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Why women criticise sexualised character designs | OT3 | "make her look more...corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
- Thread starter Persephone
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I'm totally into the gothic Lolita style but that character's outfit is raveling in strange ways.
Many of these slap! I do question if the big black women will be stereotyped but overall this is good.
What do you think of the designs for Destruction AllStars?
I sure hope not. BTW I do want to get that game but I'm not sure at full price yet.
One study =/= fact. The conclusion in the article is just plain wrong, even if the study didn't find any results. It's always a lot more nuanced than "sex sells" or "sex doesn't sell". That's pretty much always the case for any subject that explores the human mind.
I can link you 10 studies that show you that sex in advertising has a positive impact on purchasing behaviour. That doesn't mean the study, they used to write the article, is wrong though.
From what I still remember from taking the class "consumer behaviour" (very interesting subject really) is that sex has a positive impact on purchasing behaviour for both men & women but there's some caveats to the statement "sex sells". It depends on your target audience, in general it works better for men than women, and it also depends on the product you're trying to sell. In some cases sex can even have a negative impact on purchasing behaviour. For example you can't sell toothpaste with sexual advertising but entertainment generally does fall under the "sex sells" category.
Anyway, I'm pretty stuff like this goes through focus groups. Devs usually don't really make these decisions when it comes to AAA games. Everything gets focus tested to hell. Blame the higher ups because even if sex does sell more games that doesn't mean you have to use it.
I don't know much about it but holy shit is remothered a stupid name for a game, it's almost infinite undiscovery levels of nonsense.
Really solid designs all around.
What do you think of the designs for Destruction AllStars?
Really solid designs all around.
I actually really enjoyed that piece, thank you for sharing!
In gameplay terms, it's just a really good rogue-lite action game with a lot of replayability. On top of that is a pretty interesting story about Zagreus trying to escape Hades'(his father) control.
The sexy part comes from the fact that it's filled with greek gods who are all attractive, without being overly tasteless about it. In particular though, I think the MC, Zagreus, has that kind of Dante-like pretty boy appeal, with a really good voice actor, and a great personality. I can easily see why people would be drawn to him as opposed to yet another dudebro.
Edit: FWIW, the game could have a female MC without impacting much, so I understand that disappointment.
He is also canonically bisexual.
This too.
Gothic lolita practitioner here (okay, I'm more of a princess lolita) stepping in to point out that one of the standards of the EGL (Elegant Gothic Lolita) community is that our dress is NOT sexualized. I mean, given the visual associations of the fashion with youthful looks and mannerisms (and of course the unfortunate name) it should be pretty dang obvious why that is. You don't emphasize the bust, your coord (outfit) shouldn't go above the knees, and you don't show lots of skin. Low necklines are not a thing and neither are bare shoulders. Tights/stockings are basically mandatory. Now, there's certain stuff I consider borderline EGL or EGL-inspired, like some of Kishida Mel's Atelier series character designs, but...
...That outfit is lingerie. I mean, really.
I suppose you could argue that Genshin Impact character's dress is still gothic on account of being black and lacy(?) but I think the goth fashion community would disagree. And that's the sad thing about a lot of female character designs - that they don't even pull from the many diverse and beautiful real world fashion trends. They lean toward one single "sexy, but it a cute way" look.
...Hrm, hrm, hrm. I don't really care for that article... Otome games have been around long before the smartphone market emerged, though it felt like there was a dip in major releases as the leading producer of console otome games switched from Koei's Ruby Party to Idea Factory's Otomate brand.
It's also really sad to talk about "lack of accessibility (to these games) for non-Japanese gamers" without mentioning the fact that the target audience for them is frequently ignored or belittled by western publishers. Even western publishers of Otome games. (Aksys's response to the many awful translation errors in Collar x Malice for Switch and their horrible anti-feminine/"no girly rainbows and butterflies here" PR work around it.)
I clicked the article but damn, that entire site is a nightmare from article titles. I admit, there's a huge lack of localized otome games apart from the people who keep reminding me I can learn Japanese too.
Agreed how otome did well w/PSP and Vita console and mobage games are often mediocre. I wonder why add that BL cosplay photo since that has nothing to do w/the actual topic?
Agreed how otome did well w/PSP and Vita console and mobage games are often mediocre. I wonder why add that BL cosplay photo since that has nothing to do w/the actual topic?
I feel like otome mobage have actually improved by leaps and bounds? Albeit, I didn't play a lot of the older ones to compare, and I ran into some really rough translations in the early Shall We Date titles, but I feel the current big name mobage publishers show a lot of care (and the general josei-muke games, aka, the card collection/raising ones can be downright class acts) which makes the lackluster efforts of console otome even more egregious.
Yeah, that photo inclusion was weird. And Midnight Cinderella is not a Voltage title! Sad to see the expert struggling to get their facts straight...
What do you think of the designs for Destruction AllStars?
For the reasons of this thread they are awesome !
