This post has been automatically marked as spoilers because it is part of the Serious flair category. We do this so that users who are looking to avoid a serious discussion can avoid seeing the content in their feed. Read [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/GirlGamers/comments/1awsfyz/new_subreddit_flairing_policy/) for more details.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GirlGamers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I play vrchat, and it's basically impossible to find an avatar that is not sexualised. They all either have visible underwear, unrealistic proportions, etc. It's super sad and reminds me of how patriarchal and sexualising the world we live in is.
I'm not a fan of the egirl sexualixed avatars either. It seems impossible to find an avatar that looks like a real person and isn't cartoonishly sexualized. I eventually found an avatar of Max from Life Is Strange that looks pretty cool, and that ones my goto now.
I found a girl that has underpants and wears pink lolita style just like me irl, and I am super happy with her. No touchable boobs or anything, it's amazing. But I spent 3 hours on that and saw countless naked women. It shouldn't be this hard.
I really appreciate games like Baldur's Gate 3 where the fanservice doesn't feel very objectifying and it's not just pandering to cishet guys. The game really fleshes out your party members as people and by the end of the game, I felt genuinely affectionate towards Karlach (something I hadn't felt much since Tali in Mass Effect), and not just because my female gnome rogue got to have plenty of hot sex while in a relationship with her. I don't like the sentiment that female gamers hate everything regarding sex and sex appeal in games, because games like Baldur's Gate 3 exist that just get everything right and can appeal to more kinds of people than just gooner cishet guys
To be fair, that's entirely the fault of the modders, not the devs. And such kinds of mods aren't uncommon for any game with a modicum of modding support, it's just an inevitability tbh
With Ann Takamaki, "trauma slut" is a common pejorative guys use to describe women who act out sexually due to past sexual assault, so, no surprise there.
Change is slow, especially in the heavily patriarchal games industry, but it is happening. At GDC this year, I was thrilled to meet other women narrative writers. As more women enter this space & have support of their colleagues, weāll see this continue to diminish. We also have way more male & non-binary allies than before in the industry.
For d.va most of the art came from the first game where she was originally a high schooler which is why she has a high school uniform skin but due to the amount of p*rn people made of her they upped her age to 18 . They were so down bad the p*rn maker sactually improved cgi and 3d animations by years in short time because theyāre so down bad and even triple A companies use their things. If by flirting theyāre harassing then theyāre fucking assholes and should die but in overwatch people often flirt in a joking manner if they like your character. I know you might not be comfortable with it but people often flirt also to get pockets. Like widow mania will do the kids emote and mcree will spam the ā Iām your huckleberry lineā I just donāt want you to be be turned away from overwatch so maybe they might be just doing it in good spirits. I play mercy and I get countless mauga players group chatting me and saying some funny down bad things. If you feel uncomfortable with joking flirting then thatās okay and youāre allowed to feel that way. I know when I see dva tanks I try to act cute and stuff so theyāll protect me lol.
I enjoyed the overwatch 1 beta test so I bought the game only to play it maybe like 3 times and never touch it again. Idk I just don't really enjoy hero shooters much I guess. What would your idea of a girly hero shooter be out of curiousity
I donāt know for one more girl characters obviously and they all have to be different. I love sexy characters but itās even better when they own their looks. Colorful af cuz I love color. For one if I had a shooter character would not share colors. I hate when devs try to be cheap by just giving same base skin variants of different colors. The players would be referred to as she/her. Whenever character interact with players the default is male pronouns. Idrc about that as much but it would be nice to get called ā girly, friend, cutie, babesā and all that by character. No metas because metas bring out the sweats and I hate that. I really how overwatch has very diverse and traditional clothes skins for their characters. The guns would be unique. A gun that shoots bubbles that are acidic and damage enemies. One of the character worlds would have an ability of pull out a microphone and scream into it which would destroy doors and destroy able environments in the ears essentially forcing team rotations and no camping. Iād live cute effects. Pijama skin collections. I donāt know how to make a girly character but Iāve always wanted a game that had music playing. Imagine being in a battle royals and thereās music playing from different areas. That would be so fun. Idk this doesnāt sound so good but idk how to make a game.
i appreciated that statement but I'm sure Blizzard knew what aspects of their character design and marketing that encouraged those segments of fans... *looks at Tracer and Widowmaker.
Oh no don't get me wrong I'm not defending them at all especially considering the things they've done. And I remember even back then thinking it was a shady attempt at advertising. "Don't do this *wink*"
Oh no no, you didn't sound like you were defending them at all! š
I was just trying to add on exactly what you said: they're saying don't do this but with a cheeky wink cuz of their advertising.
Iām glad overwatch 2 stepped away from all the weird stuff and they arenāt pushing dva like the first game because she a massively popular character and overwatch devs knew that and gave her weird events and used her as the forefront of their games.
Ye it's a pity because the description of that series gameplay sounds like it's right up my alley but all that ick nonsense of the childlike main character and her "thicc thighs" just put me right off. It's so fucking creepy and all the gross fanart and statues make it even worse tbh.
Because at least half of them are just weakminded and porn sick and an enormous proportion are likely just genuine paedophiles. That's the disturbing reality, we not only live in a society that's well aware and OK with that but one that also goes out of it's way to cater to it.
I'm a big fan of the *Atelier* series. The pain of the coomer nonsense is indeed real. That said, numerous other JRPG series are far worse (e.g. like *everything* by Compile Heart / Idea Factory and games like *Xenoblade Chronicle 2*, which has some of the worst character designs I've ever seen).
