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So this topic is the spear counterpart to the one about women. I kind of doubt this it a hot button, but it just just doesn't get brought up much, or at all. One could get a wrong impression from that silence. So simple topic. What problems do you have with how men are portrayed in videogames?

My nitpick is with that default supper buff male body. If you get a game with a weak character creation system your often left with only a single body type and it's often this super buff slab of wall that looks silly when playing anyone but conan. WoW is kind of the poster child for this trope. It doesn't show up all the time and can be mild, but it still bugs me.

Agree how come all the space marines have to be so tall. Being tall has nothing to do with ability I know plenty of my Marine buddies that are short and can hang with the tall guys. I think it is a total fabrication of the truth there for is totally against short men. With that said im 6'2 and give them hell on the short jokes daily.

I feel like the whole over-sexualized female thing is just as bad for men (though not exactly in gaming). I mean yeah not every woman wants to be with a freaking Hercules but i'm sure a muscled guy with looks is attractive to them as a curvy girl is to a lot of us guys.

I mean i was rather annoyed with most of the characters in 'gears of war' as they're all muscle-headed beefy men. I found Dizzy and the 2nd carmine (possibly the 3rd as well) to be infinity more enjoyable as characters. The rest are just gritty vets that we've seen way too much of.

I just find it interesting though. All these guy characters we're taught to look up to and not one person mentioned how it could give guys a bad self image if they don't match up. In the end it's really those that fit the perfect light of what society deems greatest at a current moment though that changes with time somewhat (to an extent pretty people will always be in the limelight though).

--------

Anyway a little off topic but you want to know who has it really bad? "Little" people. I heard that the villain in 'xmen: days of future past' was the first time a "little' person went through a whole movie without being mentioned he was little. That took till 2014 to happen even once. I mean don't get me wrong sometimes they get a random job in a movie or show but it's usually something kind of demeaning. I dunno i just find it weird that's never brought up much either. Perhaps it's because they're such a small population of people. I dunno.

nomotog wrote:
So this topic is the spear counterpart to the one about women. I kind of doubt this it a hot button, but it just just doesn't get brought up much, or at all. One could get a wrong impression from that silence. So simple topic. What problems do you have with how men are portrayed in videogames?

My nitpick is with that default supper buff male body. If you get a game with a weak character creation system your often left with only a single body type and it's often this super buff slab of wall that looks silly when playing anyone but conan. WoW is kind of the poster child for this trope. It doesn't show up all the time and can be mild, but it still bugs me.

On this topic I'm just going to mention Dragon's Crown. Seriously, I actually like a lot of the company's other games but this one just kinda put me off

The knight's proportions creep me out (but not too dramatically), the dwarf's super muscles of muscle machismo just looks wrong, the mage is alright although something about the head size and body shape odds me out, the sorceress and barbarian make me about as uncomfortable as the dwarf and knight. Seriously, the only ones I'd ever consider playing are the archer and the mage (even if technically bows and arrows would actually require some significant muscular strength. I'll just drop that to elf magicry)

 StarTrotter wrote:

nomotog wrote:
So this topic is the spear counterpart to the one about women. I kind of doubt this it a hot button, but it just just doesn't get brought up much, or at all. One could get a wrong impression from that silence. So simple topic. What problems do you have with how men are portrayed in videogames?

My nitpick is with that default supper buff male body. If you get a game with a weak character creation system your often left with only a single body type and it's often this super buff slab of wall that looks silly when playing anyone but conan. WoW is kind of the poster child for this trope. It doesn't show up all the time and can be mild, but it still bugs me.

On this topic I'm just going to mention Dragon's Crown. Seriously, I actually like a lot of the company's other games but this one just kinda put me off

The knight's proportions creep me out (but not too dramatically), the dwarf's super muscles of muscle machismo just looks wrong, the mage is alright although something about the head size and body shape odds me out, the sorceress and barbarian make me about as uncomfortable as the dwarf and knight. Seriously, the only ones I'd ever consider playing are the archer and the mage (even if technically bows and arrows would actually require some significant muscular strength. I'll just drop that to elf magicry)

Won't even get into Dragon's Crown, as half the things that bother me are on the RPG aspect, not the visual aspect. I actually really like the visual look of Dragon's Crown. The game designer intentionally made them wacky and abnormal because he wanted something caricature-like to make the game stand out from every other RPG game. In that aspect, I think he certainly succeeded.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My big nitpick is that men are never shown as emotional. I think The Last of Us, for as much praise as it gets, is still woefully underrated. It is one of the few times a male protagonist is shown to have real emotion without it seeming comical or flat. Too many games go for the "My wife is dead! I'll have revenge on (whatever)!"

