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migooo wrote:

I do not care if you think that models need to be less sexualized as there is space for both let me have my occasional cheesecake Caladonian that is all that is requested. But why should we need permission to like or enjoy something?.

If female Armour looked real I probably wouldn't buy it. I'm looking for fantasy and if liking skimpy dressed stuff is wrong and dies out it is a shame but if its not bought you cant argue for it can you?

Oh I own that Alice in Wonderland Comic that person was scared of. Honestly covering exposed Armour with cloth why? I do understand that you might not like to look at it , n fine okay. But what if you do?

It is like the DOAXBV 3 thing again its bad because the people who wouldn't buy it might see it on the shelf of a store, Just let me enjoy what I enjoy its all that I can ask for and if not do not expect me to approve of this.

I read the entire thread looking to see if someone had made this point, and if no one had I was going to myself. As it stands though I can simply agree with it and provide it some backing.

I thing a strong correlation can be drawn between what's being discussed in this thread and video games, as many fantasy video games portray women in similar likeness. Armor which is visibly sexualized to non-existent (the ever touted plate-mail thong and bra combo) as well as sexualized posture; females who seem to do a shockingly good job of flaunting their T&A as they fight.

There is, understandably, a strong resistance to this sort of thing in the modern day and with good reason. The fact that a statement like "The less clothing a woman wears the more powerful she is," can be taken literally is a blow against nerd culture, not a strength in its favor.

Let's take a look at one of the most well-known and popular fantasy franchises out there, Warcraft. Specifically World of Warcraft.

For those of you who may not play the game or may not have for some years, there's current a system in the game called Transmogrification (transmog for short). Basically this is a purely aesthetic tool which allows you to swap your armor's appearance or weapon's appearance with that of other weapons and armor of the same type (leather, cloth, mail, plate). It's a simple but appreciated system which has a surprisingly large impact on the game. Most of the population participates and there's a large culture around selling / farming items entirely for this purpose.

Now as most of you will know WoW is a fairly old game, it's been going for over a decade now. The layers of age can be visibly seen in the aesthetic design of characters and clothing present.

In earlier incarnations of WoW, most noticeably the first expansion pack and "vanilla" wow, the stereotypical female fantasy gear was relatively common. Leggings, body-suits, thongs / bikinis / panties, more exposed arms, bared midriffs, and of course cleavage and boob-windows galore. In more recent years the game has drifted dramatically in the opposite directions. Covering up female characters which previously had fairly exposed bodies with more clothes and designing only one or two items (if that) per expansion pack which have anything beyond some cleavage. It's actually hard to find armor made in more recent years which will do something as simple as expose the arms of a female model.

What might be surprising is that this has been met with displeasure from a moderate amount of the playerbase, both verbally and in the sense that most transmogs are from very dated eras of the game.

You see a large portion of the player base of both genders find the artistic direction of current gear to be very.. Bland. The usual complaint is that everyone looks like they're walking around in various shades of grey plate-mail armor with a few ugly rocks glued on for aesthetic purposes. There's a rather vocal complaint about the lack of aesthetic choice for years now, and how 99% of all risque armor options to use for transmog are ancient and look it with regards to pixel count / resolution.

It's not just men who are saying this either, there are quite a few women who prefer to transmog their characters into skimpy armor; or at the very least who prefer to have the option to do so on occasion. I personally have a fair number of female friends in game who have bemoaned to me the lack of slinky armor options from recent years, and have stated that they really enjoy some of the scantily clad sets they can put together from the game's original incarnation.

I realize that may all seem like a bit of a tangent, so let me try and tie this back into the subject at hand. Basically I have two points I'm trying to hammer home.

Firstly, it's equally wrong to try and stamp out any and all 'porny' miniatures or designs simply because you dislike them. Whilst making the heavily sexualized and barely clad female no longer the standard representation of women in our hobby is a good goal and something we should all be in agreement towards, the utter eradication of that sort of thing is no better. Simply because you personally find something offensive or in poor taste does not make you entitled to stamp out all of a specific thing which some people enjoy. Other people giving a feth about you being offended is a luxury, not a right.

