I usually play GoW on iPad, and from time to time on Steam and very occasionally on iPhone. That’s when I noticed that only on iPad you get the complete picture from the opening screen. So I decided to share it with the community. 
Oh no! It’s that naked bug again!
Aren’t all bugs naked?
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No, clothed one are not.
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What, the whole picture concerning how bad her posture is?
I get random pictures.
oversexuality in the game … should be rated appropriately
Um, I think perhaps your “sexuality” perception filter is set a bit high. Might want to turn that down a bit.
Actually I agree with @Max, the game is a good example of oversexualization. For both sexes.
It’s a recurring issue in almost all medias now. That’s as far as I will push this subject.
Where does that game have oversexuality? Here are most of the cards with female characters. And yes, they have all bigger boobs then male characters (one of the main differences between male and female bodies) but thats all. None of them are close to naked. But I’m open for arguments and like to here how you imagine woman should be painted better.
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I agree, I think this game actually has some of the most tasteful art I have seen. Some of the females have less covering in the chest region than maybe some people would like for sure, but unless you put every female in a robe someone will complain. 
However, we do have a nice share of full plate / covered chests as well. Scarlett and Valkyrie are two of my favorites in that arena (and two of my favorites overall). Lady S’s armor makes sense, well covered, but cleavage showing allowing some extra manipulation / distraction and fits with the genre of female vampires. Spider Queen is probably one of the more showy, but often the half spider half person (the name of that escapes right now which is embarrassing!) chicks are topless, so seems a good compromise. Ice Witch is a spirit, so once again, the nod to opaque ice clothing seems appropriate. Atlanta is probably the hardest to explain away. She does live on the plains, and archers usually stand to the side, so the over armored epaulets / arms make sense as the core is less exposed in standard archer stance. Over all though, that outfit is probably not the most practical she could have chosen for some obvious wardrobe malfunction reasons.
-Razlath
[quote=“Shrpy, post:9, topic:2832, full:true”]
. None of them are close to naked.[/quote]
You are kidding, right? Or else what do you call close to naked?
Compare Luther and Atlanta. Luther looks like a real soldier. Atlanta might be pretty, but she is a joke. Who would believe she is a ship captain dress that way? Who would take her seriously?
I agree that the female characters look good and I really love the game, but we are unfortunately very far from sex equality…
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I think we missed the point that it is over sexualized for both sexes not just female but it would be easier to piont at the women but none of the dragons are up there. If i were to compare who of the woman is most revealing it would Ice witch as i always thought her nude then nymph cause she looks nude but is covering herself with her hands and rowanos cause really she might be a tree that looks female but i doubt that you can call her bark “armour” but you can call it skin. Biggest bust size though is Dark song, Dryad, Dark maiden, Atlanta and Hag in no particular order. Most covered in no particular order Star gazer, Valkerie, Priestess, Hag and Scarlet. Also @Shrpy please ascend your troops.
I think a more fair comparison would have been Anointed One or Thrall vs Atlanta. You can’t really take one of the most covered up guys and compare it to one of the least covered girls. Luther vs Valkyrie would be a better artistic comparison at which point they are pretty even, though Luther got the better stylized armor, but hey Valk got wings (and I still like her armor). I love both card’s art.
I was going to throw Keghammer or Elf-Eater in there just for amusement since they are also shirtless, but that wouldn’t really be fair since Keghammer’s torso just looks weird and elf eater is like claiming the Hag is over sexualized (spoiler alert she is hideous and fully clothed like she is supposed to be).
I still think they have done an excellent job with the artwork. Minus Atlanta, they seem to make sense and hold true to their mythological counterparts. There are more “covered” females than there are non covered ones. Complaining about spirits or nymphs not having enough clothes is kind of silly since their mythos has them actually being completely unclothed. In the cases of Rowain and Ice Witch, they made efforts to add different textured “clothes” that are clearly different than their skin without ruining the concept of an Ice or Nature spirit.
Not sure if male or androgynous spirits lightly clad would make things better to some peeps, but wouldn’t really get any objections from me. Would actually be kinda cool as you don’t see a lot of that mythos represented in fantasy. Maybe some critters like Incubus, wind spirits, war spirits looking all Conan-ey, or a few more greek inspired gods. Zephyros was close, but you could argue his toga adds a level of modesty there (it is cold in Stormheim I hear).
-Razlath
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Ok, I lied. I can’t stay away from this subject.
First of all, I agree with @Razlath, the art is tasteful and I’d like to add that it’s gorgeous.
As an adult male, I find the females drawings attractive and desirable.
As an adult male, I also envy the physic of the males drawings.
As an adult, I love this game for its gaming AND for its art.
To @Max point and mine, this game is oversexualized.
@Max comment was around the games ratting, which might be too low
It is a global phenomenon that exists in almost all medias.
Wikipedia as a good definition: Sexualization
Here’s a quick explanation:
- Women are often portrayed in a sexual manner (e.g., dressed in revealing clothing, with bodily postures or facial expressions that imply sexual readiness). In addition, a narrow (and unrealistic) standard of physical beauty is heavily emphasized. These are the models of femininity presented for young girls to study and emulate. This is detrimental to the development of young girls as they are developing their identities and understanding themselves as sexual beings.
As a father of two young and easy to influence girls, I feel the need to explain to them that they are not required to look like that to be attractive.
Here are some easy questions to identify oversexualization:
- Would you let your teen dress like that to go to school?
- What would you say if their teacher were dressed like that (the ladies not the men)?
- Is your daughter required to have large breasts, but somehow also be thin, to be attractive?
If you don’t have daughters, replace it with your mom.
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I like the artwork too and I am not criticizing its quality at all. What I am saying is that I feel like playing a game intended for male teenagers.
I am not saying either to ban all nudity. You may notice I didn’t mention the mythological creatures because a partial nudity would be justified for them. Although the Siren is rather covered, which doesn’t prevent her from being beautiful. The same could be said of the Thrall or the Anointed one. Their nudity can be justified.
But Atlanta doesn’t have to be half naked and would not be expected to be. That is why the comparison with Luther seemed to me appropriate.
Besides your topless male troops could never appear in a yaoi. Their nudity can always be justified and , as you said, most of them are rather ugly. On the contrary, the cleavages and half-nakedness of the female characters, most of the time, is free and it is always purely aimed at making them look sexy. The spirit in which male and female troops are drawn differs a lot.
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I fancy this could lead the discussion in a completely different direction. Imagine Freud read it…
Damn, Hag is over sexualized, my feminazi friends will hear about this !
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Interesting. I will say, as an adult male desirable really isn’t the first word I would use to describe the females in the game, at least not in a sexual way. Beautiful / attractive yes (not you Hag stop it!), lets face it rarely do we want to look at ugly people male or female. But my first thought when I started getting female cards was… these ladies are Bad-Ass! (sorry for the language, I am not sure how you express that without just saying it, Awesome just isn’t strong enough). That is still the word I would use to describe 90% of the female characters in the game.
Valkyrie was one of my first cards (I think I literally got her in the set of first keys we got for free). I remember looking at the card going, I am really going to like this game if this is how they draw their art, along with I hope there are more angels!. (I was only disappointed with one of those hopes) Obviously Luther was one of the first male cards I was introduced to (though not as a card clearly). I was immediately impressed with the detail on his artwork. As time went on, I was continually impressed as I opened more packs. The monsters were scary, the spirits were humanized, but not too much. The human-esque characters were inspiring and strong be they male or female. I remember when I got Scarlett from a pack, I had not opened Maugrim Woods yet. I was thinking, man, I hope she is the quest giver there, she looks so awesome and I want to know more about her.
I really can’t argue with criticism of Atlanta. In my original post on this thread I couldn’t really come up with a sellable reason for her art. Sure I threw a flimsy pseudo-explanation, but hopefully it was clear even I wouldn’t buy that and it was offered more to point out how ridiculous it was and at least make an attempt than anything. But one card doesn’t define an art set or a game. The fact that she is the oddity I think speaks more than her existence does.
Minus the exception above with Atlanta, I guess I just don’t see it. Not saying it doesn’t exist, or others don’t see it, but I just don’t. I have played fantasy themed games for as long as I can remember. I could show you artwork from Hellfire that would make Atlanta look like a full-habit clothed nun. I have seen cards that make you wonder if you could even open the game at work without getting in trouble. When I would suggest Hellfire to people I would literally include a disclaimer about the artwork (which was beautiful and in theory T rated, but yeah). When suggesting Gems of War to peeps a disclaimer about the artwork didn’t even enter my mind. In fact the opposite is true, I would point out how awesome it was that characters were more “realistic” (I really hate that word applied to fantasy worlds, but it serves the purpose). I could show them Scarlett, Lady S, Valkyrie, Star Gazer, Luther, Paladin, Sheggra, Berserker, Alistair, The Silent One, etc. and not worry someone would get offended.
