@jereb31: well, most male characters aren't sexualized and aren't used as objects for females, most media has men as protagonist and their purpose on most stuff is not being a romantic interest for the female characters, that's why it's not the same.
Still, women are complaining about sexualized women, do they have to complain about sexualized men, too? No, they do not.
If you guys are agaisnt sexualized men in media, you should talk about it and don't expect women to fight your battles for you.
@Chutebox: the number of female sexualized characters in gaming, HQ, movies, books and everything else reduced drastically in the recent years. Those are the facts.
@Chutebox: the number of female sexualized characters in gaming, HQ, movies, books and everything else reduced drastically in the recent years. Those are the facts.
Ok, show me the numbers.
Your comment above still has nothing to do with facts.
@jereb31: well, most male characters aren't sexualized and aren't used as objects for females, most media has men as protagonist and their purpose on most stuff is not being a romantic interest for the female characters, that's why it's not the same.
Still, women are complaining about sexualized women, do they have to complain about sexualized men? They do not.
If you guys are agaisnt sexualized men in media, you should talk about it and don't expect women to fight your battles for you.
Thanks for shooting down my comment on men being sexualised and confirming my thoughts that you are nothing but a misandrist and care nothing about equality. I'm going to go and repress my feelings, start a tumblr blog and eat 4lbs of cake now you misandrist harpy you.
It baffles me that you believe women should fight our battles for us.
I mean, I don't mind sexualized men in media, never did, and never will, I don't have a problem with it, but if you do, by all means, fight agaisnt it, it's a free country and you can do as you please.
It baffles me that you believe women should fight our battles for us.
I mean, I don't mind sexualized men in media, never did, and never will, I don't have a problem with it, but if you do, by all means, fight agaisnt it, it's a free country and you can do as you please.
I'm just joshing you man, you tend to only look at one side is all. men are super-obviously sexualised in pretty much every form of media and it's hardly worth mentioning because just about nobody cares (myself included). Fact is if someone else finds it offensive that a fictional characiture of there sex is not realstic, maybe they should move on and treat it exactly as it was intended to be, a work of fiction.
I.e. I find it offensive that fairies are almost always depicted as women, that is super misandrist. Faireies should be equally men and poc.
@recloud: The gaming media wrote a hit piece on a game because it had sexualized characters. This is the problem with the industry.
I say it's more of a problem with Gaming Journalists than the Industry as a whole. In fact, the entire Gaming Journalist tried to sabotage Kingdom Come: Deliverance due to the game developers supposed "Wrong Think"
@FireEmblem_Man: Journalist are part of the problem, but the industry is to blame as well. It seemed everyone st E3 was wanting a pat on the back for how progressive they were.
@FireEmblem_Man: Journalist are part of the problem, but the industry is to blame as well. It seemed everyone st E3 was wanting a pat on the back for how progressive they were.
Good point! It's one of the reason why EA's show was so bad. They tried to show off a "Strong Independent Woman" to be the host, had a ton of awkward moments. Plus the game developers look like they never done a presentation from school before.
Oh my god. Games are fine. There a bewbs everywhere.. The noisiest motherfuckers in this issue are some of you guys. For every one angry person who writes one of these progressive pieces, 50 of you post it all over the internet and shove it down our throats.
Newsflash: I wouldn't know about any of these "sjw" articles if you goofballs didn't keep sharing them.
But these pieces aren't progressive. I know this is a discussion for a different board, but I must say this every time: identity politics are not left and/or progressive.
In SoulCalibur 6, Ivy Valentine will be as she always was: wrapped in stringy cloth, balloon-breasted, mostly naked. She wields a snake sword that extends into a whip, a dominatrix’s weapon that’s helped land her in innumerable knock-off porn videos and pin-up images. As one the Soulseries’ most recognizable fighters, Ivy has always looked like a caricature of a pubescent boy’s preposterously-proportioned ideal video game lady.
