BruceVC

You have one flawed assumption there - that male sexualization and female sexualization is the same. In other words, that women are "turned on" by the same things as men are. While there are women that swoon over good-looking men (cough *Twilight*), obviously the standards are different. For women it's (generally speaking) more emotional than physical, but it's still there. It's just harder to spot. Well, at least sometimes (dont' tell me Twilight isn't sexually objectifiying men). Would it bother me to have a male avatar in a loincloth with a bulge? Not really. We've all seen Connan. You've raised a good point about the difference in sexualisation between men and women, but I still firmly believe men can be offended and feel objectified. I also think that male gamers would get annoyed if there was no diversity in the way they were represented in games?

Seems to be mainly them or male 'journalists' or others just doing their usual preaching circuit, though. Malc sometimes the right decision is not the most popular one in certain environments

In the case of WildStar the outrage seems to be more because its a change rather than a design choice. This signifies to many that they are buckling under pressure or trying to pander to feminists. Game companies (at least the publishers) could care less about what goes into a game that doesn't make them money, they probably interpreted that study about game demographics that says that women make up about half the gamers wrong. So pandering to what they perceive is a new growing market when in reality its just a very vocal minority. Some people take equality and the representation of demographics in games seriously and changes aren't made to game because they are pandering to vociferous minority but they feel its the right thing to do. And if half the gamers are female then it makes sense to design games that appeal to them on all levels.

Yes, because we are talking about oversized labias and especially clitori and the wet pants that female game characters have. "sign" ....its a called an analogy. I was demonstrating what for most men would be the objectification of themselves in games No, the whole point is trying to equalise to different things. Big breasts in video games are analogous to massive arms, pecs and sixpack abs on (almost all) male characters. And Mario... Yes, because we are talking about oversized labias and especially clitori and the wet pants that female game characters have. "sign" ....its a called an analogy. I was demonstrating what for most men would be the objectification of themselves in games No, the whole point is trying to equalise to different things. Big breasts in video games are analogous to massive arms, pecs and sixpack abs on (almost all) male characters. And Mario... I hear you but I still think that massive breast's has a sexual objectification that is not quite the same as good arms or pecs for a man. But we can agree to disagree on this one

Yeah that's right about how you dealt with addiction in F:NV, it was a bit easy. I agree drug addiction should take you longer to recover from and be more complicated

Yes, because we are talking about oversized labias and especially clitori and the wet pants that female game characters have. "sign" ....its a called an analogy. I was demonstrating what for most men would be the objectification of themselves in games

As for my opinion on the "changes", I couldn't care less either way. Make the female breasts gigantic or make them more "normal" (which, by the way, is kind of dismissive of the fact there are women who actually have huge breasts. You know, variety rather than every female just having tiny boobs). Make the male cod piece ridiculously huge or make it not even noticeable. Either way, I don't care because it's an issue that doesn't change my enjoyment of the game. Which is ultimately my point. It just seems like such a stupid thing for people to get up in arms about. The reason I'm harping on the male equivalents (ie. super huge muscle guys as the image for male gamers to aspire to) is because there does seem to be a double standard. But overall, I just think either complaints are silly because we're talking about fictional characters made to look like an "ideal" person of that gender. You have unintentionally highlighted another valid point with this discussion. You say " I couldn't care less" and "seems like such a stupid thing for people to get up in arms about" because the reality is it doesn't effect you and your personal view of how you how you are represented in games. I ask people to have empathy, just because you don't see an issue with how females are represented in some games it doesn't mean this is not a valid concern for many others

No. You're trying to rationalize instinctual behavior, which is a frequent amateur mistake. Females' lives are built around their instinct to attract the strongest of males and get their sеmen. It may sound chauvinist, but I mean no offense. It's just that it's really all there's to it. Heh...not like I'm not familiar with that line of thought, since I've used it in my pessimistic moments re: the essentially unchanged nature of humankind. And yes, despite our intellect we are still instinctual creatures who react without thought to certain stimuli. Fight or flight, fear of unknown/different, and of course the oo-la-la. But the nature of humanity is not always the same thing as the culture of humanity, and that's where using that as an argument against change falls apart. People wanting/wishing to be as attractive as possible to find mates, natural thing and I doubt you'd find anyone to argue against that. What is culturally considered attractive, however, is ever changing and is definitely not ruled by instinct alone, but by whatever is the fad at the time. People's interests change, on a cultural level. At one time pudgy women were the height of sexual attractiveness for some. For others it was an exposed ankle. For still others it could be the bone in their perfectly shaped nose or how long their artificially-stretched-from-birth-via-metal-rings neck is. I believe the objection to objectification sometimes (or often) stems less from an objection to sexuality itself and more from how unreasonable that objectification is vs. any reality of what's reasonably physically possible. To most of our "modern" culture, for example, something like forcing girls to bind/literally cripple their feet as a pinnacle of beauty is/seems barbaric, because it's not something reasonable/humane to expect people to do in order to feel like they're attractive/have social worth. While fantasy Barbie-Doll proportions isn't in the same league as crippling one's feet, as this culture of ours evolves and changes, it's not necessarily unreasonable to think that a culture might eventually deem it unfavorable to use such as a socially-influential measurement of worth. Or such objections may end up petering out and going nowhere. Not for me to say. At any rate, just because we have roots that stem from instinct, in the long run that's usually a poor excuse for justifying not even attempting social/cultural change, if and when a time comes that enough people in a cultural group want change. ...myself, I'm still waiting for the day that flat feet and broad, short-fingered hands are considered the height of female sexiness. I'll have it made then. Never mind that I already have a mate. I can't wait, because then I'll still be considered super-sexy when I'm 65! Good post, the one thing missing from these discussions is that we don't get enough comments from our female members about these topics. I know one of the reasons for this is because we don't have a large number of female members who actively participate on the forums but its good to get your opinion in this debate

