Cheeze_Pavilion said:
Samurai Goomba said:
Or maybe as graphics got better, it was easier for male nerds to create their dream girls?
Good call.
That kind of explains how this stuff started out, but not how it became so mainstream. Unless, of course, the male-dominated games industry didn't start to see any kind of problem with the majority of their games featuring cheesecake until recently. Probably coinciding when the release of games like DDR and an increased interest from women in games. It'd be interesting to see an actual timeline on this.
After all, video games were dominated by males in the SNES/N64/PS1 era, too. But we didn't have quite the "DoA women everywhere" problem we do now.
Or maybe male nerds didn't notice the fantasy wish fulfillment potential of games until recently. Perhaps the correlation between sexual fantasy and virtual worlds didn't happen 'till a few years ago.
That's a great game I think to illustrate the difference. The game is about, well, the crazy-ass things that go on deep in our psyche. So it makes sense for there to be some crazy sexual imagery going on with the shadow selves. It's not so much nudity or lack of clothing or even sexualizaion of the characters going on--the OP was talking about when it's both *irrelevant* and removes the characters dignity. All the sexuality in Persona is not only relevant, it's responsible for the dungeons and the bosses. And any indignity is, well, relevant too--the whole game is about the idea of...personas and identity and all kinds of psychological stuff.
As for the jailbait aspect, I think that's more along the lines of Artemis, the Virgin Huntress than jailbait. The idea of the first stage of womanhood when she's not a child, but isn't 'domesticated' by man/civilization yet. The stage right before the onset of the problems described in Reviving Ophelia.
Yeah, I knew starting out that Persona 4 would be a poor representation of "sexist" games. But I can't think of many modern titles I would equate with Chrono Trigger, masterpiece that it is. But you have to admit that the tiny skirts really add nothing to the game. The sexuality that matters to the plot is mostly in the alternate "worlds." The only reason the skirts are so short is a blatant ripping from anime style, which is in itself VERY sexist at times.
Alright, well... Here's a better example (of sexism in games). In Devil May Cry 3, the only woman in the game wears Lara Croft-styled short shorts and a t-shirt. But her proportions are reasonable and she's not even all that attractive. Kind of scruffy and scarred. She's a tough chick, but also feminine. Kind of a Sigourney Weaver sort of character.
In contrast, Bayonetta. Do I really need to say anything else?
The games are even made by the same company? What happened in that gap of time between the development of the two games that Capcom felt such obvious pandering to sweaty males was necessary? And yeah, there's the succubus in DMC3, but her state of undress is entirely fitting with the mythology surrounding her character, when you really think about it.
I have porn for porn. I have games for... Not porn.
Wait, if DoA is porn-lite and I payed money for Dead or Alive 3, does that mean I actually spent MONEY on porn? In an age with the Internet? I feel silly now.
Mmm hmm. My solution is to recognize it for what it is: porn-lite. Just like Fabio on the cover of a romance novel or the way men are portrayed in soap operas. Because then I can enjoy it, but I can also recognize why it's as perfectly acceptable for a woman not to want to play that game as for me not to want to play a game where Voldo is more than just one crazy character.
Porn is good. And porn gets to operate according to different rules--it's free of the need to appeal to everyone. However, that also means porn excludes people, so you don't tell people just to 'ignore it' or act like it's not porn when it is.
Yeah, but it's frustrating to me, because I'd love Dead or Alive just as much if everyone wore parkas and hip-waders. I play DoA: Ultimate to have fun, and it's NOT fun for me when I see such blatant sexuality in a game where it serves no purpose. If it were just limited to the cinemas and endings, I'd have no problem. But Kasumi, for example, is a really fun character to use. Her moves are original and cool. Yet everytime I use her, it's a struggle just to locate a costume which doesn't make me feel like a pimp.
