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The fact that Bioware put a couple of homosexual characters into ME3 that were exclusively homosexual is really cool. It seems like everyone being straight or bi is more often the case.
That seems like a business decision.
There are more straight people, and so they design characters around what will work most of the time.
More gay characters is definitely a good thing, although I didn't like how they went about it in DA2.
Rather than characters being straight or gay or bi, all of the potential romance characters will automatically swing whatever gender your Hawke is.
Because we all know people buy video games based on how many people they can sleep with in the game based on the gender they choose to play as.
Some things are business decisions. "Who can you sleep with" is a ridiculous sounding business decision. I'm going to buy Mass Effect 3 at some point when it's cheap. I loved Mass Effect 1 to death. I didn't like ME2 as much but I played it twice through. For a long time I lived in the Mass Effect thread. I made Mass Effect Facebook pages and read shitty Mass Effect expanded universe comics. And even I don't really have a handle on whether my male Shepard or female Shepard can potentially sleep with like, 3 people, or 4 people, or 2 people or what in ME3, and I won't really know until I play.
And you want me to believe that the millions of uninformed masses who make up the real sales numbers for games, the kind of people who Ken Levine refers to as frat boys and are thus the reason Bioshock Infinite's cover is boring, or the kind of people who know so little about games that Activision had to abandon their plan to drop "Call of Duty" from the cover of Modern Warfare 2 because people wouldn't realize it was a sequel to CoD 4... you're telling me these people buy games based on whether there are ENOUGH romance options? They would buy the game if there are 4 people their Male Shep could sleep with, but not if there were only 3?
That's... unlikely.
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
I don't want to be a dick, but you're talking about something that isn't the case, and is a common distraction when this subject comes up. It's a waste of time to rationalize why this would be ok if this were how reality was. Simple version, 90% of female characters in games (lawl percentages) are sexualized to a ridiculous degree, and no amount of justification on an individual level can account for that. We get mired down in specific cases like it really matters whether Cortana is becoming more and more sexualized and if that's ok within a narrative sense. It doesn't matter, because it's nothing but a part of a larger context. They're rightful targets within that context, whatever their personal rationalizations are.
Hey, criticism isn't dickishness, I'm happy to take it. I'm not sure I follow, though, because I feel like we're on the same wavelength? I'm saying my problem is the overall pattern more than any specific case or justification, and that I don't very much care if a given character is oversexualized (regardless of any justification) so long as they're an errant dot rather than (as it stands right now) a representative pixel in an awful picture. I don't mean to exempt any particular example for discussion, because—forest for the trees, you can't deal with a problem without dealing with its embodiment. Maybe I'm missing your point though?
The fact that Bioware put a couple of homosexual characters into ME3 that were exclusively homosexual is really cool. It seems like everyone being straight or bi is more often the case.
I'll preemptively note that no one here is saying that slapping a couple token homosexual/female/minority characters into a game and calling it a day is sufficient; Bioware here is being presented as a developer that's moving in the right direction (particularly in comparison to its peers), not one that has achieved perfection.
I was just commenting on something I thought was cool. I wasn't slapping my hands together and saying "Welp, that fixes that."
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
The fact that Bioware put a couple of homosexual characters into ME3 that were exclusively homosexual is really cool. It seems like everyone being straight or bi is more often the case.
I'll preemptively note that no one here is saying that slapping a couple token homosexual/female/minority characters into a game and calling it a day is sufficient; Bioware here is being presented as a developer that's moving in the right direction (particularly in comparison to its peers), not one that has achieved perfection.
I was just commenting on something I thought was cool. I wasn't slapping my hands together and saying "Welp, that fixes that."
I know you weren't; I figured someone would come in and accuse you of doing so. Hence "preemptively".
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
Yeah this is the particularly strange part for me.
That someone went into a business meeting for SWTOR, for example, and said, "look, we only have enough money for a limited amount of romances in this game. So let's make most of them for straight, white male players, they'll really be the players clamoring for that sort of thing", it boggles the mind.
"excuse my French
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Because we all know people buy video games based on how many people they can sleep with in the game based on the gender they choose to play as.
Some things are business decisions. "Who can you sleep with" is a ridiculous sounding business decision. I'm going to buy Mass Effect 3 at some point when it's cheap. I loved Mass Effect 1 to death. I didn't like ME2 as much but I played it twice through. For a long time I lived in the Mass Effect thread. I made Mass Effect Facebook pages and read shitty Mass Effect expanded universe comics. And even I don't really have a handle on whether my male Shepard or female Shepard can potentially sleep with like, 3 people, or 4 people, or 2 people or what in ME3, and I won't really know until I play.
And you want me to believe that the millions of uninformed masses who make up the real sales numbers for games, the kind of people who Ken Levine refers to as frat boys and are thus the reason Bioshock Infinite's cover is boring, or the kind of people who know so little about games that Activision had to abandon their plan to drop "Call of Duty" from the cover of Modern Warfare 2 because people wouldn't realize it was a sequel to CoD 4... you're telling me these people buy games based on whether there are ENOUGH romance options? They would buy the game if there are 4 people their Male Shep could sleep with, but not if there were only 3?
That's... unlikely.
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
Yeah this is the particularly strange part for me.
That someone went into a business meeting for SWTOR, for example, and said, "look, we only have enough money for a limited amount of romances in this game. So let's make most of them for straight, white male players, they'll really be the players clamoring for that sort of thing", it boggles the mind.
