First that was the implication. I’m bowing out.
Second, it certainly is relevant when the hypocrisy is one of the foundational building blocks of one side of this argument.
Hmm. Yeah, you’re conflating a whole bunch of different topics. To wit:
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How sexy should the game be. (What percentage of troops should be sexy, does the dial on female troops always have to be turned up to eleven.)
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The troops are obviously and explicitly designed for a male heterosexual viewer and does that really make much sense?
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This is a topic which you appear to have introduced yourself–namely, should the troops conform to mainstream standards of beauty?
If I understand correctly, your assertion is this: if women support beautiful sexy female singers or actresses, then we can’t subsequently complain about art that depicts women as sex objects? That if I’ve ever enjoyed a Rihanna song, I must also be a hypocrite? Is that the deal?
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Ayyyy don’t be dissin’ my home girls Melissa McCarthy and Leslie Jones.
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no. nymphs in greek mythology are just nature spirits. A nymph inhabits a tree or a river or whatever. They’re the equivalent of saints; intermediaries, on the bottom of the mythological totem pole.
You’re probably thinking of maenads.
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You used the word “misogyny”. Rihanna openly promotes it. Shortly after being victimized by Chris Brown, she released a song condoning S&M. And that’s not the only one. Sensationalism and even glorifying getting victimized physically and sexually has set women back DECADES.
I work with troubled youth including a large number of females victimized by our sex-crazed culture.
The fact that you won’t recognize the larger issue suggests that you have a problem with the gaming industry rather than with the real problem at hand.
Siren
10 characters
You really should have your name engraved on that pedestal you’re so proud of.
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A game can have everyone butt naked for all of me. I’ll just worry about the protruding bits of both sexes getting whacked off in a fight.
I have ran into true sexism so rarely it doesn’t even come to mind unless in a discussion.
If a game only portrays females as oversexualized I find another game. It’s visually boring to me. Simple.
I think most game producers realize there’s a large female audience now. Again I do think this game is tame.
Some men like large breasts some small. Who is to say what is sexy and what isn’t? It’s so individual.
All I ask is clothing appropriate to the character and their job. And keep the body portions in scale. If she has a waist so small she looks like she’ll snap in half or breasts so big she should need a walker under each to move around it’s extreme.
Same with male characters.
It’s not like you see the characters moving in battle here.
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I’ve avoided talking about sexual practices/behaviors because I have the impression that we’re supposed to keep things clean-ish here on the forum. I don’t think there’s any way to address this topic without very quickly crossing a line & getting the thread locked.
Luckily, I’m fairly certain it’s possible to talk about troop art without getting into the nitty gritty of S&M.
So I guess what you’re saying is–the fact that I’ve avoided discussing a topic I don’t think is allowed on this forum is what makes me a hypocrite? That’s a new one.
On a related note: ‘hypocrite’ is another way of saying ‘saying one thing and doing another’ right? Not matching action to belief. But personally I’ve found that most people, by the time they get out of their teenaged years, have discovered that we can and often do hold several competing contradictory ideas at the same time; it’s one marker of maturity. And people who set principle above all other concerns–thus avoiding the sin of hypocricy–are often doing more harm than good.
There’s a neat EM Forster quote I like quite a bit-- “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
There are a lot of things I value over rigid adherence to principle.
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Hnn I can’t say women have been set back decades. Mostly people are treated as they act. Mainly if I’m being a lady I’m treated as one. If I’m dressed slutty (a few occasions in my youth) then I’m looked at in that light.
If a person talks down to me I give them a look and they immediately back down and oppologize.Thanks Mom!
Our attitudes and how we present ourselves is our responsibility. Just like since the beginning of time some seek to victimize others. You can’t change that either. You deal with the damage.
Does oversexualization in games hurt women? Only if a woman is weak and thinks of herself in that manner. Only if her parents raise her to be a brainless idiot. So much depends on how we perceive ourself. Women who go around thinking a prince will come and take her to a mansion, treat her like a princess, buy her anything she wants is a damn fool. She is sexist. Put down the dolls and join the real world.
The first time I saw Lady Anariel I immediately thought of a few of Madonna’s infamous stage bras. I hear Madonna has always been very popular in Australia.
That’s true. However, most people learn how to act by mimicking the examples they see, whether it be their parents, their peers, or the media they consume. People aren’t generally born into the world with a head full of knowledge, and people can be taught to believe anything, no matter how false or foolish. Enough evidence to the contrary might cause them to reevaluate what they’ve learned, but it depends on how it’s presented, who presents it, and whether they’ve been taught to think, or to defer to authority.
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I have another thing to say!
I will take issue with this - it’s not that using sex appeal INCREASES sales. Rather, using sex appeal allows marketing departments to target individual demographics more specifically. Which allows them to better track the impact of their marketing, and better justify those marketing spends.
