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Who knew that giving a female character feminine features would be so offensive.

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Blame american prudes.
That is true.

Canada is similar too, although Quebec is much more liberal with stuff (like T&A on tv). I remember as a kid watching English CBC and it shows one thing, then turn to channel 12 French CBC and they are showing tits in prime time and even a CBC made show like that old shitty hockey TV show in the late 80s was showing tits. Who knew unless you saw the Quebec edition.

No doubt some other countries are big into censorship and trying to clamp down on T&A and cussing, but when it comes to big richer countries.... US, Europe as a whole, Aussie etc.... some reason the US goes ape shit at some sex appeal, flashing nipples and swearing. Nobody is expecting games and media to be showing hardcore pornos right after an episode of Sesame Street, but for a country that is supposed to be Free and Liberty, there's immense amount of clamp down protectionist laws.

Then you see international TV ads and clips of afternoon TV shows and there's sex, cussing, and one TV ad I remember was I think Swedish and it was I think grandparents to listening to music, the headphones come off and it's punkers yelling FUCK FUCK FUCK. Amazing shit.
 
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Abby has female traits. It's just that her appearance belies a lot of that. I think what many people forget is that Abby's physique does not exist in a vacuum. It is heavily influenced by the game's narrative. Her body being the way it is not "normal" nor is it sold as such. There's a great moment when the game shifts to young Abby where the player is made aware of just how much the present-day Abby is not her default state. The present-day Abby is the result of trauma. The present day Abby is Abby going to great lengths to survive in a harsh and cruel world.

I legit love Abby's character. I have no bad things to say about her and I am shocked at how much TLOU2 was able to make me like a character that was initially so toxic. Like, I knew the game was going to try and make me sympathize with her. It was obvious. I'm just surprised that it worked as well as it did.
The problem is that most people aren't willing to engage in that for some reason, I assume evolution. Which is why I say that ND lady's design philosophy is correct.

It doesnt just apply to women too. It applies equally to men.
 
This is pretty disheartening to read. Just goes to show that one nutjob on twitter has managed to affect game development.

People tend to forget that games, movies, tv shows and even novels are a form of escapism. You are literally tuning in to leave the current world behind and get absorbed into this other world for a few hours. That's why protagonists look like models because we dont want to see ourselves up on the screen. How many guys look like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise or Arnold Schwarzenger? How many women look like Jennifer Aniston? Or Angelina Jolie. Should they not get hired because fat or ugly girls cant see themselves in those characters?

I dont mind diversity. I dont think every character in the game needs to look like Thor, but when it comes to leads, great looks have to be a must. Even the ND artists agreed on a panel about Uncharted 4 where she admitted that your protagonist has to look attractive.
Tbf Mario is literally a fat, greasy 5'1 plumber with a huge nose and ridiculous mustache, and he's the most iconic video game character of all time. But I get what you're saying
 

levyjl1988

Banned


 

yurinka

Member
What the hell does Ghost Busters have to do with anything?
Charismatic male main characters replaced by non-charismatic, non-traditionally attractive females resulting in fans of the IP not liking it, while also failing at the goal of attracting a female/trans/lesbian audience with that change.

I'd still like to see the quote by ND that specifically says they designed Abby to not be attractive to male players.
I did a quick search and couldn't find it. As I remember Druckmann was mentioning it when talking about TLOU2 with maybe more people. Not sure but maybe was in a spoilercast he did with other team members, or in a conference or a interview. I found these other ones but aren't the one I mention, the one I remember was mentioning specifically they made the characters on TLOU2 not attractive to heterosexual males on purpose:

(this is from 2013)


(this is prior to TLOU2 release, the one I mention I think it was after the release) https://www.neogaf.com/threads/naug...ine-to-be-trans-friendly-no-spoilers.1538898/
 
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Abby has female traits. It's just that her appearance belies a lot of that. I think what many people forget is that Abby's physique does not exist in a vacuum. It is heavily influenced by the game's narrative. Her body being the way it is not "normal" nor is it sold as such. There's a great moment when the game shifts to young Abby where the player is made aware of just how much the present-day Abby is not her default state. The present-day Abby is the result of trauma. The present day Abby is Abby going to great lengths to survive in a harsh and cruel world.

I legit love Abby's character. I have no bad things to say about her and I am shocked at how much TLOU2 was able to make me like a character that was initially so toxic. Like, I knew the game was going to try and make me sympathize with her. It was obvious. I'm just surprised that it worked as well as it did.
I agree.

As much as her appearance is butch AF, throughout the story you get to understand the why in the relation of her physique.

Even her animations reflect on her reliance on physical strength in comparison to Ellie who is more of a Snake-like character in her movements.

I, like many, had a bad first impression of her. So kudos to the team at ND at trying to make us warm up to her through the use of drawing parallel lines between her journey and Joel; I definitely felt differently by the end (although a couple of story beats are pretty trash).
 

GeorgPrime

Banned
So I was working on character designs with a team of about 8 of us. One of the characters we are creating is a female character. Now mind you two of the team members are females and one of them was the main designer for the female character. So she was showing us the design and one of the guys said "Making her so curvy will offend women" and this guy actually point to the tweet of that guy who left Insomniac over the design of Rivet. So an argument broke out with the other guys in the room and the two women just sat there watching them argue. What I found very funny was that the person who design the character was a woman and here you have this feminist male telling us that women would find that design offensive.


Just tell him to ask real women what they think about it (i.e you female co workers) or just tell him to get a gf furst before complaining lol
 

rnlval

Member
So I was working on character designs with a team of about 8 of us. One of the characters we are creating is a female character. Now mind you two of the team members are females and one of them was the main designer for the female character. So she was showing us the design and one of the guys said "Making her so curvy will offend women" and this guy actually point to the tweet of that guy who left Insomniac over the design of Rivet. So an argument broke out with the other guys in the room and the two women just sat there watching them argue. What I found very funny was that the person who design the character was a woman and here you have this feminist male telling us that women would find that design offensive.
Denying curvy sexy women exist in real life amounts to a science denier. My mum can draw a very sexy cute woman since She worked in the textile clothing design industry. My younger female cousin is hot and it's repeatable through my mum's side of the family.
 
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kanjobazooie

Mouse Ball Fetishist
I like some of the older MK costumes, like the earlier ones I didn't like the MK9 ones tho.
With that said I do think that MK had a problem with the characters looking too much like color swaps and they still do in some cases with the male Ninja's.

I do find what you're saying to be a bit strange tho, does dressing more modestly make you look like a fighter?
Why does this not apply to men running around with their shirts off for no reason?
Actually I had a reaction to the marketing of MK11 because they pushed that narrative but all I could think is how the female characters all looked like swimsuit models still.
It's not like they made them buff, they just cut their breasts off but they're still skinny as hell.
Even Street Fighter has buff women that actually look physically strong, and that's in spite of them having very revealing designs.
The women in MK11 actually look more like models to me in terms of bodies and face and how much makeup they wear etc.
I should've clarified that in my post, but I was strictly talking about the transition from MK9 to MKX. I actually do agree with you about how they restricted female characters to one body type in MK11. Cassie Cage's change was specifically jarring.

Back to the topic of my post, modesty does not have anything to do with what I said. It's all about ergonomics.

Just look at Mileena in MK9. I know this is a fictional video game character, but having your breasts out like this in deadly Kombat will be disadvantageous to you. It feels uncomfortable, and might even affect your movement. This is why real life athletes wear sports bra.
MKX fixed this problem. When you put the two costumes side by side, it would be apparent which one is more suited for a fight to the death.

You mentioned shirtless men, but having shirts off does not create physical problems for men. Liu Kang's performance wouldn't have changed either way.

Sorry if this post seemed snobbish, that's not my intention. lmao
 

Nickolaidas

Banned
Unfortunately that isn't up to me but I'm close with the owner of the studio. I just had talk with the two women and they actually are upset and very offended that the guy was talking for them. So I might have a chat with the owner and see about having him removed from this project.
Can't wait for his proper meltdown on Twitter.
 

rnlval

Member
Okay but I'm still not gonna lust after my relatives.
Healthy, slim with curve body condition due to exercise, and minimize carbs/junk food.

Australian "nanny state" governments from both the left and right political spectrum promote healthy diet lifestyle e.g. https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/ We have single-payer universal health care.

From worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-obese-countries
USA's obesity rate is higher than the CANZUK group.
 
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Duchess

Member
Abby is an individual character that took exceptional lengths to prepare herself for revenge, and her body is a part of that preparation.
This is the way I saw it, too. I could imagine if she were to show up in Part 3, she'd look quite different. In fact (spoiler for Part 2 ending):

If I'm remembering it right, she had lost a lot of her bulk when Ellie found her on the beach. I actually thought she was already dead at that point.
 

