Jimquisition: Boob Wars and Dragon Crowns

[GAunderrated]

I am sorry, Jim, but this is just not going to happen.

No one is interested in discussion and conversation, those things are not worthy of attention.

Instead, lobbing insults and arguing from end to end is the norm, and it will not change because people just like to get themselves into a lather instead of getting anything properly talked about.

It's why I scarce make a thread these days, or even try to reply to most I see. I barely see anyone interested in it. Why bother?

I'll just keep watching your contributions. They do a lot more to advance the issue than a hundred threads in these forums and beyond.

You took the words right out of my mouth verbatim. Truth is not just in the gaming industry but also in academic, scientific, religious, and political debates very few people are interested in discussion.

Everything eventually comes down to generalizations, red herrings, slander, and shouting. No one learns anything, the discussion itself becomes moot compared to the mudslinging, and nothing has changed.

It is why I only really look at certain videos and news articles on the Escapist because the user discussions very rarely have any real discussion.

I hope this trend of not discussing dies but I haven't seen any evidence contrary to what is currently going on.

 

[Darken12]

Oh, Jim. I'll stop being an atheist for a couple of seconds to thank God for you. The work you do is absolutely vital for the community, and utterly thankless.

Captcha: high five. High five indeed, Jim.

Also, I want to leave it stated somewhere (and here might be as good of a place as any) that I have slowly come to viscerally despise "parodies" or "unserious games". At first I didn't like them, but I didn't have a problem with them either. Now that time has passed and I've come to repeatedly see and hear the same excuses over and over ("We're giving her big tits because we're making a parody!" "It's okay if it's a parody!" "We don't have to acknowledge any problems in the industry or make an effort to change, because we're making a parody!" "We don't even have to make an effort to come up with originality, emotional weight, characterisation or artistic merit because we're making a parody!"), I have come to slowly but surely loathe their very existence.

I genuinely loathe how a creator can get away with literally anything, no matter how harmful, if they put in zero effort, add a wink or two, and claim it's a parody.

 

[Helen Jones]

I disagree with you that the archer isn't sexualised..
she does look pretty awesome, and certainly is more empowering for me than the other female characters.
But I still find that the picture in which she's firing her arrow has been sexualised- she's been positioned for male gaze despite her "less-sexualised" design. Her torso, on the thin side, can only be doing an 180 degree turn for her arms to be positioned where they are and her bust to be facing forwards, yet where would then naturally be her front, her waist warps into her butt. Hm.
Try and imagine a man in this pose, and we run into the Hawkeye initiative. http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/

She's better than the others BY FAR. But she's not entirely off the hook.

 

[BreakfastMan]

The second point I don't think is even worth responding to normally, as I view it as the exact same argument as claiming violent media causes real life violence.

It isn't really though. The violent thing is about actions regardless of context. The only portraying women as sex objects/as gendered stereotypes thing is about themes and ideas in a cultural context and story context. Not really comparable. :\

How many games provide a realistic enough example of sexualised women to compare to real life? Or to put it another way, how many sexualised female characters look believable? Most women who are sexualised are more or less caricatures, they are so over the top that they are not comparable to real women. I can't see any guys looking at the Sorceress and associating her with real women.

It isn't her body type that is the problem; it is the fact that she as portrayed as a sex object in a way all the other characters in the game aren't. This wouldn't be bad if it wasn't so common for crap like that to happen. It isn't necessarily sexualization that is the problem; it is the lack of diversity, and what that does to reinforce traditional gender roles. Ben Kochera had a pretty good article on such things on the PAR a while back.

Violent media on the other hand frequently tries to portray real life, or believable situations. Grand Theft Auto is in many regards a murder simulator. You can do countless things that you could do in real life, many of them horrible.

The different being, you are not expected to act such ways IRL. Grabbing a shotgun and curb-stomping cops is looked down upon in society. The problem is about roles that society pushes people towards and encourages. Society generally doesn't encourage being a sociopathic criminal.

