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[petran79]

Computer adventure games in the 80s and 90s,while having some flaws, also established a better and more varied represantation of female characters.

Something you wouldnt find in console games. Eg the geeky Laverne in Day of the Tentacle or the witty Grace in Gabriel Knight. No such characters on consoles at all

When Playstation tried to make video games adult oriented (again), instead of taking inspiration from those games, they targeted teens who had grown with consoles and arcades instead. Adult not because of sophisticated characters and plot but of boobs and splatter. Though even there it never reached the level of computer games like Phantasmagoria.

This was really a setback and many years were lost.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

That's right I forgot the last 007 was a bald fat guy. Oh that's right he wasn't. Its not just women.

?

Sorry, I was just looking for my type of escapism. You seem to have loads of escapes to escape to, where there are many beautiful women (and men).

I was looking for a thingy where both men (and women) aren't particularly aesthetically oriented. I can find some really good male leads in non-traditionally attractive media, say, old man snake in that MGS, but it's harder to find escape where women aren't so stereotypically presented based on our attractiveness.

Why the snark? I never said that it was just women. Only remarking that it is harder for some women to find escapism, whilst it doesnt seem to be the case with some of you who has been having a lot of cake and not thinking of those who hasn't had any of the cake.




I wants cake :<

So you think by putting attractive women in video games it puts pressure on women to try and look better? Last time I checked most men weren't rocking six pack abs like most male protagonists.

I don't think the majority of men out there who expect real women to live up to fantasy standards, that's why it's called fantasy, a means to escape reality.

Also if video games and other media can put pressure on both men and women to be in better shape and take better care of themselves then all the better I say.

???

No, I was just saying I wants cake.... As in, the current offering is only providing escapism or fantasy for a very established and select status quo.








By the way, some has been disingenuously conflating not-attractive with ugly. This is not quite accurate to what some of us have been trying to say. We want more variety in women's representations. I certainly never said I want to see only unattractive people in my games.

But, I think there are values in exploring representations of not-traditionally visually appealing characters. For both genders. Except that it seems to mostly be done for male characters.

And no one is taking away what we currently have at the moment. All of your waifus are safe.

 

[Raven117]

This is an interesting thread...not just for the main point, but all of it.

We really aren't talking about video games here. We really aren't. Video games are merely a symptom of what society feels is beauty and that is reflected in games.

Video games are easy to target as the are (unfortunately) mostly designed by men and consumed by men. As such, its fits neatly into the narrative of "sexism."

Go to the grocery store and there inst an "unattractive" women anywhere on the covers of the magazines aimed AT women (by women). Watch every makeup commercial...clothing models...(Most) singers, almost all are predominantly attractive women.

And mostly attractive men for that matter.

Society as a whole..men AND women...define what beauty is.

Further, games are fantasy in a way. So..yeah....many characters are going to be "attractive."

As I stated earlier...Attractive characters are fine...but sexualized characters aren't.

 

[obeast]

As I stated earlier...Attractive characters are fine...but sexualized characters aren't.

I think it's more complicated than that, though - what's wrong, in principle, with a sexualized character? Geralt is sexualized repeatedly in The Witcher 3, for instance, and it's hardly an issue (in fact, it makes the game's sexualization of his love interests much more palatable).

The issue is the asymmetry between the rates of sexualiztion of male and female characters. Disapproving of it in general is just prudery, in my opinion - I'd argue that we need less sexualization of women and more of men.

 

[Mr.Fox]

I like Shanoa's design, but she probably wears high heels to be sexy, not to move comfortably in combat.

High heels aren't automatically sexy, they're stylish, some men use them too (although it is a bit unconventional, and they tend not to be as tall as women's)

 

[Doc_Drop]

High heels aren't automatically sexy, they're stylish, some men use them too (although it is a bit unconventional, and they tend not to be as tall as women's)

High heels are used to enhance the look of the calf muscle and improve the look of legs and thighs as a whole and also increase someone's height. There is literally no practical use and they are actually quite damaging to human anatomy. the fact they're considered stylish is due to the effect on the leg. As a society we'd be better off without them and the over use in fighting and action games is purely aesthetic to enhance sexiness because of beauty norms.

 

[Cloukyo]

There is no escape for some of us women, from the constant and pervasive problematic representations of our bodies in most mainstream visual medias

...


BACK TO NOVELS, I S'PPOSE~

Novels with non-standard looking female characters as main characters are just as rare. Moreso I'd say.