Ivy’s over-the-top appearance may have fit in quite well with the boys’ club mentality of the late 1990s when she was introduced in the first SoulCalibur. 20 years later, at an E3 with down-to-earth playable female protagonists in Assassin’s Creed, Tomb Raider, The Division 2, The Last of Us Part 2, Battlefield 5,and other headlining games, Ivy in SoulCalibur 6 seemed a little out of place, buried deep within publisher Bandai Namco’s booth at the back of the show floor. It’s not just her Band-Aid attire; it’s that, by sticking to their guns (or, here, sword-whip), Bandai Namco has pigeonholed what could be a stellar fighting game for everyone.
The Soul seriesalmost didn’t live to see a seventh iteration, said SoulCalibur producer Motohiro Okubo, speaking with Kotaku in a small interview room behind the company’s E3 booth. “SoulCalibur actually was in a little bit of a crisis as a brand. The company climate wasn’t really encouraging another installment for the franchise,” said Okubo.
The series may have been seriously wounded, but the soul still burns, for now, as SoulCalibur 6 will be released for PC, Xbox One and PS4 on October 19. This version, Okubo said, maxed out the volume on what makes SoulCalibur feel like SoulCalibur, which seems in part to be a doubling down on its playable seductresses. In 2018, when so many mainstream games are casting a wide net across a redefined notion of what it means to be a “gamer,” Ivy feels like a bit of a relic of a past’s mainstream, like lead paint or cocaine for toothaches. Last week, I met with Okubo to ask him a burning question I’ve had since I first laid hands on SoulCalibur 2 in 2003: Why do the series’ women still look like sex dolls?
SoulCalibur 2’s intro has stuck with me, a little bitterly, since I was an overcompetitive 12-year-old craving another game to dominate at. The fighter Taki, in a skin-tight red suit and no bra, would land on the ground, breasts jiggling everywhere. A moment later, the camera cut to Ivy, who dramatically shimmied her torso before extending her whip. It was a sort of girl-on-girl action that, to me, felt explicitly designed for straight boys my age. As the camera angles changed, breasts were the first feature to appear. Sure, I didn’t have to participate in everything. But just from seeing the opening scene of this blockbuster fighting game—the moment when a game states its goals, makes its pitch, and reels in its audience—I knew that worming my way into the game’s culture, battling other players and getting competitive would be harder for me, even though I loved the gameplay, the stages, the single-player mode.
SoulCalibur’s pitch was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unlike group-hangs when friends and I played Mario Party, Super Smash Bros., and even Burnout, SoulCalibur was a struggle to get in on. Boys I played with were significantly less likely to hand me a controller after a loss. Talking about SoulCaliburat school, these players would smirk at me when I’d weigh match-ups. In the tyranny of kids, who uncritically absorb and perpetuate whatever rules or structures they see, I wasn’t a part of SoulCalibur’s target audience. Years later, at a liberal college, I remember following friends into a room where SoulCalibur 4 was being played on a television. I love this game, I said, to a group of new faces who didn’t believe me.
n my interview with Okubo, I felt that I’d been presented with a golden opportunity to hear the response to a question I’d had for 12 years, a question about why a game I’ve loved still feels so off-putting to play. “I’ve played SoulCaliburgames, and I used to play a lot of Cassandra. I was playing Sophitia just now,” I told Okubo after playing a few rounds of the upcoming game. “I noticed that, in this version, her breasts are more prominent. You can see up her skirt. Ivy, still, is wearing not that many clothes. When I play a game like SoulCalibur, I feel like it’s not for me. I feel like it’s for men who might be interested in these characters. I’ve always sort of felt that about SoulCalibur. Is this something you consider?”
Here’s what Okubo said: “Of course, I am a man, as well as many of the people on the development team. That’s something that we should probably consider if that’s the opinion of a female perspective like you in the future. We weren’t necessarily going out to try and intentionally make something sexy for the purpose of being sexy.”
