Fiairflair said:
Assuming it's on target.
Criticism without the aim to improve the particular product, but instead of replacing it with something else entirely, is worthless.
Jimquisition: Boob Wars and Dragon Crowns
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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Assuming it's on target.
Criticism without the aim to improve the particular product, but instead of replacing it with something else entirely, is worthless.
So what?
Really, so what?
I like both in my fantasy escapism; I like seeing gratuitously hot female characters in some games, BUUUT I also like the more realistic representations that aren't sexualized at all in other games too! Why can't we have both? Why does it have to be so black-and-white, one or the other? I have one of each in my character roster in Skyrim, and I'm sure many others do too.
What I don't want is politicialy correct reality shoved into my fantasy escapism. I play games to get away from reality, not to emulate it... that's what sim games are for.
Women get their "mommy porn" with the likes of 50 shades of gray with powerful, assertive men, girls get their "romance porn" with many shows/movies/books now of hunky, shirtless forever-teen-looking creatures fighting for their love and attention... Can't us guys have our own fantasies? It's sexualized like everyone else's escapism, just a different medium, so why do we have to have to catch so much shit for enjoying the sight of pretty girls in various situations? It's no different. (I didn't even mention the yaoi fangirls).
Also, the amount of finger-waggling the gaming media has done to all gamers is rediculous. Everyone in it knows full well the majority of gamers are argumentitive assholes that yell at each other over EEEEEVERYTHING, and always have been, and always will be (and I don't mean only the guys). It's just the age demographic and internet combining into a perfect shitstorm. You can't change that, but the gaming media suddenly talking down to everyone in the last year and a half is extremely transparent.
Gamers will argue with anyone until they go away or become part of the sub-culture. To make things worse, the extremes on the other side, have started an "I'm the biggest victim" contest with many people who are socially or emotionally damaged in some way, and bitter, which is why they use gaming as an escape/hobby in the first place.
So they especially aren't going to let them win that one either, and the odds are sort of in gamers' favor because they have nowhere else to go. It's still giving nerds a hard time, except this time they get to be called "misogynists", "Creepers", and "potential rapists" now too, beyond the typical "neckbeareded basement dweller" thing.
TL;DR We can have both and everyone can be happy without name-calling.
===========
Just side note here; the group you're getting all these vocal complaints all of a sudden are the neo-victorian anti-sex feminists that don't want any woman/character openly showing or exposed to sexuality beyond their relationship. That is a real thing by the way! Feminism has many groups supporting different ideas; the other groups defended the boothbabes' choice of work and don't care about fictional characters... Just look up "feminist sex wars". Also, read stuff by Ellen Willis (a bigwig from the original women's rights movement), her books talk about the splintering of the movement in the 70's into various groups and shed light on how one group has cropped up in the early 80's she calls "neo-victorian", which is what I was mentioning here. I learned a lot about feminist history because of internet arguments XD
Really, so what?
I like both in my fantasy escapism; I like seeing gratuitously hot female characters in some games, BUUUT I also like the more realistic representations that aren't sexualized at all in other games too! Why can't we have both? Why does it have to be so black-and-white, one or the other? I have one of each in my character roster in Skyrim, and I'm sure many others do too.
What I don't want is politicialy correct reality shoved into my fantasy escapism. I play games to get away from reality, not to emulate it... that's what sim games are for.
Women get their "mommy porn" with the likes of 50 shades of gray with powerful, assertive men, girls get their "romance porn" with many shows/movies/books now of hunky, shirtless forever-teen-looking creatures fighting for their love and attention... Can't us guys have our own fantasies? It's sexualized like everyone else's escapism, just a different medium, so why do we have to have to catch so much shit for enjoying the sight of pretty girls in various situations? It's no different. (I didn't even mention the yaoi fangirls).
Also, the amount of finger-waggling the gaming media has done to all gamers is rediculous. Everyone in it knows full well the majority of gamers are argumentitive assholes that yell at each other over EEEEEVERYTHING, and always have been, and always will be (and I don't mean only the guys). It's just the age demographic and internet combining into a perfect shitstorm. You can't change that, but the gaming media suddenly talking down to everyone in the last year and a half is extremely transparent.
