I know I’ve said this before in another thread looooong ago, but my biggest complaint with a lot of “sexy” stuff in games isn’t that it’s lewd or offensive or anything. It’s that it tends to look ■■■■■■■ DUMB.
I’m more than happy to see a design that’s appealing and sexy, but often times the outfits are just bland outfits on characters designed by an algorithm. No matter how revealing it is, if I don’t like the design I’ll get no titillation out of it. Gotta get me interested in the character or it’s just white noise and I fail to care.
2 Likes
As always, people want to run around acting like people are complaining about sexy characters. That’s not what this thread is.
People are complaining that characters aren’t beautiful enough. So you would argue that “creative freedom” gives you license to include sexy women in games but not to include ugly women?
3 Likes
THANK YOU! XD
A lot of people here seems to have missed the point of the thread entirely.
I doubt many of them actually read the top post.
1 Like
I could argue this for a bit but that would go off topic…
All I’m gonna say is when it comes to creative freedom, What you want vs want your fans want…
As a creator, what would you choose?
ME?
I follow my heart.
1 Like
Okay, not even delving into the above because I have neither the time nor the fully-formed opinions to offer. I just wanted a clarification.
Were the complaints about FemRyder really about beauty? Everything, and there had been a significant amount, was about people’s disappointment in the severely messed up animations present in ME:A (someone already showed the comparison of the real life inspiration to the FemRyder end result and similar muck ups). Did I just miss this?
2 Likes
I literally never said that. I’m not getting into this again. Not a fan of having words twisted and shoved into my face. Au revoir.
No there was more, you just missed it. But it’s not worth digging up.
Says the guy who posted the irrelevant cartoon. I’m sorry for attempting to actually have a conversation. I guess I should have just posted an obnoxious gif instead.
1 Like
Not gonna lie andy… That was pretty cold.
Are you having a bad day?
Yeesh, that moment when you realise your Saints Row 2 avatar had more realistic facial expressions than this…
No, I’m good. Thanks for your concern though. I am just getting really annoyed with people posting things on the forum and then when anyone says anything to them other than “OMG you are sooooo right!!!” They flip out acting all persecuted.
5 Likes
TBH… I never had that happened to me.
So I don’t know the feeling.
But that’s off topic.
Edit: I think I understand though
2 Likes
OMG you are sooooo right!!!
I feel bad that it made me chuckle.
Okay, so what I am getting from this thread is that the line between bad design and intentional appearance somehow been mixed, how?
I think maybe people are under the impression that in order for the design to be good the model must look appealing on a level of preference?
On the right is what Ryder was intended to look like, had the team no pushed out an unpolished game. It still resembles the original and only changes minor facial atrocities that were noticeably awkward. More importantly, though, the focal blur is done better and so is the lighting.
Looking at those pictures, I don’t think “ugly” even comes into it, she was clearly designed with what could be considered appealing facial features in mind:-
She has bright blue eyes (or hazel on one of the images? But I’m gonna go with blue) with no wrinkles nor eye bags and has pretty thick lashes without wearing makeup.
She has full and evenly proportioned lips, an even, unblemished complexion and perfectly manicured eyebrows, the only thing personally I’d consider unattractive is the hair, is that all of it? Or is it a pony tail? Either way I don’t dig her fringe, but what I’m digging at here is that by modern beauty standards she couldn’t be considered to be ugly at all, unless we’re being massively hypocritical about the beauty standards we hold dear these days.
This seems much more likely to be a case of a “poorly realized” rather than an unattractive character, given that her animations distort her facial features in a pretty severe manner to a point where she looks like an old man in a gurning competition.
Kind of like when they tried to give Samus Aran a personality and everyone ended up hating her, or when Lara had a chest carved into sharp, wooden points, or when Ashley Graham screeched “LEEEOOON!” at you for the thousandth time and you realised you’d rather clean your chainsaw with your teeth than spend any more time escorting this idiot through the game.
There are a lot of factors to characters being poorly realized and in this case, it seems to be the animation department that’s letting the side down, rather than anything else.
1 Like
There’s an old Hollywood saying that I learned when I was in screenwriting school, “Sex sells”. And by and large it is true. Don’t believe me, just take a look at some of the biggest blockbuster films, in almost (but not all) respects they had good looking leads, whether male or female.
