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The double standards are real, as per usual when this ugly topic comes up...

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You're mistaking a portrayal of strength (a la Hercules) for a portrayal of sexiness. Really, the easiest example to point to would be Yuri on Ice; even in just the first episode, everything about those guys just oozes sensuality. Heck, even just the ending song's animation does that job.

"Showing strength" aka being macho has been pereceived as as "sexy" masculine trait as is females flaunting off their assets, which is the condemned party here, since forever. Shirtless buff men men fixing their cars, working on construction, going on grand adventures...those are titillating.

And Western devs aren't the only ones making characters that appeal to homo men. Here's a classic example:

Meet Brad Evans from Wild Arms 2, a JRPG. He has a relationship with a war buddy that is hinted to be beyond more than just platonic friendship. Plus, just look at his design. Muscular with fit black cloth supported by straps, almost BDSM like. Goes without saying, he's a prominent figure among gay gamers.

Not going to deny that characters like him are the minority, but if game devs have to think about every gamers' sexuality and appeal to them, then the game just ends up being an agenda-filled husk. Games are meant to entertain and entertainment is usually escapist. Most gamers don't want reality being shoved down their throats either.

belvadeer wrote:

Not sure why they have that weird stereotype where bigger muscles means you're flaming gay. O_o

Same deal why Westerners think the average FF protag is a twink metrosexual who takes it up the ass. What other countries think as "masculine" is different in parts of the world.

whiskeyii wrote:

You're mistaking a portrayal of strength (a la Hercules) for a portrayal of sexiness. Really, the easiest example to point to would be Yuri on Ice; even in just the first episode, everything about those guys just oozes sensuality. Heck, even just the ending song's animation does that job.

He specifically said big and powerful, not bishounen. And who says Hercules isn't sexy? Women loved Kevin Sorbo back in the day. More popular than Yuri on Ice will ever be. Remember, most people don't share the anime-taste mentality and actually like fit guys. Bishounen love is limited to our circle.

Nyren wrote:

And fanservice games have never really bothered me(In part because I am part of the target audience.). I like that they exist in the market because they cater to a group of people who would have nothing to cater to them otherwise.

I don't fully understand this statement. Without fanservice games, there would still be other sources of fanservice. Or do you mean there are people who specifically are into fanservice video games?

belvadeer wrote:

Seriously. Where's the manservice? Where are the big and powerful (heck add nonhuman too) guys without most of their clothes on? It's always such a double standard, boiling down to sexually insecure college idiots uttering:

Cheesecake: "Hell yeah! Bring on the ladies!"
Beefcake: "F*ck no! Nobody wants to see that!"

You can only see guys like that in MMOs and their character creation system since you can opt to go without clothes in most of them, but that's not a genre for everyone. Still, I guess it's better than nothing.

All of that seems to have gone to literature--cryptozoological erotica became one of the top-selling e-book genres on Amazon until Amazon pulled the obscenity hammer on them.

As many women have moved into video games, there is still a boy's club culture in some circles.

Reckard wrote:

Games aren't made to appeal to everyone, but for money. And most of the industry's customers happen to like boobs.

If we're going by the idea that female gamers are now about the same in quantity as male gamers, then I think it's more like the horny boys are more likely to spend more on these games than other audience. Probably not to the same extent as microtransaction whales, but still significant enough to sustain these companies.

I would say fanservice games are still a niche, however. Aside from Lara Croft, what video game sex symbols have made it to the mainstream? And by that, I mean mainstream as in "Show someone on the street a picture of this character, and you'll have a good chance they can identify her." The closest there's been I can think of is Bayonetta, and she's definitely far from mainstream.

Afezeria wrote:

If an anime oriented games or anything from Japan is brimming with lewd based fanservice, then you guys should probably try games from other developers instead. There are thousand of selections out there and please don't blame the developers if the games that you guys played had these aforementioned subjects which annoyed you because it is your choice, and they've definitely had fans that liked them too, which wouldn't make a bad idea to catered to them because it inceased sales expectation and audiences. It is entirely possible to avoid fanservice if you tried and it is impossible for every games to come out from Japan or whatever to be overwhelmed with lewd scenes.

Well, compared to most other Japanese video game companies, Nintendo's games have little to no fanservice in them if you're familiar with which ones to go for. Well, of the sexual kind. Of the "references to other things" kind, they've got plenty. (Just keep away from Fire Emblem, I guess.)

