Re: DoA Jiggle Physics - What exactly are we fixing?

[theblindedhunter]

Take a look at this image:

I don't have to say much, the character is fierce and intimidating. She looks like she can swing that sword she's holding... and crush a skull with her thighs. Terrifying. And still somewhat attractive in my opinion (weakness for fiery red heads). Also, she has tits and ass... they don't need to NOT exist for fair portrayals.

Oh, this is another problem to be had with things like "jiggle physics", and the other pandering representations of females: it is stating that a woman like in the picture above is supposed to be unattractive, in its own way.
And that is absolutely ridiculous.

By the way, what is that picture from? Just someone's art?

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Take a look at this image:

I don't have to say much, the character is fierce and intimidating. She looks like she can swing that sword she's holding... and crush a skull with her thighs. Terrifying. And still somewhat attractive in my opinion (weakness for fiery red heads). Also, she has tits and ass... they don't need to NOT exist for fair portrayals.

Oh, this is another problem to be had with things like "jiggle physics", and the other pandering representations of females: it is stating that a woman like in the picture above is supposed to be unattractive, in its own way.
And that is absolutely ridiculous.

By the way, what is that picture from? Just someone's art?

The picture is just random art (think it might be part of a series, I saw similar ones in my search), but I found it on image compilation list...(May be NSFW). I also think that this compilation illustrates my point even more. This is the only muscular warrior in the list, all the others look like porn stars or models in a photo shoot.
http://wweapons.blogspot.ie/2011/03/warrior-women-fantasy-art-part-4.html

And yeah, there is a very narrow view in media of what constitutes as attractive women. It pisses me off so much. When I saw the show "Ugly Betty", which, god love it, initially tried to make satire of this issue, I was like "What?, thats ugly? Braces and chunky? WHAT!" I felt the collective weight of thousands upon thousands of self concious women suddenly hate themselves...

For one thing, it makes it really hard for me to find girls I find attractive, cause the media is telling them they have to be something artificial... something I don't like.

 

[excalipoor]

Oh, this is another problem to be had with things like "jiggle physics", and the other pandering representations of females: it is stating that a woman like in the picture above is supposed to be unattractive, in its own way.

I highly doubt that she's meant to be unattractive. She still has clearly feminine facial features and a VERY high hip-to-waist ratio. I'd imagine she'd have broader shoulders and narrower hips if they wanted to sell her as unattractive. And replace breasts with pecs. Then there's the fact that she's half naked...

No, I don't see how this is better in any way, other than it offers some variety. She's still designed to be sexy.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Oh, this is another problem to be had with things like "jiggle physics", and the other pandering representations of females: it is stating that a woman like in the picture above is supposed to be unattractive, in its own way.

I highly doubt that she's meant to be unattractive. She still has clearly feminine facial features and a VERY high hip-to-waist ratio. I'd imagine she'd have broader shoulders and narrower hips if they wanted to sell her as unattractive. And replace breasts with pecs. Then there's the fact that she's half naked...

No, I don't see how this is better in any way, other than it offers some variety. She's still designed to be sexy.

Yeah of course it is... people rarely draw to offend the eyes. The issue lies in the lack of variety. Its not sexist to draw attractive women. But it is an issue when what constitutes attractive is so bloody narrow.

Diversity is the core of the issue. Female characters, in games, lack diversity. This is purely taking it from a physical standpoint. Personality and Character is another issue entirely (and I feel might require a separate thread to discuss).

But what theblindhunter was saying is more Media says women like this are attractive, which consequently makes the shown picture be considered unattractive when the guy/gal who made it drew what they felt worked for the character they wanted to make. I doubt the primary goal of the design of this character, is to tantalise teenagers. They made a barbarian woman, that looks like a barbarian woman... but also made it attractive because you know... men are attracted to women.

There is nothing wrong with attractiveness. There is an issue with pandering.

 

[theblindedhunter]

The picture is just random art (think it might be part of a series, I saw similar ones in my search), but I found it on image compilation list...(May be NSFW). I also think that this compilation illustrates my point even more. This is the only muscular warrior in the list, all the others look like porn stars or models in a photo shoot.
http://wweapons.blogspot.ie/2011/03/warrior-women-fantasy-art-part-4.html

And yeah, there is a very narrow view in media of what constitutes as attractive women. It pisses me off so much. When I saw the show "Ugly Betty", which, god love it, initially tried to make satire of this issue, I was like "What?, thats ugly? Braces and chunky? WHAT!" I felt the collective weight of thousands upon thousands of self concious women suddenly hate themselves...