Secondly (and in my opinion more importantly) this isn't a men vs women thing. As indicated by my example, some women actually enjoy scantily clad and sexualized females in their fantasy. I know less females interested in miniatures than I do interested in video games (I actually know less people in general interested in miniatures, but that's kind of the norm) but I do still know some. And I can think of two off who have out-and-out told me that they really enjoy some of the highly sexualized female models they've run across for various reasons, and are not in the least bit offended by them.

Whilst such women are probably not the norm they certianly do exist, so the argument about how these sort of models are alienating all women from our hobby falls flat out the gate.

This discussion has been very civil and well handled by most parties, so a firm round of applause for everyone who's been able to keep their head so far. However I feel a bit less attention to gender lines and a bit acknowledgement that enjoying the occasional titillating model (of either gender) doesn't make someone the scum of the earth who's holding back the hobby.. Well, I think that would make it even better.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

Except that it does, at least to a degree. For models with fully enclosing armour then they are essentially asexual but for miniatures with partial armour I can usually tell at a glance what sex they are supposed to be.

If I saw the models you Victorian models you originally linked at the far side of the table (or even halfway across the table) for your standard 40k game, I'd have absolutely no idea that they were female. I doubt I'd even notice if they were in my deployment zone to be perfectly honest, with perhaps the sole exception of the one lacking a helmet.

Actually, speaking of.

You make no mention of how horrible it is that one of the women is without a helmet at all, so I take it you've no problem with the whole "Helmets are hardly heroic" trope and how it plays into so many miniature designs, yes?

Well the boob-sculpted armors on models which are otherwise not overtly sexualized or displaying anything else to blatantly announce "Woman!" is the exact same thing. It simply announces gender rather than their rank, but it's the same thought process and intention.

 morganfreeman wrote:

You make no mention of how horrible it is that one of the women is without a helmet at all

Given that I have recently painted up some Victoria miniatures male guardsmen almost entirely in soft caps (perhaps made out of flakweave...) I didn't think that it was relevant.

I don't have (much) of an issue with 'cheescake' miniatures in the same way that I don't have (much) of an issue of inappropriately scantily clad women in cheap horror films, its fine in moderation but it will never look sophisticated and it should be the exception rather than the norm, wargaming is already quite deep in the tragic nerd hinterlands and this kind of thing hardly helps.

Hopefully this is something that will correct itself given time, there does seem to be a drive towards more realistic representations in recent years at least.

 morganfreeman wrote:
If I saw the models you Victorian models you originally linked at the far side of the table (or even halfway across the table) for your standard 40k game, I'd have absolutely no idea that they were female. I doubt I'd even notice if they were in my deployment zone to be perfectly honest,.

Maybe I am just very good at recognising women.

The more hardline feminists consider any objectification of the female, sexist and misogyny.
So any sexy, and nude female miniatures by that definition are wrong.
And then there is the whole morality thing that is subjective.
Everyone has different standards on what is ok or not, i find this discussion interesting as where it stands on the scale of things.

Personally i have no problem with it, when it is in fantasy and SF settings.
I like my historical wargames to be represented correctly, (like WGF WW2 russians have females in their squad).
In fantasy and SF games there is more leeway, "boobplate" is just an easy way to differentiate between female and male models.
But the largest market in miniatures are males, so yes, cheesecake galore.

It really comes down to personal taste, if you like the sexualized over the top miniatures, the more slightly sexy female figures.
Or the more realistic.

The only problem i have is that some people feel the need to lecture others on what is proper or not.

Maybe they change the Prodos space crusaders (that started this whole discussion) name to gwar the board game at some character models then those over the top miniatures
will fit the theme.

It's nice that people are talking about both sides, but overall, the industry/hobby is dominated with sexualized depictions.

Theoretically it's okay, as people have discussed. However, as the Prodos and many other miniature games have shown, in practice things are far from even.

Likewise, the reason why nudity and such influences sales numbers may be due to the fact that this is a very niche hobby dominated by males. Which is okay, except that just because a hobby is male dominated, does not mean that it was and always will be, or even should be. If anything, nudity and sexualization being such a sales booster indicates that our industry has done a poor job of appealing to and enticing other kinds of gamers that don't buy based on that criteria.

Likewise, it's not enough just to say that this sexy model was designed and sculpted by a woman, because the reality is that woman is likely being employed by a male dominated studio and not so subtly influenced to sculpt for a particular kind of male.

