body-types
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Riot Games promises to increase diversity in League of Legends
League of Legends features a lot of diversity among its male champions, but the female champions all feature a fairly uniform body type. That's something the developers at Riot Games are keen on changing. In response to a fan question at SDCC, producer Omar Kendall said that the company has been introducing new ways of looking at body types and shapes, with the end goal of making female champions who don't look like the others. Kendall went on to specify that the call for more diversity is one that players should see represented soon in a new character coming out. He also noted that diversity is being strongly considered with further character designs and any new champions. Game designer Brian Feeney noted that it would be a net boon to the game as a whole -- as Riot is very concerned with distinctive silhouettes, a more robust selection of body types makes it easier to tell champions apart.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's great big sexist elephant in the room
There's a subtle problem in WildStar that we've all seen lurking around the edges. It's not huge, and it's not glaring, but it's there, and it's pretty obvious. It's the elephant in the room, and much like the traditional elephant, it's something absolutely no one wants to actually point out because it is not fun to point out. But it's pretty obvious as soon as you look at the races that the male Mechari are built like linebackers and the female Mechari are wasp-waisted blowup dolls in a permanent pair of heels. I've been a fan of WildStar since its first teaser trailer, and while I'd hoped for detailed character customization, the beta came without any body sliders or any other options for customizing a character's build. And while the Mechari are easy to cite as problematic (mostly because none of the other women has high heels as part of her feet), this sort of subtle and passive sexism weaves its way into the game on a consistent basis.
Idealizing avatar bodies
There is an impressive and fascinating study on avatar bodies from World of Warcraft over at the Iris Gaming Network. The main thrust of the article is how much the average avatar skews toward traditional tropes of beauty, even (or especially) the non-human races. This addresses a couple of the issues I wrote about in this post -- namely, the lack of a wide range of body shape choices other than heroic.The article mentions the controversy surrounding the introduction of the males of the Blood Elf race, and how Blizzard changed them from their original thin forms to a more muscled shape, and how the community reacted. A great quote from the piece: "From a player's point of view, Blizzard has denied many people the ability to play a character like them, or a character they would like to be. The extreme sexual dimorphism in the races, and the way that Blizzard is quick to "fix" avatars that do not properly fit the ideal, has sent the message to those outside of that body type – not just women, but men as well – that they are not worthy of being represented, that their body types are not good enough for even one avatar in the entire game to represent them."Have a read of the entire article, and post your thoughts.[Via Iris Gaming Network]
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
(Sorry, I couldn't resist the terrible visual pun.) One of the most common criticisms of fantasy games, besides "LOL games are for the nerds go outside", is that they perpetuate unrealistic stereotypes of female bodies. The typical fantasy girl, or so they say, is wearing about two pounds of chainmail, has a 20-inch waist and a DD-cup, and somehow manages to swing a sword that is taller than she is without messing up her hair. But while messing around with the WoW character creation screen, I realized that WoW really doesn't hold up to that stereotype. The human and gnome females are average size (well, as close as a gnome can be) and curvy. Night elves, trolls and draenei are thin but toned, easily able to sling around a Thunderfury. Warcraft dwarves, orcs and trolls would probably be considered overweight by most societal standards, but their bodies are proportional and they're extremely muscular. In fact, the only two really skinny models are the undead and blood elf females, both of which are repeatedly referenced as being unhealthy in the game. The blood elves are thin because of their magic addiction, and the undead are thin because of ... uh, being dead. In comparison, I took a look at the body types of the men. Human, dwarf, night elf, draenei, orc and tauren men are all ridiculously muscular, to the point where it looks like they've stuffed cantaloupes under the skin of their arms. Blood elf males are thin but toned, gnome males look about average (again, for a gnome), and undead and trolls are thin and hunchbacked. It seems that the men of WoW are the ones that suffer from an unrealistic standard of beauty. So I ask you -- would you like the ability for your avatars to have different body types? Do you think that the men and womeny things of WoW are unrealistic, or do you feel that you have enough options?
