It Never Ends

[Johnny Impact]

In my opinion, the body shape and objectification here crosses the line from sexy to ridiculous and frankly makes it a parody of itself. The character epitomizes the ridiculously high standards that we have set for female characters in video games and if the design wasn't at least a LITTLE tongue in cheek when the artist made it and wanted it to be taken as serious as a character in a Japanese RPG can, then I am frankly saddened by its existence.

Bingo.

These objects -- I can't refer to them as characters since they bear so little resemblance to living beings -- could only be considered attractive by deviants. Now, I'm not putting down those with, ah, differing tastes, but to me these models don't even look like people. ....Not that Marcus Fenix, Bayonetta, or any of dozens of other characters look like the sort of folk you'd see walking down the street. It just seems like the designers here went for a whole new level of distortion. I neither condemn nor applaud, but I *do* arch an eyebrow.

I'd have to say it was done to create controversy. Clearly, it worked. We're not talking about whether the game is GOOD or not. We are creating interest, boosting sales, every time we mention the game and its designs. Replace the giant quivering boobs with giant quivering dollar signs and you see what the studio decision makers saw.

Is my primary objective to this representation allowed to be that huge breasts are just a turnoff to me?

Yes and no. Breasts that size are a turnoff, but objecting for reasons of turnoff implies you think female characters should all turn you on, and any design that doesn't is wrong. Careful....

 

[PhiMed]

I will adopt the position I always do.

Don't like it? Fine.

Quit complaining about what other people create and make shit you think is appropriate. If you're correct, then people will flock to your product as the artistically and stylistically superior product, and there will no longer be a market for the things you don't like. Until then, no one cares about your petty quibbles with art design.

Edit: I also adopt this position with people who complain about the "shoehorning" of gay love interests into games.

 

[snowfi6916]

Bob, I like you a lot, and I always watch all your videos, but you are wrong here.

You claim that you are a feminist who supports everything that feminism stands for. Yet, in your next breath, you claim that you find absolutely nothing wrong with the Sorceress (or any of the other female characters that are portrayed in this game), saying that you find her "pretty".

Sorry Bob, but what the Sorceress is, and the other female characters in this game are, is objectification of women. There is no other word for it. It is painting unrealistic views about what women should be. NO WOMAN looks like this, and it is wrong for us to think that this is what they should be.

If you truly claim to be a feminist, you would be shouting from the rooftops that this needs to change, not saying "oh but I'm a pig and I like this."

I'll start. How about having female characters with realistic fucking breast sizes? Is that so much to ask? Why do they need to be so huge that they look like they are their own body, and move independent of the rest of the character?

Riot Games changed Sejuani because they realized no warrior would be dressed the way she was in the middle of winter. Her original character design had her basically wearing a bikini in a freaking snow storm. Now, she actually looks like a warrior. Yes, she is still a beautiful woman to look at, but she is not just eye candy anymore.

THAT is what we need. You can have beautiful female characters without making them into sex objects or eye candy.

 

[Lee Oyd]

Here it goes again. Buzzwords everywhere.

Here's a quick summary. If you find yourself typing any of the following terms or variants:

sexualize
objectify
eye candy
sex object
feminazi
realism
fantasy
don't buy

stop typing and read this. You're missing the point, whatever your side is.

Enough with the fucking buzzwords already.

Also, the other problem. The designer is a homophobic cuntwad.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I think the weird thing is that if I cop to the admittance of yours on the second page, Bob - I'm a hot-blooded, perpetually horny man who likes preposterous TNA - I am essentially leveling what's marketing itself a simple action hacky-slashy-brawler game to the same societal standards as pornography. "I like boobs and so I enjoy these boobs" is what I say when I'm masturbating furiously to pictures on the internet.

I understand that sex appeal in mainstream stuff is important - I mean, I was watching The Avengers again last night, and that Scarlett Johansson didn't have much left to hide - but it still falls within the realm of taste. I find The Sorceress design tasteless, and while I'd consider myself a man of no taste, that still puts this videogame on par with the sleaziest of porn. In my accepting I enjoy this, the reasons align wholly with depravity, and I think that's why it makes me uncomfortable on a women's rights basis.

