Why is the gaming community so damn sexist?

[Psychotic]

The Quiet thing is ridiculous. The reason she dresses like that is Metal Gear Solid V. It's not a big huge spoiler and is dumb but whatevershe breathes through her skin, and if her skin is covered (eg if she is in water) she can't breathe. This is, of course, why a bikini topped off with ripped fishnets are the most appropriate outfit. Oh, and even though it shouldn't be if we take the game's word for it, it's entirely possible to buy her a smurfing normal uniform.

I feel ashamed of someone's words and deeds Kojima, but they ain't mine. With that said, putting aside that stupid contrived bulltrout Quiet is a really great, likeable and strong female character and I think it's a damn shame that the (entirely justified) controversy surrounding her attire has overshadowed that.

[Fynn]

I think that figurine of her - the one with the squishy boobs and butt - is quite indicative of what exactly the intentions behind her design were. If (SPOILER)making her breathe through her skin is the reason - cool, but you still came up with an excuse to objectify and exploit your female character.

[Ayen]

The Quiet thing is ridiculous. The reason she dresses like that is Metal Gear Solid V. It's not a big huge spoiler and is dumb but whatevershe breathes through her skin, and if her skin is covered (eg if she is in water) she can't breathe.

Like how she was in the rain that one time and nothing bad happened to her?

They can't even keep their own contrived bulltrout straight. So smurf off, Kojima!

[Sephex]

The Quiet thing is ridiculous. The reason she dresses like that is Metal Gear Solid V. It's not a big huge spoiler and is dumb but whatevershe breathes through her skin, and if her skin is covered (eg if she is in water) she can't breathe.

Like how she was in the rain that one time and nothing bad happened to her?

They can't even keep their own contrived bulltrout straight. So smurf off, Kojima!

To be fair, when Ocelot is explaining her to you (SPOILER)before you can take her on the field with you for the first time that when she showers that is her way of drinking water. She just can't be fully submerged in water for too long like how we can't hold our breath indefinitely underwater.

I agree with people who say that it is obviously a pretty flimsy reason why Quiet is so scantily clad, but as a person who has been constantly been playing the game since day one you sort of get used to it. I think of her more WAY as a character and a valuable asset rather than eye candy. I mean, she's a total bad ass. She basically saved my ass during a boss fight, and if I get caught and decide just to deal with the guards going nuts, she basically takes out people left and right while I easily get away or fight back.

[Freya]

Oh the issue isn't her entire character isn't useful but we didn't need a scene of her stretching in seductive poses cause... okay. I haven't even purchased the game but that was the first thing I saw all over reddit the week of it's release. And not in a ranting way but in a "omg this is hot" way. That's all I knew about that game for a while thanks to fans.

ANYWAY the point wasn't about that game haha, just that some developers encourage that attitude. I'm one of those pro sexiness of everyone kinda people. The difference is while I did get a naked Raiden doing cartwheels, that scene was done for comedic effect while Quiet's whole design, background plot reason for clothing choices, and random stretching animations... are done to be sexually appealing. If you want to make things super mega foxy hot, can we equally oppurtunity the mega foxy hot ness?

Like Square Enix! You give me Yuna in hot pants and jiggly boobed Lightning (Have an actual quote "Yes, her chest jiggles," explained Nobuhiro Goto. "Since everyone can decide what costume she’ll wear, you can make sure it does (laughs). By the way, since Lightning swings her arm when you change her weapon in the menu screen, that’s a recommended action for sure-fire jiggling! To see it even better it could be useful to equip a small shield. Look forward to it!") but when people throw a fit about the Final Fantasy Mevius guy being too "scantly clad" because male gamers were uncomfortable, you cave in? Like goodness, side body was nothing compared to what you've shown for the ladies.



If it's only one sided and we only see results of women being seen this way, men aren't allowed to be shown this way or not encouraged to be shown this way, is it no wonder that groups of fans tend to lean more toward being more sexist against one gender?

I'm an equal oppurtunity mega foxy hotter, if we get bouncing boobs on ladies, let me have side cut outs on a guy, Square Enix! (and other developers)

[Ayen]

I've seen several fans of the game claim her 'poses' break immersion because it's contrast pretty much everything else about the world, and I can certainly see why. You have Big Boss looking like he just crawled out of hell one second, and then Quiet acting like a model in the next. Doesn't work.

[Mirage]

Ahem, freya. Not all of us were uncomfortable

I've seen several fans of the game claim her 'poses' break immersion because it's contrast pretty much everything else about the world, and I can certainly see why. You have Big Boss looking like he just crawled out of hell one second, and then Quiet acting like a model in the next. Doesn't work.

This just looked dumb tbh. Not that I even use her. D-dog all the way.

[Sephex]

Absolutely agree with you on Quiet's poses and whatnot. Though I won't lie. To me, they are so over the top that I ended up laughing my ass off the first time I saw it. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand how people are uncomfortable with that.

[Psychotic]

I've seen several fans of the game claim her 'poses' break immersion because it's contrast pretty much everything else about the world, and I can certainly see why. You have Big Boss looking like he just crawled out of hell one second, and then Quiet acting like a model in the next. Doesn't work.

Nah, that's the one way in which it does work. Metal Gear Solid has always had that campy, over-the-top GRUFF MANLY MAN and SULTRY TEMPTRESS feel to it. It depends largely if you take it seriously but then I don't know why anyone would be a big fan of the series if they did take it seriously.

