Dragon Age: Magekiller #1 Preview: Magic is a cheat

Dragon Age: Magekiller #1 Preview: Magic is a cheat

Dragon Age: Magekiller #1 Preview: Magic is a cheat

Dragon Age: Magekiller #1 Preview: Magic is a cheat

(Link above has blood and gore)

@ilikelookingatnakedmen submitted:

I’m so excited for this comic, but… boob window?????

Caveats: Boob window character is a mage, hot shirtless man also provided. 

While I don’t work there or really know anyone who does, I sometimes feel like I can almost hear the discussions that must go on at Bioware with demands of Creepy Marketing Guy and then everyone else working out how to compensate for them.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition it seemed to be that they had to keep Morrigan’s original outfit (even though the concept art shows they had some amazing ideas) but we got wonderful takedowns on bikini armor and dashingly handsome male romance options.

In Magekiller it seems we’ll have to have booby evil mages:

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And handsome male protagonist who walks around with his shirt off:

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Since they have ditched the battle bikinis, I hope that one day soon we will see the day when Thedas’ morally questionable female mages get a less cliched outfits.

– wincenworks

There are rumors Princess Leia’s Return of the Jedi bikini costume is being “retired.”

There are rumors Princess Leia’s Return of the Jedi bikini costume is being “retired.”

There are rumors Princess Leia’s Return of the Jedi bikini costume is being “retired.”

There are rumors Princess Leia’s Return of the Jedi bikini costume is being “retired.”

So this rumor has been circulating wildly and creating a lot of discussion, and we weren’t really jumping on it simply for the fact that the gold bikini of Leia the Huttslayer is not even vaguely armor.

However, this happened:

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Yes, J Scott Campbell is deeply concerned that he will no longer get paid to draw sexy Leia. Why?

Because despite being an artist in the comics industry for nearly as long as Daisy Ridley (who’ll be playing the female lead in the upcoming movie) has been alive, he still can’t draw any woman any way that’s not hypersexualized. That’s it, his whole bag of tricks he’s acquired from twenty-two years of working as a professional artist in comics and merchandise.

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So I’m not going to shed any tears for yet another tacky statue of Leia in a deliberately degrading costumes that she was forced into against her will (yet so often depicted as posing like a pinup model). 

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I’m going to first cry for all the great comic projects that might have been but were cast aside in favor of yet another J Scott Campbell pin-up.  That and all the comics that were never read because the editor hired J Scott Campbell to present them as softcore porn (especially in cover art).

If the rumor is true and Disney is stopping this kind of production, it’s worth celebrating simply because it signals a decades overdue change: Companies considering that maybe tacky hypersexualized imagery doesn’t sell everything.

Maybe compelling plots, great storytelling and interesting characters do.

– wincenworks

As a side note, even if Disney officially announces “ban” on licensing Slave Leia merch, it won’t all be gone overnight. Let’s not act as if we didn’t have a surplus of official Star Wars bikini products for over 30 years. 

Maybe, just maybe, realize for once that it’s time that demand for different depictions of Leia was met. Because many of her fans can testify how hard to get that sort of merch always was compared to slave-themed ones.
Disney’s push to restore Leia’s image as something else than sexual object should be welcomed.

And if you ever need new post-ban slave-kini products, fanart and bootlegs will always be around. Or, you know, you can stop complaining and make one yourself 😉

~Ozzie

(h/t: @catawampuscreations)

more on Star Wars | more on princess Leia Organa | more on J. Scott Campbell

This Dragon’s Crown Statue Is Freaking Me Out

This Dragon’s Crown Statue Is Freaking Me Out

This Dragon’s Crown Statue Is Freaking Me Out

This Dragon’s Crown Statue Is Freaking Me Out

@ajhasaplan submitted:

Front page of Kotaku.

What in the shit.

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The history of this Dragon’s Crown statue is a wild ride that keeps on going.  Originally it appears it was unlicensed, then it was licensed for an exhibition and limited release only within Japan in 2013. And when the world saw how the stylized Amazon looked like when she was represented as something three dimensional, they were horrified.

Now apparently the figure is going to be given a second shot – no word on if they’ll be selling this outside of Japan.  But the article provides a pretty great summary of how opinions have warmed:

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But really what I love about this statue is that it highlights just how limiting this kind of character design is.  It’s not horrifying because they’ve departed from the original design principles, it’s horrifying because in a 3D form that encourages examination – it’s no longer shielded by distraction and the expectation of acceptance due to it’s dependence on tropes.

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Seriously, nothing about this design was ever anything less than horrifying – it’s just (poorly) concealed behind distractions and rhetoric about it being some sort of statement about the fantasy adventure genre.

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Seriously whether it’s the question of where does the rest of her body go, or what is happening with her “armor” everyone one of these action shots is a moment of horror in the making.

– wincenworks

Stop insulting our intelligence by pretending there’s a good reason for naked women in videogames

Stop insulting our intelligence by pretending there’s a good reason for naked women in videogames

Stop insulting our intelligence by pretending there’s a good reason for naked women in videogames

Stop insulting our intelligence by pretending there’s a good reason for naked women in videogames

For the most part, I do like the article – particularly as it’s not just Cortana’s wardrobe that’s worrying. However it does (in it’s final paragraph) make a critical error in that it assumes that somehow the marketing and promotions for a game are inherently different and separate from the creation of the game itself.

As wonderful as it would be for us to live in a world where creative teams are insulated from Creepy Marketing Guy by armies of private security equipped with electric cattle prods and canisters of mace, this simply isn’t reality.  Especially not in the case of auteur productions where the person overseeing the marketing campaign is the one overseeing the game development.

Despite there being no rational reason to believe that sex actually sells, we still see plenty of examples where female characters are given ridiculous outfits in the belief it will sell a few thousand more units.  Sometimes it’s in complete contradiction to the context of the product and sometimes it’s from a range of outright horrifying concepts.

It’s gotten to the extent where many of them have now pushed franchises and their own styles into a point where they have no idea how to make them less hostile to women without losing their branding.  Thus enforcing the idea that women should only play games made specifically for women (which will not be treated seriously by the industry, despite sales and the industry stealing ideas from them left, right and center).

Games are a business and that, unfortunately, means that marketing will never be completely separated from production. Instead of living in denial, we should focus on pushing games to use the right kind of marketing.

– wincenworks

I also take issue with how, in its final paragraphs, the article implies that ridiculous excuses are provoked by critique which asks about consistency in female character design. And that critics should be free to criticize but also refrain from bringing extra attention to the controversies… However that’s supposed to work.

I’m glad the article says that the game developers should be honest about intentions behind their designs. And that their sexy lady justifications insult the audience’s intelligence. Still, it would be overall better analysis of the problem without taking the “let the games speak for themselves" angle.

~Ozzie