[Lycaenion]

Hi guys,


I was recently discussing a topic with a few of my fellow students (we are all currently taking Gaming Culture classes) and I was wondering about this one thing: female characters in fighting games. What do we - male and female gamers - think of them?


What do you think of their usually impractical clothing, like short skirts and high heels? Do you even care that those sometimes even scantily clad women appear on our screens? Can female gamers identify with them? Do you mind that most of these women are big breasted and long-legged, often with model-like features?


Do you frown at jiggle physics, panty-shots and obvious fan service some of these women are put to use for? Do you roll your eyes whenever you see idiotic outfits - like bikini-like armour?


Do you think introducing more women characters with different kinds of bodies, like the male characters in TEKKEN and other fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter, would perhaps help balance the way male and female characters are portrayed?

Or maybe you don't think about female characters in games like this at all. Maybe it's all fine with you. I'd love to hear about that too.


I'm thinking of writing my final paper on this subject and wondered if there were gamers here who would like to share their opinion. If you could put your age and sex in your comments, that would help me get a feel for the discussion.


Thank you and I hope to have a fruitful discussion with you guys

This post has been edited by Lycaenion: 04 February 2014 - 03:51 PM

[Morgoth]

We've had discussions touching upon the subject before. Most recently here.

There's no reason not to start afresh though. I for one feel deeply embarassed and rather annoyed at the design of female characters in fighting games. The design issue is present in other genres too of course, but fighting games are by far the worst culprit. It's not even a fan service as most players of games these days are adults. I chose to believe that normal adults experience the same reaction I do.

When that is said I do not believe there is something inherently wrong with sexual content, or to include sex appeal in the design process. The problem arise when the sex appeal becomes the very heart of female character design, often to the point where body type and outfit makes close combat fighting physically impossible.

[amphibian]

Focusing on the depiction of women in the sub-set of fighting games is kind of bracketing your target within a very small range and making sure at least half of them have objectionable content.

I'm not a big gamer. I'm usually five or six years behind the curve and I often choose to do other things than play videogames. However, I've stopped playing/buying fighting games since Tekken Tag, which came out when I was in my mid-teens. Most of that retrospective course of action isn't a high-minded "this treatment of women characters is stupid/wrong and I'm not using my money to signal that I want more of this". It's mostly a function of there being better games out there and never getting much into the online gaming world. I'm almost always a solo off-line player and I like my stories to be deep - which somewhat explains my presence here in the Malazan forums.

In deeper stories, the women characters don't usually get the ludicrous treatment that the games you're thinking of writing your essay about give to their women characters. For example, in Dark Souls, the gender of the character matters not one bit and being this gender or that gender only changes slightly some of the visual presentation of the chosen outfits (which are never sexually suggestive).

I think there's a function of the "catering to the audience that actually buys the product" going on in the fighting game sub-set that drives women to be depicted as such. There's essentially no demand for a deep storyline (the StreetFighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Virtua Fighter series have stories about as deep as a toddler's cereal bowl), the mechanics of character combat matter strongly (balancing character moves, creating the input/output systems etc.) and the "quick sell" features usually become the dominant marketing tools. The quick sells are targeted to basically what the Magic: The Gathering crowd has defined as the psychographic profiles of players:

http://www.wizards.c...om/daily/mr220b

http://www.wizards.c...com/daily/mr278

Pulling off a sweet fireball, beating everyone else, expressing one's identity as a player of this particular character or playing with attention to the story (albeit shallow) are all things that are quickly touched upon in marketing campaigns and thus within the games themselves. That's how they prime the audience to potentially buy their games and validate the decision to fund the game's creation and production in the first place.

What's not said in those Magic articles (for a combination of reasons) is that T&A within a decent/good product can sell well with a particular crowd that has disposable money that could be handed over to said suppliers of the decent/good product containing T&A. In this case, the adolescent to twenties males who usually comprise the fighting game audience do seem to reward the introduction/presence of T&A levels that go beyond the subtle to the "oh, it's right there in your face" levels. The T&A will usually be shown as a quick hit on top of the Timmy, Johnny, Spike and Vorthos quick hits.

I don't know the data, but considering that the beach volleyball and the basically naked combat games haven't and aren't selling well or being supplied extensively means that there's a point in which there's too much T&A to make even a decent game worthwhile for the game-buying audience or perhaps the point is where the T&A doesn't make up for the bad game mechanics.

I stopped paying attention to most of the abysmally handled examples of T&A in games and buy games that appeal to me - which almost always don't have the aforementioned bad T&A - and that seems to work out for me. If a significant percentage of gamers did as I do, it'd force a production shift in a much less messy and smooth fashion - if the gamemakers are paying attention to that and not focused on narrow-mindedly wanking themselves and their otaku friends off.

