Very well spoken, my friend.
Sadly I think fear, hate, and objectification will always exist in some shape or form as part of the human condition.
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So men and women that want to shift this cultural paradigm should just stay quiet and accept reality because there are no other suitable options? But waitâŠ
So men and women shouldnât stay quiet and accept it? They should resist and stand against it?
Hereâs whatâs really strange about this logic. One of the options is to resist and stand against it. Another option is to moan and complain your entire life. The issue here is that a lot of people on one side sees those two options as one and the same. So how exactly do people resist and stand against it without coming off this way?
This kinda goes to the whole âno protest is convenient, no protest occurs at the right timeâ axiom. If people stand up for what they believe, some will inevitably see it as whining no matter what.
I also donât think that talking about the issue and having an opinion on it means that someone is moaning and complaining their entire life, fighting a kamakazi battle of letâs change the world. You can see something and point it out, or you can protest something, and you can be heard without committing your entire life to it.
Stating an opinion doesnât necessarily have to imply some sort of mental superiority. Societal progress doesnât mean that the people against that particular progression are cavemen, even if thatâs how they want the other side to see them so they can take the moral high ground or feel persecuted.
Weâre all just stating opinions here, really. I donât like seeing women objectified in our culture. I donât like the idea of little girls seeing that and possibly (though not definitely) growing up with a distorted vision of what beauty is and hating themselves for not reaching an unattainable goal. I see many aspects of society, some big, some exceedingly small, as feeding in to that and I think it sucks.
Also, from my perspective, what comes off as âsexyâ in video games, tends to look ridiculous, with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. Honestly, itâs borderline insulting that many games canât be more subtle or more interesting where it comes to sexuality.
Wherever you come from on this, be it freedom of expression of the idea that things wonât change or sex sells or any other argument that works for you is fine for you. I donât think less of you for feeling that way. Weâre just having a conversation here, and itâs perfectly okay that we donât come to some sort of consensus on whatâs right or wrong. There really is no such thing, thereâs just our opinions.
Yeah, that kinda strikes me as odd too. Any game that gives me the option to create a character, I create a brand new one. Granted, the animations in ME:A seem a bit stiff, disjoined or just plain odd looking, but to pick on that one in particular seems like an odd gripe for so many people, but oh well, who am I to talk? Iâve talked about combo fonts for KI on this forum more than any sane person probably should lol.
Letâs not get ahead of ourselves here though. I think you can have both creativity and sexuality. The problem tends to be that a vast majority of female depictions in video games HAVE to have both, and thatâs where some are taking issue.
Of course, some are also taking issue with how egregious some of the depictions of sexuality tend to be in games, as it often rushes right past ideas like âdemureâ or âsensualâ and right in to the realm of absurd 13 year old cartoon fever dream.
To be clear, I have no problem with sexuality in video games. I just wish that the medium could do a better, perhaps more creative job of depicting it not simply in more subtle ways or in a greater variety of ways (though Iâd love to see those as well), but in more realistic ways as well.
There certainly are exceptions here, no question. But by and large, 30-some years after the invention of the medium, a lot of art tends to fall on tried and true formulas that I donât really find that compelling anymore, if I ever did to begin with.
This is just my opinion, of course, but I think itâs ridiculous when men in fighting games tend to wear things like karate gis while women wear gravity defying evening gowns or S&M gear⊠To a fight. Again, there are exceptions. I think Pai Chan in VF has some really cool styles, for example. I also think that Vanessa in VF has a more athletic build, which fits her perfectly.
But for the most part, how come dudes can dress for their role, but women always seem to have to be dressed in a fetishized vision of their part? What the hell is going on with Cammy anyways? lol. What military officer wears a bathing suit?
I donât want to restrict anyoneâs creativity, I just think that putting an artist in the position to âmake her this, but it HAS to be sexyâ is limiting in and of itself. I also think it can be derivative when weâre talking about a medium thatâs been doing things this way for a long time.