It's less that there is no market, but rather a failure of establishing a market in the first place. There really is a market out there, but with so much of the industry dominated by off putting depictions, well it's no wonder that this untapped market would rather go and play board or video games than bother with toy soldiers.

What is so different in board games and video games? lots of sexualized females there too

The difference is that video games and even board games have been moving to diversify, and they have reaped the benefits of a larger market.

Meanwhile, miniature games are becoming more and more niche.

You bring up "hardcore feminists" but no one is really asking for the removal of all sexuality removed from gaming. But, many are just tired of seeing it pointlessly everywhere, and poorly done at that. Prodos' stuff wasn't just a particularly good example, but it was also just one in a long line of really one sided depictions.

Likewise, those "hardcore feminists" are a niche type of people of a larger very legitimate issue. One shouldn't go disparaging niches in a forum dedicated to a hobby that is very niche itself. I bet you that at some point you have turned your nose up at someone in this hobby that you considered just plain weird and not all together, but that very same person is used by other people to disparage our entire hobby. So it's best not to start the finger pointing because it accomplishes nothing.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Meanwhile, miniature games are becoming more and more niche.

I don't think our hobby will ever NOT be niche. Not everyone wants to build miniatures and paint them. That's a barrier to entry that video games don't have.

I would argue that "hardcore feminists" are extremists and not a niche representation of a wider problem.

Computer games, I would say they are not entirely moving to diversification, there are no serious 3A titles marketed for female customers, female gamers are mostly gravitated towards puzzle/ casual games which are unsurprisingly asexual and the biggest female dominated market is on hidden object games, a niche segment really overlooked by most players and studios but the only one who has produced the best female characters (yes, as surprisingly as it may sound hidden object games have evolved to have relatively complex stories), same goes with boardgames, if we take the asexual games out (usually euro and "kids" games) the rest are quite interesting mix.

Now the CG industry is more active in their research on how to include female players in their target audience, but this is done in an industry wide view, it is like saying the tabletop games industry (boardgames, RPGs, cardgames, wargames, whatever else I might have forgotten) tries to widen its target audience and to be fair it does, wargames alone might be equivalent is saying shooters (and 3A in particular) try to make them more appealing to female audience this is not happening.


Should it happen? is it possible to happen? are female buyers such a small a niche that it is not worth pursuing? are the ones that would buy anyway the ones who don't care about (or like) the sexualised female models? would an industry wide change to modesty really open the gates to wargaming for female players? is this really the barrier to entry?

I honestly do not know any of the answers to the above questions (ok I am positive that having more players regardless of their gender is great), I follow any serious discussion the CG industry does for widening its appeal to the female audience I disagree with many ideas, I find a few immature and a few worth wondering about, but my gut feeling is that people who say that females do not like war, ectr ectr and are repelled by the theme alone are wrong.

There are no "extreme feminists" in this thread, bringing them up does nothing but derail the discussion and possibly provide a strawman if you want one. I've seen the same point brought up before but I've yet to see these feminists on dakka. Better to argue against actual real people.

 Vertrucio wrote:
It's nice that people are talking about both sides, but overall, the industry/hobby is dominated with sexualized depictions.

Theoretically it's okay, as people have discussed. However, as the Prodos and many other miniature games have shown, in practice things are far from even.

Likewise, the reason why nudity and such influences sales numbers may be due to the fact that this is a very niche hobby dominated by males. Which is okay, except that just because a hobby is male dominated, does not mean that it was and always will be, or even should be. If anything, nudity and sexualization being such a sales booster indicates that our industry has done a poor job of appealing to and enticing other kinds of gamers that don't buy based on that criteria.

Likewise, it's not enough just to say that this sexy model was designed and sculpted by a woman, because the reality is that woman is likely being employed by a male dominated studio and not so subtly influenced to sculpt for a particular kind of male.

It's less that there is no market, but rather a failure of establishing a market in the first place. There really is a market out there, but with so much of the industry dominated by off putting depictions, well it's no wonder that this untapped market would rather go and play board or video games than bother with toy soldiers.

Overall, the miniature wargame industry is dominated by realistic depictions of historical male solders, for the reason that it's extremely rare for women to wage war. Fantasy and SF are the provinces of modern mixed gender warfare.

