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

[Dragonbums]

The problem with the tit service design in most female characters is that it is either completely out of line with the rest of the character cast/environment or it makes no sense to the character of the woman in question.

There is one game I can think of that did it right and it's Bayonetta. She is the literal definition of sex appeal, and yet you hardly hear one peep out of any woman complaining about her. Why? Because everything to her character, her actions, and even her music screams "I'm one fine ass woman and I know it. Oh, and by the way? I'm going to pummel your face into a meat slop"

One example of something that isn't doing it right was that lady in the Solid Snake trailer for Xbone (I'm assuming that is Meryl?) her outfit makes no sense at all. Absolutely none. You have all these people dressed for camouflage and stealth in the desert and your telling me she found it appropriate to wear a black bikini top?
Another example is Ashley.
She is an Alliance soldier to a "T" in ME1 she was dressed appropriately for what she was doing. Proper armor, proper hair length, and proper footwear.
What did they do to her in ME3?
They fattened her lips, gave her hair that is way over the limit for the military, and for some reason she mastered combat in a tight fitting armor suit with high heels.
It was absolutely ridiculous and a disrespect to the character they built up for her. (another list of things against ME3)

 

[Maximum Bert]

Maybe every other 15-30 year old male gamer is too busy licking his screen while playing Dead or Alive to care, but I doubt it.

Wow way to generalise I like Dead or Alive (well 2,3 and 5 anyway) I dont remember licking the screen though also know who I main? Ayane yup a chick. I also play Soul Calibur I play Siegfried in that but I suppose I should be playing Ivy since shes somehow the face of SC now, most people think SC = Ivy anyway it seems.

As for how female characters are presented I really dont care if they want to give them huge breasts with a cleavage they can ski down thats cool if they want to make them beautiful, ugly, plain, ridiculous, flat, curvy, blue, evil, good, stupid, clever or whatever I have no problem. As long as it fits the game and what you are trying to do thats fine for example April Ryan fits fine in The longest Journey because we get to explore her story as well as learn her character however take away her story and she is pretty boring visually I certainly wouldnt remember her if it wasnt for her excellent story and character and not all games allow the luxury of exploring the character sometimes you just have an image or model and little else because the game is focused more on other things than character development so other ways have to be found to make the character distinctive.

Really I think designers should be allowed to do what they want and then I will decide if I want to buy it same with story or any other choice I mean some games are actually worse for a story in my opinion or at least trying to expand on a story with Street Fighter (2-4) a prime example holy hell that story is bad even for a fighting game less would have been much more there same with Soul Calibur V.

Anyway I dont care what breast size a character has to be honest I dont have a preference and it dosent offend or upset me either.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Look, I'm a heterosexual male, I like boobs of all shapes and sizes. The problem is that lots of games go for "Tits are your motivation" and that annoys me greatly. Give me a reason to love the person behind those ridiculously over-sized funbags.

Although there is a limit. I don't care if you managed to give Ivy the most compelling backstory in any medium on this Earth, the fact that her globes should have their own orbit, the size that they are just throws me off completely.

 

[HellbirdIV]

I voted "in favour" since the options are rather limited. I don't strictly prefer big breasted characters in any media, but I'd rather have attention paid to making them look nice than, y'know, not.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Depends what I'm playing, but usually I prefer boobs to be of realistic proportion to the body or to at least make sense in regards to the content/artstyle.

 

[MaAlGon3]

Give me Tank Girl over Ivy any day. But seriously, sexiness is fine, but a little bit of artistic restraint wouldn't hurt. If it's silly or comedic like it is in Bayonetta or Dragon's Crown (yes, I find the overdone design funny) then i'll laugh. However, when unabashed unsubstantial sex appeal is the whole point of a character rather than any sort of significant substance (character development), therein I will find my knickers in a twist.

 

[Silvanus]

I find giant-breasted character design to be gratuitous and distracting (not in an arousing way; just in a personality-devoid way).

They add nothing. They reduce the character; they are the game designer's way of telling you, "this is what the character's really here for, so don't listen to a word she says".