Why canât a female pro-wrestler be larger like Awesome Kong or Nia Jax? Why canât a woman have muscles and a flatter chest? Why is it more creative to make yet another woman with wide hips, a thin waist and giant breasts, with long flowing hair and a high pitched or sultry voice? Thatâs been done a million times.
Appreciate your perspective (as I do everyone elseâs). 
The first quote of me you made was inference to viewing options if you want to shield your kids from this kinda crap. From there on out when I speak of options itâs in reference to what you can do in the matter.
Teach your kids to recognize and resist
Stick your head in the ground and ignore it
Or keep fighting the suicide mission of changing the world
Because I honestly believe that there is little point in fight the whole world because it is just too set in itâs ways.
Be in the world not of the world, as the good book says. Simply speaking we are here merely as passengers, we donât absorb ourselves in what this screwed up world seems socially acceptable.
That was sarcasm
Gauging interest at a first-impression, biological level will always be there, no question. But judging a person based on their looks beyond that brief period doesnât have to be (Iâd argue). Is it there now? Yes, because thatâs where our culture is at. I donât think thatâs where we have to stay though.
Progress can be a large crusade, or it can be the simple prerogative of people going about their daily routine. The devs for KI made certain choices and thatâs all they were; choices. No one at MS, DH or IG made a huge deal out of it or started some movement or whatever within the genre or the medium.
I think most people do.
Eh, time marches on. This country used to allow slavery and it treated African Americans as 3/5âs of a person. It was codified in our laws. Obviously thatâs no longer the case. Donât get me wrong, racism certainly still exists. Iâm just saying that a view âthatâs just the way it isâ seems kinda myopic given our history. If you disagree though, thatâs cool.
No problem. I figured as much. Itâs just not the first time Iâve seen the objectification perspective as elitist by some, so I just thought Iâd throw it out there just in case.
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I just worry that thatâs going to be the only way we can actually fix this. How are you going to ensure representation without forcing the creator to sit down with a chart of body shapes and not coming back till youâve filled them all out. And you have to use ALL of them, even if the one idea for this one shape you have sucks, and you would rather come up with something else. Plus, Mortal Kombat got a lot better at that kind of stuff in MKX. Look at characters like Sonya in that game, in fact NetherRealm specifically stated in an early MKX press release that the costumes in MK9 for the females was something that they were not proud of and seeking to fix. And they did. And theyâre carrying it over to injustice 2. And look at KI. Aside from some of the retro costumes, the women here look fine. In short, Iâm not saying that women in games NEED to be sexualized or over-exaggerated. But Iâm also saying the donât NEED to not be. Let that be up to the creator. If that is something they want to focus on, than great. But if they donât, than that shouldnât be a major issue, because from a creative standpoint, what a person looks like is not important to a story. The size of your breasts is not a major factor in weather or not you can slay Gargos, itâs what you can do. So if it doesnât matter, than let the creator do whatever they want. If you wanât to create a girl version of Boâ Rai Cho, than fine. If you want to create someone like Leo from Tekken, fine. If you want to make the Dark Queen from Battletoads, fine. Because in the end, that is not what makes a character interesting or fun to play as.
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If something has been true for nearly 4000 years, I strongly doubt the last 5 will change that. Sex appeal has always sold. Youâll find very few commercials that donât have appealing looking individuals whether young or old in them. Not saying it is right, but it is the way we are wired.
Netherrealm just shut my suspicions down that they will never get it. Pamela is one of the most gorgeous females in gaming history. Along with her style/ movement.
She rightfully sits on her own floral throne.
Canât wait to see her costumes
Sad orchid couldnât have kept her KI2 costume that basically looks like this, or any other standard top female superhero costume for that matter. Couldâve been just a swimsuit like black canary or poison ivy
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I really donât think it has to be an all or nothing scenario though. As you mention with MKX and KI, things do change and evolve. A lot of it happens organically over time, but when people see things that, to them, seem a bit outdated, I see nothing wrong with pointing it out.
