[Grizzly]

I EVEN FORGOT THIS

WHY DID I REMEMBER???

[Grizzly]

If an attractive looking but otherwise almost entirely covered up woman is your definition of oversexualisation then you're on a level of prudeness that I will never be able to reach or understand.

Because you're pretty much saying "any attractiveness is bad, you can't use good looking people in your products or marketing, my prudeness can't handle it".

Yo, you're making some rather rude assumptions about what I do and don't enjoy.

But seriously, this isn't "Using a good looking person", it's pretty blatantly "Look at these beautifully rendered boobs". It's the whole "Men buy graphics cards, men like boobs! Let's show some boobs!" shtick. For a tech product!

Consider why I'm complaining about this and not, say, how Melisandre uses her nudity in Game of Thrones.

[Spoon]

Yo, you're making some rather rude assumptions about what I do and don't enjoy.

But seriously, this isn't "Using a good looking person", it's pretty blatantly "Look at these beautifully rendered boobs". It's the whole "Men buy graphics cards, men like boobs! Let's show some boobs!" shtick. For a tech product!

Consider why I'm complaining about this and not, say, how Melisandre uses her nudity in Game of Thrones.

I uh... barely seen any boobs? 
If "look at beautifully rendered boobs" is supposedly the objective here, it's doing a poor job at it. There are much better poses and outfits to showcase beautifully rendered boobs. This really does not go beyond the level of "attractive lady poses with her back arched while holding some kind of energy sword"

I mean, if it was a mech of sorts, you could literally apply the same line of thought: "Men buy graphics cards, men like mechs! Let's show some mechs!"

Stop objectivation of mechs!

I EVEN FORGOT THIS

WHY DID I REMEMBER???

Yooo, where can I buy this?

[FrikgFeek]

You can complain about Quiet all you want(and people did) because MGS5 uses a really stupid justification for  her walking around half-naked. The fact that she's a pretty massive outlier(and that Kojima is... weird and doesn't really understand how human beings function) doesn't really imply some sort of industry-wide problem.

Sure, you have your lewd games. They're not hard to find but they're also not really the mainstream games most people play. But you and some others are making the argument that you can't play games because as soon as you start one up you're immediately blasted by out-of-place blatant oversexualisation and that's just not true. Just stay away from the very clearly marked anime or lewd games and you'll be totally fine barring some rare exceptions.

And really, Quiet, one of the worst recent examples isn't even that far off from what Megan Fox does in the early Transformers movies so the "videogames are the only medium where this happens" argument doesn't really hold up.

[Grizzly]

That's the thing though, you ask for examples but you just dismiss them as irrelevant as soon as they come up. Like, I freely admit that I don't play most mainstream games, so I couldn't tell you how, say, MOBAs are faring on that front, but don't go "Give me some examples from the last decade" and then shift the goalposts as they are brought up (or if you bring them up yourself, becuase anime doesn't count anymore for some reason?) to just dismiss the entire conversation. I still think it's a conversation worth having. In part because I would argue that having this conversation in the past has had positive results you see reflected in today's games. In part becuase...

...

Have we talked about Riot Games yet? We're not *nearly* there yet when it comes to the games industry treating women as human beings.

[Iain Baker]

Take a look at this post to see the sort of content I like to create: https://www.nomadsreviews.co.uk/blog/terrifying-insecurity-how-developers-use-mechanics-to-make-games-consistently-scary

Empowerment itself is a political term.

The term empowerment originates from American community psychology and is associated with the social scientist Julian Rappaport. However, the roots of empowerment theory extend further into history and are linked to Marxist sociological theory. These sociological ideas have continued to be developed and refined through Neo-Marxist Theory (also known as Critical Theory).

I was not aware of that. Thank you for pointing it out. It is a pretty common term tho so I don't think will it be seen as overly political, especially since I suspect most people are unaware of its origins. I am open to suggestions re alternative terms to use instead.

