When will we see a NON-attractive woman in a video-game?

[Andy of Comix Inc]

How do you quantify "non-attractive," exactly? I don't particularly like the look of the Dead or Alive characters. They're unattractive to me. Does that make them "non-attractive"? I find the aforementioned Heather rather cute. Is she attractive now? I mean geez, even the ones that are meant to be unattractive are attractive to a great many people! This applies to the men too.

I think we press for realistic depictions of women in games; women that don't look hand-crafted to be perfect sex objects, or so disheveled that it comes off as forced (like rubbing dirt over a Barbie doll). "Unattractive" men in games have a place, while women always seem token. I think Gears of War 3 made great steps in creating a realistic depiction of women on the battlefield, and even to some extend the Metroid series, despite Samus being doll-like and traditionally "hot," is fairly realistic in her depiction - she always wears her suit, with her helmet on, and does her job. It's not optimal that when she takes her suit off she's impossibly skinny and busty, but it is a fairly realistic depiction of her when she's actually doing her job. ...well. If we discount that Other M mess.

The Japanese have some pretty out there sexual perversions, not many of us would say this is attractive (atleast in public lol).

Uhh, that's a little transphobic, what you just said there. You know that. Right?

 

[TrevHead]

snip

Oh I agree most character designs are made to be attractive to the devs or a certain demograph, I was meerly pointing out that beauty is subjective across different cultures. But you are right we do need to see more plain Jane Does in gaming, rather than been ugly as a charactuer or worse the black tramp lady from Deux Ex HR. Also agree on the best characters having some depth to them and not been just there for sexual attraction like Shamus.

The Japanese have some pretty out there sexual perversions, not many of us would say this is attractive (atleast in public lol).

Uhh, that's a little transphobic, what you just said there. You know that. Right?

Not my intention, I was just using an example to make my point, admittingly I was originally planning on showing a loli but they were all NSFW lol

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Not my intention, I was just using an example to make my point, admittingly I was originally planning on showing a loli but they were all NSFW lol

And now you're coming off as xenophobic. You know loli porn is attached to pedophilia, yeah? That does exist outside of Japan... a lot. Just because some Japanese people draw them doesn't mean its a "thing." Yeah?

You haven't come up with a specifically Japanese concept yet. Traps exist in real life, not just in Japanese anime, and there are people who find them attractive (they're particularly prevalent in, for example, Malaysia). Lolis exist in real life, not just in Japanese anime - go read the book Lolita - and you say everything you found was NSFW, so you were looking up loli porn to demonstrate "different tastes" of Japan, but really that's just pedophilia, which is heinous in all its forms, worldwide.

I understand your point, it's something specific to Japanese culture that, for example, you can sell "Tentacle Grape" soft drink just in the supermarket. That games like Dead or Alive are cultural mainstays. But using transgendered crossdressers and child porn to prove your point comes off as ignorant to, like, the world. And how it works.

 

[DracoSuave]

Either that, or they're vaguely representative of past regrets and mentalities too horrible to contemplate.

I think Lisa Garland gets pretty much shoehorned into the 'Doesn't Stay Pretty' category.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Evolution of Grace from Gabriel Knight

She's pretty nice looking in 2, nerdy in 1 and awful in 3. But i don't think they could make anyone look hot in 3. Still not aimed to be attractive I think.

 

[crusha_aa]

Abigail Marston is a fairly unattractive woman in my opinion. A pleasant surprise actually as she is John Marston's wife which makes her the players wife really in a way.

It helped make her a believable character as she looks more like a regular woman rather than some super hot babe designed to please the player.

 

[TrevHead]

Not my intention, I was just using an example to make my point, admittingly I was originally planning on showing a loli but they were all NSFW lol

And now you're coming off as xenophobic. You know loli porn is attached to pedophilia, yeah? That does exist outside of Japan... a lot. Just because some Japanese people draw them doesn't mean its a "thing." Yeah?

I think you are over reacting and reading into my posts too much, while lolis and traps do exist IRL, they certanly don't exist in the same preportion as we see in Japanese media, more so since they are virtually none existant in western games.

But again i'm not calling Japanese gaming out for this (in this instance) i'm just using them as an extreame example to drive my point. (I love Japanese games like Reccetear just not the ecchi ones)

and you say everything you found was NSFW, so you were looking up loli porn to demonstrate "different tastes" of Japan, but really that's just pedophilia, which is heinous in all its forms, worldwide.