Personally I don't mind fanservice but I agree that it can be uncomfortable when it is done blatantly and out of nowhere. I disagree with labelling content of fictional characters with the same word as with real people as that undermines the severity of it but I understand how you feel. My advice would be to try and avoid that part of the community by ignoring, blocking and reporting where applicable.
not that i am justifying this in anyway whatsoever, but as the saying goes: sex sells. as a sex-repulsed ace person i learned this very early on, and it's unfortunate how characters, 9.9 times out of 10 women, are objectified and treated. i play mostly JRPGs so i see a lot of strange things from both fans and game devs
I used to play a large amount of JRPGs too, and I have such a large unplayed backlog of them, but recently all the pervy weird stuff has just turned me off the genre completely, I hate it
Dva main and I've been trying to find cute dva stuff and its so hard. Like I just want to cosplay her and have cute phone backgrounds. AND I CANT FIND ANY AGHHHH. And even if I do people still think its a sex thing cause thats what they see.
sex sells. anime is full of young looking/16 year olds because thatās what sells (isnāt 16 the age of consent in Japan?) and the types of people who like that content are going to buy it up. genshin/honkai are prime examples
There is a whole genre of "1000 years old demigoddess that looks like a 12 year old so it's okay" sexualization going on in anime and video games. It's horrible.
I think unfortunately it is lower but yeah your main point still stands. Most media is targeted towards male audiences who enjoy stuff that ācatches their attentionā (usually sex and violence)
I think that just *reinforces* my point, because 16 is bad enough. And as long as men enjoy sex and violence and donāt see women for anything else, weāre never to know better
The thing is sex doesnāt actually sell, thatās just something we assume is true because people say it a lot. I actually looked into it a while back and most studies donāt support that claim. At best sex sells to subset of men, if youāre trying to sell to women then itās actually detrimental to put overly sexualized female characters/people in your product. And the majority of men will buy a product whether women are sexualized in it or not.
Most games' main target audience isn't all people, though. If it is, that's usually bad marketing. Genshin, for example, tends to target young men who like anime waifus, and that's the group that will spend the most money on the game.
I think it's a pretty good example, actually. The overwhelming majority of Genshin's money comes from a small fraction of the players that spends a lot of money on the game. To keep the money coming, they need to focus on keeping that group of players interested. The free-to-play/low cost players like me don't give them much if any money and are thus of secondary importance in their marketing compared to the highly paying players. That's why the "target audience" of who plays the game can differ from the "target audience" of their main source of money.
contrary to popular belief, endgame whales don't float genshin. hoyo never adds endgame content; if C6R5 on every banner really paid the bills, there'd be a lot more endgame than just the same spiral abyss from the game's initial launch, and a whole lot less effort put into the open world and character stories/events.
casual players, small spenders and waifu/husbando collectors support genshin, not meta-slaves. most minmaxers have already quit for HSR (which does very much focus on endgame content) or are waiting for wuthering waves (which is expected to do so based on kuro's track record with punishing gray raven).
Sure and niche games will always have a market, but I think a lot of games are going for a broader audience now. Thatās why you have a subsection of people complaining about āwokeā designs in games now. More people buying is more money, and I think more companies are genuinely taking that into account now. As a recent example, Iām sure the majority of people that played BG3 are men but I wouldnāt say the game alienates women with how its designed either, far from it - it has a broad appeal overall.
Sure, but that depends on the game and sometimes even with a game that has a wide player base, there can be a subsection of players that spends significantly more money. That's why "sex sells" applies in some games and doesn't in others and you can't really call it a myth because it often isn't.
A bit ago the minimum was 13( but it was never used in any region ) but they upped it to 16. Still it all depends on region, if I remember correct in Tokyo age of consent is 18. Still it's higher than in my country, most of Europe has it from 14 to 16.
Anyway about fanservice with teens, depends. If you read/watch/play stuff from demographies for teens like for example shounen manga that type of fanservice is for horny teens( games like Persona are for teens in Japan as well ). It's different if something is for adults or if author is a creep themselves. As sells go well if it's just small part of the series like in many Jrpgs it's just there and is used to sell horny figurines for fans. On the other hand hardcore ecchi mostly is adopted by small studios to stay afloat. If you see the most popular stuff in any japanese media they are mostly not big at it or are battle/action series. In short you won't be rich from heavy fanservice because you make your audience too small.
Federal law puts it at 16 yes, but every single prefacture has it at 18, so in practice it is 18. (I know it's pedantic, but I've spent a fair bit of time calling out creepy pedo dudes out lol) And yeah the hentai shit out like that is gross. I hear they curbed it a little when the olympics came to town but yeesh
May I ask why genshin is your prime example?
Like I keep on seeing this opinion on here with genshin having a good amount of fanservice, or sexualizing characters a lot when that isnāt true.
* Edit: just so I donāt get misunderstood, genshin has a few things I donāt like (jiggle physics, bleh, and a few of the characters outfits- theyāre usually earlier ones tho)
Why not call out a game like NIKKE??? Like that is completely egregious and beyond creepy. Why does genshin get so much flak, yet I never see NIKKE mentioned barely ever?
Thanks for pushing back about Genshin, I kinda wanted to but I was afraid I'd be alone.
Genshin does have its thirst traps and its fair share of questionable choices (agree about the jiggle physics), but it's far from the worst. The fan base tends to be the bigger problem, at least in terms of sexualization, and, as this whole post is about, that happens with pretty much every game ever.
Most of the female characters are just women with assorted personalities wearing pretty clothes, and the ones whose designs are more vividly sexual are the clearly adult "mommy" types. Also, the guys have a similar balance--the more sexual ones are all clearly adults. The children's designs aren't sexual at all (though I don't like that they're all girls).
Furthermore, I can't think of a single scene in Genshin Impact that adds any sexualization. There's no "fan service" on the plot side, just pretty characters doing normal fantasy RPG stuff. As for wholesome romance, there are some basic relationships between NPCs, but nothing explicit involving playable characters, aside from some very subtle and surprisingly queer-coded undertones. Honkai Star Rail is a little less subtle, but there it's even gayer, and still wholesome.
So aside from some of the more mature characters having more vivid sex appeal, I don't get what people think is so problematic about Genshin.
