Tag: sex sells

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I think it’s been long enough but if you find yourself getting ready to type up a comment related to Mass Effect: Andromeda’s animations please consider watching this educational video from Extra Credits and not commenting here instead.  This post is going to be a clarification of what we mean when we say Creepy Marketing Guy, and since the first post on this topic featured Samara, it’s only fair that Cora be the star of the clarification.

First, let’s start with what we do not mean when we refer to Creepy Marketing Guy.  It does not refer to:

What we instead refer to is a product where you can see the development team’s intentions are to create something where every element is involved in telling a specific story – and then someone (usually marketing) steps in and makes the change specific parts of them with the assumption that the cishet male demographic needs the sexual availability of at least one female character broadcast to them in order to be interested in the unrelated aspects.

In this case, they pick Cora Harper, who is an ultra-professional soldier (one of the most battle hardened in the team), introduced as being calm in a crisis, the second in command on the mission, and seems to use “male” set of animations for her running, etc (instead of the elbows-in butt wiggle run generally assigned to female characters, including fem!Ryder).

Then you see in the outfit in the top of the post before launching into the tutorial mission, during which she appears in cut scenes like this:

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Pretty much every other female character in the establishing chapters of the game has pragmatic, non-gendered attire on and off the battlefield. But, since Cora is a romance option for bro!Ryder, she apparently needs to wear a fetish outfit sculpted around her boobs and butt, while on the battlefield. The other female member of the away team who is a romance option also similarly needs to broadcast she’s got a sexy side (she also only owns one set of clothes).

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All other traits other than romance option to bro!Ryder are considered secondary – to the extent now Cora looks not just contradictory to her character but out of place in the game about exploring a new galaxy, finding wondrous alien technology and shaping humanity’s future. 

(This does not seem to apply to the male romance options, examples 1 & 2)

Ironically this now means she is so out of place cannot be included in marketing material without making the game look a ridiculous parody of a dramatic adventure exploring alien worlds in a new galaxy. It’s almost like they should have just given her one of the dozens of pragmatic outfits I am sure the concept artists designed for Cora before being told to sex it up.

– wincenworks

What is it with the “above boobs and under boobs belts” design feature that’s become so popular lately? Also, I thought Ashley’s outfit in Mass Effect 3 was insulting; the new BioWare studio really took it up a notch, though. … Good job?

I’ve read none of the promotional material for ME:A before it came out, so when I watched part of a Let’s Play of it out of curiosity, I couldn’t believe that Cora was this battle-hardened badass soldier type; I thought she was just another human on the ship. Her design makes me think of EDI before anything else. Those really sad attempts at actual armor pieces (like the baby plates on her shoulders) somehow make it worse, like Creepy Marketing Guy begrudgingly allowed it.

Also, send help, that butt window is staring into my soul.

-Icy

Cora Harper Official Character Sheet 

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bikiniarmorbattledamage:

ohgodhesloose:

feminismandpugsarelife:

dragondicks:

how to “pander to sjws / feminists”: in depth characters and storytelling, non objectified female characters, characters of all manners of races, identities and backgrounds

how to pander to gamer boys: make titty wobble

Wow no wonder they don’t want to make games more accessible to women, they’d have to reveal their lack of actual talent.

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What a nice response to the “sex sells” and “creative freedom” rhetoric which we’re well too familiar with.

~Ozzie

The saddest part about this is – the games industry is full of talented people and they frequently have to throw away their best work because someone who is overpaid believes in a magic formula.

Then they end up promoting the wrong people and we end up with this guy.

– wincenworks

Bringing this post back, since now the gamer boys directly accuse “pandering to SJWs/feminists” as the primary reason for anything they don’t enjoy about any game, like the glitches in Mass Effect Andromeda.

~Ozzie

Particularly worth mentioning that these same voices are generally for more accepting and forgiving when it comes time to apply a critical lens to games like Scarlet Blade, Haydee or asset flips… and who conveniently claim creators should be allowed to do whatever they want when a short skirt is involved.

