I haven't seen Ciri's main outfit in a while, admittedly. I played with her Kaer Morhen alternative outfit, which is awesome.
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Please explain then, why the women in this topic are being disregarded when they say that they are hurt by depictions of women in the video game sphere. Surely, those men should be listening to them? Since the women are speaking to them, the problem should now be solved?
Yet, all the women in this topic have said otherwise. From where does your opinion come? It does not appear to be from listening to women, who say they are put off by sexualization (and not sexuality, it seems that you are not understanding the difference).
Off topic.
Could be a valuable discussion in a proper topic.
did you forget these gems:
unless you make a habit of creepily soliciting women online whilst being taken, come up with a better counterpoint than your non-existent girlfriend
I'm only referring to TW3. It was incredibly distracting and I'm not talking about being in a brothel. If I have time, I'll boot the game up and take screens of what I'm talking about.
And nothing excuses poorly placed camera angles fixating on an ass right in your face.
It was the same problem I saw in the first game too. It's the way it's shot and exhibited on screen. It's in extremely poor taste.
I had this problem with Cortana until I spoke with people involved with Halo development at a party.
My problem was that they made her more and more slutty every time, and that it was degrading to women. But apparently this was done because Cortana has romantic feelings for Master Chief which become stronger each time which is why she becomes more slutty in every title as well. She thinks that is what the Master Chief likes. From that perspective it is her own decision to want to please the Master Chief.
I still think she is dressed inappropriate, but at least it has real meaning behind it.
My problem was that they made her more and more slutty every time, and that it was degrading to women. But apparently this was done because Cortana has romantic feelings for Master Chief which become stronger each time which is why she becomes more slutty in every title as well. She thinks that is what the Master Chief likes. From that perspective it is her own decision to want to please the Master Chief.
I still think she is dressed inappropriate, but at least it has real meaning behind it.
I'd be happy to discuss the prevalence of violence in the media, in a different thread?
I think it's an interesting topic, but it seems like a poor attempt to counter complaints on sexualisation&objectification.
There are definitely better ways to let someone know you have feelings about them, especially if you're some supercomputer genius AI. If you like someone you don't need to be "slutty" with them.
It still sounds stupid and potentially problematic.
Side bar: please never use the term slutty. It's savagely sexist imo. There's never an appropriate time or place to use it.
Hey someone challenged me to say that
But yes Aeris. One of the best female characters of them all. No in general, female and male. Beautiful design also. She is the one that really saves the world in the game.
There are a lot of really goofy and bad aspects to Quiet. I don't mind the design as much as the camerawork, the ridiculous fanservicey poses, the fact that her character is kind of weak, etc. A character can be a sex machine, but it does a world of good for them if they are done well. A character like Quiet works a lot better when her sexuality is for her benefit more so than the viewers' (and let's be honest, breathing with her skin is really stupid and is just a dishonest idea made by someone who wanted to be more artsy with his desire to see a sexy lady in revealing clothing).
That's some seriously ridiculous eyeshadow. Looks to me like she's got makeup on in her design, at least from main images of the game and gameplay images. It's stuff like that that takes me out of a game (aside from the stuff I already mentioned). Men aren't wearing makeup.. I don't get why anyone in this time period would, unless they're preparing for a formal event or something.
Makeup is not the same as a sexually gratifying outfit, though. I don't really see how that has anything to do with the topic.
Do it, please. I can't do the same at the moment and I'm having a really hard time remembering what you are referring to.
But isn't he right that if it's sexualisation that pushes women away that the switch should have a much higher female player ratio? Most games featured on that platform a very tame when it comes to anything sexual and yet it doesn't seem to pay off.
Unless you have a survey on why women aren't buying the switch it's open to debate the causes.
This made me laugh out loud. Sounds like whoever was telling you this was feeding you arbitrary nonsense to excuse the demand from executives and marketers to sexualize Cortana to increase sales from horny straight men. Cortana doesn't have her own agency, it's what the character designers and writers and most importantly the people in charge of the product who decide how the character is supposed to look.
