[dwb]

No-one has complained about “attractive women in games”, that is a mischaracterisation. “Attractive” is a subjective judgement anyway. People have complained about the predominance of women in video games adhering to a particular set of beauty standards, to the near exclusion of anyone else. It should be very uncontroversial to want a representative selection of people in games. And for the production companies, it makes obvious business sense.

[dekrg]

Really? No one for example complained about the attractive main character in Stellar Blade? And no complaints about how the characters look in Marvel Rivals?

That aside you can word it however you want "attractive", "unrealistic beauty standards", "sexualized", or even call it "not having enough representation" but everyone knows what you are actually talking about is getting rid of good looking women in video games and not giving players a choice of having a "representative selection".

As for it being purely a business decision by companies, how is Concord doing? The point being both men and women like having beautiful characters so say that it’s a business decision to have ugly characters is just not true.

[dwb]

> "attractive", "unrealistic beauty standards", "sexualized", or even call it "not having enough representation"

These all mean different things.

[eska]

I remember feminists complaining about Stellar Blade’s main character looking unrealistic. Then it turned out her body was scanned from a real actress. :-)

[BobaFloutist]

If you don't think real actors and actresses look unrealistic, you must live inside Hollywood.

[eska]

So real people without beauty surgery are unrealistic to you, although they exist in reality.

That obviously can’t be it. So I take it what you actually are trying to say is “this shouldn’t be considered the standard”? But it’s not the standard, it’s the top. And people (both men and women) like to play as characters that aren’t standard but at the top.

[BobaFloutist]

> without beauty surgery This describes a minority of the most prominent Hollywood stars.

[tavavex]

> No one for example complained about the attractive main character in Stellar Blade?

Actually no, not really. The whole outrage around Stellar Blade was largely manufactured, spurred from an right wing influencer's mischaracterization of a (retracted) line from IGN France. IGN France and its milquetoast quote represents all the 'insane leftists' that people loved to portray in that discourse as having started the attack on the game. All the drama that stemmed from there were simply the result of people digging their heels in - right-wing people taking up SB to be their perceived savior, the unapologetic disruptor that cuts through 'ugly Western designs', while left-wing people naturally put themselves on the other side, claiming that it's a mediocre game that right-wingers only like for the sex appeal, thereby feeding the cycle. But this wasn't started by the left, there was no initial outrage, all of this was just bait. But many people still see it from the perspective of the people who incited it.

And I mean, look around. Lots of games have attractive protagonists. How much outrage was there when NieR: Automata came out from 'the left'? Lots of games have extremely appealing designs, and the fact that no one seems to go against them and that they keep selling should tip you off that the perceived unanimity you're talking about is a niche and extreme opinion.

[zimpenfish]

> The whole outrage around Stellar Blade was largely manufactured

The always excellent Shaun did a deep dive[0] into the nonsense.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPsSguYNHpk

[cardanome]

If all the characters in games were people that you couldn't relate to and that you don't feel represented by, you wouldn't like that, no? You would complain. Rightfully so.

So why are other people not allowed to also complain if they are not represented in games? Why is that bad?

This does not mean they want to ban certain games. It is often not even about pushing devs to create more diverse characters though that would be great but just to create awareness how certain beauty standards and ideas of normality are recreated and enforced in media.

Embracing that people are different is something that is good for everyone. There will always be a Stellar Blade but there could be also so much more.

[dekrg]

>If all the characters in games were people that you couldn't relate to and that you don't feel represented by, you wouldn't like that, no?

Games are a visual medium, like movies, which is why games with attractive characters are generally more popular, and just to be clear simple graphics like in Schedule I are not unattractive or ugly.

More importantly how a character looks has nothing to do with how relatable a character actually is - it an absurd premise. What you are basically saying is that people won't enjoy playing Stray because they are not cats, which obviously isn't true and doesn't make sense. It's the same in movies, when watching Wall-E people don't go "well I'm not a trash compactor so I can't relate at all".

>Embracing that people are different is something that is good for everyone.

And I would agree except that in reality it isn't include non-attractive looking characters along side attractive ones, it's always to exclude what you call "standard beauty standard".

As an example of this if would really is about just giving options to player then why is the breast slider in Dragonage Veilguard limited so that players can create only characters with small breasts? Where did the "representation", "inclusivity", "player choice" go to with regards to large breasts?

[cardanome]

> why is the breast slider in Dragonage Veilguard limited so that players can create only characters with small breasts

You have a game where you can wear different armor and clothing and you think the body shapes are restricted because of some grad woke conspiracy?

Ever thought about how you would make the armor look good with huge breasts? It would either clip, look silly stretched or you you have to make an extra big_boob version that would be an huge overhead. It is super normal that character creation in RPGs has some limits so that all equipment still fits you.

Also THAT is your problem? Are you for real? We are not even talking about the conventional western beauty standard anymore, that is just your very specific preference for huge boobs.

You might want to listen less to right-wing grifters that make up stories where there is nothing.

[dekrg]

> Also THAT is your problem? Are you for real?

No, are YOU for real? You thinks it's technical limitations that limit breast sizes and it's that assets would look stretcher? Or that the game engine couldn't handle big boobs assets? An incase you haven't noticed character creation in games usually allows you create all kinds of weird looking characters without it somehow hitting those magical limits that somehow apply to breast sizes apparently.

The breasts slider was just an example of "representation" not being actual representation and you need take time out and reflect on why big breasts in video games make you upset.

[bccdee]

> Or that the game engine couldn't handle big boobs assets?

Given the choice between creating new "big boob" asset models for most of the many outfits in the game and simply capping breast size, it's hardly surprising that the developers chose the cheap, easy option.

Anyway, what alternative explanation are you proposing? Prudishness? The game has plenty of sex scenes, so it's not that.

> The breasts slider was just an example

Well it was a bad example. Dunno what to tell you.

[dwb]

No one has asked for a breast slider with an unrepresentatively low maximum.

[dekrg]

That so? And the activist that usually complain about beauty standards and not having enough representation were angry how "unrepresentative" that was and were complaining about it to Bioware?

I mean you can lie and say how no one has asked for it but the activist have complained about big breasted women in games for a long time usually under the guise of how it's sexualizing the women in games. And yes there have been straight up complaints about characters breasts being too large over the years usually when it's a non-western game.

[dwb]

People have complained about the predominance of women characters in games with unrepresentatively large breasts. You keep conflating things (including your own sexual preferences) and being imprecise to make arguments seem unreasonable when they’re not at all.

[ThrowawayR2]

I have never read any of the great Western novels of the past and thought to myself "That was amazing but it would have been so much more relatable if characters of my own ethnicity and my own attractiveness (or rather lack thereof) and my other identity characteristics were there." Not even once. It would be incredibly self-centered and immature to ask an author to cram in a self-insert of me into their world instead of letting them create their world as they envisioned it.

[dartharva]

What!? I literally don't relate to any or feel represented by any character I have ever played as in a video game, and I have played hundreds. Nobody does. If anyone actually told me they "feel represented" by a fictional videogame character I will seriously worry about their mental health.