– wincenworks

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‘Sex’ doesn’t sell. Erosion of female self esteem does. The feeling of superiority over women does. Turning women into ‘things’ to be studied, scrutinized & judged and then calling it ‘sex’ does. 

Sex doesn’t sell. Objectification does

Sadiqa Thornton (via female-only)

Amen.

~Ozzie

(via bikiniarmorbattledamage)

This week’s throwback: a concise explanation of what people really mean when they confidently announce that ”sex sells”, which somehow is supposed to invalidate critique of hypersexualized media. 

~Ozzie 

See also: Fighting Fucktoy | The immature and superficial portrayal of “sex” in video games

edit: The original poster of this quote seems to have devoted their blog to TERF (trans-exclusionary radical “feminism”) ideology, which we at BABD do not support at all. Trans women are women and feminism concerns all genders.

Nonetheless, Sadiqa Thornton’s words remain very much true to what we believe in, no matter who put them on Tumblr (if not the Internet) first.

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But is it really porn?

So now and again we get people insist that x title shouldn’t be counted because it’s intended to be viewed as porn (especially if that product is from a country outside the English speaking world… because reasons).

Reasons for this assumption often include:

  • The presence of explicit fan service or sex scenes
  • The inclusion of ridiculous double standards
  • Fans having labelled it as an erotic product on their own wikis
  • The publisher having actual porn products in their catalog

But generally this just assumes that by shoehorning in some sexualized content a product immediately becomes excluded from criticism.  Very few products exclude all content from their own genre (plenty of action movies have a romantic subplot for example).

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Generally a lot of the cross genre trends have a pretty basic premise behind them, it helps improve the audience investment:

  • Comic relief in horror and thriller helps avoid the audience becoming desensitized or burnt out from the tension
  • Having a love interest can humanize a protagonist (or an antagonist) and increase your ability to get invested in them
  • Mixing a little mystery with your modern fantasy story reminds the audience of how little we really notice or know about the world around us and makes them more accepting to the idea of secret magic

So, what purpose does having ultrasexualized costumes for female characters and regular arbitrary fan service?  Well, mostly it’s because of the general belief that certain demographics need a lot of reassurance that some products are okay for them, and in fact made exclusively for them:

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It’s been covered before, but I really feel the need to restate that the main reason for this is a very simple reasoning: x genre is a for (straight cis) men so we need to market exclusively to them and make sure they know we’re doing it (even if they think it’s already being overdone and kind of insulting).

(Evidence suggests this works… but only in the sense that it does make a lot of people think that the product is not for them and hence don’t buy it. Or just have more fun mocking it than they’d have playing it.)

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That’s not to say that there aren’t products or stories where including sexual content gives it a boost, but generally you’ll want to do it in a way that makes sense and does actually improve the product and that still doesn’t make it porn.

You can physically eat a lot of things, but just as you wouldn’t call it food unless you buy it specifically to eat it, you shouldn’t call it porn unless you buy it specifically for sexual gratification.

– wincenworks

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Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel is a game that the western distributors (Marvelous USA) have been trying to cross market to Skullgirls players but apparently don’t want to admit to having on their web site:

I stress that on their Facebook promotion, literally the only reason they can think of for you to buy this game is you’re going to get a discount if you already own Skullgirls.  That’s it – even though the game offers none of the quirk.

Unsurprisingly while it has positive reviews the majority of them barely clear two hours of gameplay and the multiplayer well…

For people making fighting games: excessive T&A didn’t save Soul Calibur: Lost Swords and it won’t save your game either. 

– wincenworks

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Bulletstorm is getting a remaster, so it’s probably time to talk about how Trishka Novak ended up looking more like a pinup model than a “merciless stealth assassin” even after the team fought to cut down on her arbitrary sex appeal.

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What’s interesting is that despite his unwillingness to consider that perhaps, there were some bad decisions made here, Adrian is apparently in agreement with us over the outfits in some other people’s games:

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– wincenworks