On one hand, you have Leliana, who while a bit ditsy, is actually quite strong and never really asks for your help. The Warden has to insist on helping her and convinces her to confront Marjaline. Leliana also has her own unique DLC. We have Flemeth is is also a compelling character who is an old lady in robes (until DA2). Leliana is confident in her faith, starts off in a robe, and can be romanced by either sex. Wynne also is pretty non-sexualized and really only has flirty lines with Ogrin, the filthy, stinky, short dwarf who can't stick with a women cause of his ineptitude.
That's contrantrasted by Morrigan, who is assertive and aggresive, yet when is confronted by a challenge, is helpless before it. She practically begs the Warden for help and doesn't even go along to the confrontation. She also has two different armors that show off her tits.
Leliana, Flemeth, and Wynne were a step forward and Morrigan was a step back.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't sound like "step forward and step back", it sounds like "different characters doing things differently".
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
On one hand, you have Leliana, who while a bit ditsy, is actually quite strong and never really asks for your help. The Warden has to insist on helping her and convinces her to confront Marjaline. Leliana also has her own unique DLC. We have Flemeth is is also a compelling character who is an old lady in robes (until DA2). Leliana is confident in her faith, starts off in a robe, and can be romanced by either sex. Wynne also is pretty non-sexualized and really only has flirty lines with Ogrin, the filthy, stinky, short dwarf who can't stick with a women cause of his ineptitude.
That's contrantrasted by Morrigan, who is assertive and aggresive, yet when is confronted by a challenge, is helpless before it. She practically begs the Warden for help and doesn't even go along to the confrontation. She also has two different armors that show off her tits.
Leliana, Flemeth, and Wynne were a step forward and Morrigan was a step back.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't sound like "step forward and step back", it sounds like "different characters doing things differently".
Yeah, I was going to post this too.
I don't really see anything wrong with Morrigan in DA1. I mean, yeah, she's oversexualized, but she is pretty much the only one to be that way that i can remember in that game off the top of my head. And I don't think there's anything wrong with there being an oversexualized character in a game, the problem comes when ALL female characters are oversexualized, and I don't think you can accuse Dragon Age of being that, at least not the first game.
On one hand, you have Leliana, who while a bit ditsy, is actually quite strong and never really asks for your help. The Warden has to insist on helping her and convinces her to confront Marjaline. Leliana also has her own unique DLC. We have Flemeth is is also a compelling character who is an old lady in robes (until DA2). Leliana is confident in her faith, starts off in a robe, and can be romanced by either sex. Wynne also is pretty non-sexualized and really only has flirty lines with Ogrin, the filthy, stinky, short dwarf who can't stick with a women cause of his ineptitude.
That's contrantrasted by Morrigan, who is assertive and aggresive, yet when is confronted by a challenge, is helpless before it. She practically begs the Warden for help and doesn't even go along to the confrontation. She also has two different armors that show off her tits.
Leliana, Flemeth, and Wynne were a step forward and Morrigan was a step back.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't sound like "step forward and step back", it sounds like "different characters doing things differently".
Yeah, I was going to post this too.
I don't really see anything wrong with Morrigan in DA1. I mean, yeah, she's oversexualized, but she is pretty much the only one to be that way that i can remember in that game off the top of my head. And I don't think there's anything wrong with there being an oversexualized character in a game, the problem comes when ALL female characters are oversexualized, and I don't think you can accuse Dragon Age of being that, at least not the first game.
there is a problem when all female characters are sexualized and there is a problem when all sexualized characters are female.
On one hand, you have Leliana, who while a bit ditsy, is actually quite strong and never really asks for your help. The Warden has to insist on helping her and convinces her to confront Marjaline. Leliana also has her own unique DLC. We have Flemeth is is also a compelling character who is an old lady in robes (until DA2). Leliana is confident in her faith, starts off in a robe, and can be romanced by either sex. Wynne also is pretty non-sexualized and really only has flirty lines with Ogrin, the filthy, stinky, short dwarf who can't stick with a women cause of his ineptitude.
That's contrantrasted by Morrigan, who is assertive and aggresive, yet when is confronted by a challenge, is helpless before it. She practically begs the Warden for help and doesn't even go along to the confrontation. She also has two different armors that show off her tits.
Leliana, Flemeth, and Wynne were a step forward and Morrigan was a step back.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't sound like "step forward and step back", it sounds like "different characters doing things differently".
Yeah, I was going to post this too.
I don't really see anything wrong with Morrigan in DA1. I mean, yeah, she's oversexualized, but she is pretty much the only one to be that way that i can remember in that game off the top of my head. And I don't think there's anything wrong with there being an oversexualized character in a game, the problem comes when ALL female characters are oversexualized, and I don't think you can accuse Dragon Age of being that, at least not the first game.
there is a problem when all female characters are sexualized and there is a problem when all sexualized characters are female.
I agree.
Leliana as a character, was sexually confident, but was not a sexualized character. Same with Wynne, she was obviously sexually active when she was younger, but that's not her character anymore.
Morrigan's outfits are nothing more than a play on titillation. She was aggressive in order to make her a "strong" character, but when confronted with a challenge, reverts into a damsel in distress. Morrigan plays three different sexist themes all in one, the sex symbol, the (male idea of the) feminist, and the damsel all at the same time.
The closest thing to a sexualized male was Zevran, but he doesn't walk around in a banana hamock the whole time to flaunt his intellect.
Mild Confusion on
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
On one hand, you have Leliana, who while a bit ditsy, is actually quite strong and never really asks for your help. The Warden has to insist on helping her and convinces her to confront Marjaline. Leliana also has her own unique DLC. We have Flemeth is is also a compelling character who is an old lady in robes (until DA2). Leliana is confident in her faith, starts off in a robe, and can be romanced by either sex. Wynne also is pretty non-sexualized and really only has flirty lines with Ogrin, the filthy, stinky, short dwarf who can't stick with a women cause of his ineptitude.
