Identity Category: Gender
(Unrealistic vs. Realistic representation of the human body in videogames)
Unrealistic vs. Realistic Portrayal of Videogame Protagonists:
Instead of individually captioning each photo, I feel it is acceptable to comment on the appearances as a whole since they mostly share the same inaccuracies in common. The most notable and conventional unrealistic body interpretation would have to be the unfeasible waistlines and skinny arms and legs. Now I will admit that perhaps some of the “realistic” renditions of the females in the pictures might be a little much, but that being said, I don’t think that videogame designers should shy away from realistic body images in their characters. I mean, they have complete control over said characters’ designs. So why is it they so often opt to make these characters into unrealistically idealized versions of their human counterparts? The consequences that may seem subtle to these designers is the perpetuation of unrealistic, if not naturally impossible body images that gives female gamers the perception that these characters represent how the female body should look. This could then leave these females with questions on why they don’t align with the representation that videogames so often give off. Now I know this doesn’t happen in every case, but some females could find themselves struggling with eating disorders to attempt to obtain these figures. I believe that designers shouldn’t worry about making the characters in their games so unrealistic, and instead think about the ethics behind making these characters in these unrealistic images. That being said, the tech field seems to overlook the ethics behind many things commonly, so perhaps not many changes/reiterations will be made for, probably, a very long time, since this has always been a common theme in gaming dating back to the dawn of popular videogames.
My digital tool of choice for the creation of a character in a videogame would have to be the character creation tool in a game called Fallout 4.
The thing that is so good about this tool, is the fact that you can mold the face of the character into almost anyone you want due to the amount of detail that you can use to create your character. Anywhere from their body type, gender, race, and complete facial structure. This amount of customization has been uncommon for a while but many games now include features like this, since it was such a success. A factor of this character creation that goes slightly unnoticed is the fact that when you are customizing the body type, it is locked in a way that only allows for realistic builds and frames. All of the body types are achievable and allow the user to create their ideal protagonist without giving them impossible standards to live up to. I believe that if more games took this approach when it came to character creation/design, that said games audience wouldn’t have the risk of struggling with the way they look/were created.
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