Gamers will argue with anyone until they go away or become part of the sub-culture. To make things worse, the extremes on the other side, have started an "I'm the biggest victim" contest with many people who are socially or emotionally damaged in some way, and bitter, which is why they use gaming as an escape/hobby in the first place.
So they especially aren't going to let them win that one either, and the odds are sort of in gamers' favor because they have nowhere else to go. It's still giving nerds a hard time, except this time they get to be called "misogynists", "Creepers", and "potential rapists" now too, beyond the typical "neckbeareded basement dweller" thing.
TL;DR We can have both and everyone can be happy without name-calling.
===========
Just side note here; the group you're getting all these vocal complaints all of a sudden are the neo-victorian anti-sex feminists that don't want any woman/character openly showing or exposed to sexuality beyond their relationship. That is a real thing by the way! Feminism has many groups supporting different ideas; the other groups defended the boothbabes' choice of work and don't care about fictional characters... Just look up "feminist sex wars". Also, read stuff by Ellen Willis (a bigwig from the original women's rights movement), her books talk about the splintering of the movement in the 70's into various groups and shed light on how one group has cropped up in the early 80's she calls "neo-victorian", which is what I was mentioning here. I learned a lot about feminist history because of internet arguments XD
My questions are:
1) How small do breasts have to be before you're considered a paedophile?
2) How big do they have to be before you're considered a pervert?
3) Is it entirely dictated by how much clothes she is wearing?
4) How thin is anorexic?
5) How heavy is obese?
6) What's a good guideline that someone can use so as to not offend people?
7) Should an artist / developer be allowed to offend people?
8) Should you let character designs decide if you buy a game or not?
9) Would you hold it against someone if they decided to (or not to) buy this game for the design of 1 character and ignored the other characters.
My opinion is that it was a small matter that got overblown but got resolved reasonably. Everything after that was just trying to re-ignite the flames.
1) How small do breasts have to be before you're considered a paedophile?
2) How big do they have to be before you're considered a pervert?
3) Is it entirely dictated by how much clothes she is wearing?
4) How thin is anorexic?
5) How heavy is obese?
6) What's a good guideline that someone can use so as to not offend people?
7) Should an artist / developer be allowed to offend people?
8) Should you let character designs decide if you buy a game or not?
9) Would you hold it against someone if they decided to (or not to) buy this game for the design of 1 character and ignored the other characters.
My opinion is that it was a small matter that got overblown but got resolved reasonably. Everything after that was just trying to re-ignite the flames.
@Nurb So much win in your post was lost among the angry/fed up tone and the "side note" conclusion assuming that you know what group of people ALL the recent complaints come from, and promptly labeling them. So right and yet oh so wrong. I am disappoint.
@fwiffo I actually often prefer 2d spell effects over 3d ones, so 2d doesn't automatically mean "bad" but most of the rest of what you said Seems right.
@fwiffo I actually often prefer 2d spell effects over 3d ones, so 2d doesn't automatically mean "bad" but most of the rest of what you said Seems right.
Before watching this video I made a response to a post where someone quoted me on how I mentioned the art style was satirical and therefore a bad example for gender issues arguments, only half-defending the game, and they said that their child etc. etc. would be effected and told that's how they should look etc.etc.
I answered rather violently, saying they shouldn't let their child play and it's their fault not Vanillaware's and then pointed out a girl would probably prefer playing as the elf anyways. I was humbled after watching this and although I made essentially the same points as Jim in this video, I made them the wrong way. Thus, thank God for you, Jim, you calmed me down and I edited the post to be more friendly and change an argument to a discussion.
I answered rather violently, saying they shouldn't let their child play and it's their fault not Vanillaware's and then pointed out a girl would probably prefer playing as the elf anyways. I was humbled after watching this and although I made essentially the same points as Jim in this video, I made them the wrong way. Thus, thank God for you, Jim, you calmed me down and I edited the post to be more friendly and change an argument to a discussion.
Yes! I wish there would be less mud slinging in sexism discussions. And I think it's frustrating that so many of these discussions derail into some sort of meta-zone where we discuss wether we should have discussions about sexism in video games or not, instead of, you know, discussing sexism in video games.
To me the problem with these characters stems entirely from the over-saturation of sexualized female characters and personally I absolutely want more games to have more "sensibly" dressed female characters.