That's contrantrasted by Morrigan, who is assertive and aggresive, yet when is confronted by a challenge, is helpless before it. She practically begs the Warden for help and doesn't even go along to the confrontation. She also has two different armors that show off her tits.
Leliana, Flemeth, and Wynne were a step forward and Morrigan was a step back.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't sound like "step forward and step back", it sounds like "different characters doing things differently".
Yeah, I was going to post this too.
I don't really see anything wrong with Morrigan in DA1. I mean, yeah, she's oversexualized, but she is pretty much the only one to be that way that i can remember in that game off the top of my head. And I don't think there's anything wrong with there being an oversexualized character in a game, the problem comes when ALL female characters are oversexualized, and I don't think you can accuse Dragon Age of being that, at least not the first game.
there is a problem when all female characters are sexualized and there is a problem when all sexualized characters are female.
This.. is not the case in DA1. I had a ton of fun making sweet Dwarven manlove to that Elf assassin fellow.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
On one hand, you have Leliana, who while a bit ditsy, is actually quite strong and never really asks for your help. The Warden has to insist on helping her and convinces her to confront Marjaline. Leliana also has her own unique DLC. We have Flemeth is is also a compelling character who is an old lady in robes (until DA2). Leliana is confident in her faith, starts off in a robe, and can be romanced by either sex. Wynne also is pretty non-sexualized and really only has flirty lines with Ogrin, the filthy, stinky, short dwarf who can't stick with a women cause of his ineptitude.
That's contrantrasted by Morrigan, who is assertive and aggresive, yet when is confronted by a challenge, is helpless before it. She practically begs the Warden for help and doesn't even go along to the confrontation. She also has two different armors that show off her tits.
Leliana, Flemeth, and Wynne were a step forward and Morrigan was a step back.
Samara and Morinth were weird in contrast too. Samara is a millennium old justicar who had no hesitation to stomp on you neck and was so fucking awesome as a character. She's also pretty much the only character in the game who refused your advances. Yet she dresses like an 80's floozy with the swimsuit lines and open cleavage and heals. Morinth though, is the seductress and she dresses in a rather conservative turtle neck.
It's bizarre how Bioware keep contradicting it's stance on sexuality.
I don't know, I thought Morrigan's approach to dealing with her mother made a lot of sense and didn't really give me the vibe of helplessness or pity. It was just a really complicated problem that, as a practical approach, required her to keep her distance from Flemeth.
There's also the fact that Flemeth was obviously a harsh and abusive mom, and the idea of confronting her is understandably frightening, regardless of the circumstances.
I'm not going to argue that her appearance and outfits were not clearly designed for sex appeal, but personality wise I found her to be pretty interesting.
She's also one of the most intelligent members of your crew, as evidenced by how easily she sees through the fade dream, unlike most of your other crew.
If you want to point out a point where her character is unusually vulnerable, there's the romance path you can take with her. Get her approval high enough while also romancing her, and she flips out because she doesn't know how to handle having those kind of feelings, and starts freaking out when you want to join her in her tent.
That isn't entirely surprisingly though, considering there are other points where she also doesn't know how to respond to certain things. Like generosity. When you give her a mirror (one that looks like one from her story as a kid) she assumes you want something in return. If you refuse to ask for another, she gets kind of shocked like the idea of someone being nice for the sake of it sort of blows her mind.
I mean, the way Flemeth raised her, she obviously wasn't trained to have nice opinions about people, so I guess that sort of thing warps the worldview she was more or less trained into.
The closest thing to a sexualized male was Zevran, but he doesn't walk around in a banana hamock the whole time to flaunt his intellect.
But I thought we agreed that women don't necessarily need visually sexualized characters to find them sexually attractive.
I'm don't know. Twilight does show you can pander to women through visually sexualized males. Edward wears his shirts unbuttoned and we all know Jacobs thing I'm sure. I also remember my wife watching Ellen one time and she interviewed the Old Spice "I'm on a horse" guy and it was a thing too. Doesn't prove anything really, but I'll say this:
Woman can be just as shallow as men, just as men can be just as deep and thought provoking as women.
Personally, my favorite female game character of all time is Kreia. Minus the outfit and I'd follow that with Samara. I think I like females the most in games that are not written around being romanced by the main character. Anecdote is anecdotal. I have my own opinions about sex in video games that I've expressed in both the DA and ME thread.
@Goatmon I'd be more than happy to discuss what I think of Morrigan in the DA thread. Just toss me an "@" if you do please
Mild Confusion on
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
There are certainly good examples of female PC's in video games. Most of the Bioware games (KotOR, KotOR II, TOR, Jade Empire) have done well with female leads.
There are certainly good examples of female PC's in video games. Most of the Bioware games (KotOR, KotOR II, TOR, Jade Empire) have done well with female leads.
Heh, you're right. It's Obsidian Entertainment at Bioware's suggestion.
However, I would say that KotOR II had a very strong female character in Kreia in addition to the possibility of the female lead.
So with all the focus right now being on how Bioware handled sexuality in the Mass Effect series, is that really what you want to be focusing on in a discussion about getting more women interested in becoming gamers?
The fact that Bioware put a couple of homosexual characters into ME3 that were exclusively homosexual is really cool. It seems like everyone being straight or bi is more often the case.
I'll preemptively note that no one here is saying that slapping a couple token homosexual/female/minority characters into a game and calling it a day is sufficient; Bioware here is being presented as a developer that's moving in the right direction (particularly in comparison to its peers), not one that has achieved perfection.
