FFVII Remake's Director: What even is life

[Pixel]

You're welcome.

I think there are paralleles with the direction of the new Tomb Raider games. I don't remember a single complaint about how Lara was treated as a character, because they treated the character as a character, not like they did back in the PS1 era.

Nomura has everything to gain by treating Tifa the way he did in AC. And a lot to lose be reverting to old ways of thinking.

Even when I was writing Tifa's Draw My Life, I was looking for ways to make a reference to her appearance, and I did write something very subtle. But in the end I cut it, because it didnt fit. Not that it cheapened it, but it was just unneeded.

 

[ForceStealer]

The only thing that confuses me is why you think there's a significant risk of this happening in the remake? You said yourself Nomura treated her right in AC. And the review you posted to illustrate your point is from a 15 year-old game that Nomura didn't direct.

 

[Pixel]

Because the remake will reverts to her old costume. And there's more room for stupid stuff. I like her characterisation and motion capture. But with the old costume, It's unclear what they'll do.
And Tomb Raider is an SE property. Thats the paralel.

 

[ForceStealer]

But you said Tomb Raider was done right, right?

 

[Pixel]

... I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective.

I'm talking about my faith in them not fucking it up by pandering, like the way they treated Tomb Raider.

You seem to be viewing it as the exact oposite...

 

[Starling]

I already said it in my previous posts and I'm going to say it again: my problem isn't the presence of large breasted characters, it's the needless emphasizing of it at the expense of giving more depth to the story or character, especially depth of character in relation to others. If it's a game where everyone being scantily clad and sexualized is the whole point then fine, that's the kind of game it is. If it's a game where players are supposed to get invested in the plot, worldbuilding and varied cast of well rounded characters, constantly panning the camera over to breasts and butts is completely unnecessary. From a fanservice standpoint, people with such inclinations don't need gratuitous poses and angles to oggle. They'll do it anyway regardless and you'd just be marginalizing players who are uninterested in that kind of sex appeal or would rather the female characters weren't used that way more often than not. I'm sure similar problems would arise if the issue was reversed and male characters always ran around in speedos with the camera panning to their crotch with jiggle physics and, depending on the particular story, getting less character development than other characters or having most of it centered around their gender or physical features.

Things are getting better but games and such are still mostly aimed at straight white males, making character portrayal remain somewhat uneven and skewed in ways people think will cater to that demographic. I'm not demanding every game ever appeal to every single person simultaneously, but it'd be nice if it weren't so skewed toward a needlessly specific demographic that doesn't represent the entirety of the people who're interested in games and such.

I'd also like to reiterate that fanservice doesn't have to consist of sex appeal and that I gave a number of examples where fanservice would serve a purpose that builds upon everything else. Even with sex appeal, there are ways to include that tastefully and with respect to the variety of players/readers/etc who want to get invested in it.

@Lucielid and SicariusVI: I don't see why that response has to come out even when such issues are being discussed fairly reasonably. This is a FF forum where members often discuss a number of games, books, movies and other interests, so the assumption that someone's complaining about something they won't buy is likely incorrect and if they aren't, chances are they're explaining why they won't. There are better ways to respond than to just write people off like that.

@hian: Fiction reflects reality enough for issues of representation and objectification to matter there too. After all, fiction can and has been used to comment on real world issues.

The thing with media, is that it often tells a story but stuff like time, ressources and budget mean they sometimes have to choose what content to include and what to cut. The content that should be prioritized is what the main focus is supposed to be. If everything expends their ressources on sex appeal even when they're supposed to focus on story and characters, you just end up with a weaker story and less developed characters. Then there's other stuff like ignoring half your actual demographic. To sum it up, I'm aware of games and other media where sexual content is the main goal and that's not my issue. I'm discussing games and media where the main goal is not sexual content, but rather story, character development, etc and why that kind of fanservice is problematic.

 

[Blade]

@Lex: GETTING BACK ON TOPIC... Nomura is just one cog in the machine called development. You need all kinds of gears and cogs working in harmony to get that machine to operate properly.

I've seen Genius-types (example: Daisuke Ishiwatari) who can Direct/Design/Compose but at some point they're all thumbs when it comes to localization and other factors, so even if they're renaissance men, they're not perfect and they can't do everything.

 

[Lulcielid]

Re: FFVIIRemake director

Something I would like to add to this coversation is that I think we´re putting too much weight in the "director" role.
Being a director simply means he has a creative hand over a lot of the development decisions, however, the people that really should be credited with the work of the Remake (and any other game) goes to the long list of artists, designers and programmers that work on things from the battle system to the visual direction and creating assets like monsters and the world itself.

To add to my previous statement, despite Nomura being the director of the KH series, by looking at the credits, you can see that there are roles such as event director, battle director and similars where Nomura is not credited but instead is another person whose in charge. My point is that some of the changes and other things that the remake may suffer could very be well be made by someone else within the dev team.

