Warface Producer Defends Female Designs as "Cultural Relativism"
- Thread starter roseofbattle
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Welcome to Iran, Zachary.Zachary Amaranth said:
OT: Fun fact: if you click on the link to Wired, you get catapulted face-first into a female soldier's boob window.
You know what? It's the male soldiers that look out of place to me. If they kept the female designs and made the males into wifebeater-clad athletic guys, I would accept the art direction as being in the same general area as the newer Red Alert games. But it seems like they went the route of "max realism for males, spank material for females".
Yes, spank material. I've said it.
I like girls wielding weapons.
*cough*
I feel that this is appropiate.MCerberus said:Warning: Soulless monsterAkichi Daikashima said:
[http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/445038-justin-bieber]
Back on topic, the style is still off, even if the guys were "designed" in the same way.
But, at least the style would be consistent then.
But then, I would never touch a game with such a style with a ten foot barge pole.
Maybe I misunderstood part of the article, but it didn't seem to me that he was defending the female characters being sexy-fied as being cultural relativism but rather that what sort of sexy-fication would be used in different regions as being cultural relativism. He's not saying, "We make the women hot because cultural relativism." He's saying "We change the way the women are hot because cultural relativism." The first is an excuse the second is an explanation. If anything, the sexy-fication in general seems to be pancultural, it's the form that it takes that is the cultural relativism. The fact that the sexi-fication is pancultural is a whole different issue.
Saying this as someone who sees absolutely no problem with games such as DoA, Dragon's Crown or Scarlet Blade, this is simply bullshit.
If you want sexy then fine, do sexy. But do get a consistent direction for your game. Don't go making a realistic military shooter and then go "Oh? Women? Nah! They're different!".
Way I see it this is the real sexism in games. It's not the games with a clear over-the-top or even sexual tone, you can avoid those if that's not your thing and if it is then that's a perfectly valid desire. It's these games that suddenly change tone when a female character is presented, that you can't easily avoid if it's not your thing because the entire game presents a completely different tone until something with breasts comes along.
If you want sexy then fine, do sexy. But do get a consistent direction for your game. Don't go making a realistic military shooter and then go "Oh? Women? Nah! They're different!".
Way I see it this is the real sexism in games. It's not the games with a clear over-the-top or even sexual tone, you can avoid those if that's not your thing and if it is then that's a perfectly valid desire. It's these games that suddenly change tone when a female character is presented, that you can't easily avoid if it's not your thing because the entire game presents a completely different tone until something with breasts comes along.
They seem to completely dismiss the notion that there might be girls who enjoy FPS games and who might want a somewhat more realistic outfit on their characters. Clearly they never hung out on my old TF2 server where several of the regulars were female.
I could be wrong but I get the idea that the changes in both recoil levels and character models are for region specific servers. So if you were playing on Russian servers, all the weapons would have higher recoil but if you were on Asian servers they would have less. This would mean everyone who was on a certain server would have the same recoil levels, it would just change if you changed servers.DataSnake said:
Anyone ever notice that female soldiers all go to war wearing full make up and with $1000 hair cuts?
Crytek are desperately trying to fling themselves into lowest common denominator cultural oblivion. It's weird how after making Far Cry, then moving to considerably more grown up writing and characterisation in Crysis, from Warhead onwards they seem to have been on a mission to get dumber and dumber with every single game. You'd think the abrupt drop in sales between Crysis 2 and 3 would have tipped them off that there's a limit to even the lowest of the lowbrows.
Oh well, they've been spending too much time around EA executives.
Crytek are desperately trying to fling themselves into lowest common denominator cultural oblivion. It's weird how after making Far Cry, then moving to considerably more grown up writing and characterisation in Crysis, from Warhead onwards they seem to have been on a mission to get dumber and dumber with every single game. You'd think the abrupt drop in sales between Crysis 2 and 3 would have tipped them off that there's a limit to even the lowest of the lowbrows.
Oh well, they've been spending too much time around EA executives.
Can't we all just enjoy eye candy without having to bend over backwards to justify it?
I will throw money at a developer who responds to the question "Why are all the female characters sexualized?" with "Fuck you, that's why."
I will throw money at a developer who responds to the question "Why are all the female characters sexualized?" with "Fuck you, that's why."
The sniper has a goddamned boob window compared to a draped in camouflage gear and ammo packs male counter part.
Your argument was just lost.
For once I'd just like people to unapologetically come out and say "We did it for the sex appeal, we need to sell copies and our demographic is mostly going to be 13 year old boys so what do you want from us? Not make money? For about 5 million dollars we will take the female characters out and dress them appropriately have fun kickstarting that one."
It's what it is! Eye candy meant to attract sales. Don't go making excuses for it, the people you are aiming for are not even going to care about your motives.
Your argument was just lost.
For once I'd just like people to unapologetically come out and say "We did it for the sex appeal, we need to sell copies and our demographic is mostly going to be 13 year old boys so what do you want from us? Not make money? For about 5 million dollars we will take the female characters out and dress them appropriately have fun kickstarting that one."
It's what it is! Eye candy meant to attract sales. Don't go making excuses for it, the people you are aiming for are not even going to care about your motives.
The problem is that in a still image, the easiest way to make clear that the character you're looking at actually is a woman is by noting their body shape in general, and breasts in particular. It's a lot more difficult to project this when those features are buried under full tactical armour - this was precisely the stunt Metroid pulled. You could get away with it back then because graphics, but nowadays a woman who isn't obviously a woman will be lambasted as being functionally identical to a man, and a woman who is will be lambasted as juvenile eye candy (because you could make the character look like the frumpiest housewife in human history and I promise you that some guy out there will still want to hit it).
This is a thinly-veiled admission that yes, they really are just pandering to the male gaze. I don't get how "cultural relativism" comes into making characters sexy instead of practical. Call it what you want, a boob window is a boob window.
Whoooo caaaares. Can we please stop obsessing with females in video games? PLEASE? Just let developers do whatever they want, it is their game, they can do what they please. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Vote with your wallet. End of story. Stop throwing temper tantrums for everything to be politically correct. Plan B is just have every character in every game from here on be naked, male or female. That way everyone can shut up.
I'm not sure what bothers me more, the almost really cool female sniper being ruined by stupid cleavage window (honestly I think the female rifleman is mostly OK. Its sexual and stylized but not to the point of absurdity), or how boring, generic and semi-identical the male models are.
Two parts of this bother the hell out of me. Listening to him try and justify something in such a painfully obvious "hopefully this will shut them up" way or listening to the people he is trying to shut up complain. If people did not throw such a ***** fit every time a female character shows a little cleavage this thread would not exist. Obviously the reason the characters look like that is because its visually appealing to a large portion of their consumers. He should be able to say that without fear of being written off as some sexist monster.
Yes, because as a female I would GLADLY give up the safety of been fully covered in protective gear to make sure the enemy has a nice view of my tits when pointing their laser sight at them, while aiming for my unprotected heart. Or, gotta show off that dem arms and midriff, right boys?~
Cultural Relativism my ass. If they're going to make the male counterpart more realistic then why not for females too? Consistency people, consistency.
Weapons having different recoil levels in different regions makes no damn sense either.
Cultural Relativism my ass. If they're going to make the male counterpart more realistic then why not for females too? Consistency people, consistency.
Weapons having different recoil levels in different regions makes no damn sense either.