have to ask why don't you just go all the way and start making full out porn.

...Which actually I think I know the answer to, it has to do with Japanese culture and media. On one hand they're more open with sexuality and sexual innuendo, but on the other in some ways they're still conservative about actual sex especially in regards to minors. So with the 'shounen' genre, material targeted at young males 12-16 or something like that, they have no problem providing the boys all the titillation they want, but actual sex is avoided. So what you're left with is these weird as manga series where you have a cast of porn stars engaging throwing around plenty of 'fanservice' but engaging in perfectly safe PG relationships.

I gotta say though, while I'm critical of them one on hand, on the other I gotta respect them for at least putting a good deal of variety/work into creating different character models. The females may all be sexy baby doll face types, but at least there's variety. I lean more towards RPG's myself, and WRPG's are pretty bad for using the 'one model fits all' type. I have finally gotten around to and am currently playing Dragon Age: Origins, just looking at the females in my part I currently have Morrigan, Leliana, and Wynne. Apart from different heads on top they all have the exact same 'sexy' build, even though Wynne is supposed to be an old lady. And from the guys direction Sten at least has a different build but I know Alistair is a clone of my male warrior. I know it would take a little more work but it would be really nice to see some more variety, as I tend to find the 'everyone's sexy in the exact same way!' approach a little immersion breaking.

 

[Noetherian]

The first few times I read this headline, I didn't give it much extra thought. Sure, if you like booby games, you will probably enjoy even MORE boobs in your game! Makes sense; whatever.

But then I read the headline again just now while browsing a different page, and my tired, addled brain understood it to mean that DoA fans were calling for bigger breasts-- not in the game but for themselves. Perhaps playing so much DoA had given them unrealistic expectations for reality, and why shouldn't the game devs be expected to fix that for them?

Thus, I move that the complainants be rewarded with bigger breasts on their own chests, for their own personal use. Perhaps this will satisfy their needs and allow the gaming industry to devote less energy to increasingly improbable breast physics.

[/satire]

 

[A-D.]

I actually find the responses in this thread much more amusing and interesting at the same time than the news itself. Why you may wonder? Well, because a quite large part of our own users and commenters in that sense lump together anyone who might like the idea of jiggle physics, or larger than average breasts with general perverts. Acting as if big Breasts are something to be ashamed of, doubly so for liking them, which makes me question as to how you can go to that length to essentially shun anything remotely sexual about it.

Lets face it, DoA is a beat 'em up, it might not be the best around, or the most popular, but it stayed relevant for quite a long time, in part due to being not bound by the recent "lets make everything realistic" crap, although not all fighting games follow that trend, some do, Mortal Kombat for example is rather graphic, on the gore at least if not bouncing balloons. While Tekken and Street Fighter follow a more realistic, although stylized style. Hence, the main attraction to DoA is still the fighting, the bouncing balls? Sexy Women? Thats icing on the cake as it were, yes they might be nice and be a staple of the series and draw essentially part of the core fanbase, but if its just women in skimpy outfits and giant hooters then you may as well not play it and just watch porn.

Now granted, the way the physics work now is..weird at best, as breasts dont move due to a damn gust of wind, unless they are in fact balloons full of air, or helium given how they defy gravity. And i would prefer they make the physics realistic and add some flavour to combat styles, if you got a large pair, you arent going to fight doing somersaults and such stuff, breasts weigh something, in fact they also hinder any serious combat, so if you wanna have a character with large boobies, said character should fight visibly in a manner to compensate for that, which might also again make them visually distinct aside from the size of their mammaries and color of clothing. Giving them personality beyond that also wouldnt hurt and i would rather Team Ninja focuses on those two aspects first, instead of compounding the problem with tits gainaxing (TvTropes for more reference) and the characters being little more than cutouts for said jiggling gazongas.

There's nothing wrong with sex-appeal in a game, hell DoA essentially lives from that by this point, but you can at least compensate for the whole sexyness stuff by adding small adjustments to have it make sense and not have characters fight each other when their bodies cant even support the damn weight, Proportion here is key, if a chick is tall, muscular and a bit thicker generally? They can have big breasts because while big, they dont look unnatural on them, tiny girls with giant melons dont really look nice. Oh and while we're at it, fix some of the imbalance in the fighting too.

