Virtual Hotties
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It would be much better if we avoided sexualization and just welcomed sexuality instead. You can't sexualize characters that are already sexual to begin with. See: Mikisugi AikirouBolo The Great said:I would just like to take this space to re-iterate my love for man-bunsIf we sexualize equally i don't see a problem. Sexualized media will always exist.
... The ass? It's the only part of our body that is considered a secondary sex characteristic for both men and women, and unlike women, men don't show their asses very often. A girl can wear a g-string swimsuit at the beach without problems, but a man wearing a g-string with his ass free to enjoy the sunlight is probably a gay porn actor. But it's considered attractive for both genders.thaluikhain said:
As men and women, we should put aside our differences and our resentment towards each other and unite in the name of the only thing we both appreciate: the butt.
Ya know, I'd like to see an action game released in the west/United States where women play the competent adventurer/Player character (I don't consider NPCs competent at all because they need the player.) who has her pick of assorted guys without gender select for the player character.
Basically a gender swap of pretty much every game with a shred of a relationship without character creation.
Women get supported by assorted guys that are basically just barely useful at their jobs, wear next to nothing, and eventually need rescuing by the woman. Maybe killed off in absurd ways to help fuel the woman's desire to see justice done.
Basically a gender swap of pretty much every game with a shred of a relationship without character creation.
Women get supported by assorted guys that are basically just barely useful at their jobs, wear next to nothing, and eventually need rescuing by the woman. Maybe killed off in absurd ways to help fuel the woman's desire to see justice done.
"There's nothing else going on this week"? Didn't a terrorist organization issue a bomb threat against Sony in a DDoS attack, pulling down PSN's online service and compromising Xbox Live as well?
Speaking as a dude who likes ladies I'd be okay with the odd game or three featuring ripped dudes with huge schlongs.
One of my chief complaints about Skyrim was that while there's a bevy of hot ladies to marry (like that sexy filth encrusted babe you deliver letters for) female characters have to settle for a bunch of jackasses that look like the town drunk (and of course one who actually IS the town drunk).
Of course thanks to the console you can marry whoever you want, whether they're initially scripted to let you or not. Which- that's actually sort of creepy now that I think about it*.
*Except for Lydia who has unique romance dialog and is for whatever reason the only House Karl you can't marry normally.
One of my chief complaints about Skyrim was that while there's a bevy of hot ladies to marry (like that sexy filth encrusted babe you deliver letters for) female characters have to settle for a bunch of jackasses that look like the town drunk (and of course one who actually IS the town drunk).
Of course thanks to the console you can marry whoever you want, whether they're initially scripted to let you or not. Which- that's actually sort of creepy now that I think about it*.
*Except for Lydia who has unique romance dialog and is for whatever reason the only House Karl you can't marry normally.
Pretty sad if your primary reason/motive to make such a game is political correctness. There's just not enough demand for such a game. As mentioned in the comic, it's extremely niche. Forget big developers, I don't even see small-medium sized studios interested in making something like that. If they did it might end up making them no money.Rebel_Raven said:
I'm sure an indie dev somewhere could make such a game as a mini-project to see how much popularity it gains. There are already flash/java-based erotic games aimed at females and homosexual males, but again they will be only getting a tiny (tiny) fraction of the popularity that straight-male games get.
Of course it's niche. Very few guys want a game like that, because they don't want guys in posiions like that.Aaron Sylvester said:
Yet the industry, and in part, the people fighting against female protagonists, insists on having women put up with it. That's basically, my point. If guys don't like games like that, why are women expected to like games that treat them that way?
Why is anyone expected to like games where women are treated that way in general? the annoyance isn't limited to women.
Yet here we are, with no signs of things really changing.
I would have thourght drake (as much as I loath that dick weasel) would be a "general" kind of attractive to womenBolo The Great said:I really would like more obvious man-candy in my games. I guess we do have idealized hunks too, actually come to think of it we have a lot of muscular men in games but they tend to be grizzled and look like abused meat. But i suppose those are from the 'male gaze' or whatever. I dunno. But i sure as hell see a lot of bulging, sweaty muscles in some areas. *bites lip*
but then I'm realising as far as fictional charachters go I don't know what women like or why they like it
Hypothetically if the game you described came out tomorrow I highly doubt guys would even care, forget about "not liking" (that implies they actually care). Maybe a few MRA crazies would object, but those minorities (along with extreme feminists) can be safely ignored. This is of course because males have a million other games catering to them. Your gender-reversed game is free to exist and be produced for whoever is going to buy it - it's primary barrier won't be guys not liking it, but gamers (in general) just not being interested enough to warrant the development.Rebel_Raven said:
Reversing the situation won't work since you'll also have to reverse how gaming, technology, etc came around going back hundreds of years. Yes, I wouldn't like it if I was the minority audience for a popular product and it didn't depict my gender properly. No, I probably wouldn't try to get it changed because the hands of fate would probably make me not interested in video right now. Too many factors.
