Sexism in video games.

[Mkuki]

No. Do I need to show you the comic again? Male characters are not created with being appealing to women in mind. They are created with the goal of being appealing to men. Just like female characters are created with the goal of being appealing to men.

That's a significant part of the problem.

Why is everything created to be appealing to men?

I'd say it stems from the stereotype that women don't have time to play games or watch movies. They've got to clean the house, take care of the kids, feed the pets, cook the food, have the babies, etc.

[Novislavia]

No. Do I need to show you the comic again? Male characters are not created with being appealing to women in mind. They are created with the goal of being appealing to men. Just like female characters are created with the goal of being appealing to men.

That's a significant part of the problem.

Are you kidding me? Boy bands are designed to be appealing to men? Really? Really?

What?

[Nailed to the Perch]

Okay, half a dozen people have now said "games are sexist and objectify women because they're marketed to men, duh." This raises two very obvious questions:

- Are men actually incapable of liking something if it's not sexist? Because that seems both really insulting to men and not at all true of any of my male friends.

And even more obviously:

- WHY are games marketed to men?

How on earth is it a better business model to attempt to appeal to roughly half your market in ways that will repel the other half than to find strategies that appeal to the entire market? Skyrim made giant bucketfuls of money, and a big part of how it did that was by being a game that appealed to gamers from a range of demographics rather than pitching itself exclusively to the "horny 16-year-old boy with no social skills" demographic - who make up a much smaller percentage of gamers than adult women, incidentally. And if you recognize that marketing that vast majority of games towards the same fraction of all gamers is a shitty business model, while making games that are just GOOD without being an endless repeat of "buff white protagonist with manly stubble blows things up and then there are tits with REALISTIC JIGGLE MOTION, LOL" seems to rake in the big bucks, can you maybe admit that saying "games are sexist because game developers have decided female gamers don't matter" just pushes the "why is this sexist" question up a level rather than answering it?

[Grand Britannia]

No, it something attractive. To males it is the tits of the females, to women it is muscles and hairstyle. Same shit

No it fucking isn't. Being strong is not the same as being little and having big tits, especially when that strength comes from work.

....

Wait, can I see one of these games with ample chested little women?

[DrakoBlaria]

Not all boobs are the same



Where did you even get that from?

Yet again: most women on Earth, and?

As I said I have a fetish

[Orham]

And here I ask you, why is it sexist? How does it harm women? Why is it bad?

Crossing the line between designing a character in order to appeal to the audience's sexual urges and doing so for the sake of characterization is the line between characterization and objectification, reduction of the character to sub-human status. A revealing costume which makes sense in the context of either the setting or the character is a totally different thing, it's justified by the context. Nina Williams might be argued to dress the way she does to express some aspect of her personality, or perhaps to more easily gain access to her assassination targets.

Now, can you provide a contextual reason that Ivy would dress the way she does?

EDIT: Clarity in the first sentence.

[Dakini]

Women just need to start playing more video games.

If they can outnumber the males, then they can't be peripheral in nature anymore.

We're still the peripheral for movies despite buying most of the tickets.

[Agymnum]

The interesting thing is I am a male gamer and I find girls who aren't all thrown in to look all sexualized in stupid armor more attractive then "Omg big boobs in half-naked armor"

Just putting this out there, but from an asexual's point-of-view, hypersexualized females are not aesthetically pleasing. For one thing, massive mammaries and asses that look like they need to shed a few pounds definitely do not blend with stick-figure bodies. They just don't, not aesthetically at least. Maybe people find sexual value in them but I find that they appear... wrong... Just doesn't feel like the character design had any thought put into it (which it probably didn't) beyond "HERP DERP SEXY"

[Mkuki]

Okay, half a dozen people have now said "games are sexist and objectify women because they're marketed to men, duh." This raises two very obvious questions:

- Are men actually incapable of liking something if it's not sexist? Because that seems both really insulting to men and not at all true of any of my male friends.

And even more obviously:

- WHY are games marketed to men?