 

[Lex]

This is starting to feel like classic feminism complain "Hey! Boobs on the screen, riot time!", regarless of said appearence of boobs within the context was or was not for sex appeal.

I find it deplorable that gamer feminist need to ruin a game most of them won't ever end up playing. Like what the hell is there problem, just because they don't like a game for whatever reason doesn't mean they should go ruin it for everyone else.

No more of this please, these blanket statements are damaging for everyone. If you believe women should have equal pay and equal respect, you are a feminist. Do not assume that because a person doesn't want gratuitous sexy shots of Tifa's bouncing tits that they've all of a sudden metamorphosed into Anita Sarkeesian. This line of thinking is shallow, insulting, baseless hive-mind nonsense.






how did my thread get so off topic guys what the fuck

 

[Tashasaurous]

This is starting to feel like classic feminism complain "Hey! Boobs on the screen, riot time!", regarless of said appearence of boobs within the context was or was not for sex appeal.

I find it deplorable that gamer feminist need to ruin a game most of them won't ever end up playing. Like what the hell is there problem, just because they don't like a game for whatever reason doesn't mean they should go ruin it for everyone else.

No more of this please, these blanket statements are damaging for everyone. If you believe women should have equal pay and equal respect, you are a feminist. Do not assume that because a person doesn't want gratuitous sexy shots of Tifa's bouncing tits that they've all of a sudden metamorphosed into Anita Sarkeesian. This line of thinking is shallow, insulting, baseless hive-mind nonsense.

How did my thread get so off topic guys what the fuck

What the hell does Tifa's body have anything to do with this thread? I mean, seriously, I'm with you on this one Lex. I mean, we're talking about FFVIIR and Nomura here, not how Tifa is supposed to look like.

I mean, if people want to talk about that sort of thing, maybe they should make a separate thread rather than talk about it here.

Or does that sound very wrong?(sounding worried here)

 

[Pixel]

I dont necessarily think its off topic. We're talking about directorial choices. It has become bastardised, as it always is with that topic. But it did stem from opinions about the direction.

 

[hian]

Last off-topic stuff from me, and my reply to you starling, and a small comment to lex's last post :

Spoiler: SHAIT

@hian: Fiction reflects reality enough for issues of representation and objectification to matter there too. After all, fiction can and has been used to comment on real world issues.

Again, as I said - I am on a philosophical level completely unconvinced about the function, practicality and indeed logical consistency of "objectification" as it is used in modern feminist theory, and the assertion that representations matters to any meaningful degree in fiction is another thing I dismiss on a philosophical level, so it's this pointless to repeat those points.

If we were talking about objectification as it pertains to, for instance, human trafficking in the real world, I'd be on board immediately, but to give it the simplest and shortest breakdown I can -

When I see people call out objectification of women by proxy of fictional characters, or depictions of women whilst ignoring the particulars of the situations as it pertains to the women being depicted (such as is often the case with criticism of porn), I thing that it's rather cases of those people, in the first former, subjectifying an object (a kind of anthropomorphism you might say) I.E conflating the fiction with reality and then being bothered by those who don't do the same, and in the case of the latter committing the fallacy of confusing the map for the territory (look up Alfred Korzybski if you really want to challenge some of the base assumptions of many of the arguments used in feminist literary criticism - the tradition where most of the modern feminist talking points on art and media are derived from)

The thing with media, is that it often tells a story but stuff like time, ressources and budget mean they sometimes have to choose what content to include and what to cut. The content that should be prioritized is what the main focus is supposed to be.

Of course. But, I see you've still refrained from addressing the point I've already made covering this - namely that as much as you might think or feel you know what the "main focus is supposed to be", you might very well be wrong about that - unless you've confirmed it with the creators, or as I said, you presuppose some sort of universal standard for what all art and media "is supposed to be about", which I would reject in either case.

If everything expends their ressources on sex appeal even when they're supposed to focus on story and characters, you just end up with a weaker story and less developed characters.

That would be the case with limited resources, but again, we can't just presuppose that the resources are limited to that point whenever you come across a game which has what you think is unnecessary sexuality.
I would argue that you could just as well make the assumption that a lot of fan-service is pretty resource friendly and as added as a bonus for those who care for that specific reason.

It could just as well be fluff on top of everything else as it could be replacement for something else, and I would argue that many people who're likely to feel that it is a replacement rather than an addition feel so, not because it's actually, and tangibly replacing anything - but rather because of the emotional disgust they feel by it, which results in their attention being diverted from the rest of the content.

I see this all the time in discussions about Tifa in the original FFVII.
People who'd dismiss 10s upon 10s of hours of solid characterization of Tifa, and relatively low-key sexuality, based on a scene in one or two FMVs.

Then there's other stuff like ignoring half your actual demographic.

