Return of the Revenge of the Son of Saying Hi to Josiah!

[shauni]

Yeah...so okay I'm going to sell it, also, the female characters in that game walk like there arse is two unconnected loafs of bread. Very odd to watch someone in armer walk like that

[Josiah]

Hi! I got back into playing Long Live the Queen the other day. I tend to find those stat managing games kind of addicting.

[Giga-Gar]

Hey. I've always been fascinated by those types of games from a spectators viewpoint. I don't think I could play those games due to crippling indecision, but I really get into their Let's Plays, especially on the Something Awfull forums (don't worry, this is still my favorite!). The stories that they put into it really add something to the experience. That being said, I love grand strategy games, especially the ones from Paradox. It's pretty good when you make history yourself, but it'd great when you're working together with others to run the country(or just run it into the ground).

[shauni]

I've never been in to things like Civilisation and Command and Concur , I find them boring. if something has a good story line and lets me play as a girl and has a decent playing mechanic, I'm pretty happy. I like to feel like I'm the character I'm playing, so playing as a girl allows me to relate more I guess. Its the immersion I get into. I don't mind playing a guy though, like George in Broken Sword, he is just so funny. And I didn't mind playing Snake in Metal Gear Solid. I usually find if the game lets you play as a girl there is a little less male fan service, which I can't stand in video games.

Ivy's costume in Soul Calibur speaks for what I hate, but I can forgive the game as other female characters are not to bad.



Then there is Voldo, so lets leave it at that...actually



the game that got my goat was Devil My Cry with this disaster.

"Oh dear, I was fighting monsters and my cloths exploded so i had to tie them together with rope!!"




I don't mind any of these, its just the "i'm basically in my bra!" characters I hate. There is just no need any more. It bugs me when its in a good game as well, they don't need to sell it with sex!


Below are ones I like and think would still be considered "sexy" by guys withiut making girls go "oh god no"

[Josiah]

Hi! You get opinion pieces and arguments about character dress in game development circles fairy often. Yes some female characters' outfits are ridiculous, but that's hardly exclusive to video games. And then there's the far less commonly mentioned fact that many male characters wear similar things. Not as many as the girls, but still a surprising number when you look into it. Speaking of gender dress in games...

[Giga-Gar]

Hey. I think the link you've got there is broken, Josiah.

I've always wondered why in some RPGs, the higher a rank or class a female character gets, or the better the armor rating, the skimpier the fabric. It's like some sort of force field that only works in the close proximity of near nudity. But joking aside, I get what you're saying, Shauni. Movie Bob and the guys at Extra Credits have a lot of compelling arguments on the subject, but in terms of character design for women, it's just the sign of the gameong industry going through that awkward, hormone fuled puberty. But since most devs are males, that hormone is testosterone. It's going to take some time and effort for them to mature a bit, and I'm sure Josiah knows this. Speaking of which, what side of video game development do you teach?

And in defense of Civ, you can make your own storyline! And besides, it has plenty of strong female rolls too! Like Queen Dido, who outwitted the local king to found the city of Carthage and then later killed herself because Aeneas was told by the gods to dump her. Ok , maybe that's not a good one , but what about Cathrine the Great, who increased the size of Russia into Approximately its current borders and made merry with many a man(and maybe a horse). Ok, that's not so good either. Come back to me in a few, I'll figure it out.

[shauni]

Hey. I think the link you've got there is broken, Josiah.

Yeah not working for me either

As far as Com. and that go, its the game mechanics I don't like, not the story lines. Also, you got a point with the historical ladies there LOL.


I know there are male characters just as badly dressed as female characters but there are loads less in the main media.

Also, as per your comment about it not just being games, my opinion of these goes to films, anime and tv programs as well as comments in music.

Its like we are going backwards with equality in any media not forward.

Of course that is not true for everyone. Recently Disney have impressed me with there change in attitude. The last few Disney movies have had strong female leads. No longer are you sitting around waiting for your prince you rescue you, its about getting out there and doing it yourself.

Tiana from Princess and the Frog, Rapunzel from Tangled, Anna and Elsa from Frozen and even Maleficent from...Maleficent.

The best female characters i've seen are in Terminator and Alien and a few others.

Seeing females dressed in there underware when not required spoils I film for me. I can't even watch some 007 moves because of this, or watch alot of decent anime because the fan service drives me insane.

I really liked high school of the dead but they do this whole episode, mid zombie outbreak when all the girls get in the bath together. Its just stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I know they do that with male characters for the ladies in some stuff to, but I think that is stupid as well.

[Josiah]

Hi! Weird, the link works just fine for me. I agree that some things take it way too far (see Monster Monpiece, for example) but, like it or not, skimpy outfits are an attention grabber and can, in some cases, increase sales. It's important to keep both sides in mind though. Sure media targeted primarily towards a male audience often features girls in bikinis or other skimpy outfits but media targeted more towards a female audience is fairly likely to be plastered with shirtless guys (see every romance novel ever). To be fair, if you're going to complain about one, you really should complain about both. For various reasons, video games and anime tend to focus more on the male market when compared to other media, which are often more of a 50/50 spread. While the fact that there's more men than women involved in game development does have something to do with that, I think sales demographics play a large part as well. Not to mention all the girls who don't mind those kind of outfits (see cosplayers). But over time you will likely see things even out a bit more liked in the rest of the media.

What I teach is somewhat at the whims of my supervisors, but I specialize in game design (concepts, gameplay details, level design, etc.) and writing (story, dialogue, etc.).

[shauni]

I get that, it just seems that in the nineties things were even with the guys in outfits with girls in outfits, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider had strong female characters that were not just in there under crackers, then for some reason it started to go backwards.