Fredrik

Member
Whenever this topic comes up, I do feel rather baffled about the double standard of some devs's attitude about violence presented in the game vs sexual objectification...
Hmm yeah, the defense since forever for violence is that it’s just pixels, that it’s not real so don’t worry about it, everything is fine, just slap an 18+ label on it and go for it. But female pixels are clearly different.
 

Tschumi

Member
I dunno if he was a 'male feminist' - that sounds like such a stupid made up counter-woke term lol - i think he was just being careful (i mean, i dunno the whole story, just going on what you've said)

that said, yeah this is too much, i'm totally bummed none of the characters in D2 R have thongs like in the original D2
 

DelireMan7

Member
tfqaWKt.jpg


Yeah, we're a ways off from that Faye
Wait, wait, wait ! There is a live action Cowboy Bebop movie ?!
 

Dogwater

Banned
I dunno if he was a 'male feminist' - that sounds like such a stupid made up counter-woke term lol - i think he was just being careful (i mean, i dunno the whole story, just going on what you've said)

that said, yeah this is too much, i'm totally bummed none of the characters in D2 R have thongs like in the original D2
A 'male feminist' is a guy who essentially pretends to be onboard with (or greatly exaggerates his support for) feminist causes in an effort to appeal to women who espouse that stuff.
 

mrBandoza

Neo Member
What is the discussion about really? Next to no information about what or how they discussed. Still people have very strong opinions about it.

Would’ve been nice to get some more context about what they actually disscussed and how. Why didn’t the designer herself say anything. Sounds extremely strange that you don’t have an opinion about your work.

That’s really the difference here comparing to the Ratchet case. Even that disscussion was based a lot on guesswork on the situation, the how and why’s. He at least had strong opinions about his design.

This just seems to be a disscussion about female character design but no idea of what really. Very odd. Like someone saying hey I overheard a couple talking about fish walking home from work. I’m so angry right now because I love fish and one of them said they didn’t. 😂
 

Filben

Member
Just goes to show that one nutjob on twitter has managed to affect game development.
This. One guy, who spoke for his girlfriend, got Ubisoft to change a character description in Assassin's Creed because they describe someone with a burned face and you're going to murder as disfigured. This is apparently considered ableist language. Also, using such words gets you banned in certain places.

Ubisoft also changed homophobic art works in The Division because apparently there's no space for homophobia in fictional worlds. Especially in worlds where people murder each other over resources and for shits and giggles. But being homophobic in this world goes too far and has to be removed and not portrayed.
 

Tschumi

Member
A 'male feminist' is a guy who essentially pretends to be onboard with (or greatly exaggerates his support for) feminist causes in an effort to appeal to women who espouse that stuff.
To me that just sounds like a guy.

Labels are meant to minimise humanity, that's why tutsis were called "cockroaches" during the Rwandan genocide, and similar things are being said about Ethiopian Tigrayans today.

This forum saw 4+ years of lazy pigeon hole-'ing and I'm fucking glad it's changed
 

Dogwater

Banned
Eh? I think you're really overthinking it my guy.


I don't think there's anything wrong labelling people who act a certain way. That's just useful language. My ex girlfriend and her friends used to talk about the 'male feminist allies' on dating apps all the time and how clearly creepy their intentions were, i.e. acting as if they're oh-so-caring and modern, how could any reasonable women not love that?

Doesn't mean every man who says he's a feminist of guilty of that creepiness. But there's definitely a 'typo' of man who plays that game, thinking it's going to work in his favour. The fact we can label this behaviour in a mocking way is a good utility, IMO.

This gets it right: Joe Rogan - Male Feminists Are Weasels - YouTube
 

Whitecrow

Banned
A real woman would never look like Abby. Doesnt matter how much she hits the gym, biology is biology and DNA is DNA.
Abby is just a male without facial hair and the fact that she's been made that way on purpose is disgusting and vomit inducing.
 

Razvedka

Banned
To me that just sounds like a guy.

Labels are meant to minimise humanity, that's why tutsis were called "cockroaches" during the Rwandan genocide, and similar things are being said about Ethiopian Tigrayans today.

This forum saw 4+ years of lazy pigeon hole-'ing and I'm fucking glad it's changed
Labels are a heuristic, and heuristics can be used for good or bad.
 

Star-Lord

Member
A real woman would never look like Abby. Doesnt matter how much she hits the gym, biology is biology and DNA is DNA.
Abby is just a male without facial hair and the fact that she's been made that way on purpose is disgusting and vomit inducing.
I honestly can't tell if you're being serious or not.
 

