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Let's not forget that Ryse started development as a Kinect game.
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Jul 2, 2013 09:45
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It has kinect voice commands for the squad. Wonder if that's optional?
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Jul 2, 2013 10:48
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GetWellGamers posted:That's a male ideal of males, as opposed to the male ideal of females. According to what research on the subject I've read, If FPS protagonists were made to conform to women's idealized male figure they'd look more like Johnny Depp than Sylvester Stallone. So it's kind of an apple and oranges comparison, because the beefcake males are what the males making them idealize themselves as, whereas the wasp-waist hourglass girls are what the males making them idealize others as. See the difference? I do see the difference but if your target market are mostly males then are we not just making males that males want to play as? Aliginge posted:Speaking of, Ryse does look like quite an odd game to me, at least based off this article, if it's true. RYSE gets my aspergers up because the Romans didn't even use the letter Y 
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Jul 2, 2013 11:02
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AmazonTony posted:Agreed. Not to sound too tinfoil hatty but I'd most definitely edit out your original posts with something like "arguing with Akuma" and finish lambasting each other via email or on the phone or something.  We didn't fall out or anything, we both said our piece and moved on. The discussion about that issue in here is almost always dominated by people on the side that are pushing against any kind of "sexualisation" in games, and as someone who's been on both sides of that I thought it wasn't entirely without merit.Shalinor's mod status is something I respect but we were civil about it and are still bros so I'm not losing sleep over a post.
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Jul 2, 2013 11:09
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concerned mom posted:I do see the difference but if your target market are mostly males...  This is where you're going wrong.
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Jul 2, 2013 11:46
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Why am I going wrong? I'm not saying girls don't play games, but surely the vast majority of the user-base of games that have sexualised women and muscley men are men. V Edit: haha this subject has the tendency to make everyone look much worse than they actually are. concerned mom fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 11:55
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You know I actually used to think you were a genuine concerned mum and was disappointed when I found out you weren't.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:11
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A Sloth posted:It has kinect voice commands for the squad. Wonder if that's optional? You have to learn Latin for them to register the command though.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:27
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Sion posted:You have to learn Latin for them to register the command though. Authentic era-appropriate Latin too, none of this modern academia bollocks.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:37
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SnafuAl posted:Authentic era-appropriate Latin too, none of this modern academia bollocks. Finally, a solid reason for Kinect to never actually register a voice command 
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Jul 2, 2013 12:49
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concerned mom posted:Why am I going wrong? I'm not saying girls don't play games, but surely the vast majority of the user-base of games that have sexualised women and muscley men are men. Most non-casual gamers are still dudes, and this is the reason why. Most studios aren't making games for women, or for 'anyone', they're still making games for and mostly by men. It's bullshit, frankly. Relegating half of your entire potential audience to 'eh, I guess they might like it too if they don't mind constantly seeing their gender portrayed as either sexy playthings or helpless damsels in distress(if they appear in the game at all)' is insane.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:54
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GetWellGamers posted:That's a male ideal of males, as opposed to the male ideal of females. According to what research on the subject I've read, If FPS protagonists were made to conform to women's idealized male figure they'd look more like Johnny Depp than Sylvester Stallone. So it's kind of an apple and oranges comparison, because the beefcake males are what the males making them idealize themselves as, whereas the wasp-waist hourglass girls are what the males making them idealize others as. See the difference? So this has me curious. What is the female ideal of female characters? Aside from "not over-sexualised" or some other reaction to the current norm. If the industry was going to play up female fantasies like they do for male, what would that look like?
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Jul 2, 2013 13:09
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I'm not entirely convinced it is the reason why. I'm sure it's part of the reason. But I also think art is a mirror of the times. Games have seen a huge change in the last ten years to becoming if not more gender-neutral, then at least having more games that cater to more niches. The games industry is a business and business will normally go to where money can be made. I don't buy the argument fully that it sets what people want as well as supply it. I'm not saying that women don't want to play non casual games of course, this is a minefield of a conversation. I am saying though that I think the days of boys games only has long gone and if you look at the market it's changing a lot already. The reason why we still have boys games for boys is because boys want to play them and boys spend a lot of money. Please note I'm using the word boys in a facetious way and I don't really mean boys, just the demographic we're talking about be that whomever. I'm also far from some free-market zealot by the way, if I'm sounding like that.
