MMOsite is one of many schill MMO “reviews” sites that basically exist as a promotional machine for all the shitty free MMOs and k-MMOs out there. They make their money entirely through advertising and don’t even pretend to be objective. I’ve used MMOsite in the past several times to collect egregious screenshots when lambasting free MMOs like Kabod Online and TERA and had noted just how much boobage there is on that site.
I didn’t have anything specific in mind to blog about today, so I thought I’d head over to MMOsite and see how much boobage I could find in twenty minutes or so by clicking through to random links. It was, unsurprisingly (considering what they cover), a lot. I mean, I found this right on the main page:
Oh look! Another browser-based free MMO… Because the world really needed more of those. Anyway, I love that the logo is right next to the woman’s tits. (And what’s with the outfit? She looks like a cross between a stewardess and a sailor, as portrayed in a porno.)
Clicking through to the news section of their site brought up some interesting headlines. For instance, there was a gallery with designs of the characters in the new Dynasty Warriors game. (I’m a bit confused as to why this would be covered on MMOsite, since Dynasty Warriors 7 is going to be a console release and not an MMO…) Going through the gallery reveals a whole lot of men and very few women. And while there were two female characters who actually are decently covered (even if one of them is a bit cleavagey), there’s also these as well:
Le sigh.
Even more depressing than the Dynasty Warriors designs was this feature on the boss battle that is part of k-MMO Vindictus’ Episode 8, a new content patch recently released. I guess the folks at MMOsite really wanted to make sure that people saw the feature, because there’s a nice eye-catching ad for it right at the top of the news page:
When are game designers going to learn that BOOBS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY? You cannot put a strap around your boobs and expect it to cover up your nipples unless you’re attaching it with superglue, which I don’t suggest. I am SO FUCKING TIRED of the leather nipple-strap school of character design. (I’m looking at you Namco and BioWare!)
It gets worse when you click through to the article, unfortunately. Apparently, this boss features clothing destruction that lets you render her almost nude. Not only that, but she has a “sexy” attack called “suck essence” in which she utilizes her succubus wiles to suck your soul or something. (I bet that’s not all she’s sucking! Amirite? Winkwink nudgenudge?)
At the top of the page, there’s even a video of the attack in which she straddles the hero, writhes around a little (showing off the jiggle physics), presses her boobs against the hero’s chest, and then arches her back while magic effects go off. All of this, of course, while she moans sexily. I guess Vindictus decided to go after the players that they purportedly lost to TERA by giving them a little show, which is just all kinds of disgusting.
Moving on, most of the rest of what I found is your garden variety nudity, like this account creation screen for Perfect World:
Looks like they’re still not willing to go quite as far as TERA. I mean, sure she’s mostly naked, but she’s not greased up and her underwear is actually modest by TERA standards. (Is it a bad sign that I’m getting blase about this level of nudity?)
And of course, what fun would nudity be without costuming double-standards? Because we all know that in k-MMOs, only men get to be fully covered. (Silly wimminz! Clothes are for men!) While poking around, I managed to find these “fashion” screens for a cutesy, anime-styled k-MMO called Dragon Nest:
Ah yes. Because nothing says “master of the arcane elements” like “here are my tits”. But since Dragon Nest is a pretty obscure example, I’ll finish off with an example from a more popular game – Runes of Magic:
Okay. I’m actually not too surprised about the rogue, since the female thief as porn star meme seems to be dominant in all MMOs, not just Korean ones. But the warrior? Are you kidding me? If I ran into that woman, I’d stab her in the boob just on principle. Also, the warrior slogan is a bit unfortunate when considered next to the female warrior image. “Battle isn’t the only thing she’s a wild beast in! Rawr!” (Sarcasm is my way of coping.)
So all in all, not to surprising. Still, even though the results were exactly what I expected, it’s still discouraging. Knowing that sexism is prevalent in MMOs is one thing. The fact that they’re not even trying to hide it is even worse.
Go Make Me a Sandwich 
Nitpick: ‘Shill’ is a salesperson who pretends not to be one. ‘Schill’ is a surname.
Question: What’s a ‘k-MMO’? Google, understandably, thinks I’m asking about broadcast stations.
Apologies. I did mean “shill”. K-MMO is a term for the spate of homogeneous treadmill MMOs that come out of Korea.