Tschumi

Member
Eh? I think you're really overthinking it my guy.


I don't think there's anything wrong labelling people who act a certain way. That's just useful language. My ex girlfriend and her friends used to talk about the 'male feminist allies' on dating apps all the time and how clearly creepy their intentions were, i.e. acting as if they're oh-so-caring and modern, how could any reasonable women not love that?

Doesn't mean every man who says he's a feminist of guilty of that creepiness. But there's definitely a 'typo' of man who plays that game, thinking it's going to work in his favour. The fact we can label this behaviour in a mocking way is a good utility, IMO.

This gets it right: Joe Rogan - Male Feminists Are Weasels - YouTube
Hm, sorry, not tagging me in your reply is grounds for end of discussion.

Also name-dropping "I'm telling maynard what the fibbonaci sequence is" Rogan is further grounds for end of discussion.
 

Woggleman

Member
I have known women who look like Abby. She isn't even freakishly built. The way people talk about her you would think that she had bulging muscles with veins like the people on those body building magazines.
 

Whitecrow

Banned
Take a step into the real-world and you'll be surprised by what you'll find.
Well, only some women who practice weightlifting MAYBE, with a lot of 'luck'. And even with that, I doubt anyone could get that muscle mass in a post-apocaliptic world with zombies.

Doesnt matter how you spin it, Abby is product of an ideology, and for that she will always suck.
 
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Star-Lord

Member
Well, only some women who practice weightlifting. And even with that, I doubt anyone could get that muscle mass in a post-apocaliptic world with zombies.

Doesnt matter how you spin it, Abby is product of an ideology, and for that she will always suck.
And I weep for humanity once again.

You see something you consider to be ridiculous and automatically it must be considered non-existent? Your social circle must be extremely small if you think women with body-types similar to Abby's don't exist -- and I'm talking about those not in the world of athletics.
 

Dr.Morris79

Member
3. Give the character proper dialogues and actions that actually are reminescent of how a woman acts in real life. Not just replace the role previously filled by a male character with a female model and consider the job done.
And this is where developers are fucking up. It's a computer game

Where the fuck did this mentality come from that gaming MUST be true to the real world?
 

Dorohedoro

Member
Not sure what your point is but I think Abby's face model is a very good looking woman. Jesse Faden I have no issue with, didnt get the hate at all, she's a strong jawed woman and I would definitely give her a peck on the cheek given the chance. Abby's in-game model looks more like a man than a woman to me, to the point where I wouldn't be attracted to her as I prefer more feminine looking women generally.

I definitely don't think JF or Abby's face model look average. Maybe its just where I live but most women are 3-4 points lower on the beauty scale than either of them so I'm basing it on that. I wish I lived in Lithuania...
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tdIl2LP.gif
 

Dorohedoro

Member
Well, only some women who practice weightlifting MAYBE, with a lot of 'luck'. And even with that, I doubt anyone could get that muscle mass in a post-apocaliptic world with zombies.

Doesnt matter how you spin it, Abby is product of an ideology, and for that she will always suck.
I doubt the zombies more, personally.
 

Dogwater

Banned
Hm, sorry, not tagging me in your reply is grounds for end of discussion.

Also name-dropping "I'm telling maynard what the fibbonaci sequence is" Rogan is further grounds for end of discussion.
LOL what the hell, get over yourself you freak. I haven't used this site in ages, I forgot to quote you properly. And besides, I see no actual counterpoint. Interesting eh.

Given the fact you're so butthurt, I'm gonna assume you're exactly the sort of male feminist I was describing. Cry some more loser.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
It must be a really frustrating time to be an artist.

Story time!

Another buddy of mine currently works at a small dev and is an extremely talented artist with an beyond impressive portfolio. Like many, he has always worked hard, and puts everything into his work. He designed a specific character and everyone was very happy with it, except one person. This one person (of higher power) went on to talk about how the character was "racially insensitive", which couldn't be further from the truth. He even showed me, and there was absolutely nothing about the character that screamed stereotypes, racism, etc. No one else, aside from the one person, felt that way as well.

The worst part is that he felt horrible to be accused of such a thing. He felt embarrassed, hurt, disgusted, etc. Which, I can't really blame him considering he puts everything into his work, and then is told something like that.

I guess they ended up revising the character and moving on. But he went on to tell me that this issue had been coming up there a few times, and it seems like anytime an artist would make a diverse character, it would somehow bite the artist in the ass. This is coming from a diverse group of artists made up of various races, ethnicities, genders, etc. But when they'd just make some default looking white character, no one would complain about it, lmao.

