[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.