Re: DoA Jiggle Physics - What exactly are we fixing?

[Hagi]

While true for TV, I still disagree about movies. Most blockbuster movies will have a 'star' attached to them, most of whom are not representative of the majority of people.

I do agree however that when you have realistic people in the roles it is so much more immersive. This is probably the reason that TV shows are actually generally better than most blockbuster films at current. Breaking Bad has a fantastic cast and because all of them are perfectly suited for their role, you get behind the story so much more.

If Matt Daymon played Walter White (I am sure Hollywood would deem anyone near the correct age 'too old' for a mainstream audience) it would break all immersion.

I think perhaps you should take a look at movies that don't have massive posters at your local cinema.

There's a lot of extremely good stuff with amazing characters to be found outside of the very, very small selection of blockbusters.

 

[Rainmaker77]

While true for TV, I still disagree about movies. Most blockbuster movies will have a 'star' attached to them, most of whom are not representative of the majority of people.

I do agree however that when you have realistic people in the roles it is so much more immersive. This is probably the reason that TV shows are actually generally better than most blockbuster films at current. Breaking Bad has a fantastic cast and because all of them are perfectly suited for their role, you get behind the story so much more.

If Matt Daymon played Walter White (I am sure Hollywood would deem anyone near the correct age 'too old' for a mainstream audience) it would break all immersion.

I think perhaps you should take a look at movies that don't have massive posters at your local cinema.

There's a lot of extremely good stuff with amazing characters to be found outside of the very, very small selection of blockbusters.

Oh indeed there are. But I am referring to blockbusters here as they are the equivalent of AAA titles in games.

We do have realistic women in games, most however are from indie or less mainstream titles. Such is the same in the film industry.

 

[Mirroga]

It IS pretty much hypocrisy. Compared to movies, games are more prone to being labelled as sexist due to parents not wanting their children to be exposed to it while they're playing or simply because they want a reason to make games the very cause of everything that's wrong with the world.

And we as gamers consider it as poor taste instinctively simply because we do not want such shallowness in our medium.

But it's impossible to remove considering it's a selling point to the confused teenagers and creepy adults. It's also as impossible as removing the sexist portrayal of women in breast implants and porn.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't think it would effect anything as drastic as a role-reversal. You're not trading a male sexual power fantasy for a female one. Or is that not the point?

It's not the point. The solution isn't to swing the sexual fantasy to the other end, but rather to make games more accessible.

And we as gamers consider it as poor taste instinctively simply because we do not want such shallowness in our medium.

LOL. Yeah, I don't know what medium you're talking about, but we LOVE shallowness in our medium collectively.

But it's impossible to remove considering it's a selling point to the confused teenagers and creepy adults.

After all, sexual harassment is part of the culture. Where have I heard that before?

 

[Hagi]

While true for TV, I still disagree about movies. Most blockbuster movies will have a 'star' attached to them, most of whom are not representative of the majority of people.

I do agree however that when you have realistic people in the roles it is so much more immersive. This is probably the reason that TV shows are actually generally better than most blockbuster films at current. Breaking Bad has a fantastic cast and because all of them are perfectly suited for their role, you get behind the story so much more.

If Matt Daymon played Walter White (I am sure Hollywood would deem anyone near the correct age 'too old' for a mainstream audience) it would break all immersion.

I think perhaps you should take a look at movies that don't have massive posters at your local cinema.

There's a lot of extremely good stuff with amazing characters to be found outside of the very, very small selection of blockbusters.

Oh indeed there are. But I am referring to blockbusters here as they are the equivalent of AAA titles in games.

We do have realistic women in games, most however are from indie or less mainstream titles. Such is the same in the film industry.

I'd sooner equate movie blockbusters with well... game blockbusters (CoD, Battlefield, Mass Effect etc.) rather than all AAA titles.

There's quite a few AAA titles that aren't blockbusters just like there are quite a few movies from the big studios (that also have reasonably big budgets) that aren't blockbusters either.

