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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
- Start date
- OT
This is likely due to their big push for SK, not that they have no releases from their internal studios.
A shame their stuff doesn't appeal to me but if I ever, somehow, become well off I sure wouldn't mind supporting a studio like that.
You and PlaSma sold me on Rise of the Ronin, also getting that through Gamefly.
Yeah, Eve doesn't own her sexuality, it's entirely for the player to ogle her while she acts innocent.
It's creepy in the same way "Alpha Males" talk about wanting virgins who are innocent and don't know anything about sex and need a man to teach her. It's about control, and they can't control a woman who's confident and aware of who she is.
That's the energy it gives off.
Agreed. I think it's important to keep in mind that even Bayonetta's agency is decided upon by her creator when discussing how characters are confident about their sex appeal, she's presented to the audience to get a reaction out of us like every other aspect of the experience. Still, what makes Bayonetta way more enjoyable as a character is that we are following her as she does what she wants to do. The way Bayonetta fights is part of her performance and adds to her show of confidence, so we can cheer on a performance she's allowing us to see.
The dismissal of comments about Eve lacking character add to why this feels so gross - not only are we enabled to make use of anything that can gratify us, but she apparently doesn't have enough character to make us wonder what this is like for her, even as a fictional character, so we can focus better on the gross "fun" we're supposed to indulge in. We gleefully erase the person at the center of the situations depicted, Eve, so gratification becomes the center of the experience while she's pushed aside. It's not like having her react to the weird camera shots would make it better since the camera shots would still be present, but how she might feel about sexualization isn't made to matter in any way. Lack of awareness is a chance to get away with a creepy angle or ten, a dangerous and/or distressing situation and she can't have a show of strength without ensuring she still titillates the player.
Character action game + post-apocalyptic science fiction setting + female lead is such a catnip for me that I would have probably bought Stellar Blade at release even if the developers toned things down by even 50% in terms of camera angles and jiggle physics. Every time I think '...maybe I'll buy this?', I see the filigree crotch arrow, or unwittingly give poor Eve a visual coloscopy. That gif from a few pages back sure was something! I keep hoping the story and Eve's character arc will somehow be really good, despite so many reviews saying to the contrary. Kyuuji and Princess Bubblegum always have great insight, so looking forward to seeing their thoughts about the game as they play.
I was disappointed with a lot of the optional outfits, too -- while so many were absolutely objectifying, many of them were equally really overdesigned, too. The default outfit is one of Eve's best, for better or worse. There's a full black plug suit that was okay-ish. Even though Eve has modern outfit options and a few skirt combinations, the skirts are all super bulky, which looks really odd. I presume the skirt issue happened in part so the outfits don't clip through Eve's model, but the end result is quite jarring. Maybe it looks better in-game than in the model viewer.
From the internet at large, I'm also thoroughly amused any time criticism of sexualized female characters equates to being prudish, but that's a much longer topic that I don't have the brain power to gather words about. Brain tired, words hard.
There are so many excellent posts over the last few pages, too. I can't quote them all, but really appreciate everyone's thoughts and perspective.
Yes, absolutely. I don't have any problems with anyone enjoying the game, but the active dismissal of any issues has annoyed me a lot, and I've seen a few outlets/reviewers + streamers do it. It also seems extra absurd to do so as part of the game's advertising point is how sexualized and objectified Eve is -- the developers have openly talked about their focus on it! -- so to gloss over it or underplay it doesn't make sense in the first place.
Another great post.
I was disappointed with a lot of the optional outfits, too -- while so many were absolutely objectifying, many of them were equally really overdesigned, too. The default outfit is one of Eve's best, for better or worse. There's a full black plug suit that was okay-ish. Even though Eve has modern outfit options and a few skirt combinations, the skirts are all super bulky, which looks really odd. I presume the skirt issue happened in part so the outfits don't clip through Eve's model, but the end result is quite jarring. Maybe it looks better in-game than in the model viewer.
From the internet at large, I'm also thoroughly amused any time criticism of sexualized female characters equates to being prudish, but that's a much longer topic that I don't have the brain power to gather words about. Brain tired, words hard.
