Why do people get so outraged over bikini armor and boobplate? I mean...

Because consistency is important in a story.

Of course bikini armor looks ridiculous - it's really just a thinly-disguised excuse to have half-naked women running around for the sexy factor. That's fine for cheesecake.

But when you get into a longer, more involved story with something approaching internal logic, where everything fits together and has a reason for existing, the boobplate stands out as a cheap attention-getter.

I enjoy both boobplate and realistic armor...when they fit the situation.

Why they gotta be metal tho

Like if we're going to say these women are magically protected that's fine but why aren't they just wearing normal skimpy clothing

I personally don't give a fuck as long as it's consistent.
If the women are in fetish armor and the men are in fetish armor, all's right with the world.
But when the women are in fetish armor and the men are in (approximately) functional armor, it highlights the nonsense.

Probably because it has no defensive purpose and would be extremely uncomfortable and difficult to take care of.
If you're going to wear nothing, then wear nothing in a comfortable manner. Wear a cloth bikini if you really want a bikini.

Women make up slightly more than 50% of gaming sales, tho. They aren't marketed to by the big studios yet, but that's the economic truth.

It's the same in RPGs where women are also the majority but largely play online in MUDs and MUSHes; it generally freaks nerds out when they learn that dungeon-crawling RPGs are just a fraction of roleplaying as a whole.

>Women make up slightly more than 50% of gaming sales, tho.
They really don't. Sorry, but playing Farmville and Candy Crush don't count, just like playing Monopoly or Catan at a yearly family get-together doesn't make them gamers either. You should try not reading shitty clickbait sometime and look at the actual sales numbers, because the vast majority of buyers and players ARE still male, whether it's in video games or tabletop gaming.

>the 50% lie
You can do better than that.

I would smack the shit out of my kid they did that shit to me

>I mean, if you can tolerate the presence of absolutely nonsensical magic

Just because you add a fantastical element doesn't mean you should have to assume that no rules no longer apply.
The world still follows real world rules unless we're specifically told it doesn't.
There's still gravity, people still need to eat to survive.

Just like when you are watching a horror movie where there are zombies, or vampires, people can rightfully complain that the movie breaks your immersion when the 14 year old who's being chased by zombies suddenly has the strength to throw a car at the zombies chasing her.
Saying
>but if you can accept zombies, why can't you accept that 16 year old human girls have superhuman strength
Is a retarded fucking argument.

Every girl I know that plays WoW has 0 problems with bikini plate.

I like women more in proper gear.

They feel more like people than objects you should fap to.

Why don't they count?

While some of it is the western sexual taboo, there are legitimate cases to be angry about it. It's all about what's appropriate to the setting and whether it's applied consistently.

Boobplate being forced into a realistic setting is annoying and immersion breaking. Boobplate always being paired with more realistic and sensible armour for men is inconsistent and annoying.

I am pissed people keep going "sex sells" and then making scantily clad big breasted ladies.

I want goddamn shark teeth and moderate breasts, you shits. And LATEX, not BIKINIS. I can't stress this enough.

Not that guy, but that would be because those aren't what we're talking about when we're talking about video games; this is more or less just a cheap rhetorical trick.

Great pic, thanks.

Here's a graph that's a bit less skewed

...

That's because youre a shitty parent with no sense of humor. That shit is hilarious.

Women buy shitty mobile games because the stuff made is all marketed to dudes. Eventually someone is going to figure out how to sell AAA titles to women on PC and consoles by not focusing on cliche nerdbro bullshit and they're going to rake in money.

Magic the Gathering? 38% of the player base is women. World of Warcraft? 33% women. PC gaming as a whole? 54, according to Nielsen. There's a huge market there that the industry isn't great at supplying.

Our hobby is filled with women. They just don't go anywhere near nerdbros, resulting in nerdbros thinking they don't exist. lol just lol

Users != sales
Come back with a graph that shows how much each of those users spends.

Bikini armor is fucking retarded and Joan of Arc is history's greatest waifu.

Farmville and Candycrush are not real games, simple. They are shit tier time sinks for normies. When someone says they play video games, you assume they mean some console, handheld, or pc; not some phone app.

Nah, on its own it is fucking flaccid.
You have to work it into a greater narrative involving an enormous asshole first.

It may not be what we mean but why shouldn't companies be aware of this fact and take it into account when determining marketing? If women like mobile games, casual games, roleplaying games.... at what point is it ok for us to stop pretending something "doesn't count" ? Because it sounds like if we're just finding the biggest audience and throwing everything at them, shouldn't major video game companies all start making cute cat games for iphone?

Why wouldn't board game companies want to appeal to women, if women really do play a lot of (non-euro) board games? If a woman is into monopoly, risk, and catan what's to stop her from seeing Ladies and Gentleman and grabbing it? Why is it that despite plenty of women owning a 3ds and liking games like nintendogs and pokemon, we still wind up with weird tits characters in fire emblem (a game about tactical combat and making character get married so they can have babies)? Why isn't it relevant that mobile game players are women when we *do* have triple A companies making mobile games which might draw these women in?

Anyway my point is, it's fine to say "x% of this-type-of-game is women" but saying "YA BUT.. BUt.. GAMES ONLY COUNT IF I LIKE THEM!" is dumb. Does the witcher 3 count? Cities:skylines? Bejeweled? Neko Atsume? Fire Emblem: Heroes? And if women prefer stories and playing make-believe or whatever why wouldn't it make sense for a major game company to release some female-friendly rpgs, or at least ones that aren't offputting?

(I know you're not the guy as you said, I'm not mad at you just annoyed in general at the type of people who immediately discount literal statistics because 'well that game..isnt..um..')

>But when the women are in fetish armor and the men are in (approximately) functional armor, it highlights the nonsense.

usually when that happens though the men are burly STR warriors who take hits head on and the women are lithe rogues or maybe casters who aren't getting hit much at all

...

Dude you're fucking insane, I bet if he had that you'd say "Yea but they're probably children! Children aren't people!"

Why? Why doesn't it count if they're spending money on it? To a games company, I mean. Who the fuck cares? And wouldn't games companies be smart to try to get those candycrushers into their games by making them appealing to that huge demographic? The argument seems to be that women just aren't interested in games, which is clearly not the case. It seems like, overwhelmingly, they do play games. Just not the same games you do.

Meanwhile Konami shutters their AAA division to make mobile games. There's a ton of money in there because it isn't focused solely on selling to nerds.

We're going to lose AAA budgets to fucking Farmville because people won't give up their fucking bikini armors and waifus being in everything.

So you can swallow "the physical and metaphysical principles of this world allow fire breathing dragons to survive" but not "the physical and metaphysical principles of this world make it so skilled people in skimpy clothing have a surprisingly high survivability?"

cute

Exactly this. D&D has fairly tasteful art for the most part and has since 3.0. A few exceptions in both genders (Hennet. hnngg..) but overall pretty tasteful and appropriate for normies, all ages, both genders, etc. And D&D is obviously doing pretty damn well.

Not him, but I think the point is that one doesn't always follow on from another.

A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, for example, is a setting where firebreathing dragons are perfectly appropriate, but scantily clad women- At least, those who are meant to be taken seriously as warriors- are not.

Although it's a slightly different matter if he's trying to say the latter never makes sense, which is ludicrous. Fantasy settings can define how things work however they like, and as long as a setting is clear and consistent in choosing aesthetic over authenticity, I'm cool with it.

>We're going to lose AAA budgets to fucking Farmville because people won't give up their fucking bikini armors and waifus being in everything.

It's not geeks that have the say in this. They buy games that appeal to them, not make them.

But that said, I can totally live with AAA gaming dying. Classics like Doom were made on what would now be considered a shoe-string budget.

I didn't say it always follows, but it's basically a willful choice to not suspend disbelief for something like that in universes where forces like fate control reality.

Hell, maybe wearing a battle bikini improves their wyrd and makes them unlikely to die horribly.

But some women like bikini armour. It's not just a male thing.

Not all of them, and not in all contexts, but I honestly think it's more about how it's used and executed than the content itself.

The statistics from hero based games like League of Legends tell an interesting story- The attractive female heroes are almost always extremely popular among female players. But because the game is designed around playing that character, they're all given a sense of agency and personal strength- They're hot, but they're also awesome.

Contrast that to a lot of games where the sexy ladies are window dressing or rewards, you can see why that's a lot less appealing to female players.

We don't need less hot women, we need more hot women with character and agency, as well as some hot dudes for the women interested in the fantasy of rescuing a handsome prince.

and I should point out, plenty of games with skimpy stupid outfits on every girl do great too. MTG for example. But not with normies. Video games you have the same dumb outfits.. games like fire emblem(fates and heroes, specifically) and league of legends have a bunch of awful female characters. I played league for a bit and was always really put off by their stupid art for the women. Just pinup garbage really, while being so reluctant to objectify the men. It's a stupid double standard and that's the real problem to me.

I would be totally fine with an end to this 60$ game bullshit.