I like the fact that you can take substances to enhance your abilities but I also think that sustained use of drugs should lead to physiological addiction and some kind of negative impact for the character. I remember this was implemented in an RPG I played...was it Fallout: NV?

I watched that 25 minute video and I enjoyed it but I have some minor concerns. I like the player housing aspect but lots in the game seems to be tied to your pledge and how much money you pump into the game. I guess my criticism is " if you have money in RL then you will be fine in this game". This may be an incorrect or simplistic view I have but this is what I am seeing

I think my point is clear on this topic, I agree with Alan and almost everything he has said. In fact he has given me a different perspective which is great. But I also want to add something else that I raised on the other topic. I see a difference between the issue of absurdly large breasts on female characters to very muscular male characters, even though you can argue "men are stereotyped ...its unfair and unrealistic" that is not my main issue with the portrayal of females in some games . And the reason is the sexual objectification. A better comparison would be if your male character in a game only wore a loincloth but had this massive bulge in his pants that was completely out of context. How would you feel every time you looked at your character, in fact lets say that every male character in the game irrespective of what they wore had this massive bulge in the pants? It would be unrealistic and I can guarantee you that most people would feel uncomfortable with how men are being represented for a number of reasons

I'm going on a crusade to make sure all male video game characters have more realistic physiques. That is, pot bellies and can't run for more than 50 feet without huffing and puffing. I mean, apparently big breasted female video game characters give a bad message to girls. So the same should really apply to the risk of boys feeling bad about their bodies because they don't look like those muscle-bound hunks in their video games. It's more an issue with diversity. I mean, look at Mario. Although "I mean, apparently big breasted female video game characters give a bad message to girls" is somewhat telling, given that I'd argue it's not the girls that it sends the wrong message to. It also has the implication that it's exclusively women that have issues with this. Frankly, I think it sends a bad message to everyone. I don't care much for Marcus Fenix body types. Nor do I care for Tomb Raider 2-esque Lara Croft body types. Unfortunately I feel oversaturated with them that I tend to bring additional, and sometimes unfair, assumptions into character archetypes and the games that go with them as a result of this (mostly because I'm human). Men with suboptimal body types are still represented. How often are women with suboptimal body types presented? More importantly, what responses does she normally receive? I mean, the mere fact that the body type has been changed in the MMO appears to be threatening to people. If we're truly measuring the value on purely their function, shouldn't we not care how they look? Incorrect. Again, it comes down to diversity. It took me zero seconds to come up with a popular male character protagonist that does not come close to an idealized physique. Yes, hyper idealized men exist (and frankly, I do consider it a problem as well), but like I said above it comes down to diversity. Feminism, at its core, is simply having men and women being treated equally. It's exceptionally important to note that feminism agrees that men are treated unfairly with respect to things like having the pressures of being the primary income earner for a family, that they are typically denied jobs that are considered only appropriate for female (nursing was the big one - and in many cases men still get teased for this), and the big one that often comes up is child custody. The problem, of course, is moderate perspectives don't proliferate. No one cares about the moderate posts, but when some man hating misandrist goes around people will share that ("Look at this crazy person") point and laugh, and make implicit assumptions to how common that perspective is simply based on how frequently it's posed. Exposure is important. For the same reasons YOU get annoyed because you see something like this SO much, the other people are feeling over exposed to things like excessively endowed women and it's making them annoyed. Does this link even get shared here if it's about the MMO making less idealized male physiques? Does Nepenthe get upset? Or is it something that doesn't register because it's a topic that simply doesn't come up enough? The ironic part is that I would never have identified as a feminist until the frothing anti-feminists (not so much you, but the people that have extreme and unhealthy retorts to people like Anita Sarkeesian wanting to do a video) created such vitriol that not only did they expose me to topics and perspectives that I hadn't really given much thought towards, they also provided a perspective that I had a particular aversion towards which pushed me away from the perspective they were championing. Gaming is becoming mainstream, and it's not just "ours" anymore. The muscle bound meathead of Gears of War is likely not going away though, nor will women with very large breasts. But there's dozens upon dozens of games that don't feature the muscle bound meathead like Marcus Fenix. But with that comes people that are going to have issues with other things than you and I care about, and they're going to talk about them. While excessively large breasts are more likely to get me to do an eye roll rather than anything else, other people are perfectly within their right to voice their own concerns for what they feel increases or decreases the level of enjoyment they receive from the game. (NOTE: If we want to have a more detailed discussion of feminism, and specifically feminism in video games, we should probably take it to its own thread). Wow what a good post. I have said this before and I'll say it again, you can really articulate a point in a way that I find is almost impossible to disagree with. I read your posts and I think "how come I can't get my message across like that ?" Nice one