Violent media, unless it is sci-fi or fantasy often tries to recreate things that are actually plausible, even if they are incredibly unlikely. Sexualisation of characters on the other hand is almost entirely over the top to the point that it barely resembles reality.

I disagree; Violent media often shows acts that are stupidly impossible. Sexualization often shows images that are at least probable (yes, I have met women with breasts bigger than their head IRL. No, I don't know how they walk).

I apologise if that was worded badly as well, it can be hard to articulate what I mean when it comes to abstract concepts.

Only if you afford me the same courtesy. XD

 

[Toilet]

I guess I will open a discussion because I am totally ignorant on the subject.

I keep on hearing about how character designs like the Tittymancer in Dragons Crown and other exaggerated designed females are a problem but I have yet to hear why they are a problem. I get a lot of "because sexism" answers but it doesn't answer my question.

Simple.

Because their sexualised depiction is not relevant to the character.

For example, take the depictions of half-naked, muscular men in God of War or 300. Yes, there are people who are titillated by such imagery, but the fact of the matter is that IT MAKES SENSE for an ancient warrior to be muscular, since physical strength equals dominance on the battlefield. And it makes some sense for warriors who rely on mobility not to be weighed down with heavy armour. The same could be argued for the Amazon character in this very game.

But it makes exactly zero difference to a spellcaster in a combat game how big her breasts are, and how much of them are clothed. If you had a game in which, playing as a woman, you could seduce men to achieve your goals - hell, if the big-breasted character had a special move which made males stop in their tracks (write this down, Namco, this would be an AWESOME stun-lock taunt move for Ivy) - then by all means, tits ahoy; but in this case, the tits in question define the word "gratuitous".

That's the problem. Nobody is saying that big tits and depictions thereof are ipso facto bad. Christina Hendricks has humongous mammaries, but the show Mad Men portrays her character as a woman with goals, emotions, thoughts etc, to whom physical beauty is both an asset and a liability. In that case, tits are okay. Or the women in the Game of Thrones universe: are they sexual? Hell yes. But they use their sexuality for certain ends (be it gratification, power, revenge etc), which is what beautiful women, alas, do a lot of in real life.

Now, many men are attracted to women with athletic bodies; and in a game like Mirror's Edge, Faith's lithe, flexible body is a sign of her grace, speed, and strength. It makes sense for her to be shaped like an olympic pole vaulter, because vaulting is what she does. The sexiness is a side effect; it does not define her exclusively.

Hope this helps in clearing things up.

I see your point but in your case of the character being relevant to the design aren't we being a bit to fast to judge that the spellcasters figure has no relevance to her character when the game isn't out yet and we know nothing about her aside from the ridiculous figure? I am running blind with this idea so it may be moot but what if the spellcaster has access to shape changing spells as most witches/wizards do in their relevant lore. It's a totally hypothetical idea but the idea I am trying to put across is that her design might be relevant to her character.

Also your answer doesn't really answer why it is a bad thing, I still don't see an issue with sexualized depictions aside from it can maybe hurt story telling (according to your theory). I don't think people would be losing their shit over this issue to this extent if non relevant gratuitous titties only hurt story telling.

 

[Milanezi]

Erm, Anita Sarkiizian (or whatever her shitty name is) proved ideally why feminism in the first world is stupid beyond redemption. Also girls (im 17) tend to be of abysmal intellectual capabilities, no kidding and I try to give everyone a chanse without a bias. I am not the smartest person, but smarter than them. "Sexism", like "rasism", are natural genetic things, we can not erradicate them because there is no real equality and enforced artifitial "equality" is the greatest form of inequality.

Wait, so women not getting management positions and being paid less for the same job should be accepted as the status quo? Don't get me wrong, I am no friend of man-hating feminist fundamentalism, but there are inequalities which need to be addressed.

