It's more of an attack at pointless pandering to the crowd with really low-brow fan-service which is quite common in gaming. When more than 10% of characters depth comes from butt-shots and the camera paning over cleavage... that's not quite right way to do it IMO. This is really something we can do away with.
We can. We can also do away with most other things in gaming, including gaming itself. The point isn't that we can do away with it but whether or not we should: Guys enjoy it and girls enjoy it, and games are about entertainment and enjoyment. What's the point of doing away with it?
Everyone likes to see/play attractive characters but when all the character has is a chest/boob to flash, and little else it really puts the developer's intentions into question.
The developer's intentions are not into question, as everyone knows there's no point to the design choice beyond providing fanservice. What's so wrong about fanservice, then?
However, when the devs set themselves a lofty goal or continue a well-established non-pulpy franchise (like Hitman), and stoop downs to tasteless pulp, it may signify that they have nothing interesting to tell and they must resort to cheap tricks to hold their audience's attention.
You mean the non pulpy franchise about a genetically engineered super assassin killing his genetically engineered super assassin brothers and his creator in a secret laboratory under a mental hospital, with a minigun he carries around like it weights barely more than a box of beer? o_O
And that's pretty low/ Insert a tonne dirty jokes into any novel or pan camera onto butts, cleavages and chests in a film and see how it's quality drops.
Last time I did check videogames were not highbrow shit. They were, you know, videogames, and if I go around assploding the population of a small city worth of enemies into little bloody pieces shit's already lowbrow enough for them to throw all in the unnecesary hot girls and hot guys to make our hormones dance at the rythm of our pewpewpew-ing.
I.E: Dante being shirtless more often than not is completely unnecesary, but man, putting a shirt on him is a waste.
Now if such scenes were given proper context e.g. were meant to be erotic as opposed to pornographic that's another matter altogether.
What proper context is there for tits and ass? What proper context is there for sweaty naked bishies slaying thousands of demons with their really big swords? o_O
The mere existence of those elements into a game put that game outside the realm of shit were context is important, you are reading way too much into this.
1) It's not proper everywhere - the booth babes controversy and how some guys treat them pretty much illustrates that.
Define "proper." I'm willing to bet most people believe them to be totally proper, and their opinion in the matter, without further argumenting, is as valid as yours.
2) We really don't have to have this kind of pandering in non-niche games - especially AAA titles which are meant to be played by millions of people. I know it pretty much sells most of them, but it speaks a lot about what the developers think of their audience (low-brow entertainment).
Games are lowbrow entertainment, yes. We all know it. You are shooting shit into little chunks of meat, dressing up like a mighty viking warrior and screaming dragons to death, contemplating the profound consequences of moving markers around a hex grid, flying a starship around and genociding the population of a small planet in every other battle, etc. Or playing make-believe about being a lone survivor wandering a post apocaliptic wasteland and shooting giant moles while changing the lives of those your wandering touches.
This isn't suposed to be high art, and both hotness and beauty make everything better by themselves.
mountain out of molehill