Yup, this is what I appreciate about them, that they've shown a willingness to learn and improve. Follow takyris on Twitter, he's a great guy who's always looking to be more inclusive. Yes they made mistakes with how they handled ME1, but I think by 3 they were doing far, far better. Obviously I'm not in a position to say how well they wrote gay characters, and there are still definitely some flaws, but they're making improvements and keen to keep going in that direction. That's an attitude that should be applauded and encouraged.
I liked Cortez a lot in ME3. Aside from a couple dialog options that made me midly uncomfortable (new handle for me?), I loved him. I thought he was rather deep for a character they introduced in the last part of the trilogy. Especially since he was primarily made to be the "gay" character. I liked Traynor too (except for showers with clothes on).
What I like a lot about how they wrote Cortez was that he was a character that happened to be gay and not a gay character.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Because we all know people buy video games based on how many people they can sleep with in the game based on the gender they choose to play as.
Some things are business decisions. "Who can you sleep with" is a ridiculous sounding business decision. I'm going to buy Mass Effect 3 at some point when it's cheap. I loved Mass Effect 1 to death. I didn't like ME2 as much but I played it twice through. For a long time I lived in the Mass Effect thread. I made Mass Effect Facebook pages and read shitty Mass Effect expanded universe comics. And even I don't really have a handle on whether my male Shepard or female Shepard can potentially sleep with like, 3 people, or 4 people, or 2 people or what in ME3, and I won't really know until I play.
And you want me to believe that the millions of uninformed masses who make up the real sales numbers for games, the kind of people who Ken Levine refers to as frat boys and are thus the reason Bioshock Infinite's cover is boring, or the kind of people who know so little about games that Activision had to abandon their plan to drop "Call of Duty" from the cover of Modern Warfare 2 because people wouldn't realize it was a sequel to CoD 4... you're telling me these people buy games based on whether there are ENOUGH romance options? They would buy the game if there are 4 people their Male Shep could sleep with, but not if there were only 3?
That's... unlikely.
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
What really bothered me, before ME2 came out, was an interview I watched between some guy from.. I think the British OXM and Casey Hudson. They talked about weapons in the game, enemies, story and stuff, and then this guy asks "will there be more romance options?" received an affirmative, then combined "SWEEEEEEET!" with a fist-pump. I was livid. One of the things that has often bothered me is how those paths are called 'romances', when.. there's really very little that's romantic about them, certainly from the point of the player. You keep pestering your chosen subject then you get a sex cutscene at the end of it. That's not romance, that's harassment.
I think my problem with how the sex paths in Mass Effect are handled, is that they basically throw sex at you for being polite to people. I find myself actively thinking "well I don't want this to result in an accidental boinking, so I'm going to have to be rude to you". I've seen both my girlfriend and brother pick the wrong option at the wrong time, and end up flirting with a character they were just having a chat with. Because it's so rigidly defined (good/flirty, neutral, rude), it just feels like you're ticking off boxes.
The flipside is that there's no casual sex. Oh, did you have sex with someone? They are so totally IN to you man, like, you are their reason for living. The player character is free to be a total dick, but your romantic interest thinks the world of you.
Because we all know people buy video games based on how many people they can sleep with in the game based on the gender they choose to play as.
Some things are business decisions. "Who can you sleep with" is a ridiculous sounding business decision. I'm going to buy Mass Effect 3 at some point when it's cheap. I loved Mass Effect 1 to death. I didn't like ME2 as much but I played it twice through. For a long time I lived in the Mass Effect thread. I made Mass Effect Facebook pages and read shitty Mass Effect expanded universe comics. And even I don't really have a handle on whether my male Shepard or female Shepard can potentially sleep with like, 3 people, or 4 people, or 2 people or what in ME3, and I won't really know until I play.
And you want me to believe that the millions of uninformed masses who make up the real sales numbers for games, the kind of people who Ken Levine refers to as frat boys and are thus the reason Bioshock Infinite's cover is boring, or the kind of people who know so little about games that Activision had to abandon their plan to drop "Call of Duty" from the cover of Modern Warfare 2 because people wouldn't realize it was a sequel to CoD 4... you're telling me these people buy games based on whether there are ENOUGH romance options? They would buy the game if there are 4 people their Male Shep could sleep with, but not if there were only 3?
That's... unlikely.
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
What really bothered me, before ME2 came out, was an interview I watched between some guy from.. I think the British OXM and Casey Hudson. They talked about weapons in the game, enemies, story and stuff, and then this guy asks "will there be more romance options?" received an affirmative, then combined "SWEEEEEEET!" with a fist-pump. I was livid. One of the things that has often bothered me is how those paths are called 'romances', when.. there's really very little that's romantic about them, certainly from the point of the player. You keep pestering your chosen subject then you get a sex cutscene at the end of it. That's not romance, that's harassment.
This is why I'm surprised that the best video game romance I've ever encountered came from Japan. Xenogears, even with the fate/predestination/infinite return plot point, made the romance between Fei and Elly feel real. The characters started as enemies, became allies, then friends, then lovers. There was no "Keep pestering her and bribe her with gifts in order to make her cave in and fuck" mechanic. Instead, both characters changed and grew in believable ways as the plot progressed. A surprisingly mature take on romance from the land of tentacle porn and 'dating' sims. Equally surprising is that it wasn't used as a model going forward.
I'm also surprised that developers haven't copied/mimicked Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2. She's a capable young woman who looks believably like a young woman. She's attractive, but not sexualized. While she is reduced to 'damsel' status in Episode 2 (which is unfortunate), she is otherwise a comrade in arms throughout.