That’s a little difficult to believe, I told him. In 2011, SoulCalibur 5 director Daishi Odashima circulated a SoulCalibur breast size and shape guideline on Twitter, which delineated the exact proportions developers went for when designing their femme fatales. An ad for the game released in Japan cut out Ivy Valentine’s face, instead displaying a gargantuan pair of meticulously-shaded breasts wrapped in a fur coat. Another zoomed in on her ass, naked except for a thong.
In past games in the series—and in SoulCalibur 6, too—the fighters’ clothes fall off when they are damaged. This is a common feature in sexy anime games like Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash, High School DxD, Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed. In Bandai Namco’s presentation on SoulCalibur 6, a spokesperson emphasized the mechanic: “Visually, we realized that the game has to be exciting for people playing, but also, spectators have to be excited as well, too. From round to round, if you continue to land these hits, characters’ armors break, costumes change. You could be in your underwear by the end of a match.” This isn’t deliberately sexy?
“It’s interesting you say you don’t set out to be sexy,” I continued, “because SoulCalibur has traditionally had really elaborate breast physics in the game. That doesn’t exist for gameplay, of course.”
“I think, as a result, the characters as a result end up being sexy,” replied Okubo. “That’s not something we can deny necessarily, but in the process of game design, we just really try to go after what we think would be cool actions, cool movement, strong, powerful movements. That is kind of a byproduct of this pursuit of trying to find what we think is pretty cool.”
What the designers of SoulCalibur find to be “cool” often ends up looking a little like a fantasy-skinned Playboycenterfold. Okubo says that SoulCalibur’s fighters are reflections of their weapons, one of SoulCalibur’s defining features as a fighting game. “There’s a weapon and there’s a character designed around it. If it’s a massive ax or a sword, naturally it’d be a more hulky type of male body,” said Okubo. “With Ivy, we felt her character with the weapon she wields has a very cold, icy, type of feel, which is this very cool beauty we were trying to express in the character. That was how those characters came to be.”
SoulCalibur 6 is looking like a strong entry in the series. The E3 demo plays great, and the graphics look like its predecessors’ wet dreams. With the series’ future in crisis, Okubo said that with this new entry’s “strong, powerful movements,” the team wanted to “pursue that SoulCalibur-ness throughout the development.” Is SoulCalibur 6’s Ivy, then, a cry for help, a summons to the fighting games’ core fan base?
If SoulCalibur 6 feels out of place at E3 2018, that’s in part because of where Bandai Namco hopes to place it, alongside the rest of gaming’s mainstream appeals. But the era of The Last Of Us Part 2 is also the era of Senran Kagura, of games that don’t feel the need to pretend to be something they’re not, to pretend that the titillating scenes got there by accident.
It’s common for a game’s producers to talk around criticisms, attributing one cause for complaint to some cool, special feature about the game. It’s similarly common for a game’s producer to backpedal when it’s clear they’re trying to have their cake and eat it, too. That’s part of the job—to make the game appeal to everyone. Yet it can’t simultaneously be true that SoulCalibur didn’t consider a female perspective, didn’t set out to be sexy, designed fighters exclusively around weapons and, also, doubled down on the breast physics in SoulCalibur 6. Seven years after SoulCalibur’s last installment, we’re in a different climate in games. It’s classier to call something what it is.
@FireEmblem_Man: He thinks it means Social Injustice Warrior....try not to laugh too hard.
Is that so? That name doesn't even hurt, LOL
Wasn't aiming for it to hurt. I needed a better term than 'anti-SJW' and what better way than to use the word that's the polar opposite of "justice"? Hell, it ain't even my term either.
Because, like the SJW, SIW's get just as easily offended when someone has *gasp* a differing view and *bigger gasp* get offended when so called "SJW" entertainers play the 'anti-PC' game. So long as no one gets literally hurt or killed (like a certain riot that shall remain nameless last year).
@FireEmblem_Man: He thinks it means Social Injustice Warrior....try not to laugh too hard.