Wow, having the same helmet on the male and female warriors makes the juxtaposition even more ridiculous and obvious.
I get most of this, but not the Xing Cai thing. It’s not decent armour, but nothing in Fantasy is, and there isn’t much exposed skin, so what’s wrong with it?
Incorrect. There IS decent fantasy armor for women – like this or like this. There’s just not much of it.
Besides, what is there to “get”? It’s another example of a game where female characters are in the vast minority and are mostly semi-naked to boot. I mean, I know that this is a “normal” thing in gaming, but just because I see it all the damn time doesn’t mean I’m going to stop decrying sexist character designs just because they’re not “as bad” as the shit from Perfect World or TERA.
I think what Hazmat Sam was referring to with the Xing Cai art is that she’s (comparatively) mostly covered. She’s ‘only’ showing upper thigh and arms, co bare cleavage or midriff.
I think its that the constant over-exposure of female characters in MMO’s (and fantasy) make character designs like this seem tame in comparison, but it still really isint. You’d be hard pressed to find a male character in a full suit of plate leaving their forearms bared, and if you can even find an image of a male warrior with thigh high stockings and a split skirt, by all means share that with us 🙂
In a (virtual) world full of chainmail bikinis and dental floss, armor like Xing Cai almost becomes a welcome change of pace… bu that doesn’t make that art design any less over-sexualized, sexist, or just plain dumb from an ‘armor should protect your vital bits’ standpoint.
I’m not sure the “armor should cover your vital bits” thing is really applicable to Dynasty Warriors, which at least seems to be quite willing to leave male characters’ chests, arms, and sometimes even midriffs uncovered because it looks cool.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not anywhere close to equal, considering the average female design there. But I think Xing Cai could get away with a, “well, okay” if she was considered the female equivalent to the guy with the randomly-uncovered midriff (bottom left) instead of being the relatively-sensible one.
True 🙂
There are many fantasy and real world armors that leave various vital bits exposed, but those generally are not full sets of plate. They tend to be more along the lines of ‘barbarian’ armors that used nakedness as a tactic (and not the “ooh my boobage is sexy, be distracted by dirty thoughts while I knife you” kinda tactic but the “I’m a raging barbarian running at you full tilt with my dangly bits bouncing in the wind screaming bloody murder so be scared, be very scared” intimidation route).
And I’ve never known much about the Dynasty Warriors games, so I had no context for those character designs within the game itself, but was putting them into context of the gaming media as a whole. Tho from what you linked it does seem to be that, as usual, while some men may show some skin and that skin may be sexualized, its still mostly women showing skin and mostly in sexualized manners.
What I saw when looking through the new character designs is that the majority of male characters are fully covered, and that the very small number of female characters are more scantily clad than not. Also, Xing Cai is NOT WEARING PANTS. STOCKINGS ARE NOT PANTS. STRIPPER BOOTS ARE ALSO NOT PANTS. NO FORGIVENESS. NONE.
Ahem.
Yeah, the “not wearing pants” thing is still really frustrating… especially since I’d like that particular design without all too many reservations if they just swapped out the thigh-highs for full leather leggings or something. =/
Except that’s not the case, seeing as how majority of the men are fully covered, while majority of the women are in cheesecake armor galore. There is no equivalency here.
Wundergeek: “Incorrect. There IS decent fantasy armor for women – like this or like this. There’s just not much of it.”
You’re getting me wrong. I’m a history nerd, and even though China isn’t exactly my forte (not that it matters, because this series sure as hell doesn’t care about history) I feel confident in saying that there is no fantasy armour that would actually stop a weapon for either gender. Both your examples would be straight up murdered in an actual fight. This is because real armour has things like helmets, padding, and other things that, in addition to protecting, have the (welcome) effect of making soldiers indistinct form the rest of their formation. Games don’t have armour that would actually help in a fight. But that’s okay, because 1. It’s good design to be able to single out your character from a crowd and 2. duh, fantasy. It’s supposed to be cool, not real.
The only problem I’d have is if it was chainmail bikinis or cleavage holes, which don’t even look cool enough to excuse, and I don’t see that here.