To me the problem with these characters stems entirely from the over-saturation of sexualized female characters and personally I absolutely want more games to have more "sensibly" dressed female characters.
Yup. The tradeoff, though, is that there is a ton of books. You can find books on anything and everything, running the gamut of possible characters. While undoubtedly a few types prevail at different times (Harry Potter, Twilight, 50 Shades, etc.) there is always a huge number of books for any type of character through which the reader can feel some sort of connection/association with. Same for manga, same for movies.Nurb said:
And there's nothing wrong with games pandering to men. Nothing at all. The problem, however, is the lack of games which pander to women. The number of games with decent, interesting male characters (or at least a male protagonist) is pretty good, while the number of games with decent, interesting female characters that also lack jiggle physics is very low.
Do characters like the Sorceress need to be banned? No. Freedom of expression and all that. Could we use some more variety in the gaming industry, a few more games with female protagonists or interesting female characters? Definitely.
I take issue with the idea that a female character has to BOTH be interesting/multidimensional AND have a specified yet not specified boob size. Whats wrong with a very well endowed character who is ALSO fun, interesting, quirky, smart, ect. why does it have to be all or nothing? why do people so quickly write off characters after the first look at their breast size? don't we usually hate it when that kind of quick judging is done irl?
why then is it ok for us to not even play the game, not even care about anything else other than the size of a characters breasts? because unrealistic or not there is always(or at least SHOULD always be) more to a woman than her breast size. and we should all be able to look past that both in games and in life.
why then is it ok for us to not even play the game, not even care about anything else other than the size of a characters breasts? because unrealistic or not there is always(or at least SHOULD always be) more to a woman than her breast size. and we should all be able to look past that both in games and in life.
If it's worse now, there also exists the possibility that things have simply become more aggravated in the last couple of years. Bayonetta dropped about 3 years ago, well before Anita Sarkeesian (EDIT: Specifically TVW in video games, which is what really got people up in arms) and all that jazz. Well before we found out that common publisher logic says women can't sell games.Zombie_Moogle said:
More aptly, it was essentially proving him right.the December King said:
But the thing is, a lot of artists deal with criticism in a more mature fashion. Not everyone is George Lucas.
But he has a point in this, doesn't he? I mean, you can argue whether or not this is actually endemic of a larger problem (and yes, for the record, I think it is), but even if you don't agree it's clear he's pushing towards the point that the reason the sorc makes people uncomfortable is because of the overall treatment and perception of women in the media and the culture.emeraldrafael said:
He's not just saying "it's okay because male power fantasy." In fact, he goes farther than I would in saying that the male models are as sexualised as the female models.
The point that both are tailored for men, however, is quite valid. There is no one "type" of man that women like any more than there's a "type" of woman men like, but if you look at what's commercially successful with women, it's generally not the type of thing referenced here. This is what guys like to see.
Actually, the Elf kinda looks like a mix of Velvet and Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere... which is definitely a good thing.
Once again, it just goes to show that knee-jerk reactions are usually the worst kind. Next thing you know, everyone is hurling bile at each other and the end result is just a bunch of stains and the stench of puke everywhere.
Once again, it just goes to show that knee-jerk reactions are usually the worst kind. Next thing you know, everyone is hurling bile at each other and the end result is just a bunch of stains and the stench of puke everywhere.
Regardless of where the discussion (or lack thereof) on gender has gone, or where the gaming business stands on gender issues (or how they profit), I know only two things:
-I don't see many well-written, believable female characters, in or out of leading roles and would like to see more for the sake of variety and exploring the related themes through the medium of gaming (C-culture? In video games???)
-I am really fucking tired of gender topics trolling the forums, and I know they aren't going away any time soon.
-I don't see many well-written, believable female characters, in or out of leading roles and would like to see more for the sake of variety and exploring the related themes through the medium of gaming (C-culture? In video games???)
-I am really fucking tired of gender topics trolling the forums, and I know they aren't going away any time soon.
Well you're talking about demographics now. In regards to E-Lit and young-adult romance novels, women make up the majority of the fans there and are made to appeal to them, while guys are the majority in games. Just how things work out.. probably something to do with brain wiring.Prosis said:
A problem in games, as with any female main characters in any medium, are hard to write for because they are judged so much more by groups of people who have different ideas of how that character "should be", even when written by another woman. An example would be any female character that steps up to fight off an antagonist in a game is typically seen as an improvement in number of roles they have, but some groups and people like Anita Sarkeesian claim that is a negative role for female characters because they are "forced to act like men". Then they raise a fuss on youtube or tumblr or whatever.
