We’ve been noted by lots of our lovely followers that Square Enix changed their minds about their mobile game protagonist who caused such an outrage a while ago.
Sorry if this is information you already know, but the mobile Final Fantasy game, Mobius (originally Mevius), has had some design changes. Due to ‘negative’ feedback, the main character now has less skin showing. Meanwhile a new female character has been announced. What are your thoughts?
indirajartwork (who also suggested this post’s title) submitted:
Where are all the dudebros to cry about censorship and creative freedom NOW? O__o
Morrigan submitted:
Remember that skimpy male armour from FF Mevius? Well, turns out the SJW cabal has been forcing Square Enix to abandon their sacrosanct artistic vision and censor themselves… I’m sure the brave knights of free speech will protest this blatant censorship, right? Surely, Squeenix will be called prudes who hate sex after this? ….Right?
Have you heard the news about Mobius Final Fantasy? OK PREPARE FOR GENERAL LEL@GAMERS basically the champions of FREDUM OF SPEUCH and ANTI-CENSORSHIP are now defending squeenix censoring a male character’s scanty outfit due to complaints from whiny male gamers. BEAUTIFUL. /popcorn
Thankfully, Square Enix recognized how uncomfortable it would be for men to play as a character who was designed as a sexual object before an active, heroic subject, and announced today that they had modified his design.
[…] Thank you for being so understanding, Square Enix.
Can’t say I’m surprised or angry, but very much disappointed.
And said people are more than happy to shield this change with the good old “creative freedom” excuse. The same creative freedom that would most likely be called “censorship” or “entitlement” if the such redesign was applied to a female character instead.
So, apparently, there IS such thing as “too sexy”… but only under condition that you are a man.Who knew, right?
~Ozzie
I am really disappointed in my fellow men for this one. Ever since I started helping out here they’ve always been so eager to tell me how people who bothered by a sexualized depiction of their demographic should respond.
“Go make your own.” Pretty self explanatory. Just start a studio that makes computer games professionally, produce critically acclaimed games that sell in record amounts and in twenty-eight years you could be showing them how it’s done.
“Realize it’s a fantasy game were anybody can have a magic powers.” So nothing needs to make sense and nothing matters… really they should be campaigning for him to have less clothes, that way it’s more fantasy-ish right?
“Enjoy it as a celebration of male form.” It makes men look good so that’s got to be good for all of us right?
“Just stop.” Okay, I’m not sure how this one helps but they seem very confident about it.
Speaking of “censorship” vs. “pandering”, thought it would be appropriate to bring this post back for the Throwback Thursday. As a reader @ms-silver remarked under our last post:
… These are probably the same guys who made that one male character from that FF game put on more clothes. But then again, making dudes wear more clothes isn’t censorship, clearly.
We’ve been noted by lots of our lovely followers that Square Enix changed their minds about their mobile game protagonist who caused such an outrage a while ago.
Sorry if this is information you already know, but the mobile Final Fantasy game, Mobius (originally Mevius), has had some design changes. Due to ‘negative’ feedback, the main character now has less skin showing. Meanwhile a new female character has been announced. What are your thoughts?
indirajartwork (who also suggested this post’s title) submitted:
Where are all the dudebros to cry about censorship and creative freedom NOW? O__o
Morrigan submitted:
Remember that skimpy male armour from FF Mevius? Well, turns out the SJW cabal has been forcing Square Enix to abandon their sacrosanct artistic vision and censor themselves… I’m sure the brave knights of free speech will protest this blatant censorship, right? Surely, Squeenix will be called prudes who hate sex after this? ….Right?
Have you heard the news about Mobius Final Fantasy? OK PREPARE FOR GENERAL LEL@GAMERS basically the champions of FREDUM OF SPEUCH and ANTI-CENSORSHIP are now defending squeenix censoring a male character’s scanty outfit due to complaints from whiny male gamers. BEAUTIFUL. /popcorn
Thankfully, Square Enix recognized how uncomfortable it would be for men to play as a character who was designed as a sexual object before an active, heroic subject, and announced today that they had modified his design.
[…] Thank you for being so understanding, Square Enix.
Can’t say I’m surprised or angry, but very much disappointed.
And said people are more than happy to shield this change with the good old “creative freedom” excuse. The same creative freedom that would most likely be called “censorship” or “entitlement” if the such redesign was applied to a female character instead.
So, apparently, there IS such thing as “too sexy”… but only under condition that you are a man.Who knew, right?
~Ozzie
I am really disappointed in my fellow men for this one. Ever since I started helping out here they’ve always been so eager to tell me how people who bothered by a sexualized depiction of their demographic should respond.
“Go make your own.” Pretty self explanatory. Just start a studio that makes computer games professionally, produce critically acclaimed games that sell in record amounts and in twenty-eight years you could be showing them how it’s done.
“Realize it’s a fantasy game were anybody can have a magic powers.” So nothing needs to make sense and nothing matters… really they should be campaigning for him to have less clothes, that way it’s more fantasy-ish right?
“Enjoy it as a celebration of male form.” It makes men look good so that’s got to be good for all of us right?
“Just stop.” Okay, I’m not sure how this one helps but they seem very confident about it.
Speaking of “censorship” vs. “pandering”, thought it would be appropriate to bring this post back for the Throwback Thursday. As a reader @ms-silver remarked under our last post:
… These are probably the same guys who made that one male character from that FF game put on more clothes. But then again, making dudes wear more clothes isn’t censorship, clearly.
Couldn’t help myself but bingo the Nords: Heroes of the North ladies. And considering how generic most of their ideas look, the results surpassed my expectations by far!