I am all about the revenge for lost family members, but without substance, it just seems like a cheap way to add emotion to otherwise flat characters.

Nothing.
Ego-Shooters usually have their buffed up Uber-soldier, but like with everything else, there are also exceptions like Half-Life and No One Lifes Forever.
RPGs? I don't really care, I want my character in the biggest armour around, but even here are exceptions like Dark Souls where the character looks malnourished (Dark Souls 1) or chubby (Dark Souls 2).

Only thing that can be annoying is the behaviour of characters. Certain games let you simply shoot them (Fallout) or I just don't play them (like Gears of War - too macho for me).

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I feel like the whole over-sexualized female thing is just as bad for men (though not exactly in gaming). I mean yeah not every woman wants to be with a freaking Hercules but i'm sure a muscled guy with looks is attractive to them as a curvy girl is to a lot of us guys.

I mean i was rather annoyed with most of the characters in 'gears of war' as they're all muscle-headed beefy men. I found Dizzy and the 2nd carmine (possibly the 3rd as well) to be infinity more enjoyable as characters. The rest are just gritty vets that we've seen way too much of.

I just find it interesting though. All these guy characters we're taught to look up to and not one person mentioned how it could give guys a bad self image if they don't match up. In the end it's really those that fit the perfect light of what society deems greatest at a current moment though that changes with time somewhat (to an extent pretty people will always be in the limelight though).

I don't think people should really be looking up to and trying to intimate a lot of video game characters. Most are very very bad role models. I'd muse this extends to other places outside of gaming too. You don't get a lot of good male role models. At least I hope a lot of these characters and tropes aren't meant to be role models.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:

nomotog wrote:
So this topic is the spear counterpart to the one about women. I kind of doubt this it a hot button, but it just just doesn't get brought up much, or at all. One could get a wrong impression from that silence. So simple topic. What problems do you have with how men are portrayed in videogames?

My nitpick is with that default supper buff male body. If you get a game with a weak character creation system your often left with only a single body type and it's often this super buff slab of wall that looks silly when playing anyone but conan. WoW is kind of the poster child for this trope. It doesn't show up all the time and can be mild, but it still bugs me.

On this topic I'm just going to mention Dragon's Crown. Seriously, I actually like a lot of the company's other games but this one just kinda put me off

The knight's proportions creep me out (but not too dramatically), the dwarf's super muscles of muscle machismo just looks wrong, the mage is alright although something about the head size and body shape odds me out, the sorceress and barbarian make me about as uncomfortable as the dwarf and knight. Seriously, the only ones I'd ever consider playing are the archer and the mage (even if technically bows and arrows would actually require some significant muscular strength. I'll just drop that to elf magicry)

Won't even get into Dragon's Crown, as half the things that bother me are on the RPG aspect, not the visual aspect. I actually really like the visual look of Dragon's Crown. The game designer intentionally made them wacky and abnormal because he wanted something caricature-like to make the game stand out from every other RPG game. In that aspect, I think he certainly succeeded.

Ya dragons crown's designs just don't look good to me. I guess I can get the idea that the director was going for, but the result is just really unappealing charter designs.

I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of every male protagonist being the pasty dude with stubble and brown hair. I am also sick of almost every version of that dude being motivated by the murder of his wife and kids.

Most of your enemies are males - so much that I tend to play women so that if I hear a "uumph" in a female voice, I know that someone off screen is beating on my character.

too muscled,
too tall,
always the same voices too... not all men are bass voices..


nothing but chisled chins and A-frames... Id love to play a gainly or fat guy with a huge nose or something.


men are the defacto generic "kill this guy" character for enemies

all the heroes are bland "tough guy" characters 99% of the time with no arc or developement, or agency in their choices.... they are there to die for _________ cause and nothing else. Their motivation rarely is more complicated the "I have my orders" or avenge _____'s death


men are reduced to objects that its ok to kill with impunity as well.