So I agree and think the number of characters out there could use a boost, but they are not going to satisfy someone's checklist and that person could raise a stink in the gaming community, contiually trying to say any effort isn't good enough.
Gamers are getting more diverse, so it'll happen as there's more demand. Gay and bisexual characters that aren't defined by their sexuality are even rarer, but that attitude is changing too. It's all positive for the future.
Urm, I feel kinda dumb for joining in the mud slinging yesterday. I blame booze. Booze and the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
I will say that anonymity really hurts any chance of having an intelligent discussion. I never have to worry about my family and co-workers finding out I act like an ass on the internet as long as I have a username that I thought was clever a decade ago to hide behind. I'm not recommending getting rid of anonymity either in general or on the Escapist, at least not yet, just pointing out that forums like these are not good venues to have this debate.
I will say that anonymity really hurts any chance of having an intelligent discussion. I never have to worry about my family and co-workers finding out I act like an ass on the internet as long as I have a username that I thought was clever a decade ago to hide behind. I'm not recommending getting rid of anonymity either in general or on the Escapist, at least not yet, just pointing out that forums like these are not good venues to have this debate.
I was glad that some sort of civilized discussion finally came from this. I stand by my original point though: of all the fights to pick, this one is not the one to fight. They are just character designs for character who are not actual characters in the sense they have a strong and interesting back story and that is wrecked by the terrible art direction of this game. Also, who gives a shit about what a writer from Kotaku actually thinks. We get it, he has opinions, so what. Complaints like this are just for click throughs, nothing else. It's the hot button issue of the moment so of course people like him are going to go and find things to contribute that that particular "discussion".
as I foray into a career which will likely involve writing, I agree with Jim that sometimes I will likely be mistaken or have an opinion that goes in an unintended direction. people who are willing to respond with a calm and thoughtful discussion in opposition is much appreciated. but only if it can be done without snark and sometimes a really emotional reaction just barely withheld heh...that's like asking for the moon tho :/
Roger said:
I'll respond to both of these because they're kind of in the same ballpark of "false equivalence".m19 said:
Roger, people will find attractive what they find attractive. However, the power of any visual medium is the ability to impart your own vision onto the audience. To illustrate my point, I personally don't find anything inherently sexual about feet, but some people do. That said, I find it really hard to watch a lot of Quentin Tarantino films and not see that he's trying REALLY hard to sexualize a lot of feet. I love those movies, and I don't have a problem with QT's tastes, but I can tell just by how the material is framed that he is portraying these body parts sexually.
When you see the sorceress, it's pretty obvious that the intent is to titillate. Pretending otherwise is silly. Are breasts sexual organs in the same way a scrotum/penis is? No. Do they provoke responses that are inherently sexual in nature when portrayed in this particular manner as much as actual sexual organs would? I'd say yes.
Which brings me to m19's point, which implies that the explicit intent of the fighter's design in the Penny Arcade comic is to annoy men rather than to appeal to women, which makes it a false equivalence.
First of all, I'd imagine that a lot of straight women who first saw designs similar to the sorceress had a moment of "Does anyone actually find this attractive?" And then they quickly found out that quite a few men do, and lost a little bit of faith in humanity. In that light, you'd probably be surprised to learn that this kind of male anatomy would probably be appealing to more women (and probably men) than you'd think. Probably not a LOT, but honestly, not all that many straight men would find the sorceress particularly appealing. Most men would probably not be BOTHERED by it, but it's not like every single straight man would find the sorceress sexy. Many would probably just find it comical. Similarly, I doubt a lot of women would be terribly bothered by the Penny Arcade fighter design and likely just find it humorous.
But still, you're right. Penny Arcade's intent was to make a point by creating a design that explicitly annoyed/discomforted men.
Now... you do realize that a great deal of women find the sorceress' design to be annoying/discomforting, right? Just because it isn't INTENDED to doesn't mean it doesn't. The fact that this was designed with the intent to appeal to the sort of people who find it appealing doesn't really help. If anything, it just says that the desire of some to stare at unearthly breasts outweighs the discomfort of those who find that appearance annoying.
