ridiculous female armors (and other outfits) for women gamers

ridiculous female armors (and other outfits) that women tend to have in media; such as games and comics.

(http://repair-her-armor.tumblr.com/post/50474510652/clothes-im-forced-to-wear-in-the-majority-of-mmorpgs)

Haha, that made me laugh; it's true how often female armor is sexualized in fantasy games

But here's a girl you know can kick some ass and (in my opinion) look pretty damned good doing it:

So I understand why she interviewed him, but at the very end he really did give a "I'm going to follow you" look.

(http://www.collegehumor.com/embed/6891269/super-weird-gamer-guy)

Forgot the one where she is totally naked except for boots and a helmet.

It true girsl are forced to wear sexually charged armour outfits. The funniest thing is, when I was playing Skyrim I tried to find armor that was sexy to wear and it was a huge challenge. The game had the most realistic gear I have ever seen. It was a nice change from all the other female styles in video games, but I found myself not like 90 percent of the things I wore. It was funny to notice just how brainwashed into "I gotta look sexy" I had become while playing games.

I don't mind unrealistic sexy armor in games. Especially when those games are built around other unrealistic things, like elves or magic or mutant powers. If anything, I find realistic female armor in fantasy, sci-fi or superhero games to be weird. That seems like the more inconsistant approach to me. All of those worlds and their histories and magic/tech are just complex excuses for creating worlds where you can do unrealistic things anyway. So if I can throw a fireball, why can't I do it while showing off my feminine charms?

I've never understood this, even as a guy. I get the whole "sex sells" angle, but video game women can be sexy works of art even without being basically nude on the battlefield. Another good example is are the proportions given to video game women (especially in fighting games; *cough* Dead or Alive *cough*). I'm sure that I am in the minority here (among men), but I actually don't much like the exaggerated proportions or bare-naked armor skins found in most games.

When I play MMOs and I roll a female character, I go out of my way to try and collect armor that actually looks like armor. Beyond the fact that it feels more real and offers a more immersive experience, modesty is just sexy. Hilde was the sexiest female fighter in Soul Calibur and she ran around in a medieval suit of full-plate armor. On the same token, my favorite DoA girl is Mila, who has the most proportionately realistic body of the DoA girls and dresses in normal clothing as opposed to a bikini top and short-shorts.

At the end of the day, most of these companies are still targeting horny teenagers, even though most of their loyal fanbases that were built up ages ago are now in their twenties - sometimes thirties, or even older. Sex sells to kiddies - sex and Call of Duty. Even if I don't agree with it, this is one of the best ways for the companies to bring fresh blood into their franchises.

Let's be honest... I buy Dead or Alive games these days because they have a good fighting engine. It's just a solid fighting game. But then I bought my very first DoA game years ago, before I knew what the game was all about, I bought it for the tits.

Master Raelthorne said:

I've never understood this, even as a guy. I get the whole "sex sells" angle, but video game women can be sexy works of art even without being basically nude on the battlefield. Another good example is are the proportions given to video game women (especially in fighting games; *cough* Dead or Alive *cough*). I'm sure that I am in the minority here (among men), but I actually don't much like the exaggerated proportions or bare-naked armor skins found in most games.

When I play MMOs and I roll a female character, I go out of my way to try and collect armor that actually looks like armor. Beyond the fact that it feels more real and offers a more immersive experience, modesty is just sexy. Hilde was the sexiest female fighter in Soul Calibur and she ran around in a medieval suit of full-plate armor. On the same token, my favorite DoA girl is Mila, who has the most proportionately realistic body of the DoA girls and dresses in normal clothing as opposed to a bikini top and short-shorts.

At the end of the day, most of these companies are still targeting horny teenagers, even though most of their loyal fanbases that were built up ages ago are now in their twenties - sometimes thirties, or even older. Sex sells to kiddies - sex and Call of Duty. Even if I don't agree with it, this is one of the best ways for the companies to bring fresh blood into their franchises.

Let's be honest... I buy Dead or Alive games these days because they have a good fighting engine. It's just a solid fighting game. But then I bought my very first DoA game years ago, before I knew what the game was all about, I bought it for the tits.

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Actually, ever hear of the Female Power Fantasy? Just like the male counterpart of the same name, it is about wish fulfillment and self-insertion. A lot of us wish to be adored, loved, admired and powerful and a lot of women enjoy the fantasy of being badass, kicking ass and taking names and being sexy as fuck while doing it. And believe it or not, it has nothing to do with what men want at all but a woman's ability to choose for herself and a desire to look good and be in control. Video games and comic books often offer this means of escapism in the exact same ways they do for men.

Rudolph Quin said:

Actually, ever hear of the Female Power Fantasy? Just like the male counterpart of the same name, it is about wish fulfillment and self-insertion. A lot of us wish to be adored, loved, admired and powerful and a lot of women enjoy the fantasy of being badass, kicking ass and taking names and being sexy as fuck while doing it. And believe it or not, it has nothing to do with what men want at all but a woman's ability to choose for herself and a desire to look good and be in control. Video games and comic books often offer this means of escapism in the exact same ways they do for men.

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That's a fair argument, but it isn't one that I normally consider for specific game genres, like the fighting game examples from my previous post. For things such as World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, and other such very large role playing games (MMOs or otherwise), the female power fantasy is certainly something that I take into consideration. I've certainly met my fair share of ladies that love those kinds of games. For other genres of games, however, I don't feel that it is much of a factor.

I'm not one of those "real girls don't play video games" dickheads, but when it comes to specific gaming genres, there is most definitely a large skew in the player-base that leans toward a male crowd. When I was big into Battlefield, I might have encountered one woman in every ten games or so. Albeit, I am sure that most females that play shooters like that just avoid the voice chat altogether because of the aforementioned horny teenage boys, but I can't be expected to account for such an unknown. Of course, that's a different problem entirely and most shooters don't give the option to run around the battlefield in a string bikini. Dead or Alive, however, does; shamelessly so. Combined with the physics of that game, with female breasts bouncing like basketballs every time that you tap the analog stick, there is just no way that I can think the ladies of DoA are targeted towards the whole female power fantasy angle. There are a few that are a little more modest and a lot more reasonably shaped that I can see as an exception.

Keeping to the theme of the thread, however, the Female Power Fantasy is a fantastic point to be made. Though I don't go for armor bikinis for my own female characters, I've always had odd, conservative tastes.

Master Raelthorne said:

I've certainly met my fair share of ladies that love those kinds of games. For other genres of games, however, I don't feel that it is much of a factor.

I'm not one of those "real girls don't play video games" dickheads, but when it comes to specific gaming genres, there is most definitely a large skew in the player-base that leans toward a male crowd. Combined with the physics of that game, with female breasts bouncing like basketballs every time that you tap the analog stick, there is just no way that I can think the ladies of DoA are targeted towards the whole female power fantasy angle. There are a few that are a little more modest and a lot more reasonably shaped that I can see as an exception.

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Really? Because that's what you kinda sound like, no offense. Your personal experience is not indicative of whether or not women play games. They do. All different body types and all different types of tastes, which is why a lot of fighting games will offer multiple options when it comes to body types and outfit choices. I haven't played Dead or Alive but the sexiness of the outfits doesn't matter. That's what a lot of female power fantasies involve. It's a fantasy for a reason and I think stuff like the comic above about the viability of armor is kind of strawmanning, personally.

I used to get Barbed Wire comics all the time as a kid, and all my female characters when I started drawing were a mix of that body type and Sailor Moon. Because both ladies were so badass and they looked good. It was my ideal, my fantasy, to have those physics impossible bod, wearing leather and heels and breasts barely covered and kick the ass of a gang of drug-running bikers who couldn't tell me shit to do. I even used to cosplay like that. Had nothing to do with men who liked the games or who wanted to look at me. It was about emulation of a hero of mine, getting to live in a fantasy.

Another thing that we can consider about these types of outfits, and I don't think the fact that I grew up to be both genderfluid and pansexual deflates my above argument at all: what about the nonbinary crowd? Like bisexual women, pansexual women, and lesbians who like breasts and like to see breasts or transwomen who also want to live out a fantasy. Plus there are a growing number of game devs in this day and age who are not only women but on top of that, lesbians, bisexuals, etc. To say "game devs blatantly make these games to pander to hetero men/children only and it's wrong!" is not only erasure of all the different types of people who can and do play these games, enjoying them for a multititude of reasons, not only the FPF but also yes, to ogle some pretty jugs that flop around while you fight, but it is also really condescending to women. We can have autonomy of our bodies and we can and often do choose to look sexy to feel sexy, even in fantasy.