Unless you're exclusively reading "women's fiction" (ugh).

Most science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels still have male characters as the main characters. Not saying they aren't out there, and I'm sure you'll be able to list examples, but the vast amount of popular books have male main characters

Even if the main characters are women, they're always humanoid and the standard of their beauty is usually just rather normal or plain for the sake of the reader being able to implement their own idea of what the character looks like in their own head.

You won't be reading a female orc, or a female version of Birdie in a novel like Crossing Eden seems to want.

In fact my favourite speculative fiction author is Margaret Atwood, a very famed feminist author, yet most of her female characters are written in a way where you'd assume they're rather attractive.

And I don't have a problem with that.

Crossing Eden's example of all these varied designs for men but more realistic designs for women makes no sense to me. Because I sure as hell don't want a female version of Fang, or Birdie. Give those hideous designs to the men. Once a character gets caricatured their gender isn't really part of their identity at all.

Like, to be honest the art style of Street Fighter is garbage when it comes to the men, only the women look good.

 

[Babyshams]

I've always liked having characters in my games be attractive.

I don't want to look at ugly people.

I'm average looking at best and that is stretching what average is, I prefer to play as a Nathan Drake compared to some character that looks like Billy Bob Thorton.

Would anyone play Tomb Raider if Laura Croft was an old overweight hunchback with crooked teeth and crows feet? I'm gonna guess no, I don't care how good her characterization is. I don't want to look at ugly for 15 hours.

 

[Shengar]

It's funny that OP bring up ME2 when most of the female characters are vastly different to each other and definitely have features that wouldn't be considered as universally attractive. Miranda have boxy shapeface, Jack shave bald her head, Samara face contour is pretty tough, while Kasumi had her face hidden behind that veil which makes her impossible to judge. This feature could make them look unattractive to some player and do the opposite to the other. Their appearance design have different approach from the like we've seen in The Witcher 3 that is much better because ME2 give wider variety of design and face. This is why I believe the problem of ME Andromeda isn't about the face being average or not modeled after a superstars, but rather simple technical limitation that makes their expression looks uncanny and in turn makes people unconformable.

 

[Trickster]

That post is certainly the most gamers™ post i've seen in awhile.....yikes...a mod to remove facial wrinkling for women....what fucking planet do people live on?

See, it's posts like this where you are gonna make people stop wanting to listen.

You clearly want to see women represented more varied and better than they are today. Which I've stated that I also do on numerous occassions.

But post like this one, acting outraged because someone modded women in Witcher 3 to better fit their preference, is gonna get you absolutely nowhere.

You really need to come to acceptance about this stuff. People play these games for fun, for escapism or whatever. Not everyone is going to want to prefer realistic, or normal looking people in their games. I mean shit, there's a reason why all those adult mods exist for various games.

 

[i HeaR MusiC]

nvm

 

[Cloukyo]

That post is certainly the most gamers™ post i've seen in awhile.....yikes...a mod to remove facial wrinkling for women....what fucking planet do people live on?

A planet where most people around them are boring to look at. A planet where very few people stand out because they don't have time to waste time with make up and the like when they have to rush to work in the morning. A planet where life is so fast paced that people get wrinkles and grey hair at early age.

You know.

A planet that you really don't want to have to be reminded of when you're playing a fantasy game full of interestingly designed characters that are meant to capture your attention.

 

[geordiemp]

Watch every makeup commercial...clothing models...(Most) singers, almost all are predominantly attractive women. And mostly attractive men for that matter.

Society as a whole..men AND women...define what beauty is.

Yeah, attractive people men and women gte a one up on the stairs of life ladder for sure, us butt ugly men and women get the short straw.

I guess thats life..

 

[Cloukyo]

Yeah, attractive people men and women gte a one up on the stairs of life ladder for sure, us butt ugly men and women get the short straw.

I guess thats life..

In the entertainment industry.

Looks really don't matter otherwise in the real world (although it can subconsciously be a plus during a job interview, being unattractive doesn't reduce your chances)

 

[dosh]

Crossing Eden's example of all these varied designs for men but more realistic designs for women makes no sense to me. Because I sure as hell don't want a female version of Fang, or Birdie. Give those hideous designs to the men.

Why though? A woman who looks like Birdie in SFV wouldn't preclude having other female characters who are more to your liking in that very same game.

More generally: people asking for more varied female physiques in video games don't want to remove every single hot, sexy or attractive female characters in the medium.

