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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If they were not attractive, would they have this much success?

Success in a capitalist market has more to do with marketing than it does with quality products. This is why sales workers are almost invariably paid more than line workers.

Even ignoring that, however, they're seen by "two million people worldwide" annually, in 120 major cities across the world. Assuming no repeat customers (a false assumption if there ever was one), it would take roughly 1800 years for all women currently alive on the planet to see one of those strippers. That's like taking a room of ten thousand people and asking five of them what they're attracted to and assuming all the rest of them are also attracted to it, without making an attempt to gather any more data.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
And that most pictures of men underwear's adverts. Because they are on the muscled side of sexy, I guess. Next to the limit. But really, “sexiest men” is about as straightforward a research term as you can get, so I am not sure what you need to convince you. Even an actual woman telling you about it seems not enough either .

How do you explain their success, if they are not attractive?

Gah, ninja'd by Mel.

Yes, marketing is a factor. Another factor is that their customers enjoy their services.
Marketing can only do so much, but if the quality is crap then no amount of hype could save the product (see : Daikatana).
As they have been working for quite a while, it seems their quality is not sup-par.

I… just said they were.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I… just said they were.

Oh sorry, and so you did. Misread that statement. Derpy herp.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Marketing can only do so much, but if the quality is crap then no amount of hype could save the product.

World of Warcraft says otherwise.

But I suppose I shouldn't devolve this discussion in to more blizzard-bashing.

 Melissia wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Marketing can only do so much, but if the quality is crap then no amount of hype could save the product.

World of Warcraft says otherwise.

But I suppose I shouldn't devolve this discussion in to more blizzard-bashing.

To you maybe, clearly to thousands of gamers the quality is satisfactory. Different tastes, I suppose.

Now compare WoW to Daikatana, a game that had heavy marketing (Hey kids, remember that time when "John Romero was gonna make you his bitch"?), and was so horribly executed it completely failed commercially.

Regarding "different tastes": That was kind of my point.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Now compare WoW to Daikatana, a game that had heavy marketing (Hey kids, remember that time when "John Romero was gonna make you his bitch"?), and was so horribly executed it completely failed commercially.

Compare that to the countless examples of drugs and cars/car parts that were marketed heavily, and sold heavily, but were poorly executed and actually got people killed or maimed, but were still so profitable that the company made millions or even billions even after the lawsuits were settled and the recalls were finished.

Except you can see if a piece of entertainment isn't going to be great. You don't really know if a piece of machinery or a drug is going to have side effects. At least not until the feedback comes in.

Did the products continue their commercial success after the accidents started, or did it stop?

That Chippendales image is an excellent case study is how to present a man as a sexual object (ie sexaulised). Take a close look at them. Each man is exceedingly well groomed, chest is shaved smooth & slightly oiled. They are well, but not overly muscled. Their hair is styled, and I suspect there is a certain amount of subtle makeup involved. They are all young men, less than 30 I believe (or at least look it) & present themselves a relaxed and friendly, posed as to suggest they are there for a good time (though that could be just for the photo, don't know how well that carries over).

Their outfits are really where it comes in though. Remember sexualisation is not a simple equation of more skin = more sexy (for men or women).Tight formal pants (for package prominence), little bow ties and cuffs - sans the rest of the rest of the upper cloths. It's both a nod to formal attire, and the wealth and civility associated with it, and more than a bit silly, in a manner that adds to the approachability & non-threatening-ness of their presentation. Despite showing a similar amount of skin to a typical Conan-style barbarian, they are a totally different presentation. The barbarian is an archetypal male power fantasy, where as these guys are a different kind of fantasy, for a different kind of audience.

These guy's image is totally constructed for the 'female gaze'. Most of the computer game characters I see people claiming are 'sexaulised' male characters are nothing like these guys.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Except you can see if a piece of entertainment isn't going to be great. You don't really know if a piece of machinery or a drug is going to have side effects. At least not until the feedback comes in.

Did the products continue their commercial success after the accidents started, or did it stop?

For the drugs, yes. not sure about the cars. But I know it's a real problem within "Big Pharma".


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 Pendix wrote:
Most of the computer game characters I see people claiming are 'sexaulised' male characters are nothing like these guys.

That's something I'd agree with.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
As long as I can't play a female character in really heavy armour (Space Marine+) without boobplate, mysteriously bare belly, unnecessarily slim design etc., there won't be true equality.

Gief my armour. >:c

Only if you give me a video game where you play as a man running about in High Heels, Fish Nets and Corset, while fighting zombie nazi T-Rexes with my bear hands.
That is not a typo, btw. I quite literally mean bear hands.

It shall be known as Transsexual Transylvanian Rampage : Electric Booglaloo

I give you http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=The_Rocky_Horror_Show_(C64) rocky horror picture show the video game!

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
As long as I can't play a female character in really heavy armour (Space Marine+) without boobplate, mysteriously bare belly, unnecessarily slim design etc., there won't be true equality.

