The Counterpoint
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Well, now you made me sad... Really sad. I knew some of the troubles they were having with development (I even heard something about the possibility of a sequel tied to the success of a different game), but I had forgotten that bit about the financial problems, and those are usually the ones that kill games and/or companies...OfficialJab said:
You are nitpicking on irrelevant points.Scars Unseen said:
My point was that both Kratos and the DOA girls are intended to appeal to guys, but in different ways.
Kratos' visual design is intended to convey an impression of raw physical power and aggression. These are things that appeal to guys. I would say to most guys, at least on some level. Thus Kratos is intended to appeal to a male audience.
The healthiness of his exact body type is irrelevant. Whether or not wanting to be like that is healthy is also irrelevant.
We are dealing with fantasies here. Your analogy of women wanting to look like magazine models is actually very appropriate. It might be bad for them to want that, but they still want to look like that.
Man, those poor women and all of the female characters in video games that they don't like. I mean every time you go to a comic con, you see almost only Jade, April and Alyx, and no Lara Croft, chun-li or skin tight rubber costume x-men girl! (irony.)
Also fun fact, stars like Rihanna and Britney Spears, you know, the ones that are sexualized everywhere without limits, those stars have a 80% female fan croud. Go to a Rihanna concert, it's just a million 15 year old girls screaming as Rihanna shakes her bikini.
IT'S ALMOST AS IF FEMALES ARE NOT OPPOSED TO THE THOUGHT OF THEM BEING HOT AND ATTRACTIVE for fucks sake
And men agree, therefore we see many scantily clad dressed women.
Females on the other hand seem to be crazy over Ezio, the guy with the most textile on his body in all of gaming history. They just have more taste, that's why you don't see so many half naked men in products made for women. Although Twilight with the Werewolfs sort of changed that.
But yeah, not all games are made for women nor should they.
Deal with it or make games about naked men. I'm fine with that. I would even play it.
Also fun fact, stars like Rihanna and Britney Spears, you know, the ones that are sexualized everywhere without limits, those stars have a 80% female fan croud. Go to a Rihanna concert, it's just a million 15 year old girls screaming as Rihanna shakes her bikini.
IT'S ALMOST AS IF FEMALES ARE NOT OPPOSED TO THE THOUGHT OF THEM BEING HOT AND ATTRACTIVE for fucks sake
And men agree, therefore we see many scantily clad dressed women.
Females on the other hand seem to be crazy over Ezio, the guy with the most textile on his body in all of gaming history. They just have more taste, that's why you don't see so many half naked men in products made for women. Although Twilight with the Werewolfs sort of changed that.
But yeah, not all games are made for women nor should they.
Deal with it or make games about naked men. I'm fine with that. I would even play it.
ALSO: the comic is really bad this time, because it implies that the way women are portrayed is a big problem and then says "the ones that disagree are obviously stupid because look at that dangerous problem!"
You could also replace "fire" with "water" and having the girl scream "JESUS CHRIST I AM WET! HELP!" and the two guys say "Yeah? So what! It was raining."
I am not saying nothing the portrayal of women is not a problem, but the argument the comic makes is really weak.
You could also replace "fire" with "water" and having the girl scream "JESUS CHRIST I AM WET! HELP!" and the two guys say "Yeah? So what! It was raining."
I am not saying nothing the portrayal of women is not a problem, but the argument the comic makes is really weak.
Yay, this again.
Men and women both get portrayed with varying degrees of "accuracy" (whatever that means) in the media. How is it even possible to be sure which (if either) side is being portrayed inaccurately more often, and why does it matter? Where are the young men who assume Jessica Rabbit is an accurate portrayal of a woman when they meet real women every day?
1. People are not idiots. Anyone without a serious mental disorder can tell the difference between fiction and reality.
2. Entertainment is meant to be entertaining (to its target audience at least). If it was going to be a flawless reflection of reality, then we might as well just sit on park benches and watch reality instead.
3. Protection from being made fun of is not a human right. Unless you can convince a court that the portrayal of women in a piece of media is causing you serious emotional distress, you're not going to get anywhere.
And let's not forget the Golden Rule of Entertainment: If you don't like it, don't watch it.