For one thing, it makes it really hard for me to find girls I find attractive, cause the media is telling them they have to be something artificial... something I don't like.

"With an Irish accent she would say ' aye there wee lad, I am about to rip your heart out and make Haggis'." Ow. My poor brain.

And on the Ugly Betty mention, she was, of course, Hollywood Ugly all around. Not only were the braces, slight weight, and (I think it was meant for the same goal) glasses and slightly unkempt hair meant to be ugly, but apparently you're also ugly when you have flawless skin and pearly white teeth. Huh.

Oh, this is another problem to be had with things like "jiggle physics", and the other pandering representations of females: it is stating that a woman like in the picture above is supposed to be unattractive, in its own way.

I highly doubt that she's meant to be unattractive. She still has clearly feminine facial features and a VERY high hip-to-waist ratio. I'd imagine she'd have broader shoulders and narrower hips if they wanted to sell her as unattractive. And replace breasts with pecs. Then there's the fact that she's half naked...

No, I don't see how this is better in any way, other than it offers some variety. She's still designed to be sexy.

I wasn't saying that that woman was meant to be unattractive, but that choosing perfect-skinned, large-breasted, dainty women over a character like that that is still quite attractive sends a ludicrous message. That without pristine, unmarked skin, no muscle definition, and tits that jiggle and bounce even with a sports bra involved, women just can't be attractive.

My point is that people could have variety, and be making some steps to actually have differently characterized females in games, and still have a sexy character.
She could use some improvement to really hit that barbarian look, certainly, though I don't think her hip-to-waist ratio is that terrible. Also a muscular women does not automatically mean pecs replacing breasts.
Oh, and there is nothing wrong with a woman being half-naked. It should be done with care, and not all the time, certainly, but it is as valid a choice as Conan the Barbarian being half-naked.

 

[excalipoor]

Alright, fair enough.

Also a muscular women does not automatically mean pecs replacing breasts.

This I'm going to have to contest. I have a thing for fitness models/bodybuilders, but I've yet to see one that wasn't (damn near) flat, or didn't have implants. I demand pictures as proof!

 

[theblindedhunter]

Alright, fair enough.

Also a muscular women does not automatically mean pecs replacing breasts.

This I'm going to have to contest. I have a thing for fitness models/bodybuilders, but I've yet to see one that wasn't (damn near) flat, or didn't have implants. I demand pictures as proof!

Bodybuilders =/= all strong women.
But, I suppose it means partly what you mean by flat, and by pecs, and by muscle, and other related phrases. I'm not saying that tons and tons of women have DD breasts and exceptionally muscular figures. There could well be some because people have pretty different bodies, but that's certain not to be the norm because a reduction in body fat does include breasts.
However, there are plenty of women with apparent muscle that have a B or sometimes C cup. Also, when I say muscular, I tend to be thinking toned, not exactly "cut".

As for the woman pictured, it seems fairly evident to me that she has a good degree of body fat, and isn't lacking it to a point of detriment like many bodybuilders do. To go with that, it's hard to judge, but she looks to have something like a C or B cup, with extra help in being pronounced from having muscle beneath.

I would peruse around for pictures to confirm these observations, but the thought of going around on Google images searching for pretty much anything with the word "woman" in it just makes me feel uncomfortable. Also I'm already feeling a bit awkward with all the talking about cup sizes I just did. That's not really a thing I do.

 

[excalipoor]

Snip

You can't really rock abs like that with a reasonable amount of bodyfat. Whatever, I'm just nitpicking. To me all sexy is good sexy, unless the context demands otherwise. I'm sorry Miranda, but the impact of your dramatic past and personal demons is slightly dimished by the cameraman so fixated on your buttocks.

 

[2fish]

Depends on the feel of the game. Is it going for realistic or do giggle boobs fit the feel of the game? Yes putting giggly boobies where they do not fit the game is a problem but putting them in a game where every male has 6-12 packs and women all have jello implants doesn't seem to be a big an issue to me.

The goal to remove the over sexualization of women in games has to start where it makes the most sense then move out to the areas that will be harder to change or make less sense to change. This is going to be a long slow process.