PS - you stated you re-read the article and then remembered about Quiet. Can I infer from this that you skimmed read through it first time around? I'm not criticising if you were I should stress, I am merely trying to gauge how closely people pay attention to things. For example - I would have thought the YouTube thumbnail of the shower scene would have been pretty difficult to miss, but perhaps I am wrong.

Judging by some of the comments on here - and other places - it appears many people did not read it carefully, merely skimming thorough it, making incorrect assumptions based on this skim, then making comments / attacks based on these incorrect assumptions. This is the polar opposite of how I go about reading something. I always read something very carefully, usually twice, and fact check everything. But then I'm an Aspie, it is what we do.

Perhaps I will need to adjust my future content to make it more 'skimable' for a general audience. Any advice re how to best do this would be gratefully received.

[Spoon]

Have we talked about Riot Games yet? We're not *nearly* there yet when it comes to the games industry treating women as human beings.

What does this statement even mean? 

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/

Please, point me to the 5 female champions that oh so offend your sensibilities.

So far your entire line of thinking basically seems to boil down to "female character is attractive and/or shows a bit of skin = this is bad"
And I just don't follow it.

[FrikgFeek]

You gave me 1 example from the last decade. one. The other was from a box that's like 18 years old, a game that's 11 years old, and an 8 year old game where it wasn't even out of place.

You're the one shifting the goalposts from "oversexualisation is everyhwere and it makes it harder to enjoy games" to "there are these anime games where lewdness exists and I'm never gonna play them anyway but somehow it affects me".

This type of **** is expected and is a part of the genre. Pretty much everyone knows this. You're not gonna enjoy these types of games where sexyness is half the point of their existence if you're not into that. If you don't want to play Senran Kagura just... don't? Play Dynasty Warriors instead if you want fantasy ninjas killing hordes of dudes in a total crazy history setting. If a game has an extra unlockable bikini costume and that's not your thing then just don't use it.

At this point you're not even arguing that oversexualisation is a problem in games, but rather that sexyness in games shouldn't exist and that games that use sexyness as their main selling point are the devil even if you're obviously never going to play them unless you specifically want sexyness.


As for Riot Games. I'm just going to assume you're referring to the workplace scandal that propped up some time ago and how according to an ex-employee a lot of the developers were actually super sexist all the time. Assuming that this is true it still doesn't really mean much in the context of actual games. CDPR overworked their staff in crunch time making The Witcher 3. And that's a pretty bad thing. But it doesn't detract one bit from the quality of the game on its own.

[Grizzly]

Take a look at this post to see the sort of content I like to create: https://www.nomadsreviews.co.uk/blog/terrifying-insecurity-how-developers-use-mechanics-to-make-games-consistently-scary

Empowerment itself is a political term.

The term empowerment originates from American community psychology and is associated with the social scientist Julian Rappaport. However, the roots of empowerment theory extend further into history and are linked to Marxist sociological theory. These sociological ideas have continued to be developed and refined through Neo-Marxist Theory (also known as Critical Theory).

I was not aware of that. Thank you for pointing it out. It is a pretty common term tho so I don't think will it be seen as overly political, especially since I suspect most people are unaware of its origins. I am open to suggestions re alternative terms to use instead.

PS - you stated you re-read the article and then remembered about Quiet. Can I infer from this that you skimmed read through it first time around? I'm not criticising if you were I should stress, I am merely trying to gauge how closely people pay attention to things. For example - I would have thought the YouTube thumbnail of the shower scene would have been pretty difficult to miss, but perhaps I am wrong.

I just forgot about it again, becuase I'm just a bit forgetful! Sorry. I skipped over the Quiet part in particular becuase I had already seen it and didn't particularely need to see it again. This is a thing of beauty though.

The other was from a box that's like 18 years old

Radeon 5000 series is from 2009 yo. The 6000 series is from 2010. I mean, they're old, but they're not *that old*.
^{I'm getting old}

You're the one shifting the goalposts from "oversexualisation is everyhwere and it makes it harder to enjoy games" to "there are these anime games where lewdness exists and I'm never gonna play them anyway but somehow it affects me".

