[slg]

>What I find weird in our current status quo is how "sex work" and having an OnlyFans account is considered empowering, but a game about fictional characters like DOA is considered sexist and misogynist.

The difference is consent. A person is free to objectify themselves and doing so can be empowering. A person should be extremely cautious about creating fiction to objectify a group of people to which the author does not belong as this can be exploitative and have societal repercussions.

I know next to nothing about the developers for the DOA franchise, but I am guessing there would be less controversy if the studio had a larger female presence.

[ttt0]

What consent? We're talking about fictional characters here.

Is Dwarf Fortress an immoral game, because the authors are not a part of groups like dwarfs, elves and goblins? And some in-game events may occur without the consent of those characters?

edit: Got rate limited for some reason and can no longer respond, so I'm just going to edit this post:

What does the "consent from the group" even mean? Do you have to make a poll, write to the CEO of Women™ or something? Seriously. Can I even include women if I'm making an amateur video game as a one-man effort (no pun intended), and I myself am not a woman?

And for dragontamer, I guess you got your answer. I don't personally care about video games at all, but some people believe this is immoral and rape-like (no consent), so it's not surprising to me that someone calls it censorship and points out the parallels to back when people tried to censor violence in video games and whatnot.

edit2:

> You are free to make whatever game you want. The public is free to respond to your game however they want. You aren't going to get many complaints if you "even include women". If you objectify those women, you might get met with those complaints. If you were a women objectify women, you can at least claim that your are taking control of the objectification. That is viewed as a valid excuse by a lot of people much like how I mentioned people in a minority group are generally allowed to make jokes at that groups expense.

So I should take it as roughly "the consent from the group means that the group isn't going to cancel you"? But if that's the case then why is it called "consent"? Isn't the entire point of consent to ask before you take action? It's like saying "I'm going to force you to have sex with me, if you don't go to the police then it means you consented to it". And from my understanding that's literally what rape culture is.

[slg]

>What does the "consent from the group" even mean? Do you have to make a poll, write to the CEO of Women™ or something? Seriously. Can I even include women if I'm making an amateur video game as a one-man effort (no pun intended), and I myself am not a woman?

You are free to make whatever game you want. The public is free to respond to your game however they want. You aren't going to get many complaints if you "even include women". If you objectify those women, you might get met with those complaints. If you were a women objectify women, you can at least claim that your are taking control of the objectification. That is viewed as a valid excuse by a lot of people much like how I mentioned people in a minority group are generally allowed to make jokes at that groups expense.

[dragontamer]

I realize you're a stranger to this discussion. But you're coming in from the completely wrong angle here.

The "controversy" of note is the group who are threatening boycotts unless more sexy costumes are added to Dead or Alive 6. They do this because they think that Sony is censoring the Dead or Alive 6 series (and other games). I'm grossly simplifying things here but... that's the gist.

This discussion of objectification and/or consent is... simply not a thing in the Dead or Alive discussions I'm aware of. I mean, that discussion is going on, but that's more "Hot Tub Meta" and "ASMR / Ear Licking" streams, and kinda different.

Is a grown woman allowed to dress up in a skimpy two piece bathing suit and then stream herself playing video games on Twitch? Even when consent is 100% clear (no one is forcing this streamer to do this. They want to partake in the hot tub meta), a large group of people decry the "objectification".

So to answer your general question:

> I know next to nothing about the developers for the DOA franchise, but I am guessing there would be less controversy if the studio had a larger female presence.

You're 100% wrong about this. There are plenty of examples inside of the video game community where adult women with 100% consent and 100% control over their creative abilities choose to be sexy, but this sexiness invites controversy.

Its definitely not about consent. Its not about worker treatment. The discussion is clearly about how much sexiness should be in video games (and surrounding media: such as "streamers" on Twitch).

[slg]

>I realize you're a stranger to this discussion. But you're coming in from the completely wrong angle here.

You are right that I am not up on the current DOA controversy. I simply know the controversy that has existed around that franchise since basically its inception. That plus the other commenter's comparison to sex work led me to believe the complaints were coming from the other side of the issue. I'm apparently wrong on that, but either way we are still talking about the same issue. People in the past have complained that the game objectified women. The developers have tried to distance themselves from that and now the fans are crying censorship. There is still the same issue at the heart of it, just which side is complaining the loudest has flipped.

>You're 100% wrong about this. There are plenty of examples inside of the video game community where adult women with 100% consent and 100% control over their creative abilities choose to be sexy, but this sexiness invites controversy.

I didn't say there would be zero controversy, but there is definitely less controversy when someone objectifies a group of which they belong. That isn't limited to video games. That is true of basically all modern western culture.

[slg]

Consent from the group being objectified. It is the same reason that a person who belongs to a specific minority group is usually given free reign to tell jokes about that group while a person outside that minority isn't. It doesn't matter that the character in the joke isn't a real person.

[dragontamer]

Its pretty clear that all the women whose breasts were measured for DOA's breast physics consented to these effecs.

Consent certainly isn't the issue here. This is 100% a "Sexiness" issue. DOA is a "sexy" game, including breast physics and precise measurements of "bounciness" in skimpy costumes.

The discussion the DOA community needs is about how such "sex appeal" is relatively niche, and is a "turnoff" to some gamers. DOA6, which was striving for esports / mainstream acceptance is finding itself between a rock and a hard place.

DOA has a history of being "that sexy game", which people don't want to associate with in public. On the other hand, to make a change in the marketing is somewhat of a betrayal to the fans who have supported DOA over the past few decades.

---------

The underlying issue gets ignored because of 'censorship' worries. A game that markets itself with this kind of sexiness front-and-center cannot really become mainstream. Its too perverted for people to want to associate with in public.

[slg]

Not all consent is created equal. Consent from people who are at a power disparity is not the same as consent from people leading the project. The women having their breasts measured aren't exactly in a position to impact meaningful change on this video game franchise.

It reminds me how Harvey Weinstein used to demand that women shoot nude scenes in his movies. Many women agreed to shoot those scenes in an attempt to help their career. That might technically be consent, but the power imbalance in the situation makes it at least partially coerced consent. I'm not saying the people developing DOA are monsters on the order of Weinstein, but the women who have their breast measured are in a similar compromised position.

[readflaggedcomm]

That sounds less coerced than bought. If so, the promised reward involved doesn't change what "consent" means, it only changes where breach of contract might occur.

[slg]

A large economic or power disparity between the two may mean that there is not much difference between "coerced" and "bought".

It is just like someone running a sweatshop might be able to hire people for a couple dollars per day. The workers would be consenting to work at that price, but they are being coerced into it due to their own financial situation.