The chainmail bikini is a long-standing and now somewhat laughable trope of fantasy. I think we've moved beyond that, and a lot of people like to see more 'realistic' depictions of female fighters. However, for such figures to be identifiably female in the form of a small metal or plastic figure a bare inch tall, the characteristics need to be exaggerated a bit. It's difficult to see the finer female bone structure of the jaw in a face that is only about 4mm across. So the pose and body proportions have to be identifiable. That means a visible bustline, narrow waist and wider hips, and to some extent what in S Korea is called the 'S curve', the exagerrated body line of bust and buttocks. This comes partly from the pose.

Yes, there are cheesecake minis. Yes, there are more realistic female minis. This is a good thing because it allows people to choose what they want in their armies... or in their display cases; not everyone buys minis for games.

If cheesecake sells more, that's because the market is still overwhelmingly male.... or female who enjoys that sort of thing. (A friend of mine's wife wants to get a Leia bikini, because she's got the bod and wants to flaunt it at the costume competition and dance at the local con. She also likes to paint and display cheesecake minis. So it's not exclusively a male thing.)

So long as more realistic minis are available for those who want them, having cheesecake available as well is not the end of the world.

Vulcan wrote:If cheesecake sells more, that's because the market is still overwhelmingly male.... or female who enjoys that sort of thing. (A friend of mine's wife wants to get a Leia bikini, because she's got the bod and wants to flaunt it at the costume competition and dance at the local con. She also likes to paint and display cheesecake minis. So it's not exclusively a male thing.)

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if even among female customers the sexualised female stuff is more popular than the conservative female stuff. I'm not saying it IS, just it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Silent Puffin? wrote:wargaming is already quite deep in the tragic nerd hinterlands and this kind of thing hardly helps.

Wargaming is always going to be in the nerd hinterlands. If you're willing to pay hundreds of dollars on little toy soldiers, spend hundreds of hours painting those little toy soldiers then put those little toy soldiers on a table and go "pew pew pew my toy soldier just shot your toy soldier", you MIGHT just be a nerd Wargaming is a quirky form of escapism and quirky forms of escapism tend to attract nerds more than the mainstream.

Vertrucio wrote:Meanwhile, miniature games are becoming more and more niche.

Say what? Wargaming is always going to be niche, but "more and more" niche? What's your evidence? I don't think that is true at all. I'd say wargaming is broader now than it ever has been in my wargaming history. It's still very niche, but I certainly don't believe it's getting MORE niche, I'd say less niche.

I think you are overestimating how niche wargaming is. For one thing, Warhammer 40,000 has become quite well known among gamers and sci fi nerds from the video games, board games and BL NYT bestselling series. Also, modelling is a fairly typical hobby, usually involving aircraft, tanks or Star Wars, and I have seen people get into plastic tabletop wargame ranges through that. Please stop pretending that this is some unheard of, back-alleys-of-the-internet hobby that appeals only to chuds and dorks.

Not everyone in the hobby is spending hundreds of dollars or hundreds of hours.

 Vertrucio wrote:

Likewise, the reason why nudity and such influences sales numbers may be due to the fact that this is a very niche hobby dominated by males. Which is okay, except that just because a hobby is male dominated, does not mean that it was and always will be, or even should be. If anything, nudity and sexualization being such a sales booster indicates that our industry has done a poor job of appealing to and enticing other kinds of gamers that don't buy based on that criteria.

There's probably more women into table top miniatures games than you think.

But as Vertrucio brings up, it behooves all of us, producers and consumers both, to be thinking about market expansion. When the market expands, everyone benefits. We have been seeing some serious market expansion, and I think it is fair to say that we are seeing more women enter the hobby, which is awesome! With market expansion comes a greater diversity of products, faster releases, higher product quality, lower prices, and larger player bases. We get to see more of what we want and we get greater access to it.

People can make whatever products they want to. It's a free country. But we can choose which products we support, and which we don't. And when we make those decisions, it is worth considering how this niche market is perceived in the wider world, because that unequivocally has an impact on how, where, and to what degree the market expands.

If women do in fact represent a relatively untapped demographic, we should absolutely be considering why. How are the products we support perceived by this demographic? Is there something we can do about that?

Yes, absolutely, there are things we can do.

We can support products that help move the market in the direction we want to see it move. Do you want to see more believable female miniatures? Buy them. Tell producers why you are buying them. Tell producers who don't produce those products that you want them to see them.