I dunno, MGS seems to be the worse offender with starting strong and going off half cocked with character cloths.

Looks at the characters in MGS and then look at them in MGS: SOTP. Better graphics, less cloths






There only seems to be Meryl that keeps her cloths on...wait I forgot about the fan service when you can peep on her.


MGS is just a bad example.

But TBF I agree there is female fan service as well in MSG.

[Giga-Gar]

hehe, you said British slang for underwear

*ahem*

I agree with you on some level about female fan service in games, Shauni, but I don't honestly think that that's what the devs have in mind when making character designs for their female characters. Kratos, Marcus, and Duke Nukem and the lot were made to be very big, physically strong, and decidedly masculine, not for the sake of female audiences, but for male audiences. Same goes for the JRPG characters like Vaan, Riku, and Cloud(sorry, I only know Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts characters). I believe it serves as some sort of empowerment to the male audience, which is their main demographic sadly. it's like they go "Hey, we know most of you aren't strong or masculine or attractive, so here's a character where you can be!" with the attention to the fan service for females being either a side-effect or an afterthought. Basically, video game development is male dominated, which means character design for female and male characters are skewed to reflect that, which means things from a females perspective are unfortunately rarely looked at. I'm probably wrong about all this, but that's the way I see things.

Where's everyone else anyway? It'd be great to see what they think about all this.

[Josiah]

Hi! Though to play devil's advocate to you argument there Gar, if you see the big hulking male characters as a form of audience empowerment, you could look at some of the female characters the same way. I've actually seen some articles explaining Kill la Kill (which has some of the most ridiculous outfits ever) as a female empowerment story. Whether you believe that or not, it's an interesting take on things.

As for things having changed since the 90's... Part of it is that ratings standards have been becoming steadily more lax for decades. Heck, in the 50's you couldn't even show a fully dressed married couple in the same bed on TV (watch an old sit come, the husband and wife have separate beds). Like it or not, dress standards have also gotten steadily more lax. A modern bikini would be scandalous a few decades ago (here in Hawaii, I see plenty of girls on the beach wearing far less than nearly any game or anime character), much more so a hundred years ago. The rise of moe and push to cater towards the otaku audience in Japan also play a role. But there was plenty of racy outfits in the 90's too, at least in Japan. Thing is, a lot of that stuff either didn't make it outside of the country or got censored along the way.

I will point out though that I do think a bikini being awesome armor is ridiculous (unless it's got magical force field or something) and I'm note a huge fan of random fan service without any sort of plot element backing it up. Then again, I suppose a warrior girl in a bikini (or guy in a speedo) could prove distracting enough to give themselves an advantage in a fight...

[Stevenson]

Honestly, I think that the argument of "there are many revealing outfits for men too" is totally bunk, because of one main issue: musclebound men in the media, specifically in games media, are largely not presented in a sexual way. Now that's not true for the covers of romance novels, true, but I think that by and large women in media are presented in a more sexual way than men.

[shauni]

under crackers

I know right LOL

*AHUM*

a bikini being awesome armor is ridiculous

This is the THING RIGHT THERE! If she is trying to be sexy, at the beach, sat around her house, has A REASON to be in her underwear it doesn't bother me nearly at all, its when shes battling dragons in a thong. I'd like games designers to think "Would she actually ware that there?" They can do a fan service sceen another way, cat suit anyone? LOL I like games that do the two costumes thing. One they ware into battle and one for sitting around.

The only example I can think of right now is Sango from Inuyasha, she has an outfit for sitting around in then her battle armer.



They could do that in a game if they really needed the sexy outfit. One where she is sitting around in nothing and then "bad ass battle armorrr!"

As for the hulking men, yeah I gotta say those are for the guys. I don't know of any woman that would find the Gears of War guys attractive.


I gotta say though, Bayonetta is an exception to the rule. She walks stupid , she is nearly naked all the time, her HAIR is her outfit, but it knows its fan service and it takes the mickey out of itself. At the beginning shes in a tight nun outfit, her cloths get all ripped and she burst out of it, fully dressed LOL. Tongue in cheek stuff I can live with. It knows its doing it, you know its doing it, but you accept that and the game is awesome anyway

[Josiah]

Hi! There are some girls who like the super muscular look for guys, though I think the bishonen look is more popular these days. As for illogical battle armor, I will note that some male characters, such as Kratos, wear equally useless outfits into battle. Though there is some historical backing for that. Gladiators, for example. But yeah, I agree that crazy outfits without any sort of appropriate setting or explanation are annoying.

I also agree that woman in media generally play up the sexiness angle more than guys. In addition to the reasons I listed before (mass media tends to be fixated on demographics), history and culture are partly to blame as well. Women are typically physically weaker than man (there are exceptions, but I think we can agree that's the norm) and, traditionally, wield less social power as well (though that's changed a lot in modern times, at least in some countries). So, historically, they often relied on beauty and/or cleverness to get ahead. There's also the biological angle. In many species, one gender is the more "attractive" of the two and uses that to help find a mate. In humans, there's a bit of that on both sides but most people would agree that woman are "prettier" ones. Since fictional characters are often supposed to be somewhat idealized, male characters tend to play up their strength and physical abilities while female characters tend to play up their looks and general sexiness. Even if it does go to crazy extremes at times.

[shauni]

Doesn't mean it doesn't still bug me LOL

I think a topic change is in in order.

So, any opinion on Mega Slowbro, or the fact half the pokemon community still think Slowbro evolves into Slowking?

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/ ... o-Mega.png

Even Slowbro looks sad about it.