In fact most of the world is obsessed with larger (better looking) than life actors or actresses and Hollywood is always looking for the next “pretty” face, because it is a proven fact that good looking people tend to bring in a larger audience than less than good looking people. While there is ALWAYS exceptions, as amazing talent will always shine through, most of these people will straight and tell you it was MUCH harder for them to get work, than Miss Priss or Mr. Adonis. This was the case of Meryl Streep. (then again, what person would think that Meryl wasn’t good looknig???)
The PC police have always been quick to deride this type of behavior as sexist and what have you, but there are several factors is to why things like this always turn up in Hollywood and ultimately in Video Games.
- We are biologically geared this way.
As Big Daddy has already said what men and women look for in respect to a mate is different, BUT attractiveness helps, and what is considered attractive can change from generation to generation.
In lions, as an example, the strongest male with the most robust mane, will generally attract a lioness quicker than a weaker lion. The female is looking for a male that can protect her future offspring as well as pass good genes to the next generation.
There are always exceptions, as with all things evolution.
- The allure of the sexes and its use has been a part of story telling for thousands of years. Just look at the Greeks, ergo Lysistrada.
In respect to Mass Effect Andromeda and the “controversy”. As has already been mentioned, much of the complaints I’ve heard have to do less with purposeful design choices, than graphical anomalies that has plagued this game since launch.
However, I also wouldn’t put it past Bioware to purposefully make the females “less attractive” to push whatever agenda they are aiming for. Remember their clumsy “inclusion” of a gay character in Mass Effect 3.
At the end of the day both film and video games are a form of escapism and fantasy. Most people don’t want to play as themselves (as they really are) in games, but better versions of themselves. Gears of War is a great example as it is really good at making you feel like a bada$$ with your overgrown bulky self.
Just my thoughts.
3 Likes
The problem here is that it isn’t just video games. Our entire culture is set up to objectify women, from a vast majority of TV shows and commercials featuring women as either A+ gorgeous objects or the polar opposite to magazine covers, billboards, etc.
There’s this outdated idea that sex sells (which has been statistically disproven), so this is how women are depicted. Even girls are depicted this way when selling toys. They pick the cute ones. So from a very young age, this is how we introduce girls to the world of expectations for normalcy that 90%+ can’t possibly live up to for any number of reasons, regardless of whether you work out or have this lasered or that nipped / tucked, etc. Our society essentially teaches women to hate themselves and their imperfections.
Now you might say that this is a problem for men too and to an extent, you’d be right. Especially the younger generations today, which are being marketed to more than ever. From a young age, boys are introduced to a world that has determined what’s not only attractive, but manly as well. Can’t play with Barbies, those are girls toys.
Everything from the way we dress to what we can smell like to how our hair or beard should look to what we wear at work is all a product of cultural decision making that may change over time, but was still determined long before we were able to actively participate in the discussion and even then, we’re tiny droplets of water in a cultural sea.
However, in acknowledging this, let’s not forget the fact that two wrongs don’t make a right. Let’s also not forget the fact that women, by and large, get this treatment from our society FAR worse than men. For every Ryu, there’s a wide variety of men in SF that have different looks, whereas for every attractive female piece of eye candy there’s well… More of the same, really.
Women are fetishized in video games and in our society far more than men, regardless of the few examples to the contrary. By and large, they’re the object of attraction. The object. They’re the trophy that the man earns at the end of the movie or game. They’re the ones that deal with the expectations of men and our culture has positioned both sexes that way, even as society starts to rebel against this more and more. Women still tend to be the ones that have had to fight for their rights and for equality over the last 100 years far more than men.
So like it or not, gender equality is a political issue that effects every arena, including video games, because it’s all a part of our society and it all reflects how our genders are viewed and portrayed.
Eh, that’s far too dismissive of history. Society advances. Remember where the gay rights movement was twenty years ago versus today? Remember Eminem lyrics about homosexuality or movies that used the F word (the three letter one) on the regular?
Women couldn’t own credit cards until the 1970’s. It wasn’t that long ago that they couldn’t even vote. Even now, our congress has a massive majority of men, even as women make up half of our population. Progress takes time, but it tends to win out as society grows toward shifting ideas.
So saying “it’ll always be this way…” I don’t know. This gaming medium has really only been around in earnest for about 30-35 years. Think of how far the film industry has come since it’s first 30-35 years.
As for the whole “butt-hurt” thing… People feel this way on both sides. There’s plenty of complaining going around to suggest that there is no happy medium. That line is in constant flux.