Firstly - there is nothing wrong with "ignoring a demographic".
Nobody arrests metal-heads for not making their music more approachable to Jazz enthusiasts.
Art by necessity is self-expression, and self-expression will always entail the expression of preference which will be necessarily alienating to people who don't share that preference, or hold a mutually exclusive preference -
and yes, this will in cases lead to gender disparity in fan-bases of certain products, because there is such a thing as gendered preference gaps - the most obvious one, and also the most relevant one to this discussion being preference in depiction of sex.

Seeing as how most people are heterosexuals, it follows naturally that most men interested in seeing depictions of sex will gravitate towards media that features focus on the female form, whilst the opposite will be true for heterosexual women.

If I create a game, or movie or book that expresses my sexuality it will naturally be, to a degree, off-putting to a lot of women, because my sexuality does not reflect theirs on average, and might even make them uncomfortable, much the same way that romantic novels aimed at women make me uncomfortable.

Secondly, are you actually ignoring half your demographic though?
Have you actually seen what gaming demographics look like when they're broken down both by gender, and genre for instance?

I would suggest to you that the largest reason there would be a gender gap in Call of Duty if they included gratuitous and needless sexual pandering, would still probably be because it's a game about shooting each other in face, not because of that addition.
That's because, regardless of whether this difference is social, or biological (or something in between), women don't seem to half as interested in shooting each-other in the face as men are.

But, hey, if I want to make a game about shooting people in the face - then that should be fine. And if the result of that is that I'll have a relatively small female audience that's fine too, because in terms of artistic endeavors, my right to make what I want trumps your right to have me make what you want 100 out of 100 times.
Art is not a service or a human right. It's a luxury and a privilege.

To sum it up, I'm aware of games and other media where sexual content is the main goal and that's not my issue. I'm discussing games and media where the main goal is not sexual content, but rather story, character development, etc and why that kind of fanservice is problematic.

And I get that - but I don't think you or anyone else get's to say what is the purpose of other people's art, and I think art has room for a multitude of different purposes at the same time, and I think that to
spend time indulging a negative response to a relatively minor point about a game, if you happen to enjoy the vast majority of its content, is unproductive.

What a game might lose through casual use of sex from your perspective , in terms quality story-telling, it might gain back in terms of visceral entertainment for someone else.
So you'll enjoy the story a little less, but someone else will enjoy the overall experience a lot more.

FFVII, as I've said several times over, was a campy and weird game with a really messy story overall.
However, what it lost in terms of story-telling quality due to its whimsical presentation, was to my mind, incomparable to what it gained from its art design that lead to that whimsicalness to begin with.
The primary reason I began playing the game was for its art (visual and audio) design.
Not the game-play (although I enjoyed that too), not the story (which I also enjoyed), but the art direction.
That's what sold me on FFVII, and made it my favorite game ever.
Some people might argue the other way around.
My point is simply this - different strokes for different folks. I'm just happy FFVII happened to be right up my alley. If it weren't though, I wouldn't bemoan the fact that it didn't factor people like me into its designs.

That's the creators right, and as far as I'm concerned, there's no moral dimension or concern to that right what so ever, as long as art is an enterprise that anyone and everyone can engage in.

If you believe women should have equal pay and equal respect, you are a feminist.

I believe both of those things. I've also been engaged in activism for sex-worker's rights, abortion rights, and I am a staunch anti-traditionalist who thinks women and men should be entirely free to define their own identities as they please, ideas of masculinity and femininity be damned.
However, I don't take the label of feminist though, and I don't appreciate it when people try to define me into a socio-political movement using a label that would put me under the same roof as many people I have polar opposite views to.
Just saying.

Getting back to the topic though -
And responding to the general sentiments about Nomura and Kitase from the beginning of the thread :

Whilst Nojima is the writer, people seriously need to be more mindful of the distinction between game-writing and ordinary writing because they are very seldom the same.
The writer in the case of FF, is not necessarily, and very often not, the person who makes the scenario for the game.
You can find several games where the scenario writer and the writer is different.
Often the writer in a video-game, unless specifically stated to also be the scenario writer, will be writing on directives, fleshing out scenes and plot-lines established by the producer, the director, the creative director, and the scenario writer (when that person is not the same as the writer).

As far as I know, many of the characters that Nomura has designed, are not just visually designed by him, but also had their persona designed by him as well, which would imply that the writer only expands on what Nomura handed him or her in certain instances.

Going by Nojima's solo work, I would say that he certainly isn't the mind behind FFVII story (unless he was a fantastic one trick pony) and while he certainly had major input on it, and write all the dialogue for it and the spin-offs as well, I would not consider him a good choice for director, as I do not think he has the skill-set, experience, or talent to work as a director. He is a writer for a reason.

Now as for Kitase and Nomura - I think the way they are set-up now is pretty good.
One, because Kitase was the director of the original, which means that a large part of the structure of that game's narrative and presentation was overseen and approved by him through the corporate ladder, meaning that ultimately, a lot of what we liked about the original, is there because he wanted it to be there.
That to me says that he is capable of good sense and good work.

