Support NeoGAF

[The Chairman]

What ugly masculine women? just look at these fine specimens.

 

[Hugare]

And yet never a attraction metric male leads have to pass to be deemed acceptable. Not even sure why it matters. Why is attraction a quality when it's not even the focus. Is Returnal a shit game because some don't find Selene fuckable? Not every decision made by devs is a politically motivated finger to piss off people.

Never seen people saying this kind of shit about ugly/unattractive male characters. Go figure.

I see no backslash from people seeing movies with ugly main characters. So why is it a problem with games?

Shows how juvenile most "gamers" still are, and why this media isnt nowhere near as respected as others.

 

[Toons]

They're not pursuing a market, they're trying to socially engineer the next generation

Its literally just a black woman with a shaved head

Is that all it takes for something to be social engineering?

They've been in marvel movies and comic books for years too, everyone has seen them lol

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Never seen people saying this kind of shit about ugly/unattractive male characters. Go figure.

I see no backslash from people seeing movies with ugly main characters. So why is it a problem with games?

Shows how juvenile most "gamers" still are, and why this media isnt nowhere near as respected as others.

Probably because historically, media has good looking women, especially games where they have good looks, long hair and sexiness to them. TV/movies are different pending the kind of show it is and you got to go with real life people. There's only so many good looking people in Hollywood.

Men can be anything from comedic relief fat slobs, to apex hunky guy.

Nothing has changed for men, but female characters have. From dumbed down looks, trying to make them look more like guys, or worst of all doing some kind of preaching to give people a lesson in personal politics.

One thing too. As people have posted in the past, why is that good look actresses are hired but the game makers scrub her face in the dirt? But the guys hired often look just as studly as themselves in real life? If the devs truly cared about pushing anti-good looks trying to make all characters be more avg looking people, then the male characters should be uglified too. But they typically arent.

 

[darrylgorn]

Late to the thread but just wanted to say, the worst part about all these is that the real life actresses are usually pretty good looking and they somehow brutalize the figure and face.

I think there's some truth to people changing their attraction based on social influence but this doesn't persuade much. It really is like trying to manipulate attraction but it's not working.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Late to the thread but just wanted to say, the worst part about all these is that the real life actresses are usually pretty good looking and they somehow brutalize the figure and face.

I think there's some truth to people changing their attraction based on social influence but this doesn't persuade much. It really is like trying to manipulate attraction but it's not working.

People are creatures of habit and we all have a built in biological norm. There's only so much manipulation the media can do to change the way we are attracted to people. And for women, most people will say a smooth beautiful face, nice teeth (including having all her teeth), shapely hourglass figure, not too short, not too tall, and shoulder length or longer hair would be on practically every person's list. And a touch of make up and nice stylized hair always helps too.

The media could try to make a the Intergalactic person with a shaved head/ultra short hair, zero make up, thick eyebrows, and (in real life) double nose rings as the best looking person in the world, but it would never work.

 

[ZehDon]

... the real life actresses are usually pretty good looking and they somehow brutalize the figure and face...

I don't really care about this topic, but this is one element that I think is a pretty clear trend unique to video games. Good or bad I'll leave to you. A lot of times, the actresses whose likenesses are used are clearly actresses for a reason, however, in the video game industry, the developers quite deliberately alter their appearance, and it is always seemingly to decrease their physical attractiveness. A practice that they don't implement for their actors. Idris Elba in Cyberpunk is allowed to keep his leading man good looks, but actresses have to have their good looks turned down. The whys of it all are whatever, but it's a pretty undeniable trend across the medium.

 

[Moriarty1889]

Until this industry is purged of these weirdos infecting games we are going to be fed ugly manly women for a long time.

 

[Woggleman]

Honestly I sleep every night next to a perfect ten woman so why should I care about video game porn?

