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[TamaraRyan]

A former employee speaks about sexism and hostility in the industry
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1138967

Yeah, it sucks. I've had some experiences myself where if I have a differing opinion, I was instantly labeled as being "overly dramatic", even when I was texting and simply being blunt. This same team would constantly talk about how they wanted to make the female lead more sexy and 'easy on the eyes", then would turn around and talk to people about how they are proud of having a strong female lead that is more than just her looks. It was pretty frustrating.

[Dacke]

I infer that females are turned on primarily by the scenario and the content of the material and the visual second.

I really, really doubt there is something inherently different with regard to visual stimuli. What we have is a situation where most visual content is created for the male gaze, so it's hardly surprising that we see more creative alternatives by and for women. But despite that, most women I have talked with about it watch sexy stuff. If society ever becomes equal I would bet my foot that we would see a relatively equal consumption of all types of sexual material.

[TamaraRyan]

I infer that females are turned on primarily by the scenario and the content of the material and the visual second.

I really, really doubt there is something inherently different with regard to visual stimuli. What we have is a situation where most visual content is created for the male gaze, so it's hardly surprising that we see more creative alternatives by and for women. But despite that, most women I have talked with about it watch sexy stuff. If society ever becomes equal I would bet my foot that we would see an equal consumption of all types of sexual material.

I dunno. I admit, I'm probably a rarity. I have female friends who love to point out a guys package or butt or whatever, but It doesn't do much for me. Also, if it were just a matter of LOOKING at a guy and nothing else, then wouldn't most games already be sexually appealing for women anyways? I guess it could be highlighted more by zooming in on certain areas at certain times.

[gimymblert]

My sister

[Dacke]

I'm not trying to imply that there is something strange about your preferences. I just don't think there are inherent differences between men and women as groups. I may be wrong, of course, but given that we can directly observe huge cultural differences in treatment of men's and women's sexuality I don't see the need for hypothesizing additional underlying differences.

[gimymblert]

It's important to separate the individual from the "group" narrative.

Saying "woman" is about the group, not all woman fit the trend archetype.

Even sexist men have major difference in their taste, but adhere to a common narrative for identification purpose.

And media use lowest common denominator, ie please the most, but not optimal to most.

It's important to keep these nuances when we speak about it.

[gimymblert]

It's like the narrative "woman are weaker than men", in fact only the top strong men top everyone, the majority is in the middle and most women match most men. And that's only in arm strength. SO a few introduce a bias into the many and are not representative of the many. But even with that bias the average peak are relatively close to each other.

It's a problem when a few exception became the model of the many.

[Dacke]

I fully agree with your first post.

But I don't think your second post is accurate. There are big average differences in muscle strength, it's not just a case of a few becoming representative. Though the differences in stamina and endurance seem much smaller, if they exist at all.

[gimymblert]

You have to take into account that male are more encouraged to do muscle exercise than women, although the average difference has been decreasing with year with "fitness mentality" where sport in general is seen as healthy for both gender in society (ie middle class +). There is still a gap in potential as average.

Although I currently don't have data to back it up right now.

I would say i'm not contradicting you, just expending on what I said to precise it.


Some cool images just for the kick

[ProgramGamer]

http://awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=083115

[absolute8]

ALSO ABSOLUT8 YOU MISSED ONE MAIN POINT OF DIVERSITY  :
Different shape, form, color etc ...

One major critic is not just the sexy, BUT ONLY ONE KIND OF SEXY. In fact this is the source of the most disgust and hatred around women depiction, not just the over the top sexyness in itself.

Erhmmm soz  bout' that...

+1 point also discussed:

10. Lack of physical and racial diversity in regard to sexual value expression 

[gimymblert]

I would nitpick I would say in term of "sexual expression"

[Dumah]

If a game doesn't make an effort to humanize it's characters, then I don't care if it's an army man, a chick with massive boobs, or simply a blue square; the game clearly exists for it's gameplay, I wont even be paying attention to the sprite. Shoehorning sexuality into any story damages it, but games as a medium don't often rely on stories to make them more enjoyable. A story is rarely important in a game, so the risks involved in it hurting the story are small. When it does become a problem is when complex characters, in complex stories, are reduced to fan service. Putting almost any character into revealing clothes is going to be strange, most people don't dress like that, so it damages the validity of the character in almost any case.

Sexuality, as well as damaging stories, can be used as a fall back instead of creating interesting mechanics. But this has nothing to do with sexuality in games, rather lazy designers in games, which will always be a problem.

I've never liked fan service in games, I don't dislike it, but I play for gameplay, so I have no real personal opinion on it, though I can't say I see anything wrong with indulging if you want to. There's nothing sexist about wanting to see women naked.

One major critic is not just the sexy, BUT ONLY ONE KIND OF SEXY. In fact this is the source of the most disgust and hatred around women depiction, not just the over the top sexyness in itself.

