Bull Shxt: Not Quite a Thread/ More Like a Post.

[CelestialBlade]

It's sexism. No need to sugar-coat it. And I'm not saying it's all bad, but it's too prevalent of a trope to argue. It IS getting slowly better, at least in the US. Japan sure loves its godawful "sexy" proportions though (and PSO2 is a great example). It's far more of a cultural study than a marketing one, I believe.

[Outrider]

Agreed, but since it was presented as if it was an economic reason, I figured it was worth pointing out that even when viewed from that perspective it doesn't make sense.

There's plenty of room for goofy, sexy romps and sexualized characters, but it's a problem when A.) it's forcing people away from enjoying things and B.) it's everywhere.

[gigawuts]

It's absolutely sexism, and racism, both in what they sell and who they sell it to, but it's also a tried and true business practice.

There are also absolutely better ways to make money, but this is "safe" - by which I mean everyone is doing it, and there's safety in numbers. It's worked before, it works now. At the same time, while it's not necessarily moral, to attack one entity for doing something but not all of the others that are doing the same exact thing is a surefire way to get your position discredited in public eye regardless of its validity, and then that's what people will recall the next time they hear about it in any context at all. That means that anyone who attacks the practice has to attack the entire industry, and that's a fairly large feat.

It's a goddamn quagmire; politics, business, and fear drive its continued existence. Fear is likely the biggest factor though - businesses are afraid of diverting from the "safe" route everyone else is following, but at the same time stagnation is death. Innovation and uniqueness are what drives success, you can see that in any industry looking back down the path it's gone, but when there are a hundred paths in front of you sometimes these companies can't be sure which one is the best so they take none of them.

edit: All that said, it takes just one company to find one of the potential successful paths to take forward, and others will follow behind them (albeit to mixed success, as they attempt to adapt and repurpose it, find a blend between what they had and what this new path is, etc.). Free to play games are an easily related parallel here. Most people here were around during the long standing reign of the pay-to-play model, and now look where we are. Free to play was initially a daring move, despite all of the logic and reasoning that it would work having already been around for quite a while. Now it's a proven model and everyone is using it. The problem is, this also has its flaws, and there's reasoning for different models that nobody's willing to implement on a large enough scale to test its real world viability. Eventually someone will attempt a new model however, and then we'll see what happens.

[Aussei]

Haaaaaaaaah.... I sat on my glasses they broke in half I have no insurance sooooooooo I'm gonna have to choke up lotsa moneys.

[Outrider]

Haaaaaaaaah.... I sat on my glasses they broke in half I have no insurance sooooooooo I'm gonna have to choke up lotsa moneys.

I've heard some good things about Warby Parker, but I don't personally know anybody who's used them.

http://www.warbyparker.com/

[Enforcer MKV]

Haa...two jobs...it's tough, especially when Sam's club expects me to cover the entire parking lot by myself since the guy I usually work with doesn't show and the cart machine is broken, but at least...at least I'm making a decent income. Right? Right?

...Who the hell am I kidding? Money has never been a good motivator to me: it's paper. That's all I can see it as. Paper we use in place of something with actual value. I don't know if I'm naive, or stupid, or whatever, but that's all I can see it as....

*Sigh* and more to the point, when my mom shows concern for how I'm doing, it's normal. But when my dad looks like he wants to show concern...something is up. He never looks like he wants to show concerned. He's one of those.

Messes with my head because the man terrifies me.

[gigawuts]

While money is just paper (or bits, or blabla), it is also your future. Your food, your domicile, your entertainment.

The work you do now is work you don't have to do later. That may be a better motivator. Save now, have later. Of course, at the same time, the point of having money is to be able to spend it, so remember to get nice things on occasion.

[NoiseHERO]

Haa...two jobs...it's tough, especially when Sam's club expects me to cover the entire parking lot by myself since the guy I usually work with doesn't show and the cart machine is broken, but at least...at least I'm making a decent income. Right? Right?

...Who the hell am I kidding? Money has never been a good motivator to me: it's paper. That's all I can see it as. Paper we use in place of something with actual value. I don't know if I'm naive, or stupid, or whatever, but that's all I can see it as....

*Sigh* and more to the point, when my mom shows concern for how I'm doing, it's normal. But when my dad looks like he wants to show concern...something is up. He never looks like he wants to show concerned. He's one of those.

Messes with my head because the man terrifies me.

go sky diving.

that's where my first paychecks went to.

[gigawuts]

There's one remaining assignment in one of my classes.

I could totally get away with just not handing it in and keep an A...if I somehow scrounged 0.25% from some earlier assignments. I'm just shy of it, with an 89.75%. 800 points total in the class, and I'm at 718.

I mean I could do fucking awful on this, I'd probably get the points I need by just writing my name on the paper and scribbling some complete garbage down, but that's not the point.

[Vetur]

That hasn't really been a realistic argument in years, if it ever was one in the first place. Market analysis (at least in terms of the games industry and western comics) has shown that women are just as eager if not more eager to buy this kind of content. Focusing so strongly on imagery that drives away women is effectively cutting out half of their potential audience.

The idea that all or most of the content that's created (whether it's anime, comics, games, etc.) should be catering to what publishers perceive to be their largest active demographic is short-sighted and quite frankly, profoundly stupid. It's one thing to be risk averse; it's another to deliberately avoid courting a massive audience that's eager to participate.

This is very true. I have friends who'd ditch what they are currently doing for fun if there were higher quality MMOs that either were catered for them, or catered for a more unisex audience. Aura Kingdom comes to mind(the genders both being very pretty an anime-styled), except that once it did come out, we realized it was just another boring generic point-click MMO.

This is why so many fans of Otome(reverse harem) and BL(yaoi) are pretty much confined to living a life saying, "I'm okay with just playing boring 2D text games, reading 2D manga, and browsing 2D images on tumblr all day".
Sales on BL are not bad, but I feel like maybe it's because BL fans have nothing else that caters to the hobby. There really is nothing else to buy except manga and 2D visual novels, besides small merchandise... there's not even many good figurines of attractive male characters. Any that I like and have found online, are always sold out(and they say pretty anime boys don't sell...).

Of course, if they simply made the fanservice-heavy games likes PSO2 be more BALANCED, that alone would attract a lot more females and male-lovers. That wouldn't even be something to turn away their current fanbase of female-lovers. It would make it a lot easier for girlfriends of the male players to enjoy the game as well, without feeling like their gender alone is being violated.

I would certainly love to meet more female/gay players in PSO2, then I would not feel so lonely in-game since my current friends all have work when I'm online the most. I can't really stand to hangout with straight male players all the time(not saying ALL are bad).