I'm fine with it happening on occasion (just as I'm fine with the occasional uber-sexy bloke character). But the preponderance is absurd, and imbalanced.

 

[WindKnight]

Alright, seems everyone still has their panties in a bunch over the whole Big Boobs in Gaming thing, in particular with regards to a certain caster class in a game called Dragon's Crown. The purpose of this poll is just as the topic's title says: a search for some honesty. Specifically: is it REALLY that big of a deal for a female character to be designed with a sexy figure? To have big bouncing breasts that jiggle with every step she takes? Are game designers completely missing the mark by continuing to design female characters that way? Or are they actually justified in doing so because a lot of people like it?

Feel free to leave a comment if you want, but I'm hoping the anonymity of the poll - allowing you to just click an option and move on with no one else seeing what you voted for - will indeed bring out honest answers. Are you complaining about it just because everyone else is and you don't wanna look like a chauvinistic pig in front of your peers? Or do you REALLY have a huge problem with sexy female characters in games?

To put it simply its not the fact big boobs and skimpy outfits exist causing the hoo-hah, its that it seems to be the default choice for nearly every game that doesn't ignore women entirely. Its kinda tiring to have one specific taste catered for while any other taste gets lip service at best.

 

[krazykidd]

I like how peopel talk as if EVERY woman in EVERY game is a sexy big boobed woman . We need diversity , and guess what , we have it . We have games with women that look different . This is a non-issue . For every big breasted woman in a game there is a small breasted woman in another game .

Anyways , we are arguing about the wrong thing . The true problem , is the lack of plus sized women in games . I can't think of one other than the chick in Borderlands 2 and Queen Brahne Raza Alexandros XVI from Final fantasy 9.

 

[mammothbroncho]

Don't get me wrong I love a nice pair of boobies, but when a lot of attention is given to a characters jiggly bits I get rather annoyed.

 

[Da Orky Man]

If we ignore the attitudes and such behind the whole debate, I find such designs thoroughly unappealing. When you have an otherwise normal female character in an otherwise non-weird setting wearing in an outfit made up of about half a cat worth of material, it comes across as extremely forced. In a combat scenario, dress your female character like this:

Spoiler: Lieutenant Mira from Space Marine

And not like this:

Spoiler: Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII

Basically, I like it when the outfits match with the setting. Skimpy is fine in the Dead or Alive Volleyball games, but not so good in a combat situation.

 

[Saltyk]

Okay, while a character having big boobs won't completely turn me off from them, it really comes down to the character. I like Lulu and Tifa, because they have personalities and stories. That trumps sexuality in my book.

For the record, I find really big boobs unattractive. Double D's, or bigger, turn me off from the person or character. Boobs bigger than their head just seem unnatural and seem like they would get in the way. Maybe I'm odd, but that's a preference of mine.

 

[ghostrider409895]

When it comes to this particular discussion on character design and stylization, I feel that I do care a bit about the issue, but not enough to make me refuse to play a game or get very upset by it. I think some of these figures are unrealistic, but then again in some cases nothing is meant for realism and it is a game. Now, if the game wants to capitalize purely on the fact that there are breasts and jiggle physics in the game, I am not going to buy it in the first place. I play games because they do have a really entertaining story or gameplay - not to get excited for other reasons. However, if a game happens to have the art style, while having a really good story or gameplay, I won't discredit the game just for that reason.

I am not really a person to go and bring up or start discussions about stuff. I might chime in like I am doing here, but usually, if I disagree with something I just don't give them my money. If there were games that are really offensive for any reason, I just won't buy it. However, to me the character design for Dragon's Crown wasn't really offensive, but slightly ridiculous. If there is something like this it might take me out of the moment or immersion of being in the game, but it would not turn me away from the game completely. I would like to have more realistic art, or art that is fancy or ridiculous for other reasons like that of a fantasy game or a futuristic science fiction game, but I don't care too much if the artists decide to draw their characters with larger breasts.

 

[Playful Pony]

Sexy females are overused, sure. I'd like more ugly and monstrous females. (Along with females who are stupid, lazy and evil. These traits are almost overwhelmingly given to males)

I think that kinda goes along with female characters getting very little characterization in general. Females seem to be limited to being Princess Peach style damsels in distress, sexy eyecandy for the target audience or sexy badass girls. With a few notable exceptions those are the females we get in games.