Basically, I think it's kinda wrong to have videogame women depicted as Ivy is in SoulCalibur, but instead of making a fuss about it or worse yet, repeating what thousands of people have said before and with better language and concepts, I'm just buying games that don't have those things in it.

That being said, the covering of Quelaag's teats still puzzled me. It makes no sense artistically and serves as a jarring moment in an otherwise mostly brilliant game.

[Morgoth]

Quote

Basically, I think it's kinda wrong to have videogame women depicted as Ivy is in SoulCalibur, but instead of making a fuss about it or worse yet, repeating what thousands of people have said before and with better language and concepts, I'm just buying games that don't have those things in it.

Why would objecting to something one finds offensive be worse because many others have objected to the same thing in the past? If anything, adding your own voice should help adding weight, if only a very small amount.

[Bulwyf]

I would have chosen something like "I notice it and approve" but there was no option that wasn't condescending.

Fighting games are not real life sims. There aren't really cyborgs, androids, zombies, mutants, lizardmen, people who can throw fireballs, etc etc etc. There will never be a real life situation where a martial arts contest determines the fate of the world. It's fantasy/fiction, it doesn't have to be real life accurate.

I haven't really played many fighting games in the last 15ish years, so I don't remember a lot of the characters and their descriptions. I do remember E.Honda the fat sumo wrestler, and Cammy the smaller breasted athletic type (although I did just google her and they may have increased her breast size over the years, or those might just be fan pics). Other than that, all the men were pretty much ripped beyond belief as well, more so than not just your average gamer, but a physically active gamer. What are some examples of the varying male body types I'm forgetting besides ripped, or 1/2 giant ripped?

I know the issue isn't exclusive only to fighting games, but that's what this particular discussion seems to be focused on. As long as a majority of gamers are male, that's who corporations are going to cater to. Fighting games are also more poplular with male gamers, so it's even more in the interest of the designers to cater to. I know male gamers who when have the choice, will chose a female avatar because they'd rather look at an attractive woman than at a muscle bound dude's backside. Some people don't care about "connecting" with the avatar (fighter) on the screen.

Male, early 30's.
Some specific answers to questions in bold below:

Lycaenion, on 04 February 2014 - 12:46 PM, said:

Hi guys,


I was recently discussing a topic with a few of my fellow students (we are all currently taking Gaming Culture classes) and I was wondering about this one thing: female characters in fighting games. What do we - male and female gamers - think of them?


What do you think of their usually impractical clothing, like short skirts and high heels? Do you even care that those sometimes even scantily clad women appear on our screens? Can female gamers identify with them? Do you mind that most of these women are big breasted and long-legged, often with model-like features?
I prefer the impractical clothing, although I think high heels are stupid and unnecessary real life as well. As I said before, it's all so unrealistic/fiction/fantasy anyways. You don't have to be of the same body type to identify with a fictional character. I'm not a robot, or lizardman, and can't shoot lightning bolts from my hands, but manage to get by just fine "relating/identifying" with game characters. I prefer model like avatars.

Do you frown at jiggle physics, panty-shots and obvious fan service some of these women are put to use for? Do you roll your eyes whenever you see idiotic outfits - like bikini-like armour?
I don't really care if it's there or not, but if it was an option in the menu, I'd probably have it turned on. Sometimes it's funny how blatantly obvious a certain camera angle or something is.

Do you think introducing more women characters with different kinds of bodies, like the male characters in TEKKEN and other fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter, would perhaps help balance the way male and female characters are portrayed?
Balance? Not really, How many fat and balding, or pencil thin acne nerdy type characters are there? Is there even a variable male body type besides super ripped? (besides E.Honda who is even ripped for a sumo character?)

Or maybe you don't think about female characters in games like this at all. Maybe it's all fine with you. I'd love to hear about that too.


I'm thinking of writing my final paper on this subject and wondered if there were gamers here who would like to share their opinion. If you could put your age and sex in your comments, that would help me get a feel for the discussion.


Thank you and I hope to have a fruitful discussion with you guys

[amphibian]

Morgoth, on 04 February 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

Why would objecting to something one finds offensive be worse because many others have objected to the same thing in the past? If anything, adding your own voice should help adding weight, if only a very small amount.

Because of something called narrative policies. The "story" being applied to this by the people involved is what drives their positions. In the past two weeks, I've read a terrific book called Narrative Policy Analysis by Emery Roe that makes a ton of sense about stuff like this and with governmental/large organization problems in supplying people the right balance between what they need and what they want (jobs, clean environment, power, water, food etc.).

