Jan 29
What is it with the Naked Chicks?
SOE welcomes the POX Nora crew to the family … with a naked chick.
What is it with half-dressed women representing MMOs? Are guys just not representative of MMO players? That doesn’t seem to really jive with what I know about the online gaming scene … maybe it’s just the group I run with, though.
12 comments12 Comments so far
Guys are just the stereotypical MMO customers, and it has long been said that we can see better than we can think.
A simple marketing gimmick to cater to what is thought of as a simple market: men. The guys who play these games will never see real naked women…so here you go, boys (is the probable thought process).
(…and besides, pointed ears are HOT!)
I entirely agree.. What’s the deal about it!? Why can’t they just make women look more “normal” or at least give players the choice when customizing the appearance.
The sad part is that people actually give good looking avatars more attention (nick yee “maps of digital desires”).
[...] What is it with the naked chicks? @ MMOG Nation [...]
I like boobies.
Jason (resident drunken idiot of Channel Massive)
Hey sex sells, and people in marketing departments tend to have low opinions of their customers, not to mention a false believe that over 90% of gamers is adolescent male.
SOE used to be way more subtle about it. In 2006 and/or 2007 they had this nice banner for their SOE Fan Faire with 3 or 4 males and females in there. One for each game represented on the faire.
Pretty egalitarian (sp?), except that somehow all the men were in subdued colour-schemes and the females in bright vibrant ones. Even though you saw one of each gender per game, what you remembered of it was all boobiliciousness.
It was quite piece of craft that banner. A shame it’s not around anymore. This one is blatant and amateuristic by comparison.
As Twanni, said, sex sells, and scantily clad babes have been adorning the covers of pulp fiction (including fantasy and, now, MMOs) for decades.
My main complaint is that it’s all very well for you men, but when do I get to see male eye candy on the cover of something? I demand himbos! Better yet, just stick Johnny Depp all over everything, I’d buy that fer sure! :D
That’s what decades of feminism has gotten us.
Used to be cover art consisted of a strapping young (Conan-esque)lad defeating some dragon/demon other thing starting with a D and rescuing a damsel in distress.
Then we took umbrage with the repressed sex symbol status of the damsel and now cover art consists mainly of just the damsel who’s now a (buffy/Lara-esque)sexy and empowered young lass for men to drool over.
A real victory for feminism that was.
I second the “Depp argument” btw.
As a happily married male, father of two children, this sort of advertising (and character design) is a huge indicator for me to *avoid* the game. It usually neans the devs aren’t confident enough in their gameplay to carry sales and retention.
Although I like fantasy artwork of scantly clad women, I have to agree with Tesh. The worse your game, the more scantly clad your female cover art needs to be. Same goes with movies.
…er it’s my fault. I commissioned the banner. The Pox Nora character is the ‘Pox Harbinger’ which was a bit of a reward rune at the games launch that I got. It’s pretty rare and highly sought out. So I figured the Pox players would get a kick out of seeing the harbinger mixed in with the other women of SOE games.
There was no deliberate attempt to pander or anything, it just seemed like a neat idea. ;)
To Michael- so uhh, what would you rather see, portly gamer dudes? i’ll take scantily clad female characters, thx.