In short, want a game with loads of fanservice in it? Sure go right ahead, but make a effort. Dont just half-ass it. And to all the "omg people like big boobs people", grow up. Everyone likes breasts, yes everyone, nobody is a exception here, not even the women. Just because it doesnt appeal to you, and im fair here that the whole gainaxing crap annoys me just as much, dont put people into categories for liking some game, else im going to start pointing out big gaping flaws in every damn genre that exists and make you feel bad for being a fan of said genre.

 

[PrototypeC]

I swear the man is making this up himself to justify it. Who wants this? Beta testers? Has he received thousands of e-mails that we haven't seen? WHO is saying these things?

He's full of shit. On the other hand... I adore his philosophy of fulfilling long-time fans first (aren't they the guaranteed return you should be cultivating?) instead of trying to entice new fans by making everything more homogenous (potentially pleasing more people, but pleasing each one less? What sense does that make?!).

Thinking of a few of my favourite (currently stagnating) game series when I read him saying that.

 

[Tanakh]

It's like the summary of a news paper article being written for a tabloid for the purpose of causing an inflamed response. On the internet we call that behavior trolling.

It is exactly that, but to be fair it's a massive thrend in news. See the huffington post as a prime example of clicks being put ahead of quality journalims. A shame, it irks me to see a site with such funny videos pandering so hard to it's audience for clicks especialy in cases like this when they totally miss the point or just write opinion pieces as news, but i shouldn't expect otherwise.

 

[likalaruku]

I say ask your target audience what they want & what they don't & go with that. Boobs are probably the only reason anyone buys DoA (what is it anyway? Like a combat sim date dress-up franchise?). I mean, the players have a 0% chance of finding a hot F-cup girl who will give them the time of day in real life, so if that's all the game is good for, let them fantasize.

 

[excalipoor]

what is it anyway? Like a combat sim date dress-up franchise?

It's a fighting game with revealing outfits and jiggly tits. You know, just like every other fighting game ever. They also made a volleyball spin-off with characters from the series that was mostly uncondensed fanservice, which resulted in everybody confusing the two.

If Dead or Alive 5 was the exact same game but with a different name and developer, nobody would be talking about this.

 

[CyanideSandwich]

Large breasts do not equal attractiveness or "sexiness". Either way, do we really want to even further the stereotype that gamers are all just horny teenage boys who want digital boobs everywhere?

 

[PoweD]

Large breasts do not equal attractiveness or "sexiness". Either way, do we really want to even further the stereotype that gamers are all just horny teenage boys who want digital boobs everywhere?

Who are you to decide what is "sexy" and what isn't?Some people just have personal taste.

and to answer your second question, yes.
Why? 'cause sex sells, and publishers know this.

We might think that the stereotype is incorrect, but judging by how Tomb Raider has been surviving all these years suggests otherwise.

 

[Olas]

translation:
A lot of our fans are simpleminded perverts who value eye-candy over realism/modesty/respectability.

I actually kinda like his honesty. I'd be embarrassed it admit this stuff if I were him.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Large breasts do not equal attractiveness or "sexiness". Either way, do we really want to even further the stereotype that gamers are all just horny teenage boys who want digital boobs everywhere?

My own personal tastes are at odds with that statement, which suggests that it's less than true.

Why is it suddenly bad to like boobs? We choose actors and actresses for films often based on their unlikely appearances, and those actors and actresses often play characters that are very unrealistic to appease the target demographic of the films they're in. Games offer that extra control over appearances to the developers...and they use it. It's not that surprising.

Big boobs are appealing to a lot of guys. Plenty of women seem to like 2D male characters whose purpose is to fawn over the female characters...because that's realistic. That's just emotional big-boobs. Both of these things are pretty silly, but who the fuck cares? Enjoy it if it's your bag.

 

[deadish]

The difference is in a game like Dead or Alive and others of it's kind (Tera) every woman is Megan Fox fixing a car. And Dead or Alive is at least a legitimate 'movie', but then Team Ninja goes and makes a game where it's nothing but Megan Fox's fixing cars. As much as I like women it gets to the point where have to ask why don't you just go all the way and start making full out porn.

Have you actually played any of Team Ninja's games?

While I have never played any of the DOA fighting games, I just plain suck at them, from the reviews of their games over the years to my knowledge they are actually pretty decent fighting games. Their mechanics may not be as polished as Street Fighter or Tekken, but those are the best of the best.

Even their beach volleyball game, which I did own and play, actually had decent volleyball game mechanics in it. It was also a "collection game" where you got to buy clothes and accessories with the cash you earn from with volleyball matches. Strangely enough, my sister ended up play it more than me - she got hooked on the cloth and accessory collecting. XD

Anyway, I don't think there is anything wrong with making games that are fully just "fan service". If that what they want to make, if that what people are buying, then they should just go ahead. Personally I find such games/shows fairly boring, there are people out there that don't mind.

