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[Zest]

Hence, the quotations on "realistic".

[Mitchard]

Although I do not beleive in women having realistic body shapes, where would he fun be in playing a lead character who was monstrously obese (male or female), had an IQ of exactly 51.9, and who is 1.9 Metres tall?

Average Person, by theway

I have played only one game with a grossly obese (Man? Woman?) person in it, Pol, and do not want to repeat the experience.

Either I'm misreading your post, or you have no idea how IQs work.

[Xion]

Although I do not beleive in women having realistic body shapes, where would he fun be in playing a lead character who was monstrously obese (male or female), had an IQ of exactly 51.9, and who is 1.9 Metres tall?

Average Person, by theway

I have played only one game with a grossly obese (Man? Woman?) person in it, Pol, and do not want to repeat the experience.

Average people are not absolute morons. Also, IQ tests are foolish measurements of intelligence anyway.
Average people are not > 6'.
Average people are not obese. (Though many Americans are.)

Although I do not beleive in women having realistic body shapes

what?

[Moosader]

Ehe, we should avoid playing Average American: The Game.
Though really, it'd hard hard to generalize that because there are so many regions that are somewhat different.  Oregon vs. Florida, etc.  I saw almost no fat people when on vacation in Chicago, but here in Kansas City.......

KC: The game!

D:

[Radnom]

Ugh, the other day I saw on some gaming blog that there was some MMO where overnight an update changed the breast size of all the female characters. There were two pictures of the characters on the blog, one with massive knockers and one with "regular" sized breasts.

I saw the pics and thought "No wonder there's so much negative feedback for this, look at the stupid size of those breasts. They're enormous. It's good to hear that people are complaining about the unrealistic size of them" then I realised that the smaller breast picture was the 'after' shot and the complaints were that the boobs had shrunk. Oh god was I pissed 

I guess it's a matter of personal preference though. I'm not a fan of large breasts. 

[Gainsworthy]

Ah, yes, Conan, if we remember correctly. Not that we play, but we did read an article.

Read through it, and came to the end, and was puzzled. I'm not fluent in PR Speak, so I came to the conclusion that they came to their senses and put in realistic body shapes. I thought to myself that it was such an unusual, but good move for a game studio that I read it again. Then I saw a line I missed that apologised profusely for a "Body Morph" bug which *SHOCK* reduced breast size.

I guess MMO's hardly have characters, and your avatar is simply a symbol of you in the world, but still. Absurd.

[Zest]

That article made my damn day. "Do not panic- Your breasts will return to normal soon." Even though this is a major problem in a lot of MMOs, the fact that it's the MMO based off of Conan the Barbarian makes this seem even funnier to me.

[Caio]

I think players can choose breast size during character creation, and this bug made them smaller than the chosen size. Could be wrong, though.

[Moosader]

Yeah, I saw the character creation on my friend's computer and you can adjust size.  I guess people in-game, who had already given their characters huge knockers, were pissed that they were reduced.

I, myself, give myself the smallest possible chest size on MMOs, like City of Heroes. >_>
Maybe that's how you can tell an actual girl is playing?  They don't necessarily max out the breast size? D:

[Zest]

Either that, or they're playing as a dude. I seem to recall some survey conducted a year or two ago, that had found that mean and women liked to play as the opposite sex in MMOs. Can't remember where it is, though.

[Kvalsternacka]

Kinda OT but...
Astaroths ass had jiggly physics in soul calibur 1! Made me think that they maybe wanted to go for realism. Then again... maybe not.

[William Broom]

I think in a Conan game, huge tits are acceptable. Otherwise you're not being true to the source material.

[Zest]

Like I said, that it was the Conan MMO of all games made me laugh.

[dessgeega]

so, anyway, the issue is not that videogame characters have sexual dimensions. that's perfectly natural and expected; even people without enormous tits are sexual beings. the trouble here is that the characters in question are women characters created by men and embued with male sexuality. often, these men do not understand the ways women experience and express desire; often they don't need to, because their presentation of sexuality is the shallowest kind.

i make games about women who chase and flirt on other women. that's different from games like fear effect 2: those women are written the way they are to titillate the developers and their target male audience. my women are the way they are because that's my experience. ivy's not wearing a chain-link g-string because she's proud of her body; she's wearing it so some college kid in extended adolescence can have a good view of her ass.

the problem isn't the presence of sexuality in games, or the investment of sexuality into female characters (though i think there's a culture of homophobia surrounding games that makes developers much more reluctant to examine the sexual identities of male characters). the problem is a lack of honesty: that sex in games almost always exists as cheap titillation, as eye candy. it is fake, fake, fake, it constantly reminds me that it's fake, and i do not want fake experiences.

[Gainsworthy]

Wow. Tremendously well put, Dessgeega. I agree entirely- most games, even taking themselves completely seriously, are pretty much exploitation flicks. Thematically. Especially  games taking themselves completely seriously.

EDIT: Not that I'm against exploitationy games. God Hand for example. Just not, you know, everywhere.

the problem isn't the presence of sexuality in games, or the investment of sexuality into female characters (though i think there's a culture of homophobia surrounding games that makes developers much more reluctant to examine the sexual identities of male characters).

I've been thinking about that one a bit, recently. Game characters in general pretty much have this completely 1-D love- it's some kind of given constant. God forbid if they're gay- then they're either a joke or it's time for some mega-exploitation.

Come to think of it, I've almost never seen a game with any kind of depth to the romantic relations of characters. Though I guess that's a whole other topic.