Also just for fun:

Spoiler: real woman from 2012 olympics

Spoiler: DOA woman

2 ninjas one choice. Ok maybe I stacked the deck... a little

 

[Xanadu84]

Its pretty simple, really.

One, gigantic, unrealistic boobs arn't attractive. They are creepy self-parody. Give me a real girl with a nice body over some freaky vagina on a stick with 40 pound flesh blob growths coming off the chest. "Big breasts are nice" does NOT translate to, "Bigger is always better". We have passed the realm of idealism, and into the realm of disturbing. But this isn't the PRIMARY answer.

The primary answer is that DOA style cheesecake is completely fine in and of itself. Appealing blatantly to the shallowest of sex appeal is not inherently bad, and earlier versions of Kasumi are very pleasant to look at, and that's great. The problem is that we have set blatant sex appeal as the default. Every damn female character needs to be impossibly hot, and that denies females the chance to have female characters they can enjoy without having to consider there sexual aspects. We complain when every male protagonist is a gruff, scruffy, white skinned, brown haired, wise cracking mercenary type, but female characters across the board are much more narrowly defined.

The reason DOA is catching flak is because, well, how do you address this problem? The problem is that this female trope is universal, but standing on a hilltop and yelling, "Hey, 90% of you guys need to cut that shit out" is going to leave everyone assuming that they should be in the 10%. Especially because sex does sell, and even though the industry would be better off and even more profitable if female characters were treated more broadly, the 10% stand to benefit the most. The industry may want to change, and stands to benefit from changing, but they benefit even MORE if everyone else changes, and they don't. It's prisoners dilemma, but with tits.

So inevitably, the only apparent course of action is to question every individual ip, do you REALLY need that big a set of breasts? In theory, by asking this question, you weed out enough pseudo-porn that the remaining pseudo-porn compliments the medium of video games quite nicely. The problem is that criticizing individual IPs is not actually logical, its just the only option out their. Personally, I say that the DOA series are so in love with breasts, they have earned there position as distributors of unrealistic, shallow females.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Why DoA needs to get rid of jiggle physics, or at least stop rubbing it in our faces like it's the whole point of the game:

- It reinforces the image of "hardcore" gaming as just the sort of juvenile, repulsive, made-for-13-year-olds sexist trash we've allowed gaming to grow into. It really rubs me the wrong way that one of the biggest fighting franchises (where most of the characters are actually female, mind you) still uses "OMG BOOBIEZ" as its main selling point.


DoA (or possibly videogames in general) doesn't need to get rid of skimpy outfits, unrealistic body proportions or other kind of sexual pandering. What it needs to do is add variety. Men in fighting games can be hypermuscular (Paul Phoenix)

Spoiler

slender and agile-looking (Baek)

Spoiler

heavily built or downright fat (Ganryu or Bob)

Spoiler

and even old and fragile (that old dude from Tekken whose name i can't remember). When was the last time you played as a female with any of those body types in a fighting game? Or even saw any other body type than "DD-cup supermodel" or "ultra-butch" for female characters in pretty much any game?

Hell yeah I would play Tekken as an old, flower-watering hunchback lady!

edit: WHY WON'T THE IMAGES WORK DAMMIT!

 

[Cheesepower5]

While true for TV, I still disagree about movies. Most blockbuster movies will have a 'star' attached to them, most of whom are not representative of the majority of people.

I do agree however that when you have realistic people in the roles it is so much more immersive. This is probably the reason that TV shows are actually generally better than most blockbuster films at current. Breaking Bad has a fantastic cast and because all of them are perfectly suited for their role, you get behind the story so much more.

If Matt Daymon played Walter White (I am sure Hollywood would deem anyone near the correct age 'too old' for a mainstream audience) it would break all immersion.

I think perhaps you should take a look at movies that don't have massive posters at your local cinema.

There's a lot of extremely good stuff with amazing characters to be found outside of the very, very small selection of blockbusters.

Oh indeed there are. But I am referring to blockbusters here as they are the equivalent of AAA titles in games.

We do have realistic women in games, most however are from indie or less mainstream titles. Such is the same in the film industry.

I'd sooner equate movie blockbusters with well... game blockbusters (CoD, Battlefield, Mass Effect etc.) rather than all AAA titles.

There's quite a few AAA titles that aren't blockbusters just like there are quite a few movies from the big studios (that also have reasonably big budgets) that aren't blockbusters either.