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Jul 2, 2013 13:12
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Higsian posted:So this has me curious. What is the female ideal of female characters? Aside from "not over-sexualised" or some other reaction to the current norm. If the industry was going to play up female fantasies like they do for male, what would that look like? When the industry does play to stereotypes of female personal ideals, it tends to end up looking a lot like Sex and the City - pretty, independent, well-dressed women seeking emotional fulfillment via interpersonal relationships. Or just playing dress-up and running shops. I haven't played many games focused as tightly on women(not for a lack of interest, but mostly because the quality tends to be a bit lacking) but those are the ones I've seen. It's not necessarily 'better' because why the gently caress should 'being happy and looking good' just be a lady thing and 'being powerful and having sex with attractive people' just be a man thing but this is where we start delving into heavy patriarchal poo poo: because patriarchal societally-defined gender norms are ultimately the reasoning behind 'guys like X and girls like Y, sell X to guys and Y to girls, this is just how business works'. I would suggest we take this discussion to the Feminism thread where much smarter and more eloquent feminists than I could explain it better, but they don't tend to like video game talk in there cause it ends up dominating the thread for ages and making people angry.
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Jul 2, 2013 13:29
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No need for that, you gave me exactly the depth I wanted. I just wanted to picture what it might look like as I was drawing a blank. Now of course I'm picturing various games with the muscled men and top heavy women replaced with pretty, fashionably dressed people.
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Jul 2, 2013 13:44
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Aliginge posted:Speaking of, Ryse does look like quite an odd game to me, at least based off this article, if it's true. Watching it at the Microsoft presentation I could not for the life of me figure out why people would think that game to be fun. Is there a mechanic I'm missing/not understanding?
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Jul 2, 2013 14:01
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I think it's a mistake to criticize a game that isn't even out yet when it's almost assured there are developers of the game here on the forums. Most people would probably agree that this thread wouldn't be very successful if we started giving reviews on games. I'm not a mod, but it seems more appropriate to do that in the actual thread for the game.
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Jul 2, 2013 14:42
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Higsian posted:No need for that, you gave me exactly the depth I wanted. I just wanted to picture what it might look like as I was drawing a blank. Now of course I'm picturing various games with the muscled men and top heavy women replaced with pretty, fashionably dressed people. Call of Fashion: Modern Shoesale Also, was anyone else confused that Ryse's opening is almost exactly Saving Private Ryan's opening? Even with the explosion/ear-ringing/watching a dude with his arm cut off thing? Seems weird to start your ancient Rome game with a WWII flick reference.
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Jul 2, 2013 14:55
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Uba Stij posted:Watching it at the Microsoft presentation I could not for the life of me figure out why people would think that game to be fun. Is there a mechanic I'm missing/not understanding? You're in ancient Rome in the middle of a war like they were waged in those times, and it's an epic spectacle. How would that not be fun?
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Jul 2, 2013 14:56
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Akuma posted:Shalinor's mod status is something I respect but we were civil about it and are still bros so I'm not losing sleep over a post.  ".
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Jul 2, 2013 15:06
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Higsian posted:So this has me curious. What is the female ideal of female characters? Aside from "not over-sexualised" or some other reaction to the current norm. If the industry was going to play up female fantasies like they do for male, what would that look like? Valve seem to be pretty good when it comes to this (you know, other than being great at everything) with characters like Glados and Chell. DOTA has a range of female characters. Some are played up sexually but mostly when the character calls for it due to their nature e.g. Queen of Pain. Max Facetime posted:You're in ancient Rome in the middle of a war like they were waged in those times, and it's an epic spectacle. How would that not be fun? It's also not an on rails quick time game. The prompts are just finishing moves. You still actually engage in combat.
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Jul 2, 2013 15:07
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Monster w21 Faces posted:It's also not an on rails quick time game. The prompts are just finishing moves. You still actually engage in combat. I guess that was the part I wasn't able to see, but thankfully it was just a short demo so maybe it won't be as "bad" as I led myself to thinking it would be.