 

[Lee Oyd]

^ It personally makes me uncomfortable on a "do I want to be seen playing this" basis.

 

[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.

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.

Isn't that what they have been making in almost every single game ever? The Caucasian, brown short haired, stubbed bearded, mid twenties male slaying hundreds of millions of brown people?

I think you didn't quite think your metaphor through

Oh sure the objectives of those games aren't to take over the world but the end result is still a white male lead ending out on top of a pile of corpses with higher levels of melanin in the skin.

Yet when that happens we don't see derision for it. Why not more asians or black male protagonists? I honestly can't quite tell you when the last time was when a AAA title with a male lead didn't have a character that had the exact same before mentioned stereotypical appearance outside of make your own character games.

We can express our discontent about anything sure, but our dear kotaku baiters literally insulted the artist behind it for drawing what he wanted to draw and putting it in a game. That is going to far and serves no purpose when nobody is forcing them to play the product that features them.

The characters are overly sexualized and I don't like that seeing as it has become almost an in crowd joke how ridiculously over sexualized female characters are. There you just expressed your opinion and notified the devs about your discontent.

These characters could only be the result of a sexually repressed 14 year old. There you just insulted someone's art for no good reason other than a vague notion that doing so would magically fix the problem by deriding people into not drawing what they want.

 

[Lee Oyd]

"Gay = bad" isn't homophobia you guys, it's like...ironic and shit. HONEST!

 

[Erttheking]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

 

[1337mokro]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

You at work in the Vatican or something?

Just say you are appreciating FINE ART, because that's what it is if it's made by a dead guy. If it's made by a living person it's horribly sexist and wrong

 

[Erttheking]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

You at work in the Vatican or something?

Just say you are appreciating FINE ART, because that's what it is if it's made by a dead guy. If it's made by a living person it's horribly sexist and wrong

I'm just saying someone at work might not look that good if their boss comes in and sees them looking at that.

 

[1337mokro]

Spoiler

Art has not changed a bit over the millennia.

Might want to put a NSFW tag on that one.

Please tell me you are joking.

I see three guys with their junk bare. No I am not.

You at work in the Vatican or something?

Just say you are appreciating FINE ART, because that's what it is if it's made by a dead guy. If it's made by a living person it's horribly sexist and wrong

I'm just saying someone at work might not look that good if their boss comes in and sees them looking at that.

Or it could go like this:

"What is that John? The famous statue of the world renowned tale of the siege of Troy?! Oh yes the wise seer struck down by the wrath of the gods when he tried to expose the horse as fake! My you have a fine taste in art my good man, I won't say much but a chap who knows his classics tends to do well on evaluation day."

Just saying a dick is a dick, but I don't know why people would get uppity of a dick that is considered art, I mean even the Vatican display this thing full frontal

 

[rasputin0009]

Why does Bob's writing come off as so incredibly insincere? Maybe it's just the neutral argument that he's trying so hard to convey. I couldn't actually point to what "side" he's on, I just don't trust his words. Any English Majors want to help me out here?

 

[RJ Dalton]

Is my primary objective to this representation allowed to be that huge breasts are just a turnoff to me?

Yes and no. Breasts that size are a turnoff, but objecting for reasons of turnoff implies you think female characters should all turn you on, and any design that doesn't is wrong. Careful....

What if I'm turned on by intelligence and the reason huge boobs are a turnoff is because it's a shallow attempt to pander to me, which I take as insulting?

Also, seriously, that kind of weight would totally snap a waist that thin.

 

[IndigoHawk]

Bob, I like you a lot, and I always watch all your videos, but you are wrong here.

You claim that you are a feminist who supports everything that feminism stands for. Yet, in your next breath, you claim that you find absolutely nothing wrong with the Sorceress (or any of the other female characters that are portrayed in this game), saying that you find her "pretty".