That said, I'm not suggesting that one person's discomfort towards a design is enough reason to discredit someone else's enjoyment of it. However, it's important to acknowledge that this dynamic when it comes to sexualized character design is SERIOUSLY one-sided in western media, particularly in video games. The fact is, there are very few male characters in western media that are sexualized to the point of making straight men uncomfortable.
So what's my point? Just that it's very easy for men to disregard the annoyance/discomfort of women who are bothered by this kind of character design when we don't really have to deal with anything like it ourselves. Even if the Penny Arcade comic and things like the Hawkeye Initiative aren't an exact equivalence, they still provide a certain degree of context to help give men an understanding of what this kind of representation feels like.
It isn't that women are bothered that the sorceress looks ridiculous or that some men find her attractive. It's that the design is just generally unappealing to a lot of women, makes them uncomfortable because of the overt sexualization, stating their discomfort often gets them chewed out by those who like the design, and this sort of design decision is practically inescapable in the medium.
You know what, I give up..Imperator_DK said:
I don't care about the sales of a game I have absolutely no interest in and never did. Whether or not it sells does not concern me. Plenty of people working in the game industry are pricks who wouldn't know PR if it beat them on the head, and yet are still able to make commercially successful games because they actually make good games, and that's fine. Most people are capable of separating human personality from the ability to make a good product.
While it's possible for a game to be overhyped because of some irrelevent feature or internet status which doesn't actually make it a good game, most people don't buy games unless they have some preexisting idea that they will be worth buying, i.e. that the gameplay will actually be good or interesting.
Thus, I suspect you're severely exaggerating the impact of a controversy over concept art and social media etiquette on actual sales data. Most people who buy games don't care about this shit. They aren't going to read some article about this controversy and go "wow, some dude implied another dude liked cock on facebook, I'd better check out this game he's making to see if it's any good". Even concept art is pretty crappy as marketing material, because it's nothingmore than an out-of-context snapshot of one particular part of the game with a very small impact on gameplay, namely the visual design.
The only thing I have seen regarding this controversy which might realistically make someone interested in the game is the gameplay footage which Jim showed in this video, and even then while there's no accounting for taste it's not exactly making me want to throw down my money. So really, we can debate the minor publicity merits of controversy all we want, but what will ultimately determine success or failure of this game, as with any game, is whether it's good and whether people are likely to enjoy playing it, because really.. what proportion of people will buy a game (an interactive experience based on gameplay) because it has tits in it, particularly when the concept art is already on the internet for everyone to wank off to for free? Now we're talking statistically insignificant.
How do we know if a game is good? Sure, the developer is going to tell us it's good, but we expect that. I mean, where can we get a second opinion of whether a game is good? Well, nowadays we can often read user reviews, but let's say we want someone with a name we can recognize and whose opinions we hold to a certain standard, well obviously we're going to find a game journalist.. you know.. like someone who writes for Kotaku or something.
There's a good reason why it's unprofessional to throw tantrums upon receiving criticism, and that's because the relationship between artists and critical journalism is to a large extent symbiotic. While game journalists and critics certainly need games to comment on, it's not like they particularly needed to comment on this one. The fact is, Kotaku was already talking about this game before Kamitani did his lolgay thing and they certainly didn't need to do that. Neither do they particularly need to follow it's development further, or indeed the development of future games from the same studio, if nothing else because it's a relatively small studio in Japan without a very strong English language media division and with a CEO who clearly doesn't understand how social media PR works in the most basic sense.
You can wheel out the cliches about all publicity being good publicity, but the reality is that any industry functions to a large extent on mutual cooperation between professionals, and that makes professional reputation important. Precisely how important, I'm not qualified to say because I don't work in either game development or game journalism, but there's a fucking good reason why any company which can afford to hires dedicated media relations professionals rather than having CEOs publicly air their farts on social media in the hopes of attracting a whiff of controversy.
So yes, there is "damage" to this kind of thing. Perhaps not in the short term, but then if behaving like an ass was really the best way to sell a product, what the fuck is this? Why write this?
The answer, of course, is because you have to. Professionalism is not optional.