The Uglification of Female Characters in Western Developed Video Games

[Phaseknox]

As someone who likes playing as female characters in video games I’ve been noticing an ongoing trend in western developed games over the years where they purposely uglify them. The devs reasoning behind this is to not make them objectified/sexualized, and to make them more realistic looking. Making a female character attractive/pretty is not the same as objectifying/sexualizing them, and attractive/pretty females exist in real life. In fact, many female characters in western developed games are modeled after real women and are made uglier than the models which is not only an insult to the models IMO but also complete irony. Why do they even hire these models to base the characters appearances on if they’re not going to make them look like them? Here’s a video that summarizes what I’m talking about:



And why is Mary Jane somewhat frumpy looking in Spider-Man 2 when she was really pretty in the first Spider-Man game? Here’s the answer:



And I can’t have this discussion without talking about Stellar Blade, the upcoming Korean developed third person action game with a sexy female protagonist. She’s been being called exaggerated, oversexualized and unrealistic looking despite being modeled after a real Korean model. Her sexy look has been causing some controversy here in America despite her not really being any different than a character like Bayonetta, but sexy looking female characters are so rare now that when a game has one these days there’s an uproar over it. So much in fact that Microsoft has decided to tell devs to avoid making curvy female characters in their games. They’re basically dictating how devs should make their female characters look which is ridiculous. Here’s a link to the article, and a video talking about it:

https://nichegamer.com/microsoft-cautio ... haracters/

[isthatallyougot]

Phase, there are clearly many who feel the same way as you. I'll share my 2 cents. Personally, I don't care much about all the conversation on the periphery of gaming. "Woke" / "Anti-woke" - none of it matters to me. In both gaming and in my personal life in general, I tend to focus on what brings me joy and ignore the rest as much as possible. So much drama that I just find tiresome. I play games I am drawn to and ignore the rest. It's really incredibly simple for me. So many want to take issue over ideologies, lmao. When did gaming get so serious? There are ****SO MANY**** games out there - both from the present and past, and if a person cannot find games that resonate positively for them out of all the possibilities on offer, then maybe they're wasting their time with this hobby. To me, the vocal communities - be they majority or minority - that are fixated on what they perceive as negatives are living in misery.

[Phaseknox]

Personally, I don't care much about all the conversation on the periphery of gaming. "Woke" / "Anti-woke" - none of it matters to me. In both gaming and in my personal life in general, I tend to focus on what brings me joy and ignore the rest as much as possible. So much drama that I just find tiresome.

I agree, but I do like that more diversity in games means more female protagonists in them. However, I don’t like when they’re intentionally made average/unattractive looking to prevent the so-called “male gaze.” I can understand not oversexualizing them, but what’s wrong with them looking naturally attractive and/or appealing? That’s not about the male gaze, it’s about wanting to like the look of a character that I’m playing as which goes for male characters as well.

I play games I am drawn to and ignore the rest. It's really incredibly simple for me. So many want to take issue over ideologies, lmao. When did gaming get so serious? There are ****SO MANY**** games out there - both from the present and past, and if a person cannot find games that resonate positively for them out of all the possibilities on offer, then maybe they're wasting their time with this hobby. To me, the vocal communities - be they majority or minority - that are fixated on what they perceive as negatives are living in misery.

I agree, but since I’m primarily drawn to games with female protagonists these days it upsets me when certain vocal communities want to purposely uglify them to prevent them from being objectified/sexualized and to apparently make them more realistic looking in their view. But as I’ve pointed out that’s a crock, because a lot of female characters are modeled after real women so how is making them uglier than their models more realistic? It’s not, it’s just an agenda that they want to push based on their own personal ideologies.

[argyle]

Been meaning to reply to this, but I wanted to skim through your videos Phase (even tho I'm already familiar with the subject) and get my thoughts in order.

Phase, I agree with you. And it goes further than just video games, but we'll restrict the convo to that. Izzy, I also see where you're coming from, life is too short to get worked up over the little stuff. So I'm in the middle I suppose - it *does* bother me, in spite of myself, but I try to limit my complaining to Tam (and even then, I try to limit it because she doesn't want to hear it all the time ). I guess what's really frustrating is that it seems to be a vocal minority that's pushing these awkward changes, as they clearly don't result in more sales (usually the opposite) and when something like Stellar Blade comes along that bucks the trend, the sales for it (early reports say it's already topping the PSN sales charts worldwide just for preorders) show what people actually want.