This is because most people have similar tastes. Representation can go a long way as far as building confidence in someone, but I see no moral obligation on a developers side to include it.

[absolute8]

Update:

Things discussed so far

1.The overabundance of overtly sexual female characters in portrayal(all fem sexy or gtfo, basically)

2. The discriminatory dominance of majority male characters in games (minorities not given major roles for fear of cognitive dissonance amongst gamers)

3. The comercialization of female sexuality for gratuitous pourposes (AAA largest offender)

4. The absense of male sexualization in respect to the female gaze.(Our muscular power fantasy characters do not make the cut.ladies want the Ryan Gosling or something)

5. Negative objectification (briefly touched on, but diverse information referenced by Dacke)

6. Superb Joe

7. Some passive cross-comparisons to racism

8. Is Bayonetta sexist or sexy?

9. Will equal sexualization betwixt genders bridge the sexism issues? (Idunno lol, but it could be potentially enlightening and hilarious watching people figure it out)

10. Lack of physical and racial diversity in regard to sexual expression  

[absolute8]

One major critic is not just the sexy, BUT ONLY ONE KIND OF SEXY. In fact this is the source of the most disgust and hatred around women depiction, not just the over the top sexyness in itself.

This is because most people have similar tastes. Representation can go a long way as far as building confidence in someone, but I see no moral obligation on a developers side to include it.

It seems a bit broad to say say people have similar taste. Beauty is one of those things extremely difficult to capture in a general overall definition.

I do think it is safe to state that there are common physical traits and features, with definable parameters, which translate into common taste -- beautiful/sexy across all races and body types. But, there are also more specialized traits and features like hair color, skin tone and so on which spark various levels of arousal depending on further specialized taste.

Honestly, I think our specialized tastes shift daily, if not hourly. We are, after all, exposed to global beauty through the Internet and diversity in society. If we behold without prejudice, then we have no choice but to develop some amount of appreciation for what we see and experience.

What we are commonly faced with is a rigid ideal of beauty and sexiness based on an acute taste.

[Dumah]

It seems a bit broad to say say people have similar taste. Beauty is one of those things extremely difficult to capture in a general overall definition.

I do think it is safe to state that there are common physical traits, with definable parameters, which translate into common taste -- beautiful/sexy across all races and body types. But, there are also more specialized traits like hair color, texture and so on , which spark various levels of arousal depending on further specialized taste.

Honestly, I think our specialized tastes shift daily, if not hourly. We are, after all, exposed to global beauty through the Internet and diversity in society. If we behold without prejudice, then we have no choice but to develop some amount of appreciation for what we see and experience.

What we are commonly faced with is a rigid ideal of beauty and sexiness based on an acute taste.

Certainly, but when a game is being made for a large audience I see nothing wrong with catering to common taste, it is the most logical option. While I love seeing characters that look unique, I can't fault a studio for choosing the most logical option.

I completely agree that I would like to see more variety, as an artist I love unique designs for characters, but I don't see a problem when that doesn't happen. Specialized taste is for special games, and in a perfect world all games would be special, but they're not. Just like any other media, the majority of productions are almost all bland proven formulas. That's not to sound like a cynic, I'm simply saying that I don't get bothered by how the majority of things are average, because that's how averages work.

It's completely right to demand a certain standard of whatever media you consume, but not wishing to consume it is not a reason to rally for change. Lack of representation of non-whites is certainly something to fight against. But characters looking too samey is just an inevitable annoyance.

[gimymblert]

But the broader audience is not in those trite representation, not anymore, movie and series are breaking record with broader representation already.

It's not logical at all.

In fact among the biggest sold game are game with good representation. Tomb raider reboot was the best sold in the series, 3,5 mil in the open, 8 mil in the long term, that's way more than sexy lara ever sold.

Girls the tv series was with an average woman and did work very well


Empire was record breaking

Sleepy hollow was well received

If anything all data point at that money follow diversity

[Dumah]

Money follows diversity when the product itself can stand on it's own, but when it can't it simply confuses the audience. When a designer caters to mass appeal it's a sign of one or more of three things: they are not confident in their product, they themselves like how the characters look, or they're lazy in that aspect of design. Diversity is a good thing, but not a safe business choice, what you're pointing to are exceptions to the rule. We wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place if they weren't.

[gimymblert]

I dunno, if you look from the perspective of the survivor dilemma you found out that the ratio of poorly selling game have a higher ratio of uniformity. I mean seriously tally the loser like "ride to hell" or "BMXXX" and other that are unremarkable. However adding diversity to a good formula have been proven to boost sales. I mean diversity mean you cater to more people, not less, it doesn't remove the old tropes.

[Dumah]

If that is the case then why would businesses continue to do it? Since I'm not experienced in business I trust that people with way more money and experience than me know more.