Ether_Snake
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Isn't this how movie journalism work?! Don't movie journalists ask though questions?!
What about food journalists??
What about food journalists??
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RPS ambushes Blizzard director for objectification of women in Heroes of the Storm
- Thread starter usea
- Start date
Do you dislike playing as Orcs because it portrays men as only sexual objects who should be hulking adonis's, because if not, its not really the same thing.
Pimpbaa
Slop Inspector
There isn't. The uglier female characters rarely get played. Female dwarves are rarer than plutonium. They rather play the prettier characters. I dunno how many times I've heard from my female friends and female family members that they don't want to play horde because everyone is ugly (except the blood elves). Of course this is pure anecdotal evidence. On the internet in general, it seems it way too much guys that talk about "sexism" and characters being "sexual objects". Like they think they know what is best for women rather than asking their opinions, which is worse than any of this shit.
Imperfected
Member
I'm well aware that if something exists, there is porn of it. I don't doubt for one moment the ability of a sufficiently hard-up teenager to masturbate to literally anything.
That's hardly the point, though. The fact that some people masturbate to illustrations of dragons having sex with muscle cars does not make a Mustang overtly sexualized. I think that if it's not entirely obvious what people are talking about when they say a "sexualized" female design, that it at least isn't too hard to extrapolate using some common-sense guidelines.
And again, in many cases it isn't even a matter of overt sexuality, it's more a problem of homogenous sexuality. It's absolutely true that an hourglass figure isn't a prerequisite to sexualize a character design - so I have to ask, what kind of lazy artist has to give every female character they create an hourglass figure? Even if an artist set out with the intention for all his female character designs to be "sexy", is it too much to ask that they cover the broad spectrum of female body types? Can we at least ask for that much, here?
They HAVE announced that they will finally roll out the new models around the time of the new xpac, though. Orcs have been long overdue after they changed Thrall's in Cata. Don't know how drastic of a change it'll be, but at least it's something that could change perceptions somewhat.
But even if it was "over-sexualized", how many years has WoW been out now? And we're just NOW getting around to bitching about something that's been true (assuming it was to begin with) for nearly 8-10 years? Really?
Oh, I agree. Like I said, I don't think sexualised characters should disappear, just that I wish there was more characters that weren't sexualised in gaming. Even alternative skins with less sexualised clothes would help (I don't play mobas so maybe some game do that already, I don't know).
Well Diana's alt skin is certainly sexualized in your standard definition of the word. But even her base skin is in skin tight armor. Just because she doesn't have the biggest breasts in the game with skin showing doesn't stop her from being designed to be attractive.
I agree with your second point though. Different body types are always welcomed in my book.
I don't doubt Blizzard is big on sexualizing characters (tbh, i'm not the biggest Blizzard games' consumer, so i can't say one way or another) but those examples you posted do not really help your argument at all.Its called sexualised.
Just because you dont beat off to it doesnt mean its not happening.
If you dont think there is a conscious effot to try and make the females 'sexy' then I dont know what to tell you. And theyre not doing it to empower them.
I would go as far as to say that anything designed, carries a message, however involuntary.
Art or no art.
Pimpbaa
Slop Inspector
Widening the divide between gamers and journalists even more, that sounds like a great idea. I sure as hell don't want RPS talking for me as a gamer.
It isn't a journalist's job to polish knobs and be friends with everyone. Go frequent the thousand outlets that are.
I bet you any amount of money RPS is just doing this because they don't want to be labeled because of you-know-who!
This whole thing of females dressed sexy or showing skin equals men being pigs or appealing to horny male demo gets rather annoying when they don't even look at anything else about the character in question. RPS never did research of the woman character they had beef with, and they never even thought about personality traits or anything like that. "Hey, she is a bit sexualized! GET PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES TO BLIZZARD, NAOW!" I mean, if she was sexualized without any good reason, then yeah, I might understand, but we don't even allow the reason to develop anymore. Gets annoying when no one else looks and sees that powers of characters, and the strengths that characters have might just make wardrobe choices more justifiable and within context. Nope! Can't have it in THIS debate. Ignore every trait and just focus on any amount of cleavage and/or midriff showing! That'll show the male patriarchy!
