Poll: Let's Get Some Honesty, Shall We? (Regarding Big Breasts/Sexy Female Game Characters)

[Yopaz]

As long as I'm not looking at something so ugly it's disgusting I don't really care what the characters look like. Now I like boobs, but when I play a game or watch a movie then I rather spend my concentration on what's going on there than getting turned on by boobs of any size. It's fruitless anyway, it's not like I will ever meet these fictional characters so I don't really care what they look like all that much.

 

[Greymanelor]

Sometimes I enjoy looking at provocatively dressed female characters.

Sometimes I prefer they be sensibility attired to their situation, particularly when in the company of male characters who are.

What I'd prefer to see in a female character depends a lot on the tone of the game, my expectations about it, and even just the mood I'm in. Sometimes, I really do want to be a letch and drool over an attractively designed woman. At every other point, my interest in a female characters design lay only that it fit into the setting and situation.

I think there is absolutely a place for sexually provocative female designs, tasteful and tasteless alike. It's okay to sometimes want to ogle. Some games are designed entirely around it, like DoA Beach Volleyball or Rumble Roses. The designs in these games should really shock no one. They're there to be perved on, make no effort to pretend otherwise, and you really have no one but yourself to blame if you don't know that going in.

The trouble I find is that so many females from other games are designed as if they were intended for something like Rumble Roses. So many are scantily clad figure models who the camera wastes no opportunity to caress, if the characters themselves are not constantly posing for an imaginary underwear advertisement. Female characters march to war in short-shorts and chest-hugging Kevlar tank tops or skin sight "combat" bodysuits, shoulder to shoulder with males encased in body armor. It's neither titillating or appealing and these attempts pander only serve to insult me and throw me out of the game. Apart from generally destroying the tone of the game, the choice to take the 'sexy cosplayer' route with so many designs also ends up feeling horribly restrictive. There are a wide range of themes and tones for female characters that are almost completely ignored due to the insistence on emphasizing sexuality as often as possible. You can't even get a female character in power armor unless breasts are molded into the design and each butt cheek is individually sculpted in a fashion that would cause the mother of all wedgies, presumably because we might forget the character is female should her sexual characteristics not be on display at all times.

 

[The Lugz]

I personally dislike them because they fall right into the uncanny valley. People do not have boobs that huge, and most people with huge boobs are fat, not thin. When you go that over the top it's ridiculous. Not to mention jiggle physics look painful. I do not like my boobs to jiggle, that's why I wear a bra. If someone else likes titty monsters, whatever floats their boat. I don't find them offensive, just hideous.

Good point, and you know what? there's nothing wrong with that... it can be done!


one of my favourite borderlands characters, not particularly sexy but interesting personality.
a shame it's basically only one character i can name out of all the games i've played, though.

^ this however, does look like it would cause serious skin damage, a broken back and impair movement by a massive amount

trace her spine with your mouse to see exactly how deformed she is..
jaw to shoulders, shoulders to waist, waist to tailbone... it's actually reverse Z shaped... seriously ???
and her nose is in-line with her ass.. what in the? 'sigh'

 

[Trivea]

I think the "females in video games" debate would be less of a problem if we had more female game developers. When the devs are male, they're generally going to make either what they want in females or what they think females are like; in Opposite World where all devs are female, the guys all look like Jensen Ackles and are either knights in shining armor (with no personality traits) or wife-beaters (with no GOOD personality traits). I'm exaggerating, of course, because there are some very genuinely good female characters in games. They just aren't the norm, and I think part of that is due to the fact that it takes an excellent writer to get into the head of something you have no personal experience in, and for most people, the opposite gender in society is about as far from personal experience as you can get.

More on topic: would I say big breasts in games offend me? No, I wouldn't say that. Lulu is my second favorite character in FFX (at least, as much "character" as any of them had in that game, walking tropes that they all were), and I actually liked her dress for a mage class. What does offend me, as a heterosexual female, is when a woman is thrown into the story "because we need a female", and you can tell she's there for that reason because her biggest contribution to the main team is either to get kidnapped or to agree with the menfolk, all while standing around and having breasts. It really comes off as, "The feminists will have a fit if we don't have a girl around, but, uh, I can't think of anything females are good at except getting in the way or sex, so..." It doesn't matter if that wasn't the intention.

Related to this, since I've seen a lot of people talking about impractical costumes in fighting and war games for the token female characters: it makes no sense to me, on a practical level, why they would put female soldiers in high heels in combat. Wearing high heels for a long period of time (nothing else for months, for example) while engaging in strenuous activity (like fighting or running around rough terrain) is a medically guaranteed way to destroy the muscles and bones in your feet, as well as mess up your calves, hips, and lower back. Six straight months of that and those women would be discharged because they would no longer be physically fit for combat. Or maybe that's the point?

 

[Astoria]

It doesn't bother me if it has some sort of point, like the characters meant to be seductive in some way but if it's just for the hell of it then it's a bit annoying. And why do developers have it in their head that big boobs means sexy. I'm not a guy but I am bi and I find it a turn off when a chick has massive boobs, anything bigger than a D (Australian size) just looks uncomfortable and weird to me. Anyway I don't think it's gonna go away anytime soon. Just look at Hollywood, it's still stuck in it's super skinny is hot so games are a fair way away from realistic character yet, that goes for both genders.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

Rather leading poll. You don't have to be utterly offended to raise issue with something. I don't see why we should expect gaming to be taken more seriously if, every time an issue is raised from a different angle, we uproar that it's "just video games and pixels" and ask if someone is "honestly offended", the implication being that if they're not in tears of disgust then they should stop talking about it. It's a classic way for a sub-culture to shut down a discussion, when we should be doing the opposite. You don't see the big deal? Then ask what makes it a big deal to others, then respect that. There is no honest answer for me in this poll.

