The reason for making this journal entry is because there is something that has been on my mind since the past three months. And not on my mind alone as it seems more artists are confronted with the same thing I'm about to say. While in most cases time dissipates the issue in my mind this time it is something that keeps bugging me over and over again to a point it irritates the hell out of me. Afterall it is a hot topic that has gone completely viral for many months now.
Recent events and a large exposure to unhealthy criticism had gotten me thinking and checking with my fellow artists. I'm sure people will say that as an artist we should learn how to deal with harsh and often unfair criticism, as if this is mandatory to being an artist. Yet at the same time artists have to be more and more careful of all those people out there we might possibly offend.
In a lot of ways you're forced to self-censorship when it comes to publishing your work.
Our kickstarter campaign for Divinity: Original Sin has gotten quite some criticism on its original poster art. Apparently it was deemed to be sexistic and women unfriendly by the way the female protagonist was portrayed: with a bare belly.
A bare belly was for some enough a trigger to send our company enough hate and threatening mails to persuade my boss to ask me to change the cover. I did, but did so reluctantly. Disagreeing wholeheartedly with the claim of the artwork being sexistic, the better half of me decided to meet "offended-by-design" people somewhere in the middle.
In the world of journalism there are channels that take an aggressive stance against everything they judge even remotely sexistic and in many instances denying the word of opposition by disabling criticism and reactions on their articles or blogs. Also blackmails in the form of "change your game art or we won't publish a single word about you." is a common behavior found among those.
Fact is, there is a strong lobby going on out there which is holding a very aggressive campaign for women in the games industry. Despite that its root is very well hidden it is recruiting a lot of followers including some big names.
The idea on itself is noble when you consider women should earn as much as men and should be treated as equal employees. And rightfully so they should be vigilant in their fight for a woman friendly work environment within the game industry.
But truth is that things are really turning to the ridicule of it: wanting to censor the game and comic book industry by setting an example of what is accepted as female character art, and what is not. Condemning Red Sonia for being scantily clad, Mario for the "save the princess" cliché to even armor designs that feature curves for the breasts. To them these forms of "objectification" belong in the past and are considered part of the fantasy of a 'certain type of boys'. (*)
What I think is even more a slap in the face of artists is the parade of charlatans behind it reinforcing this lobby and these statements by arguing game/comic art should be realistic and practical, not fashionable. Playing the realism card is totally out of place and absurd when discussing a fantasy setting. When saying that boob plates are unrealistic and a hazard to the wearer, then also fully commit to your stance that a full plate is a deathtrap in most fantasy environment and will get you nowhere.
www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/boob…
Similar invalid argument is comparing the same outfit of female character on male character. If you want to compare a scantily clad Red Sonja with scantily clad Conan the barbarian, do not compare it with Conan in a chainmail bikini. Obviously stated like that the latter will look ridiculous and look like you made a point, but you haven't. Instead you just compared apples to pears.
So here it is, and I'm gonna say: do not yield to this motion!
Do not self-censor your own work, your creativity!
If by all means the opposition feels change is needed, let it NOT be by oppressing others art but by just offering an alternative for those who wish an alternative.But honestly, let me ask the question to the opposition again:
Why is for instance the attire of Nariko a problem and why is the attire of Kratos just fine?Kratos: gowfactorfiction.host56.com/im…
And for those crying "objectification":
While you're at it let's just ban this also all together. I object to men being objectified like that.. tsk tsk tsk. -_-
(*) I'll make a dedicated journal entry in the near future on the various points of view this lobby is taking on the matter and question their arguments. Here are already a couple of links that show support for the lobby.
jezebel.com/5922961/the-fight-…
kotaku.com/5923224/rather-than…
www.feministfrequency.com/2013…
Your comment.
Do know, that even though being ignored feels very personal it's hardly ever personal at all! 
Your comment(s) gets ignored.
(most of) You seem to spend way to li
*CHOMP*"..the horror." 
). They're drawing humans, and attempting realism. Thing is, this is a very easy fix. In fact, if they just moved the bridge of the nose in on their work, it would all look a LOT better. Their drawings would receive more attention, and overall it would be positive.