 

[Johnny Concrete]

But what if the game is good?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I don't really care about this topic, but this is one element that I think is a pretty clear trend unique to video games. Good or bad I'll leave to you. A lot of times, the actresses whose likenesses are used are clearly actresses for a reason, however, in the video game industry, the developers quite deliberately alter their appearance, and it is always seemingly to decrease their physical attractiveness. A practice that they don't implement for their actors. Idris Elba in Cyberpunk is allowed to keep his leading man good looks, but actresses have to have their good looks turned down. The whys of it all are whatever, but it's a pretty undeniable trend across the medium.

Ya.

It's because the people working there are political and jealous good looking women get the looks. As you and I (and anyone who notices), the hunky guys stay true. They never seem to get dumbed down.

But if the female characters in a game are uglified, it makes the employees feel better because the gamer is playing someone who looks like them instead of a Scarlett Johansson character.

The funny thing is making them more manly with short or zero hair and more stocky muscular body frames goes against the view of masculinity is bad. Yet the character's traits are as masculine you can get to get through the game and beat bosses. Figure that one out.

 

[MayauMiao]

 

[HallsOfMidwich]

It's like every time one of these...ahem....not-so-pretty faces pop up in a new game, it outdoes the last one. Like this is the olympics of gnarly video games faces, but it never ends, and nobody ever wins.

 

[abstract alien]

Messenger/message etc. I can't really fault anything he said.

 

[FunkMiller]

What ugly masculine women? just look at these fine specimens.

Just for the sake of accuracy and fairness, the one in the top right hand corner is a Custodes, and absolutely should look like a big fucking meathead.

 

[FunkMiller]

Now do adult literacy.

OK:

https://versus.com/en/united-kingdom-vs-united-states/literacy-rate

99% UK 86% US

 

[Three]

And yet never a attraction metric male leads have to pass to be deemed acceptable. Not even sure why it matters. Why is attraction a quality when it's not even the focus. Is Returnal a shit game because some don't find Selene fuckable? Not every decision made by devs is a politically motivated finger to piss off people.

Imagine a board full of females complaining that Breaking Bad's main character is ugly and they're not going to watch it. That they hope it fails because the MC is unattractive. That's what we look like to a lot of people who couldn't care less about this stuff.

 

[Valonquar]

I recall Katsuhiro Otomo mentioning in an old Akira documentary how he liked to draw ugly girls because it was more challenging.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

Its literally just a black woman with a shaved head

Is that all it takes for something to be social engineering?

They've been in marvel movies and comic books for years too, everyone has seen them lol

Looks like u went on to answer your own question

 

[Sharius]

idk since when westerner come with an idea diversity equal with ugly, human tend to favor beautiful person, it's not about sex or porn, just human being in general, and if they really want to spread their propaganda they should careful to pick who should represent them, not random ugly one that will drive the mass away

 

[gow3isben]

Even microsoft managed to make great looking women in Indiana Jones.
They are strong, good looking and charismatic. And just like that - it's no issue. It's not that hard

 

[gow3isben]

Let me add a thing about forspoken.
Frey actress is a supermodel. She is gorgeous. And in game model is perfect. She is not masculine at all. And has a fun straight to the point ny teen character.

And so what? It didn’t help at all. People still attack her and the game for being woke trash and it’s absolutely none of those things. Not even sbi included.
They cast supermodel in a game and people behave all the same.

Man I am so sad that game got ignored and straight hated by everyone and memes on twitter. I genuinely think it’s one of better games that year

Face aside her dialogue was garbage and the game was garbage that is why everyone hates it lol

 

[Aces High]

That was a really good video by Asmongold.

You can see that he took his time to find a reasoning that is non-offensive to anyone. No bullshit bingo. Just very good rhetorics.

 

[The Chairman]

Late to the thread but just wanted to say, the worst part about all these is that the real life actresses are usually pretty good looking and they somehow brutalize the figure and face.

Western devs excuse is that the tech is not there yet to accurately depict the likeness of the actress but then you see games like Wukong having zero problem with it.

