Such a comprehensive example of poor decision making at so many levels. From the decision to charge for a PvP hero shooter in a saturated market of free PvP hero shooters, to spending what appeared to be tens of millions on marketing, PR, and CGI cut scenes, to the worst character designs in living memory. It’s clear they did zero focus group testing on those characters, or if they did, they ignored all feedback. As is so common now, everyone involved in the fiasco is going to be integrated into future projects and destroy them too. They’ll learn nothing and keep doing it.
I struggle to think of worse examples in the AAA space. The colours weren’t just badly complemented, but intentionally violated colour theory. Their skills had nothing to do with their aesthetic or stories. They were just kind of thrown together without any care. Why was Baz, the bulky man, given ninja-like skills? None of the characters were attractive. One was morbidly obese. Almost all of them were gender non-conforming. And the biggest sin of all: none of them were cool. They were all lame as shit. You must know all of this if you’ve been following the story and criticism. It’s fine to disagree and in many instances there is room for subjectivity, but this was one of those rare examples where we can all come together to objectively declare these characters a train wreck.
You think we have to be attracted to morbidly obese and ambiguously sexed people in order to be accepting? What kind chronically online take is that? People are allowed to find others unattractive. In your race to be the very virtuest of all, you’ve accidentally looped around to intolerance.
I don’t think you’re trying to engage honestly but I’m going to on the off chance someone is reading this thread on a bad day and thinking “maybe he has a point? Why can’t I be attracted to XYZ?”
You’re trying to twist this into a question of “do I have to be attracted to everyone in order to be accepting”?
The original question that’s being engaged with is why, in your words, does
“morbidly obese”
“gender non-conforming”
Make for “the worst character designs in living memory”? Why can’t gender non-conforming characters have an interesting character design? Why is physical fitness required for an interesting character design?
The subtext I’m reading from this is you think that in order for a character to have an interesting design that they must be attractive. If that’s not what you’re trying to say feel free to claim otherwise, but I don’t know why else you’d bring those factors in if you weren’t…
A counter argument to your claim: I claim deep rock galactic has very interesting character designs. The costumes all have a similar theme but are distinct enough I can tell the difference between the characters. The colors are both grimy to indicate being underground for long periods of time but also each has a bright color palette so you can easily distinguish between characters. I think these designs are great.
I am not attracted to any of these characters. I would never want to fuck any of them. I still think their designs are great. I don’t think attractiveness is a requirement for interesting character design.
I get your point about sexual attraction not being necessary, but you’re still kind of making the other user’s point for them. Deep Rock Galactic works because of a cohesive aesthetic with characters that actually fit the world they’re in. Concord was like a cast of soulless GI Joe toybait characters who went through a corporate intersectional diversity blender.
I mean I wasn’t really arguing that Concord had good character designs. Just that a chunk of his criteria (obesity and gender conformity) aren’t good criteria of it.
There’s something deeply funny to me that the same political side that demands representation for everyone in everything is then stunned to know that if EVERY character doesn’t represent something the typical audience likes/wants to see that audience will go elsewhere.
This is not rocket science, and it’s such a deeply american problem it’s honestly hilarious and frustrating at the same time with your culture’s obsession with moralizing media consumption and production only somehow ever registering one way.
If your game’s characters look lame, uninteresting, and nothing like most people would want to be, nobody’s gonna buy it. It’s that simple.
Progressives keep banging on about how people need to be represented to want to partake in a piece of media,* then when a piece of media that represents exclusively stereotypical members of a portland polycule shows up people are surprised if it’s played exclusively by some polyamorous portlanders (not even all of them if you look at the stats).
* which is yet more horseshit america-centrism, the rest of the world is used to not being represented in most media we see since americans make most of it, and i’d rather laminate my own testicles than subject myself at an earnest attempt from an american at representing my demo.
Furthermore:
Overwatch is super diverse, but all their characters (yes, even the fucking gorilla, Winston is handsome as fuck and he passes the harkness test) look appealing.