Men and women both get portrayed with varying degrees of "accuracy" (whatever that means) in the media. How is it even possible to be sure which (if either) side is being portrayed inaccurately more often, and why does it matter? Where are the young men who assume Jessica Rabbit is an accurate portrayal of a woman when they meet real women every day?
1. People are not idiots. Anyone without a serious mental disorder can tell the difference between fiction and reality.
2. Entertainment is meant to be entertaining (to its target audience at least). If it was going to be a flawless reflection of reality, then we might as well just sit on park benches and watch reality instead.
3. Protection from being made fun of is not a human right. Unless you can convince a court that the portrayal of women in a piece of media is causing you serious emotional distress, you're not going to get anywhere.
And let's not forget the Golden Rule of Entertainment: If you don't like it, don't watch it.
That maybe true, but there are some examples of indie games that could have oversexualized characters but preferred not to. Dust: An Elysian tale is a good example. Another is Mark of the Ninja, which, thank god, does not have the "bikini slutty ninja". (I haven't finished the game, but so far so good).mdqp said:
I don't think this is about how unrealistic portrayal of women in videogames affect the mindset of the general population (I feel that's a "hardcore feminist" point of view), but more like "women in videogames are often poorly represented, and there is a general lack of compelling female characters. I wouldn't mind an improvement" kind of situation.MetalMagpie said:
Of course everyone can tell the difference between fiction and reality, or otherwise we would all die by imitating superman, at one point (I always thought flying was a cool super power, if a bit too common ^_^), I seriously hope no one argued that (although something could be said about forming people's opinions, but videogames have a marginal role even among gamers, I think, as social interactions are our main source of feedback regarding our behaviour).
People are complaining about this because they feel this is getting in their way of having fun. It's not about a single game or a genre, but it's more like this situation pops-up in various games, often with no good reason (I hope that we can agree when I say that often, this adds nothing to the experience).
I don't know if the majority of people want the pandering to disappear, I think they just want more options, and more games with content that doesn't appear silly or unappealing to them. This has nothing to do with hurt feelings, or at least, it shouldn't.
People that complain probably don't play those games to begin with, and are having a hard time finding something that suits them, so they are making sure their complains are heard, in order to have something to watch.
Would it be unreasonable then to say, "hey female gaming community members, if you want games made for you, how about you make them? Nobody is keeping you!". All I hear nowadays is "those games need to change", "the studios need to change" and "the industry needs to change" and of course, those that like the games and studios are pissed, because I am fine with it.mdqp said:
DoA should not abandon the fans and now make a game that is also made for women in mind, but instead there should be a new fighting game that women are happy with.
I don't think this about women hurt feelings (if there are any at all), or having no female characters, this is about having quality female characters around (nothing wrong with Chun-li or Lara Croft, I just wouldn't consider them particularly interesting characters, but this is also a matter of personal opinions, I guess).Phuturist said:
I am not against female, both in fiction or in real life, being able to be dressed with just a few flimsy clothes, I am saying that an awful lot of characters go around almost naked with no reason at all, and that can be a little off-putting in the long run.
This isn't just about females, I am a male, but I get bored/annoyed too, when I get an ass shot of Miranda in ME2 (who was the most annoying female in the whole series, for me) for the 100th time.
Is there a Ezio female fandome? I didn't knew that! Yeah, Twilight set new standards, I guess. ;p
Not all games should cater to women, but the percentage is awfully small, and a lot of those games seem to be away from the AAA titles.
First of all, there's nothing wrong with having a female character that is hot, sexy or playing the temptress. The has been done since the beginning of time, with the mermaids in the Greek myths, all the way through to western movies, with classics such as The Maltese Falcon.Phuturist said:
Second of all, Lara Croft, Chun-Li and the white queen from X-Men are much more famous and have much more publicity than Jade from Beyond Good & Evil or April from The Longest Journey (which had no publicity at all ASAIK). So, a lot more people know about Lara than some obscure computer adventure protagonist.
The same thing happen with male protagonists: Go to Sci-Fi convention and see how many men dress John Sheridan (from Babylon 5) compared to how many men are dressed as Darth Vader.