Ikkin: “I think what Hazmat Sam was referring to with the Xing Cai art is that she’s (comparatively) mostly covered. She’s ‘only’ showing upper thigh and arms, co bare cleavage or midriff. ”
That’s it. I don’t really see exposed legs as a fanservice thing because ancient armies can and have succeeded without leg protection. Notably: Roman legionaries. Also, I do not believe most soldiers could afford a full plate armour set, and breastplates don’t cover arms. I imagine that that’s what the tower shield is for.
To be charitable though, I doubt most artists know that knights were an exception rather than the norm of medieval warfare. And if this character is a noble (I never read R3K or played this series, so I don’t know) it wouldn’t excuse her anyway.
Also, are exposed arms a “sexy woman” trope now? Maybe this is another thing I miss for not being aroused by people in general.
We’ve had this argument before, so let me state AGAIN that I don’t give a shit about whether or not armor would actually be effective. Whether armor is “realistic” is so not relevant. Saying that the armor isn’t intended to be realistic is NOT an excuse.
And exposed legs ARE a fanservice thing. What else do you call it when the male characters get to wear fucking PANTS and the female characters get thigh-highs or stripper boots? Here’s the thing, if everyone in the game was dressed as Roman Legionnaires, then fine. Fucking fantastic. No pants for everyone! But that’s not the case, and frankly, it’s NEVER the case. You always, always, ALWAYS see fully-covered men next to women with no fucking pants.
So yes. At the risk of sounding completely fixated on pants, yes it is a BIG DEAL. I don’t give two shits about historical context. I don’t give two shits about “realistic” armor. All of those are just excuses to have YET ANOTHER video game woman running around with no fucking pants.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
Forgot to add: character designs like Xing Cai are often abused to add panty shot physics, so don’t think this is just my bizarre fixation with pants. I’m so fucking sick of panty shot physics that I could scream.
Okay, agreed. Panty shots are vile, and if that’s the reason she’s dressed that way, it’s pretty despicable.
I’m not saying that I know for sure that she is dressed that way to facilitate panty shots. (I don’t know.) But the Soul Calibur games, just to pick a game, abuses that particular design for panty shots. As do other games. (Admittedly most of the ones that come to mind are fighting games.)
I’ve played Dynasty Warriors from 3 to 6 and also Warriors Orochi 1 and 2. There are no panty shots for ANY of the women in any of the games.
While i agree on your principles, i think this kind of attitude most fantasy art authors have and it’s not really helping. Being dismissal about critics towards sexualized women’s armours it’s not the same as dismissal about critics towards completly unrealistic armours but in everyday life it’s goes along nicely for the most part and it’s making changes tad harder…
My point was that, no, strictly speaking “that wouldn’t even protect her!” is not an argument you can make because no other fantasy armour would do that either, regardless of how well she’s covered.
To clarify, my point wasn’t that chainmail bikinis or whatever are okay. It’s that they’re bad for reasons entirely unrelated to practicality, like objectification, how they all look the same, they critically lack of fantasy bling that makes stupid armour excusable in the first place, (not much you can put on a single square foot of metal) etc.
Um, I dunno. Most of the fantasy armor men wear look like they’d give some mighty fine protection. More than the strips of metal women get, in which they’ll be too busy adjusting and trying to put their breasts back into and stop from riding up to really focus on the battle.
The armor given to women makes gives the idea that the women are there for a joke or cosplay, or yes stripping. Maybe the intent is to make women in these games seem like a joke, I dunno. But I do know it’s quite easy to see how that would insult women.
I’ve gotta side with Hazmat on this one. I see nothing wrong with Xing Cai.
She passes my “would I play a male character dressed similarly?” and “do I want to play this character, or do I want to have sex with her?” tests. I’ve played plenty of male characters armored similarly(I hate playing full plate covered juggernauts from either gender), and her pose/expression/gear project toughness. She’s clearly here to kick my ass, not hop into bed with me.
On the other hand, the Runes of Magic warrior is pretty atrocious, as is the Vindictus boss.
Look. We’re arguing about one character here, which is getting a little silly. I’m going to state for the record that it pisses me off when women don’t get to wear pants and men do. The new Dynasty Warriors character designs fit that criteria. Therefor, I am annoyed. We can quibble about whether the design of Xing Cai is or is not sexist. (I’m going to firmly assert that she is.) But if you look at all of the new Dynasty Warriors designs, you see three things: 1) Female characters are vastly outnumbered by male characters 2) the majority of male characters are fully covered. The majority of female characters are not. 3) The male characters have at least some diversity of body types. The female characters have NONE AT ALL.