A little bit of everything for everybody isn't going to hurt, is it?

 

[Kain-Nosgoth]

Just play wild guns reloaded ! This game is so good, and it has this :

she's really cool to play, don't care about the looks of the character as long as they're fun to play (and be honest, she looks cool)

 

[Cloukyo]

Why though? A woman who looks like Birdie in SFV wouldn't preclude having other female characters who are more to your liking in that very same game.

More generally: people asking for more varied female physiques in video games don't want to remove every single hot, sexy or attractive female characters in the medium.

A little bit of everything for everybody isn't going to hurt, is it?

If you keep pretty characters but add variation then I don't see it as a problem at all.

But I worry that this won't be the case when people decide that good looking female characters are offensive to look at. Look at the new Mass Effect. You could argue that the modellers are just really REALLY bad at modelling, but really... It seemed like they made a conscious effort to make sure their characters were hard on the eyes.

 

[SporeCrawler]

Currently i am playing a 7 game (botw) and its pretty good.. oh wait different topic

 

[dosh]

If you keep pretty characters but add variation then I don't see it as a problem at all.

But I worry that this won't be the case when people decide that good looking female characters are offensive to look at. Look at the new Mass Effect. You could argue that the modellers are just really REALLY bad at modelling, but really... It seemed like they made a conscious effort to make sure their characters were hard on the eyes.

I honestly don't think such an extreme agenda exists in the industry. What I'm hoping for is that developers are starting to realize their female characters simply all look the same, and they're trying to stir away from that.

That's one of the issues I think. The "gorgeous female" physique is following a set standard that doesn't vary from game to game: fine features, high cheekbones, sultry eyes, plump lips, a body shape worthy of a modeling career. Look at WItcher 3 female characters: apart from the hair and clothes, they all look very similar.

I'd love to see more muscular body shapes like Nadine's in Uncharted 4, or rounder faces like Bonnie's in RDR, or thiner lips like Tess' in TLoU. These are pretty small details, but they make the characters more interesting imo.

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

Novels with non-standard looking female characters as main characters are just as rare. Moreso I'd say.

Unless you're exclusively reading "women's fiction" (ugh).

Most science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels still have male characters as the main characters. Not saying they aren't out there, and I'm sure you'll be able to list examples, but the vast amount of popular books have male main characters

Even if the main characters are women, they're always humanoid and the standard of their beauty is usually just rather normal or plain for the sake of the reader being able to implement their own idea of what the character looks like in their own head.

You won't be reading a female orc, or a female version of Birdie in a novel like Crossing Eden seems to want.

In fact my favourite speculative fiction author is Margaret Atwood, a very famed feminist author, yet most of her female characters are written in a way where you'd assume they're rather attractive.

And I don't have a problem with that.

Crossing Eden's example of all these varied designs for men but more realistic designs for women makes no sense to me. Because I sure as hell don't want a female version of Fang, or Birdie. Give those hideous designs to the men. Once a character gets caricatured their gender isn't really part of their identity at all.

Like, to be honest the art style of Street Fighter is garbage when it comes to the men, only the women look good.

Bolded: ??????????????????

Look, I am glad you dont have problems with how the status quo is, it's great for you. No one is trying to take away what you already have at the moment. Loads more games and media with what you already like are being produced and will continue to be produced.

I think, though, acknowledging in your posts that there are demographics unexplored for others that differ from you isn't a bad thing. Statements like "No one wants this" or "It wont sell" or the like is a short-sighted participation into the topic at hand, in my opinion.

Give those hideous designs to the men.

Additionally, your continue disparaging of how hideous characteristics are men's domain and how beauty is women's domain in terms of character design is a poor attitude towards both gender's perpetuated image issues.

Supporters of "Fantasy" or "Escapism" (I used quotation marks, so important) that caters only to the current status quo comes across entitled and narrow-minded and insecure as if they do not want others to have any of their own "Fantasy" or "Escapism" that differ from what they enjoy.

tl;dr, we understand that you think no matter what the story/narrative/character background/depth of personality a character has, if that character is female, she must also be pretty. okay. we gets that. we are not trying to take that away from you. we're just saying, maybe you can acknowledge that there is actually demand for non-attractive characters by other people who isn't you.

If you keep pretty characters but add variation then I don't see it as a problem at all.

But I worry that this won't be the case when people decide that good looking female characters are offensive to look at. Look at the new Mass Effect. You could argue that the modellers are just really REALLY bad at modelling, but really... It seemed like they made a conscious effort to make sure their characters were hard on the eyes.