Nope just put Japanese Loli into google image search and that Trap pic was the safest pic I was given, But if google is flagging that stuff either it remembers a few loli joke posts I made in the past or someone has been looking at Japanese porn on my PC.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Spoiler

Skyrim did a pretty decent job at making most people both male and female look normal. I mean some were uglier and some prettier both most were just your average normal looking people.

 

[Grandpappyduplenty]

I strongly suggest you look up Granny Rags from Dishonored.

 

[ABLb0y]

Gentlemen, may I introduce

I mean, yes, she's got a skin-tight catsuit, and her father created her to be (his standard of) perfect, but she's got a piggy nose, massive lips and teeth and worst of all she seems to get off on teasing Jack (Who also might count, just because of her tattoos and lack of hair)about her past (Which, might I remind you, involves being a human guinea pig for racist terrorists, escaping and being repeatedly raped, among other things.)

On the whole, not very attractive, physically or inside.

 

[otakon17]

Helena Pierce comes to mind for me, from Borderlands:

Also, Ellie of Borderlands 2 has already been mentioned(but damn if she doesn't have an awesome rack...):

Then there is Quelan of Dark Souls:

Simply put, there are LOT'S of female characters that are not "attractive" physically per se. But like all things, appearance isn't everything.

 

[Sidiron]

Behold the wonder that is observation bias, even if the females see 90/100 female characters as ugly and 90/100 male characters as fit/sexy then they will still claim that women are unfairly represented in gaming.
As a bisexual male (who isn't some kind of psychosexual rapist), I am forever feeling under-represented as will many staright male gamers who don't live off protein shakes and gym workouts, however it is socially unacceptable for us to whinge and moan about it, however women bitching or moaning about 'not being represented in gaming' is the topic du jour and so passé it becoming rather boring.
Gaming is like action movies by and large especially when looking at "triple-A" releases, it is full of burley men and attractive women, can we all accept this and move on to lambasting the same developers for a lack of story and imagination, instead of the blatant feminism that seems to be the "hot-topic" of late.
It really is getting boring, and this is from a guy (as already stated) that is from a group often depicted as rampant and immoral man-whores. ;-)

 

[Psychedelic Spartan]

KAt from Halo:Reach. She's more of an average looking woman in my opinion. However, I might be slightly biased due to her genius quote of "give me cover" while I went up against 6 elites on a LASO run.

 

[Orbot_Vectorman]

Aya Brea from Parasite Eve/ 3rd Birthday, is pretty average looking.

 

[Coppernerves]

Behold the stunning mediocrity that is Alyx Vance![br]

There are loads of non attractive females in games, maybe you should just have higher standards.

Alyx is damned hot! Sure she's a little flat-chested like a lot of athletes, but she's slim, nicely shaped, has a lovely face and smooth skin, I wouldn't call her mediocre by a long shot!

Then again I tend to get engrossed in games, and think people tend to bond when they defend each other from zombies, combines, zombines etc.

 

[Do4600]

Something or someone can only be unattractive to a group if the hegemony makes it so. I find most of the women in gaming look like Snooki with a ridiculous boob-job. In other words, quite ugly and distorted. To me most women in gaming are unattractive. The fact that you recognize them as being attractive means that you accept the hegemonic definition of attractiveness.

If you're a videogame designer you follow the trends of the hegemony. Which is why the hair styles in video games for men in the past couple of years have all been wet styled and swooped upwards to look like David Villa or Taylor Lautner, or combed backwards to look like Bruno Mars. (ala Rico Rodriguez and Nathan Drake in comparison to Squall and Leon from RE2)

Are unattractive people now an ethnic group that feel the are not represented enough now.

lol.

Unattractiveness is a subjective trait, not so with say...Mexicans, being Mexican is not subjective.

 

[Do4600]

Either that, or they're vaguely representative of past regrets and mentalities too horrible to contemplate.

I think Lisa Garland gets pretty much shoehorned into the 'Doesn't Stay Pretty' category.

This picture will haunt my dreams, I'm sure to wake up screaming.

 

[StBishop]

On the topic of Aveline, I think she's attractive.

OT: Merril from the same game, she isn't attractive.

 

[mitchell271]

These are all great examples but I think the OP meant that we should strive for this to be commonplace instead of a few isolated instances and only from a handful of developers.

 

[Valis7]

All of this Alyx hate makes me sad...

But just about every woman in Fallout looks bleh.