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Gotta be honest this seems like a very mild culture war angle. The models were already quite androgenous and subdued in their sexual characteristics (certainly there was no option to look like Schwarzenegger or Parton). The one clear CW aspect is the removal of distinct genders... But c'mon. Have you met the Pokemon go community?
The pictures of the new models linked look just look like garden variety incompetence. Yes the waists are wider but there's also just a general reduction in detail and quality. Looks like someone decided to cut corners, maybe chose the cheap 3d modelling house.
I would add that the skin tone "randomized palette" seems like a pretty clear CW angle as well.
I mean--I did characterize it as a "small thing!" But when a (widely known as incompetent) video game company feels comfortable removing distinct genders from what is sometimes characterized as a "kids game," that doesn't seem like a completely empty data point, either.
I'm not seeing it. Can you explain what you mean?
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I prefer to posit that the accidental noticing we are performing is unfortunately more reflective of our biases and sensitivities than a concerted effort being shoved down our face.
The more likely reality is that a series of parallel incompetencies all got baked into a product by vague statements being proposed and implemented poorly, and the proposers being unwilling to look stupid by saying 'shit this was dumb shut it down'. We only see that sort of shutdown when it is high profile, like the Batgirl movie, and there are plenty of examples of these 'project managed by committee' products coming to market with clearly observable yet individually minor deficiencies.
When these organisations play the culture war angle, there is usually zero subtlety because they think consumers are idiots. Dragon Age Inquisition hit us over the head with fan favourite voice actress Jennifer Hale voicing Krem, a transwoman (transman? I couldnt fucking tell) whose dialogue options specifically highlighted her transness. Mass Effect 3 specifically highlights the homosexuality of Cortez and Traynor to scream 'HERE BE GAYS' at every opportunity. I'm sure theres some retardation about racism and species in some games, but the main example, Warcraft, shit the bed on its analogies so badly that its not worth repeating. (ok a brief one: being racist against orcs bad because thrall good. yet the orcs ravaged stormwind, teldrassil, the entire draenei species... as a racism analogy warcraft orcs are pretty fail. this point is weak, if I get loredumped in a followup rest assured I will roll over and immediately surrender because blizzard games are only good for porn and not worth my brain cells defending or attacking).
Finally, the fuggofication of video game characters which is the specific bugbear of this thread is certainly deliberate for a large part - there is no need to make women fat - but I would also argue it is a consequence of improved technology for face rendering. Old tech had blocky faces with clean lines, but the faces tended to be symmetrical and smooth even in uneven lighting since there wasnt enough power to render small details like cheek lines or sellions. Now with dynamic HDR and higher resolution facial textures we can see every stupid wrinkle and line moving. Combine that with facial capture tech honestly still being ass (requires artificial boosting of detected movements to cause the algo to change) and we get clown faced movements that trip straight into the uncanny valley.
No, I think Niantic hired some true believers are consultants and then took their advice.
https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1780987222835232771
I think that things happen because people want them to happen, and people work for them to happen. Not everyone gets their way, but someone does.
Gaymers got their way on this. Gamers, and women, did not.
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