My point is that it seems to fit into the entire theme of "lots of women are in this game for the pleasure of player", and throwing makeup on a female character simply for the sake of making them look "prettier" fits in with that theme. Instead of portraying characters in a more realistic way for that time period, for that context. Men don't have makeup/eyeshadow on, from what I can see. And that's probably because they're not being included for the sake of being attractive or desirable, which was the impression I got when I played TW3 in regard to the women I saw, just walking around in town.
If you design a good character you'll make it appear as if they have their own agency by making those decisions consistent with their character. You'd never get anywhere analyzing a book if you just argue that the author wanted to write it this way.
Since people think we've gotten off-track, let me address the OP again. (I had a general post about this stuff on page 1) Bear in mind I'm totally on board with issues about involving more women in game development, in stamping harassment out of the gaming industry, in equal pay for female devs, all of that. Anti-GG from day one. Literally the only place I tend to have any disagreement in these gaming related gender discussions is the issue of whether sexualised designs are inherently sexist in some games.
So here's where I struggle with this. Take two extremes:
1. Porn game. Total sexualisation of a female character. The point is to sexually stimulate the viewer.
2. Game with no sexualisation of any female character. The point is gameplay / story / something else.
I think all of us here would agree that both of these things are fine. They're both human expressions of human feelings, including sex and sexuality in the first case. People make them to make money; people consume them to be entertained / feel good. Yes the porn game relies entirely on sexual objectification, but that's the point, so that's okay. It's okay to get pleasure from viewing a woman's body in this circumstance. All is well.
Where I start tripping up is in how people react to the third category:
3. Game with some sexualisation of a female character or character(s). The point is gameplay / story / something else but sexual titillation is also used to reward / motivate / the player or attract purchases.
Now, this 3rd category is where people suddenly have problems, I find, and the kind of game we're arguing over here.
I think I get some of the arguments in the OP:
-It ruins otherwise good games for women who don't like this stuff
-You can't always know that it's there until you see it, and then it takes you out of the scene / ruins the game
-Depicting women like this is sexist in and of itself
-Depicting women like this leads to sexist behaviour in the real world
-It's too common and there aren't enough games in certain major genres without it
I don't totally agree with all these points. The first two points are unfortunate, but not making a game to be liked by everyone isn't sexist. And 'not liking' something is not the same as being 'excluded from' something. Specifically catering to one set of people - whether that's a gender or a sexuality or both - with your product is perfectly fine.
As to the third point I don't really get why it would be not sexist to depict a sexualised woman in the porn game, but put them in a different scenario and it suddenly it is. I don't see it as sexist to include titillation in entertainment outside of porn in that way at all. Why should it be? Why can't titillation just be another tool a director uses to make someone enjoy a product? Why do people think that it causes men to see women only as sex objects? Is it so hard to believe that people can be valued for their beauty AND respected for other aspects of their personality? That men can appreciate the titillation aspect of a character while respecting her personality / story / abilities etc. That all of that can coexist? Or that men can separate such fanservice in entertainment from the very real and three dimensional women they meet every day?
And as for the fourth point I simply disagree. I think people are able to put the idealised, sexualised designs they see in their games in perspective and that it doesn't have much bearing on their real-life actions at all. Sexism comes from an entirely different place, imo. How someone is raised, their relationship with women in their life, whether the men in their life display sexist behaviour etc, and whether young men have any success romantically. Gamergate wasn't caused by a men seeing plethora of half-naked ladies in gaming, it just ended up being one of the battlegrounds over which things were fought. Gamergate was caused by a bunch of astonishing losers who were driven demented by the thought of a female dev with an active sex life being part of the game industry. I don't think character design was any kind of core reason for their actions, I really don't.
I do absolutely agree that there should be more games made in certain genres that don't have fanservice. RPGs and fighting games in particular. If you're a woman fan of those genres and you won't play a game that features sexual fanservice for hetero men then you're going to have a hard time - and that's bullshit. There should be games for everyone in every genre.
But despite all of those points, I still come back to my basic feeling about this, which is that if people want to make and buy games like this, should they not be allowed to? Should it really be either 'full porn game' or 'no sexualisation'? Why is the middle ground so harmful?
