Just who, i wondered, does scantily glad computer generated women scrreching “Come on Prince - hit me harder” actually appeal to?

The answer of course must be immature young lads and to a lesser extent immature older lads - who think that this sort of thing is actually titillating.

Personally I don’t find computer generated woman a turn on. They just simply aren’t real.

Now I respect the fact (just) that some people do - but surely there is no reason to spoil the atmosphere of a game series just to accomadate these people?

And on the subject of the TV station whose advert Unimaginative Pseudonym posted I was annoyed by that as well.

I actually went to the site and believe me folks humanity can sink very, very low. Just reading some of the comments wanted me to bang my head repeatedley off the keyboard hopefully indenting the words “fuck off” upon my head (sadly I knew this was physically impossible so I didn’t bother).

To all those people that perpertuate this rather annoying phenomenon all I have to say is “get a life and get a girlfriend.”

I’m not saying that games characters, female or male should look plain or even ugly, it’s just the whole getting excited by it all aspect disturbs me.

The fact is strong female characters can be done, all you have to do is look at characters like Nico in the Broken Sword games. Smart and yes I suppose she is made out to be good looking but that is not what she is about.

Game developers should just stop being so lazy and only appealing to the lowest common denominator and start making a real effort in their characters both female and male.

No one likes to look at a minger

Seriously, we may be getting pissy that women in games mostly look like they have an alternative career in porn but we’d be even more upset if we were confronted with some horse-faced genetic disaster. For example, Tomb Raider won’t have been anywhere near as popular if Lara Croft looked like this.

OK, so that’s got that point of fact out of the way. But here’s another - you don’t tend to find that many ugly men in games either. Seriously, most blokes in games are either portrayed as Arnie or Bond wannabees. It’s a rare day that you’ll find some spotty kid or someone who looks like they spend most of their day propping up the bar of their local, eating pork scratchings and breaking wind. It just doesn’t happen since it doesn’t appeal to our sense of what heroic looks like.

Let’s face facts here. Games are typically action-oriented so that pretty much rules out characters that don’t look action-oriented. Movies can have unattractive actors/actresses since they often attempt to show more realistic drama (go with me on this one) than games do. It’s just a fact that our ideas of heroic don’t involve some rough old bird…

All the above said, I do think that shameless titilation is not really acceptable. Heroic may well show a woman to be attractive (hey, she needs to be fit to do all the running, right?) but I’m sure there is no need to show her in adverts whipping her pants off or something. That neither adds to the character (quite the opposite) and probably does alienate gaming. Looking good is fine, but soft-core porn is ridiculous and unnecessary unless it the only way that you can get people to play your game.

However, the same often happens to male characters. In WoW, especially the Night Elf and Human females are designed to be attractive. But if you look at the male characters, they are also ridiculously muscular. The only people with normal bodyshape seem to be the gnomes.

Its how it works in movies. Unless someone’s bodyshape has special significance, they will always be made pretty. Simply because people prefer looking at pretty women.

I do agree however, that the industry should stop with the crazy, straight-out-of-porn costumes they have for some female characters (this is also the case for some WoW items: a metal bikini is NOT realistic armor).

And you cannot discount the teenage market. Im 17, and ive been playing games since I was about 10 and spending seriosu money on them. Now I have never bought a game just because it has a scantily clad woman on it, but it has made me pay more attention to that game and thus increasing my chances of getting said game. People say dont judge a book by its cover but that is exactly what a lot of people do. People say one of the reasons ICO didnt sell was because it had a rubbish box art. Maybe its chances would have improved if Yorda had been a well-endowed 18 year old girl. It would take a lot away from the game, but it may have sold better.

The gaming industry also hasn’t completely gotten away from the idea that all gamers are nerds, thus can’t get a decent woman in real life and thus like getting games where they can fantasize about the character. Until we can shake that image off, women are going to always be like that in games.