I don't play MK but I'm shocked how much more interesting the designs have become - they actually look like different women to me now. The old designs reminded me of fetish model clones taken from Nexus Mods or something.
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs | OT3 | "make her look more...corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
- Thread starter Persephone
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The image on the left wasn't actually Jacqui's default design in MKX, this was:I skimmed a lot of MK10; things indeed got better here....But I don't think their designs were as fun or more cohesively and fun designed as MK11. Jacqui got a plain ol' tank top, army tags, and metal fist is really tame lol. MK11 gets body armor, way more colour, and a way more fun and expanded visual design (and some swell alts).
I still think the MK11 design is more interesting-looking and far more colorful, but she wasn't just running around in a tank top in the prior game.
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MK11 might be the only fighting game with good/decent lady designs that peaks my interest in fighting games.
Something that bothers me with the gaming community is how we (as in the gaming community) often just allow creators to be sexist, both fan and gaming press alike.
Like for example Hideo Kojima who has a long history of sexism in their games, both subtle and blatant and making awful defences and excuses for it like Quiet and the "sins and deed" defence. Yet he's never had any pushback for it, the opposite in fact, we openly turned that example into a meme, a joke and just allow him to be be sexist, allowed to say utter garbage because he makes good games. The game press will say nothing and ignore the sexism in his game, the fans will ignore it whenever it's brought or post "Stop having fun guy" memes at people who do mention it.
Like seeing people calling out Geoff Knightley right now, but like why should we be surprised given he's best friends with an open misogynist, he's openly made it clear he doesn't care about women or the treatment of women in gaming. It's not just Kojima, many "Auteur" creators just seem to get free passes on their behaviour, whether it's sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist etc, from Scott Cawthon, Hideki Kamiya, Yuko Taro etc, behaviour that if they were NB or Women would have them shunned by the gaming community.
And it feels like we need to do better collectively, while gaming press are doing better in recent years, we need to better questioning, not dismissing and calling out sexist behaviour from Auteurs.
Edit: Sorry for the random rant.
Like for example Hideo Kojima who has a long history of sexism in their games, both subtle and blatant and making awful defences and excuses for it like Quiet and the "sins and deed" defence. Yet he's never had any pushback for it, the opposite in fact, we openly turned that example into a meme, a joke and just allow him to be be sexist, allowed to say utter garbage because he makes good games. The game press will say nothing and ignore the sexism in his game, the fans will ignore it whenever it's brought or post "Stop having fun guy" memes at people who do mention it.
Like seeing people calling out Geoff Knightley right now, but like why should we be surprised given he's best friends with an open misogynist, he's openly made it clear he doesn't care about women or the treatment of women in gaming. It's not just Kojima, many "Auteur" creators just seem to get free passes on their behaviour, whether it's sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist etc, from Scott Cawthon, Hideki Kamiya, Yuko Taro etc, behaviour that if they were NB or Women would have them shunned by the gaming community.
And it feels like we need to do better collectively, while gaming press are doing better in recent years, we need to better questioning, not dismissing and calling out sexist behaviour from Auteurs.
Edit: Sorry for the random rant.
I fucking hate Kojima for his treatment of Stefanie Joosten, not to mention just writing overall bad games at this point. Don't forget to lambast David Cage, even if he falls under the category of "etc"
Don't be sorry, you're 100% right on this. I've lost a lot of respect for certain people and groups because they admire creators like these a lot and either ignore their behavior and depictions or try to defend it. Like Jaded Photographer said, David Cage is also a notable member of this group too and deserved every call out I've seen against him.
Never have liked Kojima. For me he is another sexist piece of shit. Even before Quiet, it was embarrassing how he portrayed women. Remember the bosses enemies of MGS4? Or how about MGS3 when Eva starts unbuttoning her jacket as soon as Snake appeared, and stays like that throughout all the game.
As for Keighley, being best pals with Kojima and defending him said everything about him. With that statement of not taking a side when it comes to those companies abusing their female employees or minorities should be enough to not watch his show.