Gender and race are genetically intrinsic, yes. The "-isms" around them, however, are not. There is no gene which makes you think that women are inferior to men, or that whites are inferior to Asians. Well, maybe the gene that makes people arseholes in general, but that's beside the point. As for enforcing equality: I agree with you that there are limits - lazy people shouldn't get paid the same as hard-working people, dumb people shouldn't have the same access to higher education as smart ones - but our societies are built on the ideal of equal treatment before the law and the same opportunities for all, everything else being equal. In a world in which a black Muslim woman has the same shot at getting a job as a white Christian man, your idea would be correct: however, our world isn't there yet. So if certain people treat others badly because of some traits over which the latter have no control, society SHOULD step the hell in and tell them it's not okay.

Also, don't get me wrong, 17 year old girls are indeed dumb as bricks, but that's got far less to do with them being female, and everything to do with them being 17.

I was just waiting for a reply to that post lol. Well said Archangel; plus I'd like to point out something about pain in the ass Anita, she doesn't suck because she's a feminist, she sucks - in my opinion - because (so far) she's NOT doing a good job and is making everyone wonder why the hell she needed the freaking kickstarter money, as one can see, her being a feminist is not an issue, as a matter of fact the subject she's tackling could be very well addressed by anyone, feminist or not, as long as they knew what they were doing, which so far she has not proven.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Why are we making such a fuzz over Dragon Crown? Because of the dumb way in which the journalist and the dev got into personal attacks, right? I can't think of anything else. Big boobs are all over Jap games... and movies... and anime... and manga... it's what they do, get it over with.

 

[cookyy2k]

I find these sorts of videos/articles by gaming journalists to be very hypocritical. Many of them (Jim included) had a real go at the gaming community for complaining about mass effect 3's ending since it's art and that was what the artist wanted (though it's debatable if that's what they wanted or if EA told them to just slap any old ending on it but I'm not opening that one again). Then something like this comes along where it is very clearly a stialised art choice and everyone condemns the artist for it.

I'm sorry guys but I'm one of those who believes their is no "too far" when it comes to art, you'll always find someone to be offended by something. Thing should be taken as intended, if no offence is intended then it's fine. Some people will get offended but that is not because of the artist's work that's because they put their own interpretation on it. Some of the great works of art, music and film were very controversial in their day. Either everything is ok or nothing is, stop trying to draw arbitrary "do not cross" lines all over the place.

 

[cookyy2k]

and everyone condemns the artist for it.

don't generalize, this is part of what got us into this mess

Sorry, A lot of people condemn the artist, that better

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Honestly, I've almost completely given up on the discussion of gender in video games because of these shouting matches.

Yes, there are real problems, and yes, I would like to see some things change, but I'm left with no confidence that anyone on either side is actually competent to address these issues or to discuss them in a mature way. It's just an endless back and forth of wild supposition, gross generalization, vilification and heretication.

The Dragon's Crown debate confuses and irritates me because it appears not to be, in any sense, about Dragon's Crown, or even the design of the sorceress. The arguments levied against it consistently fall back on the standard image of women in video games, the (in my opinion somewhat overstated) lack of other options, and the design of female characters to cater exclusively to a demographic of heterosexual men. That being the case, it mystifies me that these people are choosing to target one possibly satirical character in a niche game which provides other options (personally, I'm going to be playing the amazon; I don't find her attractive, but I don't need to, either, and I've never seen a game which let me play as a woman who is a rippling tower of muscle before), when there are so many better targets out there. People say the design is a lazy, bog-standard marketing ploy, but looking at the rest of the art design, I find it hard to believe that any of these designs were specifically intended to please anyone other than George Kamitani himself.

I also consistently see the existence of non-standard female character designs dismissed on the basis that some men are into that, which really rings hollow to me. Some men are into pretty anything. I can go out right now and find porn sites devoted to obese women, hairy women muscular women, amputee women, women with enormous labia, and just about anything else stereotyped as unattractive or unfeminine. Every single strong, well-written, conservatively dressed woman you can dream up is going to have plenty of men who find her attractive. The same can be said of women and their interest in men. A character being considered sexually appealing by a certain group does not invalidate that character as anything other than a sex object or necessitate that they were designed specifically to appeal to that group. That sort of analysis takes the idea that a character must be designed to appeal to a heterosexual male audience as its starting point, rather than starting with the actual content being analyzed and reaching that conclusion.

