It Never Ends

[Gigano]

Well, once other groups start putting down as much money for games as the two groups of teenage boys/young men do, they'll be served just as well as these two groups are.

The market never discriminates against money.

But that would mean that groups aren't discriminated at all. Just not being cater too, cause they are not paying in bulk compare to white/cis/western(asian)/male.

Well, yes.

"Discrimination" is being disproportionately catered/not catered to, for irrelevant reasons. The relevant standard for target demographics of commercial products is money. So if two groups overall spend an equal amount of money on their games, you'd expect to see an equal amount of titles catering to them to come out (not month-to-month, but over a period of a few years).

So unless somebody have shown that gamers who love boobs, and gamers who love abstinence, spend equal amounts of money on games, yet are still not getting the same selection, then there's nothing to complain about. Except the reality that you don't get full service at half price, and that swimming with the current always offers more propulsion than swimming against it (...though the exercise from the latter can of course be quite a rewarding alternative).

 

[Bug MuIdoon]

of making female characters look humanized and appealing

Can I just ask, why is that an issue?

 

[LiquidGrape]

Aaah yeah, I'm definitely not one of those over-sensitive "developers are sexists!" tinfoil-hat wearing feminazis (this site has had an overflow of them lately), that's for sure.

Every time someone uses that word with sincere intent, I feel perfectly justified in dismissing them outright.

 

[Narfo]

Spoiler

Wait, that's what the other characters look like?
I'm going to give the same reaction I had when I saw the trailer for the sorceress.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I can't take ANY of these characters seriously! The amazon/warrior chick is a buffed up giant with a head the size of a apple, the dwarf has muscles on his muscles, the archer LOOKS okay until you realize her legs are sixty pounds (each!) heavier than anything above the thigh, and the knight looks like you can just tip him over and you've won FOREVER! The only one who I take remotely seriously is the mage, though he has the same apple-head as the amazon! In this kind of roster, the sorceress is just fine.
I think it'd be more appropriate if people laughed their asses off rather than raise a fuss.

 

[Mahoshonen]

The thing that always gets me about these sort of discussions is that there is the underlying assumption that those who are in favor sexually-alluring women being featured all have the same sexual fantasies. It's always the DD cup hour-glasses that sound like a stoned Jessica Rabbit that get shown off. Well what about my sexual fantasies that involve athletic, well-tuned women because the possibility of having my pelvis crushed while having sex arouses me, hmm? Or what if my ideal girlfriend has a squeaky Cathy Ireland voice? Why do I have to get stuck with exactly one type of fantasy? (note: these may or may not be what I actually fantasize about).

I also think the industry could avoid this debate happening every goddamn weak if they mixed things up a bit. It's gotten to the point that whenever a heavily endowed woman appears in a game you can practically copy-paste the debate from the last time and no one would know the difference.

 

[Yamato-san]

Thank you, Bob. It's nice to see someone acknowledge that you can be all for equality, but still enjoy certain physical qualities in the opposite sex. Yes, I love the tits, especially Japanese illustrated portrayals of tits. Are they pandering? Well yeah, in a lot of cases they are. However, so long as the character can still be nicely fleshed out in spite of that, I don't see why there's a problem. You can hardly blame such a body type for simply existing, especially in a game that presents such a diversity in character designs as this one does. In fact, if anything, outcries that single out the buxom character do nothing but put down big-breasted women whom, whether these people want to deny it or not, DO exist in real life.... and before anyone wants to say "impossible" or make comparisons to Jessica Rabbit, keep in mind that pretty much NO drawing can accurately depict every square inch of the human body. Their charm lies in basic, even if detailed, representation (this being one of the main draws in anime faces to begin with), and in the Sorceress's case, I don't think it's a stretch to picture some well-endowed woman being able to cosplay as her with respectable accuracy.

Also, while calling out some men as "white knights" might be in bad form as it seemingly goes against the entire feminist movement, I do think it's actually justified when you've got some idiots just readily assuming ALL women are going to be offended by such imagery (which, hypocritically enough, is an over-generalization being made on their part). Incidentally, I know at least a couple female anime fans whom enjoy oppai as well, so I guess in some respects, thinking "the gobs of fat placed in front of this lady's ribcage are awesome" isn't a sentiment held exclusively by males (whether or not they get turned on by them is a different matter).