That last part is so full with concern trolling that my eyes rolled in their sockets :< Oww

That's what you worry about?

If that's what you worry about and you continue to handwave other posters' worries about healthy image representations for both men and women, then I can only say that there rises doubts in your ability to converse in good faith.

 

[Doc_Drop]

A planet where most people around them are boring to look at. A planet where very few people stand out because they don't have time to waste time with make up and the like when they have to rush to work in the morning. A planet where life is so fast paced that people get wrinkles and grey hair at early age.

You know.

A planet that you really don't want to have to be reminded of when you're playing a fantasy game full of interestingly designed characters that are meant to capture your attention.

I can't honestly believe you go through life thinking that most women aren't spending an extra hour or so every day on make up and hair etc in order to get to perceived minimum standards of beauty that society dictates. I work in an office full of women and they all wake up at least an hour earlier than I do due to this sort of prep. If they didn't they'd likely get comments like "you look tired" or "are you feeling ok".

 

[MartyStu]

I like Shanoa's design, but she probably wears high heels to be sexy, not to move comfortably in combat.

Shanoa gets a pass. That outfit is trying to be both functional and classy. The heels at least are not stilettos and could pass as functional.

And this is a good thread. Most of these games by themselves are fine-ish, it is the trend that is problematic.

Mass Effect's Asari has long been an issue for me in particular because of how painfully obviously creepy the intention behind their physical AND lore design is.

Witcher 3 is sort of bizarre. It actually has the variety in its side NPCs when it comes to body type, and age, but pretty much all the Women of consequence are perfect.

 

[2+2=5]

"Living in a world where a 7 is average"

and average means bad.

 

[PuppetMaster]

Seeing this pic of ME2 actually makes me angry at the hack team that made Andromeda. Those guys really fucked up a once amazing franchise.

 

[CadetMahoney]

I though this thread was going to be about 8 Hate and anything below a 7 being trash.

That topic always reminds me of the IGN 8//10 review score being akin to "shit".

 

[Doc_Drop]

Seeing this pic of ME2 actually makes me angry at the hack team that made Andromeda. Those guys really fucked up a once amazing franchise.

Hadn't realised you played it..

 

[Cloukyo]

Snip

If you want uglier characters for the sake of diversity that's fine, I already said so in the later post.

Regarded the bolded section, it is universally accepted that the art style of SF is horrid. The men's designs aren't bad in the art, but the 3D models are terrible, that's what I meant.

Somehow they managed to avoid that for the women, which is good. You think Ryu and Ken wouldn't look good if they were actually modelled with decent proportions? They look super deformed for some reason, but Chun Li, the first lady of gaming, looks lovely.

My argument this entire thread has always been that there seems to be a negative stigma to attractive characters, as several people have said, they're not interested in playing as ugly characters, the debacle over Mass Effect Andromeda should be enough proof of that. The awkward body proportions, the derpy faces, you could put it down to bad modelling, but sometimes it honestly seems intentional.

Resident Evil is the example I used earlier for girls who all looked different but nice to look at and play.

And again, as I've said before, this has nothing to do with sex appeal or the "male gaze". Just... well proportioned, well modelled, and with cool and unique designs that make you want to say "I want that outfit!"

The judgemental nature of some people, implying there's some sort of shallowness of wanting the character to be decent looking is quite shocking.

In the end, I don't want the ugliness of the character to distract from what is most important, which is aesthetic and design. The clothes the characters wear, the hair, the complexion, all these things give character to designs. And sure, if you want a character to have a derp face, or be an ogre for the sake of diversity, then yeah, put some more in. But don't do it while criticising the existence of characters who look a little prettier.

I'm often faced with the "oh so you want all girls to be barbie dolls then!" when I say this. But that's not true, beauty comes in many forms. The last three iterations of Zelda for example have all been different, all three of them have been beautiful in their own way.

I don't know, women are beautiful, it should be celebrated instead of avoided for the sake of "unattainable standards" bullshit people spout.

I honestly don't think such an extreme agenda exists in the industry. What I'm hoping for is that developers are starting to realize their female characters simply all look the same, and they're trying to stir away from that.

That's one of the issues I think. The "gorgeous female" physique is following a set standard that doesn't vary from game to game: fine features, high cheekbones, sultry eyes, plump lips, a body shape worthy of a modeling career. Look at WItcher 3 female characters: apart from the hair and clothes, they all look very similar.

