Could you, for the benefit of everyone, explain to us WHERE and HOW that is the case, and WHY you believe this to be bad?

Canada: home of the social justice brigade.

Frankly, I'm amazed that I would even have to do that, but okay. Here's a link to a somewhat recent study: http://www.google.ee/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nouspace.net%2Fdene%2F475%2Fvideogames.pdf&ei=HJOaUumPDvDy7AavhIDgBQ&usg=AFQjCNFo7Ahfp4bT70F_1xgf39SJ0nUGJg&sig2=BaDgv0ri36dcCc1R-AORXg

Let me quote from the abstract: Why is it a bad thing? I would argue that such a one-sided and one-dimensional portrayal is bad in and of itself, leading to worse characters, but it also affects people who are consuming the media adversely. Just a selection from the study I posted above:

Just a note but: it's pretty much been shown through studies, that the worst influence by a huge margin, are TV and movies because girls actually look up at actresses. That article makes a lot of assumptions by drawing lines from TV/movies to games, it seems to me, which is pretty stupid if you understand how the two differ.

For starters, the games that "sin" the most are barely played by girls, games are still clearly fake in design, are often stylized and don't contain real actors for people to grow attached to and look up at. As such, I believe the influence on people is almost zero when it comes to body image.

In the end, TV and movies are the ones that should tone it down first - it's pointless to go after games when a far larger source, like 100-fold as bad, exists and overshadows games. That's the problem I have with RPS being all white knight on our collective asses - it's akin to a forest fire going on to your left and some dweep bitching at someone else for lighting a cigarette because the smoke bothers them. It shows such blind-sided approach that it's painful. Not to mention RPS do far more damage than good by creating "us vs them" attitudes all over the place.

I can understand why feminists are disgusted by female costumes in games. Just look at all those innocent cosplay girls that are brutally forced by horny pedophiles to wear this light costumes:

victims gallery 1
victims gallery 2
victims gallery 3

How easy they could catch a cold in winter...

And as we all already know games force people to become sexist because games also makes young man run amok!

:->

Fine, let's consider photorealistic games, which are closer to TV and movies.

Here's one study for women: http://www.google.ee/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdmitriwilliams.com%2Ffemalebodies.pdf&ei=C6uaUqGvDtHA7Abs0YD4Ag&usg=AFQjCNGlIs_KBymdKI4nxwqMpbCWbNS0Aw&sig2=XzStI59LyYHbOdCTkZvzPw Here's one study for men: http://online5.org/download/1119 One thing to note in these studies is that the ideal female body is not attainable without major surgery for most women while the ideal male body is attainable for most men. Also, characters with overly muscular bodies are a lot of the times at least somewhat justified by the role of the character and the setting they appear in (Kratos is a Spartan warrior, etc) and much less likely to appear when the setting doesn't justify it.

Oh, and about the effects, how about this study: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-009-9683-8 There are more studies that link objectification to eating disorders, sexual dysfunction, greater tolerance of sexual harrassment, etc.

Whenever I read articles or comments complaining about "sexualization" of female characters, I keep wondering why the complaints are one-sided. The social justice zealots shriek over images of "attractive" (I use quotes because I don't get aroused by pixels or drawings) women but they never seem to complain about sexualized male characters.

The following is about toys but illustrates my point:

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/32/c0/9a/32c09a7645e67679ecee082ec60f815f.jpg

You basically ignored 90% of my post and the entire point I was making ... .

YOU linked an article that falsely linked games and portrayal of women to a bad body image when I was merely showing how it's a pointless comparison. Girls aren't so stupid as to compare themselves to pixels of non-existing people - especially when the exposure is very very low in the first place. They DO compare themselves to very slim actresses (which are everywhere in the media) which, studies have shown, is where the real problem lies.

If you want a nice comparison: lots of girls wanted to be like Angelina Jolie, but expected themselves to look like the game-version of Lara Croft.

To repeat my point: it's wasted time to talk about negative body image when there's so little exposure and even then, it has very little to no influence. There's a MUCH better argument to be had about how it influences guys and specifically how they expect girls to look - and even there, TV & movies are a far bigger influence.
With Barbie, the real joke is that these are toys for girls. They're not even designed to appeal to guys and the only reason Barbie is so thin, is because girls prefer them that way - something which the media time and time again, neglect to mention. As kids, we preferred our toys beefy and muscular as well - like He-Man - so it's more about fantasy, about dreaming of being very thin and slim and pretty vs being very strong and muscular and powerful. They're idle dreams but kids PREFER it that way. You might as well complain about how Harry Potter promotes magic - it's FANTASY.

Men and feminine commentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77lPjNhL5X4

Tough guys stereotype:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoABPi5wTI4

You missed the point of my comment. I was pointing out how hypersensitive some people are getting over things like pixels arranged to look like scantily-clad attractive women and how it sort of relates to the complaints about those dolls. Also, I was pointing out how these hypersensitive types only look at selective cases. They'll point out female sexualization but never male sexualization. I was basically pointing out selective outrage.

Also, the avatars that gamers control are also fantasy and I can argue that the avatars look the way the players want them to look. In other words, you accidentally gave credibility to the example I used.

You probably never heard that if you don't have Abs than you are a pussy and not a man. You probably never heard that if you like take care of children you are a pussy, not a man. You probably never heard that if you shave your armpits then you're a pussy, not a man.

Please stop with "this is not stereotype, this is ideal" bullshit.

You fucking kidding me? Your ignorance is horrible. Please look up the two videos I linked in my previous post.

1) In the previous post I linked to a study that specifically shows that women are affected negatively by a sexualised character.

2) Women do play video games.

3) TV and movies may have a bigger influence, but it does not mean we should ignore issues in video games.

I can assure you, having a pair of ovaries does not affect whether or not you enjoy a certain genre of video games. Given that the majority of female characters in video games are depicted in a similar fashion, I am quite curious what specific games or genres do not "sin" that you think are "played by girls."

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Personally I think the market will eventually reward diversity of characters as the customers migrate towards purchasing what they find to be the best match to what they want to play. If it's not viable then it wont sell. If it is viable then it will. Choice just has to be offered in the first place so people can, you know, choose. Already there is a bit of a shift as certain companies start listening closer to the customers, particularly with Kickstarter. Take Project Eternity's Cadegund for example. Her original concept art looked like , but due to a negative reception on the boards she now looks like [url=http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/eternity.gamepedia.com/3/3a/Cadegund.png]this. Was it a necessary change? Was it a good change? Depends entirely on your point of view; the fact is though that it was a change. A change by Obsidian in direct response to customer feedback. That's pretty spiffy.

Evidently, they have not done their research:

Edit: oh, and speaking of breastplates: