Stop insulting our intelligence by pretending there’s a good reason for naked women in videogames

For the most part, I do like the article – particularly as it’s not just Cortana’s wardrobe that’s worrying. However it does (in it’s final paragraph) make a critical error in that it assumes that somehow the marketing and promotions for a game are inherently different and separate from the creation of the game itself.

As wonderful as it would be for us to live in a world where creative teams are insulated from Creepy Marketing Guy by armies of private security equipped with electric cattle prods and canisters of mace, this simply isn’t reality.  Especially not in the case of auteur productions where the person overseeing the marketing campaign is the one overseeing the game development.

Despite there being no rational reason to believe that sex actually sells, we still see plenty of examples where female characters are given ridiculous outfits in the belief it will sell a few thousand more units.  Sometimes it’s in complete contradiction to the context of the product and sometimes it’s from a range of outright horrifying concepts.

It’s gotten to the extent where many of them have now pushed franchises and their own styles into a point where they have no idea how to make them less hostile to women without losing their branding.  Thus enforcing the idea that women should only play games made specifically for women (which will not be treated seriously by the industry, despite sales and the industry stealing ideas from them left, right and center).

Games are a business and that, unfortunately, means that marketing will never be completely separated from production. Instead of living in denial, we should focus on pushing games to use the right kind of marketing.

– wincenworks

I also take issue with how, in its final paragraphs, the article implies that ridiculous excuses are provoked by critique which asks about consistency in female character design. And that critics should be free to criticize but also refrain from bringing extra attention to the controversies… However that’s supposed to work.

I’m glad the article says that the game developers should be honest about intentions behind their designs. And that their sexy lady justifications insult the audience’s intelligence. Still, it would be overall better analysis of the problem without taking the “let the games speak for themselves" angle.

~Ozzie