With Kojima's history of poor treatment of women in games you can go back even further to policenauts allowing you to grope women's breasts with unique dialog
Shuhei Yoshida was not a fan of the feature, apparently it was even worse prior to Sony stepping in
gamerheadlines.com
Shuhei Yoshida was not a fan of the feature, apparently it was even worse prior to Sony stepping in
Hideo Kojima and Shuhei Yoshida had Conflicting Opinions on Policenauts’ “breast touching”
Hideo Kojima has revealed his conflicting views with Shuhei Yoshida on the topic of Policenauts' "breast touching."
gamerheadlines.com
For me, it's the casual/sutble sexualizationthat really drives me bananas. Like today with the Chrono Cross crossover announcement, they went and took a character whose design already wasn't fantastic and decided to accentuate the cleavage with some tweaks to the shirt. And I'm here thinking, "this character is 16, right...?" It's just "subtle" enough that if you were to complain about it in the thread you'd get dogpiled.
Yes we should do better and I agree with all of this. For what its worth, my perception of the "ashamed of words and deeds" meme is that people absolutely think he ended up looking like a clown and a tool, but I may be wrong on that one.
With Kojima's history of poor treatment of women in games you can go back even further to policenauts allowing you to grope women's breasts with unique dialog
Shuhei Yoshida was not a fan of the feature, apparently it was even worse prior to Sony stepping in
Hideo Kojima and Shuhei Yoshida had Conflicting Opinions on Policenauts’ “breast touching”
Hideo Kojima has revealed his conflicting views with Shuhei Yoshida on the topic of Policenauts' "breast touching."
I mean even Snatcher had a shower scene with an underage girl.
Some may say that it is just the nature of games to pander to those types. Yeah, but even if I enjoyed the games overall it doesn't make it less shitty.
It's just too easy for people that might at least pretend to be put off by overt misogyny/homophobia/racism to be convinced that more casual examples aren't actually any sort of -ism as long as you give it an "artistic" reason, particularly an artistic reason that continue to benefit them. (Like the quote that is the name of this thread or the "she breathes through her skin so she needs to be as naked as possible" thing) They're having the time of their lives getting games made just for them, and they're not the ones getting hurt, so they'll take the easy out if you offer it to them.
I peek into Pawel Sasko's Cyberpunk streams from time to time, and in his most recent one he was asked about the straight woman audience and why they weren't given main story content/comparable amounts of side content as straight men. His answer was a predictable 'we wrote it as artists, not to meet quotas, you can't please everyone ' and his chat gave him ass pats for CDPR's artistic integrity while making digs at the person that asked. If the game industry wasn't what it was, maybe it'd be a respectable answer, but the game industry is what it is. CDPR advertised romance options for everyone, only fleshed out the ones that straight men would care about, and if you call them on it you'll get jumped for questioning the artistic vision by people that will never have to worry about being a 'quota' left unmet. (Not that that's the only, or even the worst, problem with Cyberpunk, it was just a recent example of casual sexism I'd personally come across.)
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Kojima is sexist in general but straight up a misogynist when it comes to women. Even though he has prestige, he's still an otaku of his generation and it will always show.
Women don't get to reach auteur status in video games. Even in film, it's rare to see women talked about as auteurs. Naturally, a contingent of feminists reject auteur theory.
Women don't get to reach auteur status in video games. Even in film, it's rare to see women talked about as auteurs. Naturally, a contingent of feminists reject auteur theory.
Otaku. Pervert. Sexist. Misogynist. All seems to fit.
His games don't appeal to me partly because of that stuff. I gave MGS5 a chance cause I enjoyed the short not demo demo thing and it was on gamepass. The full game started with you getting a face full of cleavage after you finished creating a character and I just noped out. Way to presume who is playing your game.
All of this.
I've always disliked Kojima and got creepy vibes from his games and poor writing. How he is popular is way beyond me.
In my case, I wasn't old enough or very informed about sexism at the time. I was a big fan up to MGS3. The stories, voice acting and stealth gameplay were unique at the time. Also a lot of the fan service crap was mostly hidden as optional content or it was subtle enough in the main game (except for the spy in MGS3 I guess). So it was easier to ignore. It was with MGS4 that it became clear to me that things went too far. Why were all the bosses women? Why are they acting weird when you take a picture of them? Why was that women acting weird with the guy with the glasses? There was a cutscene with female soldiers/robots and the camera was aimed squarely at their boobs and asses, one after another. It was so weird. Etc etc. Then there was a spin off with some weird fan service and everybody knows about MGS5. I never knew about his older games with the underage groping. It was easy to give him the benefit of the doubt until MGS4. Now I'm disgusted by the guy. I no longer respect him like I used to despite still having fond memories of the first 3 MGS games.