I don't understand why in order to solve one extreme, we have to go to the other extreme!
Good god. I don't know how I'd have been able to finish an interview like this after my eyes rolled directly out of my head. PR guy being a hero.
Like I said, bad rap for a reason.
No one is suggesting that. They are stating that these designs have underlying issues RE: sexism and gender bias. This does not imply that there is something wrong with the men and women who create them or find them appealing; the bias at issue is more cultural than personal.
Willfully ignoring these issues when they're right in front of you is, however, a problem.
The contrast between design and characterization only makes the issues with the design worse. Moreover, having depth in characterization does not cure or excuse other issues with the character.
Again, no one is suggesting we do.
theSlacker
Member
You know what, you are right, that was a bit defensive. Sorry about that. The idea was already swirling in my head as a response to something else about how, yes, I do think it would be great if there were games that cater to people with separate tastes. Just don't think that any should be changed directly for that reason. New devs should rise up and make the games that they feel they want to if current ones do not cater to them.
Don't agree that there is an apparent gender bias in the discussed designs though, except in the ridiculous stuff like metal bikinis. Even that though is something that I realize that I find distasteful, but my morals or point of view isn't for everyone. Just as I would love it if JRPGs were way more popular to warrant making more, or the protagonist of the new Infamous didn't look like a douchebag. I don't expect the world to change to cater to my needs or opinions, and wouldn't want to stifle the creative decisions someone else is making about their product when I can't even get off my ass to try to actualize any of my own. Or something.
Bit OT, but do you or anyone else remember when Bill O'Reilly did things like this to politicians? Those "ambushes" by one of his staffers when someone they want to interview is doing something like shopping for groceries or, you know, trying to have a PRIVATE life! I kind of had the picture of this RPS guy doing something like that to Bowden! Good lord, if that's the way game journalism is headed, we're in for something special...and not the good kind.
Fair enough. But like I at least tried to say, I don't think people should be stifling their creativity, and they certainly shouldn't be supplanting my judgment for their own. I just think creativity and social consciousness don't need to be enemies, and that lots of media tends to be sorely lacking in the latter these days, with video games being particularly poor on the gender and sexuality side of things.
Yes, ambush journalism. Lots of people from local news to main stream do it. 99/100 times they are more interested in shamming the person on camera than their answers. Not that they wouldn't be interested in the answers, just catching someone in their driveway after they just got out of their car probably wont yield you the "best answers", just the "best tv".
No. No one should be forced to be considerate or business savvy. People should be able and are allowed to choose to be kind.
GAF, seriously, this "they're just games" argument is partly why we're stuck with dorito-journalism and a marginalized hobby/art medium/no girls allowed pillow fort.
Required reading (it's a video): http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...traNews+(Gamasutra+News)&utm_content=FaceBook
Has this video had a thread? It needs one, apparently. If it's such a stupid question, why can't Blizzard be big enough to shoot it down? Instead, they run away and they'll give future interviews to "journalists" who promise to give nice softball questions.
Required reading (it's a video): http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...traNews+(Gamasutra+News)&utm_content=FaceBook
Has this video had a thread? It needs one, apparently. If it's such a stupid question, why can't Blizzard be big enough to shoot it down? Instead, they run away and they'll give future interviews to "journalists" who promise to give nice softball questions.