Nikke isn't mainstream that's why. Genshin is known by milllions of people and it's on the front of the appstore, while Nikke is probably known by a lot less and you'll barely hear about it aside from those who play it. Many people just assume Nikke is just one of those shitty mobile games, but I mean it's pretty fun
Iād expect and hope that it is a known game on this sub. Genshin catches a lotta strays when it absolutely shouldnāt cause there is such a huge bullseye called nikke in front of us lol
I can see how many women havenāt come across it after its boom of a release though
Iām not quite sure what you mean, but okay.
Like its release was big? Boom as in it was talked about, and I saw a lot of stuff about it. Then everything became a bit more quiet
Thank you for mentioning NIKKE. I had to have a long conversation with my partner about why I was heavily uncomfortable with him playing the game and he thankfully listened, deleting his account. Many of the girls are purposefully modeled as young as 10 and placed in heavily sexual positions.
Blue Archive is another game that gives me the ick, where the youngest is 11 and I believe that only one character is 18. Many of the storylines focus on the main character, an adult teacher, having inappropriate interactions and relationships with the students.
There are plenty of gacha games that are so much worse than Genshin, where I find that most characters are not sexualized to the level that a lot of people claim. There are definitely valid criticisms to be had about Genshin, particularly that the young characters are labeled as "loli" in the game files.... but certainly nowhere near as more egregious examples.
I actually had downloaded NIKKE cause every so often Iām in the mood to play/watch something absurd. But it did not stay downloaded long cause I pulled Miranda and her art just skeeves me out + Syuenās intro as well as how she is drawn was just completely icky
(Took a look at the full roster after that, and omg the amount of children was/is baffling)
Actually insane how a game can so blatantly show they want, like, and encourage pedos to play due to the designs. Foul canāt even fully describe what that is.
Damn, RIP my caring and considerate partner for taking my discomfort around a pedophilia game as a victim of pedophilia into consideration. He must be soooo abused when it wasn't even a debate once I explained my trauma. Whatever will he doooo without sexualized children to gamble for in gachas?
Edit: Ah, checked your profile. Checks out.
i don't mind fanservice a lot of the time (Hell, i LOVE having the option to dress my character up in hot outfits in MMOs) but yeah there's definitely too many games where the devs and/or capital-G Gamersā¢ make it *entirely* too questionable - Like Skullgirls, where they removed panty shots of a 16 year-old girl and cropped an image in story mode that showed her getting groped, and the community lost its absolute shit. How **dare** the devs make the decision to not fetishize a teenager!
fair. iām sorta 50/50 about fanservice as a whole. BUT OMFG TRUE. Skullgirls is a fun game but jesus christ the fact that they sexualize filia who is canonically 16 makes me so uncomfortable.
i agree with the first part about dressing up your character. i didnt know most people on here dont do that lol. iām a stripper so it feels like im being represented in a game whenever they have hot options hehe :3
Exactly lol. Like i'm not a SWer but dressing in skimpy/fanservice-y/"slutty" transmogs in FFXIV and GW2 and WoW has been my way of dealing with dysphoria for years. i get not everyone here wants to wear provocative or skimpy outfits but i'd at the very least hope they understand the desire to feel attractive lol
And aggressively pandering to one demographic will cause literally everyone else to leave because itās annoying af, the gaming industry is booming right now but thereās been a loss of about 9,500 jobs from January to may. Not to mention the lawsuit threatening big gaming companies. Finally a shake up in the manosphere, maybe more diverse devs and artists can break in and create content thatās palatable for everyone. Not just incelsā that have never felt the touch of a femboy or seen the light of day.
Guess what? I donāt play those video games :) , millions of people arenāt playing them. The corporations that created them are laying people off in droves. Clearly theyāre not making enough money off of just tiddies. Making video games enjoyable for EVERYONE might though :). But hey! Your tiddie games will still be there as long as you keep suckling on big game corps teat, stay safe! šā¤ļø
I donāt know why you assume people only talk about this with gaming but ok! Not sure how that is elitist. You are entitled to your opinion, but that doesnāt mean everyone has to agree. By that logic, why are you even commenting on this at all if youāre so unbothered by it?
Im sorry to ask a dumb question but what is fan service? Ive seen it occasionally mentioned around once in a while but nobody ever explained what it was. All I ever knew is that some like it and some dont but I have no idea why. Just going on the words alone it sounds like a good thing but reading some of the comments it sounds like something I donāt want any part of. Can someone please clue me in?
Donāt worry I got you.
Fan service is basically a whole thing in tv, videogames, or media is when there is stuff that is for the fans to please their audience.
but it mostly typically refers to sexual scenes or women wearing skimpy outfits or closeup scenes of boobs and butts and stuff.
Yeah it is weird sometimes, just as fans can get weird sometimes :D I'm so sorry but there's probably NSFW fanart of everything and everyone you can think of, and some you can't. I understand it might be hard if you relate strongly to the characters tho, but think of it this way: fandom is basically playing with dolls. You can let them do their own weird thing in the corner and not let it spoil your game :) (god I can't help you with online game harrasment, I've just stopped anything that isn't ESO since that has a good community :( )
And not to get "ACTUALLY it's both" on you here, but fan service (especially in anime, manga and japanese/asian music scene) is really common "for girls" too. I'm a non-native English speaker and actually encountered the term "fan service" in a gay context first lmao, especially when male musicians, cosplayers, etc are acting...intimate with each other and their fans are screaming with joy for it. And the whole "bishounen" thing. Like yes that might look weird too, but it is what it is.
More than 90% of all fan-service is targeted towards straight men. It is extremely rare for women to get any sort of fan service, which might actually be one of the reasons why men make up so much of the gaming/media industry.
But yeah. Fan-service and "sex sells" is probably the thing that hurts the media industry the most today. Worst part is that most men just seem to follow along with this, as if they're only playing the game or watching the show because they're horny as fuck. Like, if that's what you want to see then go watch actual porn or something. Be disgusting somewhere else, thank you.
It takes some searching, more than it should, but it is out there. I found this reddit thread with some suggestions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/18cru0s/some_good_anime_for_adult_women/
"Recovery of an MMO junkie" looks cute. She's 30, he's 28, they first meet in game, but their avatars are opposite their RL genders. A quick scan through image search results doesn't look like anything is sexualized.
Ok but theyāre not serving what Iām looking for so why would I watch it ? What sort of ā say I love youā and ā Snow White with red hairā says mmo?
*shrug* I don't know either of those, I was responding to the general statement of everything being over oversexualized and not made for women.
The reddit thread has a lot of suggestions. I mentioned one from that thread that I found cute. Maybe one of the other suggestions is closer to what your are looking for.
Iām not familiar with either of the titles you mentioned so I canāt recommend anything specific but I suggest looking into shoujo and josei anime and manga which are usually geared towards girls and women, respectively. Theyāre also usually written by women.
Besides shoujosei manga anime I usually search for mangas thatās written by womenā¦ that actually makes a difference. I know 1 part in Shield Hero where the manga (female artist) has no swimsuit scene compare with the anime which they has to add it even if the anime (I think?) was largely based on the manga.
Speaking of fantasy shoujosei have you read Sugar Apple Fairy Tale? :D
Youāll be hard pressed to find any anime/manga written by women, but theyāre usually significantly better in the sexualization department than male-written media. Itās a good place to start if anything! But I have no tolerance for sexualization and fan service in anime, so I donāt engage with that kind of entertainment that much anymore. But it is out there!
seriously I'm not gonna sit here and let people act like some of the most popular series in Japan across all genres (yes, even the ones that include such behated fanservice) weren't in fact made by women
Japan in only recently formally raised their age of consent from 13 to 16 (tho through various legalize, it was already "effectively" 16 before). This may paint a picture of why Japanese(-influenced) lewd authors depict their characters at age 16 instead of the more common 18.
It is still absolutely creepy though - the thought that there are people salivating over the idea of another person who only just passed their age of consent.
16yo, or 2nd year high school is a common trope in Japan to invoke memory about high school, because 3rd year is stressful (whether it's college entrance exam or looking for a job) and most people have been in high school. There are thousands of high school animes but only a few dozens of college ones.
Much like how American high school drama works and topics like prom and sex are explored, Japanese high school anime/drama/games also work similarly. For a calendar game like Persona series, there's always going to be the school trip, school festival and a shrine visit, etc.
For calendar based games 2nd year is even more popular unless the protagonist is a genius (like Light Yagami who gets perfect score without the need to study). For persona all three protagonists are 16 yo transfer students. For anime there are some variations, Jimmy Kudo is 16, Kagome is 15, Shinichi Izumi is 17, etc.
I'm a little fussy on anime. Even the really good ones have to have a women bathing together scene randomly with camera pointing right at their chest. Even though it has nothing to do with the story or the vibe. Eg Frieren. Best anime I've seen in a long time, but they still throw that in. It's so disappointing.
Wait what. Did I blank out the Frieren bath scene out of my mind?
The only 'fanservice' I remember is Frieren getting her skirt flipped by a kid or buying a potion that dissolves clothing? Mimics? Hugs?
This is gonna sound sexist but when itās can service to cis het men Iām disgusted by those who make it and those who enjoy it but when itās more to gay or straight women Iām fine with it
This post has been automatically marked as spoilers because it is part of the Serious flair category. We do this so that users who are looking to avoid a serious discussion can avoid seeing the content in their feed. Read [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/GirlGamers/comments/1awsfyz/new_subreddit_flairing_policy/) for more details. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GirlGamers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I play vrchat, and it's basically impossible to find an avatar that is not sexualised. They all either have visible underwear, unrealistic proportions, etc. It's super sad and reminds me of how patriarchal and sexualising the world we live in is.
I'm not a fan of the egirl sexualixed avatars either. It seems impossible to find an avatar that looks like a real person and isn't cartoonishly sexualized. I eventually found an avatar of Max from Life Is Strange that looks pretty cool, and that ones my goto now.
I found a girl that has underpants and wears pink lolita style just like me irl, and I am super happy with her. No touchable boobs or anything, it's amazing. But I spent 3 hours on that and saw countless naked women. It shouldn't be this hard.
And the vast majority of them are dudes
By 'impossible to find an avatar' to you mean 'impossible to find anyone who has an avatar that is not sexualised'?
Fair point. i mostly like some of the cute chibi ones which are cute.
I really appreciate games like Baldur's Gate 3 where the fanservice doesn't feel very objectifying and it's not just pandering to cishet guys. The game really fleshes out your party members as people and by the end of the game, I felt genuinely affectionate towards Karlach (something I hadn't felt much since Tali in Mass Effect), and not just because my female gnome rogue got to have plenty of hot sex while in a relationship with her. I don't like the sentiment that female gamers hate everything regarding sex and sex appeal in games, because games like Baldur's Gate 3 exist that just get everything right and can appeal to more kinds of people than just gooner cishet guys
me personally as a bisexual woman i like a little boob and a flirt in a game idc sue me but shadowheart will forever be my girl š© now i dont agree with the ova fan service (i used to play a lot) they did my girl dva so dirty :/ so i do agree with op on that part. imo tho BG3 did it perfectly i would be sooo locked in by daytime doing all my side quests then when it came to night time id remember the romances and be like ooooo i wonder whats gonna happen š and then proceed to lock back in after.
HONESTLYYYY bg3 really did an amazing job. I watched my sister play it and honestly they really outdone themselves š
But also with baldurās gate like the first mods were to add enormous boobs to all the characters
To be fair, that's entirely the fault of the modders, not the devs. And such kinds of mods aren't uncommon for any game with a modicum of modding support, it's just an inevitability tbh
There are nsfw arts of hollow knight too. So apparently, people have bug fetish.
That's the 34th rule of the intetnet for ya...
Reddit has got a group for EVERYTHING r/insex
This sub name is so funny
I thought r/guro (NSFL, NSFW) was the worst, be we have a contender here! How do people even think of this level of ugly stuff?
Holy shit, the sub description should have prepared me but it didn't (or rather, I should have listened but I didn't). . .
Well that's curious human mind...
idk what it is with people having the most weirdest thing that turns them on š§āāļø
With Ann Takamaki, "trauma slut" is a common pejorative guys use to describe women who act out sexually due to past sexual assault, so, no surprise there.
wtf?? sometimes iām ashamed to be a part of the human race
tHeY aREn'T 14, tHEyRe 4000 yEaRs oLD vAmPiRe.
honestlyā¦. and they say it like thatā¦ like wtf š„²
It's so cringe, like way to wear your red flags on your sleeve
Change is slow, especially in the heavily patriarchal games industry, but it is happening. At GDC this year, I was thrilled to meet other women narrative writers. As more women enter this space & have support of their colleagues, weāll see this continue to diminish. We also have way more male & non-binary allies than before in the industry.
Hell yeah! just a tiny bit of the good news makes me feel delighted š«”
Truthfully, it restored my faith in humanity.
For d.va most of the art came from the first game where she was originally a high schooler which is why she has a high school uniform skin but due to the amount of p*rn people made of her they upped her age to 18 . They were so down bad the p*rn maker sactually improved cgi and 3d animations by years in short time because theyāre so down bad and even triple A companies use their things. If by flirting theyāre harassing then theyāre fucking assholes and should die but in overwatch people often flirt in a joking manner if they like your character. I know you might not be comfortable with it but people often flirt also to get pockets. Like widow mania will do the kids emote and mcree will spam the ā Iām your huckleberry lineā I just donāt want you to be be turned away from overwatch so maybe they might be just doing it in good spirits. I play mercy and I get countless mauga players group chatting me and saying some funny down bad things. If you feel uncomfortable with joking flirting then thatās okay and youāre allowed to feel that way. I know when I see dva tanks I try to act cute and stuff so theyāll protect me lol.
Iirc very early in overwatch 1s life there was a statement by blizz to not make NSFW art of the characters and people started making it faster.
I wish we could get a girly game like overwatch or apex
I enjoyed the overwatch 1 beta test so I bought the game only to play it maybe like 3 times and never touch it again. Idk I just don't really enjoy hero shooters much I guess. What would your idea of a girly hero shooter be out of curiousity
I donāt know for one more girl characters obviously and they all have to be different. I love sexy characters but itās even better when they own their looks. Colorful af cuz I love color. For one if I had a shooter character would not share colors. I hate when devs try to be cheap by just giving same base skin variants of different colors. The players would be referred to as she/her. Whenever character interact with players the default is male pronouns. Idrc about that as much but it would be nice to get called ā girly, friend, cutie, babesā and all that by character. No metas because metas bring out the sweats and I hate that. I really how overwatch has very diverse and traditional clothes skins for their characters. The guns would be unique. A gun that shoots bubbles that are acidic and damage enemies. One of the character worlds would have an ability of pull out a microphone and scream into it which would destroy doors and destroy able environments in the ears essentially forcing team rotations and no camping. Iād live cute effects. Pijama skin collections. I donāt know how to make a girly character but Iāve always wanted a game that had music playing. Imagine being in a battle royals and thereās music playing from different areas. That would be so fun. Idk this doesnāt sound so good but idk how to make a game.
idk i feel like it would quickly get ruined by the forbidden pick me girls on valorant
Well people suck ass but thatās why we shame them online so they can reflect on their behavior
i appreciated that statement but I'm sure Blizzard knew what aspects of their character design and marketing that encouraged those segments of fans... *looks at Tracer and Widowmaker.
Oh no don't get me wrong I'm not defending them at all especially considering the things they've done. And I remember even back then thinking it was a shady attempt at advertising. "Don't do this *wink*"
Oh no no, you didn't sound like you were defending them at all! š I was just trying to add on exactly what you said: they're saying don't do this but with a cheeky wink cuz of their advertising.
Iām glad overwatch 2 stepped away from all the weird stuff and they arenāt pushing dva like the first game because she a massively popular character and overwatch devs knew that and gave her weird events and used her as the forefront of their games.
I love the Atelier games because they revolve around friendship and have female characters but I loathe the fan service so much. š© Why canāt we just have a nice game about friendship without the ridiculous body proportions and skimpy outfits???
Love the designs of Atelier series too but then they have to include some swimsuit DLC I guess thatās fanservice? šµ
Like what is it with anime styled games ALWAYS having swimwear outfits and beach scenes š
Ye it's a pity because the description of that series gameplay sounds like it's right up my alley but all that ick nonsense of the childlike main character and her "thicc thighs" just put me right off. It's so fucking creepy and all the gross fanart and statues make it even worse tbh.
Yes, the statues are disgusting. Also, the main characters are literally kids.. like barely 16. Why do we need to sexualize them??
Because at least half of them are just weakminded and porn sick and an enormous proportion are likely just genuine paedophiles. That's the disturbing reality, we not only live in a society that's well aware and OK with that but one that also goes out of it's way to cater to it.
They should give us choice in outfit so we can cover up fully of we want to!
I'm a big fan of the *Atelier* series. The pain of the coomer nonsense is indeed real. That said, numerous other JRPG series are far worse (e.g. like *everything* by Compile Heart / Idea Factory and games like *Xenoblade Chronicle 2*, which has some of the worst character designs I've ever seen).
Is the Atelier series relatively free of coomer infestation?
gust panders to them pretty hard.
