Of course there is space for both. In a total fantasy game, like Nier Automata, or Bayonetta, or Stellar Blade, crafting an impossible beauty can just be part of the tone, or story craft. In Nier, the female androids are beautiful and the male are children because the male dominated society that invented them designed them that way, beautiful women and non threatening men, interesting commentary on today’s society for a game set thousands of years from now.
But in a game going for a gritty realism, or a grounded type of experience, like the Last of Us, or Horizon Zero Dawn, realistic looking characters with faces molded by lived experience is what will make the game immersive, and sell the experience to players. Abby looks like a woman driven by revenge, spending her days in the weight room and pounding back ration burritos in preparation.
These folks don’t seem to get that, they want every game to star 2B, and they have no idea what 2B’s design is saying about humanity. Art is lost to them.
Exactly! I’ll always come back to the first time I saw this argument with gamers losing their shit over Ellie in borderlands. Like in a game where every character is a cartoonish exaggeration of hillbillies and other rural poor folks they had a problem with a fat horny lady.
These people don’t want art to speak to them, they want it to entertain them and flatter them while lacking any message or themes. And they feel threatened by the reminder that women exist even when we aren’t pretty and available
Of course there is space for both. In a total fantasy game, like Nier Automata, or Bayonetta, or Stellar Blade, crafting an impossible beauty can just be part of the tone, or story craft. In Nier, the female androids are beautiful and the male are children because the male dominated society that invented them designed them that way, beautiful women and non threatening men, interesting commentary on today’s society for a game set thousands of years from now.
But in a game going for a gritty realism, or a grounded type of experience, like the Last of Us, or Horizon Zero Dawn, realistic looking characters with faces molded by lived experience is what will make the game immersive, and sell the experience to players. Abby looks like a woman driven by revenge, spending her days in the weight room and pounding back ration burritos in preparation.
These folks don’t seem to get that, they want every game to star 2B, and they have no idea what 2B’s design is saying about humanity. Art is lost to them.
Exactly! I’ll always come back to the first time I saw this argument with gamers losing their shit over Ellie in borderlands. Like in a game where every character is a cartoonish exaggeration of hillbillies and other rural poor folks they had a problem with a fat horny lady.
These people don’t want art to speak to them, they want it to entertain them and flatter them while lacking any message or themes. And they feel threatened by the reminder that women exist even when we aren’t pretty and available