Okay... So I'm not sure how it can even be considered justified to quote my post, cut half of it out, then use only whatever is left to launch an attack on my person. To retort to the valid points that you have made, however, you are correct in that my personal experiences are not wholly indicative of... well, anything. My personal experiences, however, are all that I have to run on in regards to the subject. Do ladies play all kinds of games? Of course they do. I never said that they did not. There are certain games, however, that have an undeniable trend of having a smaller female crowd than others. Whether this is a fact of the genre or an audible illusion created simply by less females choosing to use voice communications in said games is not something that I can tell you with certainty, nor will I pretend that it is.

As for the game developers, I never said that their pandering to specific crowds was wrong. Sex sells. It's a truth of the world we live in and it isn't 'wrong' to make use of that truth. It's just a sound business decision.

I don't even want to touch on the subject of gay, lesbian, transexual, or bisexual gamers because anything that I say as a straight male can (and will, by one person or another) be misconstrued in some manner. What I will say is that I think it's fantastic when anyone outside of the gaming community decides to take a game for a spin, regardless of their reason. Video games have evolved into a form of art in my opinion, and just like with more conventional means of artwork, it's always great to see one specific work bring so many different flavors of people together.

I never meant any offense and I can certainly understand the desire to escape out of one's own skin and into another. I'm sure that is a something that everyone on these forums can relate to seeing as this is a role playing and writing site.

Master Raelthorne said:

Okay... So I'm not sure how it can even be considered justified to quote my post, cut half of it out, then use only whatever is left to launch an attack on my person. To retort to the valid points that you have made, however, you are correct in that my personal experiences are not wholly indicative of... well, anything. My personal experiences, however, are all that I have to run on in regards to the subject. Do ladies play all kinds of games? Of course they do. I never said that they did not. There are certain games, however, that have an undeniable trend of having a smaller female crowd than others. Whether this is a fact of the genre or an audible illusion created simply by less females choosing to use voice communications in said games is not something that I can tell you with certainty, nor will I pretend that it is.

As for the game developers, I never said that their pandering to specific crowds was wrong. Sex sells. It's a truth of the world we live in and it isn't 'wrong' to make use of that truth. It's just a sound business decision.

I don't even want to touch on the subject of gay, lesbian, transexual, or bisexual gamers because anything that I say as a straight male can (and will, by one person or another) be misconstrued in some manner. What I will say is that I think it's fantastic when anyone outside of the gaming community decides to take a game for a spin, regardless of their reason. Video games have evolved into a form of art in my opinion, and just like with more conventional means of artwork, it's always great to see one specific work bring so many different flavors of people together.

I never meant any offense and I can certainly understand the desire to escape out of one's own skin and into another. I'm sure that is a something that everyone on these forums can relate to seeing as this is a role playing and writing site.

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I was not attacking you. :huh: Are you talking about my first sentence? I was politely letting you know that what you were saying actually did sound like what you professed to not want to be saying. That is all. No offense taken at all and I don't want you to feel scared off because "someone might be offended". Unless you intend to be insulting and demeaning, that's not your or my problem. If you do decide to go, I have enjoyed discussing this with you and would like to talk about it more, if you're open to that.

All in all, the topic is a funny one, and I can understand how a lot of more conservative women wouldn't like to wear those costumes. The reason I latched onto you at all is because of the recitation that I hear a lot on these subjects about sexy female characters and I merely wanted to engage with you to let you know, that there are other options than the one you presented, namely that game devs are pandering to horny teenagers or horny men.

I cut some of your post because it was long and I wasn't really addressing whether or not you hear women playing a game as indicative of whether they are there or not. They are.

Ahh... I see. Well we've derailed the topic a fair bit, so I'll just toss you a PM to continue. I feel the direction of this conversation is both no longer in line with the thread at hand and also better suited to the Academy sub-forum for sensitive subject matter.