I think it's that range of movies and games mainly that's able to both reach a large audience (which only a very select number of indie games/movies achieve) as well as provide more believable characters (which only a very select number of blockbusters achieve).

Movies seem to be doing so quite regularly with quality movies that have both a decent budget and depth coming out all the time.

Games seem to be lagging severely behind with quality games that have any real depth being quite rare.

 

[targren]

Here's the thing as I see it.

DOA exists? It's team acknowledges that it's goofy male fantasy fun? Okay, that's great. Have at it.

But when that same team tries to make an actual female in an actual narrative while they have that same attitude towards women, what happens?

Metroid: Other M happens.

Yeah. That.

Bzzt. So sorry, you don't win the new car! You can't pin that on Team Ninja. The linear gameplay, crappy pixel hunting sequences, and horrible controls? Absolutely.

The pussification of Samus? Nope, that's 100% Nintendo's fault. Specifically, it's Sakamoto, who works for Nintendo and was the director for both M:OM and M:F. He started the process in Fusion, where no one noticed or threw a shit fit because she was being mindlessly obedient to a computer instead of an "OMG EVIL P3Ni5 Man!@!!1!"

 

[Overusedname]

http://fcfighter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/SarahKaufman.jpg

http://www.ztgd.com/images/screenshots/xbox360/doa4/100.jpg

Which one you wanna play?

The one that doesn't make me feel pandered to actually.

I'm fine with cheesecake, but if that's all there is, that's not exactly a balanced diet. If I want a game with decent female leads, my options suddenly shrink quite a bit. It's a proportion thing. I'm fine with pants-on-head stupid fan service games EXISTING, but I think the whole world would benefit from...less of them. And typically this sort of thing is niche, but DoA is mainstream.

Blockbuster movies seem to know women with brains and clothing exist. Why don't our triple A games? :/

Yeah, they're hot...I dunno, I've seen the point of this crap in mainstream media. Besides easy marketing I mean.

Porn exists for a reason.

 

[krazykidd]

I'm probably going to cement my title as the village idiot with this one, but maybe I deserve that title because I can't figure this out.

I can understand how the portrayal of women in fighting games like DoA, with the emphasis on boob-jiggling and skimpy outfits is offensive for a variety of reasons. It's pandering to male sexual fantasies. It could reinforce negative body-image concepts for young girls. It implies that you can't have a powerful woman who isn't also unrealistically sexy and wearing less than three square inches of fabric.

My question is this. Let's say you replace all the unrealistically sexy chicks with women who are proportioned like real female athletes (look for pictures of women from the 2012 Olympics if you need an example; I figure that's pretty reasonable). I feel like this would make the fighting game genre more accessible to women, but I'm having trouble putting my finger on why that is.

I don't think it would effect anything as drastic as a role-reversal. You're not trading a male sexual power fantasy for a female one. Or is that not the point? Maybe it's enough that it's just not explicitly a male sexual fantasy? Maybe you just don't attract as many of the types of men who look down on women (e.g. the Cross Assault incident)? Maybe I'm only understanding this on an intellectual level (i.e.: I know that women find unrealistic portrayals of the female body alienating, but I don't really "get" why that is)?

Help me out here. I feel like I might be overthinking things here.

Gah . What about how men are portrayed . You know most women find muscular men sexy. You know , the 6 and 12 pack abs , the arms , back , legs , shoulders . It's the same goddamn thing . How many average joes have you seen as protagonist in games in general let alone in a fighting game . Look at Zangeif from Street fighter , he is dressed in a goddamn speedo . Not to mention his muscles .

People , overthink this way too fucking much . If something like that , is keeping women from playing games , then good . Let people who want to have fun buy the game , and those who want to critisize every thing stay away .

 

[Overusedname]

He started the process in Fusion, where no one noticed or threw a shit fit because she was being mindlessly obedient to a computer instead of an "OMG EVIL P3Ni5 Man!@!!1!"

Welll...she wasn't getting herself killed just to obey the computer, or blindly following orders in Fusion. And she wasn't being notably submissive to the computer.