Hmmm. my only issue is that there personally usually ranges from whinny to as bland as oatmeal.

Characters have become so flat i feel in general.

Probably so that we are able to project on to them but its still boring :/

Bad VA. Looking at you, Shepherd.

There is the problem with the idealized, accepted view of beauty, same as women. It has always irritated me. Why can't we get a main character who is not huge, muscled, and up to the eyes in testosterone. More realistic protagonists are desperately needed. Especially in games that are not just strait action, where it is very likely that they are not Hercules.

My problem with men in gaming is that I think any male character voiced by Troy Baker is actually Kanji from Persona 4.

It makes Final Fantasy 13 slightly more interesting to interpret Snow's actions as being driven by repressed homosexuality.

Wait, people interpreted it as anything else?

 Manchu wrote:
I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of every male protagonist being the pasty dude with stubble and brown hair. I am also sick of almost every version of that dude being motivated by the murder of his wife and kids.

 Mr Nobody wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of every male protagonist being the pasty dude with stubble and brown hair. I am also sick of almost every version of that dude being motivated by the murder of his wife and kids.

As a brown-haired stubbly male, I find this offensive

They're usually bland, boring, and one-dimensional. Like the female characters.

Handsome mc stubble face. The star of almost every game.

 Melissia wrote:
Wait, people interpreted it as anything else?

Touche

Fireraven wrote:
Agree how come all the space marines have to be so tall. Being tall has nothing to do with ability I know plenty of my Marine buddies that are short and can hang with the tall guys. I think it is a total fabrication of the truth there for is totally against short men. With that said im 6'2 and give them hell on the short jokes daily.

I feel that when a character is supposed to be huge (A big villain, or a Space Marine for example) then about nine-ten feet is my fav size.

Both male



and female



I agree that men need some more variation in their portrayal, though.

 easysauce wrote:
too muscled,
too tall,

This kind of things are very true for games with just one or two male characters, but for those that boast a large cast of characters that aim at being very distinguishable from each other, like fighting games and moba, you usually have at least one fat guy, and sometimes small guys too. The fat guy is an almost unavoidable trope for fighting games! On that regard, it is not perfect, but still better than for female characters.

The only game I can think of that gives us no fat guy, but a fat gal, is Loadout. That game is pretty special. And awesome.

My problems, are the "typical" issues.... In a fantasy/ sword type game, why does the bad guy always wear black armor, and have long black hair pulled into a pony tail?

Why can't good guys wear black armor or pony tails?


Just because it's drawn a certain way on some ancient Chinese scrolls doesn't actually mean that's what they'd really fight in (looking at you Dynasty Warriors)

I do get annoyed that there's 2 bodies for most male characters:

Duke Nuke'em/ Conan/Arnold Schwarzenegger, super buff/ripped

or

Super skinny, emo twig sized person.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
My problems, are the "typical" issues.... In a fantasy/ sword type game, why does the bad guy always wear black armor, and have long black hair pulled into a pony tail?

Why can't good guys wear black armor or pony tails?


Just because it's drawn a certain way on some ancient Chinese scrolls doesn't actually mean that's what they'd really fight in (looking at you Dynasty Warriors)

I do get annoyed that there's 2 bodies for most male characters:

Duke Nuke'em/ Conan/Arnold Schwarzenegger, super buff/ripped

or

Super skinny, emo twig sized person.

Come get sum!!!!

I agree to pretty much all the points above. I think Elder Scrolls sort of does it right when it comes to men and women. Body types tend to be based solely on your actual race, and isn't so much just due to gender. I mean, yes, the men can tend to look more muscular, but it never feels out of proportion. Same with their heights. Nords and Orcs tend to be the bulkiest, as they should according to lore, with Argnians, Khajiit and elves being less so. 'Normal' Humans (Imperials, Bretons) feel like the nice middle ground.

And the men and women can feel as 'sexualized' as you want them to be really. And none of the NPCs feel really over sexualized either.

I have to admit, I'd like more games with slightly 'below average' looks for once too. Gone are the days of a rather fat mario killing goombas, as Mario tends to get less and less chubby as he goes. Same went for Sonic in his major image overhaul. Even classic characters are becoming more 'attractive' or 'appealing' to look at,

 Sinful Hero wrote:
They're usually bland, boring, and one-dimensional. Like the female characters.