Sorry Bob, but what the Sorceress is, and the other female characters in this game are, is objectification of women. There is no other word for it. It is painting unrealistic views about what women should be. NO WOMAN looks like this, and it is wrong for us to think that this is what they should be.

If you truly claim to be a feminist, you would be shouting from the rooftops that this needs to change, not saying "oh but I'm a pig and I like this."

I'll start. How about having female characters with realistic fucking breast sizes? Is that so much to ask? Why do they need to be so huge that they look like they are their own body, and move independent of the rest of the character?

Riot Games changed Sejuani because they realized no warrior would be dressed the way she was in the middle of winter. Her original character design had her basically wearing a bikini in a freaking snow storm. Now, she actually looks like a warrior. Yes, she is still a beautiful woman to look at, but she is not just eye candy anymore.

THAT is what we need. You can have beautiful female characters without making them into sex objects or eye candy.

This argument is one of the reasons that feminism doesn't understanding gaming and fantasy. Supporting equal rights, dignity, and opportunity for all people does not mean you have to stop enjoying your fantasies. Feminism needs to figure out how to become more realistic and let people like things. Deriding what people like as childish and shaming people for not being "progressive" makes feminism looks like it's becoming a morality movement that's going to start handing out scarlet letters.

There is room in the world for people to enjoy (or not) the Sorceress, the original Sejuani, the new Sejuani, and many others. People can separate what they like in fantasy with how they treat people in reality. This game is not telling people what they should look like. It's giving a niche audience something they enjoy. If someone is confused about whether this type of exaggerated art is how they should look, then they need to remember the difference between fantasy and reality. Games, like other media and art, depict a lot of things that shouldn't and can't exist in the real world. No one should be confused about this.

It's good for feminism to argue for more diverse and feminist characters, but it's wrong to enforce feminist morality on people's fantasies and try to censor what is created and enjoyed.

 

[Evil Smurf]

This is why I love you Bob, agreements all round. I was raised by my mum, little sister and nan but gawd damn if I just don't like me a busty red head.

Then I think you'll like Faye Reagan, just a hunch.

Anyway, I don't really mind if a game has overly sexualised characters, but if it is overboard then I can't play for the awkward: See Lollipop Chainsaw massacre.

 

[Lee Oyd]

It doesn't NEED to change, you just want it to.

If you want to be able to enjoy playing games with normal people, it does. If you enjoy character design that isn't absolute shit, it also does.

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

Can I just simply say? I'm sick of arguing about this topic.

Moreso when even MovieBob says there's "no easy answer". That pretty much amounts to "This is a war where no one will ever win, everyone's just going to lose."

So the next time I read this article or get into this kind of debate, I will crack skulls if it means I'll be free from the skirmishes between 2 parties with increasingly less of a case for me to support wholeheartedly. Just escape, run into a cave, and care only about how I handle fantasy and how I handle my diversity with women, and hope no one has the sheer balls to question me, despite them having called me out for questioning both sides and questioning fantasy as a crutch for poor writing and lack of variety.

Mankind never ceases to give me a reason to be a misanthrope.

 

[Uhura]

Moreso when even MovieBob says there's "no easy answer". That pretty much amounts to "This is a war where no one will ever win, everyone's just going to lose."

Not really. I think Bob is precisely pointing out that this shouldn't be perceived as a "war" and that people should be more considerate of others and strive for a calm discourse about these issues.

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

Moreso when even MovieBob says there's "no easy answer". That pretty much amounts to "This is a war where no one will ever win, everyone's just going to lose."

Not really. I think Bob is precisely pointing out that this shouldn't be perceived as a "war" and that people should be more considerate of others and strive for a calm discourse about these issues.

Except it's clear that there's more people who don't realize or refuse to realize that it's not a war (of copout statements), and a lot of the times, they still kill each other just so they can feel better about themselves when they've managed to be on top of their opponents. I'm tired of the smell of entrails coming out of them with each bloody debate.

Fuck them, both sides of the debate. I'll make my own comically busty women and make them actual compelling characters with story arcs, and god forbid my tiny size 9 boots don't dig into their teeth if they have a problem with that, which I am convinced they all would.