Honestly I don't see any guy making a big deal out of bikini armor. We're mostly desensitized to that nowdays so seeing a girl in bikini armor is about as normal as seeing her in full armor, it doesn't really as long as she's conveyed to be attractive. And that can be done easily while wearing full armor or leather.
The only issue is people coming in and complaining about the right to have bikini armor. If the designer believes bikini armor fits best then he should perfectly be allowed to do whatever he wants. And if people like the design they'll support it, otherwise they'll go to the designs in full armor.
Business isn't stupid, they do what works, and if bikini armor sells they'll continue doing it. If full plate armor sells they'll swap to that.

>reluctant to objectify the men

On the subject of bikini armor... if you want to look sexy and not cover yourself in real physical armor, why not just wear a (optionally, enchanted) cloth bikini? That seems like it would be equally sexy and more comfortable.

Are video slot machines video games? Because people spend shit tons of money on those and have far more in common with mobile "games" than they do with traditional video games.

Because if cloth can be enchanted to be protective, why couldn't metal be enchanted to be comfortable?

>We don't need less hot women, we need more hot women with character and agency, as well as some hot dudes for the women interested in the fantasy of rescuing a handsome prince.

I agree with this. I'm totally fine with some sexy ladies, and in fact if their outfits are cool I'll be totally into it. Not sexually or whatever, but I like cool character designs. But I also like them to have personalities! And some equally sexy dudes to make things fair.

A good example is the game Smite. A ton of the dudes are shirtless. Not necessarily hot or w.e, but it sort of takes the cringe out of some of the mostly-naked ladies. Also, they're goddesses which sort of makes it ok too. Aphrodite should be naked, that's just her MO. Though I think putting fishnets on Nemesis is fucking stupid and skanky.

Because if you were serious about the latter then they'd be wearing comfortable clothing instead of a metal bra on bare skin. Six-limbed dragons also destroy my immersion because their wings are more often than not either barely attached to their bodies or competing with their arms for structural support.

desu I find women most fappable when they're dressed in fur loincloths like they live out in the jungle or something

We've been sexualizing gods since the dawn of time. Why stop now?

Oh, so you're a complete sperg. Well, you do you.

Maybe fate favours the appearance.

Every person I know offline that plays Neptunia is a girl

If you wanna justify it with "lol it's magic" then I'm gonna ride you on it until you admit "no actually it's just personal appeal". It's fine if you like that kind of stuff but don't pretend you have any place to be smug about it.

pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/device-ownership-2015-about-this-report/

page 13 of Pew's survey on electronic device ownership. 40% of American adults own a game console, gender split is 37% men, 42% women, (speculation, of course, but of the 21% that didn't offer their gender do you really think we'll see more men than women?)

Being fair, that was probably skewed by the absolutely insane popularity of the Wii.

You've already accepted flying, firebreathing lizards and wizards faggot. You're already in the "lol it's magic" camp. Not being able to suspend your disbelief for a six limbed dragon is pretty fucking spergy.

Because obviously it's Western grognards moaning about covered midriffs and not the cancerous Japanese attitude which feeds into itself by being the only market Japanese companies care about.

I don't mind it, I just think it's perhaps overly abundant yet most much of it is uninspired. I don't need armor that's historical or realistic, but I do enjoy armor that's stylistic and not obviously fetishistic (subtly fetishistic is fun though).

>When the woman so big and stronk her body is stronger than any metal, and her "bikini armor" is just sparkly lingerie.

boobplate just makes neckbeards look even more like pathetic perverts. which is why i hate It. Being gay looking at female fantasy armor just makes it look absolutely retarded since i'm not thinking with my dick.

I'll be happy to sperg about oversized flying animals, firebreathing, and wizards too, because I put enough thought into my more realistic settings that I leave them out if I can't justify them, and I freely admit that it's personal appeal in less realistic settings. Just admit that you prioritize your dick over narrative integrity and I'll happily add my tentpole to the campground.

I'm not a fan of bikini armor but that doesn't mean I can't tolerate it as long as it fits the games tone. My main issue is when the men have proper armor while the women don't, its just visually jarring.

Bikini armor isn't bad because it's impractical/nonsensical. It's bad because well-written and realistic/interesting female characters likely wouldn't wear bikini armor. It's just a cheap gimmick to get sweaty nerds to buy into nerd shit and I fall for it literally every single time.

>more realistic settings

There is no such thing. It's either realistic, or it's not. You're just a pedant who can't get past his own hangups.

>Just admit that you prioritize your dick over narrative integrity and I'll happily add my tentpole to the campground.

How about you jam broken glass in your piss hole? I never at any point claimed that it's not a matter of personal preference, only that not choosing to suspend disbelief is a willful choice.