Oh right. Sorry. I'm not trying to do that, you may be confusing me with others in this thread who have said similar things but not the things I personally think, and I didn't do anything to make clear that I wasn't those people.

At this point you're not even arguing that oversexualisation is a problem in games, but rather that sexyness in games shouldn't exist and that games that use sexyness as their main selling point are the devil even if you're obviously never going to play them unless you specifically want sexyness.

What!? My entire piont was that "there are examples of objectification of women in the video games industry in the last decade". I didn't say anything about how I feel sexyness should exist in games, that was other people. No wonder this conversation hasn't been going well, ugh... forums...

What does this statement even mean? 

It's rather tangential, but I refer to Riot's sexism issues internally.

[Spoon]

It's rather tangential, but I refer to Riot's sexism issues internally.

Yeah, that's rather tangential indeed. Because you just jumped from the subject of ficitonal depiction of women to 'issues that real life people experience on the workfloor' without any kind of clarificaiton.
It's also one of those things where (I assume) basically everyone here would go "well yeah, that's bad and ideally that shouldn't be happening in real life." so uh...

Judging by some of the comments on here - and other places - it appears many people did not read it carefully, merely skimming thorough it, making incorrect assumptions based on this skim, then making comments / attacks based on these incorrect assumptions. This is the polar opposite of how I go about reading something. I always read something very carefully, usually twice, and fact check everything. But then I'm an Aspie, it is what we do.

Perhaps I will need to adjust my future content to make it more 'skimable' for a general audience. Any advice re how to best do this would be gratefully received.

People skimmed over it because they did not think it was worth reading.
What you should do instead is write articles that provide good indepth and insightful views so people will want to take the time to read it.

Also, you don't represent every autist out there.

[Lorric]

Btw, the game industry doesn't need to treat women like human beings. Or men. Because they're not human beings, they're bundles of pixels. Exceptions would be if those bundles of pixels are representing real people. Otherwise, they can be whatever you want them to be.

When a game comes into my possession, it's mine. That whole game World and everything in it. It exists solely for my amusement. That's the difference between video games and everything else. It doesn't matter what you do, there is no crime, there is no victim, there is no harm.

[Nightmare]

Btw, the game industry doesn't need to treat women like human beings. Or men. Because they're not human beings, they're bundles of pixels. Exceptions would be if those bundles of pixels are representing real people. Otherwise, they can be whatever you want them to be.

When a game comes into my possession, it's mine. That whole game World and everything in it. It exists solely for my amusement. That's the difference between video games and everything else. It doesn't matter what you do, there is no crime, there is no victim, there is no harm.

Still there are some guys called politicians who think otherwise.

[Grizzly]

Have we talked about Riot Games yet? We're not *nearly* there yet when it comes to the games industry treating women as human beings.

What does this statement even mean? 

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/

Please, point me to the 5 female champions that oh so offend your sensibilities.

So far your entire line of thinking basically seems to boil down to "female character is attractive and/or shows a bit of skin = this is bad"
And I just don't follow it.

Actually you know, I think I can make a decent argument here, to hopefully clarify the mess that I've made.

Let's do take a look at the league of legends champions! I haven't actually done that. Never even played the game!
Here's Ahri
Akali
Caitlyn
Camille
Cassiopeia
Diana
Elise
Evelynn
Fiora
Irelia
Janna
... Okay I can't link them all! Let me take some random samples

Lux
Sivir
Karma
Soraka
... Lemme stop before I get to Z.

No wait let me look at Z just for th... Right.

Okay yeah I can see why I personally have a problem with how these character designs are playing out. I didn't cherry pick these characters, I just went down the list until I got bored.