And if there are products you want to see less of, say so. I don't think we need a separate thread for this discussion. I think this discussion should be had IN the threads about specific products because this is a product-driven issue.

I support the products I want to have, the ones that inspire me, life's too short to bother supporting products that I think may possibly appeal to someone else. I don't even know what the hell it is that will appeal to a wider audience and I'm not going to try and guess

I think it's of limited value looking at wargames and trying to exact change at that level. I think it's of more use to look at kids and ask why isn't there a more diverse range of kids growing up in to adults who sculpt a more diverse range of models and become wargamers who want to buy a more diverse range of models.

You know why there aren't more women into war gaming? Look at how the parents and communities of young girls treat them and you'll get your answer. I'm sure we've progressed a lot from 20, 30, 40 years ago, but it's still not great.

I was into gaming because my friends were into gaming. It was easy to get together when we were kids. My fiancee was into gaming as well as a kid but since none of her female friends were gamers, it was harder for her to have gaming as a hobby. Of course, this was decades ago but I don't think the paradigm has changed too much except everyone's a mobile gamer now but certain games, like FPS , wargaming etc still remain male dominated because it seems to appeal to males more

The reason why wargaming appeals more to men is that there is a massive cultural force going back thousands of years that designates war as an activity for men, and playing at war as an activity for boys.

This may change. Lots of other things, like voting, nursing, or going to university, were always seen as male activities, and over the past 150 years have changed enormously.

I think plenty of people are overreacting on those Prodos "sexy" products.

What I saw first in these miniatures is a funny joke of twisting GW's main range. Space Marines with boobs. Sure, it's not an elaborated joke, quite a crude one. I still had a good laugh.

Is that really a bother if they sell those? We're talking about quite a niche market. The reason true feminists didn't talk about it on their blogs is mainly because it doesn't concern the majority of men - it's a niche in the niche, seriously, stop believing us miniature collectors are such a huge percentage of the world population and that all of us are the target market for those specific models. These kind of miniatures aren't bought so that you put them on your shelves right in front of your entrance, so that everyone coming to your house is seeing them. It's mostly for your own pleasure only, a "private" collection or to play with your friends sharing your tastes.

As to why it sells, well...it's just a fantasy. So of course nude girls with guns are a part of it for some people. Does that mean those who bought them are mysogins and/or think women are just good to cook and submit to men in everyday life? No. Because you have to make the difference between fantasy and reality. True, some people are unable to do that...but don't blame the silent majority just for the minority who is failing.

So, it's better to calm down and let those enjoying that kind of fantasy buy them in peace. You know they will still do even if you keep writing offended articles on this meaningless forum.

 Sarouan wrote:
So, it's better to calm down and let those enjoying that kind of fantasy buy them in peace.

Criticising models, even very harsh criticism, does not prevent others from buying them, nor does it imply any anger.

'Calm down' is not a logical response.

I am severely disappointed that this thread, while it has been spawned from the Prodos Space crusade project, goes back to it and not discuss the general topic that it is intended to discuss.

The Space crusade project got a disproportionate backlash (in comparison to virtually everything else similar) in my opinion because Prodos has generated bad blood with their kickstarter fulfillment some in warzone a lot with AVP and because it is released with a name some hold "sacred" because a hasbro released a game with that name 25 years ago and for many of us, myself included, was the introduction to wargaming, tertiary its because it tries to be a 40k T&A aesthetic.

The best thing this product did so far is spawn this thread which under the OP initial guidance is to discuss the general feel about the depiction and aesthetics of nudity, sexuality, cheesecake ectr ectr and gender representation really on the miniatures of our hobby and as a side branch of this discussion the inclusion of female gamers in our hobby, in all aspects of it.

Can we concentrate on this and not on the "Space Crusade" project?

 Ashiraya wrote:

Criticising models, even very harsh criticism, does not prevent others from buying them, nor does it imply any anger.

'Calm down' is not a logical response.

Then there is no point criticising something if it is for naught. And since the people who do critics are human, it's obvious they can be tainted by feelings - like anger at seeing something totally not to their own tastes.

