Fanservice? or Art?

This thread is not an opinion or request thread, and I made this because of the rise of nudity and sex in video games today.

Post about what sex or nudity (male and/or female) things you have seen in modern video games ever since the PS 2/Xbox/Gamecube era. It can be a nice artisitic technique or it can defy the bounderies of Fanservice.

Have fun!

Note: The first couple of posts are out of order due to this thread having Early-Installment Weirdness.

edited 24th Sep '13 10:14:03 PM by Hitman

Yes.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. And, more to the point, it depends on how it's used

Are preteens even allowed on the site?

And, technically speaking, 13+ is how old you need to be to use this site. There is no need to qualify that here at all, because it is generally assumed, especially since the majority of the userbase ranges from late teens to late 20s (with a noticeable number of outliers on either end, but not enough to tip the scales either way).

Now, as for something actually related to the topic...I dunno about you guys, but I think that the makers of that game Lollipop Chainsaw were going for something *gasp* slightly provocative!

I can definitely think of examples of uneroticized nudity in gaming, but nothing that ewould be considered to be tasteful.

It can be done either way. Something like Lollipop Chainsaw would definitely be fanservice, while the one scene in Gun is arguably art.

You don't see the sex, what you see is Jenny soaking in the tub afterwards, with Colt getting dressed and talking to her. In a world where shows like Deadwood exist, that's classy compared to what we could have gotten. Especially since none of Jenny's body is shown beneath the top of her chest. I don't even recall there being cleavage.

The opening sentence confuses me because the rest of the post is worded like a request rather than a comment or an opinion.

Why not just make this a request thread?

I think he meant "If I can't post this then . . . " his post would devolve into swearing about not being able to post this.

Shoot me if I'm wrong.

If it's meant to be a request thread, why this subject? Especially on this site, where we have a catalog of tropes one could easily peruse and get examples from.

@Lollipop Chainsaw example: That's pretty typical of Suda51, cheeky fanservice, random references, and general weird moments. No More Heroes and Killer is Dead are other examples.

Bayonetta is also highly sexual, but it's mostly a parody of super-sensualized Action Girls and I think it's meant to be a case of Crosses the Line Twice.

Ultimately though, it really depends on a number of factors whether or not it's "art".

edited 23rd Sep '13 2:32:36 AM by Customer

He asked to post and describe examples and even gave a guideline of sorts. I know he started and ended his post with a request for civil discussion but he could have had his own opinion or standpoint somewhere in those middle few sentences as well - which would still have netted him a whole lot of posts with examples.

edited 23rd Sep '13 3:57:36 AM by Recon5

I'd say it's fanservice if it adds nothing to the plot, or goes farther than it needs to. It's art if it contributes to the game as a whole.

I don't think it's ever relevant if Juliet the cheerleader's looking hot. The scene in Gun shows Colt getting closer to someone and adds to the atmosphere of the game.

Plus it adds some strings for the game to pull on us later.

I've yet to play any games where nudity isn't sexualized, though I'm sure there are. It kind of irks me how juvenile a lot of games' approach to sex is. I mean, God Of War 's scenes made me want to bang my head against a wall.

Not true. It can easily be Fan Disservice. The full frontal male nudity in Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City springs to mind.

To be fair to God of War, that's kind of true to the source material. A lot of the sex in Greek mythology pretty much comes down to a god going "Wanna bang? No? Too bad!"

edited 23rd Sep '13 5:34:58 AM by BadWolf21

There's nudity in some of the Breath of Fire series, from both men and women. However, since it's a primarily a 2D series, nothing extreme is shown. The characters that are nude tend to be ancient (i.e. Deis in III) or a dragon/other creature in human form (the protagonist, Ryu, in IV) and the nudity is usually the result of the characters being forced awake/freed by someone/etc.

Generally, someone will encounter the nude person, act flustered for about a dialogue box or two (Ryu to Deis in III, Nina to Ryu in IV) and the scene will usually change to one where the nude character is dressed and the dialogue will proceed normally. It never really feels like pandering fanservice, partially because the sprites lack detail anyway, but also because the only gag used is a case of Please Put Some Clothes On.

Notably, the final boss in III is a goddess who transforms into a giant snake woman whose human portion is nude and covered with Godiva Hair (probably because she's larger than the usual sprites and more detailed as a result). However, any chance of titillation is mired by the fact that her normal attack consists of her stomach bursting open and hitting you with entrails (or something) and her signature move has her face (starting with her eyes bleeding) and body graphically (for the time) melt off and fire giant beams of light at you from the hole where her skin was.

edited 23rd Sep '13 5:59:03 AM by Customer

There those two naked guys in Outlast which want to kill and eat you. Pretty sure nobody would consider that Fanservice.

edited 23rd Sep '13 6:04:09 AM by Besserwisser

Doesn't excuse the dozen women piling themselves on top of Kratos and wanting to pay him, the numerous lesbian threesomes, the oh-so-subtle squirting candle, or the handmaidens starting to touch each other because you I mean Kratos is just too damn manly. Seriously, were those scenes written by fourteen-year-olds?

edited 23rd Sep '13 6:03:04 AM by Ninety

Hah. In at least the US and Australia - and likely the UK & Canada as well - they're barely allowed on the internet at all, legally speaking. TV Tropes doesn't specifically stop preteens from joining, but places like Google do have those kinds of blocks.

