The Two Biggest Problems I Have With The Gaming Community Part I

Are right here:

Alright, now that I have your attention -  for better or for worse here are my thoughts on the State of Gaming Summer 2012. The above image is from a piece of  in process art from the enormously popular free to play game, League of Legends which debuted in 2009 and was one of the, now several successors to the popular Warcraft III: Frozen Throne mod and map called Defense of the Ancients commonly known as DotA. The full piece of completed art can be found here:

The issue that I have here is that this character is all about "fanservice", a term originating from manga and anime, but can easily be used here. It signifies the creators of the game/manga/character are "giving their fans what they want", and a majority of the time that means that there is, as Wikipedia put it so nicely "gratuitous titillation" that occurs. That is because a majority of the gaming community is less than 25 years of age, and overwhelmingly male. According to a study done in Brazil about RPG's, 49.1% of RPG gamers fall between the ages of 18 and 25. Source While this may not be true of the community as a whole, it does show that the demographic that companies pander to are young, male, and most likely high school educated; if not more so. Now, back to the above character, not only does she physically do fanservice to the player, meaning she looks like every heterosexual male's wet dream, but she has flavor text that does the same. Her /joke when played is: "Yes, it's true. For only $2.95 a minute, I will leave you breathless." Now, I am for clever puns and witty phrases. Her character and abilities are based around air; so not only is this a double entendre, but it also has a double meaning. Which is part of the problem with the gaming community. I feel that game creators spend so much time pandering to the lowest common denominator that they detract from other fan bases as a whole. For example, within the same game, there are 99 champions of which 31 are female - and the are not really limited by role. They are warriors, casters, supports, ranged damage and tanks. Source With that in mind, I would like to issue the following comparison of two tank characters with similar equipment:

The first being Taric, the Gem Knight

The second being Leona, Radiant Dawn

Now, for all practical purposes they these two characters play the same role, they are tanks - they get in harms way and protect the other players. When comparing the two, they both are kitted out roughly the same way, with armor, shield and a hand weapon. I was really pleased with Leona as a champion (despite the breasted breastplate), she was the first female tank I had ever seen in any RPG, and she wasn't hyper-sexual like the other example I showed. However, I noticed something about her attire that still bothers me, despite being a defender of the weak and those who deal more damage than you, she is still wearing heels. Yes. The warrior woman is wearing two inch metal plated heels. I don't know where that appeared to be a good idea, but that is what happened. 

League of Legends is one of the many games that have a problem with over sexualizing their characters, both male and female. Most if not all of the human male characters that are playable are broad shouldered with deep voices, the paragon of masculinity. While I find this much less offensive than what happens to their female counterparts, I still think that as a gaming community we have some work to do. I will admit it, it could be that a majority of the gaming community is male, and that no self respecting company is going to turn down profit from its biggest source. Despite this, games like League of Legends do listen to their communities. The following is a post by Morello, a lead champion designer addressing the issue of the hyper sexual nature of the character's in League of Legends and he argues that they do have variety, which is true.

1 of 18 Riot Posts
05-01-2012, 10:54 PM
I think the variety-vs-demand is really good here; while it's easy to focus on the ones you're not fond of, I think we've provided some non-exposing skins for female champs overall;
For every Bunny Girl Riven or Nurse Akali, there's plenty of fantasy-rooted, dark, or different takes on female characters available. Fiora and her launch skins were also pretty classy. While we do have Miss Fortune, we have Leona, Riven, Fiora, Lulu and other non-sexualized female characters.
The key here is as you mention; variety. I just don't think I agree that we haven't met that mark.
+146 

My aim here was to not bash a game that I spend a lot of time playing and turn fans away; no. What I wanted to do here was highlight the fact that the gaming community still suffers from baseless pandering. I would like to point out here though that any gaming company is still a company, they do contribute to the market, but are still a part of supply and demand. So until the community will stop buying games that contain these kind of aspects, we will continue to see them. I think that we can voice our opinions and companies will listen to them; that is a reoccurring theme I have seen over the past twelve months is that companies and designers make use of feedback tools like Facebook and forums. Gamers can enact change, it just takes time and volume. I will be continuing this train of thought, translating to miniatures and RPG's in the next post.

Part II Part III