I'd love to see more muscular body shapes like Nadine's in Uncharted 4, or rounder faces like Bonnie's in RDR, or thiner lips like Tess' in TLoU. These are pretty small details, but they make the characters more interesting imo.

They don't. I cited all the past three Zeldas. The Resident Evil girls, the ladies of Tekken while many are more beautiful than your average person, all look different (Ling with her teenage chinese face, Nina with a more pronounced jaw, Lili with her slight underbite). There are several versions of beauty in the real world, as there are in games.

 

[Kinyou]

Says who?

you do know that mshep from me1-3 was based on a model and he looked messed up as fuck?

That's the first time i heard someone complain about msheps face. They did a pretty good job with transferring his face, with fem ryder they did absolutely not.

 

[dosh]

They don't. I cited all the past three Zeldas. The Resident Evil girls, the ladies of Tekken while many are more beautiful than your average person, all look different (Ling with her teenage chinese face, Nina with a more pronounced jaw, Lili with her slight underbite). There are several versions of beauty in the real world, as there are in games.

They kinda do though. Having several counter-examples across hundreds of video games (I've mentioned a couple myself in my previous post) doesn't invalide the fact that the vast majority of female characters look very similar: same body type, same height, same facial features, same age.

I mean, I get what you're saying, I really do. But I'm pretty sure you can see how a very specific type of physique is represented over almost every other possibility, no?

 

[Cloukyo]

They kinda do though. Having several counter-examples across hundreds of video games (I've mentioned a couple myself in my previous post) doesn't invalide the fact that the vast majority of female characters look very similar: same body type, same height, same facial features, same age.

I mean, I get what you're saying, I really do. But I'm pretty sure you can see how a very specific type of physique is represented over almost every other possibility, no?

I dunno, in the games I mentioned, aside from characters who are intentionally sexy, the other characters all have base-level body designs, like what your average artist would draw and then build on with clothes and hair. Sure you could argue their bodies are "perfect", but I'd rather argue that their bodies are just drawn to be as a base to be unintrusive to other important aspects of designs like facial features, hair, clothes.

I disagree with the point you're saying about vast amount of characters looking the same.

All the Zeldas are different heights (hell, I'd include Wind Waker Zelda, very pretty character! But in a stylised way) have different facial features, BotW with the thicker eyebrows, Skyward Sword with the rather larger nose (rumoured because she was based off of Zelda Williams!), Twilight Princess with the sterner and more regal look.

In Resident Evil there is a clear difference between characters like Claire, Ada and Jill.

Metal Gear you have Meryl, The Boss, Eva, all playing different roles with different body types but all being great designs.

Again, I'll use Tekken. All the girls are different heights, from tallest from shortest, Lili, Nina, Anna, Alisa, Asuka, Ling. All have different faces (I've described this already), different hair, outfits, and mostly unintrusive designs in terms of being sexy body type aside from Anna and Nina, who are meant to be sexy because of the nature of their job in the story (I will admit their outfits can be sexy, but is there really that much wrong with that?)

EDIT: I just realised you implied I was using outliers

Well I dunno, I'm not going to name every videogame, only ones I've played. I'll admit Street Fighter is pretty homogenous in terms of its character designs for women but honestly, design wise Street Fighter gets a lot wrong. Guilty Gear and King of Fighters have plenty of different looking girls (considering they both use a basic anime art style). I played the Yakuza games recently, a lot of the girls are just modelled after real people, they all look different but equally beautiful, yes I know they're JAV models.

Anyway I'm at work so I shouldn't be posting any more!

 

[Ketkat]

Metal Gear you have Meryl, The Boss, Eva, all playing different roles with different body types but all being great designs.

So you like The Boss's design? But she's over 40! And her face isn't traditionally attractive. She's not a 10/10 like you said developers should be aiming for. Is she a perv? Not a woman?

You were literally complaining that designing a game around a woman who is old yet you like the Boss. You said it doesn't appeal to any target demographic, but when I think about it, she's probably the most popular character in the MGS series. At least, I hear about her the most. Even more than Snake.

 

[Cloukyo]

So you like The Boss's design? But she's over 40! And her face isn't traditionally attractive. She's not a 10/10 like you said developers should be aiming for. Is she a perv? Not a woman?

You were literally complaining that designing a game around a woman who is old yet you like the Boss. You said it doesn't appeal to any target demographic, but when I think about it, she's probably the most popular character in the MGS series. At least, I hear about her the most. Even more than Snake.

