Tag: mods

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On game mods

Yesterday, a reader wrote a comment with a really great breakdown of how video game mods should be judged in a different context than official material from the game’s producers.
With their permission, I’m publishing the text here.

Ravel said:

In most games or comics, these designs of armor and these girls/women are specifically created to target a certain audience with the product they’ve been created for. If you take Scarlet Blade, for example, the models of all the female characters and their clothes have been designed to target a male demographic in order to SELL this game to them. Here, depictions of women have been used as bait, they have been objectified and they can be “owned”. The designs serve a monetary purpose: sell as much as possible of this product to a certain audience.

But mods are different. They have been created using tools the game and the software of Skyrim (in this case) provide, allowing freedom in creating new stuff. And some people decided to use these tools to flesh out some of their fantasies. They offer their work for free, without wanting to sell them to somebody specific or use them to their own benefit, they just make them available to whoever enjoys what they have created. Is it that different from people who publish their nude paintings on deviantart? As far as I see it, this mods could as well be paintings, certainly the brush isn’t to blame? And what about the amateur painter, is he a pervert because he decided to draw one of his sexual fantasies?

Yeah, it might be creepy and sad, in a way. But these are fantasies, created not to sell or to attract a certain group of people, but rather for the creators themselves. We all have dreams, erotic fantasies and wishes that we hide, just because we share them it doesn’t mean we exploit them or that we actively long for them to become reality, except as pixels, paintings or stories…?

I talked about the same issue earlier, but why not reiterate it in Ravel’s perfect wording?

Yes, mods, in contrary to official stuff, are not part of game’s marketing, audience targeting, and most of all, don’t bring profit to the game’s creators. We should always keep that in mind when commenting on fan-created content and judge it by its own merits (or faults).

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Just about the Sims post, I have a feeling the mods call them ‘female’ because Sims aren’t human, and in the game they’re called female and male (no man or woman). A bit of trivia, too, there’s a knight’s armour that, IIRC (I used custom content a lot – there’s a few issues with the sexualisation there, but a lot of women CC makers use good designs that are practical and not sexualising of the sims either, just avoid The Sims Resource), is the same for both F and M. :) No harm intended here.

But the ‘better’ females is not cool. Definitely don’t approve of that, but I’d say that’s made by quite a young person. There’s a community of custom content makers that don’t sexualise the clothing and makeup etc. of the sims either, it just depends what website you visit (personal livejournals and other blogs tend to be pretty good, Garden of Shadows usually is too). There’s good lingerie though! Sims is a tricky thing to debate because of its user generated nature.

Now you’re going to think I’m a misogynistic girl who defends Sims for her own interests. That’s definitely not what I intended and I’m sorry. 🙁 You can’t really calls sims ‘men and women’ because they aren’t at all. They strange creatures, just simulations. In Skyrim and any other game, they are men and women. If that makes sense? That doesn’t mean Sims should be sexualised though or treated the way they were in the CC you posted about. ‘Female’ is what you’d call a Sim woman though as for male

A long ask referring to the Skyrim mod posts that I intended to answer for some time now.

I’ll always stand by referring to sentient humanoid characters as “men”, “women” or “people” and if the game itself endorses using female/male as noun towards their cat- or lizard-person race… I’m NOT okay with that.
The characters clearly are designed to resemble humans, hell, the ones used to in thumnails for mod pack look VERY HUMAN to me, so there’s no reason to not call them “women”.

As discussed earlier with angercats, mod community is hard to discuss and judge as a whole. But we can agree that every modder should take personal responsibility for their creation, and that includes how it’s presented in both wording and visuals.

You can’t really calls sims ‘men and women’ because they aren’t at all. They strange creatures, just simulations. In Skyrim and any other game, they are men and women. If that makes sense?

Nope, it doesn’t make sense.
A fictional character created in the likeness of human (body and/or mind) is A PERSON, albeit fictional one. And a person may be female or male (or other), but can not be “a female” or “a male” (an “it’) rather than a woman or a man (a “she” or “he”).