I’ve never played Dynasty Warriors, though I’ve played some of the early RoTK games, so my ability to comment here is somewhat limited, but here we go:
1. The source material doesn’t seem to include much for female characters, and their role on the battlefield seemed limited/non-existant. If anything, there’s probably more women in the game than appropriate to the source material.
2. This is true. From other people’s posts here though, it sounds like there’s some exposed male flesh as well.
3. This is the important one in my view. There absolutely needs to be more diversity, both in body types and amount of sexualization. The problem isn’t that some female characters are thin and show some skin, it’s that being thin and showing skin seems to be a requirement for female characters.
I’m curious though. Would you call out Xing Cai(or Vanille) as a problem in a game where every other female character is armored head to toe, or at least wearing pants?
It depends? I mean, if the other women were fully covered but there were only two of them… or if they were fully covered but completely passive and/or stereotyped… Then I’d probably still have a problem with it. It really depends on the context of the character, though. I’m not against all sexy characters, ever – honest. I just want to see game companies at least make SOME effort to have characters be roughly equal across gender lines.
Then we agree, for the most part. Characters like FemShep and Ashley from Mass Effect are pretty awesome, and fascinating to play. Lightning from FF13 is another good one. There needs to be more strong female characters that are defined by competence rather than clothing and breast size.
Dynasty Warriors is a series I’ve always liked, and I’m sad they are doing even MORE with the cheesecake armor. I will give it to them, because they have consistently been adding more and more women to their roster. I started out with DW3 and they had only 6 women to play with. Now they have doubled that number.
Though, Xing Cai’s armor isn’t too bad IMO , seeing as it stays somewhat true to her previous incarnations in 5 and 6, and though it IS cheese cake, it’s MUCH better than other characters like Zhen Ji, who just got worse over time, with her showing even MORE with every game installation.
I just really hope that they put Yue Ying back to normal, because her armor and weapon went from badass non chickified woman with a war scythe and full armor to chickified woman with a skirt dress and an arm crossbow. I am SOO pissed about that, because she ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE PRETTY. The historical story even SAYS THIS! *pouts*
I’m curious as to how many women you could actually put in this series. A quick check at Wikipedia suggests that the original book has a pretty severe gender-imbalance.
Why should that matter? Why can’t we acknowledge that women play games and we like to have female characters? If that means *gasp* being slightly unfaithful to the source material, would that be the end of the world?
Well, I think you can create your own characters, so there’s no reason to make OCs when the players can do that themselves.
There is an assumption here that the Dynasty Warrior series is wholly accurate in a historical sense. I’m pretty sure it’s gone far from the source material (unless they could shoot beams out of their swords there too).
I never get people who talk about how unrealistic fantasy is but then get up in arms when it’s suggested you add OC women to these games because /that/ would somehow destroy the history or source material (because now that suddenly matters again?). It’s rather silly.
Also, there is a reason to make those OCs. To show that you can be inclusive to women and welcome them, which is a lot easier to do when you can make characters that aren’t blatantly and unnecessarily sexualized and have great traits beyond bewbs. IMO, it comes across as more sincere than just putting in the option of ‘Boy or Girl?’ Custom.
Creating an OC that isn’t immediately saddled with a ridiculous amount of irrational hatred is much harder than any sort of stylistic change, for some reason. It seems to be just as prevalent in female fan-circles as it is in entitled fanboy communities (if not moreso), which makes it especially insidious — even a developer who cares about earning female fans would probably pause when they realize that Jane Six-Pack is more likely to call their OCs “Mary Sue” than to enjoy them being there. =/
Mm, well to be fair most of the instances I’ve come upon the Mary Sue Syndrome is when they have the OCs become too involved in a story. I didn’t say they had to be in the spotlight conquering all kingdoms necessarily.
Yeah, as a fanfic veteran I distrust OCs on a general principle. It doesn’t help that Dynasty Warriors characters are all basically demigods in the first place, so it’s a lot harder to not make a Mary Sue.
