Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the BOOBS of war

[Needles]

Or: what's up with female breast size in RPGs (and in video games in general). I do recognize the inanity of the topic, but it started to kind of bug me, after hearing the news about Drakensang 2. Also I am sick of NV threads and the associated derping and herping.

Now, I am not interested whether huge breasts are realistic or even practical for an ass-kicking heroine. We all know the answer and are more or less willing to suspend disbelief.
Also, I am not interested in target audience questions - we all now it's horny 13 year olds, bla bla ad infinitum. But these 13 year olds are also the movie industry's target audience, which brings me to my main point/question:

What strikes me as peculiar is the difference between video games and movies (or even modern sci-fi & fantasy books - but it is not that obvious there, because we don't actually see the characters) concerning this issue. I can't offer statistically relevant samples, but it seems to me that even from the limited and anecdotal examples of the last few years a very suggestive picture emerges.

Some visual stuff to demonstrate what I'm talking about.

versus

Hmm.... what's happening? Why the glaring difference in aesthetics. Suppose the target audience really is the same, has somebody done faulty research on them? Hollywood or the videogame companies? I simply can't bring myself to believe that movies were spared the impossibly-big-tit fate just because there are not enough actresses with big breasts. Or could it be that it is the gamedesigners themselves who are responsible?

DISCUSS!!

 

[Havoc]

Somebody called me? Oh, well...

On the topic. The diffrence is... if in movies they could make such big tits... they would. In games they can, so they do it. Simple tits... I mean logic.

 

[Xor]

Honestly, I can see why this would bother people, but I like big tits so I find it hard to get pissed about it.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Honestly, I can see why this would bother people, but I like big tits so I find it hard to get pissed about it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Honestly, I can see why this would bother people, but I like big tits so I find it hard to get pissed about it.

Especially Jeanette's excellent titties.

 

[Needles]

Honestly, I can see why this would bother people, but I like big tits so I find it hard to get pissed about it.

It's not that I am pissed. Just puzzled.

One other thing: look at male sci-fi/action heroes, their masculinity is actually being less and less exaggerated in video games, while remaining roughly the same in movies.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

I think when it comes to real women in movies the consoletarded teen audience really doesn't care how big the boobs are, just that they get to see lots of skin. Having small boobs hardly makes someone 'unbeautiful'.

Games on the other hand have problems distinguishing men from women oftentimes. Whether due to limited resources or technical inability developers might not be able to redo all men's animations to match a women's, can't make sufficiently pretty faces, etc. How to distract players from noticing how ugly/manly your characters look because you can't afford crysis-level modeling? Add tits.

 

[Chefe]

I think it's because the target audience for these games, and the developers who make them, are on average a whole lot less mature than your standard moviegoer*. If a movie featured this kind of gross exploitation (especially since actresses would have to be digitally modified to look anything close to that), you would basically shut out the entire female audience, and any boyfriends/husbands they would have. I would imagine a lot of guys would also avoid it because they can just go look up porn. The only way that kind of crap would work is if the movie was a comedy and the massive tits were played for laughs.


*that includes you bloodlines!!!!

 

[Chuftie]

I think when it comes to real women in movies the consoletarded teen audience really doesn't care how big the boobs are, just that they get to see lots of skin. Having small boobs hardly makes someone 'unbeautiful'.

Games on the other hand have problems distinguishing men from women oftentimes. Whether due to limited resources or technical inability developers might not be able to redo all men's animations to match a women's, can't make sufficiently pretty faces, etc. How to distract players from noticing how ugly/manly your characters look because you can't afford crysis-level modeling? Add tits.

That seems a bit too "deep". It's just eye candy meant to bait the stupid 12 year olds who haven't figured out how internet for porn. Then again I chuckled at the end, as I was instantly reminded by the mannishness found in the female models in Bethseda's games

 

[Haba]

Sex sells. Just look at RPG box covers throughout the ages.