Nomura on the other hand, while solid designer, I have much more concern about given his work on KH.
That's why I think it's perfect that he is technically second in command, rather than first.
That being said - Nomura showed a lot of promise with FFXIII-Versus, and laid the foundation conceptually for almost everything we now see in FFXV (the open world, the seamless combat, the vehicles etc.) and so I think it's pretty safe to say that Nomura's mind is set on game-play spectacle as well as visual spectacle, which can be a boon to the remake.

Although, I'd prefer Sakaguchi to be back in the captain's seat to keep both of them in check, and insert a dose of "FF Classicism" back into the franchise, I think among everyone working at SE these are probably the best qualified to do the remake.
That's not to say they'll make the best remake from my own personal perspective, but the end result will probably be solid in its own right, even if it won't be my cup of tea.

Personally, granted Cloud's design in Smash Brothers and how they kept everything from the summons, the magic animations, and the limit breaks completely true to the original, I still think I'd like to see an entirely new Nintendo team do the remake rather than SE, because as far as I can see - they seem to have a much clearer vision of what an HD remake of FFVII should look like if it was to capture the essence of the art design of the original.

But that's just me.

I'm not really worried anymore, because I've already resigned myself to the fact that this won't be the remake I wanted. It will be something entirely different, and so I'll just have to look at it as I would any other new game.
That's a bit sad in its own way, but it might surprise me, so I'm not going to be too negative about it.

 

[Lulcielid]

Personally, granted Cloud's design in Smash Brothers and how they kept everything from the summons, the magic animations, and the limit breaks completely true to the original, I still think I'd like to see an entirely new Nintendo team do the remake rather than SE, because as far as I can see - they seem to have a much clearer vision of what an HD remake of FFVII should look like if it was to capture the essence of the art design of the original.

(I will try to reply as constructive as possible)

The description you´re giving about "capturing the essence" to my eyes seens very superficial. To give an example, is like saying Maqui, Lebreau and Gadot are Nomura characters because they "look like" one despite them being designed by Nao Ikeda.

Another examples I can think of, do 21st century blockbuster movies have the essence of 70´s 80´s blockbuster movies just because they use practical effects over CG?
Does Adam West Batman show not capture "the essence" of Batman, just for being "silly & campy"? Does any post 80´s interpretation of Batman truly capture "the essence" of Batman just for beind grity & having a conflicted character with a no kill code (despite the original Batman actually never having said code)?

what you mentioned about how Nintendo presented Cloud in SMB comes as fanservice to me.

 

[hian]

(I will try to reply as constructive as possible)

The description you´re giving about "capturing the essence" to my eyes seens very superficial. To give an example, is like saying Maqui, Lebreau and Gadot are Nomura characters because they "look like" one despite them being designed by Nao Ikeda.

Really now?
If you'd just completed that sentence you now just quoted a segment of, out of context no less, you'd get this :

"they seem to have a much clearer vision of what an HD remake of FFVII should look like if it was to capture the essence of the art design of the original."

How can visual art design be anything but superficial? I'm talking specifically about aesthetics here - literally what something looks like.

You really want to make the argument that there is a meaningful way to speak of visual design as having an essence wholly apart from what it looks like?

what you mentioned about how Nintendo presented Cloud in SMB comes as fanservice to me.

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean. Also, what exactly is the purpose of a remake if not, at least in part, fan-service?
I haven't been waiting close to two decades for a remake because I want to play an entirely new game, that looks nothing and plays nothing like the original =S

 

[Obsidian Fire]

The primary reason I began playing the game was for its art (visual and audio) design.
Not the game-play (although I enjoyed that too), not the story (which I also enjoyed), but the art direction

I can name so many games where this is the case (art and soundtrack). Bastion, Borderlands (all of them), Brutal Legend, Crypt of the NeroDancer, Duet, The Swapper, Team Fortress 2, This War of Mine, Transistor...

As someone who's in the graphic design business, art is a huge part of why I play games. Unlike most art forms, video games move around so you can do a lot with games that you can't with other art forms.

I sometimes find it disappointing the art of video games isn't take as seriously as the game play or story is as visuals are one of the main ways people interact with them.

 

[Tashasaurous]

what you mentioned about how Nintendo presented Cloud in SMB comes as fanservice to me.

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean. Also, what exactly is the purpose of a remake if not, at least in part, fan-service?
I haven't been waiting close to two decades for a remake because I want to play an entirely new game, that looks nothing and plays nothing like the original =S

I think it's something to do that some random FFVII Cloud fans wanted Cloud to be in Super SMB for years and none of us knew about this until last year, if that's what Lulcielid meant. I'm not sure.

I mean, heck, KH Sora fans want Sora to be in SMB but were kept being turned down, so, maybe Cloud was the next best thing?