Gief my armour. >:c

Only if you give me a video game where you play as a man running about in High Heels, Fish Nets and Corset, while fighting zombie nazi T-Rexes with my bear hands.
That is not a typo, btw. I quite literally mean bear hands.

It shall be known as Transsexual Transylvanian Rampage : Electric Booglaloo

I give you http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=The_Rocky_Horror_Show_(C64) rocky horror picture show the video game!

It exists? IT EXISTS!?
Uhhh I'll be back in a minute. I have to do more....research.

It has been mentioned a few times, but I wonder what are people's opinion on Bayonetta? Personally, it is one of my favorite games and done in such an over-the-top manner that is extremely enjoyable. And I enjoyed her characterization.

What was everyone else's thoughts?

I never played Bayonetta past the demo I'm afraid. I kind of fell in the trap of thinking that a game with a sexy woman on the cover is bad and is using sex and nudity to cove up it's flaws. (I'm also not into flashy fighters.)

I've never played it, but the people I know who really love it are all women. I'm not sure why.
(I really need to play it one of these days .)

I highly recommend it. The combat system is satisfying for both button mashers and skill-based play. I am actually thinking of getting the Wii U because of it's sequel.

The game has more Devil May Cry in its soul than the last game to actually be named Devil May Cry, so it's pretty much pure win Actually no, we need a crossover. True Dante and Bayonetta in the same game Shall be epic.

 Melissia wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Marketing can only do so much, but if the quality is crap then no amount of hype could save the product.

World of Warcraft says otherwise.

But I suppose I shouldn't devolve this discussion in to more blizzard-bashing.

Aye thats a bit subjective that one Mel, I used to play WoW and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Back in the day, it was genuinely entertaining, especially after playing only solo offline stuff all through my teens. I loved Fallout, and the Eldar Scrolls, and Neverwinter Nights and everything.. arguably they are better executed games, but after getting introduced in 2005 by a mate who was as addicted to Morrowind as I was, I fething loved it.

The balance was piss poor, (my very first cat druid did less damage than standing still in caster form and twatting them with a staff!) and plenty of other things sucked, but it WAS addicitive, and pretty, it sounded ace, it was immersive, and.. well, lets just say I have many fond memories.

I started playing less and less over the years, and fethed it off entirely when Pandaria hit, but I loved those early years and cannot allow such blase criticism to stand unchallenged!

Haven't played Bayonetta yet. I want to, but money.

Also I don't really keep track of console stuff anyway.


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 mattyrm wrote:
I started playing less and less over the years, and fethed it off entirely when Pandaria hit, but I loved those early years and cannot allow such blase criticism to stand unchallenged!

I started playing shortly before the first expansion, and stopped playing almost immediately before it was announced.

My experience was "oh, it's just another generic fantasy MMO, but with a more boring story and less interesting character designs".

Then I went back to playing City of Heroes/Villains.

 Melissia wrote:

Then I went back to playing City of Heroes/Villains.

My mate used to love that, I tried it but it flat out refused to work. The same thing happened when I had a crack at Warhammer Online.

gak was weird back in the day, I think WoW had the smartest graphic designers, because loads of stuff ran badly on my old PC, but it always worked seamlessly.

 AdeptSister wrote:
I highly recommend it. The combat system is satisfying for both button mashers and skill-based play. I am actually thinking of getting the Wii U because of it's sequel.

It is not easy, you have to time your combo's precisely, Bayonetta is overly sexually expressive, she uses her sexuality as a weapon and males are pets to her, it is eye candy for male and maybe empowerment to females (maybe i am a male and this is just my assumption on why women may like Bayonetta - Disclaimer).

I liked it until i grew tired of the button mashing it is even more than in the latest DMC

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I highly recommend it. The combat system is satisfying for both button mashers and skill-based play. I am actually thinking of getting the Wii U because of it's sequel.

It is not easy, you have to time your combo's precisely, Bayonetta is overly sexually expressive, she uses her sexuality as a weapon and males are pets to her, it is eye candy for male and maybe empowerment to females (maybe i am a male and this is just my assumption on why women may like Bayonetta - Disclaimer).

I liked it until i grew tired of the button mashing it is even more than in the latest DMC

It looks amazing though. Gunboots!

I would not say males are pets to her. The journalist and fat guy are comic relief (and completely out of their element). And she has a equal relationship with the demon bartender. Unless you are talking about the angels (which she treats equal regardless of sex.)

She is definitely empowered, feminine, sexy, and competent. She is characterized as being in charge of sexuality and having flirty and confident personality. At least that is why I like her.

It's also nice to have a game heroine who doesn't have a ridiculous cupsize.

 AdeptSister wrote:
I would not say males are pets to her. The journalist and fat guy are comic relief (and completely out of their element). And she has a equal relationship with the demon bartender. Unless you are talking about the angels (which she treats equal regardless of sex.)