I think it's that range of movies and games mainly that's able to both reach a large audience (which only a very select number of indie games/movies achieve) as well as provide more believable characters (which only a very select number of blockbusters achieve).

Movies seem to be doing so quite regularly with quality movies that have both a decent budget and depth coming out all the time.

Games seem to be lagging severely behind with quality games that have any real depth being quite rare.

The way I see it, you're either playing the wrong games(only looking at a certain genre of games - ones like fighters and FPSs which tend to either sexualise female characters or not include them at all,) you don't like games(can't see the depth in the gameplay component as well as the story) or you're just looking for something to complain about.

I could be wrong, I certainly won't speak for you, but there's a lot of good female characters in games, normally just as well characterized as their male counterparts. But, you know. 98% of everything is crap, Guildenstern's law or w/e. Movies are just as bad.

 

[Hagi]

The way I see it, you're either playing the wrong games(only looking at a certain genre of games - ones like fighters and FPSs which tend to either sexualise female characters or not include them at all,) you don't like games(can't see the depth in the gameplay component as well as the story) or you're just looking for something to complain about.

I could be wrong, I certainly won't speak for you, but there's a lot of good female characters in games, normally just as well characterized as their male counterparts. But, you know. 98% of everything is crap, Guildenstern's law or w/e. Movies are just as bad.

Really?

See, if I spend a few minutes looking for them I can find literally hundreds of well characterized movie characters. Even when limiting it to just the past 10 years. If I spend serious effort on it I'll be able to find more than a thousand, again just for the past 10 years.

Games are an industry that rivals movies as to the amount of money that goes on in it. Yet can you really name hundreds of well characterized game characters?

I'm not saying games are downright horrible. There's plenty of good stuff. But let's be honest to ourselves, the games industry is in no way or form at the level of the movie industry when it comes to deep and thoughtful material.

Again, I'm not saying this is a female specific problem. But just because male characters are often just as bad doesn't make it somehow a good thing. I'd like games to improve, so I'll criticize them where I feel they're lacking.

 

[Chemical Alia]

http://fcfighter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/SarahKaufman.jpg

http://www.ztgd.com/images/screenshots/xbox360/doa4/100.jpg

Which one you wanna play?

I have trouble grasping why anyone would seriously prefer the latter in a fighting game. That doesn't even look like a fighter.

Because realism is everything in games, right.

I'm guessing Rambo II is a terrible film because I mean, who could take on a whole battalion on his own. How outrageous!!!

That's hardly my point. Exaggeration is a great thing, when it's done with style and cleverness. I still expect my fighters to resemble fighters, but that doesn't mean that the end result can't still look awesome. At least Rambo actually looks like what he is meant to do.

 

[Dastardly]

I feel like this would make the fighting game genre more accessible to women, but I'm having trouble putting my finger on why that is.

It's not a solution in itself. It's paving the way for one, though. Ripping all of the old stumps and rocks out of an empty lot doesn't build a house, but it allows me to build one.

When a game is presented in a way that screams "THIS IS FOR DUDES," it makes women feel unwelcome, uncomfortable, unwanted. Removing that factor doesn't exactly draw them in, but it does less to repel them, so that we could find ways to draw them in.

1: A woman's feelings toward boob jiggle physics are roughly equivalent to what men would experience if we had flaccid penis jiggle physics. In other words, it is physically repulsive to them. Getting rid of this stuff makes games more accessible to women because it's no longer a total gross-out.

Actually, most of the women I know find breasts aesthetically pleasing... when they're presented in a particular way. My point here is that it's not so much the visuals themselves that repel women. It's the mentality that leads to those visuals -- a man's power comes from strength, and a woman's power must come from sex (or, basically, her 'usefulness' to a man).

In this case, my question becomes; what specifically is wrong with the characterization, and how should devs do things differently?

And that's what's wrong with the characterization of many video game women: While the men are designed in a way that makes sense within the game, the women are often designed mostly to appeal to men outside the game. The hero has a giant sword because a giant sword helps him kill giant enemies. The heroine wears a chainmail bikini because it makes her appealing to the mostly-male audience (and development team) of the game.

In far too many ways, the female characters are constructed and defined based on how they interact with male characters (love interest, temptress, girlfriend of the villain, etc.) or how they appeal to the male members of the audience. This usually leads them to be subservient in personality and sexualized in appearance and behavior.