[Wilshire]

Who is Saaj?

[Royce]

Who is Saaj?

I would guess Sci, but I might be wrong. If you vocalize the two names, they are kind of similar

[sciborg2]

Saajan is my real first name.

On topic, and following another of Meyna's excellent posts, I think one of the big issues facing companies for niche products like TTRPGs is the fact that you're competing with many companies for a limited number of people.

So the goal seems to be to grab the people buying from the competition more so than trying to attract new players, which explains the greater reluctance to shift art styles. I know one of the lead guys at Paizo noted that sexy covers sell. And IIRC, it doesn't matter if the cover is of a succubus in her knickers or some hot beefcake stud.

You [have] the tried and true method that works, and then you have the hope that shifts in art will bring in new gamers. Articles like the one in the OP won't be convincing because they don't address the difficulty in getting people to game in the first place, let alone buy the products.

Even a game like Numenera, which tries to be better about depiction of females - is the success really the art, the inclusion of LGBT, or is it the system and the fact Monte Cook's name is attached. OTOH, White Wolf had a product line that had a better reputation when it came to drawing in LGBT and women and they contracted into an e-publishing/print-on-demand-company. So the data doesn't seem to be encouraging so far.

Thus I suspect the reluctance to completely eliminate the sexy women is largely due to the uncertainty involved. Giving up the sexy may cost you more consumers than you gain.

[Madness]

Thanks for the summaries Madness.

It's just what I read, one interpretation of many. I thought it might bring some clarity to the conversation?

Mike

history & cosplay - the appeal towards sexual attraction is a reflection of (history) and embodied by (cosplay) a percentage of females (Callan)

The history part - I never said that.

Well, we have a long history of people fighting bare skinned in our own RL history, right down to 'skyclad'

Yes, agreed on all counts. My issue is that our culture results in those conclusions to begin with.

Can you clarify? Culture is mutable.

I always hesitate to declare a thesis stating that society is wrong and should change, because the process of amending a culture is a lesson in futility (or luck). Unless I'm a Dunyain, there is no telling whether my micro-effort will affect macro-change in a way that I intended, or have the opposite effect (or not change anything at all, which is the likely statistical outcome).

Aside - No. Please.

I refuse to countenance such thoughts. Inaction is still affecting macro-change in ways other than you intended and are, probably, already detrimental. We act as a collective individually and so individually we're all already part of the human, and universal, weave. Be daring. The world started a cracked omelette - all that good people do by stepping back from the game is allow others all the play time.

Thus I suspect the reluctance to completely eliminate the sexy women is largely due to the uncertainty involved. Giving up the sexy may cost you more consumers than you gain.

This, I think, reflects Morpheus' Matrix/Agent metaphor. Any system that exists entirely dependent on those entities that constitute it, even if they don't explicitly support the system, will fight against that which threatens the whole.

I've had... countless conversations with people about representation in advertising - change is far more threatening to people than the idea that we might be forcing little girls and little boys to simply accept these mechanized gender roles, thus perpetuating its cycle.

Gall... this makes me think about Christmas all over again.

[sciborg2]

This, I think, reflects Morpheus' Matrix/Agent metaphor. Any system that exists entirely dependent on those entities that constitute it, even if they don't explicitly support the system, will fight against that which threatens the whole.

I've had... countless conversations with people about representation in advertising - change is far more threatening to people than the idea that we might be forcing little girls and little boys to simply accept these mechanized gender roles, thus perpetuating its cycle.

Gall... this makes me think about Christmas all over again.

I think part of it is that people think the "art" of advertising plays to the "reality" of human nature.

But in terms of the practical, the rise of indie gaming in both table top and electronic mediums has been a boon to increasing the variety of representation. In addition to Monte Cook Games, there's Pelgrane Press which is actively working to get women involved with their table top products.

I don't know if Pelgrane has addressed depiction in the illustrations, but they've looked at other aspects.

[sciborg2]

Self-objectification by embodying sexualized virtual selves (Fox et al., 2013):

http://vgresearcher.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/self-objectification-by-embodying-sexualized-virtual-selves-fox-et-al-2013/

    The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead to shifts in self-perception both online and offline based on the avatar’s features or behaviors....

    Findings supported the Proteus effect. Participants who wore sexualized avatars internalized the avatar’s appearance and self-objectified, reporting more body-related thoughts than those wearing nonsexualized avatars. Participants who saw their own faces, particularly on sexualized avatars, expressed more rape myth acceptance than those in other conditions. Implications for both online and offline consequences of using sexualized avatars are discussed.

Prior studies on the representation of female characters generally found that they are sexually objectified. When people play these sexualized female characters, the results are discouraging as two experiments found that women felt less self-efficacious (see Behm-Morawitz & Mastro, 2009) and men reported a greater likelihood of sexually harassing women (see Yao et al., 2010). When encountering stereotyped female characters, men and women reported greater levels of sexism and rape myth acceptance (see Fox & Bailenson, 2009).

The authors do note people merely observe the actions of these sexualized female characters from an outside perspective. They examined how the embodiment of sexualized female avatars affect people, that is taking the first-person perspective of an avatar, controlling the body through your own body, and seeing it via a mirror. What would we expect from embodying a sexy female avatar?