Is that so? That name doesn't even hurt, LOL
Wasn't aiming for it to hurt. I needed a better term than 'anti-SJW' and what better way than to use the word that's the polar opposite of "justice"? Hell, it ain't even my term either.
Because, like the SJW, SIW's get just as easily offended when someone has *gasp* a differing view and *bigger gasp* get offended when so called "SJW" entertainers play the 'anti-PC' game. So long as no one gets literally hurt or killed (like a certain riot that shall remain nameless last year).
Bull! S***! No one gets offended. Not what I learned from two former Daily Show comedians this year (who unfortunately had to apologize, making the opposite side stronger) and the last (this one hardly apologized though).
Bull! S***! No one gets offended. Not what I learned from two former Daily Show comedians this year (who unfortunately had to apologize, making the opposite side stronger) and the last (this one hardly apologized though).
Haha, that's not what we're talking about dude. Both "sides" would get offended by that (not me).
Bull! S***! No one gets offended. Not what I learned from two former Daily Show comedians this year (who unfortunately had to apologize, making the opposite side stronger) and the last (this one hardly apologized though).
Haha, that's not what we're talking about dude. Both "sides" would get offended by that (not me).
Bull! S***! No one gets offended. Not what I learned from two former Daily Show comedians this year (who unfortunately had to apologize, making the opposite side stronger) and the last (this one hardly apologized though).
Haha, that's not what we're talking about dude. Both "sides" would get offended by that (not me).
Not really. Even if it was on both sides, well we know that snowflakes are on both sides. Not just one. Hell, if you want a gaming example of 'anti-PC'/SIW's being offended, look no further than the Wolfenstein reboot games starting with New Colossus and it's advertising.
Funny how people that say they are all about tolerance are the least tolerant.
Don't buy the game.
This. That's why I'm not gonna buy BF5 and not bitching too much about it.
If it triggers you, don't buy it. Simple as that.
Shouldn't people be able to criticize things though? Shouldn't people be allowed to voice their opinions on certain matters?
Whenever people complained about stuff like the Transformers movies, Justin Bieber, Call of Duty, Twilight, or any other "cool to hate on" stuff like that, I sure as hell have never seen the "don't like just don't buy it" mindset come into play there...
Option is key for both sexes. Clothes should make all players sexy and or look completely different and sharp. Let the player choose and one look, won't define them
@DJ-Lafleur: I mean, people are free to criticize whatever they want to. But in the end, it's up to the devs if they ever wanna change due to the criticism or whatnot.
But the reality to it is that. Don't like it? Don't buy it. If it doesn't sell much, a studio has to find out the root cause of this poor performance. If it's due to the criticism, great!
But the thing is, the best way to show(or not show) support is through our wallets, and a company will listen to your wallet, not words.
A muscled up Male who runs around half-naked the whole game! I mean, isn't that what people complain about with females being sexualized?
Sexualizing most involve the intent and not merely the depiction. You can sexualize literally anything you want if you use your imagination.
But yeah, you're right about the second part.
It's harder to sexualize men visually, as women have different attraction triggers than men imo.
Rock hard abs, muscular body, all of that definitely helps, but I've ran into plenty of ugly dudes with hot girlfriends because they're confident, successful, and funny. You very RARELY see the same in reverse.
Men should get up in arms about unrealistic protagonists who are charismatic/funny at all times, even in the face of danger. This is an unrealistic standard most men can't adhere to. Where can I sign a petition to have more wimpy, cowardly male protagonists in games?! This would surely be good for the industry.
Now make a modern product in reverse and see what reactions you get... from people like you no less.
There have historically been commercials with half-naked women that are not sexualized and no one has gotten in an uproar. Shampoo commercials, for example; they often show various curves and a lot of skin, but because she is just naked taking a shower, something we [hopefully] all do every single day, it's not sexual to us. I've seen bathing suits, bikinis even, advertized on TV and magazine, but because the woman was swimming or playing at the beach with her family and friends, it wasn't perceived as something sexual.