...Which actually I think I know the answer to, it has to do with Japanese culture and media. On one hand they're more open with sexuality and sexual innuendo, but on the other in some ways they're still conservative about actual sex especially in regards to minors. So with the 'shounen' genre, material targeted at young males 12-16 or something like that, they have no problem providing the boys all the titillation they want, but actual sex is avoided. So what you're left with is these weird as manga series where you have a cast of porn stars engaging throwing around plenty of 'fanservice' but engaging in perfectly safe PG relationships.

Ah ? the "Shounen genre".

The reason it doesn't get into actual sex is due to broadcast restrictions and restrictions by console manufacturers like Sony who don't allow explicit material on their machines - it damages the reputation of their product.

In the PC market which is not restricted, they "go all the way". But in a lot of cases, especially the good ones with solid story lines, the sex scenes are mostly "optional" and can be removed without hurting the plot at all. The reason this is so, is for easy porting to consoles should the game hit it big in the PC market - done by simply just removing the extraneous H-scenes. The H-scenes are included in the first place to "guarantee" an audience - people who buy the game just for those.

 

[clippen05]

Well, you guys realize that fighting games such as these are unrealistic. Unrealistic in their nature. So if the gameplay is unrealistic, why would you expect the characters to be realistic? If Team Ninja said "We're giving the most accurate display of women ever" as a selling point, I'd understand why people would be up in arms. But that's not what there here to do. I love big boobs, I'm not gonna lie. I've never played a Dead or Alive game, but I don't mind their particular style. If people are upset that it doesn't give an accurate portrayal of women's antanomy, then they should look to a game that takes itself seriously. It'd be like if I complained Gears of War does not portray combat realistically. Obviously they're not going for realism, so my complaint would be invalid. But if ARMA, which brands itself as a military simulator, starting putting in regenerating health, it would make sense for people to be up in arms. Similarly, if a game that promised accurate characters in both personality and antanomy had only women with big, jiggly breasts, it would be valid for people to be up in arms. But this is not what DOA does, they make fun games ( I assume) that girls with big boobs. Let them be, that's what they do; they DO NOT do realistic games.

 

[Poindexter]

By the next game I'm honestly just expecting them to make the characters fighting breasts. They already are impractical, any larger and you might think that they'll fly away.

Right? Anything to make a buck,eh?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

An astute post I'm sorry for having to pare down for size.

Amen to that. I'm reminded of a certain ad that ran for Soul Calibur 3. Or was it for a Dead or Alive game? I'm not sure. Japanese men staring at their screens, their jaws agape with seeing how the girls' boobs responded to the Sixaxis controller's motion capabilities. The whole of thing was set to something Classical and Epic that everyone's sure to recognize, and it was generally presented as being some sort of boon to gaming and men as a whole.

We love you, Japan. Please, though, for the love of everything that is holy - grow the fuck up. Stop appealing to the NEET or Hikkikomori types who reportedly need this shit to maintain their waifu complex and their flagging sense of self-esteem.

Considering how we live in a globalized society, it's odd that nobody factored something other than hardcore fans in the game's design.

In fact, here's an easy solution. Release your babe-centric fighting game with tasteful boobs and body part physics as part of the default setup, but include some sort of free DLC with each copy. Said DLC would be limited to an unlock that applies egregious boobage.

There. The ridiculous funbags become optional, the drooling types get their gazongas and those who'd rather look at more realistic female forms are also given free leave to do that by *not* installing this entirely cosmetic DLC.

 

[Tippy]

By the next game I'm honestly just expecting them to make the characters fighting breasts. They already are impractical, any larger and you might think that they'll fly away.

Right? Anything to make a buck,eh?

Well no, because a pair of fighting breasts wouldn't make any goddamn sense and nobody would find that "sexy"?

 

[luckshot]

while odd feedback and decisions...it is nice to see a developer consciously make moves to please existing fans rather than going after some mythical larger fan base, i just wish it was any other game that was getting this kind of treatement

 

[Poindexter]

By the next game I'm honestly just expecting them to make the characters fighting breasts. They already are impractical, any larger and you might think that they'll fly away.

Right? Anything to make a buck,eh?

Well no, because a pair of fighting breasts wouldn't make any goddamn sense and nobody would find that "sexy"?

Pretty sure that's a problem for marketing