How on earth is it a better business model to attempt to appeal to roughly half your market in ways that will repel the other half than to find strategies that appeal to the entire market? Skyrim made giant bucketfuls of money, and a big part of how it did that was by being a game that appealed to gamers from a range of demographics rather than pitching itself exclusively to the "horny 16-year-old boy with no social skills" demographic - who make up a much smaller percentage of gamers than adult women, incidentally. And if you recognize that marketing that vast majority of games towards the same fraction of all gamers is a shitty business model, while making games that are just GOOD without being an endless repeat of "buff white protagonist with manly stubble blows things up and then there are tits with REALISTIC JIGGLE MOTION, LOL" seems to rake in the big bucks, can you maybe admit that saying "games are sexist because game developers have decided female gamers don't matter" just pushes the "why is this sexist" question up a level rather than answering it?

I just explained why games are marketed to men.

Why is everything created to be appealing to men?

I'd say it stems from the stereotype that women don't have time to play games or watch movies. They've got to clean the house, take care of the kids, feed the pets, cook the food, have the babies, etc.

[The Parkus Empire]

The interesting thing is I am a male gamer and I find girls who aren't all thrown in to look all sexualized in stupid armor more attractive then "Omg big boobs in half-naked armor"

Have to concur with this. And being just a digitized, mobile sex doll isn't all that attractive, either.

[Rawrckia]

Women just need to start playing more video games.

And big companies need to start realizing that their target audience does not just boil down to "oily-skinned nerds who fap to any sort of naked skin on a woman and drink Mountain Dew with their Cheetos-fingers all day".

Well, "basement neckbeards" are really the main buyers of video games. It makes sense when Activision releases Cod 26 because while a lot of people hate the CoD franchise, their target audience is satisfied and they can continually release updates to the CoD franchise because they know these people will buy them. Whereas, if they completely changed the next game to have a completely different combat and movement system with guns that play completely differently and completely different graphics (think of an MW3 player stepping into a game like Loadout) to be friendlier for their "peripheral", they would lose a lot of their dedicated fanbase and they don't have the guarantee of making a profit as they would with a similar game that they have been making.

Companies can keep pandering to basement neckbeards for all I care, they shouldn't let basement legbeards dictate their business.

[New haven america]

Yet again: most women on Earth, and?

As I said I have a fetish

It's not a fetish, it's a human want: there covered up constantly, society says they should stay covered, some women want to show them some don't, and there a sexual trigger because of those reasons.

[Dakini]

No. Do I need to show you the comic again? Male characters are not created with being appealing to women in mind. They are created with the goal of being appealing to men. Just like female characters are created with the goal of being appealing to men.

That's a significant part of the problem.

Are you kidding me? Boy bands are designed to be appealing to men? Really? Really?

We're talking about video games here, buddy. You might want to go find whatever thread you fell out of where you were talking about boy bands.

[Rawrckia]

Are you kidding me? Boy bands are designed to be appealing to men? Really? Really?

We're talking about video games here, buddy. You might want to go find whatever thread you fell out of where you were talking about boy bands.

Edward Cullen was designed to be appealing to men? The Twilight series is designed to be male-friendly?

[Dakini]

And big companies need to start realizing that their target audience does not just boil down to "oily-skinned nerds who fap to any sort of naked skin on a woman and drink Mountain Dew with their Cheetos-fingers all day".

Well, "basement neckbeards" are really the main buyers of video games.

No they're not. I posted stats back on page 1 or 2.

[The Serbian Empire]

If they can outnumber the males, then they can't be peripheral in nature anymore.

We're still the peripheral for movies despite buying most of the tickets.

These executives won't learn until their companies aren't profiting anymore. Time for boycotts.

[Dakini]

We're still the peripheral for movies despite buying most of the tickets.

These executives won't learn until their companies aren't profiting anymore. Time for boycotts.

How are we supposed to outnumber the males if we're boycotting?

[DrakoBlaria]

Are you kidding me? Boy bands are designed to be appealing to men? Really? Really?

We're talking about video games here, buddy. You might want to go find whatever thread you fell out of where you were talking about boy bands.

Or you should read my posts before you reply to them? I was giving a counter example that the same thing done to females in video games is done to men in boy bands. It is advertising!

[Geilinor]

The interesting thing is I am a male gamer and I find girls who aren't all thrown in to look all sexualized in stupid armor more attractive then "Omg big boobs in half-naked armor"

Just putting this out there, but from an asexual's point-of-view, hypersexualized females are not aesthetically pleasing. For one thing, massive mammaries and asses that look like they need to shed a few pounds definitely do not blend with stick-figure bodies. They just don't, not aesthetically at least. Maybe people find sexual value in them but I find that they appear... wrong... Just doesn't feel like the character design had any thought put into it (which it probably didn't) beyond "HERP DERP SEXY"

They aren't realistic either.

