This little rant is not against or addressed at the person I am quoting, just using it as a starting point.erttheking said:Because sexualized violence is kind of messed up. If you stick someone in a sexualized outfit and then brutalize them it's just...I have no words for it. I never got the appeal of Mortal Kombat putting a woman in a sexy outfit, giving her big tits, and then making it so that you can rip her in half. Then again I never liked the ultra-violence of Mortal Kombat period. I am not bringing consent into this, so I don't know where you were going with that. All I know is that I'm quite disturbed by brutalized women in skimpy outfits, I wonder what the hell the appeal is (I don't think people who want to see sexy women want to see them violently killed, and I don't think people who want violence want to see it happen to sexualized women) and annoyed that it only happens to women.
Sexualized violence is a combination of two things humans find to be appealing in their fiction. Using aspects that are extreme in comparison to our everyday experience in fiction is fucking entertaining. In fact, I think it is very useful that we play with the darkest parts of the human experience in our fiction, regardless the medium. Only fools take it literal, get offended and make attemps to ban it. Only mentally ill people take it as fact and act on it. Every new medium brought up uproars that certain ideas or images in it will influence people negatively, but society did not crumble because of movies, comics and as far as we can tell video games too. It is not that simple.
I find Mortal Kombat to be pretty harmless since the violence is so over the top, it is hilarious. It is just a matter of different tastes. When it comes to sexualized female characters, I love them. As a woman. Female sexuality was shamed for far too long and imo is a form of female power so let the peole who like it celebrate it. I despise sex negative feminists so much for shitting on characters like Bayonetta, who is the best and most positive example of it. Sure not everyone has to like it, but I hate this default attitude that it is degrading for women, that we are and should all be offended because of it. There are many female gamers who think otherwise. In my experience, mostly the ones who are experienced and hard core gamers who just played their stuff and never gave a fuck about gender politics and told the trolls to fuck off.
Many characters that are being used as examples for degrading images of women in video games were just normal for me as a child or teen. For example, I never thought of Lara Croft as a sex symbol. For some male gamers she was, but for me and other male gamers she just was a woman with big boobs. And those exist in real life, so what is the big deal? My point is, whether a character is sexualized or not is very subjective. It varies based on personal beliefs, gender, sexuality and so on. And again, something being sexualized is not entirely wrong itself.
Sure one can say they do not like it, but I hate it when a certain type of person wants to speak on my behalf about it, even shame people for liking it.
History student here. We talk about historical video games or video games with historical settings a lot at my faculty. There are even attempts to use the medium for historical education or at least raising an interest in history. The biggest problem we face is the conflict between historical accuracy and gameplay. For example, sometimes historical details have to be ignored because it would make the gameplay too complex, not fun or there is just no possible way to make a mechanic about it. It also depends on whether the game even wants to educate its users.
BF 1 is pure entertainment of course. But Id still argue that that does not justify including female soldiers.
If you proclaim to use a certain historical event, not just a non specific middle ages setting for example, you have to incorporate some basic historical facts for immersion purposes alone. Furthermore, this is a game about 20th century warfare. In it there are, again, some basic concepts you have to use so people experience it as such. For both, female soldiers are not part of that. Yes there are exceptions, but they were not the norm. They have their place in a single player campaign that has the most freedom and time to explain those exceptions.
But the multiplayer is about being a basic, playable representation of that kind of warfare and specific historical event that took place. It is about painting a rough picture with the most basic facts so people get immersed into that setting quickly. Having female soldiers does not work here. It paints the wrong picture. You could build a mechanic around that, like limiting the amount of female soldiers in the teams, to certain armies or make heroes out of them (like in Battlefront). Or even put a little disclaimer in the menu. But that would be too controversial for some people I believe.
If you choose a specific historical setting, especially one that is not that long ago and still relevant today, there is some historical responsibility to uphold to be able to use it. I do not mean we owe that to the people who fought and died in that war, that aspect is only relevant when you want to comment on the historical event or want to commemorate it. But the people who play that game have some interest in or some idea about it. A historical setting that makes obvious errors that even the layman can point out is useless and comes off as a cheap facade. You could just as well make your own setting then.
I can overlook them using wrong weapons or something like that. Those are details that the average Joe doesnt notice. But something broad and more meaningful like female soldiers is noticeable and paints, as I said, the wrong picture.
It has nothing to do with degrading women like some gender politics idiots believe. Being female myself, I dont want to see wrong historical representations of my gender. That includes things like this, even if some interpret it as positive. It would still be a lie, I see no benefit in that.
A historical setting is both a blessing and a curse for a game developer. On the one hand you do not have to create much of your own, on the other hand when you willingly choose to use that historical setting or event, you are obligated to play by its rules to a certain extent. That is the logic behind "historical". Otherwise you alienate your audience (again, not talking about history buffs here, even the layman can identify obvious errors) and make the whole setting basically meaningless.