"Calm down" is always a logical responce to filter these subjective feelings, and going back to facts - or to your own senses, depends.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

The best thing this product did so far is spawn this thread which under the OP initial guidance is to discuss the general feel about the depiction and aesthetics of nudity, sexuality, cheesecake ectr ectr and gender representation really on the miniatures of our hobby and as a side branch of this discussion the inclusion of female gamers in our hobby, in all aspects of it.

So you focus on "female gamers". Buying a miniature doesn't mean you automatically use it for gaming - it may just be for painting or even mere collection/display. I know I will never use my collection of Kantai Collection anime figures in my games...well, I could if I really wanted it, but that's not the reason I bought them. It wasn't for painting as well, since they are already prepainted. It's just because I find them cute and for the pleasure of owning them for my personnal collection (yes, it's a pleasure in itself ).

Being male or female doesn't really matter here, it's just about the appeal of a miniature. I'm sorry to take the Space Crusade project again as an example, but when I read other people saying these models are "crappy sculpts", I just shake my head while sighing. Objectively, they're not bad sculpts...it's just some people take their tastes as universal and if they dislike it, then everyone else MUST dislike them as well.

Quite a "natural" reaction here on dakka. It's still stupid nonetheless.

This whole debate is artificial. We're talking about a fantasy. Miniatures may be made for cash intent or not, but the buyer first sees if a miniatures is to his personal tastes or not. Most of the time, he just doesn't care about all the reasons told in this topic - for him, it's just a nice miniature that would be perfect for his own collection. It's just that.

But then, if you want to keep overreacting about what is merely a fantasy, not reality, I guess you have too much free time. Better to fight a better cause at the roots elsewhere, not the end line.

What I mean is that miniatures are personnal. You don't see these nude miniatures on public display that much - well, maybe except on stores, but it's natural to show what you are selling. Most of the time, it's on your shelves in your room or somewhere your guests don't see at first. Most of the time, people still have good common sense and don't display things that may "shock" people visiting them. It's like hiding your nude pictures in your bedroom just in case your parents wouldn't see them.

What you do in your private life is private. And I don't think owning/buying nude/sexy 28 mm miniatures does make you a mysoginist. Like owning soldier miniatures/playing wargames isn't making you a war apologist.

Or else, you could say those owning a Hitler painted miniature just above their collection of german armies from WWII are in fact fascists and justify WWII crimes by Germany.

It's all the same for sexy miniatures, really. Just a fantasy, nothing more, nothing less. For most of the people, at least..

 Mymearan wrote:
There are no "extreme feminists" in this thread, bringing them up does nothing but derail the discussion and possibly provide a strawman if you want one. I've seen the same point brought up before but I've yet to see these feminists on dakka. Better to argue against actual real people.

I'm inclined to agree. While Dakka does turn a blind eye to certain people for certain standpoints even if they insult you ( not in this thread mind ). The fact people can decent here unlike on other forums or Reddit is actually good.

I was actually banned on one sub for being Neutral after which was forced to take a side simply because i did not follow a determined narrative .

Now I recognize one or two names from BOLS here.

The big more aggressive feminists on BOLS who also frequent other forms are not here at least I'm not aware of them, though if they are here they are far more quiet about stuff than on other forums.

I do believe Games are in danger from this kind of thing. I can point out tweets where a certain controversial Feminist threatened 343 with bad reviews for money which she got.

Comics are so devoid of there origins now. fantastic ones Such as Battle Chasers, Crimson, Fathom, and Soulfire would not exist today because of fear. Even Witchblade is going because they don't get publicity because of the narratives people spin. Artists Like Jim Balant, J Scott Campbell probably wont be doing more than token covers and that is a shame. the same will happen to Mini / board games if it is not resisted.

I can't help feeling that you are jumping from one point to another to reach a conclusion that isn't necessarily justified either factually or morally.

The debate is as artificial or as interesting as you want to make it and what you want to get from it.

I am not sure if you understood my post correctly, you can filter the thread and understand what my viewpoint on the subject is.

I am personally interested in the few key points the discussion touched

What are the barriers of entry for females tot he hobby, if there are really any?

Is the notion that this is a male activity really true?

How does the aesthetics of female models as presented by the various companies affect the potential female attendance to the hobby if at all?

Are some key elements of the miniatures considered "sexualisation" really that or a logical design choice to show the gender diversity on tiny models intended to be visible from a meter or so away?

