Oversexualization of females in video games

[Auxilius]

This comic is meant to be ironic right? Because the guy in the retarded hat is over-reacting, and is acting like he knows what all women think. And thinks that the fact that he likes "nerdy girls" gives him the rank of grand inquisitor of the white knights. And is treating that other woman like a slave. The message is that they are both pathetic, right?

I dunno. xkcd tends to be a smug prick who think he knows what people are truly thinking and what is good in the world for everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if it was serious.

And panama hats are cool you jerk .

[Heresiarch]

"stuff like "boob armor" or mail bikinis totally ruins the experience for me"

 

"I couldn't care less if there was boob armor"

 

I want to know who taught you how to argue 'cause that's impressive.

 

Additionally, Annah's armor was skimpy as all get out and I'm pretty sure she didn't give a **** about fashion.

 

Well, I wonder who taught you to read, since for some reason you missed the "you need a magnifying glass to see this stuff on 800 by 600 pixel screen" part.

But anyways Annah cared about her looks. You can tell if you've played the game.

 

 

 

It's not like males haven't suffered heavy stereotypes placed upon them in games but you don't see me complaining.

You mean the stereotype where men are mountains of muscles, with 140 IQ, lightning reflexes and get the chick at the end? oh.. so.. suffering..

 

If you put it that way, male stereotypes are no better. For one thing, not all men are that bright, that fast, that muscular or get an extremely sexy "chick" in the end. Or ever. But there are many other insulting men stereotypes. Like thinking with their privates instead of their brain and drooling over every attractive woman or falling easy prey to the seductress-type characters and so on.

 

I really fail to see how "women as sexual fantasies" is not politically correct. Or "men as sexual fantasies" for that matter. People have sex, some of them more often than the others and they enjoy the thought of being a sexual fantasy and don't find it insulting or demeaning. And again not all women find the "sexy stereotype" offensive.

[Kilroy_Was_Here]

Everything has its own proper place.

 

From the Evil Overlord List: (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html)

 

#33 I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.

[Dream]

 

 

Right. If it is a game with high enough resolution that you can see the type of rediculous armor characters are wearing, as you might in PE, heresiarch cares. In Baldur's Gate, where sprites were running around at 800x600 resolution where you couldn't really tell a boobplate from a flail of ages, heresiarch didn't care.

 

Either you and Heresiarch have the world's worst eyesight, or, more likely, you're using the world's worst cop out to try and keep your arguments on life support.

 

I wonder which is the case...

[Amentep]

Plus bond was always made to appeal more to women....talk about oversexualized male.

 

Um...can't really agree with that; while you can argue the movie version was made to appeal to men and women both (the idea was that men would want to be him and women would want to be with him) I think that's simply because the movies need broader appeal than the books. And even with that they had to change with the time due to societies changing values on women and their contributions (compare Tatiana Romonov, SMERSH spy recruit in the 60s with - say - Wai Lin of the CPESF in the 1990s)

 

The book version is probably more so a male fantasy than the movies; Bond lives alone and has plenty of money to do what he wants when not on a mission, doesn't believe in long term relationships (because usually one or the other of the two end up getting on the nerves of the other) but still gets women to go for him at the drop of a hat. The only permanent female characters are Moneypenny (the boss' secretary) and Bond's housekeeper, an older lady. Seems like the intent is to present kind of ideal life for a man of the period (of writing) action, adventure, sex and no strings attached. Very few of the women characters got much consideration (although I don't find Bond to be as reprehensible as a lot of other people either; I've known some others who've described the literary Bond as a vile character (to be fair, I haven't read all the books)).

Edited October 22, 2012 by Amentep

[UncleBourbon]

Right. If it is a game with high enough resolution that you can see the type of rediculous armor characters are wearing, as you might in PE, heresiarch cares. In Baldur's Gate, where sprites were running around at 800x600 resolution where you couldn't really tell a boobplate from a flail of ages, heresiarch didn't care.

 

Either you and Heresiarch have the world's worst eyesight, or, more likely, you're using the world's worst cop out to try and keep your arguments on life support.

 

I wonder which is the case...