I feel I was much the same. I was 12 at the time MGS came out, and super excited about the Playstation in general. I thought David Hayter (didn't know the VA at the time, he was Solid Snake to me) was cool and MGS had political thoughts™ and it spent a lot of time sounding important. Being naive as I was I thought it was important too, not really understanding what, if anything, it was saying.
That said, a few years later MGS 2 came out, but I had no interest in it because Solid Snake wasn't the lead role. Then MGS 3 came out and I wasn't interested anymore, because by then I knew it was mostly just Kojima's bullshit. I do remember, funnily enough, comparing everything to Chrono Trigger. It's still my favorite game to this day, and even then I remember thinking Chrono Trigger had a better story than MGS. I remember espousing this opinion on the early internet as a dumb kid, inarticulate about why I thought this. I guess the latter half's unrelated but I just felt like sharing.
I mean, it's because he and his team have a history of mostly making really mechanically and narratively interesting games and the sexism and weird perviness is/was never a dealbreaker (or perhaps a feature?) for most gamers.
It also probably helps that there was also like this era of MGS 1, 2 and 3 which are both arguably his best and most fondly regarded games that also kept it comparatively restrained compared to what came before (Policenauts groping, Snatcher shower peeping) and what came after (MGS4 BB unit, PW x ray specs, MGSV quiet).
That said I do think that the community response (both here and elsewhere) has been much more vocal, just comparing the response to Quiet versus to any of the heinous stuff in MGS4 which I think went by relatively uncriticized and without pushback.
I believe that Metal Gear Solid (and Final Fantasy 7 too) wouldn't be nearly as highly regarded if they weren't among the first games to go for the "movie-like" cinematic feel/storytelling. In MGS' case the dub was also a part of it. Not having to read the dialogue made it feel like playing a movie for the first time, and seeing how to this day the most praised games all have that "movie-like" approach that MGS pioneered it's understandable why it is considered one of the most important games of all times.
As much as it sucks to say, we wouldn't have The Last of Us and God of War if MGS didn't prove that kind of game could be a success and worth the effort.
Also, a minor merit but still significant for many people was the whole "the game reads your memory card and also you have to interact with stuff outside of the game, like changing the controller to win". I am 100% sure other games did similar things before (infact I'm pretty sure a Sega game asked you to reset the console to continue the story years before MGS) but MGS was the first "popular" game to do something meta like that which blew my mind as a kid. That's the kind of thing that while small and inconsequential makes your game a legend. We wouldn't have that many games trying to do weird 4th-wall breaking shit if it wasn't for MGS. Just yeasterday I saw a streamer try Doki Doki Literature Club Plus blind, and when the game started reading information from her console the first thing the streamer thought about was how MGS did something similar. The streamer has played countless games on youtube and I can guarantee that many others messed with the console, or did weird shit. The fact she still compared it to MGS first is significant. That games' weird moments/4th-wall breaks live rent free in the heads of so many players who grew up with Playstation.
Also (2), other than the cinematic feel of the story it's important that the story itself was quite good/unique for the time. A comparison a friend of mine has made is "I used to play on the SNES and the kind of plots in games were stuff like "save the princess that was kidnapped" (Super Mario World), stop the very bad monster who wants to do vaguely bad stuff (Super Castlevania IV) or ALIENS INVADED EARTH SHOOT'EM ALL (Contra 3). Then I bought a Playstation and my first game was MGS. The plot was stop terrorists who want to use nukes (and to this point it's comparable to the SNES stuff), but wait there's some twists. It turns out the people you were trying to save weren't the good guys after all, there is a conspiracy, also some people betray you, also one of the people you thought were on your side is actively trying to kill you because you killed her brother, also you accidentaly made things worse because you were fooled, also... wait this isn't a two sentence excuse for a story, this is an actual story".
And I know that some games on the SNES had more complex stories than that esserius but the problem is that they were mostly RPGs and before the Playstation those were very niche games all things considered. Even worse if you lived in Europe like me, because most RPGs (like all the Final Fantasy games) weren't distributed at all here before Playstation.
With this I'm not saying we should all thank Kojima and MGS, because they were the only ones that could cause such a shift in the gaming world and without them we wouldn't have nice things. Screw that! If Kojima never worked on a videogame in his life someone else would have made the game that contained some, or all the elements that made MGS a global success, perhaps someone less sexist. But it was Kojima and it was MGS that became the game that changed everything.