I'd like to think that women are not expected to like those games. The way the game is developed and marketed, one could conclude that the studios/publishers aren't even expecting women to be INTERESTED in those kinds of games, let alone like it. I mean do you think the devs of GTA and Witcher would expect women to actually enjoy their products? Heck no. They already know that, they know what they are making and who they are catering to. They are inclined to give zero fucks about Anita Sarkeesian and the likes, if anything she's helping their sales (a bit) every time she mentions their games.Rebel_Raven said:
But if some women do pick that game up and criticize it's depiction of women, that's between them and the devs/publishers. It's almost the equivalent of those women saying "Y U NO MAKE GAME FOR MY TASTES?" - that's how the dev/publisher will perceive criticism coming from women, especially feminists.
I can understand WHY women don't like it, I'll give you that. I don't expect them to like it, nobody should expect women to like such games. But that's the reality.
I wish women the best of luck to getting games made for them.
The masses haven't really objected to women being treated like that in games, said games are selling very well. From the devs/publishers' perspective they did everything right. Who are you (or me) to convince them they are depicting women badly? They already know that and literally throwing it in consumers' faces, and consumers are gobbling it up.Rebel_Raven said:
If a woman decides to buy a game and doesn't like her gender's depiction in it, criticizing and complaining is the extent of what she can do - and then her criticism will be swiftly buried under countless others (i.e. straight male gamers) who found the game perfectly enjoyable and have no gender-related issues with it.
From what I've noticed, that's what happens every time. And the more often it happens, the less likely it is for future criticism coming from females to be taken seriously. Even if they are totally legitimate complaints, you get the picture.
Ya ain't wrong. But that's not to say women cannot find certain male characteristics highly erotic. Though, I'd say your average woman probably prefers a less steroid-use looking physique. Something that looks more natural than your typical 'hard body' too. (Six pack abs are silly.)Schadrach said:
Case in point: http://thats-normal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/1743714_640694452656434_895588589_n.jpg
This is literally the first show to make me squee like some K-Drama fan. And part of it is that. But at the end of the day, that dude plays a real character, not eye candy. That's the only issue I have with sexualization of women in video games; it's eye candy with no substance. Ruins it for me.
That doesn't change things, really. If guys ignore it, then they wouldn't like it, right? They might not complain bitterly about it, what with it being one game like that, and it being pretty much the singular example, but they wouldn't like it.Aaron Sylvester said:
The concept is not something most guys, and the industry want. Which, again, is my point. They don't want it, but they keep putting women through the same concept.
Women are expected to like it. For a very long time, it's been "play this way, or don't play at all." It still is for a large part, though I admit it's not as bad as it was these days since some companies are being more open, and some open companies might be getting more spotlight. It's still kinda sucky, though.
Then again it got pretty okay in the 90's, and dried up, so you'll have to pardon me if I'm not confident on how long it'll last.
I'm not really expecting developers to care what women want, and/or go to of their way, but rather have the freedoms to make a game that a woman just might like. They should do it because they want to.
Of course, I'm going to get irritated when women are actively cut/omitted like Ubisoft did in their latest games, which kinda sours what I thought about them when they redid Liberation, and made Child of Light.
We're free to complain. We should complain, IMO. It doesn't matter if anything changes, it's good to at least vent, and know we aren't alone in what we want.
While it's true that people bury the complaints with "everything's fine" (which points back to my point of women, and minorities for that matter, being expected to like it, or else they're not gaming, or gaming as happily as they could be), that apparently won't make this issue go away. It keeps reappearing time, and time again, and, IMO, until the issue becomes less common, it won't go away.
You're right, we need to show more appreciation for other parts of the male anatomy. Namely broad shoulders, bulging biceps, sculpted pecs, washboard abs, and those delicate tight glutes. Preferably all while in fabulous Jojo-esque poses.Paragon Fury said:
Imagine how much better Gears of War would be if they upped blatant beefcake to Bayonetta levels, or the Metal Gear series if Stupid Sexy Snake was an actual thing.
