I feel like the problem with unnecessary sexy womens clothing in many
games and comics is relatively well known and untill yesterday I would
have said that we are making progress in this area. This changed today
when I received an answer to a question that I had send Bigpoint, the
producer of “Drakensang online”, a free fantasy MMORPG.The question I send
them asked something like “hey team, why are women now expected to fight without pants all of a sudden? I hope this is a halloween thing because I don’t really like it. I thought you were doing really well when you added more skintone options some time ago. It would be cool if you told me what changes you made in the male costume for halloween, I wasn’t really able to make anything out. Cheers, [my name]”The answer they send, you can see above. It says: “Hello, a lot of users asked that it become better visible if a character is male or female. That is why this change was made. With kind regards […]” etc.
I don’t even know if I should be angry about this or just sad. Before female and male characters had basically the same clothing. There is no good reason (as far as I know) why gender should be made more vissible. Also, hoovering your mouse above a character will give you their name
and a (often gendered) title. This is much easier than zooming in to
spot the boob-window. You can see the changes in the pictures above. (The characters still look like before in the character menu, that is where I was able to make the before pictures.)I really want to make a point to Bigpoint about this, so pleas reblog or like this post if you agree with me. If you play the game, it would be awesome if you left a message in their feedback-forums or tell them what you think via their support page
A propos gender signifiers in warrior costume design… Now this case tells us a lot about the studio’s approach to creativity.
Developers got asked to differentiate gender of the characters, so removing women’s pants and adding cleavages was the best solution they could come up with? Really?
Assuming there truly is a huge demand for making female and male costumes more distinct, couldn’t they accommodate the designs in a more dignified way?
And if they really had to remove some items to make character’s sex/gender obvious, why not men’s shirts? Why it’s the female characters who need “adjustments”, while male ones remain the default?
But considering Drakensang’s track record, we shouldn’t be all that surprised.
Thank you @lunaia for bringing this issue to us!
~Ozzie
I only saw a small post about it so I thought I’d ask for a longer one: What do ya’ll think of Jack from Mass Effect. Compared to MOST of the females in that game is it right to say she isn’t sexualized?
Yes. No. I mean yes. Maybe.
Jack certainly is an example of a character where the core reason behind her exposure is largely explained by her desire to express non-conformity and brazen confidence. She’s consistently portrayed as someone who has a grudge against society and it’s one of many ways she expresses contempt for it. (gif source)
Ironically the more sexualizing aspect is the straps that seem to have been added after the initial design, presumably because we need to protect people from the terror of nipples (by drawing more attention to their existence and further fetishizing them, isn’t society great?).
Unfortunately, when it came time for Mass Effect 3 – her costume seems to have been re-invented with similar focus on sexuality that Ashley’s was.
Overall, Jack in Mass Effect 2 was a fairly good use of non-sexual exposure, Jack in Mass Effect 3 less so. How sexualized each was would be a complex discussion involving things like her looks, structure of Bioware’s romance system, camera angles, etc.
Not really something we can summarize in a blog post.
In comparison to other Mass Effect ladies – well she’s certainly better off (costume wise) than Samara!
– wincenworks
I only saw a small post about it so I thought I’d ask for a longer one: What do ya’ll think of Jack from Mass Effect. Compared to MOST of the females in that game is it right to say she isn’t sexualized?
Yes. No. I mean yes. Maybe.
Jack certainly is an example of a character where the core reason behind her exposure is largely explained by her desire to express non-conformity and brazen confidence. She’s consistently portrayed as someone who has a grudge against society and it’s one of many ways she expresses contempt for it. (gif source)
Ironically the more sexualizing aspect is the straps that seem to have been added after the initial design, presumably because we need to protect people from the terror of nipples (by drawing more attention to their existence and further fetishizing them, isn’t society great?).
Unfortunately, when it came time for Mass Effect 3 – her costume seems to have been re-invented with similar focus on sexuality that Ashley’s was.
Overall, Jack in Mass Effect 2 was a fairly good use of non-sexual exposure, Jack in Mass Effect 3 less so. How sexualized each was would be a complex discussion involving things like her looks, structure of Bioware’s romance system, camera angles, etc.
Not really something we can summarize in a blog post.
In comparison to other Mass Effect ladies – well she’s certainly better off (costume wise) than Samara!
– wincenworks
There are two kinds of people.
(made me think of femalearmor, repair-her-armor, and bikiniarmorbattledamage)
My “favorite” part is gotta be
Considering they’re commenting on a video game concept art, not a traditional 2D animation model sheet or a comic book character design. No-one is going to actually draw this outfit over and over again to animate the game; it’s going to be rendered in 3D.
And while CG renders obviously also require more work the more complex they are, the explanation doesn’t apply when only female characters are “too hard to animate/render/draw”.
If fictional men don’t also sport the same suspiciously bodypaint-like clothes as women, the “easier to do” excuse is invalid, no matter what medium the characters are presented in.
As a side note, boobsocks have more polygons than a realistic single boob bulge, so it’s not easier or more efficient to make a 3D “catsuit” model with separate breast compartments.
~Ozzie
(Edit: Added some bolding due to concerns people felt that pointing out the video game/3D comparison was not in line with address the idea of Anime being different due to being a drawn medium. It’s also worth pointing out that anime has been using CG since the 80s and that even anime that shamelessly use every shortcut they can get their hands on still don’t super-simplify simply to save drawing.
– wincenworks)