[DrakoBlaria]

And here I ask you, why is it sexist? How does it harm women? Why is it bad?

Crossing the line between designing a character in order to appeal to the audience's sexual urges and doing so for the sake of characterization is the line between characterization and objectification, reduction of the character to sub-human status. A revealing costume which makes sense in the context of either the setting or the character is a totally different thing, it's justified by the context. Nina Williams might be argued to dress the way she does to express some aspect of her personality, or perhaps to more easily gain access to her assassination targets.

Now, can you provide a contextual reason that Ivy would dress the way she does?

EDIT: Clarity in the first sentence.

I dunno, why is Siegfried dressed like that?

[The Serbian Empire]

These executives won't learn until their companies aren't profiting anymore. Time for boycotts.

How are we supposed to outnumber the males if we're boycotting?

We need to convince them to boycott as well (ideally using EA's game price increase for the base price of the next gen games).

[Dakini]

We're talking about video games here, buddy. You might want to go find whatever thread you fell out of where you were talking about boy bands.

Edward Cullen was designed to be appealing to men? The Twilight series is designed to be male-friendly?

We're talking about video games here, buddy. You might want to go find whatever thread you fell out of where you were talking about boy bands.Twilight.

...also, no. Twilight was Mormon porn. It wasn't exactly female-friendly either in that it was sexist as fuck and the men were all abusive and controlling (except her father).

[Agymnum]

We're talking about video games here, buddy. You might want to go find whatever thread you fell out of where you were talking about boy bands.

Or you should read my posts before you reply to them? I was giving a counter example that the same thing done to females in video games is done to men in boy bands. It is advertising!

Advertising doesn't make something non-sexist.

I can put a bunch of naked women on a sign for a car wash. It's advertising. It's also sexist (both ways) because it takes advantage of the idealized female body stereotype while simultaneously screaming "MEN DON'T THINK WITH ANYTHING EXCEPT THEIR *HUFF* PENSISESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

[The Parkus Empire]

Okay, half a dozen people have now said "games are sexist and objectify women because they're marketed to men, duh." This raises two very obvious questions:

- Are men actually incapable of liking something if it's not sexist? Because that seems both really insulting to men and not at all true of any of my male friends.

And even more obviously:

- WHY are games marketed to men?

How on earth is it a better business model to attempt to appeal to roughly half your market in ways that will repel the other half than to find strategies that appeal to the entire market? Skyrim made giant bucketfuls of money, and a big part of how it did that was by being a game that appealed to gamers from a range of demographics rather than pitching itself exclusively to the "horny 16-year-old boy with no social skills" demographic - who make up a much smaller percentage of gamers than adult women, incidentally. And if you recognize that marketing that vast majority of games towards the same fraction of all gamers is a shitty business model, while making games that are just GOOD without being an endless repeat of "buff white protagonist with manly stubble blows things up and then there are tits with REALISTIC JIGGLE MOTION, LOL" seems to rake in the big bucks, can you maybe admit that saying "games are sexist because game developers have decided female gamers don't matter" just pushes the "why is this sexist" question up a level rather than answering it?

I guess the free market doesn't work exactly how ancaps think. /notathreadjack

[Ashihara no Nakatsukuni]

Of course video games lean more towards males, because the vast majority of the demographics of the video game industry is male. It is no different then fashion companies are more demographically towards females, as they happen to be, statistically, one of their more important customers.

Is it changing, and is the perception of "games only for guys" stupid? Of course. My wife is an avid gamer, and knows more about games then I, even though I already pour hours into the games we play. We have the same misconception on the internet, and why is that? Because for awhile the demographics leaned this way, and it goes hand-in-hand with the "geek" culture of video games.

The only thing that annoys me to no fucking end, and will literally turn me away from a game at times, is the absolute sexualization of a character. I'm sorry, I don't care how good the game may be, we really do not need the female character having 50FFF tits, with a curvy body, and a rounded ass.

If I wanted to see such things, I would watch a porn. I've yet to play games such a Heavenly Sword because I refuse to play a game where I'm forced to play as a skimpy-dressed character. This, as well, is changing and that part of the industry I cannot wait to get rid of.

Note: I'm not saying they can't exist, but it gets kind of dull of how much it persists in "mainstream", e.g. AAA big budget games.