ZERO SUIT SAMUS

The line's drawn right around the chest.

No, but seriously, as a man, you cannot fully comprehend the depths of which this affects women as you yourself have never been subject to this kind of thing. Even when a man is sexualized, he's still seen as a dominant role. For men, it's stuff like Hercules; while for women, it's... well... Playboy. There's a very clear distinction between the two and how society views them.

VS
Tell me, where is your eye first drawn with either image?

The guilt the designers carry is in their creation. You spend so long bringing something to life and, after a while, it's going to expose your view on the matter. You are responsible for what you put out, and society has every right to hold you responsible for it. It then makes its way to the consumer and, subconsciously, your views will rub off on them. We should hold ourselves responsible to what we put in our minds, but that doesn't dismiss the whole ordeal as "don't like, don't look" because it's still a prevalent force upon its release.

Sorry, it's early and I can't quite get it together before breakfast. I'll edit this post if I feel more of a point needs to be made. If not, I'll probably just quote my other post.

This is hilarious. Reminds me of a car model sex swap! Great pictures indeed.

However, there is also a clear destinction between a character dressed sexy, and striking sexy poses whenever possible .. which is, as I mentioned, something intentional. I don't know of a single woman who would strike all these poses shown in screenshots, promotion and ingame naturally. And certainly not all the fucking time.

LoL got several redrawings of old characters, only changing pose (and artstyle)

old



new



The outfit hasn't changed much. The portrayel has slightly.
There is a clear difference between a neutral pose, a fighting stance and oversexifyied ridiculousness.
If you want to see whole picture, not just the loading screens.
Old
New

I don't know exactly where to draw the line. I don't dislike scandily clad female characters, and I don't mind some mindless walking boobs every now and then (x-blade was better than expected, had nice music - and hey, you gained more clothes as you picked up armor, not less).
But when the focus lies on "how hot she looks in there while beating baddies" and not on "that hot girl beats up baddies", the feeling you get is entirely different.

For example, I started up a brawler-esque I had gotten from a recent humblebundle (which I otherwise wouldn't have bought ..) - called Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae
And really, the buttonsmashing is boring and repetitive. But you could watch this nicely animated girl, which is probably the only fun to be had .. a quite sexy fighting style, let's put it like this. Boobs jiggling, panties showing all the time and overall a nice flow. Not worth a play still, but it obviously puts an emphasis on watching her fight rather than the fighting itself.

A fighter should aim to make no unnecessary movement. Swinging your hips, making huge jumps left and right, backflips and others may look nice, but are not practical at all. They are for eyecandy first and foremost.

As for the "GUYS ARE OVERSEXIFIED, TOO!"-"argument".
Not necessarily sefixied, but overpowered. To have that stereotype all the time is annoying as well, a topic in itself, and a problem, yet it doesn't refute anything.. it's just a related topic. It's too bad it appears to be used as that all the time, though.

The main difference to what context it's usually used in is that both stereotypes are made "for men".
The majority of women find slightly athletic guys most attractive, not the super buff type. You don't see overly brawny heroes in most female orientated media.
Whereas the symbolization of strength, perfect endurance and dedication are supposed to be an ideal. A power fantasy.

I won't argue that this is truly what the majority of people want .. I won't know and I'm no guy, either. It must've sold splendidly, though.

author=Kylaila
The main difference to what context it's usually used in is that both stereotypes are made "for men".
The majority of women find slightly athletic guys most attractive, not the super buff type. You don't see overly brawny heroes in most female orientated media.
Whereas the symbolization of strength, perfect endurance and dedication are supposed to be an ideal. A power fantasy.

Good point.
It made me think of what would be the opposite. What is the equivalent fantasy that is made for women in fiction?
Edward Cullen. Christian Grey. And probably many other examples I can't think of because I've never been interested in those characters and only since Twilight has this stereotype become so blatant to me.

Many men consider those characters unrealistic, annoying and lame. They exploit the fantasy of obsession, mystery and danger some women who still believe in fairy tales go crazy for. They have immense power, are alpha males among other men, are desired by other women, yet they will choose you, the one woman who is average and unoriginal because that makes the fantasy even more satisfying. A huge triumph. And the female character is sucked into a chain of events she has no control over at first but she ends up becoming the man's everything, his only reason to exist, therefore holding immense power over him.

Hardly any men approve of such a stereotype and associate with it.
I doubt the majority of women believe that this is what they should expect from or seek in men, just as I doubt the majority of men are stupid enough to want real women to be sex objects and undergo boob jobs and titillate them all the time.

Fanservice isn't a bad thing. Anyone can appreciate fanservice! The problem isn't the fanservice, but where it comes from, who it's created by and who it's created for. The vast majority of fanservice in games is designed by and for men, with women either ignored or just thrown the occasional bone, especially if they happen to be into super beefcake dudes. Think of how many female characters' main (or only) personality trait is "sexy", and then think of male characters who can be defined so narrowly. There's an imbalance.

I don't know if there's a simple answer. Just pointing at a game and saying that it's bad because it has characters with big boobs isn't the way to go - it's reducing the issue. Some women have big boobs in real life! Some women like women with big boobs. It's not about any one particular game or character or style, but the trend of many, many creators to focus so heavily on what they think we want that they forget the people who play games are very different from one another and have a vast array of tastes.

The only thing I know for sure is that more diversity would be fantastic, both in the characters we create and the creators themselves. We could use more sexy dudes like short shorts Shulk or Link or Dwarf from Dragon's Crown (if you're into that??) to appeal to various tastes. We could use a more diverse cast of ladies who have developed personality traits and agency to go along with their sexiness (or lack thereof), so we don't give this creepy idea that women are only there to seduce easily titillated dudes in the cheapest way possible! So many designers have a tendency to blindly copy what's worked in the past, forgetting that there's a whole unexplored terrain of things people would love if given the chance.

Edit: it'd also be nice to see some realistic characters that aren't designed to be particularly sexy, or to be sexy in a way that isn't so... Brute force.

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For what it's worth, the Zero Suit and the bikini top / shorts are pretty similar to athletic outfits women actually wear... but not with high heels.

author=Aegix_Drakan
So far, the only League splash art I'm really annoyed with is Caitlin's.

It was pretty good before, but now? Now it not only makes her look plain evil (which she's not, she's a goddamn SHERIFF), but the whole point of the splash art seems to be to give us a look up her miniskirt, which I find just a liiiitle bit overly cheesecake.

Swear to mod, if they screw up Leona's main splash art, I'm going to be kinda peeved off.

Riot isn't going to get any better at that. In fact, they really seem to be getting worse...Leona may be safe so that they can have some semblance of a counter-argument, though.

I doubt that finger pointing at 'Men sexualize women all the time' and 'OMG women sexualize guys too' would solve anything.

I just really wonder if it's possible for a character to be scantily clad and not be considered a sex object.

Or will all characters be covered in layers and layers of clothing, not showing a single bit of skin, as feminism and sexual equality rage on, because everyone's focused on the finger pointing.

Or is equality keeping everybody equally scantily clad like Final Fantasy XIV lol

Bayonetta's a sexy character, dressed sexy, loses clothes during attacks, but I can't seem to see her as a sex object. I thought this would be the ideal path for anyone wanting to design a sexy character, by making her other traits stand out so much that she's 'sexy', not 'sex object'. I could be wrong?

author=kentona
We need less humans, and more robots/orcs/machines/animals in games. ...though I fear someone has sexualized those things, too.

Rule #34.

Skintight suit underneath a powered armor spacesuit makes sense, though.

Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment
Most long underwear keeps people warm. This underwear keeps spacewalkers cool. It is made of stretchy spandex material. It has 91.5 meters, or 300 feet, of narrow tubes throughout. Water is pumped through the tubes near the spacewalker's skin. The chilled water removes extra heat as it circulates around the crewmember's entire body. The vents in the garment draw sweat away from the astronaut's body. Sweat is recycled in the water-cooling system. Oxygen is pulled in at the wrists and ankles to help with circulation within the spacesuit.

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/spacesuits/home/clickable_suit_nf.html#.VDREMDZTepg

I love a nice set of giant, round pauldrons on my lady.