I also think the conversation is doubly telling around that title, since the people against it are citing "unrealistic body standards" when the character was modeled after a real woman and her costumes were also designed by a woman.

Oh, and speaking of Stellar Blade, I dropped a preorder on it Friday so I'm now officially "part of the problem".

[Phaseknox]

I guess what's really frustrating is that it seems to be a vocal minority that's pushing these awkward changes, as they clearly don't result in more sales (usually the opposite) and when something like Stellar Blade comes along that bucks the trend, the sales for it (early reports say it's already topping the PSN sales charts worldwide just for preorders) show what people actually want.

I also think the conversation is doubly telling around that title, since the people against it are citing "unrealistic body standards" when the character was modeled after a real woman and her costumes were also designed by a woman.

Yeah, here’s videos of what you’re talking about:

Oh, and speaking of Stellar Blade, I dropped a preorder on it Friday so I'm now officially "part of the problem".

I hope that it sells exceptionally well, because that will prove to video game companies that people like attractive female characters in games. Then maybe they will quit purposely making them unattractive, especially if the games that they’re in continue to sell poorly.

I’m tempted to buy Stellar Blade on day one despite not having a PS5 just to show my support for it, because voting with our wallets is the only way to make a change. Video game companies are businesses after all.

[Phaseknox]

These new videos basically say what I’ve been saying. A couple of them kind of focus on the Kay Vess character from the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws game which I don’t feel is ugly per se, but she was made less attractive than the real life model (Humberly Gonzales) that she’s modeled from.

[Phaseknox]

This has got to stop, because it’s getting ridiculous at this point. Now even female cartoon characters are being made androgynous, frumpy and unattractive looking.

[canedaddy]

You're not wrong, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it stopping anytime soon.

[Phaseknox]

You're not wrong, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it stopping anytime soon.

Perhaps it won’t, but the pushback that it’s been receiving could lessen it.

[crimson_tide]

Phase, I am going to post once in this thread and it is just to state that ALL the things you posted are part of a grift. Do you, phase, expect me to believe that you actually care about Pokemon ******** GO enough to have watched TEN videos about the topic of the female avatar? Which then begs the question: why?

I know you have this female avatar thing. Fine, whatevs. It's your choice. Why do you care if they are conventionally attractive or not? You, like every single person who posted videos about the 'uglification' nonsense, have access to the INTERNET. If you want tits, ass, cock and balls and every and anything in between in just about any permutation is available to you. If it's about gaming specifically, anime titty games exist everywhere and are very easy to find. I know you're on about western video games but the point still stands because I would imagine tits are tits. You and every single person posting videos about this, wokeness, DEI , CRTand whatever the two minutes of hate are directed at this week can just go find whatever it is your heart desires. So again: why?

The reason: MONEY. All the videos you posted here are monetized. They want clicks. They want you angry. Because then you'll click more and stay in that silo. A perfect example of this from very current events is the Xmen 97 show on Disney + and the nonsense surrounding Rogue and to a lesser degree Morph. Before the show, Morph was going to be nonbinary and use they/them pronouns and Rogue was somehow not hot because 2 second of animation existed where you could see her entire ass crack and all and now you couldn't in the preview of the episode. Somehow, this was an affront to people. Fast forward two months, neither of these are an issue. But you can find so so so many videos about these two characters and how this means the show is going to be horrible...before the show came out. Now that the show is extremely well liked, nobody cares about those literal non-torversies. Because to your point phase, the artistry shined through. Now did those people shut up because they too cared about the art? No. They moved on to Stellar Blade and Pokemon GO and STILL being mad about Remake FF7 Tifa's cup size (they really need to let that go) and a million other things to keep people mad. It's a grift, phase. That's the why: the grift. Specifically a right wing grift. This whole thing is about policing women's bodies. Here are exactly TWO videos explaining it. I will leave it here and if you watch it or not, I basically summed it up with what I wrote. Please stop falling for the grift, phase. Again, I will not be responding to this thread again. I love you man, like I love all people. That's why I am bothering to post this at all. But I can't dedicate more time, energy and mind space to this topic especially since this little board is my respite from all this nonsense.