Originally, Dissidia Final Fantasy was supposed to be a Kingdom Hearts spin-off but personally, I think Nomura had the right idea to change it to another Final Fantasy spin-off instead, because it would be a bad idea to use Disney Characters(well, except Mickey against Pete, Aladdin against Jafar, and Captain Jack Sparrow against either Barbossa or Davy Jones) to fight against each other.

But yeah, we can't always get what we want, which is the reality of it that's been around since like, heck, thousands of years ago. Loooong before our time.

 

[hian]

Then his post makes even less sense. I don't even play Smash. I was simply talking to the fact that I prefer that HD version of Cloud to the actual Remake one, and that it represents the visual style I personally hoped they would have gone for all those years ago, rather than the visual trend established by AC(moving more and more towards realism in the character models).

 

[Tashasaurous]

Then his post makes even less sense. I don't even play Smash. I was simply talking to the fact that I prefer that HD version of Cloud to the actual Remake one, and that it represents the visual style I personally hoped they would have gone for all those years ago, rather than the visual trend established by AC(moving more and more towards realism in the character models).

I used to play Smash with my sister before she got married, but not anymore.

Right, I think I'm seeing what you're talking about. Personally, I prefer the AC version of Cloud and I'm actually kind of growing on the Dissidia Final Fantasy 2015 version of Cloud too.

Then again, it's Square's that screwing up with the character designs and there's nothing we can do about that, unfortunately.

Plus, I think pretty much every animation (games and movies) these days are getting far too close to realism.

 

[Tennyo]

So do I, hian! The first time I saw SB Cloud I thought that I kind of wished that's what the remake could look like.

 

[Blade]

how did my thread get so off topic guys what the fuck

I mean, if people want to talk about that sort of thing, maybe they should make a separate thread rather than talk about it here.

This is already an off-shoot thread... I think we're done here. *drops the mic and walks away*

 

[Starling]

Again, as I said - I am on a philosophical level completely unconvinced about the function, practicality and indeed logical consistency of "objectification" as it is used in modern feminist theory, and the assertion that representations matters to any meaningful degree in fiction is another thing I dismiss on a philosophical level, so it's this pointless to repeat those points.

If we were talking about objectification as it pertains to, for instance, human trafficking in the real world, I'd be on board immediately, but to give it the simplest and shortest breakdown I can -

When I see people call out objectification of women by proxy of fictional characters, or depictions of women whilst ignoring the particulars of the situations as it pertains to the women being depicted (such as is often the case with criticism of porn), I thing that it's rather cases of those people, in the first former, subjectifying an object (a kind of anthropomorphism you might say) I.E conflating the fiction with reality and then being bothered by those who don't do the same, and in the case of the latter committing the fallacy of confusing the map for the territory (look up Alfred Korzybski if you really want to challenge some of the base assumptions of many of the arguments used in feminist literary criticism - the tradition where most of the modern feminist talking points on art and media are derived from)

Objectification was only one of the things I mentioned. As a whole, representation in media matters whether it's fictional, based on reality, animated or live action. This remains true whether it's about individuals of a particular gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and so on. Having media of any kind that represents your demographic matters and we have several threads about this kind of thing that goes beyond just issues pertaining to women. When you take characters that correspond to an existing demographic and treat them like token characters, some kind of reward or like they're required to provide fanservice just because they exist, it becomes problematic. Such use of those characters becomes normalized and the people who object aren't listened to because they're not the demographic so many try to cater to and people hate change. The way characters corresponding to a particular demographic can be quite telling of how those groups are regarded at the time, as those depictions are a product of society. When you objectify people in media of any kind, you're treating some people as less than others. What kind of message do you think that sends back? We live in a society where fictional characters can be just as inspiring as real people and where seeing yourself properly represented in media can mean a lot, not to mention help make everyone more accepting of others regardless of differences.

Now, I'm not slutshaming here. As I said, I'm fine with characters having revealing clothing and being well endowed. This whole thing started with the specific discontent with camera angles needlessly showcasing breasts and butts for sex appeal, then I explained why that's a problem.

Since you brought up the porn industry though, I'd like to point out that there're some problematic things going on there in the way workers are treated and the conditions they have to deal with. It's not exactly a desirable occupation. Then you have the issues with the psychological effect porn has on people.

Of course. But, I see you've still refrained from addressing the point I've already made covering this - namely that as much as you might think or feel you know what the "main focus is supposed to be", you might very well be wrong about that - unless you've confirmed it with the creators, or as I said, you presuppose some sort of universal standard for what all art and media "is supposed to be about", which I would reject in either case.

I already acknowledged that there was media dedicated to sex appeal and pointed out that I was specifically discussing that's not the main goal. That's not ignoring that different games do different things. On top of that, I brought up how execution regarding the inclusion of sexual content when present was important too. You can't just ignore the issue on the grounds of not knowing whether or not sexual content is the main goal. This is a legitimate issue worth discussing. Even if it weren't blatantly obvious what main focus of the game is supposed to be, there's something to say on the matter. Now do you want to go through various franchises to disect every aspect of the issue as applied to them or deal with the gist of the issue and wrap up this whole discussion quickly?

