Do we really want this?

[Dastardly]

anyway, Its always gone too far, but come on, who's going to stop it? Girls werent gamers when this stuff started, and to be a gamer meant you were some kinda nerd without a life or at the least you werent having the girls take a number outside your bedroom. it was an entirely male dominated thing that only recently has gotten more sexually diverse.

I'd like to point out that there were always at least SOME female gamers.

OT: I don't mind the occasional woman looking like that, but sometimes it's downright embarrassing (think: Ivy in Soul Caliber). I dunno. I don't see the problem with the girl being pretty, maybe a little big chested or kinda thin, but do her boobs really need to be basketballs? Does she really need to walk around in a thong? -_-
Sheva in Resident Evil 5 was great. But in the same game (spoiler

Spoiler

They took Jill, made her blonde, shoved her into a latex suit and turned her into this super sexy woman. What the hell?

We could always be fair and offer similar eye-candy to our female gamers. If we do, however, I suggest adding a heading to the ESRB label similar to the one found on many snack foods--"CAUTION: May contain nuts"

 

[Blue_vision]

I'd say yes, and it's kind of disheartening to see games prevent it so shamelessly.
Buut I'm ok with female characters showing a bit (a lot) of skin if it's done in a cool kind of way. Laura Croft and Nariko both show off a ton of skin and I'd say are pretty sexualized, but it's done in a way to give them a kick ass-looking outfit (the only two examples that came to mind.)

Much less can be said about other female game characters though. And in most cases, I certainly don't want it.

 

[Veldaroth]

I feel I need to clear up one small point.

I want game developers to keep making attactive female characters, I just don't like the idea that in certain games a male character may wear a suit of heavy armour and look like a real warrior ready to kill.

While a female character will wear the same armour but look like some kind of crossbreed between a pole dancer, a porn actress, a bikini model and a bucket of scrap metal all rolled into one wierd hybrid of tits, metal and arse.

These developers should keep the females realistic to fit in with the scene the game is set in.

I completely agree. When I play as a tank, I want to look just as bad ass as the guys.

 

[Hman121]

As soon as we stop buying these particular games and complain about oversexualization, then it may just begin to decrease. I'm not gonna lie, I like what I see in the Dead Or Alive games, but most of the time (in RPGs), I'd rather have a deep character than a piece of cardboard with silicone stapled to its chest.

 

[Lady_Kaellyn]

Eh. I don't really mind appreciating the sexy women in games. As long as there's /some/ clothing and their boobs aren't going to eat me.
On another note, sexy guys.
Moar.

 

[Jules_Fox]

"You stupid little mangina. Someone should have stabed your ***** mother when you were inside her womb, so you would not be here doing your shit now. Kill yourself, you pathetic mangina slave".

(This comment was made by a 27 year old man I might add)

I think I just coughed up a kidney laughing. If you ever, ever, EVER feel bad about yourself (anyone reading) just think about that comment. In fact, think about Youtube and most of the tubes. there is so much sad in the universe.

 

[hazabaza1]

It's kind of stupid, yeah, but let's look at a large percentage of people who buy games: 11 year olds who are just getting puberty horniness and don't realise the internet has all their needs. They can't get real boobies, naturally, so the next best thing is game boobies.

 

[Melon94]

I myself think it's pretty awkward to have a cocktease running around on screen. Take Tomb Raider Universe for an example, what shop even sells wetsuits without leggings on them?

 

[Lord Kloo]

I took my opinion over to YouTube where I was met with extreme hostility to this matter.
My favorite comment came in this flavour:

"You stupid little mangina. Someone should have stabed your ***** mother when you were inside her womb, so you would not be here doing your shit now. Kill yourself, you pathetic mangina slave".

(This comment was made by a 27 year old man I might add)

Excuse me, could you please post a link to said youtube page, I would like to rage about the comments made by complete idiots..

OT: Yeah it has gone too far, its just based on attempts to appeal to lonely nerdy gamers who live with their mothers who can't play games and watch porn at the same time (a bit like me, except minus the porn needs) so devs put the two together. Look at games like Halo or COD, they sell just fine without having to shove breasts and glimpses of upper thigh in your face so I don't see why they need to have them in any other game.

Obviously I can't speak for the female gaming market but I assume they are of a similar standing..

 

[RobCoxxy]

One thing's been bugging me.
What the fuck is a "mangina slave"?

 

[RandallJohn]

I definitely think there's too much of the "giant breasted pole dancer" trope in video games. On the other side of it, I think there's too much of the "grizzled, wisecracking, womanizing parkour specialist," too.

...can I have my brain slug now?

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I think the funniest part of this whole issue for me is when developers go out of their way to make their female characters slightly more 'normal', and then someone in the fanbase/modding community immediately comes up with a re-skin. I mean, yes, that's how a modding community is supposed to work, but it's hard to not be a little peeved that people are rejecting the artistic vision of the developers in favor of re-creating their own masterbatorium all over again.

