All the Slender Ladies: Body Diversity in Video Games - General

Also just to clarify: When I say approaching anorexia, I don't fucking mean being anorexic or even near it, i mean like 20-30% BMI off.

[QUOTE=TornadoAP;50998464]Also just to clarify: When I say approaching anorexia, I don't fucking mean being anorexic or even near it, i mean like 20-30% BMI off.[/QUOTE] So why even bring it the fuck up then. People with anorexia look like skeletons with skin draped on them. The LoL girls from the art im seeing have average body types. Its not comparable.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;50998451] Im looking at pictures of them right now and you have no fucking clue what an anorexic person looks like.[/QUOTE] Did you even read my earlier posts, like, at all?

[QUOTE=TornadoAP;50998464]Also just to clarify: When I say approaching anorexia, I don't fucking mean being anorexic or even near it, i mean like 20-30% BMI off.[/QUOTE] You mean, like healthy or average? [URL]http://www.webmd.com/men/weight-loss-bmi[/URL] [QUOTE]Underweight: Your BMI is less than 18.5 Healthy weight: Your BMI is 18.5 to 24.9 Overweight: Your BMI is 25 to 29.9 Obese: Your BMI is 30 or higher[/QUOTE] 20-30% BMI is a healthy weight as opposed to being underweight or slightly overweight. Healthy people are usually skinny.

[QUOTE=TornadoAP;50998470]Did you even read my earlier posts, like, at all?[/QUOTE] I did and you literally just admitted that what you meant has nothing to do with what you wrote so thats your fault.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;50998403]And its not like you cant find good, famous examples of non standard women in games. The Boss is a great example. The most or second most important character in all of the Metal Gear mythos to boot.[/QUOTE] Yeah but The Boss wasn't a 300lb blob so she doesn't count in anita world We don't have equality until we have HAES women trundling around the battlefield in mobility scooters.

God he's actually looking for 10 games right now isnt he?

This is dumb because it effectively does nothing. Like for fuck's sake it's the same argument than what she's ever done before, in fact, it's even worse this time because it contradicts itself in the same video, criticizing Overwatch for its slender female characters then praising it for Mai, Zarya and Ana. Same with League of Legends, listing Ashe, Ahri, Fiora, while dismissing Tristana and Illaoi and forgetting to mention Poppy, Sejuani, Kayle, Kindred, Taliyah, Lulu or Kalista. Or Rek'sai, for crying out loud: [thumb]http://news.cdn.leagueoflegends.com/public/images/pages/rs/img/RS_WP.jpg[/thumb] The argument becomes even more dumb when you realize that the male characters actually suffer from the [I]exact same issue[/I] and she just cherry picks some examples while completely ignoring how the fat character is more often than not the joke character regardless of gender (Which is in no small part due to cultural differences with Japan, who for some reason find fat people to be hilarious). Gragas from League of Legends is not exactly taken seriously, and in fact, most of the male human cast in League of Legends are just buff dudes with little variation in body shape, like Garen, Lee Sin, Jarvan IV, Darius, Yasuo, Tryndamere, Varus or Xin Zhao. The truth is ultimately that this has to do with videogame stories being really shit and not really allowing for [I]real[/I] characters to be presented. League of Legends characters have these proportions because they're intended to be idyllic figures that can stand on their own without any explanation, they're meant to have strong silhouettes and striking visual identities, they're not meant to be real people. They USED to be very stereotypical when League of Legends first came out, because characters suffered from both lazy design and backstories (Literally the backstory of all the characters was some variation of "he/she had a dark and mysterious past") but they've been steadily getting more developed over the years. There's a reason why videogames aren't like The Sopranos where every character is fat and/or old, and that's because there are no writers of that caliber in the industry, in no small part because they get treated [I]horribly[/I] by the community, particularly when they dare to do anything not PC.

[QUOTE=Big Bang;50998545] There's a reason why videogames aren't like The Sopranos where every character is fat and/or old, and that's because there are no writers of that caliber in the industry, in no small part because they get treated [I]horribly[/I] by the community, particularly when they dare to do anything not PC.[/QUOTE] I'd also argue that making a character fat and/or old also inherently limits the game design, which further limits usage of such characters to begin with in a prominent role. Not always, going back to MGS, again, has had Fatman and The End for example. Michael and Trevor are kind of oldish too. The problem is the stuff going on in most game genres is pretty physically taxing so it becomes harder to believe an out of shape or elderly character could do that kind of thing depending on how fat/old they are. Its easy to see how a middle aged Big Boss because of his fucking bulk physique but imagining someone like Fatman or The End doing it would just be goofy.