As far as universal standards go, there's a very narrow target demographic that holds quite a bit of sway on how games are made and who they cater to. While there's been improvement in that regard, we still haven't fully broken out of that and the associated issues. You still get stuff like shows getting cancelled because too many viewers are female and they think they can't make a profit with female fans. The persistence of that kind of thinking makes it pretty clear what's considered the main standard to cater to, as far as the target demographic goes. It's not a specific formula for how to make something of a particular genre but it has a pretty widespread effect on how they're made.

That would be the case with limited resources, but again, we can't just presuppose that the resources are limited to that point whenever you come across a game which has what you think is unnecessary sexuality.
I would argue that you could just as well make the assumption that a lot of fan-service is pretty resource friendly and as added as a bonus for those who care for that specific reason.

If a story has unnecessary sexuality while not building on the story or characters as it could have despite that being what it's supposed to prioritize tends to be an issue of mismanaged ressources, such as time and budget. If you're going to insist we can't be sure on that matter, the I'd say the same applies on whether or not fanservice is ressource friendly. Getting back to the original point, boob and ass shots aren't the way fanservice should be executed.

It could just as well be fluff on top of everything else as it could be replacement for something else, and I would argue that many people who're likely to feel that it is a replacement rather than an addition feel so, not because it's actually, and tangibly replacing anything - but rather because of the emotional disgust they feel by it, which results in their attention being diverted from the rest of the content.

You don't add fluff before the meat. Refer to my earlier explanation of problematic portrayals of characters.

I see this all the time in discussions about Tifa in the original FFVII.
People who'd dismiss 10s upon 10s of hours of solid characterization of Tifa, and relatively low-key sexuality, based on a scene in one or two FMVs.

Tifa may have the benefit of good characterization but other characters don't. While Tifa remains the great character that she is, those FMVs are still an issue that should be dealt with.

Firstly - there is nothing wrong with "ignoring a demographic".
Nobody arrests metal-heads for not making their music more approachable to Jazz enthusiasts.
Art by necessity is self-expression, and self-expression will always entail the expression of preference which will be necessarily alienating to people who don't share that preference, or hold a mutually exclusive preference -
and yes, this will in cases lead to gender disparity in fan-bases of certain products, because there is such a thing as gendered preference gaps - the most obvious one, and also the most relevant one to this discussion being preference in depiction of sex.

Making a genre more approachable to fans of another genre isn't equivalent to what we're discussing. What we're talking about would be better described as media encompassing multiple genres ignoring fans of said media and genres to cater to a specific subset of fans while marginalizing the others. The kind of disparity we're talking about wouldn't just exclude women by the way the female characters are portrayed but likely also men who dislike that kind of portrayal as well, even without factoring sexual preference. It's why that kind of thing is obviously pandering to straight males. Also, why is arresting people part of your example?

Seeing as how most people are heterosexuals, it follows naturally that most men interested in seeing depictions of sex will gravitate towards media that features focus on the female form, whilst the opposite will be true for heterosexual women.

If I create a game, or movie or book that expresses my sexuality it will naturally be, to a degree, off-putting to a lot of women, because my sexuality does not reflect theirs on average, and might even make them uncomfortable, much the same way that romantic novels aimed at women make me uncomfortable.

Women are perfectly capable of getting invested in a story centred around a straight male. It's something a requirement as male protagonists are more common than female ones. This is because a lot of media assumes prioritizing straight males as their target audience will be more profitable, to the point of ignoring other demographics even when said demographics consist of their actual audience. Videogames, comic books, etc aren't gendered products and yet it's still assumed the audience is straight and male by default. At times they practically discourage anyone outside that target audience from being interested in their product just because they're not the "default". That leaves all those people with far fewer media where they don't have to deal with that kind of thing.

Secondly, are you actually ignoring half your demographic though?
Have you actually seen what gaming demographics look like when they're broken down both by gender, and genre for instance?

I would suggest to you that the largest reason there would be a gender gap in Call of Duty if they included gratuitous and needless sexual pandering, would still probably be because it's a game about shooting each other in face, not because of that addition.
That's because, regardless of whether this difference is social, or biological (or something in between), women don't seem to half as interested in shooting each-other in the face as men are.

But, hey, if I want to make a game about shooting people in the face - then that should be fine. And if the result of that is that I'll have a relatively small female audience that's fine too, because in terms of artistic endeavors, my right to make what I want trumps your right to have me make what you want 100 out of 100 times.
Art is not a service or a human right. It's a luxury and a privilege.

Last I checked, CoD is notorious for a toxic, anti women fanbase. Since online multiplayer is a huge part of the shooter genre, communication is important to any multiplayer game and that's where harassment occurs, of course female gamers have little incentive to stick around no matter how much they enjoy shooters. Preference isn't really the issue here.