But they have the exact same problem of some recent games (cough cough bleeding edge and apex legends cough cough) that they ... lack a unity that makes them "this is from THIS" game and not the others who use the same weird urban style of design
I want to say I dislike the destruction allstars designs but not for any reasons relevant to this thread. Nothing to do with sexualization or anything. Most of them are just way too goofy in a way that doesn't feel entirely sincere to me. They're like a committee got together and said "we need loud energetic character designs" and just threw a bunch of stuff together.
Edit: To clear and fair, I know nothing at all about the game other than that picture posted.
Edit: To clear and fair, I know nothing at all about the game other than that picture posted.
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Overall mobage money investment required feels like a rip-off w/lack of VA and CG compared to regular otome. I played Voltage and I think some other NT Solmare games and I felt they were super bland from art to writing. Even Mystic Messenger was like that's all? However, this is my shared feeling for all mobage and why I lose interest.
Ah, it's a car combat game so you spend most of the games in cars blowing up other ones. Though you do go on foot for certain things.
Honestly I think you made the point I was trying to make a lot better than me "sex doesn't always sell just because it is sex"
If used right it can work, just like any advertising tool. But it's more than just slap a sexy woman in there and sell copies. Unfortunately that seems to be the only way that game developers under stand it.
As for games being focus tested, I honestly don't know enough about that to say. I'm sure there is some focus testing but I'm not sure if it's done to the degree other entertainment media is
Yeah, I get that but pop culture (aside from God of War) painting Zeus as anything but horrible bothers me. I mostly blame Disney's Hercules.
As other chimed in, this is very wrong. Every well known pantheon has worshippers (for lack of a better word) within the greater pagan community.
This kind of insight is incredibly valuable to the thread. Thanks for sharing.
I will say as a pagan myself it does become a bit odd giving worship to gods who can be fucking horrible beings.
But I did once tell a Christian "Atleast my gods are honest about being pieces of shit sometimes."
Anyways enough derail. I will say with the exception of Aphrodite I dug the female character designs in Hades.
That's for such reaction I have posted it, I am totally ignorant about the subject, and it's interesting too see how people involved in a sub-culture react on how scholars are portraying them and confront them in return, directly or indirectly (it's supposed to be self-defining practice, not an intellectual material for ethnologists). I 've found this in the Agnes [ha-nee-yes] Girard timeline, she's a french journalist and scholar :
This summer she was in the charge of f that symposium :
DESIRED IDENTITIES
Arts et Civilisations d’Afrique, d’Asie, d’Océanie et des Amériques | Expositions, Spectacles, Concerts, Colloques, Conférences et Université Populaire. Les « Identités désirées au Japon », c’est-à-dire des technologies qui permettent de se « travestir » en...
The detailed program :
And all conferences given during it, only the intro is in french, all the rest in english.
"How to Make Love with a Ghost?” by Philippe Charlier | Desired Identities
Desired IdentitiesNew Technology-based Metamorphosis in JapanDigital International Conference organized as a Live Streaming Event, on the YouTube channelof m...
youtu.be
"The Seiyūesque: the Layering of Agency and the Labor of Characterization" | Desired Identities
Desired IdentitiesNew Technology-based Metamorphosis in JapanDigital International Conference organized as a Live Streaming Event, on the YouTube channelof m...
youtu.be
Enjoying Aegis Rim despite the gotta get nekked in the mechs.
Despite everything, it's very down to earth and reasonable...
except this character who is a walking cartoon character in a world populated by sensible looking humans (which is saying alot for a Vanillaware game)
mild story spoilers
She's a key figure to the story but she's also in some way shape or form "Always on display", with a hefty bounce animation.
Despite everything, it's very down to earth and reasonable...
except this character who is a walking cartoon character in a world populated by sensible looking humans (which is saying alot for a Vanillaware game)
mild story spoilers
She's a key figure to the story but she's also in some way shape or form "Always on display", with a hefty bounce animation.
To make it really unfairEnjoying Aegis Rim despite the gotta get nekked in the mechs.
Despite everything, it's very down to earth and reasonable...
except this character who is a walking cartoon character in a world populated by sensible looking humans (which is saying alot for a Vanillaware game)
mild story spoilers
She's a key figure to the story but she's also in some way shape or form "Always on display", with a hefty bounce animation.
One of the male character adult version shows up and e does not wear the same tight jumpsuit as her
This!!!! Preach! I'm tired of Zeus being portrayed as some big good when he was like the worst of the greek gods, he was a serial rapists
This mistake is what ruined the Clash of the Titans remake.
Apparently they originally shot the movie with all the characters pretty close to the 1981 version, wherein Zeus, while not the antagonist of that particular story, was still a huge dick. But then a few weeks before the movie came out they delayed it to rewrite and reshoot half the movie to make Zeus seem more like a good guy, and it kinda fucked up the entire plot.
Imo Zeus wasn't really that much of a dick in the original, at least not by the standards of all the other characters and how they acted. The remake really fucked up by doing the "Hades is the devil" cliche while Poseidon became a whole bunch of nothing.