Seemed ironic AF to me, lmao.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It must be a really frustrating time to be an artist.

Story time!

Another buddy of mine currently works at a small dev and is an extremely talented artist with an beyond impressive portfolio. Like many, he has always worked hard, and puts everything into his work. He designed a specific character and everyone was very happy with it, except one person. This one person (of higher power) went on to talk about how the character was "racially insensitive", which couldn't be further from the truth. He even showed me, and there was absolutely nothing about the character that screamed stereotypes, racism, etc. No one else, aside from the one person, felt that way as well.

The worst part is that he felt horrible to be accused of such a thing. He felt embarrassed, hurt, disgusted, etc. Which, I can't really blame him considering he puts everything into his work, and then is told something like that.

I guess they ended up revising the character and moving on. But he went on to tell me that this issue had been coming up there a few times, and it seems like anytime an artist would make a diverse character, it would somehow bite the artist in the ass. This is coming from a diverse group of artists made up of various races, ethnicities, genders, etc. But when they'd just make some default looking white character, no one would complain about it, lmao.

Seemed ironic AF to me, lmao.
Thats the stupidity of racial splits, diversity and inclusion.

On one hand, some people want to show some difference (give people some personality and culture), but then some people want to do a 180 and NOT do that because showing some unique characteristics (especially in character driven media where it's important to make them different so it's not boring) can lead to isolation and stereotyping.

Zero standards and totally a grey area.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
Because we've seen games that sell well that don't have all attractive main leads. Plus, what's consider "attractive" is different in different countries\regions.

Would consider the following attractive?

- Gordon Freeman
- Agent 47
- Marcus Fenix
- Max Payne
- John Marston
- Nico Bellic
- Selene (Returnal)

500k copies if far from "selling well", if anything, Returnal is the best example that people don't want to play as an old granny... Maybe if Selene was somewhat similar to Lara Croft the game would got a better reception, but we will never know, and with such sales it's questionable if there will ever be a sequel. The rest of the characters on the list are 100% alpha males (except Nico and Freeman, who fit perfectly for their roles), and needless to say all of them and their respective titles are huge and recognizable. Modern media can try to rewrite the rules, but you can't change people's mentality, you need to have a badass dude or hot chick if you want to attract more people into you game, movie etc. Because the reality is, people get in from of a TV to take a break from the reality, so no one wants mediocrity, people have that every single day of their real life.
 
500k copies if far from "selling well", if anything, Returnal is the best example that people don't want to play as an old granny... Maybe if Selene was somewhat similar to Lara Croft the game would got a better reception, but we will never know, and with such sales it's questionable if there will ever be a sequel. The rest of the characters on the list are 100% alpha males (except Nico and Freeman, who fit perfectly for their roles), and needless to say all of them and their respective titles are huge and recognizable. Modern media can try to rewrite the rules, but you can't change people's mentality, you need to have a badass dude or hot chick if you want to attract more people into you game, movie etc. Because the reality is, people get in from of a TV to take a break from the reality, so no one wants mediocrity, people have that every single day of their real life.
I don't think that this is the main problem with the game, yes the main character is not very inspiring... But the game is a rogue like mis of third person adventure with old school shooters (shmups I guess) which can be too hard or too easy depending on randomly occuring level layout and item pickups.

That being said, playing as the old lady in Axiom Verge 2 is not a + for the game.
 
I've been playing Yooka-Laylee for the first time recently. I've seen pics of the game and would have sworn that the title characters were female.
The digital voices make me think otherwise.
To be truly gender neutral games in the future must also remove any hint of female in the voice. Female Voice actors soon out of work.
 

Jaysen

Banned
The issue with Rivet wasn’t that she was almost a sexy woman. It’s that some artists wanted her to be a sexy Lombax. Thats just dumb. Giving an actual human woman female traits is fine.
 

levyjl1988

Banned
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“The only way to make women strong is to make them men.”
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In actuality:
 

Interfectum

Member
So I was working on character designs with a team of about 8 of us. One of the characters we are creating is a female character. Now mind you two of the team members are females and one of them was the main designer for the female character. So she was showing us the design and one of the guys said "Making her so curvy will offend women" and this guy actually point to the tweet of that guy who left Insomniac over the design of Rivet. So an argument broke out with the other guys in the room and the two women just sat there watching them argue. What I found very funny was that the person who design the character was a woman and here you have this feminist male telling us that women would find that design offensive.
A curvy woman?

crushed noo GIF
 
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