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Jul 2, 2013 15:36
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Higsian posted:So this has me curious. What is the female ideal of female characters? Aside from "not over-sexualised" or some other reaction to the current norm. If the industry was going to play up female fantasies like they do for male, what would that look like? I can't really speak for all females, but I recently gave a talk at a "Women in Gaming" panel at Denver Comic Con, where I discovered I hate answering questions posed as a woman, what's your stance on...? Topping my least favorite: Have you encountered any sexism in the workplace?  And then literally every question after that seemed to be "What's your favorite female protagonist? What's your least favorite?" ad nauseum. It did give me a chance to think it though. I really liked Jade from Beyond Good and Evil. Her sex was pretty much irrelevant to the point of the story; she was just a tough (maybe even tomboyish) and talented photo journalist. Lara Croft has had an interesting transformation that I'm on board with. Really liked April Ryan of The Longest Journey, as well. I liked the female barbarian in Diablo 3, too, because some thought was given on how to make her look like she could actually hurt you. My favorite character of all time, however, is Guybrush Threepwood- Elaine was pretty cool, too. Just give me a protagonist that's intelligent, resilient, and capable. Qualities I admire in other people in real life, I'm going to admire in video game characters. Fighting games make me roll my eyes the hardest; what I have zero interest in seeing tits jiggle in Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive. And then there's Dragon's Crown- in-game footage is hilarious.  As a concept artist, I think there should be a good reason behind the visual design. Are ridiculously exaggerated parts important for the functionality of the character? Don't just throw a bunch of muscles and tits at things if it doesn't make sense for the character.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:01
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Higsian posted:So this has me curious. What is the female ideal of female characters? Aside from "not over-sexualised" or some other reaction to the current norm. If the industry was going to play up female fantasies like they do for male, what would that look like? I think the issue is that some games pander far too much to a gender or certain crowds rather than just being good or interesting games on their own. If we swing too far into "what do female gamers want in female characters?" we're going to get really weird Sex in the City or Suckerpunch type cliches and that doesn't solve the issue of characters being terrible cliches in the first place! Besides, nobody can agree on this stuff in the first place. I thought the old Lara Croft was amazing for being a self sufficient woman who can hold her own in a firefight, and her huge tits/sex appeal didn't make her less capable. A lot of people really like the new one even though I thought the attempted rape plot point, "we want gamers to want to protect her" and "women with big tits are unrealistic" selling points were pretty offensive and sexist. Games are a business though so as long as tits sell that's what they'll sell.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:02
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Frown Town posted:I can't really speak for all females, but I recently gave a talk at a "Women in Gaming" panel at Denver Comic Con, where I discovered I hate answering questions posed as a woman, what's your stance on...? Topping my least favorite: Have you encountered any sexism in the workplace?  ... no, dammit, I really don't want to sell my games based on my gender, I kind of want to sell them based on what they are as, you know, games. Thanks. That doesn't even make sense, since games are all team efforts, and I'm not going to recruit my next game's team based on boobies, and ev- just NO.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:41
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Shalinor posted:I just gave a talk like that last week, and had to figure out a way to shut the guy down who kept asking "but wouldn't it be awesome if you did a game bundle that was all female devs?" Honestly, I agree with you, but indie games these days seem to need a human interest story to help them get their head above the water.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:45
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Frown Town posted:As a concept artist, I think there should be a good reason behind the visual design. Are ridiculously exaggerated parts important for the functionality of the character? Don't just throw a bunch of muscles and tits at things if it doesn't make sense for the character. I can't speak to the Amazon, but someone did a really interesting write-up about the Sorceress, looking back at the history of the guy who drew it. Apparently in every game the guy's ever done, whoever is most associated with death/necromancy is inevitably the curviest and most womanly and generally an exaggerated form of fertility. The theory was, instead of the classic idea of withered old men commanding death, the Vanillaware artist was consciously trying to depict necromancers giving life. I don't know whether it was intentional or apologetics and the artist hasn't weighed in as far as I know, but it was certainly an interesting take backed up by his previous works. If it is true, and that's what he's going for, I'm willing to extend a lot of credit for trying something thematically different with what is admittedly a tired archetype.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:54
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Shalinor posted:I just gave a talk like that last week, and had to figure out a way to shut the guy down who kept asking "but wouldn't it be awesome if you did a game bundle that was all female devs?" Pretty much. My feeling is I'm a capable team member and artist based on my skillsets; I just happen to identify as a woman and it's pretty unimportant to my performance at work. Highlighting my female-ness, asking for my opinion as a female, and generally sticking me on a pedestal just seems totally counterproductive to the idea that I'm an equal. I prefer it to the alternate, sure, but treating me like I'm somehow better at my job because I have a vagina defeats the purpose of gender equality. The reason I ever go to these talks is I want females to realize this is a viable career path, and that it doesn't have to be intimidating or a boy's club. There's some categorical knowledge I have about fashion, beauty, etc, and my other experiences as a female, sure, but that all ends up being pretty tertiary unless I'm working on a Fashion/Paper Doll type game... and that actually was pretty relevant as one of my first projects was just that. It was kind of funny seeing a mostly male staff buying girly mags for market research on women's fashion.