I think my problem with how the sex paths in Mass Effect are handled, is that they basically throw sex at you for being polite to people. I find myself actively thinking "well I don't want this to result in an accidental boinking, so I'm going to have to be rude to you". I've seen both my girlfriend and brother pick the wrong option at the wrong time, and end up flirting with a character they were just having a chat with. Because it's so rigidly defined (good/flirty, neutral, rude), it just feels like you're ticking off boxes.
I usually avoid the romances in Mass Effect. I just can't stand them, they are so akward.
I do like some of the casual options though. Like flirting with Emily Wong in ME1 and going on a date with Kelly in ME2. I avoid the "main" relationships like scale itch though. I got a galaxy to save!
Now that I think about it, do any of the characters express interest in Shepard's hobbies? Shepard likes collecting fish and model ships. I think Kelly is the only one to express any kind of interest is Shepard's personality (the fish).
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Because we all know people buy video games based on how many people they can sleep with in the game based on the gender they choose to play as.
Some things are business decisions. "Who can you sleep with" is a ridiculous sounding business decision. I'm going to buy Mass Effect 3 at some point when it's cheap. I loved Mass Effect 1 to death. I didn't like ME2 as much but I played it twice through. For a long time I lived in the Mass Effect thread. I made Mass Effect Facebook pages and read shitty Mass Effect expanded universe comics. And even I don't really have a handle on whether my male Shepard or female Shepard can potentially sleep with like, 3 people, or 4 people, or 2 people or what in ME3, and I won't really know until I play.
And you want me to believe that the millions of uninformed masses who make up the real sales numbers for games, the kind of people who Ken Levine refers to as frat boys and are thus the reason Bioshock Infinite's cover is boring, or the kind of people who know so little about games that Activision had to abandon their plan to drop "Call of Duty" from the cover of Modern Warfare 2 because people wouldn't realize it was a sequel to CoD 4... you're telling me these people buy games based on whether there are ENOUGH romance options? They would buy the game if there are 4 people their Male Shep could sleep with, but not if there were only 3?
That's... unlikely.
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
What really bothered me, before ME2 came out, was an interview I watched between some guy from.. I think the British OXM and Casey Hudson. They talked about weapons in the game, enemies, story and stuff, and then this guy asks "will there be more romance options?" received an affirmative, then combined "SWEEEEEEET!" with a fist-pump. I was livid. One of the things that has often bothered me is how those paths are called 'romances', when.. there's really very little that's romantic about them, certainly from the point of the player. You keep pestering your chosen subject then you get a sex cutscene at the end of it. That's not romance, that's harassment.
This is why I'm surprised that the best video game romance I've ever encountered came from Japan. Xenogears, even with the fate/predestination/infinite return plot point, made the romance between Fei and Elly feel real. The characters started as enemies, became allies, then friends, then lovers. There was no "Keep pestering her and bribe her with gifts in order to make her cave in and fuck" mechanic. Instead, both characters changed and grew in believable ways as the plot progressed. A surprisingly mature take on romance from the land of tentacle porn and 'dating' sims. Equally surprising is that it wasn't used as a model going forward.
I'm also surprised that developers haven't copied/mimicked Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2. She's a capable young woman who looks believably like a young woman. She's attractive, but not sexualized. While she is reduced to 'damsel' status in Episode 2 (which is unfortunate), she is otherwise a comrade in arms throughout.
Oh Lord, yes! Fei and Elly's relationship was amazing, especially for the time it came out. I wish so hard that Xenogears could be released on the IOS!
As for Alyx, I give that a pass. Gordon was also hurt and disabled by the hunter and had to be saved by the vortigaunt. Plus, Alyx did save Gordon in the very beginning of HL2.
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i really liked cortez in ME3. solid colleague, good at his job, easy to talk to. he was basically kaiden minus the horrible 'but cerberus, shepard' issues.
a couple of things i've seen/read in this thread that i'd like to pull up and discuss again:
-the concept of audience: we've all read countless 'defense of gaming' articles that trot out the fact that the average gamer is 30 years old, etc. The problem is, that statistic isn't reaching marketers at all. i mean, take the hilarious-if-completely-stupid "Your Mom Hates Dead Space" ad campaign for dead space 2. 1) it's an M-rated game. 2) if most games are being played by the median-age 30 year old gamer, why does he care what his mother thinks? (i bring up the dead space series because it germinated as a game that the developers wanted to play. it's a game specifically NOT designed for teens and the younger set of gamers - these devs are married dudes and ladies in their 30s.) so there's a clear disconnect between who the developers are making the game for, and who the marketers think the target audience is - in this case, clearly teenage boys who, still dependent on mom, actually care what she thinks about games (she might come in and see, oh no!)
you see this also with ken levine's statements about the cover of bioshock infinite. he's making the game with themes HE'D like to see in games, and we all love him for pushing the medium forward. but at the same time, people who spent a lot of money getting marketing degrees have convinced him that if you put a non-conventional protagonist on the cover, it's not gonna sell.
so at this point i think it's clear that while developers have moved forward on a lot of issues, marketers and publishers, always scared of change, are staying right where all the previous money has come from.