Oh and speaking of Soul Calibur, if you pry yourself away from Ivy for a minute you'll notice that they have a lot of shirtless men with dashing good looks that are clearly meant to appeal to women. They aren't there for a power fantasy either, that's what heavy hitters like Astaroth and Nightmare are for. I'm talking about the people like Maxi and ZWEI and to a lesser extent yun seung.

Ahh, exactly! How many male characters in the Soul series wear shirts?! Raphael, Nightmare sometimes, and Cervantes sometimes? Beefcake and cheesecake are provided in equal measure! I'm cool with it!

I think the thing to do here when you have multiple characters is you have to have AT LEAST SOME of the characters of each sex have attractive designs that provide sexual appeal and AT LEAST SOME characters of each sex who are cool and badass and/or are relatably human. Preferably these sets overlap, but I understand that while I think Taki's stoic character is cool (insofar as characters as underdeveloped as Soul characters can be), having to constantly look at her autonomous attack boobs could be kind of uncomfortable.

Incidentally, Ivy herself, as a villain-turned-antihero, is cunning, educated, and driven; ironically, she's one of the most developed characters in the franchise.

Japanese games in general seem to be far more progressive than a lot of westerners like to give them credit for, and I find it sadly ironic that a VanillaWare game such as this is drawing controversy but not the multitude of military shooters where the female half of our species might as well not exist. I cited quite a few examples in a message I previously posted here [http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2013/03/overbytes-on-tropes-vs-women.html#idc-cover] (which was in response to someone linking this article [http://pietriots.com/2012/06/23/musings-on-female-characters-or-why-is-the-western-game-character-menagerie-such-a-sausage-party/], which listed even more examples that I didn't bother to list here).

"Even if he does cite some of the Japanese examples as being fighters or RPGs, there are still plenty of games featuring a single protagonist: Metroid, Monster World IV, Okami, Toki Towa, Bayonetta... hell, even with the RPGs, there's a fair number where the central role is a female, such as Final Fantasy VI (arguable), most Atelier games, most titles developed by NIS that aren't Disgaea (though even Disgaea features females in major co-starring positions), Xenosaga, etc. It gets even more interesting when you consider games like Panel de Pon, which was reworked to feature Yoshi's Island characters under the premise that Americans wouldn't take to the magical girl genre very well (and until Toonami gets around to airing Madoka Magica and/or the upcoming Sailor Moon reboot, this may still apply even today)."

 

[Bug MuIdoon]

Wait, that's what the other characters look like?

Agreed completely. After reading through every post on here and the other few threads about the same game/topic I feel like I'm the only person who actually looked at the other character designs, instead of just 'that one' and brandishing a pitchfork.

If the warrior woman didn't have a face it would be nigh on impossible to tell what gender it is, even her boobs look like male pectorals.

 

[Grampy_bone]

Girls, I'll let you have your games, so let me have mine.

What games are made for girls these days? You literally just said that games are made for and by men.


Not all games have to be about "men that are masculine and tough, and women that are scantily-clad supermodels"


dont like it?


dont buy it!

See it works the other way too.

You're misrepresenting my argument and those of the "games are sexist" crowd. I didn't say all games "should" be for men, I'm saying that most games *are* for men, that I will be more likely to buy male-designed games, and that most women don't seem to have a problem with this. Moreover the feminists and their supporters aren't asking for more games they like, they're demanding games *I* like not be made or sold because they offend *them.*

Do I have to make this more clear? I'm not saying there should be no girl games. Why would I? If there is a market for it, make it and sell it. I'm not seeking to deny anyone else their entertainment, so why are they trying to deny me mine? Honestly though, I doubt that a female market truly exists, and that the "50% gamers are female" statistic comes from other factors which I won't go into here.