The people continuing to make the games with sexist or racist components have decided that they're going to stick to doing that until it stops paying. The story driving this course of action is that they're not doing anything wrong, that this is just fun and that if people are buying it, then they're fully in the clear supplying these things. There's a very vocal segment of the gaming audience that nearly screams to be able to have these things and they often blend together with the creators into an overall narrative of "We're producing it/buying it, it's fine and mind your own business." That's a story that's hard to change if I or others continually get them irritated, sticking to their positions and both sides get bogged down in minutiae on whether Sarkeesian bought a particular and expensive pair of shoes or not (she probably didn't).

It's much like the Botswanan government which decided that communal regulation of cattle pastures was inefficient, prone to corruption and holding the country's economic progress back - despite considerable statistical and economic research which showed that it was as efficient or more efficient than private regulation, not usually troubled by corruption and was better for the country than private regulation. The story was that communal regulation was lesser than private regulation, that a capitalistic approach was better in this instance and that story became policy for well over thirty years despite the science and pudding proof of less cattle being produced than expected and diminishing quality of the pasturelands.

It's a tactic often used by political parties - Southern American Republicans (and those of other parties) often say something along the lines of "immigration needs to be tightened up because we're having problems X, Y and Z and we need walls/a near-police state to combat them", when problems X, Y and Z are usually more caused by demand for illegal drugs, bad budgetary work in the past, the not-healthy medical system here and so on. There's tons of research on how Mexican-Americans, whether legal or illegal, actually pay more into the systems than they take out, but the science doesn't change the story the hucksters are hucking.

Changing the story is sometimes more important than saying or pointing to the truth.

Instead of publicly objecting and continuing to cement the position of these game creators/buyers and/or give them media attention, I choose to buy the products of those doing better things and to poke fun at the absurdities of the conflict - which is an approach Roe recommends (first, make fun of what you can to allow healing and moving on to occur, then formulate a better story, then spread that story until it hopefully becomes the new narrative policy).

[Dolmen 2.0]

"Rule number one about Female characters in fighting games. Never talk about female characters in fighting games."

Kidding ofcourse, an interesting study. I Play fighting games alot.

I'm 26 in a few days and I can say I have enjoyed the genre since I was maybe 7?

I think the spectacle is overdone. There is a place for it but its not taking the game industry anywhere.

So I will rant on this a bit. You were warned.

[Rant]

Over the years I find that fighting games are all inherently broken.

The main draw to a fighting game is the spectacle of impossible and outrageous violence that both horrifies and impresses. Fighting games are the Colosseum of the video game world and a lot of analogies from roman times translate. For starters we are never really meant to identify too strongly with the amount of damage we are inflicting. If you take a move like the Hadouken for example. Its a move that effectively hurls a burning ball of chi. The theory behind it is arcane and quite deep but the basic outcome is a happy graphic that causes distance damage. the move is not realistic, it's merely an expression of the combatants strategy. throw an attack and force a reaction. there should be far more consequence to this. It should be a tough call to pull of such a super human feat, just as tough a call to face it. If I throw a fireball at you, you would catch on fire and very likely get hospitalized if not die. Your counter measure should be just as involved and stemming from a deeper theory.

Graphics and game mechanics in a normal game usually strive to give it fidelity but in a fighting game that fidelity can't be true fidelity. There is generally no true attempt at realism. Mortal Kombat and Injustice GAU are examples of games that want to explore this but its still not very realistic. According to many developers it can't be. "The fight would not last long enough" or the "mechanic would be too complicated", "you would not have much of a story" etc.

So the logic behind fighting games is already paper thin. A successfull game these days makes sure you do NOT dwell on this lack of involvement.

So here we are at a paradox. where most games dump their wonder wand (graphics) onto making new games feel as real as possible, fighting games fall into the category of making the games look as over-the-top and unbelievable as possible. The roman Gladiators were picked more for presence than for actual fighting ability. the Crowd always appreciate the dreadful looking or the most handsome looking, never the average joe racking up kills and surviving. That was never enough. Also they wanted to see the best and most diverse engagements. two men carrying swords was a waste of time. they liked to see whips and blade versus net and trident. irregularity was key to the spectacle. This perception of combat-sport continues to this day. The UFC often shows that the boring but technically amazing fighters are often betted against because no one wants to see a boring Champion. Fighters like Silva are the type of fighters People want to come and see! Similarly Muhamed Ali or Mike Tyson are favourites while the real wonder-men, the Joe lewis' or manny pacquiaos maintain a different fan base entirely because its the technique that impresses and not the personality. So we see the split extends to Fighting games. More money in spectacle and neglect of the truly impressive innovation of mechanic.