I'd love to see videogame females of all shapes, sizes, colors and personalities. It really does bother me that the only two types of females we get are the vurnerable and weak ones in need of protection, and the impossibly badass and capable ones, and they both share the same hourglass with big boobs body.

Even in games with character customization the options usually seem to range from "slender with big breasts" to "slightly less slender and with even bigger breasts", but then again the males aren't much better with their "tall and muscled" or "tall and EXTREMELY muscled"... Ohw, and of course a reasonable selection of short hairstyles. But even if the player-character is ment to be some sort of perfect ideal of a human being, it doesn't make any sence that all female NPCs have to conform to those same ideals...

 

[RandV80]

Like I just said in another thread, it's ok if a female character looks attractive or sexy. It's when the character's whole design is designed around looking sexy without it having any connection to her character, or without her having much of a character at all, and when she's stuffed into skimpy outfits that are highly impractical if she's a front line fighter, and the sheer fact that characters like that are all over the place...well...THAT is what bugs me.

It's not offensive, it's just really fucking stupid.

Pretty much how I feel about the whole thing. A sexy character like Bayonetta is just fine, while a sexy character like Ivy (Soul Caliber) is kind of stupid.

Two other things I'd like to add. First I think you have to recognize that the whole cartoon boobs thing is kind of a fetish derived mostly from anime/manga. I'm talking about the Team Ninja special, big over exaggerated bouncing boobs and baby doll faces. Unlike some sexy video game ladies like the most recent Lara Croft or the chick from Remember Me, these girls are a little out of line with reality. Some guys like that, other perfectly heterosexual males do not.

Second, for this that don't understand what all the fuss about the web game Evony. Their adds used to be all over the place, featuring a seductive women with a good deal of cleavage on display and a tag line something like "Come save me my lord!" or whatever it was. Yet the game itself was just a plain old browser based online strategy game, the game itself had nothing to do with any sexy women. Didn't it kind of piss you off that their marketing thought they could throw a pair of boobs on the screen to get you to click the link and start playing a game that had nothing to do with boobs? Or maybe even piss you off more that they had some limited amount of success doing such a strategy?

Now I can accept Dragon's Crown for what it is, simply an over exaggerated cartoony design for every character. But some other games leave me with the same impression that those Evony adds did.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Or do you REALLY have a huge problem with sexy female characters in games?

>Implying that big floppy tits are the only way to make an attractive female

Take this Dragon's Dogma Crown for instance. Have you SEEN the Amazon's tiny tiny head? It's ridiculous.

 

[DementedSheep]

I find giant flopping unnaturally bouncing breast disgusting. Not in a ?that?s offensive way? (generally, I don?t like sexualisation of underage characters and when its counter to their actual attitude and behavior or the situation) just in plain makes me want to puke way. I would equate it with giant bouncing cocks but I find that disgusting too as do most women I know so it?s not something you put into appeal sexually to woman (I think, maybe some woman do like that). Though no there isn't really an issue with having some games like that, I?m not likely to play it but other people will.

It?s really really annoying when it?s get it in things I would otherwise like which happens fairly often unfortunately.

The over-sized tits, provocative posing and bikini armour thing is more fighting games and MMO?s though. Maybe it just the games I tend to gravitate to but outside of that I don?t find it that much of an issue. It's more of an issue of a lack of female characters at all. I am getting really goddamn sick of the random brothel level in games with modern setting though.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Having a sex appeal character is fine by me, IF they're the minority and there's an in-universe reason for it. But when damn near every female character is just walking T&A, that's when it annoys me. For instance, as much as I love Blazblue, it's female character design is friking awful. Makoto's a great character, and a squirrel-girl is a rare and interesting idea, but for god's sake, why did they put her in half a sports bra and a thong with napkins clipped to it?!

 

[Maxtro]

I prefer game characters to be sexy and have large breasts. It's fantasy for me and it's something I like.

BTW, I also have a young, attractive, intelligent girlfriend and a healthy sex life