Hmm, I stand corrected, I focused only on the second part.

It's also worth noting that one of the male characters seems to be wearing only a skirt and nothing else. The showing of skin isn't limited exclusively to female characters.

Yes, but both are tailored towards men. The female characters look like what game devs think we find attractive, and the male characters look like what game devs think we want to be. It's very rare to find male characters that are made to look sexually attractive to women. I think it's only done in some JRPGs.

It's a common fallacy that women find buff meatheads attractive. Most male game characters are not attractive to women in the least. I've found men typically feel uncomfortable with sexy male characters, but for some reason guys don't often even realize they are supposed to be attractive for women. They are often called loking "gay", which I guess means they are recognized as sexy, but not for women for some reason.

For those who have a trouble understanding why someone would find oversexed female characters distasteful, as yourself this: would YOU feel comfortable playing a game where the male characters look like Justin Bieber, Backstreet Boys, and the cast from Twilight, wearing pretty much nothing but a bulgy codpiece?

If you don't mind me asking how old are you and what sorts of games do you generally play?

I say this because I have two sisters and only one of them remotely plays videogames at all, and its pretty much limited to Call of Duty and Squaresoft/Square Enix RPGs.

Yikes, dude! Not all women dig men like those! As for a codpiece on aforesaid gentlemen - my mental image is your fault, please supply brainbleach.

Ew.

MonstaMunch, there have been times and places that a sexy woman was on the cover, no question (even if there were no women at all in the game or book). Also, making a female character into a fantasy object does not just involve fabric removal. The female characters still could have been interesting, complex people. But note how their character bios are all focused on their relationships to men. They have no other thoughts to offer about themselves. Their voices are also at least supposed to be sexy. I could describe the male voices as "confident" or "powerful," and they talk about things I would expect from their classes. But, yes, they are also stereotyped. RaggieRags is right to say that the male characters are there as an aspirational fantasy instead of a sexual fantasy.

thelovebat, I am 30. The only video games I played as a child were flight simulators, Oregon Trail, Sim City, and the last two Monkey Island games. These days, I am a big fan of Dwarf Fortress and DDR (Playstation). There was a time when I bought every Telltale game (point-and-click adventure games), but they have been getting easier and more...crappy, so I don't buy them any more. At GOG, I'm planning to try something of every genre when I get the time.

I'm enjoying Planescape so far. Thank you to everyone that recommended it. The writing is excellent, and the graphics are surprisingly evocative. It was tricky at first to learn that this is not a point-and-click adventure game, so I can't try all the dialogue options and just expect them not to get my character killed. I think I've got the hang of it now...

Just as not all men dig women in chain-mail underwear purring about how they're better than men. Same difference. ;)

"Justin Bieber, Backstreet Boys, and the cast from Twilight"

Uh...no.

Exactly. Both are cheesy and juvenile and definitely not enjoyed by me or many others... Yet, you can't dismiss their popularity!

I think there is a difference between "sexy" and "over-sexualized". The latter turns characters in to one-dimensional stereotypes and yes, it's done for both males and females, though not so much in gaming. Some people have no trouble with sex or sexy but with the over-sexualization. Regardless of which gender it's catering to.

[i][/i] I see this brought up time and time again, but this argument is just misleading. The typical Harakles/Conan style 'barbarian' in a lot of fantasy games may be underdressed, but to dismiss it as 'the same thing' (paraphrased) as its similarly dressed female counterparts in fantasy is rather misleading. The musclebound, half naked male hero is connected pretty heavily with heroism through its connection with physical strength and capacity for violence. Furthermore, it is connected with notions of male virility and sexual ability, not necessarily with any ability to attract the opposite sex, but rather with potency. In this way, this archetype is very much a male created vision of male sexual and physical prowess and heroism. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the half-dressed female action hero, who typically does nto display a large degree of musculature. This is an important distinction because the archtypical female character in all to many video games is thus associated only with their ability to attract males. This is so prevalent that sometimes seems almsot like a prerequisite for female characters to be gorgeous and/or scantily clad to be 'heroic'.

GAH MY EYES!!! O_o

Problem you got here is one of them would be mistaken as a girl, and the Twilight cast couldn't go out in codpieces without being jumped by several thousand sex starved fangirls..... and some strange fanboys.

Does it sparkle? No bulgy codpiece for any Twilight cast member is complete if it doesn't sparkle. ;)