There are so many excellent posts over the last few pages, too. I can't quote them all, but really appreciate everyone's thoughts and perspective.
Yes, absolutely. I don't have any problems with anyone enjoying the game, but the active dismissal of any issues has annoyed me a lot, and I've seen a few outlets/reviewers + streamers do it. It also seems extra absurd to do so as part of the game's advertising point is how sexualized and objectified Eve is -- the developers have openly talked about their focus on it! -- so to gloss over it or underplay it doesn't make sense in the first place.
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Another great post.
You flatter me.
I will be going into the game expecting shlock that isn't aware that it's schlock, which is going to be frustrating to say the least. Like I've played and gotten enjoyment out of some schlocky otaku games, where even though I'm not the intended audience I can at least be in on the joke in my own (lesbian) way. I expect Stellar Blade to be a full exercise in frustration.
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Thankyou! That really helps refine my thought process on it all.
It sucks, it's the sort of titillation that most media left behind decades ago.
These are very good points, I guess sometimes I I kind of forget that it's a fact of the gaming industry as well, it's pretty depressing 😔.
I am also looking forward to seeing your perspectives on the game! I'll wish you luck on getting through it tho lol.
An excellent post. I caught a ton of shit for voicing my opinion on Stellar Blade some months back, and it can be very frustrating when those dingle-berries will put their fingers in their ears and go "LA-LA-LA-LAH!" and will ignore some very real problems that are plaguing the video game industry.
And while this is more of a me thing, I find there comes a point where you have to recognize that you're engaging with people who have literally nothing better to do with their lives, and that energy is perhaps better spent promoting and defending the developers who are creating some very cool games that are pushing back against this in their own way. Because lord knows they need all the support they can get.
I saw this discussed elsewhere, and someone linked to this video that I thought was a good summation of this weird uncomfortable trope:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thpEyEwi80
When it gets phrased as, effectively, a highly sexualised child who is both unaware of her sexuality and is fascinated and impressed by the middling man in her life (in this case I guess that's the player?) who is very aware of her sexuality it really, uh, aligned my perspective.
The thing that has bothered me the most about SB discourse isn't that people are enjoying the game, whatever floats your boat, but the dismissiveness a lot of the discourse from both people at large but also more established voices have had for the criticisms about the game. There's been several YouTube channels I've followed and enjoyed for years who have covered the discourse in some minor way and it always comes off as super dismissive of a lot of the arguments around why people take issue with it.
Writing on Games is the most recent one to stick out to me (https://youtu.be/CMiDHKtHN8s) when they covered the criticism in the final part of that video. It's super clear when people just haven't critically engaged at all with genuine arguments around something, because his defence of why it's 'not that bad' is part of the reason I take so much issue with the design in the first place and find it both distracting and gross - that the game as a whole isn't sexual at all and Eve being textually a non-sexual, non-emotive entity in the writing isn't the defence of the design that people seem to think it is.
I dunno I just wanted to vent because it's been frustrating watching people whose opinions I have found generally insightful in the past just... wilfully ignore genuine arguments around this topic for essentially the entire sake of being dismissive of it.
Writing on Games is the most recent one to stick out to me (https://youtu.be/CMiDHKtHN8s) when they covered the criticism in the final part of that video. It's super clear when people just haven't critically engaged at all with genuine arguments around something, because his defence of why it's 'not that bad' is part of the reason I take so much issue with the design in the first place and find it both distracting and gross - that the game as a whole isn't sexual at all and Eve being textually a non-sexual, non-emotive entity in the writing isn't the defence of the design that people seem to think it is.
I dunno I just wanted to vent because it's been frustrating watching people whose opinions I have found generally insightful in the past just... wilfully ignore genuine arguments around this topic for essentially the entire sake of being dismissive of it.
Yeah, it makes it creepy as fuck when you realize that the trope sexualizes infantilization.
I am a fan of Writing on Games, and watching that video his dismissal of the situation was very bizarre to me.
