Bug MuIdoon said:
maninahat said:
You're right, I would have no right to complain if all characters were to be designed as wrinkly old people. I don't design these games, someone else does. They design it in a way that appeals to them, if I happen to like it then that's great for me and also for the designer. If I don't, then so what? That is the way of art. If, however, I funded a game before it was made, then I would have a little more 'right' to complain.
But wouldn't there be a point where it would just start to make you uncomfortable? Mainstream game after mainstream game featuring septuagenarians in banana hammocks on the front cover. After a while, you, and many others might be put off from buying many titles that clearly made at the expense of your comfort and taste. Maybe there is a demographic who loves these cheesecake grannies, but as most games are being made purely to cater to
their tastes alone, there is a sizeable portion of potential gamers who feel excluded and discouraged from taking part.
Also, your analogy is quite far fetched. Comparing every character being the same to the standard of today's designs is ridiculous. They're far some being exactly the same. I don't deny that there's a lack of female protagonist in gaming, but to say that all characters are designed to look the same is madness.
I was generally exaggerating, for better clarity. I am aware that the state of gaming is generally changing for the better, in spite (or because) of the complaints people are making.
...your whole second paragraph makes very little sense apart from line "what women find attractive tends to vary"
If you can honestly say "it isn't hard to figure out what women tend to find sexy" then you're a genius!
Here is a quick test: Of the two, who do you expect most women to find more attractive?
Congratulations, you're a genius too!
'Women' - and I'm grouping them together now for arguments sake,constantly voice, vote, state, poll, opinionate on people they find attractive within the media. Which 'celebrities', sports stars, musicians, film stars etc. they find attractive. As far as I can tell, a lot of AAA male game's characters are usually designed around this type of male, and are aimed at the female demographic.
When it comes to male character design, there is a lot more variety. We sometimes get hideous war beasts, or sexy men based on male models, or men who fall somewhere in between. These versatile designs are rarely made sexy for the sake of women though. You won't have many games with scenes featuring handsome men posing in their briefs or making out, for instance (except for comic relief "gross out gayness"). This is in contrast to females, who are almost invariably young and sexy by default, and will often end up in a scenario in which the (male) gamer can get a good look at all her assets.
It's like saying "'reading literature' is sexist"! Well, yes. Look how much of it there is, some of it is incredibly well written, deep or pro-feminine and other aspects are just shite, awful, sexist Heat/Glamour magazines (which incidentally are funded, edited, written and produced mainly by women)
Books are varied - we've had books about literally
everything, and games are somewhat similar in that regard, though to a lesser extent. Though there are hundreds of different titles about there, covering many genres and styles and stories, it is still possible to notice trends and tendencies through many titles. One can make the perfectly accurate criticism that "pre-20th Century literature tends to be more racist", even when many pre-20th century books do not include references to race at all. A
sufficient number of books exist with racism in them for there to be a observable trend. Games are similar in that respect: "games tend to be sexist" is a fair criticism, because though the criticism obviously can't apply to the likes of Frogger or Tetris (which don't even have characters, let alone women) there are enough games which the criticism can apply to, and thus for a notable trend to be acknowledged.