Yeah, later I admitted I was wrong about that.

 

[Exploratory]

WD2 didn't have attractive (or "supermodel") female characters at all.

What? Yes it did the main female who's a part of your group is fine as fuck. She's in no way average.

 

[themaskedndi]

Instead of framing things as attractive vs. ugly, I would say games need to offer a better variety of appealing female designs. Female game characters are often designed around a very narrow idea of beauty, but people are drawn to all kinds of things. I definitely know people that are more attracted to Zarya-type characters than anything else.

I would be thrilled if developers started creating more female characters that were 40+, or even older than that. I've always been a sucker for the "old warrior gets drawn back into battle" trope, and it hardly ever gets applied to women.

In my ideal world, devs would focus on creating interesting, compelling characters first and foremost. From there, they can come up with an appealing design that suits that character.

What sucks is just how extreme it is. When devs try to design female characters that aren't conventionally-attractive, they often make them comically grotesque. Like Hanako in Persona 4, Queen Brahne in Final Fantasy IX, just for a couple examples that come to mind.

Persona 4 Golden is one of my favorite games of all time, but the way it treats Hanako is pretty shameful. I don't even think there's an issue with her design; the problems are with the writing.

Computer adventure games in the 80s and 90s,while having some flaws, also established a better and more varied represantation of female characters.

They really did. When I was very young, I did most of my gaming on the computer, where I could play as characters like Valanice (who is probably 40+ in KQVII), Laura Bow, and Emily Hartwood.

Most science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels still have male characters as the main characters. Not saying they aren't out there, and I'm sure you'll be able to list examples, but the vast amount of popular books have male main characters

This is blatantly false. I don't know how anyone could pay even the slightest amount of attention to YA and believe this. Only 22% of YA books have male protagonists. 65% of books have exclusively female protagonists, and 13% have multiple protagonists. I don't have any stats on sci-fi or fantasy novels, but it's certainly not hard to find books with female leads (or books written by female authors). Of the five books that are nominated for a Nebula this year, 3 have female leads and two have shared protagonists. Are you just dismissing anything with a female lead as "women's fiction" (ugh)?

 

[Cloukyo]

This is blatantly false. I don't know how anyone could pay even the slightest amount of attention to YA and believe this. Only 22% of YA books have male protagonists. 65% of books have exclusively female protagonists, and 13% have multiple protagonists. I don't have any stats on sci-fi or fantasy novels, but it's certainly not hard to find books with female leads (or books written by female authors). Of the five books that are nominated for a Nebula this year, 3 have female leads and two have shared protagonists. Are you just dismissing anything with a female lead as "women's fiction" (ugh)?

No, I'm dismissing romance novels, they're garbage.

Either way, most decent and popular YA books I've read had ensemble casts or young male leads, the only ones that were half decent that I read with female leads were the northen lights, hunger games and maybe sabriel.

You'll find better women in adult fiction. But you won't find many of them and most of the time it's left to female authors to do it right.

 

[Acinixys]

The Witcher uses preexisting characters so it's not the best example

Yeah except for Ciri, all the hot young witches/sorceresses you meet only look like that because they use illusion magic

The books explain this

 

[YesNOnoNOYes]

snip.

I dont think I ever implied that you were shallow for wanting girls to be pretty? If I did, please point it to me and I'd apologize. However, complaining about something that wasn't actually verbatim said to you is more projection of what you think of yourself more than anything else. (Am an artist, so I love to draw pretty things, so it's not like I don't understand superficiality.)

And a little rich, considering that you have shown very little regard for what other people have been saying. Consider, there is a few* posters who have been saying they would like to play certain nonconventional aesthetics, to which, I see most of your replies have been dismissive as in "there's no market for such and such". In reality, you've completely bulldozed the very fact that there IS potential demand for something that you're not a fan of.

*Having said that, I totally acknowledge there is a lot more posters who are fine and happy with how things are. Which is okay by me. I do not see any realistic trend happening that will take away what people actually consume.




AGAIN I HAVE TO ITERATE: it is disingenuous to conflate nonconventional aesthetic with ugly.

Character design can, and should be, more varied than just binary of pretty vs ugly. Just because some thing does not appeal to a certain person does not make that character 'ugly' universally.

:3

 

[Amikami]

Do women not want to look at or play as attractive women?

