So I was watching EVO with a group of friends, about two third of whom were girls and many of whom didn’t actually play many recent fighting games. After seeing Mika, Laura and Cammy multiple times a few comments were made about how this game was clearly not made with women in mind, which got me thinking: The fighting game community is often seen as very diverse in just about every what but gender. Is there much we can do about that? KI seems to be a little more progressive in its designs these days, with a decent number of women fighters who have designs not just pandering to horny young men, but what else do people think could be done?
I know the temptation is high to say “That’s fighters”, but I mean, a year ago we would say the same thing about shooters, and then Overwatch happened: A game that tried pretty darn hard with its character designs to say “there’s a place for everyone”. Could we ever see something similar happen in this community?
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If anything maybe @TempusChaoti can give a clue on how principles guided KI’s female character design, which stands noticeably head and shoulders abover every other fighter out there in terms of respectability.
I’ve always been saddened that sf5 took the lusty pandering route in this iteration, aftet 25 years of much more tasteful design, doubly sad that these versions of their characters will be the most visible in espn era of fighting games
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I believe it very well can happen. The FGC is indeed a place for everyone. There may be members who might not particularly agree with this statement, but it holds true due to many events in the past.
In Japan, there have been many Virtua Fighter and Street Fighter tournaments geared towards women. In fact, there have been some “mother & child” team tournaments held (and streamed) in the past. There have been women team tourneys as well.
I remember one EVO had a female-only SFIV tournament, too.
Perhaps we could do more player interviews with female KI players like KillerKammy, ChereeZ, and PAG | PinkDiamond, etc.
What I suggest is at the very least be vocal in your local community. If there are females you know who are interested in KI, host a tournament, and invite them. Stream the event if you can. Who knows? That small flame could spark something bigger down the road within your local scene and the KI scene at large.
I took this route with my response considering the female characters in KI aren’t overly sexualized imo, so I don’t see things like that as a problem. You also have Riptor, who clearly goes against the scantily-clad female motif found in many fighting games, and that’s something I’ve always commended KI for.
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KI doesn’t care about making women look sexy. Instead they want to make them look awesome. Look at Mira. Not really revealing at all. Then again,Hisako exists and we all know how that went 
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First more games could include females that have designs that aren’t nothing but sexualized eye candy. Now wait…before you cry and call me a PC SJW who is ruining america…I am not saying we can’t have female characters with sexy/showy costumes too, but why not have both? People seem to want to say it has to be one or the other when it doesn’t. We can have characters like Cammy and R.Mika who show a lot of skin, but also have characters like Chun-Li. Sonya Blade (MKX) or Cassie Cage who seem dressed a bit more conservatively. KI really doesn’t seem to be guilty of this. We have Orchid and Maya who show a little skin, and we have characters like Mira and Hisako that don’t.
Secondly many members of the community need an attitude change. Just take a look at Twitch chats whenever ANY female is even SEEN on stream. You have a good chunk of people leaving some pathetically thirsty comments like they have never seen a real life female before, another good chunk leaving your typical sexist “Why is she not in the kitchen” comments and then you have a small group of people who are there trying to talk some sense into the other 90% of people acting like children. Maybe I am wrong about this but I think many members of the FGC members need to have a little more respect for women in general, because based on what I see there is not a lot of it. Loud minority maybe? Idk.
Those are 2 things that pop into my head when reading the OP. Now please, flag me into oblivion since I am sure even the idea of what I said screams “PC!” , “SJW!!!” and 'CENSORSHIP!" to people 
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FLAGGED. YOU MADE ME TRIGGERED. HISAKO IS WAIFU. PLUS RIPTOR IS NUDE. Your points are invalid kappa. Personally some respect would be nice but twitch chat being respectful on a big stream is impossible.
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The day a woman can play on stream without the twitch chat devolving in sex craving animals is the day women can feel more included. Seriously, every time a girl is about to play I hide the chat.
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Nah man I agree. I don’t think anyone is saying a game can’t have sex appeal, but representation is important. I used Overwatch as an example earlier, but it’s not like Widowmaker isn’t designed with sex appeal in mind. There’s just plenty of other, different women as well. And when it’s a genre that typically includes dozens of playable characters, it doesn’t hurt to have some variety.
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KI does what it can for women, they refused to give us Orchid’s KI 2 outfit, they took away Kim’s thong and they made the vampire character female instead of the KI 2 vampire’s originally intended male design to help keep the roster balanced in terms of female fighters. KI has to walk around on eggshells to avoid offending people, such as not being able to do Thunder’s retro costume because its mildly offensive to nobody I’ve ever met in my life.
I don’ think anything else needs to be “done” in terms of KI’s woman friendliness.
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Coming to conclusions without evidence much?
It all seriousness KI females designs (outside Orchids retro) are amazing and not all the sexulized. I never thought Maya could look cool but her re design might be the best looking Female of any fighting game.
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Sorry guys I didn’t mean to make this an argument against anyone (except maybe people on Twitch who say horrible stuff whenever a girl is on screen, I think we can all agree, screw those guys), and I didn’t want to imply KI isn’t doing enough on their end. You’re right @xCrimsonLegendx, they modern-ed up the costumes for all of the returning women characters, and did a good job with the new ones.
(EDIT: I say that as a guy, so if any women disagree I don’t wanna tell them I’m right and they’re wrong)
I only meant that there still does seem to be a gender issue in the community, and thought I’d ask if anyone know of other ways we could work on that.
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A big thing that would need to be done is make women feel safe, to many friends of mine that went to EVO this year were harassed for being women & a change has to happen in the mentality of the scene for stuff like that to not happen.
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I love this line and I think it’s great guidance for how to make female characters that can appeal to women and men.
I think there are a lot of aspects to this discussion that are really interesting to think about and discuss if people are willing to be open and mature about it. I am running around at work but I’d like to come back to this thread when I get a chance and see what people have to say about this.
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Nope, I once asked why they decided to make a female instead of bringing back the KI 2 vampire and I was told that it was to put more females in the game. Or something along those lines, I don’t have the exact quote. 
Yet those “■■■■■■” characters are one of the most popular ones among male and female alike. Morrigan anyone?.
There’s little you can do to attract certain people, just be “lucky” I guess. Women with good enough self-esteem don’t care about those things (in my experience). No matter what IG do, they’ll be pandering because we all have different beliefs and morals.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy cosplay Cammy, so i’d think that those characters do in fact appeal to girls too. lol
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Somebody ask Pink Diamond why she picked up KI. She’s super damn good, but I admit that makes her 1 in a million women.
I’ve tried to get my wife to ■■■■ around with fighting games with me every now and then. She liked MKX a lot (went straight for Kitana), and she remembers Street Fighter from childhood but now thinks the female designs are too dumb to be taken seriously. I played KI with her for 3 minutes. She thought Maya looked awesome and picked her. The fight started and I said, “OK, here’s how to combo,” and she instantly replied with “Wow. ■■■■ that.”
She frames video games as fun ways to bond with people–interesting ways to socialize. The git-gud-itude of KI is far beyond the level of commitment she wants to dedicate to a tool for socializing. She obviously doesn’t represent all women, but maybe there are more like her out there.
I, on the other hand, favor KI among fighters, because learning a new character makes my brain hurt.
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I agree with the both of you. Maya is one of the coolest looking characters in fiction. She is the perfect design, female or male.