The best example of this? Go to TESNexus (or FO3nexus for that matter), and look at the 'Armor' section of the mods. I mean, come on, who puts Hentai-inspired companions into the Capital Wasteland? I'm not one to blush at vulgarity, but it just destroys the artistic cohesion of the vanilla game.

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

I took my opinion over to YouTube where I was met with extreme hostility to this matter.
My favorite comment came in this flavour:

"You stupid little mangina. Someone should have stabed your ***** mother when you were inside her womb, so you would not be here doing your shit now. Kill yourself, you pathetic mangina slave".

(This comment was made by a 27 year old man I might add)

Don't take your opinions to you tube again, we are much more loving and caring here at the escapist. I think that having female characters jump around in slutty outfits with their boobies bouncing up and down is just a terrible way to draw in some of the young immature gamers. I think sex (or anything related) in games is alright if it is done tastefully and is done at the right time so it doesn't feel gratuitous, but it feels like it could stably hold a lot of story. Alas these skimpy outfits that often plague games aren't appealing to me anymore and are just annoying. The way to make people connect with a character isn't by having a close up on their boobs for 30 minutes, but to make them feel like a real person and to make them have a proper personality that people will find enjoyable to listen to, ever played Fallout 3? You all remember Moira right? Well there are a ton of posts about how gamers love her and stuff, there was even a mod called....wait for it...."The wasteland reproduction" and Moira was never naked, in fact she wore a large vault suit the entire game, yet people still liked her.

 

[lemiel14n3]

yeah youtube is full of unrelenting dick-pistons.

but female characters are hyper-sexualized, just play DOA or Soul Calibur

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I've covered this topic in a some of my blogs. This is a problem we have had in every form of art or entertainment. it seems the moment mankind invents something or an art form we have found to use it in pornography or make pornography with it.

Now sensuality and nudity have been done in a tasteful ways before, but at the moment we have seen so much that the suply is greater then then demand. We see so much we are now desensitized, to this type of content, so we have to go bigger and more blatant.

However now its getting to the point where it is too much and all but the horniest of us are getting annoyed by this. I can appreciated beauty when I see it, but but not like this.

Since Yuna is overplayed in this area, I'll go for DMC's lady.

DMC3: While the school girl outfit and the occasional shown mid-drift is there for fetish fuel, and she is an attractive young girl. However I saw her as more of a strong young woman, who was willing to play rough with the big boys and kick ass with the best of them.

Go to number 4 and we have a girl in short shorts that are so small that they are practicable little boy undies, and apparently nothing underneath that shirt that is already halfway done bursting apart. While her chest hangs more realistic then most video game females, she has gone from a key plot device and major character, to only being there for a few brief moments for the a minor plot device and some pans at her cleavage and butt.

That is what we got.

Plus some girls are not helping things much either

while i can agree with the beginning part of your post, what is so wrong with those pics? it basically shows that those characters CAN be realistic and that girls aren't as fat as we realistically try and make them out to be sometimes

 

[Ih8pkmn]

I think it's rather disgusting. I fail to see how we find woman with mammary glands bigger than their heads attractive. I saw a woman with proportions like that on the street once. I didn't even know it was physically possible to run a mile in 5 minutes until that day.

 

[TiefBlau]

It's hot.

It's also ridiculous and goofy as fuck.

I tend to treat characters like this for what they really are: porn. Probably the distrubing Japanese kind, but with less tentacles.

 

[Zantos]

Yes females are overly sexualized, but so are males.
Every female's a stick figure with basketballs on her chest and every man is a shaved gorilla with permanent five o' clock shadow.

I really like the way that as i read this i see in your avatar possibly the only female character that doesn't subscribe to this statement. Good on you Tali d'..... vas something or other.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Yes there is too much sexualization and I'd like to smack the industry like small dog and say "no, no, no, don't do that, hey no, noo." It's not only demeaning to women but just short of a personal insult to me because the people who sell games actually think they can drag me in with this shit. No, some of us have managed to exit puberty, thank you very much.

 

[Treblaine]

Love how 2/3 of the OP's examples are from utterly terrible games that shouldn't be broadly representative of the industry at all.

Also the woman in 2nd example from Ninja Gaiden Sigma isn't more outlandishly dressed than what hollywood gets away with. I mean take Avatar, you had a female humanoid running around topless for most of the film, with only some tastefully placed necklace beads hiding her nips.

In fact, this isn't a video game trend, have you turned on MTV recently? Any music video, Lady Ga Ga and Katy Perry spend most of the time naked and barely concealing their X-rated parts, and the Rap videos are even worse, well I say worse, those hip-hop-honeys are are like the opening part of a strip-tease.

Video Games are broadly much tamer. Yes extreme violence but sex and even sexual content is pretty rare in video games.