 

[Sceptic]

Sex sells. Just look at RPG box covers throughout the ages.

Yeah, it's not even something new.

Anyone feels like having fun and finding a much older box with boobs?

 

[barker_s]

Then again I chuckled at the end, as I was instantly reminded by the mannishness found in the female models in Bethseda's games

They didn't resemble human beings to begin with.

I guess the most reasonable answer for this phenomenon is game developers catering to the teenage market. I can't be arsed to look it up, but I think there were some studies about the amount of sexual content in movies and its relation to their commercial success.

Also, Milla Jovovich and her small titties

Edit:

Anyone feels like having fun and finding a much older box with boobs?

 

[Gragt]

Always leaves me slightly wet.

 

[Relay]

Someone should teach the hormone raging game designers that no, a full body plate armor should not show anything that could be distinguished as the shape of a pair of breasts unless the woman has larger than award winning tumors : plate armor is NOT by any means skintight.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Someone should teach the hormone raging game designers that no, a full body plate armor should not show anything that could be distinguished as the shape of a pair of breasts unless the woman has larger than award winning tumors : plate armor is NOT by any means skintight.

You know which had that? NWN2

 

[Mackerel]

Maybe it's just that women with big tits are usually shitty actresses?

 

[bhlaab]

Actresses can only look as good as they do. Even with plastic surgery they are confined by, well, the laws of the universe.

Video game girls can look like whatever the shut-in, sword collecting, manga reading, thinks-wolverine-is-a-deep-characterization artists feel like

 

[Chuftie]

So when does the eventual rule 34 start coming in?

 

[racofer]

The answer is simple:

Having boobs justify all that investment in a complex physics engine.

 

[Kz3r0]

The answer is simple:

Having boobs justify all that investment in a complex physics engine.

That's Dead or Alive, no kidding, they created a physics engine for boobs movement.

 

[Xor]

I think when it comes to real women in movies the consoletarded teen audience really doesn't care how big the boobs are, just that they get to see lots of skin. Having small boobs hardly makes someone 'unbeautiful'.

Games on the other hand have problems distinguishing men from women oftentimes. Whether due to limited resources or technical inability developers might not be able to redo all men's animations to match a women's, can't make sufficiently pretty faces, etc. How to distract players from noticing how ugly/manly your characters look because you can't afford crysis-level modeling? Add tits.

I think you may actually be on to something here. Sure, big chested women are put in media all the time as sex symbols, but that doesn't mean it's the only explanation.

 

[Destroid]

Mirror's Edge is a counter example off the top of my head, although it is certainly the exception not the rule.

In the case of that bloodlines character I think it's reasonable that she had giant fake looking tits - the character (if I recall correctly) was highly sexual and making her appearance reflect that is only normal for the medium. For the Mass Effect 2 lady I read that they made her intentionally less pretty than the first one so she would be easier to relate to I guess? Or going for the imperfect beauty thing? I dunno but I guess they kept the big tits, although there is another Mila Jovavich type character in that game with small tits.

Most RPGs are also fantasy games, and fantasy art has a long association with TnA, and especially the busty, playboy pin up style of woman.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

The usual suspect.

 

[1eyedking]

Nothing says "SEXUALLY MATURE FEMALE" like a big pair of natural breasts.

And fuck modern life for making me have to include *natural* in that description.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Eowyn/miranda otto can slip 'n slide all over my face.

 

[Excommunicator]

I put the blame on the devs and marketing fucks. They are the ones that make the decision to put it in, it is not as if they are being given these models from outside the production process. They are the ones that decide not to go "Okay that comes across as rather childish so maybe we should tone it down". That decision is entirely their own to make and if they actually had the maturity in their work it would be visible. It is not.

Real maturity is in your ability to think independently and make a decision based on your better judgement and not be an unthinking drone who simply gives in at the slightest whiff of sexuality, money or praise.