Aside from that, I seriously question the extent to which a player character can be objectified. It seems to me that they must necessarily have some degree of agency, and thus subjectivity, in order for the game to function at all. In that sense, I find it intellectually problematic to consider a character like Dragon's Crown's sorceress as if she were an NPC or a character in a film, held up by the director to the passive gaze of the audience, rather than the active medium through which the audience is intended to identify and interact with the game's narrative and environment.

I would also like to stop hearing about how such-and-such character is a 'male power fantasy' for me. No one bothered to ask me what I fantasize about, and insisting that a character, image, or archetype represents my fantasies in the face of my statements to the contrary constitute a denial of subjectivity, which is a form of objectification. I do not fantasize about being a big muscle man. I do not fantasize about running around bloodily tearing things in two. I do not fantasize about no-strings attached sex with large numbers of conventionally attractive women. I fantasize about being more feminine, and my 'power fantasies' revolve around calm, methodical management from the comfort of a reclining couch. Do you know how many games cater to those fantasies? In my experience, there are pretty much none. So stop telling me that all of this shit you don't like is for me; it isn't.

 

[Gigano]

While overall I think the message in this episode is excellent and when it comes to the so-called "boob wars" I couldn't agree more, I feel that it's somewhat incorrect to assume this controversy is simply another debate about sexualized character design. It started off that way with Jason Schreier's original comment, but that's certainly not why Kamitani got so much shit on social media. The real issue here is that you shouldn't respond to criticism (especially not by journalists whose job is to give opinion on your product) by engaging in casual homophobia.

Now, to be fair, Kamitani's "joke" would probably have been completely acceptable had it only been viewed in Japan, because casual homophobia remains perfectly acceptable in Japan. Even his "apology" makes it perfectly clear that he still doesn't actually understand why the joke was offensive, but it was. It was offensive because it implies a) that if Jason Schreier had been gay this alone would be grounds to laugh at him and b) that the wider opinions of actual gay people aren't actually important and don't have to be considered.

I think most of us can agree that Schreier's original comment was, at best, phrased badly, he's said as much himself. But as he also said, he's a critic of games. He's allowed to pass comment on the art in games, as indeed is anyone. If he doesn't like something, he can give it a public thumbs down because that's his job. Remember when Jim called the developers of Aliens: Colonial Marines liars? Would it have been appropriate for them to respond with "Lol, you just didn't like the game because there wasn't enough butsecks in it for you!"

Deflecting criticism by personally attacking a critic is bad practice. Deflecting criticism by trying to homophobically bully a critic, and by extension insulting every gay person in the world is beyond bad practice, it's crossing the line into stupidville. The hatemail and negative social media attention Kamitani is recieving now is completely deserved, and while an apology (even a vague and insincere apology which makes it clear you have no idea why people are angry with you) is a good start, the damage is largely done now.

What "damage"?

An otherwise rather low profile Japanese fantasy game have gotten immense publicity over this in the western nerd hemisphere. How many people knew of "Dragon's Crown" before this controversy took off? Who'd seen - and noticed - the concept/publicity art for it?

If just 5 % of the people who've been part of the discussion end up buying the game, either because they've become interested in it on its own merits, or to spite the lust for the artist self-censoring, I'd wager it'll make far more than it would had nobody found big breasts so offensive. Controversy is an excellent marketing tool, so long as there are people siding with you/who don't care about the issue who'll see your game being argued over.

I'm pretty sure Kamitani can handle a bit of hate mail from offended people who'd never have bought the game anyway - and hence really have no business commenting on it, any more than straight men have commenting on gay porn offending them - if the pain is soothed by sales figures. The thing that actually matters.