Well I’ve read the entire ROTK series, and there are quite a few women in the story that could have been put into the game, but haven’t, such as the Empress Dowager who was in control before the fall of the Han and beginning of the division of the three kingdoms. Also, there’s the woman Cao Cao kept in the Jade tower to woo, Lady Cai, sister of Cai Mao, etc, etc. They can FIND women to put in this game. And they have done so.
The fact that these women are ridiculously boob-tastic is a travesty though, because quite a few of them were powerful women. Zhu Rong was the mother-effin GODDESS OF FIRE. In the book, she goes out to battle with a 40 foot spear and kidnaps an officer of Shu. She is THAT. BADASS. Yet they totally gave her the stereotypical ( and quite racist) “tribal” outfit complete with loincloth, cloth bikini and a feather in her hair to top it off. What. The. Hell.
Then they take the ONLY female character that was actually presentable and cheesecaked her. To all hell. Insulting is what it is.
“I just really hope that they put Yue Ying back to normal, because her armor and weapon went from badass non chickified woman with a war scythe and full armor to chickified woman with a skirt dress and an arm crossbow. I am SOO pissed about that, because she ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE PRETTY. The historical story even SAYS THIS! *pouts*”
Yeah, that sounds like a pretty bogus change.
This is what Yue Ying looked like in DW 4:
This is what she looked like in 6:
And now 7:
Note how much clothing she has lost since she’s been in this. She was not EVER intended to be a beautiful woman, and historical records even note this fact. Yet she has been sexed up continuously. It makes me want to vomit
Hmm. I’m guessing that for the last example they decided to be diablo-ish and make each class have a default gender? That’s the only reason I can see to use a warrior as the counterpart image for a mage, since only one of them is likely to get into close combat. Still, I agree that there’s no reason for it to look like someone just sliced her clothes in half.
That’s pretty much what they did. And since there are four classes and the split is male – male / female – female, that’s not what I have the problem with. It’s just the whole thing of male characters getting to wear clothes.
I know, I was just wondering why you would use someone who would be charging at enemies, rather than someone else who would standing back and shooting spells.
Side note: I realize that the fact that they chose to make the one who stands back female can also be something of an issue, but I didn’t want to get into that right now.
I thought Diablo 3 was going to let you play each class as either male and female? That’s basically the only excuse I can take for not bringing back the Amazon.
DIII might. However, I was talking only about those that have already been released. Besides, I haven’t really been following DIII. I figure they’ll release it when they get around to it, it’ll be big news, and I may or may not buy it, depending on whether I’ve fixed the power supply for my gaming computer.
Yes, it’s true: shitty products and services are advertised with sex. How absolutely shocking. I am shocked. What’s even more shocking that this goes on outside video games. I hear it’s actually quite common. I hear even women are involved, if you can believe that.
It being common and having women involved in it doesn’t make it right. The objectification of women is wrong, and needs to end.
You’ve got to start somewhere, and video games are a good target for change. It’s still a fairly young medium, and the cultural impact it’s having on our society is growing quickly. Changing video games will be easier than changing movies/television/other media I think, and the long term impact will be higher.
I agree with you, but could you please either use the button at the bottom of the post you’re responding or put an @(Username) in you comment? This sounds like it’s directed at An Onymous, but I can’t tell if it is or you’re responding to the post in general.
It was a reply to An, yes. WordPress and/or Chrome has a bit of a peculiarity apparently: if you start typing a reply to a reply, browse elsewhere on the page, and then come back to the reply, it retains the reply you started on. However, it apparently directs the reply to the post in general instead of the reply you were replying to.
Pretty minor thing, and an easily recreateable bug. I’ll figure out where to report it to later.
Ah. That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!
Ran across this today. Didn’t see a place to email you or anything, so I’ll just leave it here. http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/710794/boobs-in-video-games-the-well-rounded-gamer/
Oh, Vindictus, and I had thought you were doing fairly well for a while. And now we’re back to that tired old character archetype of the ‘succubus’. If I tried to count how many instances of incubus there are versus a succubus, would I even get remotely close to an equal number? People who say the objectification is equal are ridiculous, men aren’t teh ones thought of as the goto one-dimensional sex advertisements. And it’s funny that seemingly the best way people can think of making a threatening female villain is to make her intensely sexual. I wonder if there’s a message being sent there…
It’s a holdover from way, way, back in pre-monotheist times where women were seen as the sexual predators instead of men because they were presumed to have unlimited libido as a result of not having a refractory period. Mythology being idealization, we ended up with things like Inanna, Sumerian goddess of sex and war, which was exactly as rapetastic as it sounds. Hymns to her exalted it. Once monotheism came around, the goddesses that were good were canonized and the bad ones were demonized. By that time, people had figured out that sexual violence is a pretty terrible thing to venerate, so Inanna and her ilk ended up demonized. (Innana in particular ended up as Asherah, through a long process of syncretism)
Of course, modern sterotypes are completely reversed, so it’s impossible to take a rape-monsster woman with lady parts as scary instead of sexy, so you’ll have, to paraphrase Veggie Tales, Succubi who don’t do anything, (With a notable exception of UDON’s Darkstalkers comic. Props to them.) because women being sexually dangerous is appears silly to the average person. (never mind that 1/3 of all lesbians are raped by women, which is higher then the men’s prison rape rate. Or that women are more likely use violence on domestic partners. It’s the men that’re evil, don’chaknow.)
Did you know that medieval legends had it that Succubi and Incubi were the same thing? The demon just had different forms, and used them to impregnate women with the sperm of other men. It’s only around the Renaissance that they got split into different types of demon. I personally prefer the medieval one. It’s a lot freakier. I wish we had more of that kind.
I think that’s a rather shallow analysis. The ‘Female Monster that will seduce you and than either kill you or eat your man bits’ exists in a whole host of cultures. The Succubus, like the Siren, or the Fox-Woman, or the host of other ‘entities’ that have in historical myth used their sexuality to destroy men are a pretty standard element of culture(one might venture classical Patriarchal Culture, but given the limited number of counter-examples, that would be informed guesswork). The Evil Enchantress is another pretty basic trope, that while perhaps not as culturally universal, does cross quite a few cultural frameworks. I think these extend less from a struggle against some pre-existing goddess figure-worship(see Cult of Mary) and more-so a representation of men’s fear of their own desires.
Now the thing is, there ARE other female monsters in history, that is Monsters that are almost exclusively pictured as female. The Hag is a paralell example. The Witherer of Male Virility. The keeper of Secret Wisdom that men can never gleam. Sometimes conflated with the Evil Enchantress(who gets you into her bed only to reveal after the fact that your seed has been stolen by a hideous hag). The ‘Monster Mother’ is another trope; Grendel’s Mom is a good example, but there are plenty of examples of the ‘Birther of Monsters’.
To get to the question as to why the Succubus exists so prolifically in Video Games? Well that’s just an excuse for T&A. We’ve had decades now of media to present us with plenty of examples of Female Werewolves, Female Vampires, Female Ghosts, Goblins, Serial Killers and so Forth. I think the previous discussion on Miniature Figures and the proliferation of the Succubus amoung those is a telling example; there is no ‘game related’ reason for there to be so many Succubus figures. Of course this ignores the principal underlaying issue; Continued representations of stereotypes and constructions of female sexuality as being principal to the defining characteristics of ‘being female’ is precisely the problem. The Lack of the Incubus, which in Medieval writings was a far more commonly lamented figure(all those troubled nuns, at least if you believe the writings of Italian Monks…), in modern ‘Monsters’ is a pretty telling sign. Though I do agree with you that the idea of the Hermaphroditic entity who can be both male and female is infinitely more interesting(as well as presenting interesting excuses for infidelity, for the Succubus can take the sperm of a man, than transform to it’s Incubus form and deliver it to another woman).
“I think these extend less from a struggle against some pre-existing goddess figure-worship(see Cult of Mary) and more-so a representation of men’s fear of their own desires.”
You misunderstand me. By the time that monotheism became really big (well, big outside Persia. Zoroastrianism was doing it before it was cool) the idea that women had some sort of sexual potency was laughable, so there was really nothing to struggle against. there’s also the fact that ‘sex is evil’ as a legitimate belief can dated quite clearly to the BCE time-frame. This is because things like the ‘evil enchantress’ that you mentioned would make no sense in ancient myths because the concept of ‘evil’ as opposed to merely ‘bad’ or ‘unvirtuous’ didn’t exist before dualism. (see: On the Genealogy of Morality) Indeed, remember that Medea, one of the most well known sorceresses, was deified for basically acting like a Disney stepmother. Sure, there were myths of women that did terrible things to particular men, but that was seen as a good thing because cruelty to the weak was a virtue. (it still is in certain schools that follow classical philosophy, see: Alex Kierkegaard.