Any time a game gives me the choice of character creation I try my best to make an as attractive man as I can. If we were to grade looks on the global, non-model scale I would be a 6 at best and maybe that's even stretching it, but when the game gives me a choice I want to make myself a 10. Do women not want to do this?

Genuinely curious since my only point of reference is my wife and she doesn't care about this particular issue, but I know she doesn't represent the majority of the female player base because, well, she's a bit of an odd one lol.

As a woman, I'll put it this way. We might want to play as an attractive woman. That's not really the issue. The issue is when all female characters, playable or NPC, are often dispicted as beautiful and nearly ideal. In the same game, you'll have male NPC of all kind. What does that say to girls if there's no variability in females characters attractiveness. It's not an issue exclusive to games. There was a study done looking at different teen focussed channels (e.g., Nick, Disney, etc.) Just about all of the female characters teen and adult were dispicted as pretty unless they were the crazy stalker type, Whereas boys featured in the show were very variable. It's about representing. Main characters just like TV protagonist are almost always attractive which is fine but when there is such a discrepancy in how men and women in general are represented, it's quite noticeable and leaves an impression on young girls and boys alike and is a cause of concern for me personally.

 

[themaskedndi]

No, I'm dismissing romance novels, they're garbage.

Either way, most decent and popular YA books I've read had ensemble casts or young male leads, the only ones that were half decent that I read with female leads were the northen lights, hunger games and maybe sabriel.

You'll find better women in adult fiction. But you won't find many of them and most of the time it's left to female authors to do it right.

Thankfully, we can look at actual data instead of relying on what people have and haven't read.

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/young-adult-hardcover/

Every single book on the YA Hardcover bestseller list has a female protagonist. (At least 3 books have shared protagonists). If you look closely, you'll see that every book on that list was written by a woman. This list is missing John Green, who hasn't put out a new book since 2012, but his bestselling book, The Fault in Our Stars, also has a female lead.

If you look at the Adult bestseller list, female characters still dominate. Out of 15 books, there are 9 with female protagonists, 3 with male protagonists, 2 with male and female, and Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, which I don't know how to classify.

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/hardcover-fiction/

Books are light years ahead of video games on this, and it's inaccurate to pretend otherwise.

 

[Zaphrynn]

You could pull tons of non-conventional women leads just from Stephen King books.

From the top of my head:
Tommyknockers
Dark Tower series
Lisey's Story
Carrie

There's more but I just don't feel like researching this on my phone.

Books are way ahead in regards to representation.

 

[Glass Shark]

I've always liked having characters in my games be attractive.

I don't want to look at ugly people.

I'm average looking at best and that is stretching what average is, I prefer to play as a Nathan Drake compared to some character that looks like Billy Bob Thorton.

Would anyone play Tomb Raider if Laura Croft was an old overweight hunchback with crooked teeth and crows feet? I'm gonna guess no, I don't care how good her characterization is. I don't want to look at ugly for 15 hours.

Average / typical / "normal" is not ugly. No one's asking for hideous characters, just more realistic ones.

 

[Cloukyo]

Thankfully, we can look at actual data instead of relying on what people have and haven't read.

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/young-adult-hardcover/

Every single book on the YA Hardcover bestseller list has a female protagonist. (At least 3 books have shared protagonists). If you look closely, you'll see that every book on that list was written by a woman. This list is missing John Green, who hasn't put out a new book since 2012, but his bestselling book, The Fault in Our Stars, also has a female lead.

If you look at the Adult bestseller list, female characters still dominate. Out of 15 books, there are 9 with female protagonists, 3 with male protagonists, 2 with male and female, and Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, which I don't know how to classify.

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/hardcover-fiction/

Books are light years ahead of video games on this, and it's inaccurate to pretend otherwise.

Huh.

Fair play, not gonna argue with stats. Guess I'm being too selective with my books/havent read many recent books, my recommendations always seem to have guy protagonists or ensemble casts. I think literally all the spec fiction books I've read have male protags. (EDIT: Aside from Atwood's stuff)

Average / typical / "normal" is not ugly. No one's asking for hideous characters, just more realistic ones.

Crossing Eden's post from earlier seems suggest otherwise. When s/he was posting orcs and goblins and characters like fang and birdie from street fighter.

I'm fine with realistic as long as the designs are nice. "realistic" (what does this even mean?) girls are very pretty if they have cool designs anyway imo.

 

[Crossing Eden]

A planet where most people around them are boring to look at. A planet where very few people stand out because they don't have time to waste time with make up and the like when they have to rush to work in the morning. A planet where life is so fast paced that people get wrinkles and grey hair at early age.