His argument was effectively that it's non diagetic so who cares, and there isn't any diagetic sexuality in the game. That's it though, the game is creepy specifically because she has no agency or awareness of her sexuality, and neither her nor the world acknowledges it, but the game as a product does, and so it exists entirely for the player to jack off to.
I think this game is allowing a bunch of people (well, men) to kind of show their arse, and make it clear that actually they would have no issue going back to the 90s when we had booth babes, leering video game journalism, and everything from graphics cards to video games using half naked women to advertise their products. Exhausting.
Is it bad if I hope all the "my fiancé loves it tee hee 🤪" posters step on legos every day for the rest of their lives
It's kinda funny to see this because that's precisely the problem, and why the "prudishness" rebuttal holds no merit. Baldur's Gate 3 features tons of sex and nudity (a lot of it really explicit too) and surprise surprise, no one is criticizing it for being sexist! Almost as if objectification and sexuality are 💡 TWO DIFFERENT THINGS and one is problematic and the other isn't 🤯
God, Ion Fury was the biggest behind-the-scenes disappointment of recent years. I had it pre-ordered from the Early Access days, as I absolutely love old-school shooters (I'm still playing the original Doom with mods as of this week) and then it was pretty much release day that the homophobic/transphobic stuff got brought to light.
As I'd technically owned it too long to be eligible for a refund, I've tried to play through it a couple of times in the years since, but I just keep remembering in the forefront of my mind that leading people behind that game hate my existence. How am I supposed to 'Forget about politics' and "just enjoy the game"?
Oh, well my fianceé did buy Stellar Blade after all as she'd finished with Rise Of The Ronin. Guess I'll give it a play too, but I doubt I'm going to be able to provide much more interesting feedback than we've already seen. It'll be an alright game with a vapid plot and lots of costumes where I'll only want to use maybe 1/4 of them.
The whole "well the game isn't TRYING to be fanservicey" argument is so stupid because all it does is hammer home how vestigial and easy to cut that shit is. If your argument is "well the game wouldn't be any different if they got rid of it", why is it there at all?
That's exactly what I thought of! A glorious moment in our history
Nah, there were another one in the review thread that made me roll my eyes. I usually don't like to wish an ill punishment on people, but stepping on legos is honestly doable. 🤣
When I was a kid, I accidentally stepped on a bee while walking on the beach and it managed to sting me between two of my toes.
Yeah I don't fucking understand why so many critics are going to bat for the "it's not as bad as the Discourse™ says" argument.
Like it is bad though. It is weird and off-putting, no matter how vestigial it is. I mean fuck, if an element of the game does not support the narrative doesn't it deserve more scrutiny? We don't critique art based on everything it does right and ignore the iffy shit. We still talk about the stuff that doesn't work. That's how we get better art.
And also like, correct me if I'm wrong but ultimately for a subset of players it's not optional, right? Because the skinsuit actually has a mechanical impact. Like the equivalent of a Charmless run in SB requires Eve to get naked.
Like it is bad though. It is weird and off-putting, no matter how vestigial it is. I mean fuck, if an element of the game does not support the narrative doesn't it deserve more scrutiny? We don't critique art based on everything it does right and ignore the iffy shit. We still talk about the stuff that doesn't work. That's how we get better art.
And also like, correct me if I'm wrong but ultimately for a subset of players it's not optional, right? Because the skinsuit actually has a mechanical impact. Like the equivalent of a Charmless run in SB requires Eve to get naked.
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As someone with entomophobia, I can say that I hate bees but appreciate what they do for the environment. However, wasps are nature's natural assholes and deserve all kinds of unbias hatred. I feel for you, man. I'd go ballistic over it just because of my phobia.
The worst thing I've ever done as a kid was breaking my left collarbone and dealing with the pain for 8 hours in 2nd grade. I was a stubborn little girl (and still might be) and refused to go home because we had a field trip that day to an apple orchard and my mother promised me apple pie from picking apples.
Amazing what a little mote of determination and baked goods can teach you to excel at picking apples with one good arm. The hayride was probably the worst part of it where every bump made sure to remind me that I have a broken bone.