 

[The Lugz]

You should check the dwarf. He has like ten thousand percent muscle mass.

Actually, if you want to get "realistic" ellie would probably die due to fat/body weight constraints on the bones at least, if not for the organ problems you'd have.

But w/e, complain all you want, I loved ellie and the sorc both.

well, i don't mean it to come off as straight up complaint.. it was a little harsh so let me provide just a little more constructive criticism about why i think it's not as good as it could be, and frankly i think anyone making games is doing ( or atleast trying ) to do a good thing and create a minor work of art, so i'm not trying to run anyone out of a job either..

that said.. straighten her up a bit, reduce the jiggle ( it really is over the top, seriously. how can they jiggle, ripple and bounce while standing still casting a spell? ) and i honestly think you'd end up with a better overall character. i'm not labelling her as the devil and the downfall of society, gaming or anything. she just crosses the border into silliness ( in my not as very humble as i like to think opinion )

and yes, ellie is too fat.. but i've at-least seen a woman that looks roughly like her and she has a proper personality in-game where as the sorc.. not so much.. if you took away her model and replaced it with a cardboard box she couldn't stand up on any other mechanic very well, and would be hardly worth mentioning or playing

and, well.. dwarves are dwarves, what can i say? they mine all day and eat all night and get into drunken brawls in-between seems like they have quite the active lifestyle at the very least.

 

[A Weakgeek]

I see that even in the most socially aware, whiny, offended forum on the internet regarding sexism issues, those who prefer sexappeal still are a majority. Just goes to show you devs know what they are doing.

 

[BoogieManFL]

This is one of those things where I believe it is the vocal minority that makes such a big deal of it, while most people don't give a damn. Personally while I believe it can look a little silly at times I've NEVER not liked a game purely because of character design.

It annoys me what big a deal some people make of this subject. I have two things to say to those people.

1. It's not your creation, so STFU.
2. If you don't like it, don't play it. Also, STFU.

 

[CloudAtlas]

I see that even in the most socially aware, whiny, offended forum on the internet regarding sexism issues, those who prefer sexappeal still are a majority. Just goes to show you devs know what they are doing.

If anything, there's a tie (within the statistical margin). And then the active members of a gaming forum are not representative for the set of all actual gamers, and even less so for all potential gamers.

And let me just add that being relatively progressive for a gaming forum doesn't really say that much.

 

[A Weakgeek]

I see that even in the most socially aware, whiny, offended forum on the internet regarding sexism issues, those who prefer sexappeal still are a majority. Just goes to show you devs know what they are doing.

If anything, there's a tie (within the statistical margin). And then the active members of a gaming forum are not representative for the set of all actual gamers, and even less so for all potential gamers.

And let me just add that being relatively progressive for a gaming forum doesn't really say that much.

Yeah, but when you compare people in forums like the escapist, and the actual demographics of people who buy videogames, I can without a moments hesitation say that escapist is SEVERELY biased towards "progressive". This poll just goes to show just how little people do care, even in an enviroment like the escapist.

 

[OurGloriousLeader]

Why would I care if ?gaming was taken more seriously?? What?s the obsession of some people with that?
I?d rather have fun games I?d like to play, and a lot of them instead of ?gaming being taken more seriously?.

Also why should I care what others are ?offended? by? I enjoy looking at attractive video game characters just as I enjoy series/movies/comics and a lot of other mediums with the same instead of hideous creatures in a human skin and it is often a rather large part of what might get me to purchase something. Having appealing female characters adds a +2/+5 modifier to my buying chance depending on how appealing they are, it won?t make me buy a game outright because of it if it is bad, but it is a consideration.

I couldn?t give less of a fuck what makes it a ?big deal to others?, they are free to spend their money and time on whatever they want and I am too on what I enjoy. It?s not charity, it?s a business. I also don't have to respect anyone else's opinion if I think it's stupid and actively tries to destroy what I like.

If you're not interested in the issues then that's fine, you're under no obligation to do so, but when you then call people's opinions on those issues stupid, you're approaching from, at best, a position of apathy, and at worst a position of ignorance. And destroy? As ever with this issue hyperbole reigns - a 6.5 score is not an attempt to ruin your titties, a 3 part series on youtube is not a piece of government legislation. It's an act of attempted persuasion, of both consumer and developer. You don't agree with it? Well I think you're wrong, continue about your business - just as you don't give a fuck about the issue, I don't give enough of a shit about your enjoyment of an aesthetic style to stop raising issues about it which I feel are more important.

But somehow I'm guessing that's not enough for you, you don't want disagreement about an issue - you'd rather not hear the other side at all.

 

[Thanatos5150]

Regarding Dragon's Crown: I get a distinct whiff of the amazon and sorceress character models being intentionally over the top and parodies of videogame-attractive/"sexy" female characters.
Especially the Amazon, whose character model is, to me, decidedly unattractive.

Blah bah, heterosexual twenty-something male, blah blah, like breasts, blah blah, large breasts and sexy characters are fine, just don't objectify the character, all the stuff which has been repeated to death in this thread.

I will, however, say this -- a lot of gamers seem to point at anything above a moderate B-cup as "huge" and "Unrealistic" in terms of breast size., and will ridicule a game objectifying women for no reason other than she has C-cup breasts, even if she's dressed sensibly for the setting and is otherwise a well-rounded character that happens to be an attractive female. That is, in my opinion, even more ridiculous than The Sorceress Has Large Breasts and Wears a corset".