>It's bad because well-written and realistic/interesting female characters likely wouldn't wear bikini armor.

You don't have much contact with women if you think there aren't plenty of women that wouldn't wear skimpy clothing if they were walking gods.

You're confusing symptom and cause. That many badly written women wear bikini armour doesn't mean the only reason for wearing bikini armour is bad writing.

That's my take. I realized as a kid that Dead Or Alive was pandering shit trying to get me to waste quarters on bouncing boobs when I could be playing Virtua Fighter.

Good games don't need sex appeal to sell and I'm immediately suspicious when a company is trying it on me.

I like you, op. Not to mention absurdly sized weapons being swung around.(to the list of non sense things)

Dead or Alive is also pretty famous for its authentic depictions of martial arts and extremely high animation quality.

Immediate scepticism of anything involving fanservice is just as irrational as immediate support of it. It's all about how well it's done and how the media as a whole comes together.

>and shit like owl-bears
Fucking kill yourself.

Owlbears and Bullette are the BEST thing to come out of D&D

Die, OP, you must die.

Who do you think taught her to do that if not her parents?

It's not a willful choice to see that the creator of the setting plainly put zero thought into certain aspects. When you ask for suspension of disbelief it's because you want to want to be taken seriously. If you acknowledge that it's just personal preference then there's no need for suspension of disbelief; everything's out on the table and people can enjoy it as they like or check out without wasting their time.

I've had contact with many women who wore skimpy clothing, but I think most women who'd be warriors and adventurers probably wouldn't be thinking of wearing skimpy clothing.

I think it's an easy bandaid for poor writers to make characters interesting (by which I mean sexually attractive). I'm sure that a sexy bikini armor character could be well-written, the problem is that the writers who are immediately jumping to bikini armor probably aren't able to write one.

what are giant bulging muscle men, many of whom are not wearing shirts?

Face it men get objectified to, we just don't give a shit.

Eh, male objectification can be annoying when it happens, but as mentioned above it's a question of execution.

Male objectification often still involves giving them a sense of power, agency or character. You don't see many useless hunks in the same way you see useless or bland sexy women in games.

Big muscly burly men are power fantasies for dudes. Look at any women's romance novel and the guy on it is, while ripped, lean. He doesn't look like Superman.

It wouldn't make sense for these men to be sexually objectified when a majority of content creators are men.

>the problem is that the writers who are immediately jumping to bikini armor probably aren't able to write one.

But this is a baseless assertion entirely rooted in your personal dislike for the aesthetic.

Ownership of a game console doesn't mean jackshit about total expenditure.
A owns a PS4 and one game for it. That's somewhere around 300 USD.
B owns a PS4 and forty games for it. That's somewhere around 1800 USD.
One B is equal to six As.
Your data cannot distinguish A from B.

He said "well-written and realistic/interesting".

But I don't dislike the aesthetic. I even said in my first reply that I do enjoy it. Don't mistake me calling something bad for me disliking it.

amen brother

Not that's a bit closer to correct!

Your prejudice regarding the aesthetic again. It isn't bad, it's just a style of doing things that some people may prefer or dislike and may be more or less appropriate in different contexts. Trying to apply any objective measure like 'bad' to it is meaningless.

>game console
There's your mistake.

XENOMORPHS ARE FOR SEXUAL

>Women like muscular men without shirts.
>A lot of these pictures are muscular men without shirts
>clearly objectification
>no man, its not objectification, after all the developers are dudes
>It doesn't make sense for it to be objectification
>Implying that men couldn't possibly figure out how to market to women or want to do it

Face it man that's a pretty shaky arguement. I agree that there is a clear case for the female champions being objectified, there are only a few that aren't pinups after all, but objectification happens to men as well. This isn't a purely one way street.

>art is entirely subjective

If you say so. So, do you want to watch a LifeTime movie or GoodFellas?

Depends on how I'm feeling at the time, the company I'm in and so on.

Neither.

>Look at any women's romance novel and the guy on it is, while ripped, lean. He doesn't look like Superman

oh man someone post that pic where they literally compare a Superman comic and a romance novel side by side and it's exact;y the same

but muscles are a power fantasy so its for men too!

i mean all bullshit aside, typically your characters are knights going to battle, they're adventurers running around the wilderness. Anyone wearing large amounts of armor is going to be having a very bad time.

but user all my google results, including this, the first one, for most of the first and second page, are huge muscle mountains when I search for "women's romance novel".

>post is about boobplate.

>image is a Druid.

Hardly, skepticism isn't the opposite of support. If we're going to invoke rationality then skepticism should be the default position until sufficient evidence is obtained to make a conclusion!