It sucks but the merits of Metal Gear (and how it helped the gaming industry evolve) are undeniable. It wasn't because similar games didn't exist befor MGS, it was because similar games weren't mainstream before MGS. And making something previously niche massively popular is a merit in itself.
With all that said, the merits of the first three MGS games and Kojima's stellar career with billions of his games sold are no excuse for his horrible behaviour.
Notch made the game that sold the most in history, a game that also inspired countless other developers and became iconic outside of even the gaming space.
And yet when he outed himself as a PoS everyone quickly severed ties with him and he is rightfully remembered as a PoS.
So I don't see why other game developers with stellar careers and big accomplishments like Kojima and Cage can't be treated the same way. It's a double standard.
On top of that, the main female character from Another Eden itself wearing pretty much nothing under bib pants, showing the entire side of her breasts (1:32 here). I started playing the game a couple of days ago because of hype from the announcement, and didn't notice that in-game (to be fair, characters there are a single HD portrait and relatively simple sprites).
The amount of sideboob in that trailer sure is something. (Something not good.) If the Chrono Cross remake or whatever rumor is true, I'm bracing myself for Kid still having that bad design.
I loathe that they are invoking that music for crossover promotion.
GrandeRampel I wasn't really as concerned about story quality when comparing the two, I just really loved Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger's story is a saturday morning cartoon level in quality, but that doesn't change the fact that I love the game regardless. Yes, many games existed long before MGS that had much better stories, and more interesting characters, but I do agree that they were more niche. Rather, my issue with writing for games is the lack of nuance, as you say. The reality is, MGS lacks that as well, but it ticks off boxes and uses a lot of cinematic language in its storytelling, allowing it to purvey itself as more meaningful than it really is. In would say that Kojima doesn't have much of worth to contribute with his stories, but that doesn't change that his voice is significant, sadly. The legacy sucks because instead of people taking from Earthbound or early Phantasy Star, they're taking from Kojima. That's what worries me.
Unfortunately, great writing in video games has always been niche. Games like Disco Elysium are never going to see wide appeal. That said, I'm hoping that we'll at least get good writing as games lurch forward.
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Kid's outfit was always dumb. I think they were basing the design on the concept art which shows off her cleavage:
It was not this noticeable with the CG:
This seems to be another case of an old design looking even worse when accurately translated to HD. haha
It was not this noticeable with the CG:
This seems to be another case of an old design looking even worse when accurately translated to HD. haha
esserius I agree with you, the story of Metal Gear isn't even that deep or nuanced at the end of the day.
Another element that I forgot to mention in my post is the MG is also one of the first examples of a series making its story incredibly convoluted with change of protagonists, prequels, entire games being simulations and all that. On one hand it's a good thing to change locations, protagonist and time period with each games because it surely helps with world-building and it makes the game's world feel like a real world in which you could play thousands of stories. On the other hand it helps make the series appear more "deep" and "self-important" and that's how you end with fanboy that respond to critics by saying that "you need to have a very high IQ to understand Metal Gear" and other nonsense.
Another element that I forgot to mention in my post is the MG is also one of the first examples of a series making its story incredibly convoluted with change of protagonists, prequels, entire games being simulations and all that. On one hand it's a good thing to change locations, protagonist and time period with each games because it surely helps with world-building and it makes the game's world feel like a real world in which you could play thousands of stories. On the other hand it helps make the series appear more "deep" and "self-important" and that's how you end with fanboy that respond to critics by saying that "you need to have a very high IQ to understand Metal Gear" and other nonsense.
This is how I perceived it too, because from what I saw even fans thought that statement was extremely stupid. Especially when we had The End right there as another character with the same special ability, but completely clothed.
Though with that said, the push back against such a statement wasn't enough, as it seemed to have just been shrugged off as "tone deaf" and no change was made and the world moved on.
It is a prime example of a phrase that gets a lot of mileage though on developers who claim to have "good reason" for designing people the way they do, so there's that, I guess.
The words and deeds quote is genuinely the best thing Kojima has given to gaming.
I agree with the takes above, regarding why Metal Gear is so popular. Its because early ps1 games didn't tell cinematic stories so he got in and developed fanboys early, doing something that many many developers will do much better than him a few years later.
