Sexism and Sexuality In Games from Bioware Writer David Gaider

[Shauna]

I watched the video. :3 I agree with what the guy is saying.

[Mirage]

I watched it. Why do you ask?

[Pumpkin]

I think it would be hard to come up with a female character if you care about feedback. Some people will complain if they're too attractive. Some will complain if they aren't attractive enough. There seems to be less sensitivity (at least with people I talk to) about how a male character looks.

I agree with what he says about the difference between sexy and sexualized. I also agree with knowing your target audience. He says video games used to be targeted mostly at teenage boys, but the industry has evolved and now people of both genders and all ages play video games, and they need to adapt to that.

I can say as a person with very low self esteem, that I hate watching my boyfriend play Dead or Alive. Hate it. I actually have to leave the room. It makes me feel awful about myself. Their characters turn me off that much. Yes, it's silly, but you know what? It affects me the way it does and I don't need that extra kind of stress in my life. Hopefully one day I will have good enough self esteem that something dumb like that won't affect me. In the meantime, overly sexualized games like that turn me off. On the other hand, I have played games where a female character is very sexy, but if they have stories or personalities and I enjoy seeing them as I would any other character, suddenly the looks don't threaten me so much. Suddenly it's just an attractive person, I mean there are attractive people in the world, and then the looks thing is totally okay, if not preferred. People like watching attractive people.

I don't know if I explained myself clearly, but to me personally, there's a big big difference.

[Aulayna]

If Men wore the same armour as most Females in video games:

[Mirage]

If that was available in a game, I would so totally wear it.

Speaking of female armor, at least FFXIV isn't too bad at it!

Well, that's all designs from the previous version. I hope Yoshida won't change it to generic boob-plate designs. That would probably make me quit.

[Freya]

YEahhhhh the default outfit for the cat ladies now, I can see up their skirt. I was moving the camera around, trying to get use to it and I saw her undies easily. o.o

[Mirage]

All the female starting gear is way too pantyshot-friendly. It is kind of worrying. I hope it's not something that is going to become a trend in the game.

The only reason I'm not bringing it up right now is that it's not really armor. It's not something that pretends to be supposed to be worn in battle. Almost all gear that is actually meant to be worn in combat looks either functional, or equally revealing for both sexes.