I think itâs just a matter of perspective or starting point here. Itâd be nice if artists could look at it from the standpoint of âthis character could look fairly normal unless thereâs a particular reason why weâd want to play up her sexualityâ instead of âthis character should be over-sexualized unless thereâs a reason to make her more normal.â
I mean, which sounds like a better starting point to you?
This is going to sound far more flippant than I intend it to, but people thought the Earth was flat for thousands of years, that didnât make them right. Hereâs just a very small blurb from Fortune on a study conducted by the American Psychological Association:
Hereâs another study from researchers at Iowa State University from Psychology Today:
From what Iâve read in several publications, the idea that âsex sellsâ is actually somewhat of an outdated misnomer (in some ways). Itâs just something that both we, and more importantly, markerters and advertisers are so used to that itâs more or less commonly accepted fact. Which is why you still see so many commercials with appealing looking individuals. At this point, itâs more tradition or group think than some biological imperative.
Again though, thatâs just from what Iâve read. If you disagree, thatâs fine.
This is what I think. I agree with you completely. I donât think that is actually a rule though. It seams to be a norm, but some guy in a suit isnât coming in to the dev studio and telling you Sonya Blade doesnât have big enough â â â â . If i was a game dev and my boss came in and told me that, wellâŠ
That scenario just seams laughable to me. Letâs use Mortal Kombat as an example. The female costumes and body shapes in that game were over-sexualized. But it was there choice to do it. Then, there priorities changed, they apologized, and fixed the problem in the next installment. If it truly was some sort of rule, than MKX would still have the same kinds of designs and nothing would have changed.
I seem to have gotten lost. Where is the âBeauty of the male character in video games!â thread? 
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Whoâs talking about this, though? Not for nothing, but thereâs a big difference between people talking about what you should do and somehow forcing you to do it. Lady Gaga shouldnât wear meat clothes but Iâm not going to lobby for some anti meat clothes law.
The thread is about this:
First of all, I think this is nuts (it stands out in a mostly reasonable post). Second of all, we have half of the people in the thread making the âlet creators createâ argument and then people scorn BioWare for making an ugly character. Am I the only one picking up on the absurdity? First, I donât think they did it deliberstely. Second, if they did arenât they the creators? Shouldnât they have the freedom to make ugly women?
Iâm just continually disappointed that the appearance of the women in games is the subject of so much discussion - and that the nature of those discussions is so juvenile.
I am a red blooded American male. I like looking at attractive women. I donât have any problem with attractive women in games. The thread is about the disproportionate outcry over default female Ryder being so ugly. We have other threads to talk about objectification and how ridiculously hypersexed the SF characters are.
Thank you, well said.
I donât care how they design the character, but if theyâre doing it to push a political message thatâs where I got a problem.
Also +1 on the gears of war thing. It ainât just for guys either to feel badass. I know bunch of girls who like attractive looking female characters also for the same reason. They themselves arenât ugly, but they just like to look pretty even In a game. one even asked me why andromeda females âlook like pigsâ. I show her Witcher 3 and she always wanted to play Ciri
Everyone is different in the end
Well, to be fair, priorities didnât âchange.â They were changed for them (sort of). They couldâve kept going the way they were going with MK9, but they got a ton of feedback from fans and groups alike telling them that this wasnât how they liked seeing the women depicted in the games. They decided to listen to that feedback.
Now, should they be REQUIRED to listen to that feedback? No. Absolutely not. I believe that artists should be able to envision a character as they see fit, just as I believe that I have every right to speak up and tell NRS that no, I donât like seeing Jade as a stripper on a pole.
Iâd personally like to see sexuality depicted in more evolved ways as video games grow. Part of the industry is heading in this direction, while part of it is still stuck in a more 90âs sensibility toward the topic. Does that make one right and one wrong? No, but Iâm just going off of my own preference here.
FWIW, I donât think that executives are going up to animators or art designers and measuring the characters theyâre creating with a ruler. âHmm, looks like her proportions are a little lackingâŠâ lol. But I do think that a game looking for a certain aesthetic could theoretically attempt to be relatively consistent in that aesthetic or try and push the boundaries of that aesthetic, but I donât work in video games and I canât speak to it with any level of certainty.