-sexism in games as a function of sexism in society: hearing about the amount of effort and stubbornness it took to let Trishka Novak have a non-ridiculous bust size is really depressing, but it's a reflection of the amount of ingrained sexism that appears in our culture. and the gaming industry, for a very long time, has acted as a distillery for this kind of sexism. let's say joe wants to be a concept artist. he's great at art, and his portfolio is full of buff guys and busty ladies, because that's what he's been mimicking all along. so when he gets hired at a studio and asked to design a set of characters....he's gonna draw buff guys and busty ladies, that's all he knows. besides, everyone likes boobs, right? (and he only feels comfortable asking that rhetorical question because all of his colleages are male, hyuk hyuk)
so the real issue is not just sexism and misogyny that's present in the gaming industry NOW. we're working on that, but if we want to see some real change, we've got to break the mold, in a very real sense. we've got to adjust the way we're forming our kids and teenagers. when they hit puberty, they're grasping at anything to tell them how to relate to the changes in their bodies and the bodies of their peers. right now, we don't take an active role in teaching this. instead, we let passive examples in media do it for us, with very poor results. (anyone here a former troll on the internet when they were a younger teen? remember how you thought it was so COOL, and now think 'wow, i was a complete idiot'? that's an example of appropriating the wrong role model.)
fortunately, we happen to have this wonderful activity called gaming that millions of teenagers happen to love. we've got their attention, and now we need to use it responsibly. let's have different protagonists. let's put players in others' shoes. let's put them in women's shoes. let's have games where casual sexism has clear consequences.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Thinking about it more, I can't help but wonder how much the achievement system has to do with awkward game romances. I mean, they're usually reduced to figurative notches on a belt (yay, +30 gamerscore!). That kind of completionist attitude just doesn't mesh with real, meaningful romance, but does fit the "I got her flowers, bought her dinner, took her to a movie... she owes me" mentality like a glove.
Not even five seconds into ME3 Admiral Hackett calles my Fem Shep fat...
I can't believe they didn't give a renegade choice right then and there... I mean I don't have to kill him... just let me make a witty retort or something geez...
It was actually great context though because it set me up for realistic expectations of how much I wouldn't care for the game as it continued.
I think my problem with how the sex paths in Mass Effect are handled, is that they basically throw sex at you for being polite to people. I find myself actively thinking "well I don't want this to result in an accidental boinking, so I'm going to have to be rude to you". I've seen both my girlfriend and brother pick the wrong option at the wrong time, and end up flirting with a character they were just having a chat with. Because it's so rigidly defined (good/flirty, neutral, rude), it just feels like you're ticking off boxes.
I always thought that the one valid reason to oppose adding homosexual romances to Bioware games. It becomes this weird homophobic situation that if you talk nicely to a gay person you are pretty much guaranteed to end up having anal sex.
Of course that merely reinforces how dumb the system is in the heterosexual case.
To be fair to Bioware, I'd guess that writing romances in such a way that they 1)are good and 2)give the player tons of options isn't exactly easy. I can see that a JRPG style game with a romance could be a better bet.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I think my problem with how the sex paths in Mass Effect are handled, is that they basically throw sex at you for being polite to people. I find myself actively thinking "well I don't want this to result in an accidental boinking, so I'm going to have to be rude to you". I've seen both my girlfriend and brother pick the wrong option at the wrong time, and end up flirting with a character they were just having a chat with. Because it's so rigidly defined (good/flirty, neutral, rude), it just feels like you're ticking off boxes.
I always thought that the one valid reason to oppose adding homosexual romances to Bioware games. It becomes this weird homophobic situation that if you talk nicely to a gay person you are pretty much guaranteed to end up having anal sex.
Of course that merely reinforces how dumb the system is in the heterosexual case.
To be fair to Bioware, I'd guess that writing romances in such a way that they 1)are good and 2)give the player tons of options isn't exactly easy. I can see that a JRPG style game with a romance could be a better bet.
Oh completely, it's a complaint I have against the game, but I think it's something that's there because Bioware are working to make their games dynamic and make your choices count. These are still very early days for that kind of content, so of course it still needs to progress and I think they want that just as much as the rest of us. But yeah, I had exactly that problem with talking to Cortez. I was like "you're a bro, you're upset, let's go hang out and talk because that's what friends do", but was constantly checking my conversation options so the game didn't decide for me that we were going to have sex instead of be pals.
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That seems like a business decision.
There are more straight people, and so they design characters around what will work most of the time.
More gay characters is definitely a good thing, although I didn't like how they went about it in DA2.
Rather than characters being straight or gay or bi, all of the potential romance characters will automatically swing whatever gender your Hawke is.
Some things are business decisions. "Who can you sleep with" is a ridiculous sounding business decision. I'm going to buy Mass Effect 3 at some point when it's cheap. I loved Mass Effect 1 to death. I didn't like ME2 as much but I played it twice through. For a long time I lived in the Mass Effect thread. I made Mass Effect Facebook pages and read shitty Mass Effect expanded universe comics. And even I don't really have a handle on whether my male Shepard or female Shepard can potentially sleep with like, 3 people, or 4 people, or 2 people or what in ME3, and I won't really know until I play.
And you want me to believe that the millions of uninformed masses who make up the real sales numbers for games, the kind of people who Ken Levine refers to as frat boys and are thus the reason Bioshock Infinite's cover is boring, or the kind of people who know so little about games that Activision had to abandon their plan to drop "Call of Duty" from the cover of Modern Warfare 2 because people wouldn't realize it was a sequel to CoD 4... you're telling me these people buy games based on whether there are ENOUGH romance options? They would buy the game if there are 4 people their Male Shep could sleep with, but not if there were only 3?
That's... unlikely.
I guess potentially it's a business decision by crazy people, but if that's the case then they need to stop making those decisions with "business" as their excuse because it's a horrid excuse.
Hey, criticism isn't dickishness, I'm happy to take it. I'm not sure I follow, though, because I feel like we're on the same wavelength? I'm saying my problem is the overall pattern more than any specific case or justification, and that I don't very much care if a given character is oversexualized (regardless of any justification) so long as they're an errant dot rather than (as it stands right now) a representative pixel in an awful picture. I don't mean to exempt any particular example for discussion, because—forest for the trees, you can't deal with a problem without dealing with its embodiment. Maybe I'm missing your point though?