[QUOTE=Big Bang;50998545]This is dumb because it effectively does nothing. Like for fuck's sake it's the same argument than what she's ever done before, in fact, it's even worse this time because it contradicts itself in the same video, criticizing Overwatch for its slender female characters then praising it for Mai, Zarya and Ana. Same with League of Legends, listing Ashe, Ahri, Fiora, while dismissing Tristana and Illaoi and forgetting to mention Poppy, Sejuani, Kayle, Kindred, Taliyah, Lulu or Kalista. Or Rek'sai, for crying out loud: [thumb]http://news.cdn.leagueoflegends.com/public/images/pages/rs/img/RS_WP.jpg[/thumb] The argument becomes even more dumb when you realize that the male characters actually suffer from the [I]exact same issue[/I] and she just cherry picks some examples while completely ignoring how the fat character is more often than not the joke character regardless of gender (Which is in no small part due to cultural differences with Japan, who for some reason find fat people to be hilarious). Gragas from League of Legends is not exactly taken seriously, and in fact, most of the male human cast in League of Legends are just buff dudes with little variation in body shape, like Garen, Lee Sin, Jarvan IV, Darius, Yasuo, Tryndamere, Varus or Xin Zhao. The truth is ultimately that this has to do with videogame stories being really shit and not really allowing for [I]real[/I] characters to be presented. League of Legends characters have these proportions because they're intended to be idyllic figures that can stand on their own without any explanation, they're meant to have strong silhouettes and striking visual identities, they're not meant to be real people. They USED to be very stereotypical when League of Legends first came out, because characters suffered from both lazy design and backstories (Literally the backstory of all the characters was some variation of "he/she had a dark and mysterious past") but they've been steadily getting more developed over the years. There's a reason why videogames aren't like The Sopranos where every character is fat and/or old, and that's because there are no writers of that caliber in the industry, in no small part because they get treated [I]horribly[/I] by the community, particularly when they dare to do anything not PC.[/QUOTE] I like this idea that the older and/or fatter the cast of a story tends to be, the more well written the characters are. [editline]4th September 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=AaronM202;50998552]I'd also argue that making a character fat and/or old also inherently limits the game design, which further limits usage of such characters to begin with in a prominent role.[/QUOTE] Well, you'd need to design the whole game around the characters and their inherent weaknesses. Just like if you made a game about a character in a wheelchair- well, the game would be ABOUT a character in a wheel chair, wouldn't it? A good example of a game like this is a game called [URL="http://store.steampowered.com/app/443810/"]This Is the Police[/URL] where you play as an old, morally corrupt police chief whose weaknesses define the core game experience and atmosphere. You literally can't just 'save the day' because you're a callous, gentrifying piece of shit who takes bribes from the mafia and runs a sub par police force.

[QUOTE=Zyler;50998555] Well, you'd need to design the whole game around the characters and their inherent weaknesses. Just like if you made a game about a character in a wheelchair- well, the game would be ABOUT a character in a wheel chair, wouldn't it?[/QUOTE] Right. Still though, it'd be harder to have an action game with a 65 year old tubby dude and have it be taken seriously compared to a 35 year old brick shithouse arnie knockoff. Actually a protagonist in a wheelchair would probably be a good idea for a VR title that would make use of the controllers but also allow environmental mobility.

[QUOTE=Zyler;50998555]I like this idea that the older and/or fatter the cast of a story tends to be, the more well written the characters are.[/QUOTE] That's not what I said, I mentioned The Sopranos because it is a stark contrast in terms of characters compared to League of Legends, they're flawed, they're multidimensional, they don't really have clear goals or objectives, they're meant to resemble real people, you have a wide age range and an ample variety of body types that plays against expectations as none of the actors are distinctively or unusually attractive except for the ones that are meant to be that way. It's not that you can't have a good story with every cast member being athletic and attractive, but the actual problem is not a gender issue, it's a more general problem of video game narratives being extremely stale, and no matter how many fat old black lesbian ladies you add to a game that's not going to help that. Anita's idea of having to push diversity because you GOTTA have them or else, is utterly counterproductive.