And I won’t say that you’re misogynist, because  what you’re saying doesn’t serve patriarchy. You just didn’t realize that make-believe characters also have personhood that could be erased through inconsiderate wording.

Note: Please, ergoexistence, next time do not refer to mods as “Sims”, it’s really confusing when we’re talking about a game that’s neither simulation genre nor part of The Sims franchise.

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i-have-a-hunger replied to your post: i-have-a-hunger replied to your post: …
All the mods call women ‘females’, it creeps me out

Ugh, you’re right!

image

Didn’t notice it before, so your comment confused me (I was worried you were referring to women commenting on this, sorry). Thanks for pointing that out, i-have-a-hunger!

Those are just disgusting :-/
Pro tip: “female” as a NOUN refers to animals, not humans (or sentient humanoids, if we’re talking about fiction). The word is “woman” and please no one ever forget that!

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DISCLAIMER: The post below includes severly NSFW links. Click at your own risk!

re: this post

angercats submitted

I agree with you 100%. They are mods, you don’t have to download them. Moders have complete freedom to create whatever they want. It doesn’t have to fit the theme. Skyrim was made to be moded, that’s why they made the Skyrim Creation Kit for users.  

But, nevertheless, that’s not going to stop me from thinking that some of these mods are downright creepy. BUT WAIT there’s more!! It’s not just female armor that’s creepy; it seems that you can download creepy armor for men, too. (They both don’t protect much heh)

I don’t really find it offensive, it’s actually funny and almost… sad? I don’t think the whole moding community is like this. There are plenty of mods that can enhance Skyrim’s beauty. 

We’re on the same page, angercats. I took the liberty of bolding the point I agree most about.
It’s just saddening how far some people can go to make their mod designs as perverted as possible, as if it added anything to the game experience.

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angercats submitted:

So the other day a there was discussion about skyrim on here. And I was browsing through the steam workshop, lookin’ for some good mods and then I found this ~GEM~. 

There is this ~BEAUTIFUL~ mod pack called fabulous female collection that’s full of this crap. Why??? It doesn’t fit skyrim it all. It makes them all look like barbie dolls. How do they??? Kill dragons?? Om my god, I’m just laughing so hard. 

It’s actually worse on nexus. omg

To be completely honest, I can’t “hate” so much on this bikini mod as you’d probably expect me to, because exactly what it is… a mod.

Bikini Armor Battle Damage, unlike many related blogs, doesn’t have a strict policy of criticizing only ‘official’ art, but we still need to acknowledge how fan creations exist in a bit different context.

Video game mods are created for fans and by fans to enhance their experience with things they personally enjoy, be it My Little Pony skins, functional portal gun or a metal armor. Fitting with the game’s themes is optional when it comes to mods.

Last time we visited a Skyrim mod we talked about it on context of being absolutely ridiculous (spandex chainmail outfit complete with mail boobsocks and nipples poking through). That thing was trying really badly to ‘count’ as an armor atop of being objectifying, while bikinis you sent seem to be created solely for the gamer’s viewing pleasure.

I know it’s really hard to draw a line between a mod that’s there simply to look pretty and one that takes impracticality to a whole new level, so don’t hesitate to send me any example you find questionable. We can always discuss it together here.

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Regarding my pic for the ‘spandex chainmail’ post, I got it from a Google image search, and I think that came from a Skyrim modding site. The scary thing is, that wasn’t the worst. There were several full torso shots showing that they had chainmail ‘camel toe’ too. And I thought the idea of a chainmail wedgie from a battle bikini was bad…

(the ask is referring to this post, of course)

That’s just… upsetting.

I don’t know if I wanna go googling for female armor ever again.

Regarding the Skyrim mods I’ve had an ask about those waiting for a while in my inbox, gonna publish it right after this post.