Female Game Characters Photoshopped to Average American Proportions

[Jake Martinez]

Maybe all my friends are just super sexy but most people I know aren't that large.

I was thinking the same thing.

I live in Australia, and we've had a recent uptick in obesity here, but I kept thinking to myself, "Damn, Americans must be fat".

Generally I don't get the point of these articles. Like, I can tell the difference between an idealized or stylized depiction in fiction or fantasy and real life. I would assume everyone else can as well.

 

[Aerosteam]

Legitimate thing to ask for I think.

However, these are American average body types in real-life. Things like The Legend of Zelda, Halo and Final Fantasy don't have to have woman who look like this. Not to mention Lara Croft and fighting game characters, in which you have to be physically fit to do what they do. They gave bad examples to be honest.

A game can have whatever shape of women they like, but show me the games that experiment with having chubby (or even just "average") female protagonists. Even fighting games will have the odd fat male fighter, but in the games industry, such women practically don't exist.

Fucking great, I was searching up examples but what I mostly got were inflation fetish fan art. >_<

Anyway, here it is:

Spoiler

Fat Princess.

That's all I can think of. XD

I get where you're coming from, however there's a lack of fat, overweight and "avarage" characters in general, not just female ones. The only fat fighting game characters you probably have in mind of is Rufus (Street Fighter IV) and Bob (Tekken 6), which is only two.

I agree we should have more chubby female protagonists. Although I'd change it to more protagonists with different body types (weight, height, age, disabilities... hair colour) for both genders. I really do want more variety with all those, but I just can't see Lara Croft or Tifa type characters doing the kind of things they do, because it would require being physically fit.

Royalty, magic users and radio chatter type characters? Now there's some potential. Like I said, they just gave bad examples.

 

[Draconalis]

I think it should be noted that average for the Japanese is incredibly thin. It's an ethnic thing, they are more susceptible to diabetes with weight. What we would think as very healthy, the Japanese think is morbidly obese. And for them, apparently, it is.

How many of these characters aren't American, but are being forced into the American mold?

 

[Nazulu]

They're just asking, which is totally fine, unlike the assholes who feel they need to attack the developers for not catering to their every whim. They're has never been anything wrong with asking in my book.

We've always known there is some lack of diversity in most video game character models, and this is a fair call. I say that, yet I think their 'average american women' substitutes are about 30 to 50 kilo's too far. They could've thought that one out better.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

You know, whenever someone says "A majority of gamers want X" I find that they usually don't have evidence to back it up.

My counter-argument has not changed. Limiting yourself to only beautiful characters when you write is like writing a novel where you're not allowed to use one of the vowels.

That's pretty limited. Especially when your argument claims that "most players" will do it. You need more than three games for most players. That's what I have to say for all of your in depth arguments about these games, you're looking at a small isolated part of gaming and trying to make a statement for all gamers. Hell, even with the statistics you bring up a good chunk of it comes down to speculation as to why the players picked what race they did. On a random note for Skyrim, I've also heard of mods that remove breast plates for armor. There's room for both in this world.

Yeah, but the problem is that two of them are MMOs and MMOs appeal to a very specific type of audience. What's more, Skyrim mods are only good on PC, so all the mods you bring up can only apply to one third of the people who play Skyrim, so really you are looking at a very small part of gaming and trying to make industry wide claims. Yeah they're popular games, but Call of Duty is also a popular game, and I'd get lynched if I tried to make a claim about all gamers soley off of Call of Duty.

And you only seeing ugly characters in threads for comedic purposes somehow proves that ugly characters are only made for being comedic?

The big hole in your argument is that you only talk about character design when it comes to character creator, and there is a wide massive world out there when it comes to character design outside of what the main character looks like.

You keep saying things like "Most gamers" and "they're a tiny niche" without any hard numbers to back it up. I don't have numbers either, but I'm not making any claims about ratios. They're a tiny niche? How do you know? Stop saying vast majority, unless there's a survey about every single character who ever played Skyrim saying what they did for a character, you can't bloody prove that.

Don't tell me what I do or do not know. I'm well aware of this.

Well there's Akali from League of Legends who has twigs for arms

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Akali_4.jpg

Riven also has twigs for arms

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Riven_0.jpg

Fuck, half the female characters in that game are dangerously thin, like Leona. Christie as shown in this article. Lara Croft's waist looks dangerously thin.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/D/Y/93814/gallery/laracroft1_w_500.jpg

Jill Valentine's arms look like they're ready to snap under the slightest pressure.

https://widowslure.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/jill-re3render.jpg

Tifa lockheart in this gallery looks rather thin and flat in the waist for someone who's supposed to be a bruiser and...ah that's enough. You've already declared I don't know what anorexia is, I have my doubt that any number of examples would convince you otherwise.

For the record, all of this women look like twigs compared to my average height, fairly in shape but not ripped mother. Who's in her 50s.

Uh...considering I said "thinking" so obviously I thought that games could do better...was that supposed to prove something? It's not making an objective claim like half of your arguments did. Oh don't worry, I was just calling you out on saying that "we wouldn't be talking about this if America wasn't so fat" This fat American ass would.