I was just commenting on something I thought was cool. I wasn't slapping my hands together and saying "Welp, that fixes that."
I know you weren't; I figured someone would come in and accuse you of doing so. Hence "preemptively".
Yeah this is the particularly strange part for me.
That someone went into a business meeting for SWTOR, for example, and said, "look, we only have enough money for a limited amount of romances in this game. So let's make most of them for straight, white male players, they'll really be the players clamoring for that sort of thing", it boggles the mind.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Wait wait wait, whoa whoa, back it up there.
You mean Mass Effect isn't about being able to sodomize whatever, whoever, and however the game player wishes, with virtual orgasmic rape just a push button away?
Nice try, but I'm not being fooled that easily! You almost had me thinking you actually knew about the subject matter that you were talking about. :?
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't sound like "step forward and step back", it sounds like "different characters doing things differently".
Yeah, I was going to post this too.
I don't really see anything wrong with Morrigan in DA1. I mean, yeah, she's oversexualized, but she is pretty much the only one to be that way that i can remember in that game off the top of my head. And I don't think there's anything wrong with there being an oversexualized character in a game, the problem comes when ALL female characters are oversexualized, and I don't think you can accuse Dragon Age of being that, at least not the first game.
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I agree.
Leliana as a character, was sexually confident, but was not a sexualized character. Same with Wynne, she was obviously sexually active when she was younger, but that's not her character anymore.
Morrigan's outfits are nothing more than a play on titillation. She was aggressive in order to make her a "strong" character, but when confronted with a challenge, reverts into a damsel in distress. Morrigan plays three different sexist themes all in one, the sex symbol, the (male idea of the) feminist, and the damsel all at the same time.
The closest thing to a sexualized male was Zevran, but he doesn't walk around in a banana hamock the whole time to flaunt his intellect.
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But I thought we agreed that women don't necessarily need visually sexualized characters to find them sexually attractive.
I don't know, I thought Morrigan's approach to dealing with her mother made a lot of sense and didn't really give me the vibe of helplessness or pity. It was just a really complicated problem that, as a practical approach, required her to keep her distance from Flemeth.
There's also the fact that Flemeth was obviously a harsh and abusive mom, and the idea of confronting her is understandably frightening, regardless of the circumstances.
I'm not going to argue that her appearance and outfits were not clearly designed for sex appeal, but personality wise I found her to be pretty interesting.
She's also one of the most intelligent members of your crew, as evidenced by how easily she sees through the fade dream, unlike most of your other crew.
If you want to point out a point where her character is unusually vulnerable, there's the romance path you can take with her. Get her approval high enough while also romancing her, and she flips out because she doesn't know how to handle having those kind of feelings, and starts freaking out when you want to join her in her tent.
That isn't entirely surprisingly though, considering there are other points where she also doesn't know how to respond to certain things. Like generosity. When you give her a mirror (one that looks like one from her story as a kid) she assumes you want something in return. If you refuse to ask for another, she gets kind of shocked like the idea of someone being nice for the sake of it sort of blows her mind.
I mean, the way Flemeth raised her, she obviously wasn't trained to have nice opinions about people, so I guess that sort of thing warps the worldview she was more or less trained into.
I'm don't know. Twilight does show you can pander to women through visually sexualized males. Edward wears his shirts unbuttoned and we all know Jacobs thing I'm sure. I also remember my wife watching Ellen one time and she interviewed the Old Spice "I'm on a horse" guy and it was a thing too. Doesn't prove anything really, but I'll say this:
Woman can be just as shallow as men, just as men can be just as deep and thought provoking as women.
Personally, my favorite female game character of all time is Kreia. Minus the outfit and I'd follow that with Samara. I think I like females the most in games that are not written around being romanced by the main character. Anecdote is anecdotal. I have my own opinions about sex in video games that I've expressed in both the DA and ME thread.
@Goatmon I'd be more than happy to discuss what I think of Morrigan in the DA thread. Just toss me an "@" if you do please
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I don't really spend much time in G&T.
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:winky:
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Heh, you're right. It's Obsidian Entertainment at Bioware's suggestion.
However, I would say that KotOR II had a very strong female character in Kreia in addition to the possibility of the female lead.
So with all the focus right now being on how Bioware handled sexuality in the Mass Effect series, is that really what you want to be focusing on in a discussion about getting more women interested in becoming gamers?
You mean how it's ok to get an underaged teenager pregnant just because the 100 year old man looks good?
Remember kids, it's not pedophilia if you are attractive!
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Yup, this is what I appreciate about them, that they've shown a willingness to learn and improve. Follow takyris on Twitter, he's a great guy who's always looking to be more inclusive. Yes they made mistakes with how they handled ME1, but I think by 3 they were doing far, far better. Obviously I'm not in a position to say how well they wrote gay characters, and there are still definitely some flaws, but they're making improvements and keen to keep going in that direction. That's an attitude that should be applauded and encouraged.
But they got married, so it's okay, right?
What I like a lot about how they wrote Cortez was that he was a character that happened to be gay and not a gay character.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
What really bothered me, before ME2 came out, was an interview I watched between some guy from.. I think the British OXM and Casey Hudson. They talked about weapons in the game, enemies, story and stuff, and then this guy asks "will there be more romance options?" received an affirmative, then combined "SWEEEEEEET!" with a fist-pump. I was livid. One of the things that has often bothered me is how those paths are called 'romances', when.. there's really very little that's romantic about them, certainly from the point of the player. You keep pestering your chosen subject then you get a sex cutscene at the end of it. That's not romance, that's harassment.
Sabotaging your girlfriend's car because you don't want her to go hang out with her friends just shows that you care.
