What do you feel about fan service?

@RetroBoy I have removed the last paragraph of your post.  This site is rated PG13, and that did not make it.  Please remember that we have a significant number of young members, and post accordingly.


Thank you.

 

Sorry Kess, I kind of just assumed we were all old gaming nerds. It didn't even occur to me that there would be anywhere here younger than 17. Won't happen again. lol

 

@RetroBoy Okay.  You might also like to keep in mind that a significant number of members who might read your posts are women. 

 

Ah, that doesn't bother me. I talk to women the same way I talk to guys. I don't think I've said anything particularly worthy of upsetting anyone,

 

Hm, how I feel for it huh? I've played numerous games where this occurs(female mostly of course, since the only game I've played that had male fan service was called "lovable bonds").  Some games make it rampant, while others make it scarce.  The best games were the ones that had it, but I didn't or barely noticed its presence.  If it stood out too much, it detracted from the story 99% of the time.


Now what if the game's purpose is to do things that acquire "fanservice material"?  Well then the game's story(if you can call that a story) progresses fine, and I could play a game like that with no issue since that's its purpose.  Hrm...actually scratch that, if the fanservice material wasn't to my liking then I probably wouldn't like playing the game.

 

Here's my thoughts on this:


First, I wanna distinguish between objectification and idealization. Generally, it's one or the other depending on whom the design is supposed to appeal to.





Here is Ahri from League of Legends. The design has very revealing clothing and next to no blemishes on her overall appearance, along with a curvy body type, specifically meant to look attractive to a straight male audience. For all intents and purposes, there's nothing wrong with making a design that's meant to look sexy, though since it's very common on the market nowadays, making a conventionally attractive female character can fail to stand out.





Conan the Barbarian is very revealing in his clothing, just like Ahri, but there's a greater focus on his muscular build and steadfast posture. It isn't designed with the intent to be attractive to straight female viewers, but rather as a role model for men to identify with as a strong and brave fighter. Like the above, making a power fantasy isn't exactly wrong either, but the strong, gruff man is also quite overused.


@RetroBoy I think you're making a mistake about arguing for the average men and women - whenever you assume that men/women behave in a certain way, you're undermining every single one of them that doesn't fit the pattern.

As explained above, I can easily list you a couple of men who do -not- need a vulnerable partner (such as myself). Not to mention that assuming this means that every gay man is in a bitter rivalry with his partner, seeking to outperform him.

The problem isn't genetics; because society has set in to expect a "real man" to be the breadwinner and to be assertive and dominant, any man that fails to live up to these expectations is put down (which is why men are often insulted by comparing them to women/girls).

Most of this is due to a sexist society - women are generally assumed to be less capable than men not because of evolutionary biology, but because media teaches this from the ground up when we're very young (with damsels in distress, girls taking supportive roles rather than proactive ones, weak men being portrayed as unappealing to women etc.).


And yes, being patronizing is just as much discrimination as violence is.


In closing, I can see a bit of the things RetroBoy is talking about, but it has less to do with biological inclination and more of cultural expectation that is taught to us every day.


PS: Here's a fairly informative video series about sexist tropes commonly featured in video games:

 

Oh no, you did not just quote Anita to me. That didn't just happen. This is woman has zero credibility and is a radical ideologue. I'm not even going to bother addressing your post because if this is someone you take seriously then we're never going to find a middle ground. I will say this though. I have studied psychology and behavioral science, I am an animal trainer (I train dogs, which I love) and I have had a lifelong love of zoology. The assertion that the behavior and trends are the result of society, completely disregards the same behavior in the vast majority of primates and most mammals.


The assertion that there should be some level of shame of that someone should take offense if they do not fall within those characters shows OVERWHELMING insecurity or (more likely) an ideological or cognitive bias.


There is nothing to be ashamed of if you feel your behavior does not fall within what is normal, but there are a few options here. The first is that you're not aware of it (I will leave that up to you with some soul searching) or your behavior is a deviation from what is the norm. Which is also fine. But trying to make invalid the years I spent in schooling because you don't like what I learned, kind of sucks.


So, lets just high five and walk away from one another. I don't want to argue. I wanted to have a conversation, maybe laugh a little about how silly we are. Not argue. And if this conversation was to continue, I would argue.


Its #GamerFate.

 

No, it isn't.








There are informative videos out there, but that one isn't one of them, it's just a bunch of propaganda and a money making scheme.

 

I'm feeling also that we shouldn't talk about the person making these videos - we should talk about the topics that are actually addressed in the series.


I've never understood how the 'money making scheme' came to be in the first place - all there is is a kickstarter to finance the series, which is delivered, and it turned out that the desire for a documentary about sexism in video games is more popular than expected.


