The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
If only the developers of these games were as socially aware as Epic NPC Man, they might avoid forcing him to hand out well… that.
At least he tried to avoid the embarrassing situation, which is more than we can say for so many developers with “fresh” ideas.
– wincenworks
languray submitted:
Haydee is a legit actual game, you can buy for real money ($14.99 USD) on Steam. The dev team for this game was made up entirely of Creepy Marketing Guys. The main character is literally just a pair of (constantly jiggling) boobs, on top of an ass in a thong that screams chafing, and bare legs with pumps. In a sci-fi action game. The worst part is, the character doesn’t even get a face! Literally her head is a blank white surface, robbing her of any humanity or agency beyond pure sexual characteristics.
Here’s a game TONS of readers asked us to talk about. @languray’s summary seems pretty spot-on.
A faceless pair of cyborg boobs and prominent butt (carefully shoved in the third person camera at every angle) running around environments that can be summed up as Poor Man’s Portal.
It’s also quite impressive how uninspired the official Steam description is:
“Haydee” is a hardcore old-style metroidvania mixed with modern-day third person shooter and platformer mechanics. As well as a sexy character.
“[Insert title] is [insert adjectives that pander to stereotypical gamer] [insert buzzword game genres]. As well as a sexy character.”
Funnily, despite not sharing the same aesthetic or mechanics, Hydee’s “more like this” recommendations on Steam are for Sakura games and similar titles including nudity and/or sexual content (also, for reasons unclear, one casual platformer about Jesus). No other “metroidvanias mixed with modern third person shooter and platformer mechanics”, though.
Guess it’s official that having gratuitous female sexualization front and center means otherwise completely different games are basically the same genre.
~Ozzie
This game is a worrying example of how much the myth that sex sells can distort design priorities. It seems clear that the main character model was basically the main focus of the developers, and the fanbase.
This model is not only used for the Player Character, it’s used for:
So basically they’ve used it to tell players to go over to an area for a reward, to avoid an area due to danger and to tell the player this room was boring so they added boobs. Another “sexy corpses” game. Just what the world needed.
Unsurprisingly, given it’s target market, it’s reviews are in many ways more entertaining than the game. If the achievements are to be believed, less than 3% of players have finished the game and less than 50% earn an achievement after the tutorial… yet it has “mostly positive” reviews.
That and well everyone who might be interested in judging it on it’s merit can tell not to bother spending the money or time on it.
– wincenworks
This was part of a much larger bit by Extra Credits on messages sent by games and how design decisions can (even unwittingly) transform games into propaganda. Games do have an interactive aspect, but the core principles remain true for any media product.
Overall it’s a very important aspect that creators should consider with any sort of system where appearance changes with progress – whether it’s part of item choice, character plot arc or just revising character appearances between chapters.
There’s a reason we have the “More Advanced Armor = Skimpier” box on the Female Armor Bingo.
– wincenworks
It’s time to bring back this great reminder that when you create something it will carry a message, whether you intend to or not. Accordingly, before just jumping on board with a trope like bikini armor, boobplate or battle thongs it’s worth considering what message might be included with it and whether it’s a statement you want associated with your product or yourself.
Not only can it help you avoid having to babble nonsense to try to convince yourself and others you didn’t do something embarrassing, it will open you up to a wide variety of options and probably help you stand out in a market that is really over-saturated with sexualized content.
– wincenworks
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
A whole year passed since we reblogged this video, yet people still completely unironically keep telling us that:
So yeah, bringing back this comprehensive debunk video is definitely in order.
~Ozzie
Watch: This dad’s TED talk about female super heroes is so important
follow @this-is-life-actually
We want to give special props to Christopher for calling out both how high saturation media giants like Disney tend to promise representation but stop short of even a token presence and how society’s fixation with gendering media and traits hurts children of all genders.
As a preemptive response to those who claim he’s misrepresenting media in general or it’s just Disney, let’s use a recent video game that claims it’s doing better representation for women.
Here is all the Zarya merchandise Blizzard has in their online store that isn’t a generic Overwatch/group item or labelled as “Men’s”
I’d like to show you their Mei merchandise, but they don’t have any. At all.
Yeah.
– wincenworks
Watch: This dad’s TED talk about female super heroes is so important
follow @this-is-life-actually
We want to give special props to Christopher for calling out both how high saturation media giants like Disney tend to promise representation but stop short of even a token presence and how society’s fixation with gendering media and traits hurts children of all genders.
As a preemptive response to those who claim he’s misrepresenting media in general or it’s just Disney, let’s use a recent video game that claims it’s doing better representation for women.
Here is all the Zarya merchandise Blizzard has in their online store that isn’t a generic Overwatch/group item or labelled as “Men’s”
I’d like to show you their Mei merchandise, but they don’t have any. At all.
Yeah.
– wincenworks