[Terry]

[Nodtveidt]

[js71]

[DeveloperX]

[js71]

I don't recall Aeris' death affecting me at all, honestly. Probably because (I think?) I'd heard about it beforehand and it was already infamous by the time I played the game. Just a weirdly unremarkable scene to me, I didn't even remember the setting or poses or anything until I replayed it a few years ago and remembered.
...I swear I'm not trying to be in the minority with this game or anything!

Also, DevX: Female character /= busty female character :p I think that only hit the FF franchise with the onset of more detailed character art (read: 7... Terra from 6 had a relatively skimpy outfit if you look at the sprite, but really, it's damn hard to draw someone with a physique like Tifa in a 16x24 box without making it look absurd-- which may be why it didn't happen before 7, I don't really know). Maybe that's one of the smaller reasons I tend to prefer older 2D RPGs more, because the less room there is, the less goofy the character designs are, haha.

I'm aware of the whole "sex sells" thing, but I think the importance of its presence from a marketing standpoint is ridiculously overestimated. I dunno, I know very little about marketing so I could be wrong. Sounds like Bloodrayne would be pretty uninteresting to me, though. :p

~Josiah

[Nodtveidt]

Fact of life: many females have large boobs.

Fact of life: most men like females with large boobs.

Fact of life: said men are much more willing to spend money on a product featuring females with large boobs than one without.

Fact of life: "Dead Or Alive" was one of the worst fighting games ever made, yet managed to soak up the cash hand over fist. Reason? Large bouncy boobs, the way earlier mentioned men like them. It was so successful that several sequels, all very successful, came afterward, all sporting signature bouncy boobs.

Sex appeal is a necessity not only because it's realistic but also because it's profitable. Without some form of sex appeal, most character-based games lose a lot of their luster, and in the case of games with terrible stories, lose their appeal altogether. Even FF6 managed to squeeze the boobs in...Terra's got some knockers and they made sure we all know it, even if with only a few extra pixels.

One of my games (Black Satin) has nothing but females, and with loads of sex appeal, including lots of big boobs. In my flagship RPG (The Wrath Of Sona), there's the signature busty co-lead that falls for the lead...in fact, there are two of them (and no, they don't all meet for a threesome, though that would have been interesting to write). But then again, I'm a pervert, so... :O
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[Mattias Gustavsson]

I actually find it a little bit disturbing, the way women are usually portrayed in videogames. Way too many skimpy outfits and exaggerated bossoms. There's certainly a place for that sort of stuff in the world too, but that place is certainly not video games, imo...

What's wrong with portraying women as strong, confident and beautiful (which many men find sexy), rather than what seems to go for "sexy" in the games industry (but just comes across as slutty)? (or, I guess maybe I'm just weird :P )

The video games industry is incredibly juvenile - which is a shame, as I believe it locks out a large part of the potential audience.
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www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[js71]

Well, I think one of the problems is that whenever a 'strong female lead' is attempted, 'strong' somehow inevitably morphs into 'bitchy, ice-cold loner.' Hell, I was guilty of pulling that back in 05-06 with Lynn's Legacy, but yeah... Still seems a little odd to me.

Nek: Hope I didn't give the impression I'm looking down on people who do find all that attractive (because I certainly don't, that'd be pretty stupid of me)-- I guess I wasn't very clear, I personally don't find it appealing but I suppose you're right about it being necessary in some way. I don't exactly represent a gamer stereotype in that regard. :p

Mattias: I guess there's a lot of different personal definitions of 'sexy,' though. There are so many popular stereotypes that do absolutely zilch for me. That said though, they are popular stereotypes so I suppose there is a reason for perpetuating them (if you're a big game company, anyway).

Hmm, I'm not the best at this... I've already clarified my personal opinion, think I'll leave the rest to you guys :)

~Josiah

[Rainer Deyke]

I don't mind sex appeal if the game calls for it, but I'd rather see it applied evenly across gender lines. And I find oversized boobs completely unsexy.

I'd like to think that there's room for different kinds of games for different audiences. Let the horny (male, heterosexual) teenagers have their scantly clad busty babes, but don't force them into all games.

[Nodtveidt]

Nah Josiah, I was typing my post while you were, you just happened to post first. :)

I find nothing wrong with skimpy outfits and oversized bosoms. If that's what the developers want to make, then so be it. If you don't like it then don't play it. There's nothing wrong with portraying women as strong, confident, and beautiful, but at the same time, there's nothing wrong with portraying them as slutty, manipulative, two-timing backstabbing bitches. People come in all shapes and sizes, in all personalities and vices. Nothing wrong at all with portraying them however the designers feels like portraying them. Do we have to portray all females as the confident, strong type? No. Do we have to portray them all as the slutty, clingy type? No.

But hey, let's look at FF7 as an example of this whole thing. Yeah, we got Tifa as the bouncy, oversized chest. Fine. But then there's Aeris, who is NOT oversized, and is quite normal in chest size. And who else? Yuffie, who is virtually chestless (yet she's the only one in the game who ever gets even close to any action with Cloud). Then how about the minor characters? Scarlet looked pretty busty but not oversized like Tifa, though her outfit was kind of sexy (for a lego model at least). Of course, Scarlet was a blonde, and blondes in games are often portrayed as sexy. Who else? How about Cid's pal Shera? She's always wearing a lab coat so we have no idea how busty she is. She's portrayed as a slow but intelligent woman with absolutely no reference to sex appeal. So really, why is there so much fixation on Tifa and her sex appeal when there are plenty of other female characters in the game? The same concept applies to virtually all games where there's a busty female...people will become fixated with that character and forget about all the others simply because that one character has high sex appeal. Do we need further proof that humans consider the sexual aspect before anything else?

Oh, I almost forgot...my wife has written an RPG of her own. The story is built around two lesbian goddesses. Knowing that, how many people would immediately focus on the lesbian aspect, expecting to see some hardcore lesbian porno?
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[js71]

[tcaudilllg]

[Mattias Gustavsson]

[Hajo]

A significant number of men select partners by looks.
A significant number of women select partners by social status.

It is funny that MMOs have sexy looking female avatars, and phat loot as status symbols for the male avatars.

[Nodtveidt]

Yeah Mattias, that's an important factor too...the marketers are generally higher on the food chain these days and influence the designing of the game. But regardless, it's what is done these days and is what sells these days. Society has steadily declined deeper and deeper into decadence over the last 20 years, so people have become more and more shallow. Not just the USA either...most of Europe and Japan as well. The games that have come out of Japan for the past decade or so have generally SUCKED because their own culture is going to hell with all their superficial and superfluous nonsense.

The sex appeal of males in games has never really been overlooked though; it's just that as men ourselves, we rarely notice. How many RPGs feature a scrawny little useless twerp as the lead? Not many. Men in RPGs are generally muscular and attractive, and if not, then they're rich and attractive...things that play on a woman's sexual needs. There are games where the lead is a loser, but ends up being some epic hero through whatever lame-ass story someone came up with. It reflects a bend in social thinking throughout the current social generation...that even utter losers can make something of themselves.

Being an indie certainly does allow us to make things as we see fit. The lead in my main RPG is neither a sex symbol nor a twerp; he's self-centered and filled with rage from the start; he's not going to save the world from some androgynous pretty-boy, he's going to murder someone (a woman, no less) in cold blood. Yeah he's strong but he is never portrayed as some kind of macho man that women will swoon over. Such characters do of course exist like that in the storyline, but not the lead. A game marketing department would look at my game design and try to fill it with boobs, muscle-bound he-men, and runts-turned-heroes because its current state is not "marketable" in their eyes.
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace