Press Start: Developers should remain unapologetic in their game design

Some video game developers take their creative freedom as far as they can, sometimes shattering realism for the sake of fun. Metal Gear Solid V's Quiet wears a revealing outfit, Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy has immaculate skin, and Nier: Automata's 2B sports high heels. Developers shouldn't have to apologize for such design choices, Gazette columnist Jake Magee writes.

[Derceto]

"Taro offered a simple answer: “… The biggest reason is that I just really like girls.” "

How dare you Taro........

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

I'd rather that than coming up with lame excuses to make their perverseness seem reasonable. Kojima's excuse for Quiet's outfit was just laughable. Just say you like boobs and fishnets. It's immature but at least you'd be honest.

[meka2611]

Explain to me how liking boobs and fishnets is immature?

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Liking them isn't immature but how it's treated is. Explain to me how portraying boobs in that manner isn't immature. When you have to come up with outlandish excuses to add cleavage to something you know you're being immature.

And I'm not even a social justice warrior. Can't stand em. But let's be honest here...

[annoyedgamer]

Honestly liking the normal female form it not any less mature than women demanding men be completely ripped and shirtless.

[meka2611]

Exactly what I was getting at. When did sexuality, a normal part of nature, become so damn taboo and looked down on?

[Phoxel]

Kojima admitted he made Quiet's design erotic to encourage sexy cosplay. He's never been bashful about his views on beautiful women.

[gamer7804]

You just used inverse framing. what you said isn't fully true, while you might believe and rightly so that kojima's reasoning was laughable, that doesn't make liking alloy or 2b's character design immature.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Alloy? How the heck does Alloy come into this discussion? I've put 20 hours into Horizon and I've yet to see her sexualized in any way. 2b on the other hand is a different story. She wears a thong. Thongs are sexually provocative undergarments. Why does a robot need to be wearing sexual undergarments? Is it part of the story? These are serious questions, i haven't played the game so I wouldn't know.

[Phoxel]

@Sharingan_no_Kakashi As my articles explains, there doesn't need to be a logical explanation as to why 2B wears high heels, a leotard (not a thong), a blindfold, or anything else. That's the art direction the developers wanted to take, and it fits the game's style, and that's reason enough.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

@phoxel It's a leothong. And I'm not sure in what way it fits the game's style. But I do think the best designs are based in logic. I'm a designer myself. Introducing sexualized things isn't in and of itself taboo but I hate when it's there just for the sake of appealing to people's basic sexuality and for no other reason. I find it cheap and boring. Form follows function. It's hard to make designs that both function and draws the eye in a non sexual way but it's much more rewarding.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Butt the design in the characters in Metal Gear Solid were never really meant to be taken extremely seriously

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

I see what you did there lol

[rainslacker]

Yeah but knowing Kojima, he probably was being honest. He has all sorts of weird things in his game that get expressed in ways that are kind of shocking at times. Kojima isn't the type of person who just makes a character be a certain way without reason. Even if the reason is silly or outlandish, he still has a reason. I don't know if the reason or the idea for the character comes first, but there is always a reason.

[shammgod]

YES! Devs need to tell THEIR story and create THEIR art and stop pandering to include every single human ever

[Elda]

Just finished it,great game!

[TheOtherVitaOwner]

I couldn't agree more with this article. Let game designers explore their creativity.

[_-EDMIX-_]

"Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy has immaculate skin"

Lol

what game were you playing? Her face is riddled with imperfections

[Phoxel]

If you read the article, you can see it says, "Gaming site Kotaku pointed out main character Aloy of the recently released Horizon Zero Dawn has perfect skin. I disagree (she has noticeable cheek blemishes and visible pores), but even if she did have a porcelain complexion, who cares?"

[drunkenspy007]

I agree, but I also look at it as creative choice and the ability to design something you want, not just what pushes sales. It's like what hollywood did to movies; a lot of rehashed crap to make money because they have no new ideas. It happens to big games too, but there's still some creative freedom in making games thankfully.

[skwidd]

Nice! I encourage sexiness! You can also go the other direction too like in Aloy in Horizon. Both have their points. Sometimes men want to indulge in their sexuality and so do women. Nothing to be ashamed of unless you wanna go backwards as a society.

[GrizToof]

They made Horizon Zero Dawn a very PC/sjw safe game in my opinion, Alloy shows almost no skin and no bouncing breast physics. That's why i find it so funny that people will still find something to complain about. That just goes to show you these retched people just love the smell of their own crap so much they will poop on anything just to inhale it. I personally lover super stylized games with crazy plots, ultra violence and sexy women. It just rusts my bolts that a few people that don't play games can complain and it can scare a developer in to potentiality censoring something they wanted to express in a video game.

Now if a developer wants to make a game politically correct i have no problem with it as long as it was there idea and they didn't feel pressured in to making it that way. They have been giving games age ratings for years now and if you strap a mature rating on a game then there should be no problem. Those games are meant for adults and we should be able to play and watch whatever the fuck we want to without interference.

By the way i love Horizon Zero Dawn and i got a little crush on Alloy... Sad i know.