So stop assuming you know how other people think. You're very bad at it.

 

[Ian Beattie]

Snip

I don't think video games have an obligation to be anything, but it's nice if they give their customers what they want.

According to whom? Idealized characters are boring. Flawed characters are interesting. And you probably shouldn't bring up Hollywood considering that there's currently a major backlash against them right now for how unoriginal they are in remaking everything. You know what the majority of people who customize their characters do how? They make a character ugly for comedic purposes? Every ugly character in Game of Thrones begs to differ.

To you. Everyone has different definitions of attractive. You've honestly never heard of chubby chasers? You're projecting a lot.

Don't tell me why I'm arguing what I'm arguing. Half of modern day video game developers couldn't imagine their way out of a paper bag, and I feel very comfortable calling them out on that in general. That and when they do create female characters, half of the time they seem to go for anorexic models as a template.

So pardon my big fat American ass for thinking video games could do better. And they can. I love video games but the lack of creativity is PATHETIC at times. I've recently put in 80 hours to Sunless Sea because it had the guts to step outside of what was considered safe, and that's a rarity nowadays.

so basically "They don't make fat characters for me to relate with so developers are bad"

good to get to the bottom of this.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Way to oversimplify everything.

More like "They do the exact same thing that everyone else does without an ounce of creative thought"

And point out where I called developers bad. I said they were unimaginative. Because they are if they struggle to come up with original character design. But if gets the point across better, this is a small part of a very big problem. I'm just focusing on this small part because everyone seems to agree that the big problem exists, but not this part of it. And I said half.

See, this is why you don't oversimplify arguments into strawmen like you just did.

 

[Ravenbom]

The proper response to stupid flamebait articles like this is to photoshop a series of videogame characters with realistic gun and sword proportions because we've been objectifying 90 pound one-handed guns and 10 foot swords for far too long.

It's disgusting and terrifying to think that the average 135lb 13 year-old will grow up believing that 6 foot long swords are the cut off for proper one-handed swords and guns should be nearly as large as the average big block car engine.

 

[Redryhno]

Well there's Akali from League of Legends who has twigs for arms

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Akali_4.jpg

Riven also has twigs for arms

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Riven_0.jpg

Fuck, half the female characters in that game are dangerously thin, like Leona. Christie as shown in this article. Lara Croft's waist looks dangerously thin.

You are aware yet again that you're comparing a game where nothing is realistic at all and you just pulled two character splashes that don't tell the full story right? There's not a single realistic body in the bunch, well, possibly Diana. And maybe Annie.

The Akali splash you've got is from three years ago, and is a skin of hers, look at her new splash that they replaced like six months ago.

Spoiler

She's got quite a bit of leg muscle, and considering she's known for jumping on your face and her weapons are honestly secondary, her arms aren't as important especially considering the weapons she uses are more about precision than strength. Like seriously, they're kama, mini-scythes, they're not about strength, but leverage.

And then there's her model, where pretty much every action starts with her legs...http://www.lolking.net/models?champion=84&skin=0

Then there's Riven, which I'm pretty sure if you go into the lore, it's handwaved with basic D&D magic weapon logic, in that they don't weigh nearly as much as they should. Not to mention most of the time her weapon isn't that large to begin with and she's got a gauntlet for holding the damn thing as well. And it's not like she uses it perfectly, half of her attack animations are more like she's swinging a cleaver.

http://www.lolking.net/models?champion=92&skin=0

Like seriously, you could've easily pulled better examples. I'll agree that characters need more muscle, but League is not the best thing, I mean, Garen, Xin,J4, and Darius, basically the muscliest muscle that ever muscled with the muscliest weapons in the game are actually pretty damn twiggy as well, they've just got gigantic armor that covers most of it.

I do think that there could be more muscley women as well, but the problem is that alot of games that are being referenced in this thread and the 'shops aren't exactly trying to be realistic beyond a superficial level.

 

[seditary]

I'm curious what the real life women a couple of these characters are modeled after think about this being done to them.

 

[infohippie]

Am I the only one who thinks those alter images are actually alright?

Granted I still kinda disagree with them. They're going about it the wrong way. I mean sure it doesn't take a supermodel body to be an archaeologist like Lara but it still require a healthy body to become one (I assuming they do travel alot on foot). I mean when have you seen a over weight archaeologist on tv?

Actually, I found at least a few of them more attractive post-Photoshop than their original appearances. But then I do like softer female bodies.

 

[Ian Beattie]

Snip

Way to oversimplify everything.

More like "They do the exact same thing that everyone else does without an ounce of creative thought"

And point out where I called developers bad. I said they were unimaginative. Because they are if they struggle to come up with original character design. But if gets the point across better, this is a small part of a very big problem. I'm just focusing on this small part because everyone seems to agree that the big problem exists, but not this part of it. And I said half.

See, this is why you don't oversimplify arguments into strawmen like you just did.

It's not unamaginative.

There aren't fat soldiers, there aren't fat gymnasts, in order to do the things most these characters do they need to look like they have bodies capable of that.

no one would buy the idea of a fat lara croft.

 

[Redryhno]

Snip

Way to oversimplify everything.