The videogame fan gender ratio is fairly even. Female fans are not a negligible portion of the fanbase, same as with comic fans. Despite that, female fans of either can be met with hostility or have to "prove" they're fans before they can just discuss a common interest. It's not like that everywhere but it still happens. Having to fight an uphill battle just to be able to enjoy something isn't something a lot of people want to put up with and isn't something they should have to put up with. Incidentally, other genres are perfectly capable of having ample violence, while shooters can have more lighthearted games such as splatoon.

For shooters, being more inclusive of other demographics would be a matter of not assuming your players are all male and to take measures to deal with the harassment you get online, as well as include both male and female characters as simply characters. You wouldn't be changing the gameplay or anything, so it's not like the genre is being ruined or anything the way your whole encroaching or artistic rights thing ends up sounding like. The especially problematic thing about that last paragraph is that you could substitute the topic for just about anything and by your logic it'd be perfectly OK to make it, no matter how awful it would be by moral standards.

And I get that - but I don't think you or anyone else get's to say what is the purpose of other people's art, and I think art has room for a multitude of different purposes at the same time, and I think that to
spend time indulging a negative response to a relatively minor point about a game, if you happen to enjoy the vast majority of its content, is unproductive.

What a game might lose through casual use of sex from your perspective , in terms quality story-telling, it might gain back in terms of visceral entertainment for someone else.
So you'll enjoy the story a little less, but someone else will enjoy the overall experience a lot more.

And that's when it becomes a matter of execution. For example, you can have a romantic subplot but if you're going to do it right, the characters involved have something to them beyond being a love interest. The relationship shouldn't just be an excuse for a sex scene but also help flesh out the character, give them character development, show a side of them they'd only show to someone they trust, show how much they care for each other. Build it up so the relationship makes sense. Don't treat abusive relationships as romantic. Stuff like that. If one of the character's is promiscuous, let them be more than that. Don't make the entirety of their existence be for someone's sexual gratification. Let characters have a variety of body types and attire that isn't just for sex appeal. Try and make something that looks good and practical. A lot of the time, you're better off leaving more to the imagination so showing a lot of skin isn't strictly necessary either. You see what I mean?

FFVII, as I've said several times over, was a campy and weird game with a really messy story overall.
However, what it lost in terms of story-telling quality due to its whimsical presentation, was to my mind, incomparable to what it gained from its art design that lead to that whimsicalness to begin with.
The primary reason I began playing the game was for its art (visual and audio) design.
Not the game-play (although I enjoyed that too), not the story (which I also enjoyed), but the art direction.
That's what sold me on FFVII, and made it my favorite game ever.
Some people might argue the other way around.
My point is simply this - different strokes for different folks. I'm just happy FFVII happened to be right up my alley. If it weren't though, I wouldn't bemoan the fact that it didn't factor people like me into its designs.

That's the creators right, and as far as I'm concerned, there's no moral dimension or concern to that right what so ever, as long as art is an enterprise that anyone and everyone can engage in.

The story isn't that bad. It's the translation that made it so hard for people to understand. Even then, you get to really care for the characters, the problems they have to deal with and everything. It really is a story that can make you think about stuff like what makes people who they are, why it's so important to take care of the environment and whatever else you take away from it.
I pretty much addressed the rest of what you say here above.

For the SSB thing, I just want to point out that Ifrit looks like it's based on the FF8 design rather than the FF7 one. Still, the franchise makes a point of being as faithful to the source material as it can manage with all the characters so of course the same is true with Cloud. That said, even though the remake didn't go the same direction with its graphics, it's still faithful to the original design. To get something like the SSB look they would've had to go with cel shading and I don't really know how that would've looked applied to the entire game.

 

[hian]

Okay, Starling, if you really want to play ball, you can get a full reply either by PM or in another thread. I've already finished writing it.
However, knowing the time-consuming nature of these kinds of exchanges, knowing that we are probably not going to see eye to eye on this matter in any case, I don't necessarily see the point.
If you want it, you can have it, and if you're fine without it, we can drop it.

I'm only going to post a full reply to the post above in this thread if Lex is okay with it, because even if I put it behind spoilers, I cannot control the effects (people replying like you did, without spoilers) and therefore I cannot control whether the reply will derail the thread (anymore than it already has), which I do not want to do.

For the sake of those who followed the exchange though, I'll say this :
I am not convinced by your argument.
To me it seems completely indistinguishable from "emotional reactionism".
Your entire reply still rests on presuppositions about the moral nature of art and media depictions, presuppositions about the effects of said depictions on humans, and finally presupposed standards of value and quality in art.

Your argument does not function without any of those presuppositions - and as you have not justified or argued them, I am under no obligation or inclination to accept your argument either.