A lot of video games can't claim the same.
I think people are missing the point between basic human anatomy, and sexualizing it to make a profit.
You don't make porn every time you take a shower, as someone once said.
I have a feeling a lot of these hangups are uniquely American...
You proved my point though.... that greek guy is being sexualised with comments like "Thick and creamy" (refering to both the model and the yogurt) and panning to him when saying it, those adverts are well known for it. Yet if a mens product did the same, it would be world war 3 from the typical 3rd wave bullcrap people.
Again, not that I have a problem with sexualisation or that sex sells, I have a problem with the "It's 2018, 3rd wave feminism and white knights believe only woman are sexualised and that it is always a bad thing to sexualise"
I mean, on the one hand the arguement is :
" Why are woman being sexualised in games, it won't attract more woman? "
but in reality you have other industries dominated by woman (clothes shopping for example) where companies like Holister and the likes Meanwhile:
Actively have half naked men attracting woman to the shops, WHILE THE FEMALE VERSION IS FULLY COVERED.
"Hooters is a sexist place, even though the woman are covered in the appropriate places, its wrong to have sexy woman sell food and drink"
double standard galore.
3rd Wave Feminism and far-left people pick and choose what reality they see to earn magic brownie points...
But yes, most of this is Religous hang ups that shouldn't exist in the first place.
A muscled up Male who runs around half-naked the whole game! I mean, isn't that what people complain about with females being sexualized?
Sexualizing most involve the intent and not merely the depiction. You can sexualize literally anything you want if you use your imagination.
But yeah, you're right about the second part.
It's harder to sexualize men visually, as women have different attraction triggers than men imo.
Rock hard abs, muscular body, all of that definitely helps, but I've ran into plenty of ugly dudes with hot girlfriends because they're confident, successful, and funny. You very RARELY see the same in reverse.
Men should get up in arms about unrealistic protagonists who are charismatic/funny at all times, even in the face of danger. This is an unrealistic standard most men can't adhere to. Where can I sign a petition to have more wimpy, cowardly male protagonists in games?! This would surely be good for the industry.
Yeah. Those triggers tend to be a bit more about the social status but still some physical ones too. So a very rich man. A man who is famous and everybody looks up at him, wants something from him (don't know if you noticed, famous people attract ladies). A man who can get things done and is a bad boy, stands above the rules/doesn't care about the rules. That's the way a man can be sexualized in a game. Riding a horse, riding a bike, strong and brave, deep relaxed voice, married but still looking, easy to socially manipulate, can show you the way. A successful criminal but using the money for his wife. Knows how to use his hands. That sort of stuff.
Nathan Drake is a good example of a sexualized male character. Just not in the 'oh look I'm shirtless' kind of way (as far as I know) but nonetheless aimed at women's appetite. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Again they can sexualize all they want but yes it's weird how we only look at it from one side. Only women matter to the media. Only female characters can be a problem. They wouldn't dare to look at men. It's the 'enemy' side in their child politics. It would 'push things to the wrong side'. What happened to making the world a fairer place? It shows that their stance is not very well thought out. To limit something artificially to one gender is not a good start for a discussion about something. It shows that they're not what they pretend to be.
The problem with this issue because its always one sided and from a very fixed perspective while completely ignoring the other side or other issues which is the exact same problem, just not affecting the target of their sympathy. That and the tendency to label or demonize any contrarian argument or opinion and you have the extremely toxic behaviour and nature of all sides, left, right or neutral. Its extremely common for even people on the same side to eat each other over perceived(often misunderstood) differences because nowadays, anyone who doesnt think like you is a nazi.
So what you end up now are witchhunts, social condemnation, name calling, pointless outrage and outright despicable behaviour because no one has time to actually read your arguments or even try to understand your real message. Whatever you say are either ignored or framed out of context to fit their own narrative. Its just a shitty situation for everyone.
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