Their bodies look well proportioned, even Roadhog who is a morbidly obese alcoholic with visible cirrhosis looks more visually appealing than any concord character, because even he looks like an idealised and larger than life (pun very intended) version of a morbidly obese alcoholic.
Meanwhile concord characters look like frumpy cosplayers that wouldn’t qualify for 3rd place at a backwater anime con somewhere in whatever US state has the worst inbreeding rates.
Your example with DRG is very fitting as well because I don’t think most people would call those characters sexually attractive (but trust me, some absolutely do), but they are extremely visually appealing. Bold recognizable shapes that fit their roles, good color combinations, fun presentations.
Concord looks like it’s about to scold you for microaggressing someone, DRG looks like it’s about to attempt to burp another country’s national anthem it hasn’t even heard before.
DRG oozes goliardic fun, while Concord looks and feels like the used dishrag at the bar where that team’s art director will end up working if there is any justice in the world.
Yeah I’m with you like this take always gets weirder to me.
I’m a straight man. I love hot girls (or if you want me to get pedantic girls that I find attractive)
I don’t have a requirement that I must want to fuck a majority of the women presented in each video game.
It’s also okay for people that aren’t like me to be in video games. Even for, gasp, the entirety of the cast to be people not like me.
It’s the one thing with those conservative media grift circles that gets me. If they truly had their way and every piece of media conformed to their “standards” it would be an absolutely boring fucking world where all media would just be sterile versions of the same turds pumped out. There’s be no new perspectives. No differing thoughts or challenging themes.
Concord sucked and had a lot of problems. The characters not being conventionally attractive and “gender non-conforming” weren’t problems.
The characters not being conventionally attractive and “gender non-conforming” weren’t problems.
Just take Overwatch as an example. People aren’t exactly ranting about how Winston (a Gorilla) isn’t sexually attractive, and therefore represents the moral downfall of society and that. He’s just there.
People aren’t exactly ranting about how Winston (a Gorilla) isn’t sexually attractive
Well that’s for 2 reasons:
He’s a single character, the vast majority of characters in any successful piece of media are at least somewhat appealing, and this stands true for OW.
Such a comprehensive example of poor decision making at so many levels. From the decision to charge for a PvP hero shooter in a saturated market of free PvP hero shooters, to spending what appeared to be tens of millions on marketing, PR, and CGI cut scenes, to the worst character designs in living memory. It’s clear they did zero focus group testing on those characters, or if they did, they ignored all feedback. As is so common now, everyone involved in the fiasco is going to be integrated into future projects and destroy them too. They’ll learn nothing and keep doing it.
The character design was derivative but they weren’t awful, come on now. Absolutely true about the rest
I struggle to think of worse examples in the AAA space. The colours weren’t just badly complemented, but intentionally violated colour theory. Their skills had nothing to do with their aesthetic or stories. They were just kind of thrown together without any care. Why was Baz, the bulky man, given ninja-like skills? None of the characters were attractive. One was morbidly obese. Almost all of them were gender non-conforming. And the biggest sin of all: none of them were cool. They were all lame as shit. You must know all of this if you’ve been following the story and criticism. It’s fine to disagree and in many instances there is room for subjectivity, but this was one of those rare examples where we can all come together to objectively declare these characters a train wreck.
Some real capital G-amer takes here. Come everyone, let’s join hands and “objectively” agree to hate minority bodies.
If you make all your characters these “minority bodies” that are unappelaing to the wider audience, then your shit is going to flop
You think we have to be attracted to morbidly obese and ambiguously sexed people in order to be accepting? What kind chronically online take is that? People are allowed to find others unattractive. In your race to be the very virtuest of all, you’ve accidentally looped around to intolerance.
I don’t think you’re trying to engage honestly but I’m going to on the off chance someone is reading this thread on a bad day and thinking “maybe he has a point? Why can’t I be attracted to XYZ?”
You’re trying to twist this into a question of “do I have to be attracted to everyone in order to be accepting”?
The original question that’s being engaged with is why, in your words, does
Make for “the worst character designs in living memory”? Why can’t gender non-conforming characters have an interesting character design? Why is physical fitness required for an interesting character design?
