It Never Ends

[Arkynomicon]

-snip-

I pretty much agree with all of this.

 

[Therumancer]

I think this is your most important point:

The problem isn't, and has never been, that The Sorceress (or Ivy, or Cammy, or Lara, or Daphne, or whomever else) look like they do... it's that everything looks like they do.

A lot of the people on this site in particular have the notion that female gamers are always going to be upset when this kind of thing crops up. As someone who has had lengthy conversations with said female gamers on the subject I can attest to the fact that this is completely untrue... at least for the majority of female gamers. There is always going to be a market for sleazy character designs and that's okay. The reason female gamers are so upset is because, frankly, there aren't many games out their that don't objectify the female form.

Dragon's Crown may turn out to be a pretty cool game and I am not about to mock someone who's a fan of the character design, but is it so wrong for games like this to get criticized? If there isn't any dialogue in this regard we'll never see any progress. This game's just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Actially, the truth is that as a general group "female gamers", which should be extended to "women in the fandoms" (Anime, PnP RPGs, Computer Games, Sci-Fi fantasy novels/television, etc...) aren't upset. Indeed these are exactly the kinds of characters created by and for women when you see material directed at them.

In general complaints about the objectification of women in fantasy come from two basic groups of people. One is guys who believe that the lack of women interested in them through their hobby can't be because of them or a minority of girls being interested in hardcore fantasy (being more into reality), so they look for a target like artwork or storylines objectifing women. Totally oblivious to the fact that women themselves create a lot of that stuff to begin with, and fantasy created by and directed at women tend to actually be "worse" in all of the aspects your lonely geek boy is trying to convince himself are responsible for his own lack of success with the opposite sex. The other group of people are "lib trolls" that is to say trolls that take a non-issue and try and rally liberal sheep into the attack to cause strife and chaos, basically by dropping an "ist" or "ism" tons of people on the left side of the spectrum will automatically go into attack mode, without really looking at the issue as a whole. This latter bit is pretty much the school that spawns people like Anita Sarkessian. Lib Trolls are by and large motivated by causing as much trouble as possible, keeping the fire going, and trying to find the biggest platforms they can from which to rally from.

Now there ARE exceptions to this, so before anyone says "but I'm not like that" or whatever, understand that there is an exception to everything. From an overall sociological type perspective though, this is the truth, and the driving force. The biggest problem in cases like this is when a a developer like the one doing "Dragon's Crown" apologizes, which pretty much validates what the trolls behind everything wanted, and simply encourages more of this in the future, as they will continue to herd their sheep to similar targets in the pursuit of future lulz.

In short, the biggest problem is not the artwork, but the fact that we're having dialogue about it, oblivious to the simple fact that such an utterly-gorgeous (if highly stylized) "Mary Sue" is more likely to be the stuff of a 14 year old girl's fantasy than one concocted by a boy (though it goes both ways). I mean seriously, sit down and read some fantasy created by women for women and you'll notice the protaganists are an awful lot like that sorceress physically. When you look at fan fiction, especially the sort that caused the term "Mary Sue" (which is female for a reason) to become commonly used you'll find truckloads of things that make this look tame, without a drop of testosterone
anywhere nearby.

Honestly, I think before anyone decides to make a comment about "feminism" or the "objectification of women in fantasy" that they should be forced to read at least a dozen or so fan fictions written by girls, and at least a similar number of fantasy series written by women largely for women. Starting with say "My Immortal" on the fan fiction front (the pain is part of the point), and things like Kim Harrison's "Hollows" series, Llith Saintcrow's work, or "Women Of The Otherworld" on the published fantasy side of things. Start by making note of the cover art. As odd as it sounds when a lot of these discussions get going, half the time in reading the responses I feel like I'm the only one who even has the grounding or experience to have a fair opinion here (which to be honest is grounded enough where it's pretty much solid fact at this point, which is why I'm making the referances). Nothing directed at you (the person I'm actually responding to) just in general. To be honest for all of his knowlege of geekdom, I can't help but wonder if MovieBob (who isn't speaking against this kind of imagery) himself has much familiarity with women's fantasy and paranormal romance, sometimes disparigingly called "Powder Puff Fantasy". I'd imagine if he did have his usual level of expertise with geek culture in response to that area, he'd be in agreement with me, at least on this subject.