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every time i find someone showing evidence, it's been deleted
Remember, none one ever got anywhere by just wishing they had something, or by thinking others had it easier than you. And even if you fail trying, learn from you failure and try again and again. But never blame your failure on others because if you do, you'll spend your time being angry on others instead of improving yourself.
youtu.be/zz--i3M4PVk
Needless to say, but creative freedom is under threat. I think everybody else has said it already though, so I'll spare you the repetition.
sexy armor ain't going anywhere. if you don't like it, you don't have to look at it. and brainless fools whining about games like Tera fail to understand there is plenty of sexy armor for BOTH genders, and plenty of NON sexy armor for both genders. if sexy armor makes you flee to your safe space you have mental problems, don't blame the armor. ART is ART.
i was standing in walmart, staring at the cover and i was honestly there for wolfenstein: the new order. i had no intention on buying anything BUT wolfenstein. but you know, i habitually blind buy games and throw cash at games for no real reason. i had never heard of divinity: original sin before that moment, at 2 am under the fluorescent lights of a dingy walmart ceiling. in that entire case of games, i saw original sin. "angry looking chick fully clothed? probably pandering to sjws" was my thought as i looked at it. it was a pretty grim moment.
i ended up buying it new, full price, for ps4 anyway.
my actual regret, however, settled in after i walked out the door with it.
what oh what had i done? i bought a game i was seriously considering may have been made to pander to the radical censorship brigade... on a whim. and, fuck me sideways, my social anxiety had gotten me to pick up the old blood, not the new order, on top of it.
fuck.
that regret didn't wane until i got home and, with a sigh of relief, realised it's a good game after all.
these people are potentially making you guys lose sales, is my point.
Do not cave in to them. SJWs dont actually buy games. This trend has shown over the last few years, they only demand others to change their Art, they do not produce anything of value themselves and they wont buy things that adher to their groupthink either.
Ignore them, do not let them dictate what you can and cannot have in your game!
That's what they are. And the sort of lies, misinformation, and stopping at nothing to silence their critics that they're doing is closely in-line with the feminists of old.
I can't defend the heels though. ; p
For foot soldiers, on the other hand? Best suited for settings where there are dragons and spells and things.
Now with #Gamergate in full swing, could you please have a talk with Swen?
I and other people NEED to know exactly what kinds of outlets made statements like "change your game art or we won't publish a single word about you." .
We don't want this sort of thing to happen to other developers. I'm sure you guys don't, either.
Please, share the truth with the people who support your products.
When a group of ideologues creates in this way a mood in society that moves the heads of gaming companies to force their employees to enforce politically correct dress codes for pixel figures, that's not what I mean by freedom of arts. I call it 1984.
Let us talk about what this means.
First, propaganda. Wiktionnary defines propaganda as follows: “A concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people”. Propaganda is basically a pejorative word from communication. Should people be prevented or forbidden to do propaganda? How is that different from preventing them to express themselves, in the end?
Now, “ideological infiltration of companies or the government”. Here, if I understood well, the problem at stake is the “dress codes for pixel figures”and if they are politically correct enough or not. And your issue is that some of the people that want this dress code to be politically correct are trying and succeeding at becoming members of the government and of companies. Why is that a problem? Should they be denied access to positions on game companies? On what ground? What about the government? Should they not be allowed to run for elections? I am not sure I understand your concern here. Maybe you do believe they should be allowed to enter government and companies but then they should not use those positions to influence the dress code of pixel figures. I can agree with this argument for those that enter the government, sure. It is not the government's business to decide the dress code of pixel figures. However, I have not seen any member of any government do that either, and Orogion's message certainly do not mention this. As for people “infiltrating” companies, honestly, why should someone working on a game company not be able to push for the dress code of its character to be politically correct if he wants to? I mean, he or she would literally be one of the creator of the game, so it seems to me actually he or she would be the victim of censorship if he or she was denied the choice to do this.
The last one is “sneaky manipulation”. Okay, sneaky manipulation is bad. Yet are we talking actual manipulation or just people having different opinions? This needs to be determined in a case by case basis. And there is no case here in Orogion's article where I would consider anything he says to be about “sneaky manipulation”. For instance, he speak about how comparing Sonia with Conan in a chainmail bikini is not fair because you have to compare Sonia with Conan in his normal outfit. But that is because he assumes that male character should not wear sexy clothing and female character should! My avatar comes from an image that does it exactly the other way. Instead of putting Conan into a metal bikini, they are putting Sonia into Conan's clothes. Here is how it looks:
marinka18.deviantart.com/art/W…
There is no problem with having Sonia into Conan's clothes. It just makes her look badass.
This perfectly illustrates the difference between wearing few clothes and being sexualized. I can provide a few other examples of female character being completely topless without being sexualized. I do agree that in most case, examples of male characters being sexualized are humorous or ridicule, but I have a backlog of sexualized male character that are played completely straight and not designed as parodies. They look nothing like the “scantily clad” male characters we see so often in video games (say, Kratos, since he is an example).
Here is just one small example:
www.facebook.com/media/set/?se…
So, while genderbent pictures are mostly parodies, it does not in any way invalidate the argument that female characters are much, much more often sexualized than male character, to the point where being sexy, for a female character, is basically the default, while for a male character it is a rare exception. Hence can we call those pictures “sneaky manipulation” rather than “good arguments made less credible by unnecessary humor” (or just “funny pictures mocking some ridiculous trends prevalent in fantasy and science fiction”)?