I agree with the takes above, regarding why Metal Gear is so popular. Its because early ps1 games didn't tell cinematic stories so he got in and developed fanboys early, doing something that many many developers will do much better than him a few years later.
Remember that the closest thing to a woman reaching that status with the gaming community was an Asian woman the gaming community insisted was "wholesome" after her appearance at e3. Who those same people stopped obsessively making a fetish out of once it was revealed that she gave birth. 🙃
Oh my god, they keep her awful Xrd design. Between Venessa, Hilde, and Baiken it really feels like there is a conspiracy to ruin every single great female character design with sexist bullshit. This fucking sucks.Hey Baiken is back...
The worst thing about the "you should be ashamed of your words and deeds" about Quiet is that his fans actually take the words as gospel, unironically. People who criticize her outfit should be the ones that feel ashamed.
Given the origin of the auteur, I honestly find it problematic that we use the term at all. It gives credit where much isn't due, and affords an insipid importance of those who would call themselves, or others, as such. I would say that Kojima is a game director, and a sexist piece of shit, and tend to leave it at that.
I was waiting for Hilde to release before I bought the new Soul Calibur game. When I saw her trailer I walked away in disgust and never looked back. She and Vanessa don't have designs that scream sexism (like Baiken's does), but in both cases they took great designs and made a bunch of small adjustments to heighten their sexuality. It genuinely bums me out.
It may have been mentioned before but was I the only one to roll my eyes at striker trailer for DNF duel, such a pointless and unneeded butt shot
Oh there's a point. Same reason as the tit bounce and boob socks.
Yeah, pretty much my thoughts when playing. She went form a woman with a no-nonsense civilian casual attire to suddenly wear a huge cleavage and a silly corset (+ heavy makeup)Dead Space 2 was recently added to the Xbox FPS boosted games and I was playing through it and what they did to Ellie is criminal. EA was very open that DS2 underperformed and wanted to expand its appeal with DS3.
Ellie in DS 2
DS3
The butt shot also, you know, makes no sense. Like, it isn't just that the camera takes aim at it, she seems to stick it out as the camera rotates around her as if she choreographed the routine with the cameraman. It is unbelievably dumb.
Her design is almost good, too. That is the worst part. They were so close, but then they made sure to tweak a few elements and make it another example of pandering bullshit.
This is a great example of a character who has a fundamentally good design, but it's ruined by overtly sexist presentation.
OP
OP
replaying Witcher 3 to fill the void until season 2 drops and this is such a minor thing but it drives me NUTS: all the female characters, whether they be farmers, sex workers, beggars, soldiers, anything, ALL have long manicured nails. aurhghghghgh
Okay so this is kind of a weird one, and one I find quite funny, but the new game Archvale has fountains that you use like fires in Souls games. These fountains have an angel statue on them. That statue is, um, quite busty.
I'm impressed that they decided those were a good use of the pixel budget for the fountain sprite.
I'm impressed that they decided those were a good use of the pixel budget for the fountain sprite.
Are you sure? Looks like the statue is just holding a cross?Okay so this is kind of a weird one, and one I find quite funny, but the new game Archvale has fountains that you use like fires in Souls games. These fountains have an angel statue on them. That statue is, um, quite busty.
I'm impressed that they decided those were a good use of the pixel budget for the fountain sprite.
Are they boobs or are they arms holding a cross close to the body? They might just be boobs though.Okay so this is kind of a weird one, and one I find quite funny, but the new game Archvale has fountains that you use like fires in Souls games. These fountains have an angel statue on them. That statue is, um, quite busty.
I'm impressed that they decided those were a good use of the pixel budget for the fountain sprite.
I honestly can't tell if those are two robed hands coming together in prayer or tig ol' bitties.Okay so this is kind of a weird one, and one I find quite funny, but the new game Archvale has fountains that you use like fires in Souls games. These fountains have an angel statue on them. That statue is, um, quite busty.
I'm impressed that they decided those were a good use of the pixel budget for the fountain sprite.
Can't fault you for assuming the latter.
I mean, I suppose that's a possibility. I feel like the cross would be bigger and not blended into the non-face if that were the case though? If it is a cross...I kind of want to do a pixel-over to see if I could make it clearer.
Yeah. Throw some scanlines on top and you definitely see the praying pose immediately.