[QUOTE=Big Bang;50998575]That's not what I said, I mentioned The Sopranos because it is a stark contrast in terms of characters compared to League of Legends, they're flawed, they're multidimensional, they don't really have clear goals or objectives, they're meant to resemble real people, you have a wide age range and an ample variety of body types that plays against expectations as none of the actors are distinctively or unusually attractive except for the ones that are meant to be that way. It's not that you can't have a good story with every cast member being athletic and attractive, but the actual problem is not a gender issue, it's a more general problem of video game narratives being extremely stale, and no matter how many fat old black lesbian ladies you add to a game that's not going to help that. Anita's idea of having to push diversity because you GOTTA have them or else, is utterly counterproductive.[/QUOTE] That's true. Just inserting token diverse characters based on already harmful stereotypes isn't going to help the underlying problem, but do you think games like Overwatch and even stuff like having female soldiers in Call Of Duty is an example of that?

[QUOTE=Zyler;50998585]That's true. Just inserting token diverse characters based on already harmful stereotypes isn't going to help the underlying problem, but do you think games like Overwatch and even stuff like having female soldiers in Call Of Duty is an example of that?[/QUOTE] Kind of. While there is a lot of cast diversity and some good voice acting to go along with it, you have a character like Pharah who [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/4iqfo6/pharah_is_egyptian/]doesn't actually seem Egyptian in the slightest.[/url] You can make in-universe excuses for it but when most of the cast is well designed in their ethnicity the characters that just seem off stand out more when people who actually know about it say something. Lucio is another example. He was originally slated to be [I]Canadian[/I]. He even has two hockey skins to go with it and plenty of voice lines about it. Nothing about his character actually says he is from Rio de Janeiro besides his bio. If I got told that Blizzard just changed him to be Brazilian to fill some kind of quote I wouldn't be surprised in the least. (Also, eventually they "rectified" their mistake with Pharah and made Ana [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/4sj9a1/thank_you_for_making_ana_a_true_egyptian_blizzard/]Egyptian as fuck.[/url])

[QUOTE=Zyler;50998585]That's true. Just inserting token diverse characters based on already harmful stereotypes isn't going to help the underlying problem, but do you think games like Overwatch and even stuff like having female soldiers in Call Of Duty is an example of that?[/QUOTE] Overwatch has a terrible backstory, it's mostly a vehicle for the characters to exist, I believe that Blizzard designs the characters first and the backstories are made to fit the design, and that's not necessarily wrong for that type of game. It's not "diverse", the characters are just visually different, different player models with different abilities, and I disagree entirely with this perception that somehow making a character a minority makes that minority "identify" with them, that's a horribly naive perception, I don't "identify" with Zarya or DVa but I play them more than other characters because they have a playstyle more suited with what I like to play, you don't need a character to resemble you for you to understand it. It's the same thing with Call of Duty having female soldiers, it's ultimately pointless because, again, it's just a different player model. If all it takes to appease Anita is to have a female player model that she likes then her whole argument becomes moot, it's not going to help create better stories.

[QUOTE=Big Bang;50998620]Overwatch has a terrible backstory, it's mostly a vehicle for the characters to exist, I believe that Blizzard designs the characters first and the backstories are made to fit the design, and that's not necessarily wrong for that type of game. It's not "diverse", the characters are just visually different, different player models with different abilities, and I disagree entirely with this perception that somehow making a character a minority makes that minority "identify" with them, that's a horribly naive perception, I don't "identify" with Zarya or DVa but I play them more than other characters because they have a playstyle more suited with what I like to play, you don't need a character to resemble you for you to understand it.[/QUOTE] What about Team Fortress 2 then? Is that a better example of that kind of storytelling? [QUOTE]It's the same thing with Call of Duty having female soldiers, it's ultimately pointless because, again, it's just a different player model.[/QUOTE] The argument for this would be that it provides the player with more choice with no detriment to gameplay, so that's universally a good thing. I agree that it doesn't necessarily improve the story component of the game. [QUOTE]If all it takes to appease Anita is to have a female player model that she likes then her whole argument becomes moot, it's not going to help create better stories.[/QUOTE] Well she did like Assasin's Creed Syndicate pretty much because it had female enemies who weren't attractive and dressed in male outfits, so...