For the love of Freya (no, not this Freya), the “rebel”-haired lady almost broke the bingo O_O
noticed that humans in the game also score a bit of the Rhetoric Bingo, based on info found in this screenshot (full text available here):
Adorned with traditional blue war-paint meant to invoke magical protection and enhance battle skill, Valkyries fight with grace, precision and cold cunning.
Um, at least they don’t outright say whether or not the magical paint actually works?
If it’s of any consolation for all the above absurd, here’s another pic of that exceptionally big viking lady:
Couldn’t say she’s not sexualized at all, or that her costume wouldn’t score some bingo points, but compared to other girls, her look is closer to Heroically Idealized and way more on par with the beefy shirtless men in the game.
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
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?
Well, I’ve been looking into all the official information on why Quiet has that ridiculous outfit. It’s been a wild ride. I can confidently say that I am not ashamed and have not changed my stance. The bingo above applies only to official information – with elaboration in the cut below.
For those already typing up a response to tell me I’m a terrible person, here’s a few quick preemptive responses for the people who will tell me I can’t judge the game without providing notarized proof of having played 400 hours of each game in the series but won’t bother to search the tags of this blog:
We are aware there are some cosplayers who love Quiet’s outfit, we are very supportive of cosplayers right to dress how they want – particularly since they are real people withagency and not on battlefields.
The existence of The Boss does not mean Hideo Kojima’s work is excluded from criticism. That’s not how reality works on any level, there are no Get Out of Jail/Criticism Free Cards outside of Monopoly.
Neither does his taste in music, status as an artist, situation with Konami, his talking about who he consulted with about military experts, etc.
Theories about how this might be a sneaky commentary on society also don’t protect from criticism as these are not responsible commentary.
Warnings: Due to this involving information delivered in the game, the following contains spoilers. Due to the nature of the game the following and the sources linked to will contain references and imagery relating to torture, rape, graphic violent, mutilation and (hopefully fictional) political rhetoric.
Men are sexualized too!
Kojima actually managed to take this a step further than usual by justifying his requesting a “sexy” design for Quiet claims that not only can we argue the guys are sexualized too, but so are the military equipment. Yes, tanks are sexualized too… apparently. (source – article)
This is particularly ridiculous since as the recent femfreq video pointed out – MGS games have a history of recognizing just one kind of person as “sexy” to the viewer – often to ridiculous extents:
She CHOSE to dress like that!
If the player chooses to take Quiet captive, it is advised that even though she somehow has no problem with being tortured and kept on display in a cage – she responds violently to anyone who tries to put clothes on her.
More information on why in the next two points. (Source – video)
Her strength comes from her uncovered skin…
During the same section, it is discussed that Quiet eats (via photosynthesis), breathes and drinks through her skin – so she could suffocate if she wore clothes. (No explanation is given for her latex glove, fishnets or why her bikini is so ridiculous).
Later you do see Quiet struggling to breathe while wearing long sleeves and long pants, but she and is able to access all the air she needs to do a wuxia-esque grindhouse revenge killing sequence when her pants are removed and her shirt is ripped open. (The scenario is at least as terrible as you’re imagining, actually probably worse)
Also, anyone with a basic understanding of clothing or science knows that there’s a wide variety of fabrics that “breathe” and hence wouldn’t get in the way of her skin getting access to air. Certainly not any more than say a shower or rain would. Speaking of…
It’s just fantasy/scifi! Magic/science protects her!
You were probably thinking it sounds pretty weird that Quiet uses her skin for everything we have specialist organs for, and you’d be right! Quiet is first introduced as a normal human (and spectacularly incompetent) assassin who is sent to kill Snake but ends up on fire instead. She is then given “parasite therapy” where some sort of insect microbe things transform her body in a way that conveniently preserves her sexiness and forces her to show it off.
This makes so little sense that basically nobody can agree if it’s scifi or supernatural – it just works because they say so. Oh, and in case you’re wondering – yes there are men in the game who’ve been “enhanced” with parasite therapy – this is what they look like:
According to Kojima, part of this design idea was he spent a lot of time thinking about how characters might be effected by early life, fashion, etc. Yes, apparently he thinks this is how Russian women her age in the 80s would have been thinking of dressing.
Another early reasons given by Kojima himself to explain that sexy costume is that he wanted to encourage cosplay of the character. He also admitted that the character might not be cosplayable – so female cosplayers are supposed to automatically gravitate towards the most over sexualized costumes even if they’re not possible.
That’s the best way of marketing to men…
Kojima also stated that the heavily sexualized design was there to promote figurine sales. I’m not sure if he’s aware there’s really no shortage of heavily sexualized figurines or that some people may find this one a little awkward to have around the house… just like he was surprised to learn that Metal Gear Solid has a large female fanbase.
It fits her fighting style!
Kojima stated that his core concept for this one was a “naked sniper” – as opposed to the previously just boob flaunting female snipers…. and the fully dressed male snipers (who also use photosynthesis)
When not sniping though, Quiet simply uses her super powers to dodge bullets, throw people like dolls and leap spectacularly into the air.
She’s indestructible, she doesn’t need any protection!
Right when the character was first released, Kojima himself confirmed he understood that it would be ridiculous for someone to be dressed like that in the desert and that he wanted the player to wonder why. The reason of course, as covered above: Quiet eating breathing and drinking through her skin somehow makes her immune to the hazards of exposure.
(Never mind that baking in the Sun would mean she’d need to be guzzling water constantly for all the carbohydrates she’s producing. That’s a minor detail)
She’s so badass that she needs no armor!
When Quiet is first introduced she is wearing BDUs, has no super powers and fails in her assassination mission. Upon gaining her super powers, she suddenly dresses in… that, and becomes incredibly effective against… everyone in every way.
Great story makes up for those ridiculous designs!
Kojima started with a bold, assertive stance. Later he would state that he understood why people have concerns but they just wait and experience the game it will explain everything. Complete with reassurances!