The issue isn't as simple, though. When people complain about actual over sexualization for the sake of it, then yes, you have a point. But let's not pretend that developers never want to immerse people into their world and their stories, either, or that there never is any other way it can be other than that. It's become a bit of a slippery slope. You saw a few of the reactions to the Jaina artwork I posted. Little cleavage and a midriff? Nope, cannot ignore that at all. But why can't you? Was there nothing else about the character you could've focused on? Did you even bother to look (I'm not saying YOU you, but general you)? Do the creators create them because they want to create sexualized people, or because they want to show a sense of independence the woman has by choosing to show some things? Do we ever explore those aspects of character creation in this whole debate? Why does it HAVE to be "making them to appeal to a certain demo"? Do we KNOW that? We've only been thinking of this in one dimension, which is rather unfair to those trying to make interesting characters because we're so focused on wardrobe all the damn time!
How does it, though? In what way does certain designs weaken a particular character if they are done within the context of the story, and within the nature of the character. In a way, wardrobe could tell you also about what the character is like. In quite a few cases, those that have "suggestive" wardrobes tend to make you forget about them pretty quickly. Which could impose the question of if said character make the conscious choice to dress that way, or were they forced by their in-universe masters? Are we asking these questions in this debate? I bet you we are not because we're so focused on if certain physical design choices even exist, and if they do, then we stop the exploration into the character there. We don't even look as to the why? Hell, we don't even think that there are some women who would choose those kind of wardrobe choices in real life. Why are we going to pretend that every woman is going to choose to dress conservatively, and when did we decide that that's how we want every single female character in all games to be created as?
Don't believe that that's where we're headed? Again, look at the reactions to the Jaina artwork!
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Shitty site writes bait click article.
Blizzard may be objectifying women in Wow, but I haven't seen signs of that in HoS.
Blizzard may be objectifying women in Wow, but I haven't seen signs of that in HoS.
Or they can, you know, request a formal interview to talk about these things (which I'm pretty sure Blizzard will be willing to give them if they would just ASK) instead of trying to ambush them trying to get the answer they want to hear to questions that they worded ever so carefully as if to say that they already had an opinion no matter what Blizz said to them (and God knows WHERE this took place)! A bit of simple minded COURTESY would've been helpful here. You can ask hard questions if you want in the formal setting, but being ambushed like that? I don't blame Blizz one bit for telling this RPS guy to go piss off!
That's Grayson in a nutshell. I knew, as soon as I read this, that Grayson wrote it. While I think he's on the right side of things, I think he goes about it the wrong way. In some cases, I've seen him target things simply because they appear to be on the wrong side, when they actually aren't. I stopped following him on Twitter because he was so obsessive with protecting women, to a fault. He's just... not that pleasant to follow?
What else is there for them to focus on? It's a picture.
Besides, I like the Jaina character, and agree with some of your comments about her. But that doesn't mean we can gloss over the problematic aspects of her design. To do so helps nobody.
Nobody is saying women shouldn't be allowed to dress provocatively or that designing them wearing provocative clothing is an inherent bad. As you say, in some instances it can be in aid of characterization.
However, in most cases (including your example), it isn't, and can really only be explained as an attempt to make the character more sexually appealing to a (typically male) audience. That is a problem, and is more importantly one we will never fix until we choose to acknowledge it as such.
That's certainly not where we're headed, especially when the slightest attempt at critique creates such pushback. If anything, we're headed the other way.
Moreover, despite what you think, Jaina is nothing resembling conservatively dressed, and your attempt to explain that away as befitting the grandeur of her station was dubious at best.
I've avoided posting in these sexism topics before, because they're always so far off the deep end that finding any common ground is clearly impossible. But seriously, people are pointing to WoW character models as pandering to male sexual fantasies?
These models aren't pandering to males; they're simply designed to appeal to people. Not just men, women too. When my guild moved from EverQuest to WoW, I wanted to play on the Horde side. Several others in my guild agreed, but in the end we were overruled; the women in the guild refused to play Horde because the female character options weren't attractive (ie, sexy) enough relative to the Alliance options. This wasn't an isolated phenomenon; many other guilds ended up on Alliance for the same reason. I ended up with characters in both factions, and Horde had far, far fewer women playing than Alliance did. PvE servers were dominated by Alliance, often outnumbering Horde by 3-to-1 or worse. One of the primary reasons for the creation of Blood Elves was to address this imbalance. (Female Blood Elves became extremely popular among the few women who did play on Horde.)