Now, I know that someone will reply "People are free to make those games and we're free to criticise them", but this isn't just criticism that is aimed at these games. It's an accusation of sexism, and an accusation that these designs in these games contribute to harm against women. This is a moral judgment. Sexism is morally wrong, harm against women is morally wrong, so you're morally judging people here. If the supposed harm to women caused by these games was proven beyond all doubt, censorship of such material absolutely would be a rational outcome to prevent such harm. Or companies would self-censor such material. So there's a fine line between that kind of moral criticism and censorship. But is it really harmful to real women to put sexualised designs in a game to please male fans? Is it harmful to make a game that occasionally caters to those fans and their sexuality? When I look at it from this angle I can't see the issue, I can't see anything worthy of that kind of moral judgement. I can't attach any of the issues with the designs to issues women face in the real world.
And if it IS harmful to women, then could we not say that it is male sexuality in and of itself that is harmful? Or, more precisely, the expression of male sexuality as we see it in our games and culture? And if that's the case where do you go from there?
So here's where I struggle with this. Take two extremes:
1. Porn game. Total sexualisation of a female character. The point is to sexually stimulate the viewer.
2. Game with no sexualisation of any female character. The point is gameplay / story / something else.
I think all of us here would agree that both of these things are fine. They're both human expressions of human feelings, including sex and sexuality in the first case. People make them to make money; people consume them to be entertained / feel good. Yes the porn game relies entirely on sexual objectification, but that's the point, so that's okay. It's okay to get pleasure from viewing a woman's body in this circumstance. All is well.
Where I start tripping up is in how people react to the third category:
3. Game with some sexualisation of a female character or character(s). The point is gameplay / story / something else but sexual titillation is also used to reward / motivate / the player or attract purchases.
Now, this 3rd category is where people suddenly have problems, I find, and the kind of game we're arguing over here.
I think I get some of the arguments in the OP:
-It ruins otherwise good games for women who don't like this stuff
-You can't always know that it's there until you see it, and then it takes you out of the scene / ruins the game
-Depicting women like this is sexist in and of itself
-Depicting women like this leads to sexist behaviour in the real world
-It's too common and there aren't enough games in certain major genres without it
I don't totally agree with all these points. The first two points are unfortunate, but not making a game to be liked by everyone isn't sexist. And 'not liking' something is not the same as being 'excluded from' something. Specifically catering to one set of people - whether that's a gender or a sexuality or both - with your product is perfectly fine.
As to the third point I don't really get why it would be not sexist to depict a sexualised woman in the porn game, but put them in a different scenario and it suddenly it is. I don't see it as sexist to include titillation in entertainment outside of porn in that way at all. Why should it be? Why can't titillation just be another tool a director uses to make someone enjoy a product? Why do people think that it causes men to see women only as sex objects? Is it so hard to believe that people can be valued for their beauty AND respected for other aspects of their personality? That men can appreciate the titillation aspect of a character while respecting her personality / story / abilities etc. That all of that can coexist? Or that men can separate such fanservice in entertainment from the very real and three dimensional women they meet every day?
And as for the fourth point I simply disagree. I think people are able to put the idealised, sexualised designs they see in their games in perspective and that it doesn't have much bearing on their real-life actions at all. Sexism comes from an entirely different place, imo. How someone is raised, their relationship with women in their life, whether the men in their life display sexist behaviour etc, and whether young men have any success romantically. Gamergate wasn't caused by a men seeing plethora of half-naked ladies in gaming, it just ended up being one of the battlegrounds over which things were fought. Gamergate was caused by a bunch of astonishing losers who were driven demented by the thought of a female dev with an active sex life being part of the game industry. I don't think character design was any kind of core reason for their actions, I really don't.
I do absolutely agree that there should be more games made in certain genres that don't have fanservice. RPGs and fighting games in particular. If you're a woman fan of those genres and you won't play a game that features sexual fanservice for hetero men then you're going to have a hard time - and that's bullshit. There should be games for everyone in every genre.
But despite all of those points, I still come back to my basic feeling about this, which is that if people want to make and buy games like this, should they not be allowed to? Should it really be either 'full porn game' or 'no sexualisation'? Why is the middle ground so harmful?