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I've definitely seen A LOT of strawman arguments that people have been "rebutting" with Stellar Blade, instead of actually engaging with genuine arguments. It just makes them feel so disingenuous, and it feels like they care more about appearing "civil" (especially when they characterise their opponents as "offended" or "enraged") or dismissing any legitimate issues entirely because they don't want to admit there's power dynamics/misogyny or something.
And this is one of those strawman arguments I've often seen, that anyone criticising Stellar Blade is simply a "prude" or of course "intimidated" by her sexiness or whatever. Mind you, I wouldn't doubt if they genuinely can't see objectification for what it is even when it's staring them in the face, because that's just how they view women anyway, so "where's the problem?" in their mind.
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Ugh, that sounds like the worst. I'm fortunate enough to have only ever been stung by a bee once... But it was on the same day I had already been stung by a wasp. It had fallen down into my shirt, so it stung me right above the heart. I was only like 8 or 9.
That must have been TERRIFYING. I've been stung a couple times but always on my arms and legs, never on the torso. I tend to not be too afraid of bugs or spiders (if I was, the time a house centipede fell off of my bedroom ceiling, got caught in my bangs and ran down the front of my nose would've killed me), but that level of proximity to a wasp would definitely leave lasting mental scars.
The part about it that blows my mind is just that I legitimately cannot see why this game justifies such spirited defense. Maybe it's because I am not particularly interested in sci-fi or the post-apocalypse, but it just looks like a game that excels at literally nothing except misogyny and seeing so many people line up to defend it before they even play it just really throws my brain for a loop.
Why couldn't this level of hype be attached to something like Lies of P or Rise of the Ronin? Why is THIS the game that people are so supportive of?
I'm out on the Stellar Blade threads, I enjoy seeing what others here say due to you all being, frankly, way better writers than me. But the celebration for it makes me so uncomfy. I grew up out of this stuff a while ago, and it pisses me off the industry just can't do the same.
Same except running around outside a friend's pool lol what are the odds. Had a wasp fly up my shirt and sting me in the chest on a swingset once too
I kind of have this as well.
Fuck bees and fuck them for stinging me!
I even got an allergic reaction one time as well when I got stung in the neck.
Oh, the wasp was on my hand! It stung me right on my thumb. It was the bee that fell down my shirt, and yea it was kinda scary. It stung me as I was trying to get it out. I remember mostly just feeling bad for it, since of course it died in the process
As to your other point. I won't sit here and say the game has no merits, because it obviously does to some people (hell, I was interested it way back before), but I also don't get why it has such fervor behind it either. Being interested is one thing, but people are rallying behind it in a way that truly makes no sense to me.
You and me both. When I was little, I had an extremely bad habit of anthropomorphizing - I would ascribe human emotions, feelings and reactions to everything, from random bugs, to trees, to food. I would feel bad because I was disappointing food I wasn't hungry enough to eat, or things I didn't like. And I would genuinely feel like I was MURDERING living things that had no concept of murder. It took me a long time to grow out of that (I presume it has something to do with my SPD, but I've never fully made sense of it) and I still feel pangs of it from time to time, even as an adult. I hate killing insects to this day and will always try to save them as much as possible.
But yeah, as for the game, I'm sure there COULD be aspects of it that people find enjoyable (I personally think the combat and monster designs look really dull and uninspired but that's me specifically), but the level of furious defensiveness the fanbase has for the game feels wildly disproportionate.
Like when I like a game that's kind of controversial I usually just try to talk about the aspects of it that I enjoyed and I don't get angry when someone doesn't like it. I just...try to communicate the bits that I think are cool. There's no game out there that EVERYONE likes. There's no great benefit in getting defensive over someone else not liking a thing that you like.
I assume it's simply because the game is seen as a "victory" against the "woke mob" that have made female characters in games "ugly" and all that nonsense, at least for the chuds anyway. It wouldn't have mattered either way if the game was good otherwise, it's about what the game represents for them.
It's just being used as a prop by many to try and reaffirm the "status quo", that Gamers love jiggle physics and sexy women and shouting down any remotely critical opinions, because that's how chuds claim "victory", not via reason or rationale, but by being the loudest and throwing their weight around.