For the spectacle developers the answer to the core flaw in fighting games is naturally to have more boobs, lots of them in as diverse an array as possible. This keeps the attention on the characters, their different useless quirks and their story, which normally has nothing to offer the game itself. Fighting Games Pander to distract us from realizing they willfully avoid the core flaw in almost all fighting games. Its the same crap with a new bunch of faces!

The best fighting game experience for me to this day has always been somewhere between Knockout kings and a less ridiculous version of DefJam. (I have not truly played a UFC game but what I see I think is close to what should be happening). None of these games are a favourite for me, but I appreciate the slow gradation of ability and skill, hits take a toll. accepting them takes a toll, countering takes skill. Characters get punch drunk, have a lower resistance to certain attacks etc. This is accurate hand to hand theory. There is no distraction to the perfect imbalance between characters.

sexy combat can be a thing, it should be good sexy combat though. Honestly after a beating, no one looks sexy so its an unnecessary break from the immersion but hey theres people with that taste. I'd enjoy observing a knock out Queens or Queens of Muay thai variant where we only see women face each other in a sports arena or cage match environment. Women have skill and excell at aspects of fighting men struggle with and vice versa. I'd like to see a game explore that. Heck a mixed free for all is just as welcome, perhaps not very PC but thats the kind of free oppurtunity that would add to the game rather than detract from it. As far as I'm concerned the mainstream pandering of fighting games is an embarrassment. They KNOW they should be pushing the genre, and none of the big industry names has the guts to do it. I hope to see a game like tekken start to tackle realistic patterns of combat and get over Christies hot-pants.

I don't see that happening though and still enjoy the competitive skill involved in playing the mainstream games. I lose hours competing with my brother and that's the real spirit behind a fighting game for me. not the story nor the graphics. Pure competitiveness, and the thrill of achieving awesome things with odds stacked against you. This is why most people play any game at all and Fighting games excell at this. Sexualization of females I think is a cop out. I would not mind sexualization if that was the point of a game. But it isn't and I find it a waste of effort to make things jiggle, but hey we have the tech so its gonna be there. we should move on. Lets try fix the core issue, now rather than keep spending money on games that look all types of power-puff but do nothing more than keep you oggling the health bar.

I'd want a mastery of game mechanics that in and of themselves bring the spectacle. Fighting Game developers like Tekken should tune down playing to fan-service, and take up the real challenge. developing truly immersive and realistic combat will sell in the long run. I think its sad EA are the only ones exploring this option and doing a good job of it. There should be more of this in all corners of the industry. Violence and sexy are disturbingly connected but I think are happier seperate, feel not much gets done if they stay linked.

[/Rant]

[Lycaenion]

Bulwyf, on 04 February 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

I would have chosen something like "I notice it and approve" but there was no option that wasn't condescending.

Fighting games are not real life sims. There aren't really cyborgs, androids, zombies, mutants, lizardmen, people who can throw fireballs, etc etc etc. There will never be a real life situation where a martial arts contest determines the fate of the world. It's fantasy/fiction, it doesn't have to be real life accurate.

I haven't really played many fighting games in the last 15ish years, so I don't remember a lot of the characters and their descriptions. I do remember E.Honda the fat sumo wrestler, and Cammy the smaller breasted athletic type (although I did just google her and they may have increased her breast size over the years, or those might just be fan pics). Other than that, all the men were pretty much ripped beyond belief as well, more so than not just your average gamer, but a physically active gamer. What are some examples of the varying male body types I'm forgetting besides ripped, or 1/2 giant ripped?

I know the issue isn't exclusive only to fighting games, but that's what this particular discussion seems to be focused on. As long as a majority of gamers are male, that's who corporations are going to cater to. Fighting games are also more poplular with male gamers, so it's even more in the interest of the designers to cater to. I know male gamers who when have the choice, will chose a female avatar because they'd rather look at an attractive woman than at a muscle bound dude's backside. Some people don't care about "connecting" with the avatar (fighter) on the screen.

Male, early 30's.
Some specific answers to questions in bold below:

Lycaenion, on 04 February 2014 - 12:46 PM, said:

Hi guys,


I was recently discussing a topic with a few of my fellow students (we are all currently taking Gaming Culture classes) and I was wondering about this one thing: female characters in fighting games. What do we - male and female gamers - think of them?