Marketing wants to demonstrate that they can reach a specific audience efficiently - which is NOT the same as “reaching as many people as possible.”
Let me give a hypothetical example - if I sell socks, and a marketing firm does a giveaway & ad campaign at a local high school. They come back and say “We’ve increased sales of your socks at this high school by 300%!”
But my goal as the owner of the sock company isn’t to increase sock sales at a high school - my goal is to increase OVERALL sales of my socks. But the marketing department can’t post big numbers about their efficacy if they use a broad approach. They prefer more targeted market campaings, to small segments, which they can then track.
To say “sex sells” isn’t really true. It just helps sell to a specific demographic which marketing departments can track. We need to be careful not to be drawn into the trap of thinking that our ability & inclination to market to young men somehow indicates that young men are the largest or most important demographic.
The second sentence is absolutely the case. The first sentence has never been the case! Even in the '80s most games were purchased by women. And for more than 10 years the largest demographic for online games has been women over 40.
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So, we’ve identified that problem, and some of the mindset behind it, now how do we correct it? It seems like far too many marketing departments have “self-fulfilling prophesied” their efforts in this industry into that demographic.
Edit: I can’t make quotes within a quoted post work nicely. (Sorry, HK!)
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I’ve been loosely keeping up with the thread and wanted to add in an anecdote for a side of the coin I haven’t seen represented much: My wife doesn’t really play Gems, but she takes my phone from me and binges on Treasure Hunts for a couple of days every couple of months (“Can I play that treasure game?”). She wasn’t into the art, UI, etc. when she first started playing. She’s a “girly-girl”, not much of a gamer, and I’m the big fantasy nerd in the family. However, when I took her to the Treasure Hunts interface and she saw Tyri her response was something like, “ohhh, I like her, she’s sexy!”
It’s not that women are opposed to sexy/provocative portrayals and, in fact, this appeals to some women; however, this shouldn’t be the only option. I think most of the folks raising concerns here would agree, even if the conversation has been largely framed in terms of needing to portray “non-sexy women”.
I agree that it’s important for women (and men) to be represented in healthy ways, across a range of body types, etc. It does have an impact on people (ranging from encouraging healthy lifestyles, to inducing bingeing or anorexia, to hurting self-esteem). I agree that Gems should be subject to these concerns and that the game could do better. I also agree that Gems does very well relative to most games, the media, society at large, etc.
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Interestingly, in WoW and other MMORPGs that me and my husband have played, we both prefer female characters.
He once said because they are nicer to look at and for me it is mainly because I can do more diverse things with setting up their looks, mostly because of the typical choices in hairstyle offered for males (lots of the samish short hair styles).
But yeah, I am already trained to mostly ignore big boobs and the like, by the different games I’ve played. I just never could understand how an armor that would leave multiple parts of skin uncovered on the females but not on the males could protect equally? That causes a huge disconnect…
Btw, I am indeed female, mid-thirties
Yes, that IS the trick, isn’t it? From my end (as lead designer) I can do a certain amount on my projects to challenge the drafts of marketing materials we get to approve. But obviously this is the sort of societal shift that takes a while to really catch hold.
Interestingly, the internet has done quite a bit to change some of these practices. Since users are often not tagged with gender / age / income data to put them into traditional marketing crosshairs, folks are finding other metric-based ways to segment populations. This comes with its own set of challenges, of course, one of which is the well-documented “echo-chamber” effect, where the things you tend to look for become the only things that get shown to you.
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I can think of a few quick fixes for what is perceived as a problem, to which has nothing to do with the changing of current troops. Why not release troops that are the equivalent of russian bodybuilders. The more masculine tone with the smaller chest should help with the perceived problem. Amazonian women where also known to have half a chest and were sporty so them having a mid build with a smaller chest would work too, and they can be darker skinned. If the problem persists and these women are seen as a problem then it can be assumed that the problem is exaggerated. Then we can decide if it is an echo chamber in effect.
Very interesting Mr. Strange, thank you for sharing that. I wonder if that has anything to do with mothers buying their kids games and gaming equipment?
Discussion Checklist:
- Character Assassinations - X
- Name Calling - X
- Racism - X
- Sexism - X
Hmm… That must be nice. I, on the other hand, have apathy and a below average IQ, at best. Some times I wish it wasn’t so, but what can you do, right? Meh, I don’t care.
Moving on to the topic, I don’t have a problem with the artwork. In fact, I think it’s a bit too tame. I want the breasts to be larger and all the men should be grotesque monstrosities; both to more accurately mirror reality. With any luck, the next female troop will have a little camel toe action going on, but hope is good breakfast yet a bad dinner, so I won’t hold my breath.