 

[Lunar Templar]

can't say I like the designs ether, the Amazon just looks off, to off to find 'sexy', while most this guys male characters have always rubbed me wrong.

I liked the player character designs of Odin Sphere, those where pretty sensible over all

 

[Gigano]

What "damage"?

An otherwise rather low profile Japanese fantasy game have gotten immense publicity over this in the western nerd hemisphere. How many people knew of "Dragon's Crown" before this controversy took off? Who'd seen - and noticed - the concept/publicity art for it?

If just 5 % of the people who've been part of the discussion end up buying the game, either because they've become interested in it on its own merits, or to spite the lust for the artist self-censoring, I'd wager it'll make far more than it would had nobody found big breasts so offensive. Controversy is an excellent marketing tool, so long as there are people siding with you/who don't care about the issue who'll see it.

I'm pretty sure Kamitani can handle a bit of hate mail from offended people who'd never have bought the game anyway - and hence really have no business commenting on it, any more than straight men have commenting on gay porn offending them - if the pain is soothed by sales figures. The thing that actually matters.

And therein lies the crux.

In storytelling, every part of a character should be relevant to the story. A villain needs a reason to be bad besides "he's an arsehole", just like a "seductress" needs more reasons to be "sexy" than "it will increase sales by 10%".

Don't think that's your call to make.

It is and remains the call of the writers and artists themselves how to create their works. Including whether or not to think commercial considerations into the development of them.

If you don't like the game, don't buy it. If you would have bought the game save for one thing, by all means send a constructive criticism to the developer, and more importantly actually buy similar games who do it right. If it's better business not to do it, then it won't be done. People who voice their interest in and support for the overall project are the only ones likely to actually be heard; For good reason, as they're the only ones who should have any potential say in it. It's they who'll be playing it, after all.

But lo and behold, it's not better business, because the people complaining about it wouldn't actually buy "Dragon's Crown" anyway, even if all female characters in it were AA-cups dressed in Burqa's[footnote]In which case a considerably larger segment probably wouldn't buy it.[/footnote]. They simply complain on the internet. Which is worth about as much as they'd pay for the game.

 

[Shynobee]

Jim, that was the best straight up outro you have ever done. Great video all around.

 

[Legion]

*snip*

To illustrate my point: if we had a game in which sexual prowess were of no consequence to the character's goals, but a male character were, in promotional materials, artwork etc, depicted as having an enormous penis, would you have a problem with that?

All very good points, and I understand and agree with what you mean.

As for the last part that I did not cut out: No, it honestly would not bother me at all. I genuinely do not care about that kind of thing, be it males or females being used.

Would I be interested in the game? Probably not, but I also don't tend to like games with sexualised women either. I do not defend them because I like them or play games that include them, but because I don't see them as harmful, and therefore do not see them as an issue.

It isn't her body type that is the problem; it is the fact that she as portrayed as a sex object in a way all the other characters in the game aren't. This wouldn't be bad if it wasn't so common for crap like that to happen. It isn't necessarily sexualization that is the problem; it is the lack of diversity, and what that does to reinforce traditional gender roles. Ben Kochera had a pretty good article on such things on the PAR a while back.

No argument there, I have always strongly believed that the lack of diversity is the issue, not the actual sexualisation itself. Although as for the first sentence, I'd say that having one character as more sexual than the others, is showing diversity. There are more sensible characters, and there are characters with disturbing shaped bodies, so it's not like a message is being made that women should look a certain way.

The different being, you are not expected to act such ways IRL. Grabbing a shotgun and curb-stomping cops is looked down upon in society. The problem is about roles that society pushes people towards and encourages. Society generally doesn't encourage being a sociopathic criminal.

A very good point, although I'd say the cause and affect are the other way around. Sexualised media exists because of attitudes that already exist, they do not exist because of the media creating them.

Sex sells because people like sex. People don't like sex because sex is sold.