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Jul 2, 2013 18:55
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Horrible Smutbeast posted:Games are a business though so as long as tits sell that's what they'll sell. Though If it is true that sex sells, then I am convinced that it must be a two way street, the first dev to truly crack making a sexy game for the other 50% of the human race is going to hit on something huge and the vocal element of the male gaming populace is not gonna like it one bit. GeeCee fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 19:00
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GetWellGamers posted:I can't speak to the Amazon, but someone did a really interesting write-up about the Sorceress, looking back at the history of the guy who drew it. Apparently in every game the guy's ever done, whoever is most associated with death/necromancy is inevitably the curviest and most womanly and generally an exaggerated form of fertility. The theory was, instead of the classic idea of withered old men commanding death, the Vanillaware artist was consciously trying to depict necromancers giving life. Sure. I see your argument, and think that's an interesting take. But then I see stuff like this: http://youtu.be/mQKCgal1vdw And then bury my face deep into my palms.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:01
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Frown Town posted:Sure. I see your argument, and think that's an interesting take. But then I see stuff like this: Yeah, the tits flopping in opposite directions as she casts a spell is so over the top I want to laugh and cry a little at the same time. The Amazon has all the tit physics with the added bonus of her perma-twerking: http://youtu.be/LVJGgxCLDFk
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Jul 2, 2013 19:12
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Personally, the biggest issue to me (at least talking from a character design/writing standpoint) is diversity. There's nothing wrong with a femme fatale and there's nothing wrong with a woman scientist and there's nothing wrong with a hardass girl soldier, but I can bet you all read those character descriptions and have the same. exact. stereotypes. from various games pop into your head filling those various roles. No matter what a woman is doing in a lot of games, she's still a breast rack for male gamers, even when it makes no sense or serves no purpose to the character. This is why I think characters like Alyx Vance and Chell from the Valve games are so well done. Aside from Alyx's player-pandering, she's a regular girl who happens to be attractive, but she's not defined by that. She's defined by other, more varied and deep characteristics like her love for her family, her contempt for the antagonist, and her abilities as a scientist/technician and this all serves to create a better character and craft a better plotline. Chell is great because she's a silent protagonist like other silent protagonists and she's dressed for the task and environment she's been put in. Also, since you are playing as her, the game invites you to project your cleverness in solving puzzles onto her. When you get to feel like a badass, Chell is a badass, and that's kinda cool. The problem when it comes to characters is not necessarily that sexy girls are in games (although that sorceress concept art is just hilariously wrong to me) but that there are only ever sexy girls in games and the fact that they are sexy is their main defining trait above and at the expense of all others. It is very often just lazy design. (Obviously there are many exceptions to this, and other characters that fall on the spectrum to various degrees, but yeah). Edit: In any case, it's great to have a conversation about this that doesn't disintegrate into nonsense. 
mutata fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 19:13
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Horrible Smutbeast posted:perma-twerking Found my favorite word today.  (Though for the record, I didn't notice any jiggle-physics in the video you linked, but the legs-split butt-slam was pretty gratuitous...)
