Why is physical attractiveness seems to be inversly proprtional to a good personality?

[Not G. Ivingname]

In gaming, I noticed that the better a character is to look at, the more uninteresting the character is. For example, Alex Vance, while nice to look at, is no where near the busting, bearly clad Lara Croft, but Alex is a much more interesting character that players seam to attach to because she is fun to be around. In Mass Effect 2, Tali always wore that suit so you could not see anything, while Miranda had such a skin tight suit that other characters mentioned how revealing it was. However, Tail has so much more personality that I always picked her to Romance, and I never bring Miranda around to battle because she just is boring (not to mention her A.I. is custom designed to walk into my line of fire).

This just doesn't apply to females as well. Kratos is the very defiention of a manly man, with a huge chest and a well formed six pack. However, he is an unlikable physco path that doesn't care about how many people he slaughters to meet his end for utter revenge (that he ultimatly caused for himself might I add). The Heavy from TF2 acts like a mindless brute in battle, and has the body shape of a gorrila, but his love and devotion to his gun and sandvich makes him impossible to not want to hug.

Why is it that attractiveness means the character is never interesting? Is that the developers put more effort into the design, and just put in characterization as an after thought? Or is there some exceptions I am missing here?

 

[Legion]

They are trying to get rid of the media stereotype that being physically attractive means everything I guess. Advertisements, TV shows, they always make the handsome ones the "ideal" rather than trying to sell things with decent or interesting people.

That's my hope, or maybe I am just being naive.

 

[Cherry Cola]

It can easily be explained.

They didn't put enough points in intelligence and focused everything on attractiveness.

That's why I'm telling y'all that it's important to get a balanced character when starting a new game!

 

[Delock]

The exception to the rule: Faith from Mirror's Edge. Designed not to be attractive so much a fitting for the role she does, but she really wasn't that interesting or likeable to me.

 

[Deleted]

Usually because they create the girl, so they have a reason to make them beautiful but dumb, or vice versa. It's not like real life where it isn't as custom designed.

 

[Wolfram23]

It can easily be explained.

They didn't put enough points in intelligence and focused everything on attractiveness.

Bazinga!

But yea interesting point although I'd argue Lara Croft is an exception to that (in some of her games, anyway) since she's supposed to be a very intelligent and classy lady with a killer body and great rack.

Anyway it might be somewhat of a look at reality. Just watch any entertainment show and sooo many of the "beautiful" women are just dumb bimbos who care solely for looks and money. Truely gorgeous women, in my opinion, don't have to have big boobs or show off their body. I like classy. Plus, only hinting at what's underneath is more intriguing than showing it all up front.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

I think when a character is designed to look more 'normal', then that's because the developers wanted them to be more relatable. In the same effort, they'd probably put a bit more work into making their personality more likable as well.

A character who's meant to be a slutty sex-bomb or a hulking space-marine usually has less effort invested in their personality because it doesn't really matter for their character. Since the look of those characters defines and is defined almost entirely by their role in the game, the rest becomes less of a focus.

Also, 'cool' looking characters often get a 'cool' personality, which in the case of videogames usually means either snarky/bitchy or (psychotically) violent. None of those are particularly endearing.

 

[Gentleman_Reptile]

Nathan Drake might be the only plausible exception I can think of (despite what Yahtzee thinks of him). But yeah you are absolutely right. I think its because the designers think they can get a "free ride" on likeability by just using an attractive appearance and sacrificing character depth.

It also has to do with consumer attention spans, the first thought about an average looking female character upon seeing her is "She must be smart or interesting or something, because her tits arent on full display". If a character is immediately unremarkable to look at, they need the backup of being interesting.

It isnt fair by any means, but its how it works. Just like real life.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Wow, I thought this was going to be a thread about real life. Pretty ironic, because sometimes exactly the same can be stapled on some people.

To be fair though, people are much more complex then the shallow game based avatars they create. I find it is more a matter of upbringing, in particular how spoilt they where, which leads to arsehole based personalities. That can be archived regardless of appearance, but pretty people get their way more often then not so your statement does have a element of truth in it.