Either way the game was always guaranteed to perform decently well given it's a Sony funded and published title that's gotten quite a bit of marketing, it definitely doesn't need any kind of "defence" in that regard.
Wasps are indeed assholes.
God, that first one. It's so accurate.
I'm not even sure why I have entomophobia, I just naturally developed it as a kid. However, my brother putting fake spiders all over my room and my grandfather having an entire attic with shelves dedicated to pinned bugs is probably what cemented the fear honestly. Like, people think it's a joke when I freak out to a moth.
My grandfather had glass cases of spiders and scorpions. It ain't any wonder why I'm afraid when the first thing you see opening the attic door is a scorpion in a case on the wall. Loved my grandfather to death, but...
Spring and summer months are like walking outside to a horror movie for me every time. The only bug I've been desensitized (somewhat) is stinkbugs where I just flush them down the toilet, lol. I have to pick them up with something though, I will never let a bug crawl on my skin. I'd die.
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I am concerned about it performing well from a sales standpoint. The industry is so desperate for profit right now, I don't want objectification to appear as a lifeline to boost sales and attention for AA games. For a mainstream game to get away with this and barely have any negative press is not a good indicator.
I don't have much to add but I can't watch Stellar Blade content. I could never play this game without essentially censoring and removing stuff. And with the game being promoted so much its painful to witness.
The fact that one has to go to Rolling Stone, a general culture and music magazine, for mainstream engagement with the issues here is damning.
Whatever the reason, games media is not equipped to address this sort of thing.
It reminds me of guys fantasizing about Nude Raider mods. Oddly childish. And that fighting tournament host who forgot to disable his nude Chun Li SF6 mod. The priorities feel strange.
A like minded group of loud, angry terminally online people is the easiest thing for the internet to amplify.
Only time will tell how this may or may not affect other AA games in the future, but I'm hoping it's mostly just a by-product of the studio it was developed by, and Sony didn't care much either way because objectification is unfortunately all too normalised in gaming to begin with.
This is how I feel as well essentially. I'm hoping that the sales don't make this seem like this is the direction that we should take with gaming exclusives on the PS5 because it's honestly going to feel very backward to me. That's not to say that gaming hasn't felt regressive to me for the longest of times.
For every game that doesn't objectify women, there are 2-3 other games right after to remind me of my unrealistic hope usually.
Retrying Fallout 4 and yeah, that intro really rubs me the wrong way (especially knowing they WERE going to allow you have the intro narrated by the woman and let her say the famous opening lines but cut it). Not even getting into the forced heteronormality angle of it (and any one replying with "But can just be gay/bi after the intro, don't, why should I be stuck in that relationship in the first place) but everything about irks me and feels like devs screaming "You aren't the target audience, men are. You are secondary to us!"
I really hope Bethesda never pulls something like that again.
I really hope Bethesda never pulls something like that again.
Wasps are adorable as are hornets and important for the environment.Wasps are indeed assholes.
FO4 is such a mindblowingly frustrating game from a story standpoint. From the forced heteronormativity of the intro to the fact that the male lead is a former soldier and the female lead is canonically a lawyer, to the fact that you HAVE to be obsessively invested in a son you've never actually interacted with for more than 5 seconds, to the fact that EVERY endgame route forces you to commit at least one genocide. It's dumb Todd Howard bullshit all the way down.
There is fun to be had in FO4, but it's almost entirely divorced from the structure of the main story.
*narrows eyes* . . .How do we know you're not a biologically engineered wasp that knows how to type?
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Mecha break Close beta does have pilot customiziation and outfit and accesory
store.steampowered.com
it feel like the pilot are created with AI?
Female default pilot
Alternative outfit
Male default pilot
Mecha BREAK on Steam
Mecha BREAK is a multiplayer mech game that allows players to choose from diverse mechs, customize appearances, and battle colossal war machines on treacherous terrain. Get ready for the ultimate showdown—blitz, brawl, blaze!
it feel like the pilot are created with AI?
Female default pilot
Alternative outfit
Male default pilot