 

[JimB]

It is my theory that the Sorceress's breasts are so large because her waist is too small to permit the usual number of internal organs to fit inside it, so as an evolutionary response, the remainder of her vitals have shifted upward to her tits. This has the not-inconsiderable side benefit of allowing me to imagine the look on some sweaty virgin's face as he reverently fondles her right boob and a hollow growl issues forth because her stomach is in there and he just squeezed a gas pocket out.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

It is my theory that the Sorceress's breasts are so large because her waist is too small to permit the usual number of internal organs to fit inside it, so as an evolutionary response, the remainder of her vitals have shifted upward to her tits. This has the not-inconsiderable side benefit of allowing me to imagine the look on some sweaty virgin's face as he reverently fondles her right boob and a hollow growl issues forth because her stomach is in there and he just squeezed a gas pocket out.

I've seen cartoon pornography, which featured a lesbian character with women-eating breasts.

It was fucked up.

 

[Pogilrup]

Every character in Dragons Crown is drawn with absurd levels of exaggeration. So what if one of the characters has large breasts?!

Western society is too prudish.

If you don't like the look of a character, then don't play as her, or simply don't buy the game at all.

Unfortunately, not looking at a fire doesn't extinguish it. The those that did blow the whistle on this game were probably concerned about how this work might influence works to perpetuate something we would preferably shove into the backrooms.

So then those people are guilty of betraying other gamers, and they are doing it to appease the ignorance of others. And I wouldn't stop to piss on them even if they were on fire. The enemy is those who would try to blame and shame everyone who enjoys an artistic medium because they find certain uses of that medium to be offensive.

From arch-conservatives to militant feminists, to the far-right to the far-left of the political spectrum, those who attempt to politicise gaming are no friends to any gamer who would like to play games free of censorship and repression.

Do you think exploitation films and airport fiction win accolades? Some of them might be appreciated decades later but not by the majority of the audience in its day.

Video games have been stuck at the level of such works in regards to portrayal of women for most of its existence. It is only recently that some games have made an effort to break the mold in those portrayals. So long as games with shallow eyecandy are popular with the masses, the medium will impeded in its effort to be taken seriously as an art form.

 

[Atmos Duality]

"Diversity"...that's really my only major complaint about the whole debacle.

(Well, that and the stupid pandering. I'll just put it this way: When I see balloon-animal-grade tits, or a waistline that needs to be made of spring-steel to be structurally and flexibly plausible, it doesn't turn me on. It makes me sigh.)

A fair number of my favorite game characters are female, and not because "lol, wank material".
But it's unlikely I will encounter many more because gaming is stuck in its own trappings.

It's not the existence of pandering-wank material and exploitation: it's the over-emphasis on it.
I am not offended by Dragon's Crown characters any more than I am of say, Soul Caliber or Ninja Gaiden.

*puts on pretentious-hipster sunglasses and fedora*

If gaming truly wants to prove it can be an artform, it needs to step back a bit, and examine other stories than that from the perspective of a grizzled 30-something heterosexual white male and his token minority best-buddy | or the young-adult teenager bishi-boy with his sexually awkward "squeaky-toy" girlfriend. (depending on market)

*takes off pretentious-hipster garb*

 

[DarthSka]

http://hokutoandy.kinja.com/interesting-analysis-of-the-art-i-dont-agree-with-some-479786991

Interesting tidbit on the whole debacle by a commenter on Kotaku. Now the first part that concerns the artist's response is its own can of worms, but I found the section describing the reasons behind the sorceress quite enlightening.

 

[DarthSka]

Someone just needs to make a male video game character whose performance and progress through the game is entirely measured by his masculinity and superficial sexual attractiveness. His only outfit is a speedo. Maybe later you get to unlock armor that covers his legs and arms but never his torso or groin. As he is damaged by enemies he loses muscle tone and/or genital size. Once he is reduced to a "small" man in all regards he dies (of embarrassment presumably).

How would any of you males out there feel if you saw your wife, girlfriend, sister, or girl you were crushing on playing this game? Chances are you wouldn't like it. Chances are you would be turned away by the apparent lack of respect for men and the issues men face. Chances are you would want to yell, "there is more to a man than the size of his junk and how well he can display it while doing completely NON-SEXUAL tasks!" ; or "That armor makes no sense!"

You would feel awkward walking into a room with a bunch of girls squealing and giggling over a man being reduced to "not-a-man" simply because he is losing the superficial qualities of a sexualized male.

Then and only then would you understand what female gamers and simply female witnesses to gaming have felt 1000's of times towards 1000's of games both new and old.

In case you were wondering, this is a male writing this.

Honestly? I wouldn't care. Just like how I didn't care about my girlfriend was watching Twilight movies where two men are reduced to fighting over a girl who is cold, uncaring, and manipulates their feelings to fulfill her own selfish needs. Not to mention constantly seeing Jacob's shirtless body, a type I acknowledge I'll probably never have. I just recognized it as a female fantasy, one that may not reflect real life, but does not need to. She gets to watch and read, and I don't have to partake in it.