No I haven't, what do they look like Bester?

Maybe I'm not explaining properly, I'll try to keep it simple. Are you saying that a representation of a male character in a game can't be demeaning to men? If you think it can be then you should respect the fact that many female gamers find these ridiculous breast sizes as objectifying to them and possibly offensive?

I'm going on a crusade to make sure all male video game characters have more realistic physiques. That is, pot bellies and can't run for more than 50 feet without huffing and puffing. I mean, apparently big breasted female video game characters give a bad message to girls. So the same should really apply to the risk of boys feeling bad about their bodies because they don't look like those muscle-bound hunks in their video games. I know you are being facetious but the analogy isn't quite the same. If you want to understand why they want to reduce the inordinately large sizes of womens breasts in some games a similar example would be male characters who have massive and bulges where there p***s are. It would looks silly and isn't unrealistic. I also believe most guys would have an issue with it, this is about the objectification of women and there physiques. I don't think its unreasonable or is going to dilute your gaming experience in anyway? No, that's exactly the feminist fallacy. That portraying women with an idealized physique somehow cheapens them, and yet is a completely different thing when it comes to males. In fact, the real fallacy of common feminism is trying to replace one set of double standards with another instead of trying to do away with them. Really, I use to play the MMO Mortal Online. In that game you could have a character that was naked. There was huge complaints from members about the "unacceptable nudity around male avatars " in the game, but I don't remember anyone complaining about females that were naked. I don't see this as a fallacy, many men are fine with disproportionate size female body parts but perish the thought if this applies to men. I have personal experience with this perspective.

Well I think its a good idea for Italian members of the community, so good luck

I'm going on a crusade to make sure all male video game characters have more realistic physiques. That is, pot bellies and can't run for more than 50 feet without huffing and puffing. I mean, apparently big breasted female video game characters give a bad message to girls. So the same should really apply to the risk of boys feeling bad about their bodies because they don't look like those muscle-bound hunks in their video games. I know you are being facetious but the analogy isn't quite the same. If you want to understand why they want to reduce the inordinately large sizes of womens breasts in some games a similar example would be male characters who have massive and bulges where there p***s are. It would look silly and isn't unrealistic. I also believe most guys would have an issue with it, this is about the objectification of women and there physiques. I don't think its unreasonable or is going to dilute your gaming experience in anyway?

Have I ever mentioned that you a pessimist. No not a pragmatist or realist. You need to see the glass as half full sometimes Monte

Increased Russian military intervention or aid wouldn't help the situation at all I am optimistic that the peace talks could have positive results. I see that the Western backed Syrian opposition doesn't want to attend the peace talks because Iran was invited. But we need Iran there as they are primary sponsors of Assad. I am of the opinion that Iran is prepared to assist in brokering a truce because sanctions are being lifted against them and there is a real deal around there Uranium enrichment where they feel they are not being treated unfairly. I did predict that if you can get Iran back into the international community this will bode well for conflicts throughout the region. The only concern I have is Assad may want to stay in power in some sort of coalition government and I don't see Syrian opposition accepting this. Maybe he can go into exile into Iran but I doubt he would accept this so we will have to see what transpires

But Malc imagine all the wild moose you would see in the Canadian wilderness, you could gain another pet?

So in summary you don't care if PoE is a good game because you have loads of time on your hands to not play RPG

That does sound fun, I enjoy visual hallucinations. But I can arrange a little piece of paper for you that will give you the same effect without the lack of sleep

Wow Tale I always thought you had more patience than that, I can't believe you gave up after 10 hours Everyone knows you only stop pointless and repetitive monster fighting scenes after 100 hours, the way I see it you still have 90 hours in that maze. Back to the game son, back to the game

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/20/shroud-of-the-avatars-raised-over-3-million/#more-185347 Wow so this game is slated for a March 2014 release, that's a mere 2 months away. 2014 really seems to the " Year of the RPG "