And now a bunch of angry men think it's propaganda because it derides their favourite games, proving that none of the youtubers who hate her watched the videos (or even the first minute of the original).

 

Although I agree with some of her points, her way of delivering them is even more demeaning to women than the actual games themselves. Instead of celebrating good female characters and stories, it seems to me that she spends all of her videos emphasizing how weak and worthless women in games really are. There is no difference between her words and the words of an actual raging misogynist, except a mildly accusatory tone towards gamers and developers. "Look at how helpless this woman is! See how little effect she has on the game! All of these women are too fragile and dainty to defend themselves. There are literally no women who are strong, because developers and gamers are men, and men are repelled by strong women." Next episode:"Look at how slutty this woman is! She may be powerful and in control of her destiny, but she is a horrible person because she looks too provocative. None of her achievements and backstory matter, because she dresses to appeal to men." Next episode: "Look at how terrible these women are! They don't like me, so they are probably stupid men pretending to be women, and failing badly. No real woman who cares about her gender would ever talk back to me."

 

Sorry if this is seen as further derailing, but:


Are you kidding?


You accuse US of not watching the opposition when its clear as day that YOU didn't watch the critics.


If you did you would have known that its been called a scam because she collected money for the production of a dozen videos and the purcase of the games she reviews, then produced only one video in a year with low production values and game footage stolen from lets players.


She also claimed to love videogames and be a gamer since childhood, when there is a video of her giving a talk to students some years ago where she clearly states that she neither likes nor plays videogames.


I won't reitterate more points, thats why I linked the video.

 

Essentially, its because of Cultural Marxism. If you interpret something enough, you can make anything look and sound like anything else. You could give me a blank blue canvas and I could, quite easily, explain to you at length why it was sexist and patriarchal by stringing together a number of unrelated things and it could sound really convincing.


The motivation of the messager, while it should not be an issue in debate, is important when speaking on something like this. When you have Anita who is herself (by her own admission) someone who does not like video games and is not a gamer, speaking as if she is an expert to spread propaganda and conflict its (to use her language) problematic.


Anita is trying to use shame and guilt, about basic human issues, to turn a profit. She could (like many people) have put her series on YouTube and let her content earn her money from the ad revenue, but rather than doing that she called out for other people to support her... then largely failed to deliver.


This is because, at the end of the day, most folks are not sexist and it is not really society's fault. Sexism is essentially extinct in the modern era and when I see people say things like prejudice is paramount to violence" it makes me think that these people have had VERY easy and sheltered lives. And those are not the kind of people I want running society or being moral busy bodies, especially in my hobbies which are supposed to be magical and fun.


Being told that society is sexist when "modern western society" was not only one of the first societies to give women equal rights... and certainly the most prolific... but that we should be ashamed and then pay the people who shame us, that stinks.


At the end of the day its just not a very happy way to live. Its kind of like going around and picking fights with people and then being upset that no one wants to be your friend and saying that people are against you because of it. It breeds a victim complex and leads the person doing it to feel persecuted and then somehow more justified in tearing down others.


However, at the end of the day we all want to get along.


Men like "more vulnerable" women and "emotionally available women" because we like to fill a need. We are goal orientated and purpose driven. These are common aspects of being a man and masculinity. Its nothing to do with society. We are wired to want to protect women and protect the weak, a strong independent woman has less need of us, and so many men will be intimidated by her. And this is not me projecting or anything, this is seen in apes also. Its because children are vulnerable and men are also wired to want to protect and shelter children. These are, typically, our basic instincts.

Propaganda is bad. She is peddling in it. I've seen her whole video series and I'm not "angry" but I am "offended" that people would rather believe "All men are sexist" (which means we are essentially hateful and abusive to women by our very nature) than the fact that a few radical people are squinting at the Mona Lisa and seeing a UFO (look it up, I'm not making that up).


At the end of the day, sexism and prejudice exists... but the assertion that we need to either renounce our masculinity or live in shame and deny our basic manhood... or be guilty of sexism and hate... that is just ridiculous. The assertion that Mario is sexist because he saves Peach... its just silly. Its taking something innocent and harmless and turning it into something to fight over for no good reason.


Now if a Mario game started with Mario having to rescue Peach because "that dither brain woman can't do nothin' right" and then he chained her to the stove at the end of the game then maybe she'd have a point and I'd think there was something to it. But I feel like A LOT people have had it so good for so long that they don't actually know what sexism, racism or prejudice REALLY looks like.


And (if experience tells me anything) this is where the mudslinging starts. lol

 

The mod stands silently, ban hammer at ready for the inevitable flame war, but I want this thread to stay for a while because I still  want to know how we feel about fanservice.