You know.

A planet that you really don't want to have to be reminded of when you're playing a fantasy game full of interestingly designed characters that are meant to capture your attention.

If you find people boring to look at you need to watch people more. People are interesting AF, there's a shit ton of nuances in the average person that you can pick up just by going to a park. Genuinely go outside and people watch. Humanity is interesting as ell, and reading some of these posts i'm reminded of that scene from Adaptation where Nic Cage said "what if you wanna design a story where nothing happens like in real life" and subsequently gets blown the fuck out.

Crossing Eden's post from earlier seems suggest otherwise. When s/he was posting orcs and goblins and characters like fang and birdie from street fighter.

I'm fine with realistic as long as the designs are nice. "realistic" (what does this even mean?) girls are very pretty if they have cool designs anyway imo.

It's almost like women can be depicted with different body shapes or something, and that devs should stop being creatively and intellectually lazy when designing women..I like how "average" now is associated with "ugly" because gamers.

 

[eso76]

Just play wild guns reloaded ! This game is so good, and it has this :

she's really cool to play, don't care about the looks of the character as long as they're fun to play (and be honest, she looks cool)

i'm fairly sure this is attractive to an audience.

As a general rule, i think all videogames characters are meant to be attractive except when their role in the story dictates they should be scary or repulsive or just very old.
Plus, it's the good old marketing rule at work.
But sex sells to men more than it does to women, who are generally less subject to fall to such shallow devices.

So you like The Boss's design? But she's over 40! And her face isn't traditionally attractive. She's not a 10/10 like you said developers should be aiming for. Is she a perv? Not a woman?
.

Well, tbh the Boss is "old" but she's still modeled after Charlotte Rampling.
She's beautiful, although you probably wouldn't feel that kind of attraction.

Meryl, on the other hand, was originally a less conventionally attractive character

 

[Crossing Eden]

To reiterate this is the scene I was talking about. The average person goes through a shit ton of shit on a daily basis.

 

[feint_ruled]

This thread has answered a question for me that I've been pondering about for quite a while - how the professional female cosplayers can seem to impersonate just about any game character going with amazing accuracy. I had thought it was just costume and makeup doing miracles but if they have the right sort of looks they are pretty much set for 99% of the female characters out there!

 

[Moff]

It's very obvious that in our society a woman's attractiveness is much more dependent on her flawless, young appearance than men's and that is reflected in all media.

you can also see this in alien/animal/monster designs, while male versions of those can go full alien/monster/animal, female version often still have much more human appearances.
I do think that most characters are designed to be attractive, male and female, but our society just gives males a far bigger variety what makes them attractive, while women are reduced and limited to their flawless, young looks

 

[KillLaCam]

Well I just don't wanna play as an ugly character. Don't wanna play as an out of shape(or average as some people might say) guy in a game. Same thing with the women.

Most mames are supposed to be fantasies. I'm not living out a fantasy by playing some fat guy average Joe wannabe or the soccer mom lookalike.


They don't have to look perfect though. I just don't want everyone to be ugly. Like Adam Jenson from deus ex doesn't look too much like a hero to me and the new Lara Croft just looks like a person who I'd see at the rock climbing, acrobatics place .

 

[Crossing Eden]

Well I just don't wanna play as an ugly character. Don't wanna play as an out of shape(or average as some people might say) guy in a game. Same thing with the women.

Games are supposed to be fantasies. I'm not living out a fantasy by playing some fat guy average Joe wannabe or the soccer mom lookalike.

Literally the most well known game character ever is a fat Italian plumber.

They don't have to look perfect though. I just don't want everyone to be ugly. Like Adam Jenson from deus ex doesn't look too much like a hero to me and the new Lara Croft just looks like a person who I'd see at the rock climbing, acrobatics place .

Adam Jensen looks like this:

he's absolutely an example of heroic idealism right down to the fact that he doesn't have to take anything for his augs. New Lara is an example of heroic idealism for a woman, and it's a good thing she does actually climb rocks and do acrobatics.

 

[DemWalls]

A character who is alluring while not being drop-dead gorgeous is exactly the sort of thing you almost never see in games, and TW3 is the perfect example to prove that, if anything. Odd example for him to use as a defense.

Personally, I think they did a decent job with that. While definitely good looking, I find none of the sorceresses in the game to be impossibly beautiful, especially some of the "minor" ones.

Same can't be said about Ciri, though.