Now, I know that someone will reply "People are free to make those games and we're free to criticise them", but this isn't just criticism that is aimed at these games. It's an accusation of sexism, and an accusation that these designs in these games contribute to harm against women. This is a moral judgment. Sexism is morally wrong, harm against women is morally wrong, so you're morally judging people here. If the supposed harm to women caused by these games was proven beyond all doubt, censorship of such material absolutely would be a rational outcome to prevent such harm. Or companies would self-censor such material. So there's a fine line between that kind of moral criticism and censorship. But is it really harmful to real women to put sexualised designs in a game to please male fans? Is it harmful to make a game that occasionally caters to those fans and their sexuality? When I look at it from this angle I can't see the issue, I can't see anything worthy of that kind of moral judgement. I can't attach any of the issues with the designs to issues women face in the real world.
And if it IS harmful to women, then could we not say that it is male sexuality in and of itself that is harmful? Or, more precisely, the expression of male sexuality as we see it in our games and culture? And if that's the case where do you go from there?
For those thinking "only a few internet radical feminists have a problem with this", well, not only this is not true as we can see with the multiple women talking about this here and largely agreeing on major points, but here are some voices from women left unheard simply because defending these ideas are too exhausting, annoying, or frustrating for them (posted these quotes from the REgals OT with their permission):
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It might be a while as I think that game is pretty huge and I'll have to install it. But I'll try to get around to it as soon as possible
...wat?
I don't think Captain Picard has enough hands to face-palm that shit.
You are using a graph that specifies the "most interested in purchasing a switch household member" to assume the player base of actual games. This shows a poor understanding of reading statistics - the graph shows nothing about who then PLAYS the system once it exists in a household. Also, the hardware is less than a year out, and hasn't been through the major holiday retail season, so any data must be quantified as showing only early adopters at this point.
Oh wow I missed this. Well, there we have immediate proof of dishonest trolling. He's taking a break from ERA for a while.
Oh, if that's the case, don't feel obligated. I thought you had the game already installed.
I think it's a little bit different in this case because of the source material. I see where you're coming from, but for example, Yen is a total drama queen in the books. She likes the frilly things, and does Ciri's makeup for her, and likes smelling nice and dressing in nice clothes. It's really not abnormal in the world of the game or the lore for them to wear makeup. By contrast, poor women on farms don't wear it, because they can't afford the luxury. You can see the difference in game. It's a very prevalent topic in the books, and it kind of makes sense in the game.
It's also different because makeup doesn't showcase tits and ass, and it's not revealing in regards to the female anatomy. It doesn't make a woman a sex object, if that makes sense.
Makeup, also, isn't done for the pleasure of men. Usually. I mean, some women do it, for sure. I don't do it for men. I do it because I like looking nice.
Price sensitivity might still play a bit of a part with the Switch. In the UK you're still talking about needing to drop around £300+. When it comes to "hardcore gamers", in relation to early adopters, you'll probably find it skews heavily male.
Early on with the 3DS
http://www.zeldainformer.com/iwata_...phic_as_well_as_western_devs_and_audience_ex/
http://www.thetanooki.com/2015/05/18/iwata-female-demographic-is-the-key-to-expanding-3ds-market/
Speaking of Nintendo and some of the stuff I posted earlier from Quantic Foundry
http://www.siliconera.com/2013/01/08/satoru-iwata-on-animal-crossing-sales-56-of-players-are-female/
Even with the 3DS having a higher male ownership at that point in time, a genre, farming/simulation, ended up with a higher proportion of female players buying it. Everyone should play AC though, it's da bomb.
You know what I think is truly the sad part in all this? It the fact that our standards have been lowered for so long and so much that the bar is barely three inches off the ground...and it's apparently still not enough for people. Like, this is the medium that threw a hissy fit because Mortal Kombat X decided to dial down the sexualization of its female cast from a 16 to a 15 and the outrage was intense. And the new outfits were still two piece, impractical battle bikinis but now looked more like fitness bras than beach bikinis but apparently that was going way too far. This is how low the bar is, people. And yet we still get the most ridiculous of defenses.
Totally agree OP. I think recent games are becoming a little more aware of this with Quiet being the outlier.
Thanks Morrigan.
Throughout your post you're ignoring the other side of the coin - that men AREN'T being sexualised when women are.