Should be retitled "Fanservice continuing its several thousand year tradition."

Do people yell at strategy games for being morally bankrupt because they contain menu/statistic sensual overload? Nay, because there is no moral highground to take to shame strategy gamers unless you can slam them for whatever side they're fighting on in a historical game. But a game with fan service, the moral gatekeepers will waste no effort in letting you know of your sin.

belvadeer wrote:

Cheesecake: "Hell yeah! Bring on the ladies!"
Beefcake: "F*ck no! Nobody wants to see that!"

You can only see guys like that in MMOs and their character creation system since you can opt to go without clothes in most of them, but that's not a genre for everyone. Still, I guess it's better than nothing.

This is just untrue. You will never ever see any man say "oh no man I can't play that game the male characters are too SEXY."

Cue the millions of straight males happily playing FFXV.

Paiprince wrote:

"Showing strength" aka being macho has been pereceived as as "sexy" masculine trait as is females flaunting off their assets, which is the condemned party here, since forever. Shirtless buff men men fixing their cars, working on construction, going on grand adventures...those are titillating.

Lord Oink wrote:

He specifically said big and powerful, not bishounen. And who says Hercules isn't sexy? Women loved Kevin Sorbo back in the day. More popular than Yuri on Ice will ever be. Remember, most people don't share the anime-taste mentality and actually like fit guys. Bishounen love is limited to our circle.

I'm lumping these together because they seem to be operating under the same misconception of what my point in making that original post was. Though I wouldn't say that men specifically going on grand adventures makes them titillating...as a lady attracted to dudes, I think I'd know. Laughing

My point was not that uber-masculine characters can't be viewed as attractive, or that those attracted to men only find bishonen types attractive. Juxtaposing Yuri on Ice against all those main character protagonists was to illustrate that those characters mentioned (Kratos, Nathan Drake, Marcus Fenix, AssCreed dudes, Batman, Commander Shepard, Geralt) aren't created to be sexy the same way, say, Cindy in FFXV is. They're meant to be heroes, first and foremost, and if people attracted to men find them sexy and/or attractive, that's merely a nice side effect. Compare that to Cindy's obvious design priorities.

For cheesecake and beefcake to be on equal standing, the fanservice has to come first in both cases. For female characters, the easiest shortcut is a boobs-and-butt revealing outfit, but for male characters, slapping on an open shirt and calling it a day isn't enough, because a bare male chest doesn't have the same sexual connotations that a bare female chest does.

In Yuri on Ice, however, the characters are all meant to be sexy, both in-universe and without, (flirtatious winks and seductive smiles galore, not to mention a strong attention to the lines and form of the body) which is why it's a better example of manservice with intent than the aforementioned game characters.

whiskeyii wrote:

For cheesecake and beefcake to be on equal standing, the fanservice has to come first in both cases. For female characters, the easiest shortcut is a boobs-and-butt revealing outfit, but for male characters, slapping on an open shirt and calling it a day isn't enough, because a bare male chest doesn't have the same sexual connotations that a bare female chest does.

Not sure I'm understanding you here. Have you ever looked at Harlequin romance book covers? Cause I'm pretty sure if you did then the dude was shirtless, with the intent of being sexy in appearance to appeal to the purchasers of such novels.

Last edited by whiskeyii on Fri Jan 13, 2017 12:13 pm; edited 2 times in total

Societally speaking, yes. Bare chested men don't get anywhere near the amount of flak that bare-chested or breastfeeding women do, where it seems to swing between being either inappropriate or indecent exposure depending on where you live. Again, I'm not saying male chests can't be sexy, I'm saying they're not viewed as being on the same sexual level as an exposed female chest. Besides that, Harlequin novels seem to use a bare chested man as an appealing display of power and strength rather than an overtly sexual symbol. That distinction is not given to a female chest; showing bare breasts does not immediately translate to "powerful woman" without some extra work put in on the part of whatever work is displaying them (like making the women Amazons or something).

EDIT: More grammar corrections.

whiskeyii wrote:

Societally speaking, yes. Bare chested men don't get anywhere near the amount of flak that bare chested or breastfeeding women do, where it seems to swing between being either inappropriate and indecent exposure depending on where you live. .