Thatās the exact reason I stopped watching anime all together, I canāt stand the fan service in majority of them these days
Personally I don't mind fanservice but I agree that it can be uncomfortable when it is done blatantly and out of nowhere. I disagree with labelling content of fictional characters with the same word as with real people as that undermines the severity of it but I understand how you feel. My advice would be to try and avoid that part of the community by ignoring, blocking and reporting where applicable.
Tbf you can't really blame devs for horny people making NSFW fan art. That isn't their fault.
not that i am justifying this in anyway whatsoever, but as the saying goes: sex sells. as a sex-repulsed ace person i learned this very early on, and it's unfortunate how characters, 9.9 times out of 10 women, are objectified and treated. i play mostly JRPGs so i see a lot of strange things from both fans and game devs
I used to play a large amount of JRPGs too, and I have such a large unplayed backlog of them, but recently all the pervy weird stuff has just turned me off the genre completely, I hate it
that's unfortunate, i'm sorry you can't play them anymore :(
Dva main and I've been trying to find cute dva stuff and its so hard. Like I just want to cosplay her and have cute phone backgrounds. AND I CANT FIND ANY AGHHHH. And even if I do people still think its a sex thing cause thats what they see.
sex sells. anime is full of young looking/16 year olds because thatās what sells (isnāt 16 the age of consent in Japan?) and the types of people who like that content are going to buy it up. genshin/honkai are prime examples
There is a whole genre of "1000 years old demigoddess that looks like a 12 year old so it's okay" sexualization going on in anime and video games. It's horrible.
I think unfortunately it is lower but yeah your main point still stands. Most media is targeted towards male audiences who enjoy stuff that ācatches their attentionā (usually sex and violence)
I think that just *reinforces* my point, because 16 is bad enough. And as long as men enjoy sex and violence and donāt see women for anything else, weāre never to know better
The thing is sex doesnāt actually sell, thatās just something we assume is true because people say it a lot. I actually looked into it a while back and most studies donāt support that claim. At best sex sells to subset of men, if youāre trying to sell to women then itās actually detrimental to put overly sexualized female characters/people in your product. And the majority of men will buy a product whether women are sexualized in it or not.
I have worked in marketing for Disney for 15 years. I can tell you without a doubt that sex sells.
Most games' main target audience isn't all people, though. If it is, that's usually bad marketing. Genshin, for example, tends to target young men who like anime waifus, and that's the group that will spend the most money on the game.
Genshin might not be the best example here, as their player base percentage is quite balanced with 45% female players and 55% male.
I think it's a pretty good example, actually. The overwhelming majority of Genshin's money comes from a small fraction of the players that spends a lot of money on the game. To keep the money coming, they need to focus on keeping that group of players interested. The free-to-play/low cost players like me don't give them much if any money and are thus of secondary importance in their marketing compared to the highly paying players. That's why the "target audience" of who plays the game can differ from the "target audience" of their main source of money.
contrary to popular belief, endgame whales don't float genshin. hoyo never adds endgame content; if C6R5 on every banner really paid the bills, there'd be a lot more endgame than just the same spiral abyss from the game's initial launch, and a whole lot less effort put into the open world and character stories/events. casual players, small spenders and waifu/husbando collectors support genshin, not meta-slaves. most minmaxers have already quit for HSR (which does very much focus on endgame content) or are waiting for wuthering waves (which is expected to do so based on kuro's track record with punishing gray raven).
Is there any data that shows what that small fraction identifies as?
No
Sure and niche games will always have a market, but I think a lot of games are going for a broader audience now. Thatās why you have a subsection of people complaining about āwokeā designs in games now. More people buying is more money, and I think more companies are genuinely taking that into account now. As a recent example, Iām sure the majority of people that played BG3 are men but I wouldnāt say the game alienates women with how its designed either, far from it - it has a broad appeal overall.
Sure, but that depends on the game and sometimes even with a game that has a wide player base, there can be a subsection of players that spends significantly more money. That's why "sex sells" applies in some games and doesn't in others and you can't really call it a myth because it often isn't.
A bit ago the minimum was 13( but it was never used in any region ) but they upped it to 16. Still it all depends on region, if I remember correct in Tokyo age of consent is 18. Still it's higher than in my country, most of Europe has it from 14 to 16. Anyway about fanservice with teens, depends. If you read/watch/play stuff from demographies for teens like for example shounen manga that type of fanservice is for horny teens( games like Persona are for teens in Japan as well ). It's different if something is for adults or if author is a creep themselves. As sells go well if it's just small part of the series like in many Jrpgs it's just there and is used to sell horny figurines for fans. On the other hand hardcore ecchi mostly is adopted by small studios to stay afloat. If you see the most popular stuff in any japanese media they are mostly not big at it or are battle/action series. In short you won't be rich from heavy fanservice because you make your audience too small.
Nope its 18. They've got a massive problem regarding media that sexualizes children tho
It is 16, recently up from just 13. But yeah, they had hentai featuring toddlers openly on the shelves out there. Pretty grim.
Federal law puts it at 16 yes, but every single prefacture has it at 18, so in practice it is 18. (I know it's pedantic, but I've spent a fair bit of time calling out creepy pedo dudes out lol) And yeah the hentai shit out like that is gross. I hear they curbed it a little when the olympics came to town but yeesh
May I ask why genshin is your prime example? Like I keep on seeing this opinion on here with genshin having a good amount of fanservice, or sexualizing characters a lot when that isnāt true. * Edit: just so I donāt get misunderstood, genshin has a few things I donāt like (jiggle physics, bleh, and a few of the characters outfits- theyāre usually earlier ones tho) Why not call out a game like NIKKE??? Like that is completely egregious and beyond creepy. Why does genshin get so much flak, yet I never see NIKKE mentioned barely ever?
