Poll: Do games need beefier women?

[DementedSheep]

"Fit" females are awesome, but truly beefy/muscular females are a turn-off for me.

But hey, it's a game with a character creator - so devs should feel free to add whatever options they want.

but, but, its not realistic!

Spoiler: oh wait

Being from NZ I always cheer for Valerie Adams, but her body type and proportions look plain weird. If she cut her hair short and lost the earrings, most people would probably mistake her for a buff guy. She's a walking tank lol.

So? the point was that it isn't unrealistic to have very buff women.

 

[RifkaMarie]

All right, so the coding is actually simpler than I thought. That's good to know!

Spoiler: Eva Andressa Vieria

There. Her. Brazilian fitness model. She said in an interview that she thought she was too skinny, so she started working out. God bless her.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Games don't need anything beyond to be somehow interesting or engaging.


That being said, it wouldn't be a bad if more beefy or muscular women were into games. I only have a problem when they're touted as special because of being beefy because this promotes the notion that by just being beefy, a woman is an interesting character, which is false.


Take Mute from Ar Tonelico 3:

Spoiler

Yes she looks like that but she also has a very interesting background on why she's doing the things she's doing and has a lot of interesting things OUTSIDE of looking like a bear fused with a truck.

If you just praise a char or a game for being "different" or for "representing an under-represented group" regardless of the actual merits of the character you're actually harming the medium more than helping it.

 

[asdfen]

life needs better women not games

 

[Vicarious Reality]

Oh you should see my modsss..... uh yeah,
games like TOR for example, where the Fat body choice = women: slightly pudgy, men: meat mountain
muscly option being a bit less extremely dimorphic

Many games could do with more variety in choice... i remember my Saints row character, a large mercury colored russian lady with green lizard eyes

 

[Zhukov]

"Need" is a pretty big word.

But personally I'm certainly not going to say no to more variety in character options.

EDIT: I appear to have been rather comprehensively beaten to the punch with that first line.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Heck yeah. If anything, having some women in games with muscles would be better for verisimilitude that the models we usually get for combatants.

 

[Dragonbums]

Games don't "need" more or less of anything, but it would certainly make your game a lot more interesting to include something different for once.

I mean, look how much people talked about Zarya simply because she was a body build that's hardly seen in gaming. Which in turn gained Overwatch a lot of attention. (that's the names of the game and character right? Finals have rotted my brain.)

 

[Xan Krieger]

This is why I like wrestling games, the WWE does a great job with their character creator so I can fill the roster with women matching my dreams. More games should have that powerful of an editor, too many just let you edit the face.

 

[springheeljack]

I think every RPG that comes out should have all sorts of different body types and different hair styles and other things of that nature because people love customizing. I hate how many RPGs only seem to focus on how you can customize face and nothing else

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Either that or the Escapist is full of pedants.

Unbeknownst to most, The Escapist is actually a pedantics enthusiasts site that has a slight inkling towards video games.

I was doubtful of this at first, but then I entered a "Am I the only one that..." thread.

OT: Yes. Beefier women is good. I find it a lot more plausible for athletes to embark on adventures to save the world than supermodels.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

I think that games, especially ones that let you customize your hero, especially if the game has a more serious tone, will present you with the standard build of a hero. What I mean by that is the build of someone at they're peak, physically. Many men, I think, would see that as being as big, muscular and commanding as possible whereas women might see this hypothetical peak as being elegant and graceful, so the body type just plays into that which I wouldn't call an issue. Of course that's speaking very generally and just my own opinion and I am, after all, a prick and probably totally wrong on some level.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I think that games, especially ones that let you customize your hero, especially if the game has a more serious tone, will present you with the standard build of a hero. What I mean by that is the build of someone at they're peak, physically. Many men, I think, would see that as being as big, muscular and commanding as possible whereas women might see this hypothetical peak as being elegant and graceful, so the body type just plays into that which I wouldn't call an issue. Of course that's speaking very generally and just my own opinion and I am, after all, a prick and probably totally wrong on some level.

That depends on what sort of game it is though. Like, if it's a game centered around fantasy themes, you'd only wanna be a big hulking muscular dude if you were planning to play as a tank/two handed weapon type. If you were to play as a rogue-style char or maybe a wizard you'd likely be skinny and graceful, too.


It's important that the choices make sense in-context more so than from an "equality" standpoint. Like, a way games can do away with this is have certain classes be tied to certain physiques but obviously not every game can do this, not if it wants to offer the players the level of freedom that games such as Skyrim offer where you can be a wizard AND a two handed warrior at the same time. Those games exchange more generic looks for the freedom they offer. It kinda has to do this sort of tradeoff when games are like that.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I would prefer more variety. As much as I like Skyrim (on PS3) I loved Dragon's Dogma's character creation.

In a weird coincidence I made a character that is pretty much Rose Quartz from Steven Universe long before that show existed. So yeah, more pink haired giant women would suit me fine.

And more Samus.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Oh yes, can we have some hot women like Rhonda Rousey. Im not much into female bodybuilders but I think strong women are great.

 

[Cryselle]

I just think that if you're going to include a slider for something, it should have a significant difference from one side of the slider to the other.

If the resources required to support a variety of body types is too high, I understand that. But then don't put in a slider to adjust body type, and there will be less of an expectation that you should be able to make a character that you can't. When the slider does so very little, all it serves to do is draw attention to the limitations of the character customization, rather than enhance it.

For me, I like the idea of having the option for making beefier female characters, even though I know that I personally would rarely (if ever) use it. I have a thing for slim, elegant, characters that are fast rather than strong, so rippling biceps aren't really my thing. But not every possible character has to be one that I personally like, y'know? And, in fact, if every possible character WAS the type that I like most, games would be the worse for it.

 

[Xanele]

I'm all for the portrayal of stronger women, but it's just that a lot of women body types don't get big and beefy naturally, probably because of the estrogen that gave us boobs instead of balls. Even if you frequent the gym I'd bet yu don't see too many beefy women. But if you're wanting to play a big beefy woman why not go download Guild Wars 2 and go make a Norn or Charr.
I voted no, just because as far as I know it seems like an exclusively Skyrim issue.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

"Do games need..."

No.

The only reason it's a no? That one word. Need. Games don't "need" anything, the characters could be dots on a screen barely recognizable as human and you'd still be playing a game.

And to be fair with your above example of Skyrim, women tend to have a comparatively smaller body mass than men on average.