What do you think of their usually impractical clothing, like short skirts and high heels? Do you even care that those sometimes even scantily clad women appear on our screens? Can female gamers identify with them? Do you mind that most of these women are big breasted and long-legged, often with model-like features?
I prefer the impractical clothing, although I think high heels are stupid and unnecessary real life as well. As I said before, it's all so unrealistic/fiction/fantasy anyways. You don't have to be of the same body type to identify with a fictional character. I'm not a robot, or lizardman, and can't shoot lightning bolts from my hands, but manage to get by just fine "relating/identifying" with game characters. I prefer model like avatars.

Do you frown at jiggle physics, panty-shots and obvious fan service some of these women are put to use for? Do you roll your eyes whenever you see idiotic outfits - like bikini-like armour?
I don't really care if it's there or not, but if it was an option in the menu, I'd probably have it turned on. Sometimes it's funny how blatantly obvious a certain camera angle or something is.

Do you think introducing more women characters with different kinds of bodies, like the male characters in TEKKEN and other fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter, would perhaps help balance the way male and female characters are portrayed?
Balance? Not really, How many fat and balding, or pencil thin acne nerdy type characters are there? Is there even a variable male body type besides super ripped? (besides E.Honda who is even ripped for a sumo character?)

Or maybe you don't think about female characters in games like this at all. Maybe it's all fine with you. I'd love to hear about that too.


I'm thinking of writing my final paper on this subject and wondered if there were gamers here who would like to share their opinion. If you could put your age and sex in your comments, that would help me get a feel for the discussion.


Thank you and I hope to have a fruitful discussion with you guys

I added the option you wanted to be in the poll BTW. I'm specifically focusing on TEKKEN because we are supposed to focus on one game in particular and TEKKEN has many different kinds of male characters. Yes you have the super ripped dudes, but you also have grandpas and Bruce Lee look-a-likes (and he wasn't uber muscular). There's much more variation when it comes to the men. The women are all of the same variety: hot teen/20 something (even when they are older they look in their twenties.) I'd like to see a elderly woman, a sumo type female wrestler, or whatever. Anything more than just a panda and a kangaroo. (Yes, TEKKEN can be quite silly)

I love fighting games, and I used to ignore the way the women looked because that was normal. Only, is this what normal is supposed to be like? I find myself getting more and more irritated at nearly-naked women in fighting games. The least they could do is change the wardrobe. Or like you said, add an option of not having those clothes.

[QuickTidal]

I think Amph has hit upon my exact feelings about this.

At age 37 and having played fighting games of one sort or another since STREET FIGHTER II in High School...I notice this...and I think it's gotten worse over the last decade to be honest. There have always been characters like Ivy in Soul Caliber, or her ilk who are always given some new facet of revealing (usually while dialing something else back). But it fluctuates, and Apmh is right this REALLY has most to do with the demographic who plays round fighting games. I don't know what the stats are for female to male players of the games, but I'd wager it weighs in favour of male players historically. Then you narrow that down even more to the demographic of males who play these games A LOT...and that falls into the teenage male to early 20's (normally)...and those guys are never going to be "bothered" enough to complain about such things. So it's not gonna change...unless the stats in 2014 swing to include a lot more female round-fighting game gamers...because if that were the case you'd hear more of an outcry about the representation and clothing.

As to myself, I think even in my late teens I recognized how ridiculous some/most female characters are attired in Fighting Games. I'd even point it out when playing with friends...but I'd be lying if I said I bothered to do anything progressive about it. I just played the game and moved on. I should note though that I HATED playing as Ivy in SOUL CALIBER as I found her to be SO over the top in the ridiculous scanty clothing department that it made me feel skeevy. So I suppose there is a level in which even a typical teen male can be disgusted by such things. Note: I always played as Sophitia because I liked the Valkyrie armor look and her gladius sword but in later games even her outift got scanty.

But you can certainly see the progression from the (looking back at them) more clothed Chun-Li (ignoring blatant panty shots), and Sakura...with current fighting game equivalents that are much more ludicrous.

Let's look at KILLER INSTINCT on the XBox One (as it's current)

http://www.killerins...one-wallpapers/

So here we have three major female characters...only ONE of whom is attired in something they could fight in....and they've decided to scrawl HOT down the side of that outfit. Yeesh. I mean that's herculean levels of idiocy. The designers out to be ashamed. But the game will still sell to its intended demographic I guess.

Now let's go to the game I've always thought of as more demure...

STREET FIGHTER IV

http://www.streetfighter.com/us/usfiv

And we have new characters....one of whom is attired in a crop top tank top (barely restraining her boobs), booty jean shorts, and a chain for a belt. *facepalm* I don't even...oh wait here's a progressive character, A female African character...who has been attired in a few thin strips of cloth twisted to strategically cover...only bits of her. I can't even look anymore.