 

OK - while nothing so far has really overstepped any boundary, I think it is still time to ask for staying calm.



There are a lot of people who use the platform "fanservice" to bring down their own (and often completely unrelated) viewpoints. That is nothing exclusive to fanservice, that happens with every more "newsworthy" theme from religion to politics to war to whatever.


In my opinion, the best way to determine what is a real argument and what is something that jumps on for publicity value is to see if they bring arguments for both sides - real arguments that they let stand on their own and not pseudo-arguments to ridicule as a way to get their own point home.


And if you check the discussion before the last few posts, you'll find that this is exactly what was done by most people and one of the reasons this topic was called one of the best discussions about it so far.


And any such topic does have points for all sides - it would not inspire such discussions otherwise.


Never forget: This is an official company website about game developing, we have to follow corporate law in our content policy and cannot be as lax as most private fanforums can be.



And while no moderator will step in for no reason, we will (and have in the past) moderate topics up to closing and hiding them if they deteriote into flame wars or propaganda platforms.


EDIT


@Pierman Walter you ninja'ed me - I was already writing this when you posted...

 

I can say that for my games, I don't feel the need to include any fan service for the fact that my female characters aren't designed for the purpose of being attractive to straight male players (although one might like them by their character), some of them look/are underage, it takes a lot of graphical resources to make sexualized poses, pixelated skimpy clothing looks silly to me and because I feel sexy depictions of those characters would distract from the writing.


@Andar This isn't so much a flame war as much as me mentioning a video series I find educational and everyone losing their minds. Just leaving it as "I don't like this video series" with a simple explanation like "it's too preachy" - "it doesn't feel very accurate" and I wouldn't mind any of this.

 

To get back to topic:


I do use fanservice, but not for the main character and not of the skimpy clothes kind.


Though the 2 sidekicks are literally a cat girl combat maid and a white knight with a giant... axe.


I do have a shy musician, a genki girl, a tsundere, a bookworm, a tomboy, a cross dresser, a muscular suits guy, a vampire, a halve elf and much more that could be considered to be fanservice. (Heck I even have halve a dozen middle aged (or older) men and an old lady as party characters.)


I think all those tropes can be considered fanservice, since they cater to one demographic or another.

 

Jim Sterling has some good stuff to say about this.










I like this video because it's about how well designed this female villain is, and goes into detail about sexist problems in storytelling of games without either pointing out the blatantly obvious or nitpicking.


Also, when I include fan service elements in my game, I'm not thinking,"I'll give this woman huge boobs and a sexy apron so that people who are into sexy waitresses will like this game. And I'll give this eight year old girl a short skirt so the Lolita fans will like her. And I'll make the domineering commanding officer super buff and super hairy for my gay players who are into bears. Aww, yeah." If anyone finds the characters attractive, that's fine, but I didn't create them to attract people. When I deliberately design sexy characters, I try to make any fan service fit the setting. For example, there is a map that is Tokyo-red-light-district/1920s-Chicago-gangland/Las-Vegas based, so there are a lot of showgirls in skimpy outfits. The showgirls have their own dialogue trees and personalities beyond looking attractive, and there is a lot of other stuff going on in the map other than sexy showgirls, but it simply wouldn't make any sense for the setting to not have attractive showgirls, the same way it wouldn't make sense for a lot of bikini-clad cheerleaders to be in trench warfare.

 

These are strong archetypes that you can do a lot with. The others are far well compelling concepts (in my experience). I especially think "The Shy Musician" is a creative choice and something you should focus on if you are not. It is a very good character concept with lots to flesh out and explore, and an internal struggle many "geeks" and "gamers" and "filthy casuals" will be able to relate too -- wanting either fame or sucsess but being shy or doubting yourself. As such people will want the character to overcome and succeed. Its a good story hook.

 

@Lihinel You can get away with having some of your female ensemble be more stereotypically feminine if you have a bigger breadth of female characters who do not follow these tropes. In fact, this works with any kind of minority - having several characters of a marginalized group avoids having a token character whose behavior is highly stereotyped. If you don't have enough heroes to make sufficient representation, you can just have more PoC/female/LGBT+ characters among the NPCs.


@Pierman Walter If you wanna help sell those showgirls as fleshed-out character and not eye candy, you should be able to see them outside of their job where they're not wearing enticing clothing. But you might help letting women (possibly even sex workers) playtest your game so you can get their feedback on their implementation. You'll never know if a scene/character/mechanic/etc. offends women unless you get feedback from them.


To bring in something myself, I think fan service can be more than just what a character looks like. An erotic voice, suggestive behavior or inviting posture can all contribute to this. It's also not limited to individual characters, but also things like armor.