Do you think a game that sexualizes a Male Main character would sell?

[Something Amyss]

How about a game that sexualises both genders um?

So you totally miss the point of the thread here, then say you don't care, then post this:

oh yeah thats another reason of why I dont like those threads. Needless generalization.

If you don't like threads like these, and you don't care, why bother posting?

Anyway, it's not a generalisation. Gaming is rife with homophobic kids. Pretend it's not if you want, but pretending is all you're doing.

 

[aguspal]

How about a game that sexualises both genders um?

So you totally miss the point of the thread here, then say you don't care, then post this:

oh yeah thats another reason of why I dont like those threads. Needless generalization.

If you don't like threads like these, and you don't care, why bother posting?

Anyway, it's not a generalisation. Gaming is rife with homophobic kids. Pretend it's not if you want, but pretending is all you're doing.

As some other posters have already said, games with sexualized male characters can sell pretty well. Althougt I PERSONALLY (ReadERSONALLY) belive that a game thats SOLELY based around sexualised females has a better chance to sell than would a game about SOLELY sexualided males. Just saying.


BUT, at the end, is the game itself that matters the most.


As for the whole generalisation, of course theres SOME "homophobic kids" in gaming, that goes without saying, but its definitivly not EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM as the posters I quoted apparently makes it out to be.


EDIT: Nice, I didnt realized you where the exact same poster as the one I quoted. Ok, fixed.

 

[Blaster395]

It's a free country, who knows ? Try it. Girls are sluts these days, they'd probably lap it up.

Let me fix this sentence.

Everyone has been 'slutty' since the dawn of history. The only thing that has changed is the position of the line between socially accepted and not accepted.

 

[m19]

What is a sexualized male?

A lot of the times you hear: "They put women in ridiculous outfits and poses that emphasize their butts and boobs, they never do it for men!!!"

Thing is most women I know have no interest in a man that's not... manly. Good looking, but manly. Kind of like a Nathan Drake, etc. So what is "sexualized" for men?

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Well, I pre-ordered The Last Story for the great story, characters, and gameplay, and when I went to go pick-up my game, this was the cover art.

Yeah, Zael (the shirtless dude on the right) never walks around with just his coat unbuttoned and without a shirt. He's also mild-mannered and polite, so this seems to go against his character. This is the first cover art in which the gender roles are reversed: Calista, the girl on the left, is actually appropriately dressed while her male counterpart Zael is the one being sexualized.

 

[Loonyyy]

I think the OP's asking a specific sort of sexualisation: One which makes males uncomfortable in the way that females are made uncomfortable by female sexualisation.

Bond for instance, whilst certainly handsome, charming, whatever, is appealing to men because he's successful with women, not because he's attractive to them. He's also a secret agent, remorseless killer, and blows stuff up. Characters being buff or strong isn't what they're after, since those are things most heterosexual guys fantasize about being themselves.

What they're trying to describe I think is more a male Dead or Alive, or Tomb Raider, etc. A male character who's sexualised for the viewing pleasure of the audience, with little logical reason to be so, and in such a way as to be demeaning to the gender, and uncomfortable for people unattracted to said gender.

I'd switch the question from a fetishised femminine guy, and ask: Would we be satisfied with a male lead that was a Justin Bieber, or an Edward Cullen, or a Taylor-Sharkboy whoever he is? The ideal sexaulisation and fanservice of male characters to women would be quite unappealing to me, for one.

I think the point is satire-stop throwing ruggedly handsome archetypes out there-we're all interested in those. Thing is, women get uncomfortable by female leads in skintight water-dripping wetsuits with jiggle physics, whilst men feel like a badass when they hit on women with their ruggedly handsome character.

 

[Erttheking]

Or maybe we can just have a game where the fanservice is kept to a reasonable and classy level

(Possible example)
http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2012/01/6e8e5d22d4bd1b33b8394545053ed93b.jpg
and both the Male and Female characters are well written, IS THAT TOO HARD!?

 

[m19]

Or maybe we can just have a game where the fanservice is kept to a reasonable and classy level

(Possible example)

I'm willing to bet you could find numerous feminists who still think that is unacceptable objectification or some such.

Trishka nevertheless is by far sexier than any of the DoA abominations.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Well the Resi series has had some sexy guys...

Chris "Fuck-Boulders" Redfield

Spoiler

Leon S. Kennedy

Spoiler

Carlos

Spoiler

Wesker

Spoiler

And that really feminine guy. What was his name? Reb-something...

Spoiler

Oh... Wait...

 

[Erttheking]

Or maybe we can just have a game where the fanservice is kept to a reasonable and classy level

(Possible example)

I'm willing to bet you could find numerous feminists who still think that is unacceptable objectification or some such.

Trishka nevertheless is by far sexier than any of the DoA abominations.

Yes well, point out any female character ever from Lara Croft to Alyx Vance to Tali'Zorah and Liara T'Soni and at least one feminist will call them sexist. You can please everyone. And Besides, Trishka is one of the more sensible female characters out there (ironic considering the game she's from) you can't see her cleavage, she wears pants and when the two main male characters show up to save her from being raped, she's already beating her would be rapist to death...has quite the pottymouth though, but that's par for the course with Bulletstorm. Overall I'd give her a B, maybe a B+

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

First off (and this might explain my trouble in the women department) How do you even make a man sexy? Most women I know don't even agree. Someone who's sensitive. Someone who takes charge and is action-y. Someone who makes her laugh. Someone who is mysterious. Someone who's open and giving. Someone who's cocky. Someone who's unattainable.

I've heard those conflicting answers from almost all of the women in my life at some point. some mix and match, some stick with one of those only. Even quite a few want all of those conflicting things at once.