 

I don't know what arguement you think I'm part of, but his case has some logic; if he can't see the difference in character attire, he doesn't care, but if he is looking down on a party he can tell is wearing "armor" covering the bare essentials and yet having the defensive capabilities of a person encased in armor, it damages his immersion. Another apt comparison is something like Dwarf Fortress. Sure, maybe the female dwarves are wearing chainkinis, or maybe they just weave their beards around themselves - but because they're represented by letters, I don't give a damn. But if I were playing Napoleon Total War and half my troops were marching around with barely anything on - well, I'd probably disband the unit for being so stupid.

[Brannart]

You mean the stereotype where men are mountains of muscles, with 140 IQ, lightning reflexes and get the chick at the end? oh.. so.. suffering..

 

Well it is not like every single man in fiction is the hero. What character exactly are you referring to here?

[nikolokolus]

All of this ink spilled ... for a game where our characters will be two inches tall on the screen ... bravo ladies and gents

[rjshae]

All of this ink spilled ... for a game where our characters will be two inches tall on the screen ... bravo ladies and gents

As they say, the devil is in the details.

[Brannart]

All of this ink spilled ... for a game where our characters will be two inches tall on the screen ... bravo ladies and gents

 

And they have not even showed us models of the characters yet to even justify the discussion. It is a general pre-emptive strike against other games Obsidian did not even make.

[Malcador]

All of this ink spilled ... for a game where our characters will be two inches tall on the screen ... bravo ladies and gents

 

It's like the Daily Mail on here, sometimes.

[Margaretha]

Since when did bond qualify as a mountain of meat? Haven't you seen the Gears of War trailers or something. Plus bond was always made to appeal more to women....talk about oversexualized male.

Wow. I gave a reference to the most obvious sexist movie series amongst popular movies and.. you are able to say something along the lines of: it's a movie "for women" and James Bond is somehow reified to please the female audience. Poor vilified men!

 

I know you do not feel vilified. What you are trying to say is that women are not either. Now, you'll explain me they are glorified all day long on our (TV and computers) screens the same way. May be a difficult task.

[ImRhoven]

This "You want realism in a fantasy?! LOLOL!!" argument is really dumb and tiresome. People, or at least I, don't want realism, they want internal consistency. If you can't tell the difference between those, go read a dictionary.

 

The only thing I'd feel need to note here is that, given Obsidian are far, far, from releasing all the details on the world, society (various) in it, their cultures, few or many beliefs, and so on - there is lots of information we don't have beyond that - . . . I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about what's consistent internally yet.

 

Unless there is some sort of special physics or magical law in the PE world, that somehow completely changes how Newtonian physics work on a day to day basis, then yes, it would be inconsistent for women to go to battle in inferior armor.

[Joukehainen]

This "You want realism in a fantasy?! LOLOL!!" argument is really dumb and tiresome. People, or at least I, don't want realism, they want internal consistency. If you can't tell the difference between those, go read a dictionary.

 

The only thing I'd feel need to note here is that, given Obsidian are far, far, from releasing all the details on the world, society (various) in it, their cultures, few or many beliefs, and so on - there is lots of information we don't have beyond that - . . . I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about what's consistent internally yet.

 

Unless there is some sort of special physics or magical law in the PE world, that somehow completely changes how Newtonian physics work on a day to day basis, then yes, it would be inconsistent for women to go to battle in inferior armor.

 

And Obsidian agrees with you:

 

[Falkon Swiftblade]

It's funny how controversial this subject seems to be to some people.

 

I'm one of the people who are very tired of the oversexualization of women in video games, because it usualy makes little sense. It is very one dimensional. Unimaginative etc. It is fine for sexy characters. For example succubi or prostitutes. But as default, no thank you.

 

Personally, I want diversity. Both it appearance and personality. I want beautiful, pretty, plain, ugly and hideous characters of both genders. Having plain looking people will also enhance the beautiful as well as the ugly. Which is awesome in my opinion.

 

So there, that's my 2 cents. No politics needed.

 

exactly my thoughts.

 

Wow a whole thread of trolls for someone who doesn't objectify women sexually and you guys crucify the guys plea. Maybe he was ignorant of the search feature, but chill out.

 

It's true that men and women have a warped perspective of what's sexy or macho, but just because it's a popular belief doesn't mean it's the right belief. I was told for a dozen years by my parents I'd never be able to drive a car, or do a lot of things that normal people can do because I had seizures and a stroke. I had Dr.'s, my parents, and all kinds of people who were experts tell me I couldn't or would never be able to do a laundry list of things and they were all wrong. Their 10-30 yrs of experience didn't mean a thing. I've done everything they told me I'd never do for almost 15 yrs now. No one ever would know I had a stroke or seizures for about half of my life unless I told them. In fact I'm a successful artist now and the cool thing about my work is a result of the stroke was I have permanent nerve damage and lost the feeling in my drawing hand, but no one knows by looking at my work I can't feel the brush or keys on the keyboard. This is all 2d, no 3d.