Maybe I am grading on a curve due to past experience, maybe not. I can’t really say as personal bias is some of the hardest to unravel. But I really feel like the artwork for this game is pretty much the most tasteful and least sexualized of pretty much any fantasy game I have ever played.
Sammy had questions to test oversexualization. And assuming we remove Atlanta and the spirit / daemon / nonhuman-esque type cards from the mix, and assuming fantasy garb is acceptable in schools nowadays, I have no problem with most of the outfits in the game. Are there exceptions, of course, but the thing is… they are the exceptions rather than the rule which actually speaks volumes. Perhaps a better question would be, would you let your daughter/teacher/mother wander around a Renaissance fair in the outfits presented? Or would you let your daughter/teacher/mother dress up as that character for Halloween? That eliminates the fact that fantasy garb would clearly be distracting in a school setting regardless of amount of skin revealed. I know if I sat down next to Alistair I would NOT be able to concentrate on Algebra.
Tone is a tough thing on the internet, so I want to be clear for anyone who makes it down to this point and who I might have confused. I am not using an upset, angered, belittling, or any other negative tone. I think this discussion is very interesting as we all have different levels of “Acceptable”. This is even more true as I think many of us come from different countries which means a giant melting pot of cultural backgrounds. In the interest of Full Disclosure, I am from the USA, so our entire concept of acceptable sexualization is a topic unto itself and no doubt colors my opinions.
-Razlath
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Absolutely agree! This is a very civil conversation, all over the thread. No trolls here!
I actually went and checked the ratting, which is 9+.
With proper parental guidance, I think it is appropriate.
Actually, I was talking more on the size or type of garbs. Most of them are wearing bikinis (Banshee, dark maiden, dark song, Faunessa, Nymph), Tank top/belly shirt(Adana, Avina, Lady Saphira, star gazer) or magic holders (Dryad, Ice witch).
Here are some example of what I meant, when I said would you let your daughter wear that outfit.
WARNING:
- The following examples are links only, I did not want to post these picture directly on the site.
- They are items available to buy in the USA.
- Owning said picture would probably get you fired or arrested if you actually took them and shared them.
- They are good example of what your daughter would look like in the said garb.
- Please don’t ban me from the forum
Here is a tank top example: Tank Top/Belly shirt
And a bikini one: Bikini
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Hey guys,
Thought I’d jump into the discussion, since this is a topic very near and dear to me too.
Also, props to you all for keeping it civil… I’ve seen this same discussion spiral out of control on other forums!
TL;DR: I’m reasonably happy with our direction, but I certainly think there’s room for improvement.
Art style & over-sexualization is a VERY VERY fine line to walk. We certainly don’t WANT to make anybody feel uncomfortable, or offended, but at the same time, we have to make a game that is visually appealing to lots of people. I think we’ve been getting better at that too, with characters like Scarlette who look both cool and extremely tasteful.
We’re certainly helped by having the character design lead & art director who are both female. They’ve been slowly working towards striking a happy medium with this issue. If I walked into the office tomorrow and said “Show more bewbs on the characters”, they’d both call me out on that and say “NO!”. That’s awesome.
A few notes on the design & production issues that affect this:
A lot of our character designs are influenced by classic comic-book poses. Sometimes, taken in isolation, I believe the poses themselves can seem unrealistic and over-sexualized. The problem we face is that these poses are NOT the way somebody would actually stand, they’re taken at the APEX OF MOTION (sometimes exaggerated even beyond that), to convey the character being active, alive, and dynamic. Are they unrealistic? Sure. But they’re part of the way an artist tells you a story.
The other major issue that we face is our art pipeline. Quite often, between ideation, and final art, there are disconnects. Our Art Team is not in our Melbourne Office - we use an outsourcing house (the same one used by Riot Games, & WotC, for Magic: The Gathering, actually) and our intent on a character can sometimes get a little muddied during the process. Nevertheless, we’re getting better at conveying that, I think.
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