...and I just spent ten minutes trying to find a new or older round fighting game with decently clad women in them and failed miserably.

And now I'm just sad.

But yeah, it really comes down to the male demographic who mostly play these either don't care or don't mind.

It would be cool for someone to go against the grain and make a fighting game with characters who are attired to fight and not titillate.

[Tarthenal Theloman Toblakai]

looking at how popular Cosplays are becoming (gorgeous ladies dressing up as these scantily clad videogame characters and anime characters) and of course guys dressing up (much like on the Big Bang Theory actually) I don't think these characters are going away. Cosplay is becoming more popular to the masses because of the super attractive ladies portraying them and this is essentially free advertising for a start. I think as the crazy costumes become more well known (like Princess Leah (spelling here?!?) in the Gold Bikini) the games will continue to include them with silly wobbly physics. I must admit I haven't read all the posts here but I feel this may be a valid point for your discussion, as it looks at the more popular culture angle of the characters. These characters have existed for years now and with the anime scene getting more and more popular too (and FAR FAR FAR more rediculous IMO) I think this is here to stay.

And to be fair, a curvaceous woman being portrayed in a game is a hell of a lot better than the size 4 'models' used in make up adverts etc that need to get some food in em and do some squats, if we are discussing the female image IMO. But this can also extend to the male characters (more in films though), they are all crazy handsome, and all have 6 packs and amazing bodies, most of the ladies bodies portrayed in films and gaming would be gained from some excercise, and a healthy diet. The male bodies portrayed require years of gym training and VERY careful diets, so the coin is certainly two sided in the 'unrealistic body image' category.

I think i have come across in the helpful way I hope I have, I don't want anybody to think I have come here to try to spark an argument, i just have strong opinions about things haha. Hope I might have helped in some small way here!

[Bulwyf]

Lycaenion, on 04 February 2014 - 04:04 PM, said:

I added the option you wanted to be in the poll BTW. I'm specifically focusing on TEKKEN because we are supposed to focus on one game in particular and TEKKEN has many different kinds of male characters. Yes you have the super ripped dudes, but you also have grandpas and Bruce Lee look-a-likes (and he wasn't uber muscular). There's much more variation when it comes to the men. The women are all of the same variety: hot teen/20 something (even when they are older they look in their twenties.) I'd like to see a elderly woman, a sumo type female wrestler, or whatever. Anything more than just a panda and a kangaroo. (Yes, TEKKEN can be quite silly)

I love fighting games, and I used to ignore the way the women looked because that was normal. Only, is this what normal is supposed to be like? I find myself getting more and more irritated at nearly-naked women in fighting games. The least they could do is change the wardrobe. Or like you said, add an option of not having those clothes.

I understand what you're saying, but I think you have a few things besides sex apeal and the companies devolping games targeting the young male market against your stand (which I agree, sucks for you if that's what you want):

Stereotyping and cost effectiveness. A certain number of characters are designed based on "fighting style/martial arts style." There's stereo types that go along with that. Sumo: You basically think "fat Japanese guy." The sumo characters are typically a minority in regards to player favorites to begin with. They're basically there to add some variety (which now that I mention it could be a curious sub-study to your article, are the "fatter, less attractive male characters less popular because of appearance, or are their fighting styles less flashy, making the player not want to emulate it, or a third option, is the fighting style less flashy because it's based off real life fighting style of fat dudes?). ...anyways, back on track: So your "sumo" slot is taken up by the stereotypical fat japanese guy, players probably aren't buying the game to play as that character (or maybe they are in specific regions like Japan) the companies are investing in character development and backstory, they're unlikely to invest resources for a female version of the same character.

...and the "old ninja master" stereotype as well, or old drunken master. Historically speaking your not going to see any old Martial arts masters being women because the women of the era were all bowing, and serving men in that era in those long dresses that made them walk with like 4 inch strides (which I hope I'm not coming off as condoning that, I'm not as big an asshole as I'm probably coming off sounding like in these replies). Fighters like any athletes are in their prime young. That's what you're going to see. Tekken has older characters because they put so much time passing between games, you have fighters children grown up taking their place, or new characters taking their place, unless the character was "critical" to the story. I'd like to see a real life person Heihachi's age with as much muscle mass as him, let alone be able to jump up like two stories high. Speaking of which, Heihachi was one of my favorite characters in Tekken, personally it didn't really matter to me that he was old or young, but as I think I've stated I don't really care what the avatar looks like.

