“She’s not really nude … but that’s what it makes you think of,” says O’Connor. “So one of the reasons she [chooses to appear without clothes] is to attract and demand attention. And she does it to put people off so that they’re on their guard when talking to her and she has the upper hand in those conversations.”
“It’s kind of almost like the opposite of that nightmare you have where you go to school in the nude. You’re terrified and embarrassed and she’s kind of projecting that back out to her audience and winning intellectual points as a result.”
Franchise Director Frank O’Connor just pulled a “it’s a distraction!” excuse as to why Halo’s Cortana doesn’t wear clothes. Could he have tried any less? “She’s not really naked, but that’s what it makes you think of?” Umm, ya that’s what it makes me think of, along with everyone else, because ya know, she is naked. With the amount of effort Kojima put into his excuses, he’s putting you to shame Frank.
Wow, what a “creative” explanation for a sexy nude lady AI: a bunch of stock excuses piled on top of each other!
“She’s not technically naked, because non-human. Also her nude (but again, not technically nude) appearance empowers her and distracts people around her! Obviously, it’s her choice to look like that!”
“She’s not really nude … but that’s what it makes you think of,” says O’Connor. “So one of the reasons she [chooses to appear without clothes] is to attract and demand attention. And she does it to put people off so that they’re on their guard when talking to her and she has the upper hand in those conversations.”
“It’s kind of almost like the opposite of that nightmare you have where you go to school in the nude. You’re terrified and embarrassed and she’s kind of projecting that back out to her audience and winning intellectual points as a result.”
Franchise Director Frank O’Connor just pulled a “it’s a distraction!” excuse as to why Halo’s Cortana doesn’t wear clothes. Could he have tried any less? “She’s not really naked, but that’s what it makes you think of?” Umm, ya that’s what it makes me think of, along with everyone else, because ya know, she is naked. With the amount of effort Kojima put into his excuses, he’s putting you to shame Frank.
Wow, what a “creative” explanation for a sexy nude lady AI: a bunch of stock excuses piled on top of each other!
“She’s not technically naked, because non-human. Also her nude (but again, not technically nude) appearance empowers her and distracts people around her! Obviously, it’s her choice to look like that!”
Comedy writing rule of thumb: addressing an inherent problem with what you’re replicatingand then failing to illustrate the absurdity or even why it’s a problem means you fail to make it satire.
For any aspiring games developers out there who thought they’d use this “joke” take note – this was first released in 1991. That’s nearly a quarter century ago and quite possibly before you were born.
Comedy writing rule of thumb: addressing an inherent problem with what you’re replicatingand then failing to illustrate the absurdity or even why it’s a problem means you fail to make it satire.
For any aspiring games developers out there who thought they’d use this “joke” take note – this was first released in 1991. That’s nearly a quarter century ago and quite possibly before you were born.
Actually we’re both working on our own projects (they’re at a stage of completion where we’re comfortable sharing, and neither are the like minded people we’re working with (so there will be no further details forthcoming at this time).
Also, believe it or not: Some of the people involved in related blogs actually work in industries such as video games.
Saying that it “worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series” is as absurd, it’s like suggesting that someone’s who broke should just become a millionaire by building a web site like Google (it worked for Larry Page and Sergey Brin!)
Homestuck is a particularly bad example because it:
Didn’t really challenge the status quo at all, it was just a new absurdist comic that wanted to tell a story and entertain
Has a large and very enthusiastic fanbase, but has more or less no influence outside of that fanbase. It’s very successful for a web comic, but that success doesn’t mean it’s influential in the grand scheme of things (or even in web comics)
Employs an economical style that works fine for the stories in Homestuck but is not necessarily even faintly compatible with other styles and stories.
Making a production that showcases women in sensible armor would pretty much require a higher standard of visual quality than something that’s intended to look like a scribble done in MS Paint. So even with a web comic at a lot of hours in image creation.
More accessible and larger markets (which means more competition) products like animated features/movies/etc require even more effort and expertise. Video games would require more skills and time again.
That’s not to say things like Kickstarter and Steam’s Greenlit aren’t fantastic and making the market more accessible but it’s insulting to creators of these products to downplay the work involved and pretend just anyone can do it (particularly with their other responsibilities and how much work is involved).