That does not mean that there aren't good cosplays of Jade or April. Search the internet for 5 seconds and you'll find them.
And then, we come to the third point where your argument breaks: it's alright to have one or two super hot female characters in a story, but when every single woman has the gravity and physics defying body of DOA girls you have a problem. Why is there that the only way for a woman to draw attention is for her to be in a leather bikini?
Male characters come in all shape, size and age. As Movie Bob said in one of his videos, one of the most famous male video game characters is a short fat italian plumber with an outdated mustache. Can you name 10 famous male characters that appear almost naked all the time? With the camera doing close-up shots of his six-pack or his ass 80% of the time said character appears.
Of course, that's not completely unreasonable, but some say that it is a vicious circle, with the industry producing "male-oriented" games, keeping women uninterested in finding a job in the industry, leaving it without input from female developers.Phuturist said:
Also, this is about the severe lack of those characters. Who cares if there is a game like DOA? DOA does what it does, no one is trying to push it into oblivion (I guess/hope), it is pretty honest in what it is, I see no particular problem in its prolonged existance. The problem is the general lack of female characters in other games, too, and a generally poor portrayal of them. You can't simply say that women should make games for women, men should be reasonably capable of making compelling female characters too, they just decide to not do it, in order to appeal to a certain audience. We shouldn't ban those characters, but I feel we should make other characters, too (I mean, female protagonists that don't fall into some idiotic stereotypes remain something rare. Look at King's bounty - Armored Princess: Apparently she has genitals made of steel, because all three available looks/armors for her, end abruptly in that area. The game it's a good game, but why the need of doing that? Even more hilarious, is the fact that, while the magician outfit is the classic almost naked, the other two have relatively covering armors... Until they reach the hips).
To be fair, Fappy, I'm pretty sure everyone that read the comic immediately thought of that argument against it. Really I think Grey might have missed the mark on this one.Fappy said:
You mean like how every man in every commercial you've ever seen is depicted as a clumbsy, stupid, absolutely incompotent donkey who'd get tangled up in the blinds if his brilliant wife weren't there to run every aspect of his life for him?DVS BSTrD said:
Captcha: "Cubic Spline".......the fuck?
Well, I am sure we can name a few exceptions in the AAA industry, too, I just don't think this is only about corporate mindhive at work (which should be the main difference between Indies and "traditional" companies). I think it is mainly picking the easy route, and believing that you can never go wrong with fanservice, which I am not sure is directly linked to the indie or non-indie nature of the developer (having some artistic freedom surely helps, but I don't think the pandering is something that publishers ask like multiplayer, for example).franksands said:
But not all women are naked and sexualized to hell and back in video games, you are overreacting. Most of the major franchises have none of this. What are the big games nowadays? CoD, Uncharted, Gears of War, Halo, GTA, Assassin's Creed and Red Dead Redemption come to mind. NONE of these games have female characters clearly made as an object of sexual lust for men. None of them. You find these classic bikini warrior females in niche games like Hack & Slash, JRPGs and Fighting Games. Not in the broad mainstream.franksands said:
And please, be honest, there are not a lot of half naked male characters, but again, my points are that
a) Females don't care a lot about naked male skin --> Ezio fandom (seriously, look it up)
b) Be honest, how many of your female and male friends really play a lot of video games that are more than iOS and free online games?
That's why there are more naked women than men in smaller games.
Oh, and you wanted your list of half-naked /skin tight rubber suit ass camera views men, here you are:
Old Dante
New Dante (2 different characters)
Lucifel (El Shaddai)
Enoch (Also El Shaddai, even has destructable armor until he only wears jeans)
Ryu Hayabusa (And it works)
Kratos (most likely not made for females)
Every MMO nowadays, because there are now more than a few females playing these games (Guild Wars 2, Tera (funny how this game gets used as an example of sexist treatment of females, while the male armors are just as absurdly revealing), etc.)
Snake (even has a naked interactive torture scene, just think of the drama a female character in that situation would cause)
Every male fighting game character ever
And maybe others. But we will see more of this as more females start playing games. It will come naturally and there is no need for developers to stop creating what they like. Everyone happy?