Like I mentioned before, I haven't really played fighting games in many years, I played Tekken 2 a lot (what I played mainly in the franchise), I think Tekken 3 a bunch too, I believe I bought Tekken Tag and played it a little, by then it was pretty much the same old same old and I was on the steep decline with fighting games. I can add to your point though that they could add a female sumo in a similar manor that they had the boss for "King" (I forget their names, the wrestler with the lion mask, and his boss had a panther mask or something?) They were basically the same character, the moves were different, but based off same fighting technique. I think they had to produce CG endings for the boss characters etc, so again I guess it would have to go off demand. Personally I wouldn't care, and would probably prefer if they made a female sumo instead of a male. It would be something different.


Something else that may be interesting for your article, where you may even want to change your game selection: The Dead or Alive franchise. It's a franchise that is blatantly obvious to the extreme about the sex appeal. Probably close to half of the characters are female, and most of the best fighters are female. The very first game had options in the menu, I think one was a correlation between "player age" and "breast size" (that might have been a rumor or something, I don't really remember and I don't remember the breast size actually changing) and one was "bouncing breast on/off." They took the option out by the 2nd game and the bouncing was always on. <on a side note, DoA2 was probably my favorite fighting game, but because of the engine not the overly scantly clad fighters, it was a paper/rock/scissors style gameplay and my friend and I played often and the matches got pretty epic and lasted a long time as we were pretty evenly matched and reversing/countering moves.>

Basically I think I can sum up all that I just spewed out a little simpler:

Gamers are predominantly male, the fighting game market is even more predominantly male. I know women who will play them, but would buy something else given the chance. Even among men, it seems like the target audience is young men/boys. When I was in middle school/High school, fighting games were probably my genre of choice. College I played them, but that's around when I guess I'd started burning out. I think another poster here eluded to something similar, playing them more in his youth. If I'm playing the game and had the choice, yes I'd choose to have "eye candy." Does it make a break a game for me? No. I sympathise for you, but I feel like it's not cost effective for the companies to appease a small fraction outside of the target market in this instance.

[D'rek]

The only fighting games I've played enough to remember are Soul Calibur 2 and Dynasty Warriors 4 - both of which are from about 10 years or so. I never really had a problem with the depiction of the female characters in either of those.

Soul Calibur 2 had the infamous dominatrix outfit for Ivy, but the whole game was silly/over-the-top enough in a comic way that I didn't feel it was offensive - Voldo and the giant axe guy had weird dungeon-porn outfits too. Mina also had a really revealing outfit, but the guy characters Kilik and Maxi had 'ripped' shirtless/open jacket costumes, too. At the same time, there were both female and male characters that had much more modest body types and attire, too - I used to always play as Xianghua or Talim, who both had outfits that were a big aesthetically outlandish, but neither had very sexulaized clothes and their bodies were pretty ordinarily shaped. Furthermore, the crazy over-the-top stuff wasn't always sexualized stuff - there's a crazy pirate guy and a hyperactive samurai, for example. It is a good point that you made up-thread that none of the really 'crazy' characters are female, I hadn't really thought about that before.

Dynasty Warriors 4 didn't, IMO, have any problems with its depictions of female characters, except for maybe putting 12-year-olds on the battlefield Arguably Zhu Rong was a little indecent, but that's far more to do with the whole jungle barbarian aesthetic they used for the whole Nanman group, as her husband has similar costumes and their basic soldiers are pretty much just wearing loinclothes sometimes! The only problem I noticed when I played it when I was younger was that there were far fewer female characters to choose from. Then I read the books it's based on and realized that was the book itself, and that Koei was pretty much actively choosing to put *more* female characters in by including the girls who had pretty much no part in the story.

So there are definitely fighting games out there that can be very successful without, IMO, having unrealistic jiggle physics and sexualizing all their female characters. The problem is, that I never played any games in these series after SC2 and DW4... and apparently it has gotten much worse. Haven't played them, so it's hard to be sure, but just from google image searching these series it looks like all the SC girls now have a minimum D-sized breasts, and the DW outfits have definitely trended towards much more revealing+alluring costumes (while the guys have overall gotten younger and muscleyer). Likewise, google image searching Tekken characters doesn't look very diverse or balanced, either. I'm glad that when I was playing fighting games it was 10 years ago, because if I were playing the ones that are coming out now, I would indeed be pissed off about it.

[Khellendros]

D, on 04 February 2014 - 06:03 PM, said:

The only fighting games I've played enough to remember are Soul Calibur 2 and Dynasty Warriors 4 - both of which are from about 10 years or so. I never really had a problem with the depiction of the female characters in either of those.