I think he's somewhere on the fence. I can see arguments for and against him being attractive, but he definitely ain't "man candy."Vault101 said:
During one of PSN's recent sales, I looked up a game I'd never heard of, and a lot of the complaints were that the characters were "aimed at women." I ended up passing on the game because what few comments I could find about it described it as boring, but I really want to see more games with women in mind to see if the "it doesn't matter" crowd was really honest. I can't fault someone for not buying a boring game. What I want is a big, AAA shooter with lots of men marketed to appeal to women, and preferably with an unskippable gay kiss/sex scene.
Honestly, man-on-man action isn't really my thing, but I'd like to see how people really reacted to an otherwise "normal" AAA game that just happened to have men aimed at pandering to straight women/gay men, up to the point of homoerotica. Because that would be the real test, I think. If it really doesn't matter and women shouldn't complain, men should be totes into the game even if it's pandering or sexist or whatever else.
But I kind of diverged from your post. This is just what it made me think of.
What bothered me about the last iteration of Cortana was that they didn't even try to allude to her visually being anything more than a naked lady. What made her "sexy" was that she could be interpreted as either being naked or wearing full body clothing because her design had a vagueness to it in that respect in the older games; her boobs weren't overly defined in shape and so on. Sexiness is about subtlety and implication and "teasing" the viewer regardless of the gender being used. Once you're full on modeling nipples and putting every crease of a characters butt in to your normal mapping you've gone too far and made porn.
Typical effective fanservice for straight female viewers isn't a giant penis flopping around in tight shorts, its a general definition of the male form that isn't taken too far; enough to be "muscular" but not "monstrous" (see; the characters from Free) alongside a pretty face, nice hair and so on - the same as a female character appealing to men.
Which is where a lot of artists go wrong; Cory included in this instance. He made Larry (terrible name, not sexy at all) too muscular and his penis would be terrifying to any lady due to size alone, as a male version parody of Cortana it is "incorrect". Women have tastes and preferences as much as men but most have a general set of interests that don't involve extremes and hardcore fetishes, I'd say the percentage of those that do is way way lower than the average male also.
Boobs are great but once you go over a certain size I'm honestly more disgusted than anything myself. Most women don't want their fantasy men to be enormous penis monsters either, which again is what I constantly see when the "joke" of "lets objectify men too guys!" comes up - showing a misunderstanding in the concept even when their is some awareness of it.
Fanservice should be available to all people but more artists need to understand what is considered sexy to both women and men. Equality demands equal understanding of that which is considered appealing.
Typical effective fanservice for straight female viewers isn't a giant penis flopping around in tight shorts, its a general definition of the male form that isn't taken too far; enough to be "muscular" but not "monstrous" (see; the characters from Free) alongside a pretty face, nice hair and so on - the same as a female character appealing to men.
Which is where a lot of artists go wrong; Cory included in this instance. He made Larry (terrible name, not sexy at all) too muscular and his penis would be terrifying to any lady due to size alone, as a male version parody of Cortana it is "incorrect". Women have tastes and preferences as much as men but most have a general set of interests that don't involve extremes and hardcore fetishes, I'd say the percentage of those that do is way way lower than the average male also.
Boobs are great but once you go over a certain size I'm honestly more disgusted than anything myself. Most women don't want their fantasy men to be enormous penis monsters either, which again is what I constantly see when the "joke" of "lets objectify men too guys!" comes up - showing a misunderstanding in the concept even when their is some awareness of it.
Fanservice should be available to all people but more artists need to understand what is considered sexy to both women and men. Equality demands equal understanding of that which is considered appealing.
I also think what women find sexy and what gay men find sexy [i/]can be[/i] very different...like like what a lesbian might like is different to what a man might likeZachary Amaranth said:
It actually makes me wonder because hetero female sexuality is something I don't think gets explored a lot int he mainstream.....
but if I were to think of a charachter designed to appeal to females my guess would be Thane From ME2, he's cool mysterious, "emotional" philisphical...his design is very appealing and I admit when I first plaed ME2 I was drawn to the charachter...
yeah as I just said I think theres a mistake in thinking they are somehow interchangeble...they are notLazyAza said:
I can't link pics but if you look up Bloody mary from Wolf among us and compare that to any scantly clad charachter Mary is a BAZILLION times more attractive, and I'm only speaking from images...