The subtext I’m reading from this is you think that in order for a character to have an interesting design that they must be attractive. If that’s not what you’re trying to say feel free to claim otherwise, but I don’t know why else you’d bring those factors in if you weren’t…
A counter argument to your claim: I claim deep rock galactic has very interesting character designs. The costumes all have a similar theme but are distinct enough I can tell the difference between the characters. The colors are both grimy to indicate being underground for long periods of time but also each has a bright color palette so you can easily distinguish between characters. I think these designs are great.
I am not attracted to any of these characters. I would never want to fuck any of them. I still think their designs are great. I don’t think attractiveness is a requirement for interesting character design.
I get your point about sexual attraction not being necessary, but you’re still kind of making the other user’s point for them. Deep Rock Galactic works because of a cohesive aesthetic with characters that actually fit the world they’re in. Concord was like a cast of soulless GI Joe toybait characters who went through a corporate intersectional diversity blender.
I mean I wasn’t really arguing that Concord had good character designs. Just that a chunk of his criteria (obesity and gender conformity) aren’t good criteria of it.
There’s something deeply funny to me that the same political side that demands representation for everyone in everything is then stunned to know that if EVERY character doesn’t represent something the typical audience likes/wants to see that audience will go elsewhere.
This is not rocket science, and it’s such a deeply american problem it’s honestly hilarious and frustrating at the same time with your culture’s obsession with moralizing media consumption and production only somehow ever registering one way.
If your game’s characters look lame, uninteresting, and nothing like most people would want to be, nobody’s gonna buy it. It’s that simple.
Progressives keep banging on about how people need to be represented to want to partake in a piece of media,* then when a piece of media that represents exclusively stereotypical members of a portland polycule shows up people are surprised if it’s played exclusively by some polyamorous portlanders (not even all of them if you look at the stats).
* which is yet more horseshit america-centrism, the rest of the world is used to not being represented in most media we see since americans make most of it, and i’d rather laminate my own testicles than subject myself at an earnest attempt from an american at representing my demo.
Furthermore:
Overwatch is super diverse, but all their characters (yes, even the fucking gorilla, Winston is handsome as fuck and he passes the harkness test) look appealing.
Their bodies look well proportioned, even Roadhog who is a morbidly obese alcoholic with visible cirrhosis looks more visually appealing than any concord character, because even he looks like an idealised and larger than life (pun very intended) version of a morbidly obese alcoholic.
Meanwhile concord characters look like frumpy cosplayers that wouldn’t qualify for 3rd place at a backwater anime con somewhere in whatever US state has the worst inbreeding rates.
Your example with DRG is very fitting as well because I don’t think most people would call those characters sexually attractive (but trust me, some absolutely do), but they are extremely visually appealing. Bold recognizable shapes that fit their roles, good color combinations, fun presentations.
Concord looks like it’s about to scold you for microaggressing someone, DRG looks like it’s about to attempt to burp another country’s national anthem it hasn’t even heard before.
DRG oozes goliardic fun, while Concord looks and feels like the used dishrag at the bar where that team’s art director will end up working if there is any justice in the world.
ETA: two words, punctuation
Yeah I’m with you like this take always gets weirder to me.
I’m a straight man. I love hot girls (or if you want me to get pedantic girls that I find attractive)
I don’t have a requirement that I must want to fuck a majority of the women presented in each video game.
It’s also okay for people that aren’t like me to be in video games. Even for, gasp, the entirety of the cast to be people not like me.
It’s the one thing with those conservative media grift circles that gets me. If they truly had their way and every piece of media conformed to their “standards” it would be an absolutely boring fucking world where all media would just be sterile versions of the same turds pumped out. There’s be no new perspectives. No differing thoughts or challenging themes.
Concord sucked and had a lot of problems. The characters not being conventionally attractive and “gender non-conforming” weren’t problems.
Just take Overwatch as an example. People aren’t exactly ranting about how Winston (a Gorilla) isn’t sexually attractive, and therefore represents the moral downfall of society and that. He’s just there.
Well that’s for 2 reasons:
God, can you imagine if Overwatch had launched with a muscley ninja or a fat guy?