I'm not really into MGS, so I probably shouldn't comment, but I will say that if you aren't following Kojima on Twitter you are missing out on some pretty amazing tweets.
MGSV: Quiet's Design Is Garbage Whether It's Sexist Or Not (Which It Is)
On 09/06/2013 at 09:06 AM by gigantor21 See More From This User » |
In the latest chapter of the industry's depressing saga of female character portrayals, Hideo Kojima of MGS fame has been forced to do damage control. In several tweets, he talked about how he ordered the design for "Quiet", the big tittied sniper in the E3 trailer, to be made more "erotic"--posting a close-up of her ass for emphasis--in order to facilitate sexier cosplay and spur figurine sales (gag).
A few things:
- Putting aside the whole sexism debate for a second, Quiet's design is thrown-together trash. It's a bikini with some belts, straps and ripped pantyhose on top--something that looks like it was thrown together in 2 minutes. Totally uninispired dreck.
- His weak-sauce defense here is that he meant "sexy" in a more general sense, that could be applied to the guys, the weapons, the equipment, and everything else in the game. For one thing, that difference is entirely academic when you start talking about appeals to the Japanese figurine market. But beyond that...is this really the first thing that came to mind when he wanted to make Quiet "appealing"? That doesn't sound any better, frankly.
- I'm REALLY getting sick of hearing the entitled whining about these issues whenever such things come up. People whine about how games aren't taken seriously and are treated like corrosive kids stuff--and then act like spoiled kids whenever anyone dares to even brings up gender issues at all. It's the same thing we saw with the hilariously stupid Amazon and Sorceress designs in Dragon's Crown, or the film rape scene in Hotline Miami 2, or Ben Kuchera's douchey, tone-deaf handling of the whole "dickwolves" controversy.
Too many gamers want to have it all. They want validation for the medium from outsiders, without any of the potential criticism or responsibility that comes with it. They say that the media and critics of games don't focus enough on the good things in games--but shit like death threats over balance changes in COD, or telling someone they should've aborted their children because they DARED to criticize combat in gaming, can't be ignored.
Nor should it be.
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