I said, specifically, that the guy I was talking about plays a character. He's not a walking set of muscles (contrast that to a lot of women in games, and media in general, who are just a pair of walking tits). He's not there to be eye candy alone. And to be honest, before I started watching the show, I didn't find him the least bit attractive (though I hadn't seen him shirtless then, so who knows). He's more attractive now that he's a person and not just a face or a body.Blue Ranger said:
I can't say that I've felt attraction toward any character in a game, male or female, based on appearance alone. The medium just doesn't work for me that way. But a decent character who also happens to be okay or even good looking? Sure, I enjoy that. Probably not as much as the fans of volley ball girls though.
Offhand, I can't think of any female-fantasy movie or tv show that just has pure eye candy. I'm sure it exists, but I have doubts on how successful it'd be. Twilight, dumb as it was, featured some kind of characterization (even if it was super creepy stalking and 'protectiveness'). Even male strippers have to do a lot more than just be hot. We're talking acrobatics, choreographed dancing, playing with fire, comedy skits, etc. (There's a documentary on the LaBare strippers of Dallas, and you could probably find a few of their routines on YouTube, just as an example.)
Female fantasy often requires more than just jiggle physics, is what I'm getting at.
I must have missed this, what exactly is the Nothing Else reference? I guess I didn't see the thread or whatever.
I would agree, though for these intents I think it'd be close enough for jazz. My curiosity aims more towards whether it would put off the men that say "it shouldn't matter" were the shoe in the other foot. I mean, I would like to see more women in gaming, and the like, but this was more a desire for an experiment to test the honesty of the average male gamer saying "STFU wimminz"Vault101 said:
I don't know, though. My perspective's always been skewed.
I can observe how other people respond and pick up on patterns, but that's it.I imagine that any group that isn't straight males doesn't get explored very often. Then again, this could be a 'Murrican POV. I do suffer from a potential lack of perspective.
It's funny, because his character model looks a lot like a reptile Jansen Ackles, and while I know you weren't talking specifically about the character model, I know that Ackles is pretty popular with straight women.
I don't remember much of Thane (I'm not big on Mass Effect 2/3), so I can't comment on his personality. What this, combined with the other poster you quoted made me think of is that we have an overwhelmingly male (ostensibly straight) industry who at best have to guess what "women want" and at worst don't give a crap. Thane's existence would then likely be a happy accident, though I'm only really mentioning him in passing. LazyAza mentions that Larry is a bad example of fanservice for women, which I don't particularly hold against Critical Miss because they were doing a comic strip and not seriously trying to establish a model that would actually appeal to women. Which is sort of the issue, both with the industry and the people saying there is no problem. Neither tend to have a reference point. This is why people point to Kratos and say "see? Men are sexualised, too! That's blatant fanservice!" and the women tend to fire back with "well, actually, noooooooooo...."
Which, of course, usually runs in circles, because inevitably the response seems to be "yuh huh!" Which now gets into telling women what they want. This seems to come from not only a lack of understanding, but a lack of desire to understand in the first place. And the reason I would like to test the "it doesn't matter!" mentality is because I doubt they've put much thought into it.
In the past, and I think even in a relevant CM strip, we had people talking down about the concept of these Gaymer cons, but then adding that they as heterosexuals wouldn't feel comfortable being surrounded by gays. And my thought is, "hey, teachable moment. Think about how gays feel most of the time. In fact, gay gatherings are probably the only time gays aren't the minority." But also, "hey, teachable moment. You mean you'd feel awkward about a bunch of men staring at you, assessing you based on your sexual value, and so on? I wonder how that group of people you do that to routinely feels!"
Hence my issue with wanting games which would be ostensibly uncomfortable to the "it doesn't matter!" guys. I think they think they mean it. I don't think they've thought it through, or actually tried to put themselves in that situation. And to be fair, I don't think there's a perfect analogue. I bring up homoerotica mostly because it tends to bring out the "squick" factor and discomfort I'm looking to demonstrate.
Even still, I think that guys can get the idea from something like what this strips shows, and I think Penny Arcade sort of pointed that out [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/04/24]. It's not a perfect analogue, but at least they get the discomfort (as Tycho points out in the accompanying news post, though I think he sadly then veers way off the mark on the last bit).