Anita Sarkeesian presents: Eight things developers can do to make games less shitty for women.

There's a huge amount of leeway between having "fat ugly" characters, and and having unnecessarily sexualized characters.



These female characters are quite attractive, despite being dressed just like their male counterparts.



These characters are unnecessarily sexualized. It's fucking ridiculous.


Hey, remember when Troi went from this:



To this:



And suddenly we remembered she was an actual Starfleet officer worthy of respect?

I'm not familiar with these games, are they available on PSN, X Box Live, or Steam?

I was going to post examples from some Final Fantasy games, but all the screencaps I found were shitty. The point stands.

Related note: Go fuck yourself.

Ah yes, Final Fantasy.

Made by: Square Enix, a Japanese company.

Feel free to post pics and embarrass yourself.

If you are still interested in offensive armor, I recommend the game TERA, made by Bluehole Studios.

It's a shame that's a South Korean company.

Okay, so Archie clearly has nothing to contribute to the discussion.

Anyone else?

I contributed by making you look like a fool...again

Apparently not.

So are you prepared to lead the charge against all of these non-US companies? And of course their customers? Or do you lose your drive when you figure out it's not mainly teh evil American gamers and developers?

Because you know, that may force you to admit that America is ahead of them in some respects.

Again, this discussion is about the content of games in general. Not individual artists. Not individual studios. Not individual countries.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall "America" appearing in the 8 suggestions in the OP.

Sell it to someone who is buying.

Okay, so Archie clearly has nothing to contribute to the discussion.

Anyone else?

Damned sexist game designers.

I am reminded of the race baiting shake downs Jesse Jackson does where he demands companies hire execs according to a racial quota and give his "charity" a big fat check or else he will run around calling a company racist. That really is just a shake down racket demanding protection money especially since the "execs" he wants given jobs are himself, his family, and his friends.

It would require Bailey to have a time machine as I've known he used to work in the video game industry for 5 years if not longer.

You don't get to ignore everyone elses anecdotal evidence and then pretend anyone should pay attention to yours.

There are reasons they sexualize avatars.

1. It makes sense from a demo standpoint. The male demo likes it, and part of the female demo does get some enjoyment out of the pretend sexy body. So there is no reason to stop it for a few complaining women who most likely were not going to be customers anyway. Yes, there are some female gamers who get annoyed by it, but you have to code these things and that takes resources. You are not going to code for these body types because your efforts are better spent with new content and improving other graphics and gameplay.

2. Sex always sells. All the feminism in the world is not going to stop the human sex drive. In the end women do it also. One only has to remember the elizibeth taylor diamonds fragrance commercial. It was as much soft core porn as any male commercial. Advertising is about getting attention, and sexy people guarantee a lot of looking. So you slap the half naked chick in a snowstorm fighting in her metal bikini which is probably frozen to her skin like a tongue on a flagpole.

3. Horny guys will hit on ogre bitches. It does not matter what you change the avatars to be you cannot beat off the horny dudes. I have played hairy dwarf women, trolls, ogres, and even frog women. You still have to beat the boys off with stick. It does not stop them even if you tell them you are a guy. You are never going to get through that type of horny so you just take it for it's money.

It is really a matter of profit and what your major demo wants to see. If you put an unnatractive avatar into game it gets played by a minimal number of players and is often an alt. for profit games are there for profit and until people want to play the normal or ugly characters they are not going to put it in there. Really, the same goes for men, but their avatars often revolve around size, musculature, powerful looks, and being in shape. Where is the fat non-muscular guy geek avatar? You are not going to make money off that avatar just like you are not going to make money off the fat chick avatar. This is fantasy, not reality. If you want reality try desert bus.

One of the times I ran through GTA: San Andreas, I had the main character eat and eat and eat until he was a real tubbo just because it looked funny to see him do stuff in the game.

I thought she looked hotter in that uniform than in the catsuits and dresses they had her wear before.

I love how Sarkeesian is wrong both because many well-selling games already have characters that aren't overly sexualized, and because games with characters that aren't overly sexualized willl never sell.

No you don't, you're dead inside.

Sarkeesian is an ATTENTION WHORE.

WF is a haven for misogynists.
I don't feel safe here anymore.

Respect? Troi?

I was happy that they had her wear an actual uniform, but I also noticed something else - her uniform is still pretty skin-tight, along with every other female Starfleet officer of the time. This actually continued up to DS9, with the Dax characters (discounting the catsuit they had Kira wear as that was just obvious). Another thing I noticed is that while there were some heavy set male Starfleet officers, we never really saw any heavy set female Starfleet officers. As SF Debris once quipped, "what, does Starfleet Academy have a 'no fat chicks' sign hanging on the door?"

Also, I think that first pic is actually from one of the later seasons, so they never entirely made her non-uniform wear go away. Mainly I had to laugh at the idea that Troi was worthy of respect given how her character was often utilized and treated by the writers.

I remember seeing her at a con and she commented on the fac t that the first time they let a woman fly the ship she crashed it into a planet referring to generations. Still I cannot complain because on formal occasions the men were forced to wear short dresses. It is also funny how no one complains that riker grew his sexy beard.

I have to agree. She becomes ship counselor and then she gets to be out of uniform? They never explained why troy was dressed sexy. It is star trek, toss something in there. She was a part of the military operations of the ship, so she should be in uniform.

Kira was not starfleet if I remember right. DS9 was not one of the ones I got really into. It was very odd that on the enterprise troy was the only woman in starfleet not to wear the uniform. You had crusher, the other doctor, a few Bajoran like ro and the girl whoscrewed up with the wease at starfleet academy. They all wore the standard starfleet uniform, but for some reason troy did not.

I always associated that with the physical requirements of starfleet training. Still, I am trying to think where the overweight male officers were? I know there were some non-starfleet fatties but for the most part starfleet officers seemed fairly fit.

From what I understand it was an area of contention with Marina Sirtis and the rest of the cast that there was a bit of sexism around her character. Still, it is TV, and she is the hot chic. She is certainly not 7 of 9 hot, but her inclusion was a blatant booby ploy.

I'm sure it's quiet likely, and that those who do it have good raisins for it.

Post-TOS Trek in general was pretty awful in its treatment of women. Even ignoring how female characters were written, there was a lot of objectification and unnecessary sexualization.



What possible reason could two Klingon warriors have to leave their chests unprotected like that?

To distract from their hideous faces?

Up until DS9 Trek had some nebulous form of perfect socialism "don't tell me, you don't use money in the 23rd century". Trek also showed humans as this disgustingly annoying self righteous group of perfect asshats above greed and any real desire it seemed. It also made all alien races defined by a single trait.

The point is, the show was never about anything even resembling reality.