Okay, another example, because this first example was picturing people wearing actual underwear, with no pretense of it being armored and them being geared for battle.
bikiniarmorbattledamage.tumblr…
This is NOT a genderbent picture. This was design by a gay artist, and there is also an even more NSFW version available if you are into that kind of things. This is an armor that was designed both to be worn by a man and to be sexy. I posted this image just to show that even the basic concept of a “sexy armor” is silly. He does not look as ridiculous as the genderbent parodies, but he looks just as silly as the original that were parodied.
I am also feeling that some hyperbole may have been used in your message, if you do believe that “society standing up for their true beliefs” is about “dress code for pixel figures”. I mean, I sure can imagine some nobler and/or more important goals than that. This just sounds silly.
I am not sure which feminist you are talking about. Gone home is one of those games I got from an Humble Indie Bundle quite a while ago, but I have not tried it yet.
If you want a game with some very good female character, I would recommend Ittle Dew, very nice indie puzzle game with old-school Zelda controls, and American McGee's Alice, a grimdark sequel to Lewis Carroll's stories where an insane Alice locked up in an asylum goes back to some tainted wonderland. Or Portal, but you have already played it, I guess. Now, this is just two examples with very nice female main character, but there are tons of game that have perfectly fine female characters. Take Faster Than Light, for instance. Or Starcraft: Broodwar (the medic has one of the biggest armor ever given to female characters in sci-fi, about as big as Shadowsun's XV22 (Shadowsun <3), and the Valkyrie pilot's German accent is just SO. DAMN. SEXY!
One game I would love to try is Lollipop Chainsaw. Yeah, the main character is sexualized as hell, but it is done in a completely self-aware fashion and the whole game is all about silly over-the-top super-nonsense, which makes it pretty different from games that slaps a chainmail bikini on every female characters because they just do not know better. So, this could be fun. Very fun. Just as fun as Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
I know the most prominent feminist gamer on the French-speaking part of the web is currently completely into the recent Binding of Isaac remake and the new Super Smash Bros. Apparently, Brianna Wu of GamerGate fame is found of the Saint Row series ( twitter.com/Spacekatgal/status… ) and the new Super Smash Bros too. Not too fond of the new Samus design, tough: twitter.com/Spacekatgal/status… twitter.com/Spacekatgal/status…
Maybe you ought to re-evaluate what kind of game feminists wants. Maybe they are very close to the game you want, with just a few key elements changed, not just Gone Home. It could certainly be the reason why they do not want to leave the game companies alone.
I am pretty sure telling game makers which kind of stuff I like and which kind of stuff I do not like is something perfectly fine. They are free to ignore me, but I have no reason not to criticize them if I want to. Moreover, I am pretty sure making so does not turn our society into an Orwellian totalitarian dictatorship. Maybe I will refrain from using too harsh words though, because apparently it hurts your, and Orogion's feelings very much. I think you both need to grow tougher skins though, because not everybody is going to be so considerate for your precious feelings
But I am not going to tell you that you are creating a world akin to 1984 by your tentative to censor what newspapers have the right to say. I mean, that would be the kind of hyperbole that is exaggerated, and polarizing, certainly not something sensible and reasonable that would help setting up a constructive debate, would it not?
If you do want the criticism to be nice and constructive, answering to it in a nice and constructive manner rather than lashing out and insulting back is certainly the way to go.
By the way, I am afraid that since the debate about gay marriage we had in here, I cannot let you say that there are no French prude people
It'd be awesome if you stopped right there and lent a hand because a lot of women in your industry are threatened and harassed every day. I'm just a gamer speaking up about this stuff and that's gotten me quite a few rape threats.
But none of the bothers you *very* much so it's not worthy of your opinion.
What you *really* want to write about is that you're being "oppressed" because potential supporters of yours spoke up and said that the "boob" plate seemed a bit sexist.
And that's just crazy to me.
By the way, nice favorites collection. Real stand up guy who are.
Source:
comments.deviantart.com/1/3808…
If Orogion did change his mind and think that the skimpy cover was not a big mistake, or sending the wrong message, well, he did not state it anywhere, as far as I can see. I would be interested in knowing more about his change of heart on this, if it really happened.
A bit NSFW, but very important to see:
imgur.com/0d96tDR
If you want to make a video game about raping hookers, you go for it.
But when people say it's stupid, don't claim to be oppressed.
Underdeveloped female characters? Let's check your profile, miss professional photographer. Right. Nothing but selfies of yourself in various seductive poses.
Projection 101: when you complain about others, it's best if you don't make it so obvious you're talking about yourself.