Isn't that because men just don't care? Men see Harlequin romance novels as fantasy and don't care if nearly all of them feature buff dudes in some manner of undress on the cover. Men don't bother to complain about someone else's fantasy. That's why there's nowhere near the amount of flak.

Last edited by whiskeyii on Fri Jan 13, 2017 12:12 pm; edited 1 time in total

This is getting a little off-topic, but from where I'm standing, it's more because if I posted two images on this forum, one of a naked male chest and one of a naked female chest, one would be assumed to be nsfw and the other wouldn't. An image of breasts generates an immediate response of "boobies" in Western society in a way a male chest doesn't, which is why the idea of "bare-chested man automatically = manservice" doesn't always hold water the same way "bare-chested lady automatically = fanservice" does. Again, this is not a blanket statement meant to address all forms of manservice across the board; this is just pointing out why Kratos isn't representative of manservice the same way Cindy or Quiet are prime examples of fanservice.

Edited for grammar and spelling errors.

Okay, so I'm curious, if bare chested men and bare chested women are not on the same level in terms of sexuality (and I do agree with you there in terms of modern society at large) how do bare chested men and barely clothed women compare? You'd be able to post both on this forum, and it's not like we actually get video games which feature topless females beyond maybe a strip club in GTA or something similar, so this sort of comparison would be much more relevant to the discussion of the various fanservice in modern video games.

Last edited by belvadeer on Fri Jan 13, 2017 12:47 pm; edited 1 time in total

Chrysostomus wrote:

This is just untrue. You will never ever see any man say "oh no man I can't play that game the male characters are too SEXY."

Cue the millions of straight males happily playing FFXV.

The game does have females in it though. It's not strictly "man country", otherwise Luna, Cindy, Iris and Aranea would have gotten no screentime at all (and the latter two wouldn't have been guest party members).

Last edited by whiskeyii on Fri Jan 13, 2017 12:11 pm; edited 2 times in total

Megiddo wrote:

Okay, so I'm curious, if bare chested men and bare chested women are not on the same level in terms of sexuality (and I do agree with you there in terms of modern society at large) how do bare chested men and barely clothed women compare? You'd be able to post both on this forum, and it's not like we actually get video games which feature topless females beyond maybe a strip club in GTA or something similar, so this sort of comparison would be much more relevant to the discussion of the various fanservice in modern video games.

Sure, I can do that. For me, it boils down a lot to, as belvadeer put it, whether the character is "flexing their muscles for the audience" or not--or flaunting their assets, either way. If you look at how, say, Cindy in FFXV or Bayonetta in Bayonetta is introduced via the camera, the game is very obviously inviting you to look--it's actively taking control away from the player to reinforce this. But if you look at Kaine from NieR, even though she's dressed provocatively (and very very nsfw), the camera doesn't treat her like something to be ogled; she just exists as a sexy character--which admittedly isn't a perfect example since her outfit could be viewed as fanservice in and of itself, but NieR is the rare game that doesn't really go out of its way to reinforce that.

Male characters, on the other hand, aren't lingered over the same way Bayonetta is; like Kaine, they're just allowed to kind of exist. Yuri on Ice, by contrast, invites the viewer to immerse themselves in the sensuality of the skaters and their performances in a way that's difficult for me to describe in tangible examples, only that it feels like we're also being invited to look and appreciate what's on display in a less over the top way than how Bayonetta the game treats its main character. (Though for the record, I like both Bayonetta the character and the game as a whole.)

I find it laughable when people say they can't find games that don't have fanservice in it. There are plenty of games that don't have fanservice. Of the games that have fanservice in them, some of them you are able to not be exposed to it, by simply not picking the character that is fanservice driven.

I have no problem with people wishing there were more games catering to their moral imperatives.

But when your moral imperatives tell you that you have to shame or degrade other people for what they like in their games, well there are big problems with that.

That is why gamers, who like fan service, know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the moral or PC promoters are gunning for their games. Because they are. It isn't about having something for everyone, it is about taking away from gamers, because they believe it to be evil.

Paiprince wrote:

Not going to deny that characters like him are the minority, but if game devs have to think about every gamers' sexuality and appeal to them, then the game just ends up being an agenda-filled husk. Games are meant to entertain and entertainment is usually escapist. Most gamers don't want reality being shoved down their throats either.

I don't want the reality of a world where everyone is straight unless proven otherwise to be shoven down my throat, too.

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