She is definitely empowered, feminine, sexy, and competent. She is characterized as being in charge of sexuality and having flirty and confident personality. At least that is why I like her.

It's also nice to have a game heroine who doesn't have a ridiculous cupsize.

There is a lot neat about the character. Now, my pondering is I wonder how many people got to see that. I can think of a few examples where people looked at the style of the character, and kind of said "Yep we have here another masturbation fantasy." Then they just left it at that and didn't look any deeper. (Maybe not helped by the game having a one handed play mode.) Was that unfair of them? Likely. Was it understandable given game history and how the character was presented? Maybe.

 AdeptSister wrote:
I would not say males are pets to her. The journalist and fat guy are comic relief (and completely out of their element). And she has a equal relationship with the demon bartender. Unless you are talking about the angels (which she treats equal regardless of sex.)

She is definitely empowered, feminine, sexy, and competent. She is characterized as being in charge of sexuality and having flirty and confident personality. At least that is why I like her.

It's also nice to have a game heroine who doesn't have a ridiculous cupsize.

Not completely agree with that, she toys with them, i kind get a dominatrix vibe from her, i mean she uses her sexuality to exemplify their weakness, teasing the guys with something they will never get.
She treats demon bartender differently because he is a demon and doesn't see her sexually.

 Melissia wrote:
That's something I'd agree with.

I guess the idea I was evolving towards is that, well, its pretty easy to see when a male character (regardless of medium) is designed to appeal to women (or at least a subset of them). That intent is visible, in the same way as the intent of designing a character to be a male-power-fantasy is visible. Sure, there can be some overlap; a MPF can include 'sexaulised for women', or occasionally be presented in a way that is sexualised (see that one scene from Thor, that I never noticed, but every woman I know did), but it's not automatic. The 2 are distinctly different things, and we can tell, we can pick it apart (just as Amber does in that Shortpacked strip), so just saying 'all these dudes are sexualised too' is a cheep, flawed, and easily dismissed argument.

 mattyrm wrote:
Aye thats a bit subjective that one Mel, I used to play WoW and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Back in the day, it was genuinely entertaining, especially after playing only solo offline stuff all through my teens. I loved Fallout, and the Eldar Scrolls, and Neverwinter Nights and everything.. arguably they are better executed games, but after getting introduced in 2005 by a mate who was as addicted to Morrowind as I was, I fething loved it.

The balance was piss poor, (my very first cat druid did less damage than standing still in caster form and twatting them with a staff!) and plenty of other things sucked, but it WAS addicitive, and pretty, it sounded ace, it was immersive, and.. well, lets just say I have many fond memories.

I started playing less and less over the years, and fethed it off entirely when Pandaria hit, but I loved those early years and cannot allow such blase criticism to stand unchallenged!

See, I'm also (sort-of) a wow fan, but in an almost inverted way. It's my second favorite MMO (It would be third if EVE's community wasn't . . . well, yeah), but I hated Vanilla, and thought that Cataclysm was the 'best'. There was a sharp drop off in Pandaria though.

 Melissia wrote:
Then I went back to playing City of Heroes/Villains.

I mentioned WoW was only my second favorite right?

To repeat, armour. I want big stuff.

This is just a WIP pic drawn with MS paint, it has no arms or legs yet and proportions still need looking at, but it should illustrate what I mean with 'armour'.

 Ashiraya wrote:
To repeat, armour. I want big stuff.

This is just a WIP pic drawn with MS paint, it has no arms or legs yet and proportions still need looking at, but it should illustrate what I mean with 'armour'.

Spoiler:

When the game industry is in ashes, you will have permission to wear armor

/bane

Seriously though, as grim as it sounds, another industry crash might be a good thing.
That should give smaller companies a chance to fill in the void, and introduce new ideas and mechanics.

Not as big as you would like, Ashiraya, but there is this:
http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/the-female-marine/

 J wehan-reznor wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I would not say males are pets to her. The journalist and fat guy are comic relief (and completely out of their element). And she has a equal relationship with the demon bartender. Unless you are talking about the angels (which she treats equal regardless of sex.)

She is definitely empowered, feminine, sexy, and competent. She is characterized as being in charge of sexuality and having flirty and confident personality. At least that is why I like her.

It's also nice to have a game heroine who doesn't have a ridiculous cupsize.

Not completely agree with that, she toys with them, i kind get a dominatrix vibe from her, i mean she uses her sexuality to exemplify their weakness, teasing the guys with something they will never get.
She treats demon bartender differently because he is a demon and doesn't see her sexually.

See I think of its still a stretch to say that she sees them as pets (which implies a lot. ) She does see those two as lesser beings (like Muggles) and treats them as such, which IMO goes with her British characterization. She will protect them, but just doesn't take them
seriously. They are not at her level.

The bartender she treats as an equal; and he treats her as one as well. There is definitely sexual tension between them, but it is balanced with respect and friendship.

But, to each their own.