 

 

 

Sometimes people lose their identity and feel like they are somebody when they choose to be the heman or seductress types of characters, but it's just a shallow impression of what's real, and I promise you you are much more interesting and cooler of a person than something someone else can conjure up if you believe in yourself. People who choose those types of characters are either lusting for the sexy pixel tata's, or they have a low self esteem.

[Dream]

I don't know what arguement you think I'm part of, but his case has some logic; if he can't see the difference in character attire, he doesn't care, but if he is looking down on a party he can tell is wearing "armor" covering the bare essentials and yet having the defensive capabilities of a person encased in armor, it damages his immersion. Another apt comparison is something like Dwarf Fortress. Sure, maybe the female dwarves are wearing chainkinis, or maybe they just weave their beards around themselves - but because they're represented by letters, I don't give a damn. But if I were playing Napoleon Total War and half my troops were marching around with barely anything on - well, I'd probably disband the unit for being so stupid.

 

Except they aren't represented by letters, and you can easily tell that they're wearing boob plates. Saying it doesn't matter in IE because the sprites are small is a cop out to justify actually liking a game that has boob plates. Either boob plates ruin the experience and as such IE games should be considered ruined, or they don't.

 

As for "damaging immersion," I'm pretty sure sleeping off shattered limbs and 50 arrows sticking out of your chest is more unrealistic than sexy armor. At least armor being used to amplify to a person's aesthetics has been used throughout history (cod pieces, roman 6 pack breastplates, etc.). If the game takes place in a society where it is acceptable for women to be warriors then it stands to reason that women, like their male counterparts in our history, might also like to don this type of armor.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Dream

[Heresiarch]

I know you do not feel vilified. What you are trying to say is that women are not either. Now, you'll explain me they are glorified all day long on our (TV and computers) screens the same way. May be a difficult task.

 

I do not watch TV, but I can give plenty of examples of video games, that I've played over the last year, where I did not see any gender vilification or gloryfication: Dishonored, The Walking Dead, Prototype 2, Max Payne 3, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations...

[UncleBourbon]

I don't know what arguement you think I'm part of, but his case has some logic; if he can't see the difference in character attire, he doesn't care, but if he is looking down on a party he can tell is wearing "armor" covering the bare essentials and yet having the defensive capabilities of a person encased in armor, it damages his immersion. Another apt comparison is something like Dwarf Fortress. Sure, maybe the female dwarves are wearing chainkinis, or maybe they just weave their beards around themselves - but because they're represented by letters, I don't give a damn. But if I were playing Napoleon Total War and half my troops were marching around with barely anything on - well, I'd probably disband the unit for being so stupid.

 

Except they aren't represented by letters, and you can easily tell that they're wearing boob plates. Saying it doesn't matter in IE because the sprites are small is a cop out to justify actually liking a game that has boob plates. Either boob plates ruin the experience and as such IE games should be considered ruined, or they don't.

 

As for "damaging immersion," I'm pretty sure sleeping off shattered limbs and 50 arrows sticking out of your chest is more unrealistic than sexy armor. At least armor being used to amplify to a person's aesthetics has been used throughout history (cod pieces, roman 6 pack breastplates, etc.). If the game takes place in a society where it is accepted for women to be warriors it stands to reason that women, like their male counterparts in our history, might also like to don this type of armor.

 

Except "this type of armor" is vastly inferior, as has been stated multiple times. Additionally, the graphical differences between BG1 and PE are likely to be vast - and to be honest, no, I can't tell when characters in BG1 are wearing boobplates, and if they are, then if I noticed it would bug to me an extent - it is simply unrealistic that women would wear such vastly inferior equipment. The graphical quality of sprites is not necessarily equal amongst all Infinity Engine games. Also, enjoying a game that might have boobplates is different from not enjoying boobplates in a game I otherwise enjoy. If PE has boobplates, will I immediately demand a refund and quit playing to protest? No. Indeed, it probably wouldn't bother me much. But people positing that armor with significant, detremental defects is just as good as logically effective armor peeves me a bit - so does being considered a "white knight" for saying this, and people positing both including it is sexist in that it sexualizes women, and others claiming that removing it is sexist.