I could just be bias though, I'm a pretty boy who likes to think he is a sub....

Back on topic though, yeah I have noticed this trend.

I just assume the designers are making a vanilla character that isn't more then a place marker for the player. In short these designers haven't put much thought into just what is going through the mind of the character, and so there is no deep mental abilities present. In effort to hide the fact they made a 1 dimensional character they add over the top attractiveness, believing the majority of people are not going to look past the ungodly large boobies or thews wider then the guys head.

Sadly... it seems to work. Why else would they keep doing it?

PS: as for ugly as sin and unlikable? This seems to be reserved for the bad guys more often then not. They are made this way so we wouldn't relate to them, and in fact will root for their downfall. What does that tell us about our culture, where ugly = evil?

 

[Jordi]

If the game doesn't spend the resources to tell a story to make the character likeable, then they might feel like they have to make him/her attractive so that the audience will at least like that. I think that making characters likeable often involves giving them some flaws (so they are not artificial god people). Their appearance should then reflect their insecurities etc.

Simply put: the appearance will reflect the story, but if there is almost no story, the appearance will default to over-the-top masculine/feminine.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

It's natural selection. These characters didn't have the animator's favor and so they had to evolve personalities in order to survive. If they hadn't they would have been demoted to random NPCs or removed from the game.(At least that's Jason Alexander's theory. +1000 exp. and 85 cookies for naming the reference)

Also: Tali doesn't really count here. I mean, yes you don't see her face, but she's still hot. Her suit is very snug and she fills it out well.

 

[Necator15]

I haven't really noticed this in a lot of games. Yes there's the difference between Alyx Vance and Lara Croft, but other than those two specific instances, I can't think of another comparison to make. (Also, slightly relevant because I saw it mentioned earlier, I like Miranda's character more than Tali just because it always seemed Tali was kind of whiny..)

 

[Logic 0]

Because of something in our brain chemestry that thinks that the more attractive someone is the more overall of a better person they are makeing game devlopers think that it's okay to make a charecter a bland cardboard cutout as long as he's pretty I read about it from a article in the globe and mail.

 

[JEBWrench]

I think it's because videogames are made by nerds who have been shunned by beautiful people their entire lives, and therefore harbor a grudge against them.

Also your characterization seems to be a bit off since a lot f videogame characters are ugly as sin AND unlikeable.

Is it bad that I think this is most likely the actual case?

 

[Blindswordmaster]

I think it's because videogames are made by nerds who have been shunned by beautiful people their entire lives, and therefore harbor a grudge against them.

Also your characterization seems to be a bit off since a lot f videogame characters are ugly as sin AND unlikeable.

Is it bad that I think this is most likely the actual case?

No, it means you're learning.

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

Well there are some characters that are both attractive and deep but I suppose that might be a matter of opinion. I guess it depends on what you're attracted to.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

It can easily be explained.

They didn't put enough points in intelligence and focused everything on attractiveness.

That's why I'm telling y'all that it's important to get a balanced character when starting a new game!

lolololol sound logic

OT: thats just a matter of opinion, i personally didn't mind miranda at all, she had her goals and was trying to do anything she could to acheive them, no harm their, besides that she wasn't bad, tali probably came that way across to you due to nostalgia from the first game

and honestly i can think of a few games with "attractive" characters that are likeable to me at least in character personality wise, so overall its just based on your opinion, like alot of people hate vanille with a burning passion from ff13 while i dont find her bad at all, considering i know at the minimum 20 chicks in real life 100000x worse than her

 

[Icehearted]

That's a matter of opinion. I thought Alyx had an annoying personality, very shallow, (praise Gordon → kill combine → something with dog → melodramatic concern for father → boiling hate for everyone else. rinse repeat). I actually liked Lara Croft's personality a bit more in her last outing because she was motivated, she had guts, wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and unlike Alex didn't get in the way or try being cute and sappy (though to be fair Alyx I guess was designed to be a cute and sappy annoyance). The Dead or Alive girls are perfect exampled of contemptuous vapid assholes interested in looks only. They have zero personalities, and oddly, even where looks go they sort of fall flat, odd because that was a selling point for them.