Exactly, true equality in video games.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
too muscled,
too tall,

This kind of things are very true for games with just one or two male characters, but for those that boast a large cast of characters that aim at being very distinguishable from each other, like fighting games and moba, you usually have at least one fat guy, and sometimes small guys too. The fat guy is an almost unavoidable trope for fighting games! On that regard, it is not perfect, but still better than for female characters.

The only game I can think of that gives us no fat guy, but a fat gal, is Loadout. That game is pretty special. And awesome.

In a thread about what problems gamers have with how men are portrayed, why bring up how women are portrayed? Pretty sure there was a whole nother thread for it.

nomotog wrote:
So this topic is the spear counterpart to the one about women. I kind of doubt this it a hot button, but it just just doesn't get brought up much, or at all. One could get a wrong impression from that silence. So simple topic. What problems do you have with how men are portrayed in videogames?

My nitpick is with that default supper buff male body. If you get a game with a weak character creation system your often left with only a single body type and it's often this super buff slab of wall that looks silly when playing anyone but conan. WoW is kind of the poster child for this trope. It doesn't show up all the time and can be mild, but it still bugs me.

That character generators aren't defacto standard in the FPS industry even though its been available over a decade. Its got nothing to do with white male gamers its just developers being lazy.

 jreilly89 wrote:
In a thread about what problems gamers have with how men are portrayed, why bring up how women are portrayed?

For comparison purpose. What about the rest of my message? Do you agree with it? Would you like examples?

The issue with male characters, IMO, is that in the vast majority of games all they do is act as a gun carrier for the player. That is more of an issue with most games being generic shooters than the characters themselves.

As with female avatars, the majority of male avatars very much fit within a narrow range of looks, generally towards the tough, muscular, matcho range of the spectrum, which the majority of actual males do not match. Similarly with "personality" (or as much as is imbued in most games", personality very much tends to be a gritty, determined bad-ass, without much variation.

Male characters outside of the FPS domain do tend to have more of a role in games than females, being the default character choice for most developers, regardless of whether the story would work equally with a male or female character. For this reason I think you tend to see a wider range of male character types, personalities and looks than in female characters, although again they are generally skewed towards the gruff macho type.

Some of the best games in terms of character personality and looks are games which essentially have no character personality where you are able to give a variety of responses and have people respond to them, and where you can generate character looks and abilities either randomly or using a character creator. In this way, personality is supplied by the player responding to the story which in turn responds to the player.

I'll have to echo most of the posters here in that the default male character is just so incredibly bland. I've been fine with it for an entire decade, didn't even notice anything wrong, but I'm soo sick of it now that I've recognised the pattern. Variety ftw! Games need not just more female characters, but also more black or asian dudes. Ethnicity is actually what I consider to be a more established cliché than the Schwarzenegger body, at least right now where we've had a few more "normal" characters in major games. I feel that in the last years we even started to move away from the "brown hair, stubby beard" archetype again, or is that just my perception? Either way, I have to agree with Malevolence in that I'd also like to see a couple more chubby characters - a body type that nowadays seems to be "reserved" for supporting NPCs like the greasy engineer or the fuming chief of police.

flamingkillamajig wrote:I feel like the whole over-sexualized female thing is just as bad for men (though not exactly in gaming). I mean yeah not every woman wants to be with a freaking Hercules but i'm sure a muscled guy with looks is attractive to them as a curvy girl is to a lot of us guys.

That has nothing to do with women. Keep in mind that these games and movies like them are made with a male audience in mind - the huge, muscled guy is, as per established industry wisdom, generally thought to be a male power fantasy, representing martial prowess and the ability to force his will on those around him / protect the weak / etc. Generally speaking, a visual representation of their ability to be a "doer", as is part of traditional gender role system.

If you want to look at what young women are said to find attractive, I suppose good examples would be the recent Thor movies' Loki, or all those gel-styled boygroups, or .. hell, shojo manga, especially the shonen-ai subgenre or bishonen characters.

Bishop F Gantry wrote:That character generators aren't defacto standard in the FPS industry even though its been available over a decade.

Amen!

easysauce wrote:all the heroes are bland "tough guy" characters 99% of the time with no arc or developement, or agency in their choices.... they are there to die for _________ cause and nothing else. Their motivation rarely is more complicated the "I have my orders" or avenge _____'s death