They're all... kinda the same? Same body shapes - the same stereotypical "sexy" body shape to boot. They all seem to like those rather impractical yet oh-so-sexy poses too, and they all seem to enjoy wearing the same sexy clothes too! If I didn't know any better, I'd say these were designed by the same dude catering to one particular fetish. I do know a bit better: It's probably three dudes doing that.

My problem here is not "All things that are sexy or show skin are bad"! It's that they're all the same in a rather stereotypical sexy way, in a way that, say, Overwatch's roster isn't. They aren't designed to be cool, strong, cute, wilful, aloof, or the team mom. They are all designed to be conventionally sexy as their first consideration.

It's why Overwatch's character designs get mentioned so much, even if they aren't actually all that revolutionary: It's a mainstream game stepping away from character design that is entirely by men for men*. And I personally think that the games industry is better of by not being by men for men.

* By which I mean cis, straight men who favour a certain kind of conventional attractiveness that is popular in the west but that's too long for a short quippy political statement.

Btw, the game industry doesn't need to treat women like human beings.

I just would really prefer it if they did.

Or men. Because they're not human beings, they're bundles of pixels. Exceptions would be if those bundles of pixels are representing real people. Otherwise, they can be whatever you want them to be.

When a game comes into my possession, it's mine. That whole game World and everything in it. It exists solely for my amusement. That's the difference between video games and everything else. It doesn't matter what you do, there is no crime, there is no victim, there is no harm.

I disagree. Games are art. Art is both a product of a culture and it in turn goes on to influence all sorts of cultures. Why shouldn't we give games the same treatment we do books or films?

[Lorric]

Games are games first and foremost, not art. But they can certainly be both, and some games are made with being art first and foremost in mind.

But those shots of the champions you put up. Those are works of art. Maybe you don't like them, but art is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

[Grizzly]

Games are games first and foremost, not art. But they can certainly be both, and some games are made with being art first and foremost in mind.

Which means I get to critique them right? That's all I am doing here.

[Lorric]

Games are games first and foremost, not art. But they can certainly be both, and some games are made with being art first and foremost in mind.

Which means I get to critique them right? That's all I am doing here.

Sure, but it's when you say things are bad like they shouldn't be made and enjoyed rather than you personally don't like them.

Oh and you asked about films and books vs games, the former are made to be read and watched. You can't play them outside of a gamebook. You play a game, and that shifts the focus. Those champions, I don't play the game, but while you might be able to point to similarities in their appearance, I bet they play much more differently, and that is what matters the most, because we play games.

[Grizzly]

Games are games first and foremost, not art. But they can certainly be both, and some games are made with being art first and foremost in mind.

Which means I get to critique them right? That's all I am doing here.

Sure, but it's when you say things are bad like they shouldn't be made and enjoyed rather than you personally don't like them.

Oh, I do think they're bad and that they should be made less becuase I think bad things should be made less.

Why do you have a problem with that?

Oh and you asked about films and books vs games, the former are made to be read and watched. You can't play them outside of a gamebook. You play a game, and that shifts the focus. Those champions, I don't play the game, but while you might be able to point to similarities in their appearance, I bet they play much more differently, and that is what matters the most, because we play games.

Why should that impact my critique of character designs?

[Lorric]

Games are games first and foremost, not art. But they can certainly be both, and some games are made with being art first and foremost in mind.

Which means I get to critique them right? That's all I am doing here.

Sure, but it's when you say things are bad like they shouldn't be made and enjoyed rather than you personally don't like them.

Oh, I do think they're bad and that they should be made less becuase I think bad things should be made less.

Why do you have a problem with that?

Oh and you asked about films and books vs games, the former are made to be read and watched. You can't play them outside of a gamebook. You play a game, and that shifts the focus. Those champions, I don't play the game, but while you might be able to point to similarities in their appearance, I bet they play much more differently, and that is what matters the most, because we play games.

Why should that impact my critique of character designs?

Because you don't get to decide that. Things aren't bad because you alone say they are. We all as gamers decide with our wallets. A wide opinion that a game is bad will mean that game sells bad.