Would a more "puritanical" or "realistic" depiction of female models achieve an increase of female players? would it cause an impact on sales for various companies? if so would the potential increase in customers worth the decrease in sales?

Can there be realistic depiction of female models and those models be identifiable as female?

weeble1000 wrote:

 Vertrucio wrote:

Likewise, the reason why nudity and such influences sales numbers may be due to the fact that this is a very niche hobby dominated by males. Which is okay, except that just because a hobby is male dominated, does not mean that it was and always will be, or even should be. If anything, nudity and sexualization being such a sales booster indicates that our industry has done a poor job of appealing to and enticing other kinds of gamers that don't buy based on that criteria.

There's probably more women into table top miniatures games than you think.

But as Vertrucio brings up, it behooves all of us, producers and consumers both, to be thinking about market expansion. When the market expands, everyone benefits. We have been seeing some serious market expansion, and I think it is fair to say that we are seeing more women enter the hobby, which is awesome! With market expansion comes a greater diversity of products, faster releases, higher product quality, lower prices, and larger player bases. We get to see more of what we want and we get greater access to it.

People can make whatever products they want to. It's a free country. But we can choose which products we support, and which we don't. And when we make those decisions, it is worth considering how this niche market is perceived in the wider world, because that unequivocally has an impact on how, where, and to what degree the market expands.

If women do in fact represent a relatively untapped demographic, we should absolutely be considering why. How are the products we support perceived by this demographic? Is there something we can do about that?

Yes, absolutely, there are things we can do.

We can support products that help move the market in the direction we want to see it move. Do you want to see more believable female miniatures? Buy them. Tell producers why you are buying them. Tell producers who don't produce those products that you want them to see them.

And if there are products you want to see less of, say so. I don't think we need a separate thread for this discussion. I think this discussion should be had IN the threads about specific products because this is a product-driven issue.

I see More female players of regular boardgames than ones that are miniature based. I read the same thing about untapped demographics in White Wolf meetings even though White wolf sales was roughly 40 female 60 male sales and players. RPG games have tanked look at Forgotten realms and the Spellplague and D&D 4e I honestly don't know if Wotc D&D games can recover.

Instead of trusting your fan base, you gamble and pander and not one of these has worked long term. DC has had 3 reinventions in the last 10 years, im thinking Marvel has had several also


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
I can't help feeling that you are jumping from one point to another to reach a conclusion that isn't necessarily justified either factually or morally.

im trying to provide analogies between nieche markets, oh so now im not moral because i wont toe the line?.. please.... I dont care what peoples Idiological standpoint is as long as it doesn't dictate to me how i should paint plastic figures and play D&D... then im allowed to be annoyed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
The debate is as artificial or as interesting as you want to make it and what you want to get from it.

I am not sure if you understood my post correctly, you can filter the thread and understand what my viewpoint on the subject is.

I am personally interested in the few key points the discussion touched

What are the barriers of entry for females tot he hobby, if there are really any?

Is the notion that this is a male activity really true?

How does the aesthetics of female models as presented by the various companies affect the potential female attendance to the hobby if at all?

Are some key elements of the miniatures considered "sexualisation" really that or a logical design choice to show the gender diversity on tiny models intended to be visible from a meter or so away?



Would a more "puritanical" or "realistic" depiction of female models achieve an increase of female players? would it cause an impact on sales for various companies? if so would the potential increase in customers worth the decrease in sales?

Can there be realistic depiction of female models and those models be identifiable as female?

I guess the smell to number one?, though any group of men can be jerks

it depends what you mean by this we have different athletic events because of physical limitations but in this regard possibly only appearance of games and ill give you some models should probably be left at home.

we dont know how the appearance of figures effects people we would need research which im all for communication not automatically decide because muh feelings

some figures are sexualized ill agree however its hard to not exaggerate things for female figures even Vics figures ( probably the most realistic ) are not 100% how female soldiers look as there is very little difernce

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

What are the barriers of entry for females tot he hobby, if there are really any?

First, you should define what you are calling as "the hobby". Because it can mean many things depending on who is using it. If it's by GW canons, then it's quite specific; 'buidling, painting and playing with GW miniatures". In that case, we don't really have to bother with sexy/nude female miniatures, because they're quite very few in GW stores.