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Jul 2, 2013 19:27
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mutata posted:Personally, the biggest issue to me (at least talking from a character design/writing standpoint) is diversity. There's nothing wrong with a femme fatale and there's nothing wrong with a woman scientist and there's nothing wrong with a hardass girl soldier, but I can bet you all read those character descriptions and have the same. exact. stereotypes. from various games pop into your head filling those various roles. No matter what a woman is doing in a lot of games, she's still a breast rack for male gamers, even when it makes no sense or serves no purpose to the character. This is a fantastic post, mutata. I really admire Valve's character design (male and female!) and would love it if the rest of the industry followed suit making characters that aren't entirely one-dimensional stereotypes whose visual representation makes up about 95% of their existence. I guess some genres don't really allow for character development though. (I do like the King from Katamari a lot) I'm definitely sorry to keep feeding this fire, but I think posts like these are legitimately valuable, relevant, and worth having.
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Jul 2, 2013 19:33
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Aliginge posted:I suspect Sex Sells has become one of those received bits of wisdom. If Bayonetta sells really well then it's assumed to have done so because it's got breasts and it being a fun and completely bananas game doesn't get considered, but if it doesn't then it must be for some other reason or there wasn't enough sex in it because hey Sex Sells, make more games with breasts in em. A harlequin type game would probably sell like gangbusters. Just gotta find a slash fic writer to do the plot for it, you know, like 50 shades of grey. edit: I think there's something wrong with my depravity / perversion / immaturity, I like boobs, curves, legs, the whole shebang, but the only characters that speak to me in dragons crown are the less exaggerated ones (the wizard and elf) the rest of them just strike me as silly. ugh, I think I'm going to have to go watch some trampoline championships until I return to normal. Juc66 fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 19:46
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Frown Town posted:Just give me a protagonist that's intelligent, resilient, and capable. Qualities I admire in other people in real life, I'm going to admire in video game characters. Fighting games make me roll my eyes the hardest; what I have zero interest in seeing tits jiggle in Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive. And then there's Dragon's Crown- in-game footage is hilarious.  If I was playing the character on the right, I would never not name it Xenia Onnatop.
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Jul 2, 2013 20:19
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mutata posted:Personally, the biggest issue to me (at least talking from a character design/writing standpoint) is diversity. There's nothing wrong with a femme fatale and there's nothing wrong with a woman scientist and there's nothing wrong with a hardass girl soldier, but I can bet you all read those character descriptions and have the same. exact. stereotypes. from various games pop into your head filling those various roles. No matter what a woman is doing in a lot of games, she's still a breast rack for male gamers, even when it makes no sense or serves no purpose to the character. Agreed completely. Having attractive female characters isn't the problem, the real issue is that "female character" has become a stereotype in itself that designs can't seem to break out of. Let's just have good designs that work, regardless of tits and rear end and dick bulges instead of pandering all the time. GetWellGamers posted:Found my favorite word today. I can't take credit for that one, unfortunately. I think Pat from two best friend's play said it in a recent video or something (I might be remembering wrong).
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Jul 2, 2013 20:44
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am I the only person in the world who plays a game with female characters and sees them as female characters? (with the exception of Dragon's Crown because good lord I can't not laugh every time i watch it in motion. the animation is *ridiculous* but also amazing) Mutata hit it pretty close to the mark as far as my own opinions run. Create well rounded believable characters and, to a certain extent, their design will either flow naturally from their personality or not matter so much (since it won't be their defining trait) Again DC serves as the extreme exception to this. No amount of well developed personality could save that from being...both amazing and terrible
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Jul 3, 2013 00:08
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I know there's plenty of room for the entire industry to grow up, but why does it seem like whenever these topics come up it's a bunch of westerners projecting their ideals on products from eastern developers? Yes, a lot of eastern games are more sexually egregious than many western games, but the cultures are also very different. I can't get over the idea that we might be too deep in our puritan roots.  Let's teach our kids about guns and drugs, but call child services if they see a nipple.Dragon's Crown is hilariously over-sexualized though. It's almost unfortunate that the gameplay looks good, because I hope no one ever sees me playing that game in public.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:01
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Eh, I think that's a different topic entirely. What I said above has nothing to do with "omg think of the children censorship" or nudity or anything.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:09
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