Eg Quiet would be fine if, say, she had an equally sexy twin who equally tried to woo Snake. But she doesn't and such things never happen - it's only ever women, and basically only ever "giving" themselves to the player.
And yes, you could say it's the sexualisation of men that's harmful - in that it doesn't happen, creating an unbalance.
Throughout your post you're ignoring the other side of the coin - that men AREN'T being sexualised when women are.
Eg Quiet would be fine if, say, she had an equally sexy twin who equally tried to woo Snake. But she doesn't and such things never happen - it's only ever women, and basically only ever "giving" themselves to the player.
And yes, you could say it's the sexualisation of men that's harmful - in that it doesn't happen, creating an unbalance.
Well, that was what I thought and why I felt the need to confront them once they said they were involved with Halo, I thought it was a sincere answer, but maybe they were just tired of explaining it all the time.
For the next Halo it would be good if they gave her a redesign:
If there is a relevant explanation as to WHY she wears makeup that exists in the story, then I concede. I didn't know that. But if it just randomly exists on women and not men, especially coupled with some of the shit that I've PERSONALLY experienced in the game itself (ie shots that linger on a woman's ass while she's leaning in a sexualized position, coming on to the player who literally just walked through the door), then I think it's a problem in that the creators feel like they NEED to put makeup on women for the sake of making them more attractive for male players. If there's more information that I'm missing out of the story that provides a decent explanation for why Ciri and other women wear makeup, then I apologize for not having all of the context.
I didn't mean to assert that makeup exists, in all context, to please men. That was not at all my intention. I was referring to the context of TW3, which I may not have all the context for.
But like I said, there were multiple camera angles and blatantly sexualized moments that turned me away from the game. I will do my best to find them as this was a couple years ago. And this isn't some new phenomenon for this developer. This shit has existed since TW1, which had even more instances and far more blatant than what we see in the third title.
In Cid's defence i think context might matter a lot for those posts, Cid said they were in lighthearted back and forths when they were made - at least the latter one about a drink.
How often do you notice men wearing makeup in real life? Why should it be different in TW3?
This really needs more visibility.
The guys posting in defense of sexualization in this thread need to understand how many voices are being left silent, simply due to how exhausting it is to engage with men who can't show even the most basic modicum of respect for the women who are attempting to put themselves out there. If you're not going to accept the voices of the women that are actually present on this forum, you really shouldn't be surprised when threads like these die out and you never run into any gaming women in so many threads.
Because the context of living in the specific time period in TW3 and real life are far different, unless we're talking about wealthier people who can afford the resources and time to do it.
I really don't know what scene(s) you're talking about. I've played the game numerous times and the only one I can think of is the intro scene with Yen and Geralt. Which, yes, I'm not a big fan of.
Porn games are not released from the accusation of sexism; however they are also not the target of this particular discussion, which is regarding games that are allegedly NOT porn games, yet include similar problematic content.
No, there is not. Censorship is when a government, by law, forces content or lack of it. Creators self adjusting due to moral criticism is in fact following market forces, or could also be a creator self adjusting because of their personal beliefs shifting.
Yes, the women posting here have expressed how harmful it is to be suddenly confronted with sexualized content when it is out of place. Ergo, it is harmful.
In the real world, women cannot be in the public eye without being judged on their looks. If you see a topic regarding female politicians, there will be responses about her looks. The internet historically has trended to responses such as "would", to any picture of a woman, without regard to context. Those are real women who didn't sign up to be treated as sex objects, and being in the public eye, sometimes by virtue of random viral internet content, exposes them to this sort of commentary.
Like I said, if I have the time to install the game and run through the intro, I'll return with screens/context.
I forgot to mention this earlier but thank you for posting this. I hope one day we can actually discuss topics like this without it degenerating into running around in circles.
Does the context of tw3 support equal makeup usage between genders?
Early Adopters of most new tech invariably skews towards men. I suspect it's ownership will even out a bit due to Animal Crossing etc in time, but at the moment the main visable demographic is going to be 'early adopters'. It'll be an interesting stat in time but at the moment I don't think it's particularly relevant here.
Your inability to understand the problem doesn't negate it's existence. Consider the position of privilege you speak from wherein these things you question don't exist for you because you are not on the receiving end of their toxicity.