 

[Colt47]

There's controversy over the sorceress, but not the insane looking dwarf or over the top knight? I don't think the controversy with dragons crown has anything to do with the ONE sexualized character as much as the entire art style for the game.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Every character in Dragons Crown is drawn with absurd levels of exaggeration. So what if one of the characters has large breasts?!

Western society is too prudish.

If you don't like the look of a character, then don't play as her, or simply don't buy the game at all.

Unfortunately, not looking at a fire doesn't extinguish it. The those that did blow the whistle on this game were probably concerned about how this work might influence works to perpetuate something we would preferably shove into the backrooms.

So then those people are guilty of betraying other gamers, and they are doing it to appease the ignorance of others. And I wouldn't stop to piss on them even if they were on fire. The enemy is those who would try to blame and shame everyone who enjoys an artistic medium because they find certain uses of that medium to be offensive.

From arch-conservatives to militant feminists, to the far-right to the far-left of the political spectrum, those who attempt to politicise gaming are no friends to any gamer who would like to play games free of censorship and repression.

Do you think exploitation films and airport fiction win accolades? Some of them might be appreciated decades later but not by the majority of the audience in its day.

Video games have been stuck at the level of such works in regards to portrayal of women for most of its existence. It is only recently that some games have made an effort to break the mold in those portrayals. So long as games with shallow eyecandy are popular with the masses, the medium will impeded in its effort to be taken seriously as an art form.

Which is akin to saying that romantic comedies are preventing Women from being taken seriously in dramatic roles, or that the availability of high-definition pornography somehow affected your enjoyment of Anne Hathaway's performance in Les Misérables, or The Dark Knight Rises. It's an unreasonable and irrational idea. People such as yourself should stop listening to and learn to ignore the twisted politically-driven newspeak of trolls of either side of the political fence.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well if they absolutely HAVE to argue, they could at least argue in a mature manner instead of hurling insults at each other.

 

[Dastardly]

It Never Ends

MovieBob discusses the recent Dragon's Crown controversy, and why we really need more diversity in our videogame characters.

Read Full Article

One of the underpinning problems of all of this is that the, "Oh will BOTH sides just shut up" crowd are, whether they like it or not, on the side of the status quo. Truthfully, I suspect more than a few of them know this. They're aware that they have no need to defeat the opposition in open debate. They simply have to deny them a seat at the negotiation table.

The idea of sweeping the conflict under the rug is itself an attack on those who want change. "I'm sick of hearing the argument, so just let's keep doing what we've been doing." It provides an avenue for the casually-sexist the defend their sexism without declaring it (thus allowing them the luxury of decrying it in others).

 

[Pogilrup]

Every character in Dragons Crown is drawn with absurd levels of exaggeration. So what if one of the characters has large breasts?!

Western society is too prudish.

If you don't like the look of a character, then don't play as her, or simply don't buy the game at all.

Unfortunately, not looking at a fire doesn't extinguish it. The those that did blow the whistle on this game were probably concerned about how this work might influence works to perpetuate something we would preferably shove into the backrooms.

So then those people are guilty of betraying other gamers, and they are doing it to appease the ignorance of others. And I wouldn't stop to piss on them even if they were on fire. The enemy is those who would try to blame and shame everyone who enjoys an artistic medium because they find certain uses of that medium to be offensive.

From arch-conservatives to militant feminists, to the far-right to the far-left of the political spectrum, those who attempt to politicise gaming are no friends to any gamer who would like to play games free of censorship and repression.

Do you think exploitation films and airport fiction win accolades? Some of them might be appreciated decades later but not by the majority of the audience in its day.

Video games have been stuck at the level of such works in regards to portrayal of women for most of its existence. It is only recently that some games have made an effort to break the mold in those portrayals. So long as games with shallow eyecandy are popular with the masses, the medium will impeded in its effort to be taken seriously as an art form.

Which is akin to saying that romantic comedies are preventing Women from being taken seriously in dramatic roles, or that the availability of high-definition pornography somehow affected your enjoyment of Anne Hathaway's performance in Les Misérables, or The Dark Knight Rises. It's an unreasonable and irrational idea. People such as yourself should stop listening to and learn to ignore the twisted politically-driven newspeak of trolls of either side of the political fence.

Ok tell me what would be so bad about having the future hit games feature more anatomically possible women wearing more practical clothing and not having to do sexy poses every so often?

There will still be games featuring eyecandy at every turn, it is just that they would not be taken as seriously as the games that don't pander to such a base instinct.