Don't you care how a character plays? Are you here to play or watch? You're going to judge an entire game based solely on the appearance of some female characters?

[Grizzly]

You're wrong Lorric. I do get to decide that. For myself.

I get to engage with the art: I don't just read books. I think about them. I talk about them. I don't just watch films, I also think about them and talk about them. I don't just play, read or watch games, I engage with games. I talk to other people about games. I listen to other people talking about games. I read things from people that talk about games. I watch people that play games. In this very thread I made a whimsical remark about a game to the author of that game, to indicate that I'm having fun with his game, in the hope of stimulating him to do more with said game (or other games). I've talked to an author about his book on this very forum. I modified games, and then shared my modifications with the world. They admittedly aren't very good.

Games are culture. Why shouldn't I interact with 'my' culture?

And why are you so reductive about this? Surely you can see that games are much, much more then just a monetary transaction? How do I "vote with my wallet" for mods? For speedrunners?

Don't you care how a character plays? Are you here to play or watch? You're going to judge an entire game based solely on the appearance of some female characters?

I don't care how LoL's characters play. I am here to watch LoL. I'm not judging an entire game solely on the apperance of it's female cast, I am only critiquing said cast because a person who I respect asked me to. All the other judgements I have about LoL have solely to do with its fanbase. Which is awful.

[Spoon]

Actually you know, I think I can make a decent argument here, to hopefully clarify the mess that I've made.

Let's do take a look at the league of legends champions! I haven't actually done that. Never even played the game!
Here's Ahri
Akali
Caitlyn
Camille
Cassiopeia
Diana
Elise
Evelynn
Fiora
Irelia
Janna
... Okay I can't link them all! Let me take some random samples

Lux
Sivir
Karma
Soraka
... Lemme stop before I get to Z.

No wait let me look at Z just for th... Right.

Okay yeah I can see why I personally have a problem with how these character designs are playing out. I didn't cherry pick these characters, I just went down the list until I got bored.

You did kind of cherry pick, though. Because you went through the list and specificially linked to character skin splash art that help reinforce your point
Irelia's default splash art or this one have a different feel to the one you linked, but hey.

That being pointed out...

They're all... kinda the same? Same body shapes - the same stereotypical "sexy" body shape to boot. They all seem to like those rather impractical yet oh-so-sexy poses too, and they all seem to enjoy wearing the same sexy clothes too!

That's a fair thing to make note of, sure.
I don't personally see the problem with it, though. The game has 103 million monthly active players, of which according to data from 2012, roughly 10% is female. I'm probably not alone thinking this.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say these were designed by the same dude catering to one particular fetish. I do know a bit better: It's probably three dudes doing that.

Pretty far off the mark it seems I guess you didn't know better after all.

My problem here is not "All things that are sexy or show skin are bad"! It's that they're all the same in a rather stereotypical sexy way, in a way that, say, Overwatch's roster isn't. They aren't designed to be cool, strong, cute, wilful, aloof, or the team mom. They are all designed to be conventionally sexy as their first consideration.

It's why Overwatch's character designs get mentioned so much, even if they aren't actually all that revolutionary: It's a mainstream game stepping away from character design that is entirely by men for men*. And I personally think that the games industry is better of by not being by men for men.

Oh no, you are so right, overwatch females are totally not of the same rather stereotypical sexy type.
Aside from the pink haired russian lady, who is big and buff, they're all pretty 'stereotypical' attractive ladies. (Mei is not particularly fat, she wears thick clothes). But league also has a big lady.
You seem to be missing the point why Overwatch's designs get mentioned so much. It's not because they are not sexy and attractive, but because they're diverse and multi ethnic. And considering the vast quantities of porn featuring overwatch characters out there, I'd say a significant portion of the internet seems to think they're quite sexy too.
And if we're not limiting ourselves to just the female characters, then league has got some pretty weird and diverse character designs too. But that's always seemingly conveniently ignored when there is whining about attractive character designs to do!