 

[Toons]

idk since when westerner come with an idea diversity equal with ugly, human tend to favor beautiful person, it's not about sex or porn, just human being in general, and if they really want to spread their propaganda they should careful to pick who should represent them, not random ugly one that will drive the mass away

This is barely coherent but the main sticking point is that this character isn't even ugly

Some just have "beauty standards" skewed to "anime girl with big boobs" and thats never really been NDs wheelhouse

 

[gow3isben]

That was a really good video by Asmongold.

You can see that he took his time to find a reasoning that is non-offensive to anyone. No bullshit bingo. Just very good rhetorics.

Good one

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Western devs excuse is that the tech is not there yet to accurately depict the likeness of the actress but then you see games like Wukong having zero problem with it.

Anyone saying that is a bullshitter.

If that was true then all the guys would be dumbed down too. The actor with the reddish hair and scruffy beard who did the Star Wars game looks exactly like real life.

 

[Heisenberg007]

But do you think she is really happy with how the chatacter looks?

That's exactly how she looks lol,

 

[Z O N E]

It wasn't until people posted this twitter thread that I really noticed it. Her eyes are too big and lower jaw is too pronounced. If they would have made her look more like she actually does I think the backlash would have been less. But western devs are gonna western dev.

What's insane is Naughty Dog made her eyes... less Asian too in the model. It actually looks like they modelled the Asian out of her... Not only that, they made her head slightly wider, bottom eye lid bigger to match a more "western" look to it and her jaw bigger.

Also, they made her body masculine which is the obvious one...

That new design actually looks like her. Had they just kept her looking like how she looks, there would be no issues, but they made her masculine and it clearly shows.

Western devs excuse is that the tech is not there yet to accurately depict the likeness of the actress but then you see games like Wukong having zero problem with it.

Yeah, you have to give props to the developers of Black Myth. The insane detail in the characters is amazing. I mean, look at the first one, they even captured her DIMPLES. The detail is crazy.

The tech is there to make the characters actually look like their model, but western developers are either lazy or literally do not know how to use the tech and I'm going with 99% don't know how to use the tech properly.

 

[Three]

What ugly masculine women? just look at these fine specimens.

Some of these aren't the MC at all and literally based on a face scan of a real person. Imagine you put your face in a videogame and you get a bunch of people saying how ugly you are and look like a femboy. Could you imagine.

 

[LectureMaster]

 

[Griffon]

That's exactly how she looks lol,

 

[laynelane]

Yh that was a good point. I don’t know any women who play console games. I don’t know any women who have purchased a console for themselves. I have 3 generations of women in my family and even the young ones who should be into robolox like the male young uns simply aren’t into the most popular game for kids.

The percentage of women who are into animal crossing and baldurs gate 3 is still very low. They sure as hell don’t play uncharted or the last of us.

This constant push to get women into gaming is so stupid. Women do play games. They play candy crush and other mobile trash like farmville. They don’t give a fuck about neil, Kojima or todd howard. We need to stop trying to pander to these people. They will never like games just like how they don’t like sports. The sports teams don’t go out of their way to appeal to women. I don’t know why we do it.

I don't think that MC is designed to appeal to women either. Unlike you, I've known many women who game on console, PC, and play 'real' games. The portrayal of women by many western devs (uglifying, making them more masculine, removal of feminine traits, etc.) doesn't appeal to women either. It's just the ego and belief system of the devs on display, that's all.

 

[Fess]

The makeup vs no makeup and hair vs no hair conversations will be what they will be and I don't care too much about that.

My issue was more with the people trying to bend reality and state that they changed her face. There are countless examples of her face in live action, at different focal lengths, with different levels of makeup and no makeup(even acne no less), with different close up styles.

It should be clear to anyone with eyes that it is Tati Gabrielle, but the bad actors here and elsewhere are trying to say otherwise, because they are too afraid to say that they think that she is ugly. It would be 100% more respectable for them to not bullshit around and just say that they think she doesn't look good, rather than attempting to bend reality itself because they're too afraid to simply say one line.

People are just saying that she doesn’t look good or interesting HERE. And it’s not about what’s realistic in space or whatever, she’s not real, it’s basic PR and she’s the main character in a game the devs want to sell. It’s really simple tbh. Left vs Right - What look would pull in more people?