Why is voicing an opinion such a big deal to you? If I say “as a guy, it’d be nice if more games had people of all shapes and sizes to reflect a more realistic view of society,” why is that such a toxic opinion to you? Sure, there can be attractive men and women, just like in our society, but why does it have to be a requirement that we only display people that our mind essentially reads as objects?
BTW, I’m not telling all devs that they MUST do this. I’m just saying what I’d like to see. I also don’t mind telling devs what I don’t like seeing. I don’t enjoy objectification or fetishizing in games. For one thing, it almost never comes off as intended, looking more ridiculous than sexy or attractive. Also, I tend to think this way, not because I’m puritanical, but because I don’t like seeing our society depict men or women this way, as sexual objects to people that are far more impressionable than I am.
We act like a lot of what we see is so normal simply because it’s what we’ve been seeing for so long when the reality is that we’re being titillated for no real reason. Are any of us actually attracted to polygons or sprites? No. Would you buy Street Fighter if the ninjas looked like ninjas and the military characters look like military characters instead of stripper versions of them? I’d assume so. So what’s the point of having characters in bathing suits with giant, bouncing cans? If it’s not actually sexy and it’s not realistic in both proportions or lore, then what’s the point? “Why not?” isn’t a great reason to me.
In saying all of this though, I’m also not here to tell developers what they have to do. I’ll speak up if I feel like it, I’ll vote with my wallet if I feel like it, and anyone else can feel free to do the same on either side of the issue. No big deal.
Back to the conversation about ME:A. If they wanted her to look that way, then so be it. I think she animates horribly and I don’t think that was intended, so on that front, I think people have every right to complain.
If she’s supposed to look like the model they got her likeness from, then I think they failed miserably and I think fans have every right to be dissatisfied that the quality of the game, even this, aren’t up to the standards of the previous titles.
But if the complaint is “why isn’t she hotter” simply because the character model itself isn’t attractive enough? That seems rather silly to me.
I’ll not pretend to know the source and tone of all of the complaints about this game, so I won’t speak on it further.
Being an old saying doesn’t necessarily prove something it still true today though. I’d ask whether those films did well because they had attractive leads or if they did well because they were great movies that happened to have attractive leads in them because that’s mostly who get the roles in Hollywood?
For all we know that could be like saying “that movie did well because it took place on Earth and the recent successful movies, with few exceptions, took place there.”
Also, without feeling the need to google and attach a bunch of articles on the topic, I’ve read enough statistical data to shows this adage is actually rather outdated and not overly true, but who can say for sure…
5 Likes
No one ever said being a parent is easy. I am well aware that sex and objectivication has saturated culture and society. But more suitable options do still exist. So you have three options: accept objectivication as inevitable and teach your daughter to resist and stand against it. Or you can pretend it doesn’t exist and stick your head in the ground like an ostrich. Or you can moan and complain your entire life, fighting that kamakazi battle of let’s change the world and tell them what to do because we are oh so wise (South Park Kyle broflawskis mom)
It’s more of a bastardisation then it is objectifying, but it’s still tacky AF.
I still find it funny that in a game where you can literally create how your character looks or the actions they partake that people would complain about how the default model looks like (not talking about how it animates). If you don’t like it you can change it to suit your preference as soon as you start the game.
I personally have never used the default character model in any ME game and whenever I see someone using it I say to myself who the f*ck is that? Since I only associate my version of the character with the game. Correct me if I’m wrong here but isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in a game that lets you create your character?
1 Like
Ok. I’m dipping my toe in finally. But I think this needs to be addressed. I’m a creative person, and I love designing fighting game rosters. My problem is that I don’t want there to be restrictions on what I make. I don’t want to be forced to make one of every type of everything just so everyone’s included. If I want to make a woman of a certain body shape, I will and have. But I don’t want to have to meet some quota established by some board. Also, The character comes first. Often times, I don’t even decide On the sex of a character until I’ve fleshed out there backstory. Because it usually doesn’t matter to what they are doing in the story and what there powers are. In short, these stereotypes are hurtful and need to die, but don’t kill creativity in the process of killing hate.
1 Like
My point is that beauty is subjective and used as a unit of measure. Judging people based on looks will always be there. But as opposed to fighting this huge crusade to change the world, just take the effort to raise your children well. At least there you have a stronger influence to teach what is right.
I’m not trying to be dismissive at all. It’s just a fact of the matter, people will always make judgements based on appearance.