Samus in Fusion is a hyper-intelligent, capable person who follows the advice of an AI that she knows is trustworthy.

Samus in Other M is an idiot who almost burned to death because daddy didn't say it was okay to wear her fire-resistant suit.

 

[targren]

Samus in Fusion is a hyper-intelligent, capable person who follows the advice of an AI that she knows is trustworthy.

Samus in Other M is an idiot who almost burned to death because daddy didn't say it was okay to wear her fire-resistant suit.

I thought she was intelligent enough to NOT consider it trustworthy (I seem to remember a cutscene with the internal monologue questioning the computer's motives). Either way, though, while I agree that Other M was far worse, my point was that TN can't get the blame for the horrible characterization in M:OM. Both games were directed AND written by Sakamoto, who works for Nintendo, not TN.

 

[Rainmaker77]

While true for TV, I still disagree about movies. Most blockbuster movies will have a 'star' attached to them, most of whom are not representative of the majority of people.

I do agree however that when you have realistic people in the roles it is so much more immersive. This is probably the reason that TV shows are actually generally better than most blockbuster films at current. Breaking Bad has a fantastic cast and because all of them are perfectly suited for their role, you get behind the story so much more.

If Matt Daymon played Walter White (I am sure Hollywood would deem anyone near the correct age 'too old' for a mainstream audience) it would break all immersion.

I think perhaps you should take a look at movies that don't have massive posters at your local cinema.

There's a lot of extremely good stuff with amazing characters to be found outside of the very, very small selection of blockbusters.

Oh indeed there are. But I am referring to blockbusters here as they are the equivalent of AAA titles in games.

We do have realistic women in games, most however are from indie or less mainstream titles. Such is the same in the film industry.

I'd sooner equate movie blockbusters with well... game blockbusters (CoD, Battlefield, Mass Effect etc.) rather than all AAA titles.

There's quite a few AAA titles that aren't blockbusters just like there are quite a few movies from the big studios (that also have reasonably big budgets) that aren't blockbusters either.

I think it's that range of movies and games mainly that's able to both reach a large audience (which only a very select number of indie games/movies achieve) as well as provide more believable characters (which only a very select number of blockbusters achieve).

Movies seem to be doing so quite regularly with quality movies that have both a decent budget and depth coming out all the time.

Games seem to be lagging severely behind with quality games that have any real depth being quite rare.

I agree actually, as I've never played Mass Effect and thus haven't played ME3, I can't actually think of a major release this year (off the top of my head) that's had a really great story with it. Sleeping Dogs has promise (I haven't completed it yet) but apparently the ending is a let down.

ME3 apparently has a good story right until the infamous last 5%. It's the only game I can think of that's been release this year with a 'decent' story to it.

For most games story seems to take a backseat, this has been getting better in recent years - however dev's keep trying to sell their story as being the focus the game was built around and how it's going to blow us away, but most seem to fall short.

I am not sure why it's so hard to tell a fantastic story using the medium of games - you'd think with all the money that was being thrown at achieving it they'd hit the mark more often.

 

[Overusedname]

Samus in Fusion is a hyper-intelligent, capable person who follows the advice of an AI that she knows is trustworthy.

Samus in Other M is an idiot who almost burned to death because daddy didn't say it was okay to wear her fire-resistant suit.

I thought she was intelligent enough to NOT consider it trustworthy (I seem to remember a cutscene with the internal monologue questioning the computer's motives). Either way, though, while I agree that Other M was far worse, my point was that TN can't get the blame for the horrible characterization in M:OM. Both games were directed AND written by Sakamoto, who works for Nintendo, not TN.

Yeah I know. It pains me to admit it, but I know.

It's like when I found out Orson Scott Card was a homophobe. I can't enjoy his books anymore...

For most games story seems to take a backseat, this has been getting better in recent years - however dev's keep trying to sell their story as being the focus the game was built around and how it's going to blow us away, but most seem to fall short.

I am not sure why it's so hard to tell a fantastic story using the medium of games - you'd think with all the money that was being thrown at achieving it they'd hit the mark more often.