If people want to complain that sexual media reinforces or encourages these already existent beliefs, I can accept their point, although I'd disagree purely because I believe most people can easily differentiate between fiction and reality.

Although perhaps I am being too optimistic.

I disagree; Violent media often shows acts that are stupidly impossible. Sexualization often shows images that are at least probable (yes, I have met women with breasts bigger than their head IRL. No, I don't know how they walk).

Absolutely, it happens both ways, but I will bring up a point I have made in other discussions.

There are different "types" of fiction. There is fiction such as Halo, where it tries to stay grounded and "believable", where you are supposed to happily suspend your disbelief. In these stories, they try and keep things logical as much as they can. The troops wear realistic armour, when a person does something impossible, there is an in-universe explanation for it (like the Spartan's armour) and the game has a consistent logic to it.

Games with overly sexualised women very rarely fit that description. They are not grounded, or the kind of game that is trying to be "believable". They are more like fantasies, where things don't have to make sense or be explained. Like how in anime, characters often have unrealistic hair colours, and nobody bats an eyelid. That kind of thing is considerably less common in "serious" ones, but in light hearted or over the top ones you will see it more often.

There are always exceptions of course, and I am by no means saying that all sexualised characters are okay, but I strongly believe that there is a large divide between fiction and reality, and that a lot of people tend to blur it too much when it comes to their criticisms.

Only if you afford me the same courtesy. XD

Of course. I am many things, not all of them good, but I try my hardest not to be a hypocrite.

 

[ConanThe3rd]

^I could have sworn she wore some sort of trousers in the game proper.

The problem is that the moment one side lowers their metaphorical sword it's not viewed as an attempt to open dialogue as-so-much as it's viewed as it is to gesture "I've lost, please lob my head off".

It's the Golden Balls problem; Both sides would rather lose than take half the "money" and noting short of people's heads flying for it is going to stop it from happening.

On the upside, I'm sure Atlus will get a whole load of sales off this.

 

[Gigano]

...
Oh, I am in no way saying what they are and what they are not allowed to do. What I am saying is that by doing something gratuitously, they leave themselves open to accusations of pandering - which, lo and behold, is what we have right now.

Accusation which don't have any effect.

There'll always be people offended by violence or breasts in fictional media, and they should never be taken seriously. They're useful publicity tools to help get the game out to its actual target demographic though. The one its designers choose to design it for, as they have every right to do.

 

[Lunar Templar]

snip

you remember Gwen? Mercedes? how about Oswald? or the bad ass the was Cornelius? (dragon slaying bunny rabbit, all your space marine WISH they could be that bad ass)

just picking out Velvet and pointing her out doesn't make my comment less true

 

[Parakeettheprawn]

Thank God for Jim... this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I wish more people did. Discuss things and go into a conversation willing to learn something at the very least.

Agreed. I one time had a blog post on a different site months back inspired by a lot of the talks about how the game industry is changing and shifting and how AAA development -as it is right now- just isn't tenable for the long haul. I got about four comments that were at least were reasonable and respectful in disagreeing with me or in some cases very openly agreeing with me, the detractors provided genuinely decent counter-arguments on the matter that I acknowledged openly in the comments. Then I got about five or so that intentionally just fell into the "no, you're wrong, I disagree, and I'm just going to ignore what you're trying to discuss in favor of trying to stroke my e-peen because apparently I've got nothing better to do". One of them even, as if out of some vindictive pleasure, stated "here's your one star rating!" at the end.

You could feel the spit and fire coming off of it, and it was like night and day when you'd look at what people wrote.

 

[blackrave]

But there was a way to avoid all crap about the sorceresses design
Name her "Witch" and suddenly her design seems fitting
Stereotypical witches are OBSESSED with their looks
They sacrifice kids to regain youth, they do all kind of nasty stuff to be hot and sexy and desirable
And it only makes sense that their clothes would show as much of that hard crafted perfect body as possible