Ninety: I didn't say it was completely defensible. Just kind of accurate to the source material.

Also, that last one probably had more to do with Aphrodite than anything. She's usually tied to the concept of lesbian love.

On Lollipop Chainsaw: I am not a woman. Like most males, I'm forced to work with a largely hypothetical view of sexism. I understand it exists. I think I have a pretty solid grasp of how it works. But I've never really been on the receiving end of it and don't fully understand what is and is not offensive to women. I have to make due with the best assumptions I can make. Sometimes, I wind up being completely wrong.

Lollipop Chainsaw immediately jumped out at me as completely sexist. My best friend, who is a woman, played it and her opinion of it is, "BEST. GAME. EVER." I've watched her play through it about a dozen times, and I think I'm starting to get it. She's explained it to me as a brilliant parody of sexism in video games. The core concept is an attractive girl having to deal with legions of mindless assholes drooling over her body. Everyone's a horny asshole. The zombies are pervs, her mentor's a perv, the people she helps toss in parting comments like, "Can I touch your body?" and the like. She is reminded every second of every day that she is a HOT SEXY WOMAN-SHAPED OBJECT and nothing more than that, and she lashes out against it.

There's also an interesting point to be made about the use of a male character as The Chick whose sole purpose to the plot is to be the protagonist's love interest; he's completely and utterly useless, thoroughly helpless, and the only reason he's there is because the protagonist LOVES HIM SO MUCH and reminds him of this constantly. This is heavily Deconstructed in the story, and serves as a thorough Deconstruction of the standard "female character who's just there to have sex with The Hero' role.

EDIT: Back on the topic of sex and nudity in games, the core distinction between whether it's art or fanservice is whether the nudity fulfills a purpose in the narrative. If you can replace this scene with five minutes of rubbing the audience's face with boobs and nothing is any different, then it's fanservice. Does it establish or help flesh out the characters? Does it provide anything to the story?

edited 23rd Sep '13 8:41:06 AM by TobiasDrake

Here's the thing about fanservice: it's exploitive. Fanservice takes effort to titillate, and to captivate through creating need. When you see Catwoman bend over and move on all fours, it creates that yearning. There's a false idea that sexualization satisfies sexual desires, but this is incorrect. That is like saying gasoline extinguishes a fire. The problem is that fiction douses the fire of lust in gasoline and then runs away yelling "Good luck with that!"

What I advocate are works which do more than exploit its audience's sexual desires or frustrations. Sex and sexuality are vital parts of a person's holistic health, and in my opinion, there's a reason that we live in such a sexually frustrated period that we're surrounded by this whole "Battle of the Sexes" crap, oppression of alternative sexual orientation, and an entire movement of people who are so fed up with the bullshit courting game that they go asexual chaste not out of choice, but bitterness and weltschmerz.

In my opinion, there is—and should be—a way for fiction to not only intensify lust, but provide a path toward sexual exploration and self-satisfaction.

That doesn't explain the Fanservice Pack fetish DLC, though.

edited 23rd Sep '13 9:45:26 AM by KingZeal

Asexuality is a choice now? I thought it was an inclination.

Anyway, regarding to portrayal of sex in games, I'm reminded of Xenogears which had a number of "man and woman lying in bed naked" pillowtalk scenes, which weren't exactly titillating. Just sort of a matter-of-fact way of establishing the relationship while they talk about plot. So... neither art or fanservice. Just sex and nudity.

I do want to bring up something. Specifically, a collection of words.

"But it's accurate to X".

On their own, these words are not a problem. Kratos has legions of naked women throwing themselves at him, BUT it's accurate to the tales he's based on. All of L.A. Noire's naked murder victims are women, BUT it's accurate to the type of killer they're chasing.

Where it becomes an issue of sexism is when this accuracy is only applied to women. You never hear this:

There's a flashback in which Kratos has sex with one of his young squire in his army, BUT it's accurate to the period he comes from. There's a vivid anal-rape scene during the prison segment of the new GTA, BUT it's accurate to the kind of ordeals someone goes through in that kind of prison.

Accuracy is a popular excuse, and it's a good one, because it's accurate, but that gets right back into the point about, what purpose does this actually serve? In Heavy Rain, there's an extended shower scene with the female protagonist, but there is also an extended shower scene with one of the male protagonists, and both shower scenes are equally showy. That's fanservice, but it's fair. In L.A. Noire, the murder victims are a spectacular example of Fan Disservice, as there is nothing titillating about the bodies at all, and you're forced to examine them at length.

I guess my point is, people need to not use accuracy as an excuse when that accuracy only applies to women. If you're really just putting this scene in there for the titillation, fine. But if you're going to go that road, at least be honest about it, and be fair with it.

edited 23rd Sep '13 9:01:14 AM by TobiasDrake

Touché. I should have said chaste, not asexual.

And this thread has gone the direction I expected it to go.

And what direction is that?