[QUOTE=Zyler;50998671]What about Team Fortress 2 then? The argument for this would be that it provides the player with more choice with no detriment to gameplay, so that's universally a good thing. I agree that it doesn't necessarily improve the story component of the game. Well she did like Assasin's Creed Syndicate pretty much because it had female enemies who weren't attractive and dressed in male outfits, so...[/QUOTE] What about it? I mean, Team Fortress 2 DOES have a backstory, it's sort of batshit crazy but you can see how the characters work together, why they are like they are in the crazy world of TF2. I don't think you could simply swap genders with them because their visual language and particularly their silhouettes are extremely important, the Norman Rockwell based style and the fixed amount of classes don't allow for any changes of that regard. Even then, the TF2 universe does have strong female characters, they're just not playable characters. The problem is that, if all you want is a female skin then it comes across a merely a frivolous request, you're not willing to just accept the developers vision of the game, it has to be your way. Having a female character becomes "why can't this character be red?", and of course that's not the point, the idea is to have better characters, stronger narratives, not things to just appease people.

[QUOTE=Saber15;50997575]Aside from fighting games and off the top of my head, there's Sidorovich (kinda fat, greedy) in STALKER and Otis (paul blart mall cop) in HL: Blue Shift.[/QUOTE] all Sido does in Stalker is sit around in his damn bunker and call you out for bringing him shit though :v:

[QUOTE=Big Bang;50998793]What about it? I mean, Team Fortress 2 DOES have a backstory, it's sort of batshit crazy but you can see how the characters work together, why they are like they are in the crazy world of TF2. I don't think you could simply swap genders with them because their visual language and particularly their silhouettes are extremely important, the Norman Rockwell based style and the fixed amount of classes don't allow for any changes of that regard. Even then, the TF2 universe does have strong female characters, they're just not playable characters. The problem is that, if all you want is a female skin then it comes across a merely a frivolous request, you're not willing to just accept the developers vision of the game, it has to be your way. Having a female character becomes "why can't this character be red?", and of course that's not the point, the idea is to have better characters, stronger narratives, not things to just appease people.[/QUOTE] I meant "what about Team Fortress 2" as "is this a better example of a story in a multiplayer video game". You've answered the question anyway, so that's fine. I mean, I agree with you, totally, the point of a story should be to have good writing otherwise why have a story at all? But, as you may agree, there are also aesthetic/visual design considerations as well as, y'know, social implications that go into the thinking behind the design of a video game. I don't believe that video games can control, dictate or change the way people think, but I think they can reinforce what somebody already believes; which can, over time, solidify into sterotypes and cliches that cause bad writing as well as creating fiction that is dull and ill-reflective of the range of possible ideals that can exist within our society, ultimately causing what I think is a limited form of concrete thinking where people hardly stray from their own echo chambers of similar, limited opinions. I actually think video games are one of the best, if not the best, example of a medium with a diverse range of cultural attitudes, styles, experiences and ideals. The video game community, if anything, discourages echo chambers moreso than other cultural groups partially as a result of the range of different genres of video games that suit all kinds of different people. I think a combination of television, particularly news media, and social media has cultivated the current situation of limited groupthink and fearmongering within social circles as a result of a lack of criticism of the tendency of those mediums to promote incorrect but feel good information or else the willingness of individuals to continue using them as valuable sources of information despite that. Video Games are just an effective scapegoat for society's ills, as they have been for decades.

[quote=anita]Male heroes can be handsome or comical outlandish and grotesque it is as if male characters are free to embody whatever physique best communicates their personality or abilities hefty[B] beer belly [/B]of Grogus, [B]cartoonishly disproportional body[/B] of Dr.Mundo[/quote] [quote=anita]but when we do see representations of women with different body types they are often presented as a joke [/quote] "It's okay to create male cartoonish caricatures and I want the same thing to be done with women but don't you fucking dare make jokes about women or caricaturize them."

[QUOTE=lionheart1066;50997996]When she brought up the female characters in Dota 2, I straight away thought of Enchantress and Broodmother, come the fuck on, at least launch the game or read the fucking Heropedia on the website itself...[/QUOTE] Isn't Puck female? What about Winter Wyvern, And Phoenix isn't even gendered so i just wildcard her/him.

[QUOTE=gazzy_GUI;51000137]Isn't Puck female? What about Winter Wyvern, And Phoenix isn't even gendered so i just wildcard her/him.[/QUOTE] Puck is an ethereal dragon who doesn't even have a gender. It just is, same as Io.