Soul Calibur 2 had the infamous dominatrix outfit for Ivy, but the whole game was silly/over-the-top enough in a comic way that I didn't feel it was offensive - Voldo and the giant axe guy had weird dungeon-porn outfits too. Mina also had a really revealing outfit, but the guy characters Kilik and Maxi had 'ripped' shirtless/open jacket costumes, too. At the same time, there were both female and male characters that had much more modest body types and attire, too - I used to always play as Xianghua or Talim, who both had outfits that were a big aesthetically outlandish, but neither had very sexulaized clothes and their bodies were pretty ordinarily shaped. Furthermore, the crazy over-the-top stuff wasn't always sexualized stuff - there's a crazy pirate guy and a hyperactive samurai, for example. It is a good point that you made up-thread that none of the really 'crazy' characters are female, I hadn't really thought about that before.

Dynasty Warriors 4 didn't, IMO, have any problems with its depictions of female characters, except for maybe putting 12-year-olds on the battlefield Arguably Zhu Rong was a little indecent, but that's far more to do with the whole jungle barbarian aesthetic they used for the whole Nanman group, as her husband has similar costumes and their basic soldiers are pretty much just wearing loinclothes sometimes! The only problem I noticed when I played it when I was younger was that there were far fewer female characters to choose from. Then I read the books it's based on and realized that was the book itself, and that Koei was pretty much actively choosing to put *more* female characters in by including the girls who had pretty much no part in the story.

So there are definitely fighting games out there that can be very successful without, IMO, having unrealistic jiggle physics and sexualizing all their female characters. The problem is, that I never played any games in these series after SC2 and DW4... and apparently it has gotten much worse. Haven't played them, so it's hard to be sure, but just from google image searching these series it looks like all the SC girls now have a minimum D-sized breasts, and the DW outfits have definitely trended towards much more revealing+alluring costumes (while the guys have overall gotten younger and muscleyer). Likewise, google image searching Tekken characters doesn't look very diverse or balanced, either. I'm glad that when I was playing fighting games it was 10 years ago, because if I were playing the ones that are coming out now, I would indeed be pissed off about it.

Soul Calibur is/was my favourite fighting game series.

There is a direct, and depressing, correlation between the stark drop in quality of Soul Calibur games and the increase in the size of the female characters' breasts. It's uncanny.

So the question is: Is the latter happening in order to distract from the former? Or is the former a direct result of too much focus on the creation of the latter, i.e. 'style' (the term is used loosely here) over substance?

[QuickTidal]

Wow, surprisingly on topic:

http://www.p4rgaming...asts-should-be/

[Aptorian]

I don't know if this point has been brought up yet but it's important to remember that a lot of fighting games, and the weird RPGs with girls wearing belts for clothing, come from Japan.

Japans relationship with women in fiction can be a lot different from Western values. Their patriarchal cultures strong traditions and their tendency to objectify women, means that you are going to get some game characters and stories that are a bit off compared to what you would expect from a Western developer.

I don't think there is much we can do about that here in the West. The Asian market pretty much dictates what goes and doesn't go in those games.

[QuickTidal]

Maybe Apt, on 04 February 2014 - 06:29 PM, said:

and the weird RPGs with girls wearing belts for clothing, come from Japan.

I'm going to pretend this wasn't a slight on Lulu from FFX. She was awesome, and her belt-dress was badass.






But yeah, American companies are taking this Japanese cue as well with fighting games. KILLER INSTINCT for the Xbone is full American designed and it's not winning any awards for decently clad women.

[Bulwyf]

I remember when it was Soul Blade...

[Bulwyf]

It also just popped into my head that there was a game, it was probably a few systems back, maybe PS2 era Rumble Roses that was all female fighters. Not sure what they had for selection and variation age/size wise. Even though it was all female, my guess is that it was still probably targeted towards the male audience so they're probably all hot 20's with bossoms that won't quit.

[Khellendros]

Bulwyf, on 04 February 2014 - 09:03 PM, said:

It also just popped into my head that there was a game, it was probably a few systems back, maybe PS2 era Rumble Roses that was all female fighters. Not sure what they had for selection and variation age/size wise. Even though it was all female, my guess is that it was still probably targeted towards the male audience so they're probably all hot 20's with bossoms that won't quit.

Rumble Roses featured a mud wrestling mode, so I'll give you one guess which way it leaned in terms of costumes and boobs etc. Also, it was terrible.

This post has been edited by Khellendros: 04 February 2014 - 09:13 PM

[Aptorian]

Awh man imagine an all girl mudfighting game with todays graphics.

I don't even care about fighting games and I would probably buy that just for the novelty.

I guess there could be some naked guys in there for the ladies as well.

This post has been edited by Maybe Apt: 04 February 2014 - 09:19 PM