Even if Ozzie and I did somehow stumble across the time, money and connections to make a modest game (since video games are currently the biggest market) – say on par with Gone Home, here’s what we could look forward to:
Sales would be a small fraction of those by mainstream publishers – even a lambasted product like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning gets more sales (and hence market influence) than a critically acclaimed indy production
If the game doesn’t do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash saying that it’s proof that the public doesn’t want well armored heroines
If the game does do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash from people claiming that it’s only got sales due to political reasons and not because of the game (for more information, read the reviews on Gone Home’s Steam Store page – for extra laughs compare them to the reviews on The Stanley Parable a game that employs almost identical mechanics but doesn’t challenge people’s perceptions of the world around them per se)
While it may provide some influence in mainstream gaming, it is likely that the industry would in general mostly overlook. Lots of people want to copy Minecraft – but almost nobody talks about its gender ambiguity.
I mean we already have big names in industry like David Gaider promoting the importance of inclusion, Mark Rubin – the executive producer of Call of Duty (the iconic game of brodudes) recently announced they’ll be including female playable characters to recognize the female fanbase they already have around the same time that Ubisoft announced that making female characters in their next Assassin’s Creed game would be too much work.
The idea that an independent production is somehow going to overpower the influence of the mainstream media is, frankly, ridiculous (unless you’re Batman). None of that is to say there aren’t things like games or artworks out there that are made for political reasons or with such goals – but they’re made by people who want to make the things.
History has already shown that if you make a web comic just because you want to make lots of money off it – you’re going to be disappointed. Likewise if you make a web comic, animation or game just because you want the world to change their perceptions of other people. Usually even political projects are less about expecting to change people, and more about the need to express something important.
So to summarize the main points:
1. Not everyone who is critical of a market should be expected to produce for that market. Every modern marketplace needs more customers than suppliers so it makes sense to leave the production up to people with the motivation and skills to do so.
2. If 50% of the population can see themselves well represented by going to, say, a game store, but the other 50% have to spend years building a game for themselves – that is not equality.
Criticism in the marketplace is important, it leads to more pressure on the experts to make better products and refine their priorities.
All of the above are the reasons why it is warranted its own spot on the Rhetoric Bingo.
Feel free to share this post with anyone who insists that people should start making their own games/movies/comics/whatever instead of “whining” about having no representation in media.
Hey I want to genuinely ask why don’t you make your own story/game with the design of how you want females to be represented? I know what you have to say about it in your Rhetroic Bingo but there are ways to get around that; Like making a webcomic of said story to gain fans then make a kickstarter for a game or book I mean it worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series, Or you could gather a group of like minded individuals to collaborate on a game/movie/comic.
Actually we’re both working on our own projects (they’re at a stage of completion where we’re comfortable sharing, and neither are the like minded people we’re working with (so there will be no further details forthcoming at this time).
Also, believe it or not: Some of the people involved in related blogs actually work in industries such as video games.
Saying that it “worked for Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck series” is as absurd, it’s like suggesting that someone’s who broke should just become a millionaire by building a web site like Google (it worked for Larry Page and Sergey Brin!)
Homestuck is a particularly bad example because it:
Didn’t really challenge the status quo at all, it was just a new absurdist comic that wanted to tell a story and entertain
Has a large and very enthusiastic fanbase, but has more or less no influence outside of that fanbase. It’s very successful for a web comic, but that success doesn’t mean it’s influential in the grand scheme of things (or even in web comics)
Employs an economical style that works fine for the stories in Homestuck but is not necessarily even faintly compatible with other styles and stories.
Making a production that showcases women in sensible armor would pretty much require a higher standard of visual quality than something that’s intended to look like a scribble done in MS Paint. So even with a web comic at a lot of hours in image creation.
More accessible and larger markets (which means more competition) products like animated features/movies/etc require even more effort and expertise. Video games would require more skills and time again.
That’s not to say things like Kickstarter and Steam’s Greenlit aren’t fantastic and making the market more accessible but it’s insulting to creators of these products to downplay the work involved and pretend just anyone can do it (particularly with their other responsibilities and how much work is involved).