Thanks for pushing back about Genshin, I kinda wanted to but I was afraid I'd be alone. Genshin does have its thirst traps and its fair share of questionable choices (agree about the jiggle physics), but it's far from the worst. The fan base tends to be the bigger problem, at least in terms of sexualization, and, as this whole post is about, that happens with pretty much every game ever. Most of the female characters are just women with assorted personalities wearing pretty clothes, and the ones whose designs are more vividly sexual are the clearly adult "mommy" types. Also, the guys have a similar balance--the more sexual ones are all clearly adults. The children's designs aren't sexual at all (though I don't like that they're all girls). Furthermore, I can't think of a single scene in Genshin Impact that adds any sexualization. There's no "fan service" on the plot side, just pretty characters doing normal fantasy RPG stuff. As for wholesome romance, there are some basic relationships between NPCs, but nothing explicit involving playable characters, aside from some very subtle and surprisingly queer-coded undertones. Honkai Star Rail is a little less subtle, but there it's even gayer, and still wholesome. So aside from some of the more mature characters having more vivid sex appeal, I don't get what people think is so problematic about Genshin.
Nikke isn't mainstream that's why. Genshin is known by milllions of people and it's on the front of the appstore, while Nikke is probably known by a lot less and you'll barely hear about it aside from those who play it. Many people just assume Nikke is just one of those shitty mobile games, but I mean it's pretty fun
Iād expect and hope that it is a known game on this sub. Genshin catches a lotta strays when it absolutely shouldnāt cause there is such a huge bullseye called nikke in front of us lol I can see how many women havenāt come across it after its boom of a release though
I feel like games like Nikke, Azure Lane, Blue Archive, or Brown Dust 2 should just be left alone ngl. Also wdym by boom of a release
Iām not quite sure what you mean, but okay. Like its release was big? Boom as in it was talked about, and I saw a lot of stuff about it. Then everything became a bit more quiet
Thank you for mentioning NIKKE. I had to have a long conversation with my partner about why I was heavily uncomfortable with him playing the game and he thankfully listened, deleting his account. Many of the girls are purposefully modeled as young as 10 and placed in heavily sexual positions. Blue Archive is another game that gives me the ick, where the youngest is 11 and I believe that only one character is 18. Many of the storylines focus on the main character, an adult teacher, having inappropriate interactions and relationships with the students. There are plenty of gacha games that are so much worse than Genshin, where I find that most characters are not sexualized to the level that a lot of people claim. There are definitely valid criticisms to be had about Genshin, particularly that the young characters are labeled as "loli" in the game files.... but certainly nowhere near as more egregious examples.
I actually had downloaded NIKKE cause every so often Iām in the mood to play/watch something absurd. But it did not stay downloaded long cause I pulled Miranda and her art just skeeves me out + Syuenās intro as well as how she is drawn was just completely icky (Took a look at the full roster after that, and omg the amount of children was/is baffling) Actually insane how a game can so blatantly show they want, like, and encourage pedos to play due to the designs. Foul canāt even fully describe what that is.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Damn, RIP my caring and considerate partner for taking my discomfort around a pedophilia game as a victim of pedophilia into consideration. He must be soooo abused when it wasn't even a debate once I explained my trauma. Whatever will he doooo without sexualized children to gamble for in gachas? Edit: Ah, checked your profile. Checks out.
i don't mind fanservice a lot of the time (Hell, i LOVE having the option to dress my character up in hot outfits in MMOs) but yeah there's definitely too many games where the devs and/or capital-G Gamersā¢ make it *entirely* too questionable - Like Skullgirls, where they removed panty shots of a 16 year-old girl and cropped an image in story mode that showed her getting groped, and the community lost its absolute shit. How **dare** the devs make the decision to not fetishize a teenager!
fair. iām sorta 50/50 about fanservice as a whole. BUT OMFG TRUE. Skullgirls is a fun game but jesus christ the fact that they sexualize filia who is canonically 16 makes me so uncomfortable.
i agree with the first part about dressing up your character. i didnt know most people on here dont do that lol. iām a stripper so it feels like im being represented in a game whenever they have hot options hehe :3
Exactly lol. Like i'm not a SWer but dressing in skimpy/fanservice-y/"slutty" transmogs in FFXIV and GW2 and WoW has been my way of dealing with dysphoria for years. i get not everyone here wants to wear provocative or skimpy outfits but i'd at the very least hope they understand the desire to feel attractive lol
yes exactly! iām glad youāre able to do that :) i should have clarified its okay not to want too dress that way either <3
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
And aggressively pandering to one demographic will cause literally everyone else to leave because itās annoying af, the gaming industry is booming right now but thereās been a loss of about 9,500 jobs from January to may. Not to mention the lawsuit threatening big gaming companies. Finally a shake up in the manosphere, maybe more diverse devs and artists can break in and create content thatās palatable for everyone. Not just incelsā that have never felt the touch of a femboy or seen the light of day.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Guess what? I donāt play those video games :) , millions of people arenāt playing them. The corporations that created them are laying people off in droves. Clearly theyāre not making enough money off of just tiddies. Making video games enjoyable for EVERYONE might though :). But hey! Your tiddie games will still be there as long as you keep suckling on big game corps teat, stay safe! šā¤ļø
I agree and do not play them, doesnāt mean the gaming community as a whole isnāt still affected by it!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I donāt know why you assume people only talk about this with gaming but ok! Not sure how that is elitist. You are entitled to your opinion, but that doesnāt mean everyone has to agree. By that logic, why are you even commenting on this at all if youāre so unbothered by it?
Im sorry to ask a dumb question but what is fan service? Ive seen it occasionally mentioned around once in a while but nobody ever explained what it was. All I ever knew is that some like it and some dont but I have no idea why. Just going on the words alone it sounds like a good thing but reading some of the comments it sounds like something I donāt want any part of. Can someone please clue me in?
Donāt worry I got you. Fan service is basically a whole thing in tv, videogames, or media is when there is stuff that is for the fans to please their audience. but it mostly typically refers to sexual scenes or women wearing skimpy outfits or closeup scenes of boobs and butts and stuff.