There's more equality in Metal Gear Solid than people are giving it credit for. Snake has always had a penchant for popping his shirt off and revealing his honed and toned physique - an idealised version of men that your average Joe isn't going to be able to live up to. Indeed ever since they added camoflauge you've had the option to undress him and go around shirtless.

Freya is right in noting that Raiden's nudity was for humour, and there's other examples of male nudity in MGS such as Johnny in MGS1 or stripping the Marines in the Tanker hold in 2 to their underwear. Is the idea that men's naked bodies are something to laugh at not damaging? Whether it's for humour or sexuality, it's still objectification.

Like I say though, it just depends how seriously you take your Metal Gear Solid.

[NeoCracker]

That Mevius thing reeks of a troll operation. Men in revealing clothes aren't exactly a new thing in Final Fantasy, just look at Vaan from FF XII. Yet Mevius is literally the only time I've seen something like this happen in regards to a male character.

I also want to throw in if you are looking at Japanese games, you need to look at their culture, specifically what is considered sexy over there. Look at the time games like FF VIII came out, men like Gakct were considered the sexiest men in the country. What women were finding attractive wasn't revealing clothing or things like that, it was the leather looks, effeminate features, and things like that. Squalls design was made tailored to a lot of things that the culture considered to be sexy for women.

Now, it's definitely true there is more appealing to males physical preferences then females, but that's because there are still more men playing these games then women. (Yes, I know about the study that gamers are a majority women, but this takes into account anyone who casually plays face book games. If you are looking at the types of games these arguments are over, it's still mostly male.) It's no surprise that's who these games try harder to appeal to. Same reason you see romance novels almost exclusively market towards women, since they are the ones who read those.

That said, I do think it would be great for more games to offer up some fun fan service for the ladies to enjoy and just go the Swim Route. (For those who dont' know, an animation studio whose name escapes me makes short fan servicy animations to show off new tech, usually of women. One day they said smurf it and instead showed off a bunch of mostly naked men getting wet, and were met with a huge outcry of their female audience to make this a real thing. So Swim was created purely out of fan desire to see half naked boys getting wet, and I think that's great ) We are starting to see this more with some alternate outfits for fighting game characters, and that's fantastic.

As far as Quite, I know of no one who has played that game that thinks any less of her as a character for how she dresses outside of people who complain about how making women sexy some how lessens them as a character (While I agree with many things he says, see Jim Sterling as an example for saying that). I definately think Kojima was being overly dramatic in regards to him saying everyone bitching about Quite would feel super dumb once they learned why she dressed the way she did, and likely sex appeal was a big part of the decision, but does it really matter if that was the sole reason for her being dressed that way? We still got a character a lot of people really love, and isn't that whats important, having well written characters?

What I really dont' understand here is who is really objectifying these characters? Clearly there was a lot put in to her back story and personality, so the creators aren't just treating her as an object, they are treating her as a character. A large number of fans love her character, and think she's a bad ass, so they aren't the ones objectifying her.

Is it the people who just talk about how hot she is? I mean I've commented about how hot a game character is before, but just because that's the only thing I say sometimes doesn't mean I don't see them as a character, and I don't understand why anyone would make that assumption. I mean have you seen some women talk about some of the Doctors? Hell, some comments on this forum were entirely about how sexy they thought that doctor was and nothing else. Are you assuming they are just objectifying the doctors? Cause I certainly don't, just some women commenting on a dude they find sexy.

The only people I often see who could be argued are actually objectifying anyone are people who don't care at all about the story or characters, but they just treat everything as either something pretty to look at or shoot, so it's not like they are just objectifying women in this case.

I'm honestly not sure at this point what someone even means when they say it's objectifying at this point.

I'll stop her and not go on to the gaming community bit, because I've rambled enough.

[Fynn]

The thing about the Möbius dude were also the extremely submissive poses, which have also been sadly toned down.

[Psychotic]

I also want to throw in if you are looking at Japanese games, you need to look at their culture

I don't agree with that. The onus should be on the creator to be sensitive to the audience's cultural values if they intend to release a product in that specific country, not the other way around. If the game stays in Japan, yes, fine. However, if a Japanese developer wants to release their product in the west then they should be sensitive to western views and attitudes.

If they don't want to change or adapt to that, perhaps not wanting to compromise in their creative vision or wanting to provide an authentic cultural experience then they absolutely have the right to do so. They cannot then expect the audience to bend over backwards to accept clashes of culture and have to be prepared to accept challenges from that audience in relation to characters like Cindy and Quiet.

[Shauna]

That said, I do think it would be great for more games to offer up some fun fan service for the ladies to enjoy and just go the Swim Route. (For those who dont' know, an animation studio whose name escapes me makes short fan servicy animations to show off new tech, usually of women. One day they said smurf it and instead showed off a bunch of mostly naked men getting wet, and were met with a huge outcry of their female audience to make this a real thing. So Swim was created purely out of fan desire to see half naked boys getting wet

Just in case anyone is interested, the anime he's talking about here is called Free! and it's done by KyoAni. It's alright.

[DMKA]

It isn't. It's just filled with this crowd of newcomer knee-jerk social justice feminist retards (who are, ironically, the most sexist people on the planet) who call everything sexist.

[Slothy]

It isn't. It's just filled with this crowd of newcomer knee-jerk social justice feminist retards (who are, ironically, the most sexist people on the planet) who call everything sexist.

What the smurfity smurf...