That aside, I don't feel like we actually have that many portrayals of Greek gods as benevolent good guys among recent depictions?
All the characters in the 1981 version were pretty morally ambiguous from what I remember, and that's an aspect about it that probably just couldn't make it in a modern blockbuster.
Like SapphiCine was saying, the blame I think does lie mostly with Disney. Most people's knowledge of the Greek pantheon comes from disney, and that does bleed into other works of fiction, there is a real disneyfication of the greek pantheon in media. I can't speak to Hades specifically (got other roguelikes keeping me busy at the moment), but I imagine that is reflected there too.
This is true of a lot more things too of course. Notably all the old fairy tales that people only know the disney version of.
This is true of a lot more things too of course. Notably all the old fairy tales that people only know the disney version of.
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Let's not forget that the Olympian gods were themselves, more often than not, distorted versions of older deities, and had dozens of incarnations and interpretations across the centuries, especially before anyone started writing this stuff down. There's no "canon".
That Aphrodite was reduced from a warrior deity to what most view her as now just demonstrates how the problems raised in these OTs have been around a very, very long time.
That Aphrodite was reduced from a warrior deity to what most view her as now just demonstrates how the problems raised in these OTs have been around a very, very long time.
I think it bears mentioning that one of the core conflicts in Hades was put into action because Zeus was a dick and didn't actually consider any consequences of his actions. Hades himself is definitely flawed, but not in a way that would cause wars out of absurd methods like Zeus did.
I do wonder if it was intentional or unintentional to make him repulsive. You have way too many people even nowadays who think that's an awesome character trait to have. "They'll just let you do it" and all that.
They haven't rea;;y change the general model but allowed more detail while still sticking close to what they were going with from the start.Started playing Praey for the Gods and while she's a little generic, I still really like the main character's design:
I'll be curious what you will think of certain character reveals later on.
I'd say sex very much does sell.
Gatcha games have made a fortune on it.
That and the 'just one more spin' gambler's fallacy.
OP
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i wonder if a megathread specifically to discuss the shittiness of cyberpunk 2077 would be permissible 🤔
In general, I think that focus testing probably much more prevalent for bigger publishers like EA and Activision (And probably Ubi before they decided to just say fuck it and make all games have a male and female option, characterization be damned). Overstrike/Fuse remains the gold standard of focus testing gone wrong (which we only know because they outright stated thats the reason why they changed so much of the game) and it would not surprise me if games are focused tested for large publishers even in concept or design phases.
The minecraft characters are obviously cartoonishly blocky, but still nice to sort of see some representation with Alex.
I would welcome it, but I kind of doubt it. The thread would become a living shitstorm.
In theory it should make people happy cause it wouldn't be in their precious "normal" threads, but in reality people would just pop in there to shit on us while we discuss the problematic bits.
Probably, but perhaps wait until the game is out, so that the discussion is less speculative and more concrete, I'd say.
I actually think it would be very good cus I keep seeing comments in different threads where people act like it's only one or two events that CDPR have done with this game but it's been mulitple things and I kinda struggle to remember all of them and the order of it. Having a thread outlining it all that can be linked to would be so useful
I'd say wait until a day or two after the game launches, it'd give people time to have dived into it to at least see if the game deserves the Cyberpunk moniker or if it genuinely is just cyberpop garbage on top of the transphobia.
Anywho, hey, my first post into this topic and it's in defense of a game that should not be defended >.>
Anywho, hey, my first post into this topic and it's in defense of a game that should not be defended >.>
OP
OP
Even as someone who probably is still going to play cyberpunk, I would be much more interested in participating in a heavily critical thread than the normal OT. Want a good place to vent problems with the game and discuss them with people you know? Because I'm sure that is a game I'm going to have some real issues.
Yep, pretty much, I will play it but a thread that bashes it interests me more!
I'm in favor of it, though the mods would have to be working overtime to curb the inevitable downplaying trolls.
I don't see why not unless it just becomes too much of a shit show for the mods to handle.
If people don't wanna see it or partake in it then they can just use the ignore thread feature. That's why it's there.
I'm in love with Genshin Impact. Hell, even if it's waifu city, the designs could be so much worse. Hell, if any girl has like a skirt like outfit she either has leggings or shorts on, at least out of the characters I've seen.
Boob jiggle pretty bad when it shows up but I don't have any characters that it's noticeable with when running around the world.
Wish it had more variety because even the boy characters are generally cute, lol. I think only Diluc is more of the "handsome" grown up type, while the rest are pretty boyish. The NPCs however have more variety in their designs.
Boob jiggle pretty bad when it shows up but I don't have any characters that it's noticeable with when running around the world.
Wish it had more variety because even the boy characters are generally cute, lol. I think only Diluc is more of the "handsome" grown up type, while the rest are pretty boyish. The NPCs however have more variety in their designs.
I am frequently seeing npc's and thinking "I wish I could play as her instead".