This idea that female character models designed to look attractive are alienating women from gaming is pure fantasy. "Hyper sexualized" designs maybe, but that's not what WoW is doing. And even then, take a look at Dead or Alive. Now there's a game that sexualizes its female designs, and you know what? It's a fighting game with one of the largest female fanbases out there. When I've played DOA with female friends or with my sister, they don't take issue with the female character designs; in fact, they like those designs. My male friends mainly played the male characters in DOA; it was my female friends who liked the female characters.
Another example: Fable II. When you add points to strength in that game, it alters the character model to make your character look stronger and more powerful. Both my girlfriend and a female friend of mine hated that. They wanted their character to look feminine, not powerful. My girlfriend ended up using potions to remove the points she had put in strength so she could look feminine again. Even though it took her ten times as long to kill anything, she wasn't interested in playing an overmuscled female character.
Finally, this isn't some phenomenon that's unique to gaming, and it isn't unique to male artists. Female fantasy artists have been painting sexualized women for decades. For that matter, female artists in other genres have been doing it too. Many of the biggest offenders are female when it comes to the sexualization of women by artists. Such art is often popular among female fans, as well. If you want to wage a crusade against the whole thing fine, but you're fighting a lost cause.
These models aren't pandering to males; they're simply designed to appeal to people. Not just men, women too. When my guild moved from EverQuest to WoW, I wanted to play on the Horde side. Several others in my guild agreed, but in the end we were overruled; the women in the guild refused to play Horde because the female character options weren't attractive (ie, sexy) enough relative to the Alliance options. This wasn't an isolated phenomenon; many other guilds ended up on Alliance for the same reason. I ended up with characters in both factions, and Horde had far, far fewer women playing than Alliance did. PvE servers were dominated by Alliance, often outnumbering Horde by 3-to-1 or worse. One of the primary reasons for the creation of Blood Elves was to address this imbalance. (Female Blood Elves became extremely popular among the few women who did play on Horde.)
This idea that female character models designed to look attractive are alienating women from gaming is pure fantasy. "Hyper sexualized" designs maybe, but that's not what WoW is doing. And even then, take a look at Dead or Alive. Now there's a game that sexualizes its female designs, and you know what? It's a fighting game with one of the largest female fanbases out there. When I've played DOA with female friends or with my sister, they don't take issue with the female character designs; in fact, they like those designs. My male friends mainly played the male characters in DOA; it was my female friends who liked the female characters.
Another example: Fable II. When you add points to strength in that game, it alters the character model to make your character look stronger and more powerful. Both my girlfriend and a female friend of mine hated that. They wanted their character to look feminine, not powerful. My girlfriend ended up using potions to remove the points she had put in strength so she could look feminine again. Even though it took her ten times as long to kill anything, she wasn't interested in playing an overmuscled female character.
Finally, this isn't some phenomenon that's unique to gaming, and it isn't unique to male artists. Female fantasy artists have been painting sexualized women for decades. For that matter, female artists in other genres have been doing it too. Many of the biggest offenders are female when it comes to the sexualization of women by artists. Such art is often popular among female fans, as well. If you want to wage a crusade against the whole thing fine, but you're fighting a lost cause.
...that's not how real journalism works. Asking questions that don't have pre-prepared answers isn't ambushing them. Giving Blizzard time to come up with PR answers gets us PR answers, not the honest opinion of the guy being interviewed. Why bother with an interview if the only info we get out of it is their pre-prepared talking points? Let PR be PR and let journalists be journalists.
To people like me who believe that sexual liberation is a priority, yes most feminists have become the "enemy". It's sad watching a movement devolve like that to conservative territory.