Bottom line is this amounts to calls for censorship and I won't countenance it. You never hear men saying, "This game is too girly" or "I don't like how this game depicts men" then demand it be changed and have the temerity to declare it 'social justice.' Men understand that when we ask for our tastes to be catered to we are acting out of self-interest and nothing more. Why are women so special that they get to demand what is and is not allowed it art? Answer me that.

 

[Yuuki]

of making female characters look humanized and appealing

Can I just ask, why is that an issue?

Isn't that what they're going for here, and isn't that the point of over-sexualisation? How is it going to help appeal to anyone if they tried to make sexy humanoid characters but they turned out with tiny beautiful heads and ugly-as-shit bodies that look biologically mutated?

 

[Reed Sprung]

Now, why is it that you can't have a female character that satisfies both heterosexual men and females? Lara Croft was somewhat close, but still managed to piss women off. I remember playing through Metal Gear Solid 2 and not noticing that Solid Snake was sexualized until I saw a video that a girl made about it reviewing it and reading/hearing other girls talk about and then noticing a few things about it. Even now that I know that Snake has subtle hints of female fanservice, I still like him as a protagonist and I actually mimicked his hair and beard style when I was 15-16. I think it wouldn't a bad thing if a game studio managed that with a female protagonist.

Even though it annoys me that games that I like, like Zelda, make their protagonist effeminate, or "bishoenen," I don't get mad at the developer because I understand that people like me aren't the only ones who buy games. But I can understand why women are upset about almost all female characters being fanservice toward men, just as I would be mad if the only male characters to choose from were effeminate "bishoenen" who were directed only toward women. Although, I am still mad that an incredible military leader like Zhang He was turned into an effeminate stripper.

I also don't think that people who make sexualized female video game characters are necessarily sexist, I think they only flood the game world with them because research show that they increase sales, and, as a guy who is currently making an indie game, I can tell you that when can decide how a female character looks and dresses, it take self-control to not shrink their clothing and grow their breasts and legs.

 

[Fiairflair]

Who wants to bet there are heterosexual women out there who look at the Sorceress and honestly, un-ironically think she's the coolest thing ever?

I'm confident there are plenty of women who would be drawn to the aesthetic of the Sorceress. It is easier to be objective when you don't find the character attractive. The appearance of the Sorceress seems more likely to induce laughter than arousal, but that may just be my personal taste.

Regardless, I appreciate that vid87 has highlighted the diversity of female taste in this discussion. It can be all too easy to assume all women think the same way when it comes to sexualised characters. Sexuality is not the be all end all of character and, so long as there is more to a character, even ridiculously overt sexualisation can sometimes be overlooked.

 

[1337mokro]

There is a VERY easy solution here.

Don't like it, don't buy it.

Oh sure we can talk about how gaming should strife for this and that and stereotypes of gaming need to be broken bla bla bla however this is still a product up for purchase and that is the only decision you have about this. Just because a medium should strife towards something doesn't mean we should ban or refuse to even allow some type of games to be made.

What can be done however is dictate their success by way of your wallet. Personally I am more interested in the gameplay which is for me a deciding factor in purchases, if it's good then the fanservice is just a bonus. Call me what you want but I am not gonna lie that the characters are pleasing to the eye.

On a side note though deriding artists because they draw only women overly sexualized or vice versa or both is quite low. People that we call Renaissance Masters painted nothing but nude women during their entire lifetime. So if it's before 1970 and on a piece of canvas it's art but in a game or on a piece of graph paper it's automatically the work of a 14 year old?

Kotaku being of course the bottom feeding scum sucking nerdbaiting site that it is loves the traffic it's getting because of it.

 

[Triality]

I'm not even gonna touch the controversy. Haters gonna hate.

The most incredible thing to come out of Dragon's Crown is that it has the most pre-release fanart in the history of videogames. Floppy breasts or not, this game has won bragging rights to this attention for a long time.

 

[Yuuki]

I guess you must have missed mine... I actually like the Amazon, you don't get too many women in games with huge muscles.

Sounds more like a fetish than anything

Women with muscles do appear every now and then, however they are the nice kind of muscles which are lean and/or toned, not out-right BULKY like they've been chugging 5 liters of protein shakes every day.