Back on topic, there’s another reason why we see so many succubi: Demons are good villains, but most people don’t know many types of demons. Be honest, how many people do you know that studied demonology? The succubus is one of the only demons that most people recognize, which means that it’s one of the only ones bad developers use. Bad developers are the majority by definition, so that’s why there are so many. Well, that and the “Sex Sells” thing.
Like everything else, this could be solved if people were expected to do fucking research before they touched the keyboard.
Sam, the reason succubi are so popular is so that game devs can have an excuse to have characters that show off their tits. Seriously. You can’t possible expect me to believe that it has more to do with ignorance of demonology than out of sexism. Research has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with wanting a justification for having characters that run around mostly naked.
“Another reason” is what I said. Don’t be putting words in my mouth.
I honestly can’t agree that it’s plausibly even another reason. And if it is, it’d be quite a rare instance in which that was the case over it just being an excuse. Largely the Succubus and femme fatale archetypes are used as a lazy fallback to sexualizing women. When they make male demons they seem to have an easy enough time not stripping them to their underwear and inserting humping motions into them.
“Back on topic, there’s another reason why we see so many succubi: Demons are good villains, but most people don’t know many types of demons. Be honest, how many people do you know that studied demonology? The succubus is one of the only demons that most people recognize”
I don’t think succubi are even recognized as demons in modernity, since we have largely secular and scientific attitudes towards sex that remove the notion of it being sinful or harmful. As far as I can tell, succubus is just code for “hot chick that fulfills male sexual fantasies. Oh yeah, she has horns and is a demon too.” They aren’t so much dangerous as they are prostitutes that happen to live in Hell. I doubt research is the issue at all.
As for the most recognizable demons, they are just the hooved, horned, pitchfork-wielding kind, right? No demonology needed.
“By the time that monotheism became really big (well, big outside Persia. Zoroastrianism was doing it before it was cool) the idea that women had some sort of sexual potency was laughable, so there was really nothing to struggle against.”
In what sense? As far as I can tell, that belief was only supported by the monotheisms, hence their prohibitions against sex and misogyny. That, and there is the refractory period thing that was mentioned, which could be plausibly argued as one of the biological bases for this belief. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you as well though.
“They aren’t so much dangerous as they are prostitutes that happen to live in Hell.”
Oh I won’t doubt that. Like I said, women’s sexual potency is so absurd to modernity that you don’t even have the succubi that kill by fucking anymore, it’s just meaningless “seduction”. (Except, as I said, the Darkstalkers succubi. They have canonically killed people through sex, and we see some of it in the comics. That’s the source of my fondness, really). The horns are just decoration. That’s why we know about them. Regular demons don’t have much appeal to an audience that is functionally atheist, but if you want to have some sort of pseudo-western-medieval fantasy- and even Japan has to, for some baffling reason- you’ve got to have some sort of demon or demon analogue.
“As for the most recognizable demons, they are just the hooved, horned, pitchfork-wielding kind, right? No demonology needed.”
Yes, let us make every demon the same and ignore the theology from the age we are imitating. That will surely make it interesting! Are you being sarcastic? I honestly cannot tell.
“As far as I can tell, that belief was only supported by the monotheisms, hence their prohibitions against sex and misogyny. “
Sex has pretty much always been prohibited as a consequence of any legal system that uses the concept of family inheritance in an environment that lacks reliable contraception. (matriarchal societies might have been different had they existed. But that is baseless speculation.) But, like I said, compare Medea and your average runn-of-the-mill Fairy Tale witch, or Inanna/The Morrigan/Sekhemet and a succubus, and you will find that there is a certain missing element of fear, and more crucially, power.
“That, and there is the refractory period thing that was mentioned, which could be plausibly argued as one of the biological bases for this belief. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you as well though.”