It's the best kept secret everyone knows that feminist viewpoints on sexuality are rarely in sync with most women's opinion. Feminists of course respond to that by treating women as victims of evil male propaganda, and as sexual liberation progresses the more frustrated feminists become because the world doesn't share their puritanical way of thinking.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Honest question....
Are there any female gaming characters that are considered ok? I''m really curious. What are rules that artists should follow when asked to come up with a female design?
If the female character has an hourglass figure but is covered with no cleavage or belly is that ok?
If the character is fat but is showing cleavage, is that ok?
Completely average proportioned character with no cleavage is that ok?
Or is it the attitude of the character?
Part art design is stylization and exaggeration. If something small you make it smaller than it is, if something is ugly you make it uglier, if something is big make it bigger etc etc.
Women in General have smaller waists, bigger boobs, and bigger hips so those tend to get exaggerated.
Men have wider shoulders, wider waists and narrower hips so those get exaggerated.
Men get chiseled jaws, and big muscles which is what many consider handsome. Women get more beautiful with curvier feature. It's been like that since the dawn of art. Of course it depends on what is considered beautiful at the time.
Are there any female gaming characters that are considered ok? I''m really curious. What are rules that artists should follow when asked to come up with a female design?
If the female character has an hourglass figure but is covered with no cleavage or belly is that ok?
If the character is fat but is showing cleavage, is that ok?
Completely average proportioned character with no cleavage is that ok?
Or is it the attitude of the character?
Part art design is stylization and exaggeration. If something small you make it smaller than it is, if something is ugly you make it uglier, if something is big make it bigger etc etc.
Women in General have smaller waists, bigger boobs, and bigger hips so those tend to get exaggerated.
Men have wider shoulders, wider waists and narrower hips so those get exaggerated.
Men get chiseled jaws, and big muscles which is what many consider handsome. Women get more beautiful with curvier feature. It's been like that since the dawn of art. Of course it depends on what is considered beautiful at the time.
RPS used to be a great site, they've just become obsessed with this topic for some reason and are grasping at straws to bring it up whenever possible, which actually doesn't help their cause.
For some reason, they're still selective with their criticism though, some reviews called games out for not including playable female protagonists while it seems to be okay in other. No idea why.
Ugly but well dressed is the solution!
Yeah, I'm sure it's only a coincidence that the only movements trying to regulate human sexuality are either conservative, religious or feminist.
TaroYamada
Member
Certainly conservative, if there was no sexually conservative aspect of feminism I don't believe the sex wars would have occurred.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Its called sexualised.
Just because you dont beat off to it doesnt mean its not happening.
If you dont think there is a conscious effot to try and make the females 'sexy' then I dont know what to tell you. And theyre not doing it to empower them.
Ugh... it has to do with making them look female. Making them relate-able to actual women. It is all in the hips and thighs anyway.
badcrumble
Member
It's refreshing to know that, even in the middle of two of the hugest console launches of all time, a thread in which it is suggested that sexism both exists and is a real problem can still stay on the front page for hours.
LeeRoyBrown
Banned
Someone finally calls Blizzard out for their shitty art design and shit games.
Someone has the balls to actually stick it to a dev instead of slobbering saliva all over the base of their cock.
Neogaf gets mad.
Fuck me. I thought this forum was better than this.
Someone has the balls to actually stick it to a dev instead of slobbering saliva all over the base of their cock.
Neogaf gets mad.
Fuck me. I thought this forum was better than this.
By promoting free access to birth control?!?!?!?!
This is 2013, not the 1970s.
Love people hating on this. Game journalist actually asks something journalist like and gets bashed for it.
While sure its coming a bit strong, you have to remember that RPS has a female writer that has been attacked verbally for purely being a woman. Thus why they probably have some strong feelings about this topic. Its bullshit and female gamers shouldn't have to deal with this shit.