We've all forgotten a special someone. [thumb]http://i.imgur.com/yMop2jh.png[/thumb] Also [url=https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7f/79/2f/7f792feb79fc029d96a2be9835c7c23b.jpg]Hannah[/url] from Fable 2.

[QUOTE=Nephilim;51000211]We've all forgotten a special someone. [thumb]http://i.imgur.com/yMop2jh.png[/thumb] Also [url=https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7f/79/2f/7f792feb79fc029d96a2be9835c7c23b.jpg]Hannah[/url] from Fable 2.[/QUOTE] There's also Lucy from Quake 3 Arena. [t]http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/steamtradingcards/images/7/74/Quake_Live_Artwork_05.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141222064744[/t]

She (or the video author) seems to dislike the idea of women being presented as desirable but simultaneously pushes for the idea that all female body types should be desirable while at the same time somehow implying a character like Tiny from Dota 2 is helping push the bounds for what is desirable of a man. I don't get it. [editline]4th September 2016[/editline] There's such a cruel irony in how these videos are made by a man and not really her.

[QUOTE=Silly Sil;50999729]"It's okay to create male cartoonish caricatures and I want the same thing to be done with women but don't you fucking dare make jokes about women or caricaturize them."[/QUOTE] Not to be that guy, but cartoonishly overweight male characters are more commonly (not always) jolly and likeable (i.e "jolly fat beardy manly man", while fat female characters are almost always funny in a "haha look at that nasty fat bitch" kind of way.

[QUOTE=Tobylol;51000855]Not to be that guy, but cartoonishly overweight male characters are usually jolly and likeable (i.e "jolly fat beardy manly man", while fat female characters are almost always funny in a "haha look at that nasty fat bitch" kind of way.[/QUOTE] I see the other stereotype far more often. The big fat guy is evil, malicious, corrupt, gluttonous and unlikable. How many fat white boss characters are there that fit that to a tee in how many different games? I can think off the top of my head of quite a few. Where as with yours, I can only think of Santa really.

[QUOTE=Mobon1;51000311]She (or the video author) seems to dislike the idea of women being presented as desirable but simultaneously pushes for the idea that all female body types should be desirable while at the same time somehow implying a character like Tiny from Dota 2 is helping push the bounds for what is desirable of a man. I don't get it. [editline]4th September 2016[/editline] There's such a cruel irony in how these videos are made by a man and not really her.[/QUOTE] Welcome to Social Justice.

If they want thicker women in videogames then they need to make them themselves. Healthier bodies have a way wider appeal and making a body type that's way less appealing the centerpiece of the action in a multi-million dollar industry (AAA-games) isn't honestly the smartest move. Nobody's stopping indies for doing what they want (like that one game that was on greenlight was it?). Besides: Isn't a larger (non-muscular) body-type invariably caused by either some form of neglect or worse (disease). Now as arguments of merit: game-artists have to usually settle with a body type for human characters depending on the game. Same reason why games have so many characters of the same height. Other bodytypes mean more work. Want a realistic representation of an obese character? New animations. A child? New animations. And don't even get me started of if there's customizable attires. Then there either needs to be a system that morphs the meshes to fit the body, or even worse; re-shaping them by hand.

[QUOTE=Sunday_Roast;51001390]If they want thicker women in videogames then they need to make them themselves. Healthier bodies have a way wider appeal and making a body type that's way less appealing the centerpiece of the action in a multi-million dollar industry (AAA-games) isn't honestly the smartest move. Nobody's stopping indies for doing what they want (like that one game that was on greenlight was it?). Besides: Isn't a larger (non-muscular) body-type invariably caused by either some form of neglect or worse (disease). Now as arguments of merit: game-artists have to usually settle with a body type for human characters depending on the game. Same reason why games have so many characters of the same height. Other bodytypes mean more work. Want a realistic representation of an obese character? New animations. A child? New animations. And don't even get me started of if there's customizable attires. Then there either needs to be a system that morphs the meshes to fit the body, or even worse; re-shaping them by hand.[/QUOTE] It's not so much that, fat characters only tend to work in games with cartoonish styles, like overwatch or street fighter. Nobody anywhere is going to take obese lara croft jumping from ledge to ledge seriously, because it'd look completely ridiculous.