By this time, we have gone far beyond religion being concerned with biology or reality in general. I mean, there was always some idealism to it, which logically increased as time went on, but polytheistic faiths were (and sometimes are still) much more empirical. To use my Inanna example, Inanna was a goddess of a City, War, Sex, and the planet Venus, all of witch were physical, quantifiable things. Move later to Aphrodite, and you’ve got a Lust Goddess. Now, Lust isn’t material, but you can understand what it refers to. You can say that people having consensual sex are in lust with each other by definition, but the important thing is you’re one more step removed from reality. Now, move this on to Jesus, who, as we are frequently told, is love. What the Christ does love mean? Nothing. It’s a gibberish word that’s used for your feeling towards possessing Ipads, playing football, living with our families and fucking our friends with equal accuracy (that is to say: none). Jesus is almost completely removed from the world, but we do have his story and we do have a vague sense of the general direction in which love is supposed to point. Then you finally come to Allah who is transcendentally incomprehensible, and we haven’t had a major revelation in theology since then because there’s no where else to go. Now, when you say through omission that realty is irrelevant, you have to slander it because people live there. Hence monotheist even-greater-than-practical desecration (literally) of sex, because that is the fundamental basis of our existence in reality. The secularization that people have reacted with since then is simply the inevitable outcome from this process, though I will admit that certain brilliant minds were able to retard it for a time.
The point of this is that religion used to be constrained to the human perception of the world, so not only did flawed ideas of women exist, but they had to be deified because women are quite important. Later people had less flawed ideas and a an outright rejection of reality, which is why they had to derogate reality as they understood it.
This isn’t about MMOs, but has anyone seen the new Dungeon Siege character, Katarina? I feel like they had been doing alright up until then tbh, but then again, Squenix is involved, and we all know what they did to Aya from Parasite Eve.
http://kotaku.com/#!5785827/dungeon-siege-iiis-katarina-is-a-real-bullet-witch
I’m assuming the reason she wears thigh highs instead of pants and breezy blouses instead of armor is that she is a ranged character, being a gunslinger, but I just thought it was kind of ridiculous and out of place.
Speaking of which, I think MK9 is getting more ridiculous with every female character they reveal. I understand, it is Mortal Kombat and it is ridiculous anyway, but still, it would be good to at least pretend that the girls were dressed for combat. They just revealed Scarlett, and she is wearing nothing other than a bikini top, and essentially a long loin cloth with what appear to be garter belts to hold knives. And knee high boots, of course. At that point, it would probably be less dangerous just to fight naked. It is kind of funny tbh.
That’s a step up from Mileena’s alternate where she’s literally only wearing enough gauze to cover her nipples and vag. I don’t remember this Skarlett but it’s apparently because she was a DLC char and, as good as the game was, I didn’t care about DLC. Also, every girl in a fighting game ever has become more and more naked in the past 20 years. They aren’t chun-li anymore, they’re just straight up naked. If they aren’t naked, they are wearing an 80% transparent bodysuit, with no bra, which somehow mashes their boobs together, or a plate armor top with massive cleavage.
As far as Katerina, well, obviously she’s going to be ridiculous and shitty if Squeenix is involved. I do not know what you mean about what they did to Aya – PE was made long before they merged with Enix and became the worst company ever, but I may understand what you’re saying.
“Oh look! Another browser-based free MMO… Because the world really needed more of those.”
On the contrary, I really like free browser based MMO’s. They can keep making them.
I’m currently playing Vindictus. I am not looking forward to fighting this boss…
While I entirely agree with you and how this degrades women and blah blah blah and all that good righteous stuff that would matter just a little bit more if the word was slightly less insane and the sheer weight of all the societal injustices didn’t crush good people’s will to care about things like this (I’m sorry but the fact that every game character moonlights as a skank and a stripper is the least important thing possible in these times of globalists and starvation and blah blah blah), there’s one unfortunate fact to remember. Most of these games are made by guys. On top of that, most of these games are made by Japanese guys. Guys like boobs, and girls, and their flesh. So it’s going to be pretty much entirely revealed in every game, and if not, there’s going to be sexual innuendo somewhere.
I’d also add the sex sells technique is really only used for these sub-par, low-key shitty JMMOs that no one actually cares about. The sex factor is rarely at all used to sell WoW or LoTR or Rift (though it is still there) – actual games that generate profit and have players. They have to do something to get their garbage some exposure, I guess. Though to be honest, as a guy, the FUCKING ANNOYING pair of breasts constantly staring me in the face on torrent websites from the Evony game, is really starting to piss me off. Seriously.