dragoncurl submitted:
So I saw this lovely ad in the subway while coming home today.Unfortunately going to the actual website they give just gets me a link to download the game to mobile, and since I don’t have the name in English I can’t look for the game’s actual website. My shitty phone camera photo’s the best I got.
I’m from Brazil so the text’s in Portuguese, but here’s a rough translation. Some parts are bolded for blatant objectification:
“Unbeatable Hunters. The sexiest girl to fight in your cellphone! Create incredible combos. Fast level progression. Save the girls from evil monsters. Customize your girl and become stronger. Download via QR code or access the Playspot website.”
I did the bingo counting all three outfits together since two are cut-off. I marked the thong spot with a question mark because while we can’t see the characters’ backs, one of the tiny screens of the game shows the one with the long ears doing an attack, and it kinda looks like her butt cheeks are showing but it’s hard to tell. The other two squares with question marks are assumptions made based on the fact the game’s being marketed on the whole “sex sells” thing, so it’s likely that these skimpy outfits are gonna be worn in cold climates if these are present and that the player’s reward for gaining levels is more skin showing on the characters.
I like how the girls transform from Unbeatable Hunters to needing to be saved within the same ad. Looking into it, I don’t think there is an English version of this game… though it’s kind hard to confirm since even Google thinks it looks like literally every video game ever made:
This game truly defines creative freedom.
– wincenworks
While, overall, League of Super Redundant Heroes is very hit and miss (including having a super villain called Distractarella who does exactly what you think she does) there are a few strips that really highlight some issues with female costume designs.
– wincenworks
lnqulsltorlavellan submitted:
From the new Star Ocean 5 promo images; look at this friggin’ thing. Are those holes, or is it see-through? Is that a skirt, or a fancy belt? Back to the shirt, how tight must it be?? It looks like it was tattoo’d to her skin!
Can’t… unsee…
– wincenworks
Sometimes I feel as if the industry was secretly running its own “Design the Most Absurd and Sexualized Female Outfit Possible” contest and we’re just not in on the joke.
~Ozzie
Where I work, one of our priorities when doing character customization is to give the player one expectation for a clothing item, and then meet that expectation regardless of the sex of the avatar. Because of this, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about gender and gender expression, and the gender coding in clothing and motifs. We like to design things that only need small tweaks to look appealing on different bodies, and we also like to let the player determine how masculine or feminine they want their avatar to look. From many, many months of doing this work and decades of gaming between us, it has come to our attention that not every character customization system does this.
Aion does not do this, and is therefore my guinea pig for this exercise. Aion has some very nice, rich, tasty costume designs, (and it’s up to you whether it’s good or bad that they do this because I’m not casting judgement in this post) but they basically come up with two completely different designs per single “outfit.” The female version is often extremely feminine, and the male version is generally more masculine. That’s par for the course for Korean MMOs, but the part that drives me up the wall is that entire motifs and design elements are gutted from one or the other to achieve this type of gendering. So much good design,withheld from a costume for such a flimsy reason.
What I’ve done here for this exercise is to take every element from the “base” costume and transpose it onto the other, while attempting to preserve the original feminine/masculine gender expression that Aion loves so well. One of the original costumes usually emerges as the more gender coded of the two, but therein lies the very fun challenge: make lacy frou-frou masculine enough for your typical male player not to immediately sell the costume on the game market.
Feel free to do this exercise yourself if you like!
I was intending to refer to this post for a looong time. It’s a really nice thought excersize for anyone interested in learning firsthand what is the inherent problem of double standards in costume design.
Its sequel, where another set of clothes is translated verbatim onto the other gender (and thus, the guy ends up in a corset and frilly skirt), can be viewed here.
~Ozzie