[Margaretha]

I do not watch TV, but I can give plenty of examples of video games, that I've played over the last year, where I did not see any gender vilification or gloryfication: Dishonored, The Walking Dead, Prototype 2, Max Payne 3, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations...

No, you are trying to give me examples of videogames where women are not objectified (according to you.. Dishonored, Max Payne, really??). I was not asking this. Edited October 22, 2012 by Margaretha

[Joukehainen]

Guys guys I have a great idea. I had it seven pages ago, nobody listened. -.-

 

Everyone agrees that a stereotyped, one dimensional portrayal of men as big muscly meatheads is dull, uninspired and can be offensive. And the portrayal of women as sex objects or eye candy is likewise uncreative, unimaginative and offensive. So why is it so difficult to admit that?

 

I think Obsidian is doing a great job with Cadegund and Sagani: they are attractive by conventional standards but both look like feasible warriors in a fantasy setting.

 

So I don't think we need to worry too much, OP!

 

Oh, and let's make a concentrated effort to not feed the trolls. They've had their knee-jerk reactions, false equivalences, and circular logic shot down 10 times over but they just keep reposting the same thing anyway.

 

If we're going to repost something, let's repost the positive. I think we can trust Obsidian to not be sheep in the market and give us some deep, well-thought out, and creative characters of any and all gender.

[UncleBourbon]

I think one of the positive things that could come from these respawning threads would be dialog for a couple of NPCs outside some blacksmith, arguing about having some made-to-order boobplate commissioned. You know, arguing back and forth forever.

[Heresiarch]

As for "damaging immersion," I'm pretty sure sleeping off shattered limbs and 50 arrows sticking out of your chest is more unrealistic than sexy armor. At least armor being used to amplify to a person's aesthetics has been used throughout history (cod pieces, roman 6 pack breastplates, etc.). If the game takes place in a society where it is acceptable for women to be warriors then it stands to reason that women, like their male counterparts in our history, might also like to don this type of armor.

Accentuated codpiece and muscle cuirass are examples of ceremonial armor custom-made and designed to impress, not to fight in. Same goes for boobplate.

 

 

I do not watch TV, but I can give plenty of examples of video games, that I've played over the last year, where I did not see any gender vilification or gloryfication: Dishonored, The Walking Dead, Prototype 2, Max Payne 3, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations...

No, you are trying to give me examples of videogames where women are not objectified (according to you.. Dishonored, Max Payne, really??).

Just for reference:

Sexual objectification refers to the practice of regarding or treating another person merely as an instrument (object) towards one's sexual pleasure, and a sex object is a person who is regarded simply as an object of sexual gratification or who is sexually attractive.

 

Now, what are the examples of sexual objectification in Dishonored or Max Payne? I'm talking of justified cases, which make the player think, "yeah, that's how I like them women" not fill him with rage and disgust.

[Joukehainen]

I think one of the positive things that could come from these respawning threads would be dialog for a couple of NPCs outside some blacksmith, arguing about having some made-to-order boobplate commissioned. You know, arguing back and forth forever.

 

Haha that's a great idea!

 

And reminds of the Oglaf comic one of the posters in the previous thread (Starker) linked:

 

[kabaliero]

Okay. I decided to be a part of this madness.

 

The whole thing about revealing armour and stuff.

It's like an analogy.

Well armored woman = chastity, piety.

Chain bikini and among orcs? = *trollface*.

 

PS: Yes. Screw Conan and all the artists who supported that line of fantasy image.

 

PPS: "itz juss a gaym and iwanna git mah chikcs nakid" Is this really? I mean... ? Bah.

Edited October 22, 2012 by kabaliero

[Streamlock]

To respond the the original post....As it makes sense in the lore-sure for the most part.

 

If you have lets say-a strong, independant, strong willed 'un-sexualized' female warrior NPC, having another female NPC who is confortable with her sexuality and uses it to her advantage-either in or out of battle would create juxtaposition to the characters.

 

I actually think it would do justice for a strong lead female NPC to have such context, or so much as it applies to the game world they are crafting.

 

Having a NPC lop off a breast so they can draw a bow string superimposed against the village harlot in 'breast'mail and a ringmail short skirt would probably be a little extreme.....But you get my point.