But I don't really see how that would lead to men wearing makeup. That has to do with beauty ideals and not accessibility.
Hehe.
Anyhow, this discussion is one any woman in gaming has come across. Some think that there's no issue with objectification in gaming. I mean, after all, there's a subreddit named /r/RedPillWomen/ full of women who happily ascribe to inequitable beliefs. They're really not the majority, but they exist.
But taking arguing out of the vacuum for a second here....really, sexualized character designs make many women uncomfortable because it's inherently objectification, and they want to make gaming a more welcoming place for women.
None of y'all are under any obligation to care if there's more women in gaming,
But, I will say, from personal experience as a gamer-- being a gamer made me 10x more attractive to gaming dudes and in the gaming environment. I knew that, and I took advantage of it-- I could get attention from gamers easily. I also personally really loved gaming, and only dated gamers for that reason, but I was well aware being "a little cute" in real life would get me attention disproportionate to my physical appearance. And the reason that was... is because there were so few girls who gamed.
It makes sense though. Many women saw gaming like a strip club-- a place for dudes to do dude things, like kill people and oogle at boobs. The ones who tried it out and enjoyed it either had to face that sort of unfriendly place for women, or had to adapt. Let's say you always walk to a cafe with great coffee. But, there's a row of birds that shit on you when you walk up the street. You're going to do one of the following: a) stop going to that cafe, or b) bring an umbrella. So it works for you and you get better service when you go because so few people go due to the shitting birds, but you're also sad because you love the coffee and want others to try the coffee, but most of your friends are not willing to wade through shitting birds to try this coffee when there's lots of other cafes. A decent person would most likely want to get rid of those birds and enjoy coffee with their friends, even if that means the cafe is busier and more successful.
So... really, I get it, some of you don't care if a place is welcoming to women. That's your life. But, if you'd like to be able to share your hobbies with your friends and partners, then it makes sense you'd care about whether it was a welcoming place for them.
If you don't care, then fine, whatever, don't care. But don't try to justify your own apathy by telling us we're the ones who are wrong. We're not wrong. Some of you arguing in here are trying so hard to convince yourselves that the problem is with women, but uh... listen to yourselves. Instead of just accepting that you don't care what women think/feel, you'd rather tell women what you think they should be thinking/feeling. Why is that? Why are y'all trying so hard?
Right, but you won't get sexualisation of both genders in the same game because people have no interest in seeing the sex they're not attracted to sexualised. You're either doing the sexualisation for people who like guys or people who like girls, you can't really do both and please everyone, you know? If a game was full of sexualised men in situations I couldn't avoid, I wouldn't buy it. That simple. I'd have no problem with it - and would love to see games like that out there for gays and women! - but it wouldn't interest me.
And I think even if you did have the twin (male) Quiet, that people would still have tons of issues with the female one, frankly. I'm not sure you're right about that.
This really isn't about the sexualisation of men, though - I've barely seen that topic in this conversation. It's about whether the sexualisation of women in games is acceptable or sexist, surely.
And if we DO start talking about the lack of sexualisation of men and the 'gap' between the level of that (not much) and the level of it with women (tons of it), we need to start talking about stuff like what actually sells to men and women. I have no doubt that women are very visual, sexually, like men are, but I DO doubt that they buy products en masse based on attractive male character designs to the extent that men do and I suspect that's a huge reason we don't see more games with male sexualisation. We also need to talk about the fact that it seems very easy for a group of men to say what a sexualised woman is but getting a group of women to agree what a sexualised male character is seems much harder and more subjective. People denying that Gladio is a sexualised character design, for example, shock me (even if the camera doesn't treat him like a woman).
High heels is the oddest choice design wise. The core concept of Ciri is that her outfit is rough and almost borderline hapharzardly together to reflect her travels and history as a former bandit as well as some hints that she's also former royalty. No idea why they decided to add high heels when she's constantly on the run.
Dragon Age's entire existence kinda flies directly in the face of this logic. As it's near 50:50 split player base is most assuredly a direct result of them catering to so many types of people.
Just wondered, your post seemed to suggest makeup in tw3 was simply a matter of time/effort and not culture present in the game. I'm asking if that is the case.
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