How Women Are Designed In Gaming

To be honest with you I have no idea why women are portrayed like that. I see a lot of MMO games like that, specially fantasy games where the armor of women barely covers anything and even if they have a bad ass armor they're breasts are hanging out which is kind of stupid if you think about, I'm not saying they're unpleasant though.

But I think it's basically because video games are generally dominated by males in terms of the market share so it's understandable to have women characters portrayed in a very sexualiazed manner. I'm not sure if we're on the same page here though, but I also think that because females are generally considered "weaker" than men in terms of physical strength that's they're made to wear not so heavy or bulky armor.

Again I'm not sure but I've worked as a concept artist for a while and most of the time when designing female characters, they tend to tell you that kind of thing.

 

That about sums it up really. Yes, There are many female players on any game really. However, It is a male dominated market and I honestly believe the idea of the " dental floss armor" is to appeal to that male market.

Look at some mods Skyrim has. Some of the mods are absolutely amazing on terms of graphics and I would be lying is I said they were not easy on the eyes ( I sound like a odd one, Don't I? ).

You could do it for the male characters and I honestly believe the girl gamers would be into it just as guys can be into it but considering how society is and how everyone pictures it, Sexualizing women in games is 100% more likely than for men to be sexualized in games. Not impossible, But the chances are slim.

 

Just like in movies or TV, sex sells so they will make it a part of the game. Don't forget there are overly mucular men in the media that encourage men to take steroids just to get a girlfriend.

 

Well yes, the development and the demographics may have catered to males more in the past, but today more and more women have gotten into gaming. In Asian games there's more sexualization of women avatars than in Western games because the demographics there once again is more male heavy than in the Western part of the world. You can see a change in mentality over the years as companies the West have began to realize that more and more women were getting into games and have for the most part started to change their stance. WoW's a good example of this. In Vanilla and BC there was lots of dental floss armor but towards Wrath there was a large change from that mentality.

It's unfortunate that there's no mankinis for male characters in a lot of games because I do like switching genders while playing. One of the biggest fun I have playing GW2 is that males have equally 'revealing' outfits as female characters and there's a nice variety of realistic armor and dental floss for both genders. I mean if you're going to sexualize anything then do it for both genders to be fair.

Western companies don't have excuses anymore because about 30% of today's marketshare that plays games are women and that number is growing. (This is excluding casual players who play games like Bejeweld, ect.) Asia's not going to change anytime soon because of the way the culture is over there. Video games will continue to be a male dominant culture for a long time over there.

 

Logically, it doesn't make much sense, but for developers, it doesn't have to. It matters what attracts players, and having risque clothing for women attracts gamers.

 

My wife prefers to play 'hot' women, as opposed to 'unattractive' women. So while the idea that muscular women in heavy set armour is an ideal counterpart to the male version of the same class/race, it doesn't mean all women prefer a gender equalization in how characters look.

Besides the numerous Korean and Japanese free-to-play MMO games which contain scantily clad females, I normally don't see it in western MMO games. Even in WoW, female warriors are dressed appropriately for battle. In Diablo 3, there is a muscular woman barbarian.

With that said, many female game characters are not portrayed as weak, wearing dental floss for armour and need rescuing which some extremist feminist advocates argue about. Indeed, the Princess in Super Mario Brothers need rescuing, but Samus in Metroid doesn't. In fact, she wears full body power armour and is the main character. Lara Croft is another example of a female main character that is dressed appropriately for treasure hunting. In WoW, I have a Tauren Female Warrior and an Orc Female Warrior. Both are dressed in heavy set armour. Both are not wearing dental floss. They look intimidating.

Anyway, I strongly disregard the idea that all games in the future must be gender neutral. That all games must give both men and women the same look and feel. To me, equalization becomes dull. At the very least, give players the option to create sexualized characters. If some people don't like it, then those people don't have to create such characters. Leave it to those that like it.

I am of the mentality that I like a certain style and I will play that style. It is my personal enjoyment that I like it the way I do. If someone else has their own style, who am I to tell him or her to go shove it up where the sun don't shine? It's their choice in creating a character based on what they find enjoyment in. I prefer most of my female characters to be dressed according to the scenario. If some Joe Blow or Sarah Jane decides they want their female mage to wear two nipple bandages and a fishing line as its leggings, then so be it. If parents are too scared to expose their kids to this sort of thing, it's not the game that is screwing with the minds of the kids. It's the way the parents are teaching their kids to think.

 

You need to be reminded that majority of the MMORPG gamers are indeed men... even when some of them claim to be women.
MMORPG can stand for Many Men Online Role Play Girls.

Men like girls. And men like girls sexy. It is the very reason why most MMORPGs have tried to make their female characters as sexy as possible with ridiculous "armor". I too like to see some pretty designs, but some "armors" are indeed totally pointless as armors since they cover pretty much nothing and protect absolutely nothing but the private (girl) parts.

 

I figure that it's because a woman would look just like a guy except skinnier if they were to wear the same bad ass armor that males wore. Besides, some women like to play female characters just to see their body and revealing clothes.

 

I have found quite some girl players in MMORPG in fact using male characters.
One of them told me the reason is that "I just don't want to stare at a girl's ass all day".

I guess it is true that some female players would rather use male characters, while guy players would rather use female characters.

Also don't forget the nude mode lol... There were third party nude mode for every MMORPGs I have played.

 

The most interesting female characters are the ones that are developed like real people. Look at Game of Thrones. George RR Martin was interviewed recently, and the interviewer asked how he manages to make such compelling women.

His response? He writes them like real people.

It's a stylistic choice to make a character wear skimpy armor, on either gender, and that's fine.

I think story writers, game and otherwise, do themselves a disservice though when they fail to develop characters with substance and rely on visual gimmicks to draw in an audience. I think that's true with all mediums though.

 

Steroid usage is pretty rampant. You don't think that those muscular guys in video games and movies give men body image issues?

 

I agree that studios like to sell a certain kind of image of people to people. That being said...It's interesting to see a difference of how the West perceives as body image versus the East. In Western games women are highly sexualized wearing bikini armor and men run around like ramped up roid monsters. Some of the women in bikini armor has made its way into Eastern games, but if you look at the 90's/00's Final Fantasy (Excluding X-2 which seemed more to try and play with the whole sexualized women.) the women are a little more dressed and the males aren't roid monsters. In fact a lot of males portrayed in games tend to be tall and slender rather than super muscular.

 

I, as a female gamer, actually am no longer bothered by this. I used to get really irritated by it. In reality though, who doesn't like to look at the female body?
This does create a lot of sexism for some players. How men treat women still isn't the greatest, but I don't think that's because of what their character is wearing.
I know plenty of guys who have female characters and plenty of females with male characters. Some games are also progressing so that we have some bad ass looking armor.

On another note, it makes the art to go along with the games extremely attention grabbing. You have to think of the primary audience for these games; usually males.
It drags them in. The game gets the positive and negative feedback and attention from everyone. They get more views. People realize "hey this is a good game", and there you have it.

 

This is how things have always been, and yeah, it's blatantly sexist and misogynistic. I'm long past the point where I get "excited" to see female characters in games with unrealistic proportions or armor or whatever.

 

well nowadays every one is trying to use the sex appeal to sell their games thats why.

 

well nowadays every one is trying to use the sex appeal to sell their games thats why.