I think the argument can be made that they all play in to the same discussion, but Iâll certainly concede that I got a bit off track here, so Iâll own that. My bad. I saw some of the same arguments presented in those other threads, so I responded with some of the same counter arguments.
To your point, I donât personally think that a developer choosing to put more realistic or even ugly women in a game has to be part of an agenda. Itâs kind of an odd suggestion to me. Like the only reason youâd want a woman not to look like a Victoriaâs Secret model is because of some sort of SJW mission. I dunno, that doesnât really wash for me, but whatever.
Because it is fine, I guess.
Just look, every day man:
Ugh, made out of actual leaves or not, what a horribly unflattering garment! Also thereâs the classic âsexyâ fishing wader boots, just awful. Also the new model really doesnât capture âPoison Ivyâ for me at all, I much prefer classic Ivy:-
http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=45077567
Than whoever this new red head is.
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No one is complaining about that. No one think it is an issue. Thatâs why thereâs no discussion about it. And thatâs part of the hypocrisy.
Not that people should start complaining about it, but rather be more acceptive of how the developersâ and artistsâ depict women as well as men.
Honestly, even though i new it wasnât gonna happen and was very excessive, i wanted to see something more akin to Arkham Asylum/Arkham City.
http://www.arkhamverse.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/batman-arkham-asylum-poison-ivy.jpg
Because part of her character, indeed if my memory serves my right, a diagnosed part of her mental ilness, is over sexualization.
start at 3:31 seconds if the link dosenât work right.
So, in my opinion, Poison Ivy is the kind of character that would require that type of design because it is a legitimate part of who she is. Now, dose that mean that Ivy is a good kind of character to be showing around to your kids, probably not. But neither I nor NetherRealm created her, so when using her, you should honor what has bean established as who she is.
But in the end, it is a minor complaint and I can see how you would argue that Injustice 2âs Poison Ivy gets to the same place via a slightly different root. He, Root.
I have MatPat Pun syndrome.
+1 for Batman: The Animated Series
As for Ivyâs new look⊠Canât say Iâm really a fan. I like the plant theme of it, but the execution seems kinda rough and the style of the thigh highs and onsie bathing suit⊠I dunno. NRS goes back to that well an awful lot lol.
I mean, Iâll take it over her Arkham Knight âplanties,â but given her background, I feel like they could make her look so much cooler than sheâs turned out lately, over sexualization mental illness or not. She has a rather psycho-seductive way about her in Arkham Knight, with her movement, her voice, etc which is cool. I didnât really see the need to put her in her underwear to really drive it home, but thatâs just me. Iâm just not sure why everything comes back to âgotta show as much skin as possible.â To each his own though.
Well, I grew up with Poison Ivy from Batman the Animated Series, which was dark and moody and had some pretty obvious nods to her nature as a character:- seducing men into getting what she wants, using poisoned lipstick to kill and so forth.
What Iâm saying is, her overt sexuality was pretty on the nose in cartoon form, too and her costuming in the series was more than enough to convey that without stepping over the line into âinappropriate for childrenâ territory.
Her look in the Arkham games was indeed wonderful, ethereal, beautiful and a little bit alien (Iâve played neither game and havenât been keeping up on my Batman lore, but Iâm guessing sheâs had plant-spliced DNA for quite some time, yes?) and the design is simply more pleasing to the eye than the Injustice 2 model, which seems to be playing on a lot of very typical tropes to create a sexy design. (Why always a modified bathing suit and fishing waders though? KI2 Orchid called, she wants her outfit back.)
I loved the female designs for The Animated Series and wanted to be most of them as a child, Iâm not entirely sure if they were good role models or not, but they stood out to me a lot more than some of the flaky females we had in the mid to late 90âs.
I guess what Iâm saying is, I both agree and disagree, and also, I want Harlequin outfit Harley back, too, damnit!