To me, games with miniatures are just a small part of the huge miniature market. There are plenty of miniatures sold by other people that have nothing to do with gaming, not even talking about wargames. A huge part of the miniature market is about collections/displays. Some have to be built/painted, others come fully built/painted in the box.

If it's just about painting/building/collection, being a male or female gamer has nothing to do with it, since it doesn't matter. Painting/building/collecting miniatures is something very personnal and private. Sure, you can do it with your friends, but most of the time, that's something you do by yourself, for your own pleasure. So your gender has absolutely nothing to do in that case. The sole question remaining is to know if a miniature is to your tastes or not, and if it is enough for you to buy it.

True, you can say that nude girls with guns are usually more appealing to male people - but that's not universal at all, since we're talking about personnal tastes.

About the size of some "assets", it really depends from severals factors; the scale of the game, being meant for collection, if it is intended to be alone or in an unit, the artistic line, the artwork, the personnal touch of the sculptor, and so on. It's not just about "big boobs lolz".

I do not consider GW anything more or anything less than just another company in the wargaming hobby that includes under its umbrella 3(4) different hobbies, modeling and painting, playing and "historical research" fluff really either fantastical or truly historical (and collecting).

Since Dakka is a forum primarily for wargaming I am assuming any mention I do for hobby means the wargaming hobby.

I will agree that there are people who just do parts of the hobby and its not a bad thing and if for example you do only the modeling part it stops been wargaming and becomes just modeling and if you just collect it becomes something else.

But in this thread I am thinking about the wargames are a unified whole.

migooo wrote:


Comics are so devoid of there origins now. fantastic ones Such as Battle Chasers, Crimson, Fathom, and Soulfire would not exist today because of fear. Even Witchblade is going because they don't get publicity because of the narratives people spin. Artists Like Jim Balant, J Scott Campbell probably wont be doing more than token covers and that is a shame. the same will happen to Mini / board games if it is not resisted.

I'm struggling a bit here. These titles from the 1990s have failed because people have rejected their depictions of women (or men? I'm not really familiar enough with them), and that public sentiment is something that needs to be challenged? I wonder then what constitutes a genuine expression of people's evolving preferences, and what constitutes shadowy manipulations by an all-powerful PC minority?

 eohall wrote:

migooo wrote:


Comics are so devoid of there origins now. fantastic ones Such as Battle Chasers, Crimson, Fathom, and Soulfire would not exist today because of fear. Even Witchblade is going because they don't get publicity because of the narratives people spin. Artists Like Jim Balant, J Scott Campbell probably wont be doing more than token covers and that is a shame. the same will happen to Mini / board games if it is not resisted.

I'm struggling a bit here. These titles from the 1990s have failed because people have rejected their depictions of women (or men? I'm not really familiar enough with them), and that public sentiment is something that needs to be challenged? I wonder then what constitutes a genuine expression of people's evolving preferences, and what constitutes shadowy manipulations by an all-powerful PC minority?

Comics had a lot of problems in the 90s I never denied that. Aspen was created due to Arguments between Turner and others as was Wildstorm ( Joe mad, Campbell, Hartnell had problems with publishers) im saying now these titles wouldnt exist in today's climates.


Also these titles sold (battle chasers sold out) the problems were with issue delays and publishing nothing to do with what you are implying (Joe mad just didn't produce content and eventually went on to do Artwork for darksiders)


Aspen comics still make soulfire and fathom

 Sarouan wrote:


Then there is no point criticising something if it is for naught. And since the people who do critics are human, it's obvious they can be tainted by feelings - like anger at seeing something totally not to their own tastes.

"Calm down" is always a logical responce to filter these subjective feelings, and going back to facts - or to your own senses, depends.

No, it is not a logical response. I could tell you to calm down and stop criticising my post, but that would not be logical, would it? You criticising my post won't stop me from making more like it either, but that doesn't mean I will tell you that your criticism is for naught. To me it may be, but it probably isn't to you.

'Calm down' is a condescending response in which you try to imply the opposition as arguing from emotion and yourself as the paragon of logic and reason. If someone is arguing in ALL CAPS!!!! then sure, but that has not happened. People have just expressed displeasure.

Also, 'anger at seeing something totally not to their own tastes.'? This is a wargaming forum, not the Ku Klux Klan. Outside of the occasional troll, people do not get angry just because we're not an echo chamber.