More like "They do the exact same thing that everyone else does without an ounce of creative thought"

And point out where I called developers bad. I said they were unimaginative. Because they are if they struggle to come up with original character design. But if gets the point across better, this is a small part of a very big problem. I'm just focusing on this small part because everyone seems to agree that the big problem exists, but not this part of it. And I said half.

See, this is why you don't oversimplify arguments into strawmen like you just did.

It's not unamaginative.

There aren't fat soldiers, there aren't fat gymnasts, in order to do the things most these characters do they need to look like they have bodies capable of that.

no one would buy the idea of a fat lara croft.

To be fair, I don't think anyone but Rikku is "fat", but yeah, there's way too much "softness" and not enough "hardness" on the shopped bodies.

 

[ZiggyE]

I'm not sure how changing trained fighters like Lara Croft and Tifa into fatties is supposed to be more realistic.

 

[Queen Michael]

I like the pics. The women look supersexy. With that said, though Cortana isn't a real woman even in-universe, so it's meaningless to choose her.

And like others have said, you gotta take their profession into account.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Way to oversimplify everything.

More like "They do the exact same thing that everyone else does without an ounce of creative thought"

And point out where I called developers bad. I said they were unimaginative. Because they are if they struggle to come up with original character design. But if gets the point across better, this is a small part of a very big problem. I'm just focusing on this small part because everyone seems to agree that the big problem exists, but not this part of it. And I said half.

See, this is why you don't oversimplify arguments into strawmen like you just did.

It's not unamaginative.

There aren't fat soldiers, there aren't fat gymnasts, in order to do the things most these characters do they need to look like they have bodies capable of that.

no one would buy the idea of a fat lara croft.

Doing what everyone else is doing without adding anything new is a pretty textbook definition of being unimaginative.

I don't think anyone was asking for fat soldiers or fat gymnasts, so kindly put the straw man arguments away. We're asking that women be allowed to have more body types than just runway model. Hell, men are allowed to be ugly, drop dead gorgeous and everything in-between in video games, how come whenever people ask for more body types on women there's so much push back.

 

[Vyress]

It's a good message, but it misses the mark by quite a bit.

The message:
On the left: An unrealistic representation of the female form.
On the right: A realistic representation of the female form.

The reality:
On the left: An anime inspired stylized video game girl.
On the right: A slightly deformed anime inspired video game girl.

Neither images are realistic. Presenting either of them as being "ideal" or "normal" is the problem.

Huh... The only unrealistic parts about actual Rikku are her hair and her clothes. There are lots of girls with her body type/figure around. Just because something is aesthetically appealing to most doesn't automatically mean it's unrealistic. I'm not saying this is the ideal body to have or that 5 kg more on her would make her chubby. But dismissing her body as unrealistic seems like pandering towards obese people. It's certainly not a general ideal - there is more than just one body type and tastes are different, though most would agree that she is definitely appealing. But it is clearly not unrealistic - just go outside and look around (though I'm guessing this doesn't apply to the US?).

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Australia long since overtook America as the fattest nation in the world by ratio. That is, America has the most fat people by sheer virtue of population size, but Australia has a higher concentration of fat.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/australias-health-at-a-glance-were-fat-depressed-and-battling-cholesterol/story-fneuz9ev-1226765535472
http://www.smh.com.au/news/health/australia-pips-us-as-worlds-fattest-nation/2008/06/19/1213770827371.html

Well colour me informed! Thanks for the update. I'm a little surprised by not shocked.

 

[Beliyal]

It's not unamaginative.

There aren't fat soldiers, there aren't fat gymnasts, in order to do the things most these characters do they need to look like they have bodies capable of that.

no one would buy the idea of a fat lara croft.

I agree there aren't any fat soldiers or fat gymnasts, but not everyone in the world is a soldier or a gymnast. That's where the "unimaginative" comes from. There's always this argument that you can't have a fat soldier or a fat martial artist, but how about making a character who is not either of those things? There are a bunch of sports out there and all require different body types. A gymnast is one thing, but a discus thrower is another. Google female discus throwers. Those [http://www.ukthrowers.webspace.virginmedia.com/valerie%20adams.jpg] are professional athletes, some of them with Olympic medals and they would be considered fat by our media.

I don't want a fat Lara Croft, but a Lara Croft with biceps would be nice, seeing as she's an athlete who does backflips and is clearly capable of pulling her own weight. Her upper arms are made as if she was a model and not someone who can lift 70 kilos and more. Granted, her new design is better, thought I'd advise the designers to consider that she's clearly been training since her first reboot game and in order to climb those ice walls in the wilderness, you need muscle on your arms. We can go back to Google again and search for female climbers [http://thrillfuel.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/female-rock-climbers.jpg] as well.

 

[thewatergamer]

Uh huh let's just ignore all context like the fact that most fighting game characters well FIGHT and as a result get tons of exercise or the fact that cortana is an AI that chose her appearance via digital effects. Also no attempt whatsoever to make any male video game characters "realistically proportioned" oh wait sorry I forgot, it's only bad if it happens to women my bad carry on totally unbiased organization