And no matter if they only do one or the whole thing, eventually it does get down to looks. Good body, nice face. And if that's the case... then there's a great deal of sexualized guys just on the physical level. Bob from Tekken is one of the only overweight player controlled characters that I can think of for a long time that isn't a constant walking joke... like Rufus is.

Also see every Japanese game ever. Whether you're into women or into dudes... you'll probably find what you're looking for in a Japanese male protagonist in a game.

 

[elvor0]

I dunno, Raiden in MGS 2 was pretty sexualized, the skin tight outfit, the feminine features, the naked section. Mind you, no one KNEW Raiden was going to be in it, so I guess that doesn't count. You've got Dante as well.

But it's never really in the same way as when women are sexualized, I think because it's such a male dominated market, publishers would be seriously scared about doing so. Plus as far as I'm aware there's no really high profile female developers, so it's got lots of regular white dudes in charge a lot of the time, and none of them are even gay to my knowledge.

I know it's not a game, but the best example I can think of in recent times of a good "Female" Gaze theme throughout the film, is Casino Royale. It was on a couple of nights ago so I rewatched it, it being on Sky, I discovered they've censored that bit where Bond comes out of the ocean, whereby they cut out about half of the shot. Now that shot was really important, not only was it a shoutout to the old movies, but it was a supposed to subvert what was expected, give the girls some eye candy, and quite possibly make a lot of the men in the audience feel uncomfortable.

Saying that, I still don't know if I'd be comfortable playing a game where the main character is a bloke sexualized to the same degree as Bayonetta. I don't have a problem with it, and I must admit, I felt myself getting a bit of a man crush on Bond the other night, but that's different to the straight up blatant sexualization usually done to women in games. I mean I just don't like the male form. It's blocky, hairy, crass, and all round not nice to look at. Now I know I'm confident in my sexuality to be able to play it, it's just a case of well...I don't want to look at that for a good few hours.

I'd like to see one made though, just as a social experiment to see what happens.

 

[Icehearted]

Male and female sexuality DO NOT WORK THE SAME WAY. Our bodies, our chemistry, the way we perceive the genders; it's not even societal, it's just how we're wired and there's nothing wrong with that.

Full equality is just not possible (and shouldn't be), but this isn't to say one reigns over another, regardless of gender or orientation, all have their perks and problems. "What works for boys should work for girls" is absolutely the wrong way of thinking. Men in skimpy outfits will not affect men and women the way women in skimpy outfits affect men and women. There's a reason you don't really see Victoria's Secret for men, or why men aren't in beauty pageants, which by the way isn't a totally male sexual thing either. A lot of straight women I know enjoy looking at beautiful women too, which goes back to what I'd said in the first paragraph.

 

[Nimzabaat]

This is something that has been bothering me and my perverted female friends for a while.
Theres no equality in fanservice at all, and we thought of a good way to get the point across in this industry would be to make a Suda51 style 'Parody'slash'Satire' game of fanservice, which The main character is a skinny young boy who is constantly in skimpy outfits and having really off-putting shots of his crotch,who has male friends who are also sexualized a lot which would be the several stereotypes of men and the only Female characters in the game would be Regular well developed characters A la April Ryan, with gameplay akin to Bayonetta just to push the knife further in.
But then we thought that this wouldn't sell at all, which makes sense.
What do you guys think? Would you want this? would you play this?

Never heard of James Bond, eh?

Or Nathan Drake, that game didn't sell at all... Male characters are sexualized, it's just in the masculine way. So maybe the OP is asking if an effiminately sexualized main character will sell?

Oh JRPGs... yes, yes I guess they would.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Kingdom Hearts 2
FFVII (all)
countless others.

So, the answer to the thread question is yes, it would sell.

 

[cikame]

Almost every male video game character is sexualised, there just isn't the same social faux pas towards sexy men as there is for women.
Answering the question, the majority of the audience of video games is young men, some of which may find the idea of watching someone like Bayonetta for several hours appealing. These people don't want to watch Nathan Drake for the same reasons but they do like platforming and gunfights.

 

[Raioken18]

It's a double standard, yes. Have a girl wearing half a shirt and it's sexist, have a guy wearing no shirt at all and if you try to point it out then you are classified as a homophobe.

Snake is a prime example of this, but I'd like to address something, TC said main character but often the secondary or roster characters get it worse.

One of my favorite examples is the story of Tekken 5 and Death by Degrees, DBD sold entirely on sex appeal, but Tekken 5 was marketed in a similar way but with a large focus on the male characters. Check out the trailer for Tekken 5, the first half we see two guys rumbling and sweating it out, in just slacks. It's a very fanservicey scene, but not for heterosexual men. Then there's a flash for 2 seconds of a revealing female outfit, then back to a topless guy with rippling muscles training and sweating, camera pans out and it's like 10 guys all topless exercising.

Compare muscles rippling to boobs jiggling and you'll see there really isn't that much of a vast imbalance between the sexes. I even think Tekken would almost completely offset DoA.

If I had to list some of the main contenders, Tekken, Final Fantasy, Most Superhero games.

 

[soh45400]

I think TV shows do a better of serializing male characters. Examples(please note that I haven't watched all of these, but have seen adds when browsing and it can be noticed by what those ads are focusing on):
Most of Nathan Fillion's work
Supernatural
Gray's Anatomy
Community(Joel Mc Hale)
White Collar
Justified
And the list goes on and on

And games need to do more of those types of characters. Why should women be the only ones who get to feel wanted(Twilight). You can get male audience that way too as well as female audience.

 

[Auron225]

Would you still watch these Avengers?

http://imgur.com/gallery/16yGO

Basically the same deal...