Tidy-up Tuesday #6

It’s been a particularly eventful week of updates for us, so no wonder some queries we receive should be addressed.


Please do not comment under BABD posts without adhering to our commenting guidelines.


For those who say we’re being “too negative” in our criticism: look it up in our FAQ.


A reminder our focus is on commercial media, as such we do not feature/call-out personal artworks as examples of the tropes we criticize.  We are certainly interested in personal artworks that critique the issue of bikini armor or provide information about armor and/or design.


Thank you to kuronanestimare for directing us to the segment of Angry Joe’s review where he talks about Quiet. This is the review where he gives the game “the highest possible 9/10 and easily Badass Seal of Approval”. Proving once again, that you can love The Return of the Jedi but hate Ewoks.


Some issues we’ve address previously but received queries recently:


~Ozzie & – wincenworks

Tidy-up Tuesday #6

It’s been a particularly eventful week of updates for us, so no wonder some queries we receive should be addressed.


Please do not comment under BABD posts without adhering to our commenting guidelines.


For those who say we’re being “too negative” in our criticism: look it up in our FAQ.


A reminder our focus is on commercial media, as such we do not feature/call-out personal artworks as examples of the tropes we criticize.  We are certainly interested in personal artworks that critique the issue of bikini armor or provide information about armor and/or design.


Thank you to kuronanestimare for directing us to the segment of Angry Joe’s review where he talks about Quiet. This is the review where he gives the game “the highest possible 9/10 and easily Badass Seal of Approval”. Proving once again, that you can love The Return of the Jedi but hate Ewoks.


Some issues we’ve address previously but received queries recently:


~Ozzie & – wincenworks

Caly submitted:

So this is a cinematic trailer for a card game called WAR 1937 that is coming out. It’s so ridiculous and silly that I can’t help but laugh and cry at the same time. How are developers still getting away with making this kind of stuff?

image

What did I just watch? O_o

image

Someone… anyone?

~Ozzie

Wait, did someone watch Kill la Kill and think that the concept would work better if it was rendered in high definition and without the sense of goofy self awareness?

– wincenworks

(Also we’ve been informed by a number of followers that the “setting” for this game is the Nanking Massacre, an actual horrific real life event – the tastelessness just keeps on compounding)

ms-silver submitted:

*While commonly referred to as male, It has been stated by Motiga that Tyto’s actual gender is to remain unknown.

**There’s actually another male character, but he’s currently getting a design overhaul, and as such I felt there was no need to include him.

Now that part of the NDA is lifted, I can feel comfortable showing the male/female character lineup for the new currently in beta MOBA, Gigantic.

While yes, the males do seem to have more of the monstrous selection, and yes, some of the females don’t have the best of attire into battle, I have to note that really I don’t get the “Look at these SeXy GiRlS!” feeling that I do from a lot of other games. Not to mention that several of the male characters also don’t necessarily have the best attire to dive into battle with as well.

Even with their characters like Xenobia, there doesn’t seem to be a major focus on the fact that she has a cleavage window, and that is even with them using her in their promotional art.

But of course, the game is still in closed beta and things can and likely will change before the game actually goes live. Here’s to hoping we get more monster-y female heroes in the future!

Another important aspect about this game is this is their line-up on their web site, to let you know what heroes are available:

image

Even using just portraits there’s a lot more diversity in the female body types and personalities than we are used to seeing. I mean compare it to Vainglory’s promotional line up:

image

And they’re not even the worst example, not by far.

Each one of the ladies in Gigantic looks like she’s got a story and personality and it’s going to be different and not be lampshading to justify sexy costumes. I like that, I like that a lot.

Please do update us when/if they add the monster lady (or ideally, ladies).

– wincenworks

edit: Minor change to how characters are placed on the graphic, so that they appear bigger on dashboards.

sursumursa:

Let’s talk about Quiet, and attempt to answer the question:

Can you slut-shame a fictional character?

And in case anyone reading our blog still doubts whether or not Quiet (or any other woman in fiction) can be slut-shamed for her choice of attire or behavior, here’s Sursum Ursa’s concise video explanation.

Spoilers: the answer is no.

~Ozzie

As a side note, since we’re on the topic of Quiet and sexualzing characters, I feel this is an appropriate point to touch on something related:

If your argument is the men are sexualized too, but you have to comb through all the individual games to try to get together enough material to try (unsucessfully I might add) to match how much Quiet is sexualized in ONE game – you’re not going to be very convincing.

There is a massive difference between depicting a character who is many different things throughout their arc (tough, vulnerable, protected, naked, etc) and happens to be sexy at some points and creating a character who is primarily and overwhelmingly sexy all throughout their arc and happens to get to be some other things during it.

One is creating a character who’s like a person so the audience can relate to them, the other is creating a sex object and calling them a character.

It’s kind of important.

– wincenworks

more about character agency on BABD