 

[MiguelItUp]

Another day, another thread about some "social media/content creator".

Honestly all of the arguments and debates revolving around this and similar topics have been so exhausting to me. There are multiple cases where I disagree with "all sides", it just depends on the situation. But in most cases, I'm really not too concerned about how the characters look more than anything else.

Some cases have been weird, some I feel were artistic decisions. But in situations where actors/actresses are scanned for a character, but then they're heavily modified and hardly look like the the original person always seems strange. I mean, if you're going through all that, why bother scanning in the first place? It seems like such a waste of money.

 

[Three]

That should be Elena on the right. She's a journalist who hasn't done any bounty hunting in her life. I thought we all understood 'merit over appearance'.

/pulling your leg

 

[Imtjnotu]

Western devs excuse is that the tech is not there yet to accurately depict the likeness of the actress but then you see games like Wukong having zero problem with it.

Where tf have wester devs said that?

It has to do with woke and companies like sweet baby shit infiltrating devs

 

[DeepEnigma]

Threads like these should come with a mandatory IRL picture of the OP.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Threads like these should come with a mandatory IRL picture of the OP.

Why? Can ugly people not see someone else as ugly as well?

 

[Cyberpunkd]

No offense, but I’ll take my hot takes on masculinity from someone else.

As much as I find Asmon entertaining I have to agree - the guy is peak incel bait profile streamer.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

It's literally just her but bald. Like the face is 1:1.

...

 

[LectureMaster]

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Why? Can ugly people not see someone else as ugly as well?

Druckmann makes people dumb.

 

[Three]

It wasn't until people posted this twitter thread that I really noticed it. Her eyes are too big and lower jaw is too pronounced. If they would have made her look more like she actually does I think the backlash would have been less. But western devs are gonna western dev.

It's more likely that the photo on the right is photoshopped to hell and back for attractiveness than the face scans and motion capture being incorrect.

Just look at the video of her in real life self shaving her head. Looks pretty much like her

...

Yes I'm sure living alone in space watching cartoons everybody is dressed like they're going to the met gala with full makeup and a dinner dress. A bit of realism be damned in the opposite direction whenever it suits people's agendas!

 

[March Climber]

...

Keep reading the thread, you'll get there.

Edit:

Where exactly did you get that second picture from HerjansEagleFeeder ?

 

[Ozzie666]

I really don't understand the world and western developers. Replace a masculine decent looking man with a not so pretty female trying to be a manlike. Why bother? Makes zero sense and I'm pretty sure it's offensive to everyone on both sides of the fence. When did pretty females or strong male leads become so uncool. Who is running this zoo now?

 

[captainnapalm]

I'm so sick of the disingenuous - 'come on dude, she's not there for you to fap to' arguments. This is simply about aesthetics in art. People don't want to look at an ugly character for 20 hours while playing an escapist fantasy video game. It's really that simple. How did people understand for 100s of years that people want to see beauty and ideals represented in art and now we have to deal with a bunch of woke and woke apologists (even worse than the wokists) who try and gaslight you into liking this horrible politicised move towards ugly women.

 

[nnytk]

That's exactly how she looks lol,

I love this take, kinda makes the "uglification" stand out, even if I don't have a huge issue with it.

 

[Three]

Where exactly did you get that second picture from HerjansEagleFeeder ?

I'm pretty sure it's AI generated judging by the blur and headphones/necklace.

 

[hyperbertha]

Stealth Asmongold thread, should have known.

No offense, but I’ll take my hot takes on masculinity from someone else.

It's not a hot take when it's the majority opinion. Get a clue

 

[hyperbertha]

And yet never a attraction metric male leads have to pass to be deemed acceptable. Not even sure why it matters. Why is attraction a quality when it's not even the focus. Is Returnal a shit game because some don't find Selene fuckable? Not every decision made by devs is a politically motivated finger to piss off people.

Because both genders are different. Physical attractiveness isn't as important for a man as a woman. Deal with it.