Also breaking into her bedroom and watching her sleep is romantic and not stalker-y at all.
I think in Alabama it's ok, sure.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
This is why I'm surprised that the best video game romance I've ever encountered came from Japan. Xenogears, even with the fate/predestination/infinite return plot point, made the romance between Fei and Elly feel real. The characters started as enemies, became allies, then friends, then lovers. There was no "Keep pestering her and bribe her with gifts in order to make her cave in and fuck" mechanic. Instead, both characters changed and grew in believable ways as the plot progressed. A surprisingly mature take on romance from the land of tentacle porn and 'dating' sims. Equally surprising is that it wasn't used as a model going forward.
I'm also surprised that developers haven't copied/mimicked Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2. She's a capable young woman who looks believably like a young woman. She's attractive, but not sexualized. While she is reduced to 'damsel' status in Episode 2 (which is unfortunate), she is otherwise a comrade in arms throughout.
I usually avoid the romances in Mass Effect. I just can't stand them, they are so akward.
I do like some of the casual options though. Like flirting with Emily Wong in ME1 and going on a date with Kelly in ME2. I avoid the "main" relationships like scale itch though. I got a galaxy to save!
Now that I think about it, do any of the characters express interest in Shepard's hobbies? Shepard likes collecting fish and model ships. I think Kelly is the only one to express any kind of interest is Shepard's personality (the fish).
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Oh Lord, yes! Fei and Elly's relationship was amazing, especially for the time it came out. I wish so hard that Xenogears could be released on the IOS!
As for Alyx, I give that a pass. Gordon was also hurt and disabled by the hunter and had to be saved by the vortigaunt. Plus, Alyx did save Gordon in the very beginning of HL2.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
a couple of things i've seen/read in this thread that i'd like to pull up and discuss again:
-the concept of audience: we've all read countless 'defense of gaming' articles that trot out the fact that the average gamer is 30 years old, etc. The problem is, that statistic isn't reaching marketers at all. i mean, take the hilarious-if-completely-stupid "Your Mom Hates Dead Space" ad campaign for dead space 2. 1) it's an M-rated game. 2) if most games are being played by the median-age 30 year old gamer, why does he care what his mother thinks? (i bring up the dead space series because it germinated as a game that the developers wanted to play. it's a game specifically NOT designed for teens and the younger set of gamers - these devs are married dudes and ladies in their 30s.) so there's a clear disconnect between who the developers are making the game for, and who the marketers think the target audience is - in this case, clearly teenage boys who, still dependent on mom, actually care what she thinks about games (she might come in and see, oh no!)
you see this also with ken levine's statements about the cover of bioshock infinite. he's making the game with themes HE'D like to see in games, and we all love him for pushing the medium forward. but at the same time, people who spent a lot of money getting marketing degrees have convinced him that if you put a non-conventional protagonist on the cover, it's not gonna sell.
so at this point i think it's clear that while developers have moved forward on a lot of issues, marketers and publishers, always scared of change, are staying right where all the previous money has come from.
-sexism in games as a function of sexism in society: hearing about the amount of effort and stubbornness it took to let Trishka Novak have a non-ridiculous bust size is really depressing, but it's a reflection of the amount of ingrained sexism that appears in our culture. and the gaming industry, for a very long time, has acted as a distillery for this kind of sexism. let's say joe wants to be a concept artist. he's great at art, and his portfolio is full of buff guys and busty ladies, because that's what he's been mimicking all along. so when he gets hired at a studio and asked to design a set of characters....he's gonna draw buff guys and busty ladies, that's all he knows. besides, everyone likes boobs, right? (and he only feels comfortable asking that rhetorical question because all of his colleages are male, hyuk hyuk)
so the real issue is not just sexism and misogyny that's present in the gaming industry NOW. we're working on that, but if we want to see some real change, we've got to break the mold, in a very real sense. we've got to adjust the way we're forming our kids and teenagers. when they hit puberty, they're grasping at anything to tell them how to relate to the changes in their bodies and the bodies of their peers. right now, we don't take an active role in teaching this. instead, we let passive examples in media do it for us, with very poor results. (anyone here a former troll on the internet when they were a younger teen? remember how you thought it was so COOL, and now think 'wow, i was a complete idiot'? that's an example of appropriating the wrong role model.)
fortunately, we happen to have this wonderful activity called gaming that millions of teenagers happen to love. we've got their attention, and now we need to use it responsibly. let's have different protagonists. let's put players in others' shoes. let's put them in women's shoes. let's have games where casual sexism has clear consequences.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I can't believe they didn't give a renegade choice right then and there... I mean I don't have to kill him... just let me make a witty retort or something geez...
It was actually great context though because it set me up for realistic expectations of how much I wouldn't care for the game as it continued.
I always thought that the one valid reason to oppose adding homosexual romances to Bioware games. It becomes this weird homophobic situation that if you talk nicely to a gay person you are pretty much guaranteed to end up having anal sex.
Of course that merely reinforces how dumb the system is in the heterosexual case.
To be fair to Bioware, I'd guess that writing romances in such a way that they 1)are good and 2)give the player tons of options isn't exactly easy. I can see that a JRPG style game with a romance could be a better bet.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Oh completely, it's a complaint I have against the game, but I think it's something that's there because Bioware are working to make their games dynamic and make your choices count. These are still very early days for that kind of content, so of course it still needs to progress and I think they want that just as much as the rest of us. But yeah, I had exactly that problem with talking to Cortez. I was like "you're a bro, you're upset, let's go hang out and talk because that's what friends do", but was constantly checking my conversation options so the game didn't decide for me that we were going to have sex instead of be pals.