I know you will say "You are in no position to judge whether or not the things I like are crap." I'm not sure how to respond to that.

 

[snowfi6916]

It Never Ends

MovieBob discusses the recent Dragon's Crown controversy, and why we really need more diversity in our videogame characters.

Read Full Article

One of the underpinning problems of all of this is that the, "Oh will BOTH sides just shut up" crowd are, whether they like it or not, on the side of the status quo. Truthfully, I suspect more than a few of them know this. They're aware that they have no need to defeat the opposition in open debate. They simply have to deny them a seat at the negotiation table.

The idea of sweeping the conflict under the rug is itself an attack on those who want change. "I'm sick of hearing the argument, so just let's keep doing what we've been doing." It provides an avenue for the casually-sexist the defend their sexism without declaring it (thus allowing them the luxury of decrying it in others).

Exactly. Simply going "can we please just stop talking about this and go back to playing games?", helps no one.

As far as the "they are just huge breasts, what's the problem?" debate, it IS a problem. It is painting an unrealistic view of what women are supposed to be. It is as bad as having black people in a game always be the criminals, or seen eating fried chicken. Or seeing Hispanic people constantly in sombreros. It is sexism, and should be seen as just as important to get rid of as racism.

As far as censorship goes, it's not censorship, because censorship would be AFTER the product has been made and shipped. If the government censors something, they are censoring it after the fact. Like when that news anchor swore on TV (the one who lost his job after his FIRST day). They didn't censor him to start with. You can hear him in the original video just fine. They censored him AFTER the broadcast was done being made.

What this is is trying to convince people that this kind of objectification is wrong. If more game developers decide to make normal looking female characters, they are not being censored. They are willfully doing it. No one has a gun to their head forcing them to do it.

Plus, what would the effect on the game be? I mean, if we suddenly change to normal looking female characters, and not sexualized ones. Would the core gameplay change? Would the Sorceress as a character, in terms of her moves and how she plays, be ANY different? The answer is no. It would only be an aesthetic change (a physical one).

And honestly, if you are playing video games just to see women with huge fucking breasts bouncing around, I think you are looking at the wrong medium. There are many websites out there for porn. Go find them.

As the video game market becomes more diverse, and not just restricted to male gamers, we need to realize that our industry has, for a long time, been sexist. If we want to evolve, we can't hide our heads in the sand and pretend this doesn't exist. As Jim Sterling said in one of his episodes, "you can talk about the -isms in the industry without hating video games". If we want the public to take video games seriously as an art form, and get their respect, then THIS is something that needs to stop. Because shit like the Sorceress does NOT help our case.

And please, stop with the "stop trying to take our games away" bullshit. No one is taking your game away. Are you a two year old? Again, this would not be taking games away. It would be changing one particular aspect of the game. No one is trying to stop Dragon's Crown from being made. You'll still get your precious game.

 

[Gunjester]

Dragon's Crown may turn out to be a pretty cool game and I am not about to mock someone who's a fan of the character design, but is it so wrong for games like this to get criticized? If there isn't any dialogue in this regard we'll never see any progress. This game's just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Though I agree that the industry is horrifically over-run with this character design and that this really needs to stop, Dragon's Crown is the absolute worst example of how we need to stop objectifying women in every game. Despite the fact that the artist is a bit of a douche, Dragon's Crown should be freely criticized but isn't serious in its representation. The art style is meant to be ridiculous, it's meant to be cartoonish, and if a man sees the Sorceress and says "THAT is what a woman should look like!" That's something wrong with him, not the artist. Men in general won't find her attractive just like Women in general won't find the Fighter in Dragon's Crown attractive. They're ridiculous caricatures that are meant to be laughed at, not fapped to, just as the artist's insensitive gay-joke towards his critic was also ridiculous and not meant to be taken so harshly.

Representation in the gaming industry for women is awful. That's just fact. But Dragon's Crownis meant to be an exaggerated parody of the classic manga art-style, to yell at Dragon's Crown for having objectified characters is like yelling at Airplane! for making light of airborne disasters and post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

[psijac]

At this point, I really have to ask: if game characters were oversexualized for women instead of for men, then what would they look like?

A good listener made out of chocolate, who cums cash

 

[JimB]

The art style is meant to be ridiculous, it's meant to be cartoonish, and if a man sees the Sorceress and says "THAT is what a woman should look like!" That's something wrong with him, not the artist.

I, at least, am not worried about what men think a woman should look like. I'm worried about what my six-year-old niece is learning she needs to look like.

 

[psijac]

Devil advocate: Unique silhouettes make allies and threats instantly identifiable. What if everyone looked the same in TF2?