This is the issue I've had consistently with almost everyone I've seen have the same, or similar arguments, and has been the case for the arguments I've had on the same, or similar topics as well.
The reason I say we're not going to get anywhere with this exchange is because I've seen you hit pretty much each of the topical talking points that I already dismiss and if there's nothing new under the sun (which there probably isn't going by the track-record of your posts), I don't see the point of clogging up both our schedules with a prolonged discussion that ultimately won't go anywhere.

I will say this though on the final paragraph that is pertinent to this thread :

That said, even though the remake didn't go the same direction with its graphics, it's still faithful to the original design.

That's very possibly a conflict in terms. Aesthetics is a part of design. You can't be entirely true to something's design while changing its aesthetics.
Is the scenes we've seen relatively true to the motifs of the original? Yes.
Is that also a part of the original's design? Yes.
However, you can't side-step large aesthetic differences by going "well, the motif is the same".

If you have a picture of a specific part of New York, one painted in the style of impressionism, and one in the style of realism - those are clearly apple and oranges regardless of whether or not the motif is the same.

To get something like the SSB look they would've had to go with cel shading and I don't really know how that would've looked applied to the entire game.

No they wouldn't and it boggles my mind that you would say that just after noting the aesthetic likeness of SSB and the original game, when SSB isn't cel shaded.
Kingdom Hearts, another series that Nomura directed and designed, is not cel shaded yet maintains the bubbly and anime-esque look of the original design in terms of its characters - even if here he made design changes to their clothing etc.

 

[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

Regarding fanservice, I don't mind it as long as the characters are well rounded and more than just eye candy. Take, for instance, Senran Kagura. The games don't even pretend to be anything other than blatant fanservice, which they are, but one thing I can really appreciate is the fact that beneath all the boob jiggling and clothing damage, there's a surprisingly deep and complex story, and the characters all have distinct personalities and develop over the course of the games, so while the game may be blatant fap material, it still makes you care about the girls as characters and not just as babes for you to fantasize about or whatever. Oh, and the games are fun as hell too. While I can appreciate the fanservice, I don't think I'd enjoy the games as much if the characters were just eye candy with no personality, and probably not at all if the gameplay wasn't fun.

I think final fantasy has always been pretty fine fanservice wise. Sure, tons of characters are fanservice-y, but they generally are pretty well rounded, and the fanservice is usually equal opportunity, so for every fanservice-y FF female, there's a fanservice-y male to round things out. I mean, you can moan about Tifa all you want, but can you explain why Sephiroth has an outfit exposing his perfectly waxed man cleavage, and gets a gratuitous shirtless scene at the end, if not for blatant fanservice? It's one of the things I've always liked about FF, there's fanservice for everybody.

More on-topic, I kinda feel like(or at least hope), Kitase and Nomura will provide a sort of checks and balances of vetoing the other's stupid ideas. It would be nice to have Nojima on as well though, especially since, other than you know what, the guy's been consistently good at what he does IMO.

 

[hian]

More on-topic, I kinda feel like(or at least hope), Kitase and Nomura will provide a sort of checks and balances of vetoing the other's stupid ideas. It would be nice to have Nojima on as well though, especially since, other than you know what, the guy's been consistently good at what he does IMO.

Well, Nojima is on as a writer. I'm not sure I agree he's been consistently good at what he does though. His writing has taken noticeable dips over the years, and his novels are... err... well, they're okay I guess?

But, as I said earlier - and this is where I agree completely - I think the current team has a pretty good structure in terms of checks and balances.
The various members compliment each-other, and I think that gives the project a good chance for what it is.

One thing in retrospect I've forgotten to mention, which worries me, is their choice of engine for the game.
Thus far the newest Unreal Engine hasn't been used for a single large scale RPG, and my general experience with Unreal Engine games is that they are buggy as hell - especially with clipping issues.
FF games, which tend to be on dedicated engines, have always been fairly consistent in terms of bugs - that is to say, you hardly ever come across one unless you purposefully try to.
I can't think of a single time in all my time playing single-player FFs, where combat has frozen, or characters have gotten stuck in the environment etc. Yet, problems like that have been frequent with every single game I've ever played on an Unreal Engine.
So with that being said, I'm kinda apprehensive about this.

Will the format as an action RPG (or at least semi action RPG) in the Unreal Engine lead to lots of bugs? That could certainly be a big problem for the game.
People are not going to be kind to FFVIIR if after almost 2 decades of waiting, they're served a rushed and buggy experience.

 

[Lulcielid]

One thing in retrospect I've forgotten to mention, which worries me, is their choice of engine for the game.
Thus far the newest Unreal Engine hasn't been used for a single large scale RPG, and my general experience with Unreal Engine games is that they are buggy as hell - especially with clipping issues.

Bug are not something exclusive of the Unreal Engine itself, is just a prgramming error cause by the nature of the human factors in the programming task. A game developed using an specific engine developed for said game can have as much bugs as any UE game.