While sure its coming a bit strong, you have to remember that RPS has a female writer that has been attacked verbally for purely being a woman. Thus why they probably have some strong feelings about this topic. Its bullshit and female gamers shouldn't have to deal with this shit.
There are plenty of people here liking the article.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
What does markot want those characters to look like? They look like female versions of the male counterpart, minus the troll female.
You want them to be out of shape? They spend their entire video game lives fighting dragons and shit lol.
You want them to be out of shape? They spend their entire video game lives fighting dragons and shit lol.
Arozay
Member
The women should cut their tits off obviously.
We're talking about Blizzard here, though, not EA!
And way to completely ignore the other half of the wrong doing here, which was that the interviewer was being a complete douchebag and worded the questions as if he just wanted validation for his already backwards opinions!
Then what's the problem with the design of her character? I'm sorry, but some midriff doesn't bother me, and that's not me talking sexually, either. To tell you the truth, I didn't even see the driff before I selected that photo because I knew of the character, and even if I did, you're still not answering what's wrong with it (she's been designed the same way for the longest time, so I'm guessing not many women are offended by it). I'm surprised that no one has really made Sylvannas' an issue because she's showing more than Jaina is. I wonder why that is!
Except you're contradicting yourself:
See, you're once more going into a thing where it HAS to be that because you said so. Again, how do you know this is true, and that this was the intended reason behind the design choice? And what makes it so offensive to you that you can't ever see past it? And what makes you KNOW that was Blizz's goal with the character? How are you certain that the appeal was what they were going for?
Or is it because it appears in this particular medium? Please help me understand how this is a problem in this particular case. Please help me to see what you see about the design that turns you off that much, because I cannot understand how you can say that it can aid in characterization, then suddenly say that Jaina is the exception and that there can be no other reason Blizz designed this character. Why should I have to acknowledge something when I don't think that it is what you're saying it is? You're stating that Blizz targeting male demos with the design is indisputable fact, when there's clearly a difference of opinion on that. Obviously, I think different about the design on a fundamental level, and you haven't really convinced me that the outfit showing a midriff is that much of a problem, if any.
This is not a critique without good reason, though. You're presenting opinions as facts, and while you're saying it's okay for women to want to be attractive and dress attractive, you don't think it's okay for developers to reflect that sort of social attitude in their game worlds because of a different set of unwritten rules they must abide by. So not only do I have a question about your issues with Jaina, I now would like to know why it's not okay for game worlds to reflect the amount of freedom that is given to women in real life to dress how they want to dress. What different rules are we making devs abide by here?
You didn't read my full post, then. I first talking about in universe, in WoW, the light armor gives a sense that less bulk equals more maneuverability. The more bulk you have on, like heavy armor, the less you can move because of the excess weight. For those classes that need to move a lot to avoid things (because you're not that durable), you need extra maneuverability. Look at Sylvannas, and then think of her class. You think that she's going to move that well with plate armor on? I know, the explanation might not make sense at first, and you might think the example is futile, but trust me, I've played a Mage a lot, and you had to move out of the way of a lot of crap. Rogues and Hunters, as well, need to move (Rogues especially). Again, I don't expect for you to be able to get the reasons behind my explanation right away here, but trust me: being a raider makes you understand a good bit of these sort of things.
But also, the other thing about my explanation was that I also said "in comparison to". Funny that Sylvannas was completely forgotten in my post, since she's one of the most popular characters. If you had a problem with Jaina showing midriff, then you'd have a field day with Sylvannas. But compare the two, and think for a moment of who has more on, Jaina or Sylvannas? Obviously Jaina is going to be more conservative of the two. Of course, knowing Sylvannas' character in the game, I'm guessing trying to complain about Sylvannas showing skin would just be figurative suicide (who's really going to tell her not to in that universe? Plus, she is an undead, after all).
The trolls are much better on the left.
I'd imagine closer to the left than the right.
The minotaurs/cow things are better on the right, though.