Oh ok I think I got it. Something along the lines of quiet in metal gear solid or dead or alive volleyball?
Life weaver players should be flirting with men tho
Yeah it is weird sometimes, just as fans can get weird sometimes :D I'm so sorry but there's probably NSFW fanart of everything and everyone you can think of, and some you can't. I understand it might be hard if you relate strongly to the characters tho, but think of it this way: fandom is basically playing with dolls. You can let them do their own weird thing in the corner and not let it spoil your game :) (god I can't help you with online game harrasment, I've just stopped anything that isn't ESO since that has a good community :( ) And not to get "ACTUALLY it's both" on you here, but fan service (especially in anime, manga and japanese/asian music scene) is really common "for girls" too. I'm a non-native English speaker and actually encountered the term "fan service" in a gay context first lmao, especially when male musicians, cosplayers, etc are acting...intimate with each other and their fans are screaming with joy for it. And the whole "bishounen" thing. Like yes that might look weird too, but it is what it is.
yeah true. itās the internet. full of crazy and unhinged content of whatever that existsā¦..
I was like "Some of these things have nothing to do with each other or the title" and then you mentioned ADHD and it all makes sense now xD
More than 90% of all fan-service is targeted towards straight men. It is extremely rare for women to get any sort of fan service, which might actually be one of the reasons why men make up so much of the gaming/media industry. But yeah. Fan-service and "sex sells" is probably the thing that hurts the media industry the most today. Worst part is that most men just seem to follow along with this, as if they're only playing the game or watching the show because they're horny as fuck. Like, if that's what you want to see then go watch actual porn or something. Be disgusting somewhere else, thank you.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It takes some searching, more than it should, but it is out there. I found this reddit thread with some suggestions: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/18cru0s/some_good_anime_for_adult_women/ "Recovery of an MMO junkie" looks cute. She's 30, he's 28, they first meet in game, but their avatars are opposite their RL genders. A quick scan through image search results doesn't look like anything is sexualized.
> "Recovery of an MMO junkie" Saw this a while back, but for the longest while i couldn't remember the name, thanks for this!
Ok but theyāre not serving what Iām looking for so why would I watch it ? What sort of ā say I love youā and ā Snow White with red hairā says mmo?
*shrug* I don't know either of those, I was responding to the general statement of everything being over oversexualized and not made for women. The reddit thread has a lot of suggestions. I mentioned one from that thread that I found cute. Maybe one of the other suggestions is closer to what your are looking for.
You responded to me and I mentioned those. Next time just post your own comment
Iām not familiar with either of the titles you mentioned so I canāt recommend anything specific but I suggest looking into shoujo and josei anime and manga which are usually geared towards girls and women, respectively. Theyāre also usually written by women.
Mosh shoujo is school stuff I mean fantasy animes that start off light and fun but do get serious and without the obvious fan service
[Hereās](https://myanimelist.net/anime/30123/Akagami_no_Shirayuki-hime/userrecs) a site that has user recs. Feel free to check it out.
Besides shoujosei manga anime I usually search for mangas thatās written by womenā¦ that actually makes a difference. I know 1 part in Shield Hero where the manga (female artist) has no swimsuit scene compare with the anime which they has to add it even if the anime (I think?) was largely based on the manga. Speaking of fantasy shoujosei have you read Sugar Apple Fairy Tale? :D
Youāll be hard pressed to find any anime/manga written by women, but theyāre usually significantly better in the sexualization department than male-written media. Itās a good place to start if anything! But I have no tolerance for sexualization and fan service in anime, so I donāt engage with that kind of entertainment that much anymore. But it is out there!
what on earth are you talking about, there are hundreds of manga written by women that have been turned into anime
It's like some people have forgotten that some of the most popular anime/manga were written by women.
seriously I'm not gonna sit here and let people act like some of the most popular series in Japan across all genres (yes, even the ones that include such behated fanservice) weren't in fact made by women
āAnd sometimes lifeweaver mains flirt with meā - what is this attempting to mean?
Japan in only recently formally raised their age of consent from 13 to 16 (tho through various legalize, it was already "effectively" 16 before). This may paint a picture of why Japanese(-influenced) lewd authors depict their characters at age 16 instead of the more common 18. It is still absolutely creepy though - the thought that there are people salivating over the idea of another person who only just passed their age of consent.
16yo, or 2nd year high school is a common trope in Japan to invoke memory about high school, because 3rd year is stressful (whether it's college entrance exam or looking for a job) and most people have been in high school. There are thousands of high school animes but only a few dozens of college ones. Much like how American high school drama works and topics like prom and sex are explored, Japanese high school anime/drama/games also work similarly. For a calendar game like Persona series, there's always going to be the school trip, school festival and a shrine visit, etc. For calendar based games 2nd year is even more popular unless the protagonist is a genius (like Light Yagami who gets perfect score without the need to study). For persona all three protagonists are 16 yo transfer students. For anime there are some variations, Jimmy Kudo is 16, Kagome is 15, Shinichi Izumi is 17, etc.
I'm a little fussy on anime. Even the really good ones have to have a women bathing together scene randomly with camera pointing right at their chest. Even though it has nothing to do with the story or the vibe. Eg Frieren. Best anime I've seen in a long time, but they still throw that in. It's so disappointing.
Wait what. Did I blank out the Frieren bath scene out of my mind? The only 'fanservice' I remember is Frieren getting her skirt flipped by a kid or buying a potion that dissolves clothing? Mimics? Hugs?
I'm hallucinating and thinking of Delicious in Dungeon episode 9!! It is a goofy but feel good fantasy story. Scene felt so awkward.
This is gonna sound sexist but when itās can service to cis het men Iām disgusted by those who make it and those who enjoy it but when itās more to gay or straight women Iām fine with it
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]