Nostalgia Warning: I felt like 90's rpgs handled this so well. They focused their efforts evenly throughout all the different elements, all in service to story first and foremost.

I still consider Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 9 to have some of the best tales gaming has to tell.

Bloated budgets, complexity of modern tech and the risk of trying new things with so much cash on the line might just be the problem. The budget and pressure might actually be detrimental.

 

[targren]

Yeah I know. It pains me to admit it, but I know.

It's like when I found out Orson Scott Card was a homophobe. I can't enjoy his books anymore...

I was lucky in that regard: I never enjoyed them BEFORE.

 

[Overusedname]

Yeah I know. It pains me to admit it, but I know.

It's like when I found out Orson Scott Card was a homophobe. I can't enjoy his books anymore...

I was lucky in that regard: I never enjoyed them BEFORE.

Now yer just rustling my jimmies. <:[

I envy ya.

 

[targren]

Now yer just rustling my jimmies. <:[

I envy ya.

I fear I may be too old to know what that means.

Though if it's anything like "busting your chops," then yes, I'll cop to that.

 

[hermes]

http://fcfighter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/SarahKaufman.jpg

http://www.ztgd.com/images/screenshots/xbox360/doa4/100.jpg

Which one you wanna play?

I think the real question is: Which one you wanna play WITH?

Lets not kid ourselves here. When people say women in DoA are male fantasies is not because they are strong role models, its because they look like impossible supermodels juvenile kids think of while they jerk off (no matter how creepy it might be, considering some of them are meant to be underage)... Its the videogame equivalent of soft porn and hentai; and no matter how deep you think the fighting system is, its not something you want to play in front of your mother.

Now, I have no problem with that being it, as long as it is aware (Rumble Roses seems like a more honest example). When they try to take it seriously (have the cake and eat it too) and justify it as "its part of our cultural sensibilities" is that I feel they stretch the excuse far too much.

 

[WanderingFool]

http://fcfighter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/SarahKaufman.jpg

http://www.ztgd.com/images/screenshots/xbox360/doa4/100.jpg

Which one you wanna play?

Well the first one looks like fun to play[footnote]Im gonna burn for that, arent I?[/footnote].

The second im gonna be to focused on the jiggling to be able to even try to string combos together...

 

[DanDeFool]

The only reason I dislike games like DoA is that they encourage this gross seediness in the men that play them. The sort of "underground" Japanese and otaku cultures are... disturbing. There's a trend at the moment in Japan where young men are shunning real women, claiming they are "cheating whores" and "all they want is money." It seems they are content to actually "date" their "perfect" cyber girlfriends.

I wish I was making that up.

So yeah, whatever. People can play DoA all they like. But when there's one hundred examples of objectified sex objects in video games for every one genuine female person, bad things happens. It also kind of makes being a woman that plays games depressing. It'd be nice to enjoy my hobby without having to sit through grotesque sexual pandering and seeing my gender turned into animated sex toys nine times out of ten.

I find this point extremely debatable, for two reasons.

First off, I figure DoA and other fighting games are probably only tangentially related to the Japanese Otaku culture you describe (which, I have no doubt, actually exists). I would argue that dating sims encourage this type of behavior much more than the jiggle physics, and are usually WAAAAY seedier.

The grotesque sexual pandering part I get; so does that mean getting rid of it makes the game more accessible to women because they just find it repulsive otherwise? Kind of like how a man would feel if a game had all kinds of male characters that were naked from the waist down and had their glistening butts and twelve-inch dicks swinging around all over the place? That would answer my question.

P.S.: To all those saying "Oh, well the guys are just as physically extreme as the women"... well, it's not quite the same thing, because (from what I hear, anway) women aren't as turned on by rippling biceps, etc. as men are turned on by big tits. Our sexual attraction mechanisms don't work the same way. Therefore, you can't really say the physical exaggerations are equivalent, because they don't appeal to both genders equally.

Maybe the women on the forum will correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: Okay, I just found it debatable for one reason. I guess I thought I had two and changed my mind on the second one. Oh well.