Say what you want, "gigantic testosterone muscles" and "women" just don't fit outside very specific fetishes. A good example is female bodybuilding competitions, some of the competitors such grotesquely huge muscles that all their feminine features (breasts, waist-hip ratio, etc) basically disappear and you end up with something that has the face of a woman and the body of a man. Not to discredit their hard work achieving such a body but it just looks very...well, eerie and wrong. Big muscles just aren't a feminine trait.

You want a strong amazonian, look at Wonder Woman:

They gave her broader shoulders and strong-looking arms (for a woman, that is) but managed to keep her feminine.

And of course, who can forget Lucy Lawless as Xena:

 

[Brad Shepard]

all the characters in this game are overdesgined in terms of sexuality and body, both male and female alike.

 

[Defeated Detective]

Honestly, George Kamitani's may have seemed juvenile but despite our reactions and complaints, Dragon's Crown was meant to serve Japan's interest first and foremost above everyone else, this is what they like in Japan, It's just that America's video gaming scene is shaken at this point due to the whole Anita Sarkeesian issue.

What Kamitani fails to take into consideration is we're not gay because we don't like the designs of Dragon Crown's female characters(Speak for yourselves, despite despising Amazon's designs for looking unnatural, I really like Sorceress and Elf's character design), It's because what works in Japan doesn't necessarily work in the US, just because guys in Japan love this kind of thing doesn't mean guys in the US would love it too, he should've seen that the moment it's being spammed in Japanese media that Japan's birth rate is failing while we don't even have that kind of problem at all, another issue is that in our video gaming industry, the words and opinions of the female video game demographic DO MATTER, something that doesn't apply to Japan's misogynistic gaming industry.

To support my claim, the release of the character designs alone has been a good enough basis for H-Doujinshi artists who're working on hentai fantasy doujins that aren't DQ or Monster Hunter, and there's your reasoning right there.

Let me end my comment with a quote from Yahtzee, that featured another controversial game that never got released from Japan:

Now, this counterargument can itself be countered by going through the list of some other things the people have been known to like in Japan, which I won't read out in full because I'd have to brush my teeth afterwards.

 

[likalaruku]

Wow, it's like I can't go anywhere or read anything game related this month without someone taking a swipe at Kotaku. What set this off? I regulate at The Escapist daily, but I visit many many other gamer sites too, including Kotaku.

 

[likalaruku]

It is unclear to me why Dragon's Crown gets to be star of the show in this latest round of internet drama but a game like Starcraft 2, for instance, gets a free pass on their character design. Why is the Sorceress over the line but Kerrigan with her impractical zerg heels and meticulous non-chitin covered ass is somehow ok?

& TERA & Scarlet Blade....

 

[Reed Sprung]

There is a VERY easy solution here.

Don't like it, don't buy it.

Oh sure we can talk about how gaming should strife for this and that and stereotypes of gaming need to be broken bla bla bla however this is still a product up for purchase and that is the only decision you have about this. Just because a medium should strife towards something doesn't mean we should ban or refuse to even allow some type of games to be made.

What can be done however is dictate their success by way of your wallet. Personally I am more interested in the gameplay which is for me a deciding factor in purchases, if it's good then the fanservice is just a bonus. Call me what you want but I am not gonna lie that the characters are pleasing to the eye.

On a side note though deriding artists because they draw only women overly sexualized or vice versa or both is quite low. People that we call Renaissance Masters painted nothing but nude women during their entire lifetime. So if it's before 1970 and on a piece of canvas it's art but in a game or on a piece of graph paper it's automatically the work of a 14 year old?

Kotaku being of course the bottom feeding scum sucking nerdbaiting site that it is loves the traffic it's getting because of it.

I don't think any significant amount of people on the progressive end of this debate want to actually ban anything. It's just urging developers to be more progressive. I think developers should have the right to make "White Heterosexual Hero Dominates the World as He Should," but I would be a bit uncomfortable if someone did that with all seriousness.

 

[lord canti]

Has any body actually looked at the other characters? With the exception of two of them they are all overly exaggerated.