Even if Ozzie and I did somehow stumble across the time, money and connections to make a modest game (since video games are currently the biggest market) – say on par with Gone Home, here’s what we could look forward to:
Sales would be a small fraction of those by mainstream publishers – even a lambasted product like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning gets more sales (and hence market influence) than a critically acclaimed indy production
If the game doesn’t do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash saying that it’s proof that the public doesn’t want well armored heroines
If the game does do well, for any reason – there will be a general backlash from people claiming that it’s only got sales due to political reasons and not because of the game (for more information, read the reviews on Gone Home’s Steam Store page – for extra laughs compare them to the reviews on The Stanley Parable a game that employs almost identical mechanics but doesn’t challenge people’s perceptions of the world around them per se)
While it may provide some influence in mainstream gaming, it is likely that the industry would in general mostly overlook. Lots of people want to copy Minecraft – but almost nobody talks about its gender ambiguity.
I mean we already have big names in industry like David Gaider promoting the importance of inclusion, Mark Rubin – the executive producer of Call of Duty (the iconic game of brodudes) recently announced they’ll be including female playable characters to recognize the female fanbase they already have around the same time that Ubisoft announced that making female characters in their next Assassin’s Creed game would be too much work.
The idea that an independent production is somehow going to overpower the influence of the mainstream media is, frankly, ridiculous (unless you’re Batman). None of that is to say there aren’t things like games or artworks out there that are made for political reasons or with such goals – but they’re made by people who want to make the things.
History has already shown that if you make a web comic just because you want to make lots of money off it – you’re going to be disappointed. Likewise if you make a web comic, animation or game just because you want the world to change their perceptions of other people. Usually even political projects are less about expecting to change people, and more about the need to express something important.
So to summarize the main points:
1. Not everyone who is critical of a market should be expected to produce for that market. Every modern marketplace needs more customers than suppliers so it makes sense to leave the production up to people with the motivation and skills to do so.
2. If 50% of the population can see themselves well represented by going to, say, a game store, but the other 50% have to spend years building a game for themselves – that is not equality.
Criticism in the marketplace is important, it leads to more pressure on the experts to make better products and refine their priorities.
All of the above are the reasons why it is warranted its own spot on the Rhetoric Bingo.
Feel free to share this post with anyone who insists that people should start making their own games/movies/comics/whatever instead of “whining” about having no representation in media.
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.
Given how regularly we get people rush in to tell us that we cannot question anything from outside the USA because of cultural reasons (never mind that neither of us is from the USA, or even near it) – this is kind of darkly hilarious.
Apparently Nintendo’s judgement is only unquestionable as long as they’re pandering to entitled straight men – as soon as that stops it’s an evil conspiracy to censor video games involving one or more of the following:
Everyone in politics from religious conservatives to liberal activists
“the Internet police”
The developers not “wanting the game to succeed”
the singular group of people who are the only ones who ever have concerns (except about censorship?)
Numerous groups zealot groups unique to western culture (as if God of War III was never altered for Japanese release)
Of course, it goes without saying that one can never include pandering in these video games – even when it’s fan service labeled “fan service” it’s always there for deep artistic reasons.
Speaking of which, my favourite part of the comments was this justification and insistence that these costumes are essential in a franchise which is about going around haunted houses, taking photos of ghosts with magic cameras:
Given how regularly we get people rush in to tell us that we cannot question anything from outside the USA because of cultural reasons (never mind that neither of us is from the USA, or even near it) – this is kind of darkly hilarious.
Apparently Nintendo’s judgement is only unquestionable as long as they’re pandering to entitled straight men – as soon as that stops it’s an evil conspiracy to censor video games involving one or more of the following:
Everyone in politics from religious conservatives to liberal activists
“the Internet police”
The developers not “wanting the game to succeed”
the singular group of people who are the only ones who ever have concerns (except about censorship?)
Numerous groups zealot groups unique to western culture (as if God of War III was never altered for Japanese release)
Of course, it goes without saying that one can never include pandering in these video games – even when it’s fan service labeled “fan service” it’s always there for deep artistic reasons.
Speaking of which, my favourite part of the comments was this justification and insistence that these costumes are essential in a franchise which is about going around haunted houses, taking photos of ghosts with magic cameras:
