6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games

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6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games

Sex is used to sell everything these days, from booze to cheeseburgers to, well, sex. Video games are no exception. And why should they be? After all, the biggest gaming demographic right now happens to be one of the horniest sectors of society. We're talking about adult women, of course.

Unfortunately, video game companies are unable to simply say, "Yeah, we put boobies on the cover to sell more copies." Like a teenager caught red-handed, they feel as if they have to come up with hilariously stupid excuses for their digital smut. Excuses like ...

Quiet From Metal Gear Solid V Wears A Skimpy Costume Because She "Breathes Through Her Skin"

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Konami

Before Metal Gear Solid V came out, creator Hideo Kojima teased an "erotic" new character: a sniper named Quiet who says nothing and wears almost the same amount of clothing. Instead of the usual camouflage snipers normally wear in order to do their jobs and not die, Quiet is equipped with a belt, a pair of fishnets, and a tiny rag covering (some of) her breasts.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Konami


Pretty impressive that she made her entire outfit with the stuff laying around in our garbage.

When the inevitable "WTF?"s started pouring in from around the Internet, Kojima explained that there was much more to the character than we thought. Once we played the game and found out the secret reason for her seemingly exploitative look, he promised we would "feel ashamed of words & deeds."

HIDEO KOJIMA Follow CHIDEO KOJIMA EN 1 know there's people concerning about Quiet but don't worry. created her character as an antithesis to the wom
twitter.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN


And not in the usual way you feel ashamed 15 minutes after looking at a character like that.

Wow, what could that possibly be? Some heartbreaking trauma from her past? Part of a complex strategy that allows her to defeat her enemies? A parasite infection that turned her into some sort of mutant who breathes through her skin? Yeah, it's the last one. In fact, she can only breathe through her skin, so she must show us as much of it as possible, at all times. And when she's dancing sexily in the rain or showering in front of everyone, for some reason? She's actually drinking water, you see.

Then again, we're talking about a game series featuring nuclear weapons that gain sentience and kill themselves and psychic villains who read your console's memory card. We could almost buy this explanation ... if the franchise didn't have another photosynthetic character who happens to be a gross old dude and dresses like this:

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Konami


Not even an unlockable thong costume? Do you even know your audience, Kojima?

Shower Scenes (To Help You Relate To The Characters)

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Sony Computer Entertainment

David Cage, known for emotionally charged games such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, is under the impression that, regardless of gender, the best way to get a gamer to connect with his character is a shower scene.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Sony Computer Entertainment

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Sony Computer Entertainment


Given the size of the showers, Cage's target audience must be Bill Gates and Donald Trump.

We'll refrain from any jokes about what this might say about Cage's opinion on gamers themselves, but he's being 100 percent serious. He claims he has "no limits" on what he'll allow in a game, as long as it's key to the story -- and that goes beyond what you see on your monitor, as evidenced by the time he (or someone in his company, anyway) created a fully anatomically correct model of Ellen Page for the non-explicit shower scene pictured above. We're forced to assume every male character has a lovingly animated dong swinging inside their pants too, in the name of realism.

Cage explains that his shower scenes "may look gratuitous at first," but are in truth there to help you "build a relationship with the character" by letting you see them when they're "vulnerable and naked." It's kinda like when you saw those nude girls in Porky's and instantly felt a strong kinship with them. He specifically points to Heavy Rain, which introduces Madison Paige right before she takes a late-night shower ...

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Sony Computer Entertainment


In our experience, you're a lot more vulnerable while using another part of the bathroom.

... which turns out to be part of a nightmare. Yep, the big moment where we bond with the character was all a damn dream. Then again, David Cage sex scenes have been known to trigger nightmares, so maybe that's the part we're supposed to relate to.

Dragon's Crown Used Mega Boobs So That People Wouldn't Think Of Tolkien

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Atlus

George Kamitani of the ironically-named Vanillaware was one of the main guys behind the art for Dragon's Crown, and he wanted his game to stand out in the crowded fantasy genre. Fair enough. This was probably not the most dignified solution, though:

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Atlus


Ever misplaced some crumbs in your cleavage? She misplaced an entire person.

Sorceress (that's both her name and occupation) has to fight magical undead creatures while dealing with the severe spinal issues brought on by her ridiculously oversized gazongas. Kamitani claims that he was largely influenced by the styles of Dungeons & Dragons and Tolkien, even basing his designs on their "basic fantasy motifs." At the same time, he didn't want anyone looking at this game and mistaking it for a new Hobbit movie or something, so he "decided to exaggerate all of character designs in a cartoonish fashion." He means "cartoonish" in the stereotypical Japanese sense, of course.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Atlus


Did she push those enemies with magic, or with the air displaced by her breasts? Not even she knows.

This would probably be something we'd ignore and chalk up to anime being anime if it weren't for how Kamitani got weirdly irked about one review. Jason Schreier of Kotaku had the audacity to question why the Sorceress' boobs each needed to be larger than her head, and Kamitani posted this on Facebook in response:

George Kamitanl It seems that Mr. IASON SCHREIER of kotaku is pleased also with neither sorceress nor amazon. The art of the direction which he likes
Facebook/George Kamitani


Zangief has aged well.

Get it? Kamitani was calling him gay! Edgy and creative.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games

Warface, A "Realistic War Game," Puts Women In Skimpy Outfits Because Fans Said So, That's Why

ARFACE
Trion Worlds

All of these so far have been design choices made by people who at least thought they were being artistic, and had nothing to do with their gaming constituency. This is where that stops.

2013's Warface was released online as a gritty first-person shooter, and billed itself as highly realistic. Unlike in games like Gears of War, the soldiers were, you know, human-sized. Snipers, for instance, look like real-life snipers ...

SNIPER
Crytek


Right down to the traditional seaweed-style military cut.

... as long as they're not female, of course. In that case, screw realism; gotta see those booooooobs.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Crytek


The "wears sexy eyeliner at all times" part is accurate, though.

Riflemen, too, had accurate full-body gear and realistic proportions -- unless, once again, you wanted to play as a female. Then it's tiny waists, buxom chests, and the occasional exposed tummy.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Crytek


"That tramp stamp cost me $140, so screw regulation uniforms."

If that looks like the developers asked a bunch of dudes on the Internet what they'd like the characters to look like, it's because that's exactly what happened. They did draw the line at giving the characters high heels, because, as they told an interviewer, that would be "just silly, right?" (Presumably, that was not a rhetorical question.)

It turns out there are still gamers out there who play these things for non-masturbatory reasons, though, so the developers ended up dialing back the sexiness ... in some regions, anyway. Russian players demanded exposed skin and got it, while the Chinese models were (and we quote) "also disproportionate but in a way that's more ... Chinese?" Not even they know what the hell that means.

Developer Joshua Howard compared this to how Coca-Cola is marketed the same worldwide, but may taste different in different countries, based on different tastes. Essentially, he was claiming that the extra boobs hanging out of women's military uniforms were about cultural sensitivity. Way to go, Internet.

Bayonetta Gets Naked As She Fights Because Her Clothes Are Made Of Hair (Obviously)

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Sega

Every woman (and dirty hippie) on the face of the planet will tell you that, between things like extra shampoo, conditioner, and styling, long hair is not worth the maintenance cost. That alone gives Bayonetta one of the most head-scratching video game premises this side of Barney's Hide And Seek.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Sega


No, we're not talking about the shoe guns or crotch shots. Gotta save something for future articles.

Essentially, the titular character is an angel-fighting witch who uses her hair as a part of her fighting style, like she trained in a dojo that could only afford to rent space above Sweeney Todd. When Bayonetta whips her hair back and forth, she summons demons ... and, let's not kid ourselves, gamer boners.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
Sega


Note: This woman now co-stars in a game with Mario and Pac-Man.

Yep, while her hair is a weapon, it also seems to be about 97 percent of her clothing. Any time Bayonetta does a combo move, her hair flies everywhere and reveals more skin. As her creator somehow explains without cracking up, "when she uses an attack you can see her skin is revealed because she needs her hair to make the magic happen." It was the simplest solution, really.

Bayonetta has been praised by some as a surprisingly feminist game, despite having been created by a guy who thinks that "to one woman, all other women are enemies." Which sounds like it should be the tagline to a game called Madam Vagina Killer or I Am Legend: The Bechdel Test Edition or something.

BMX XXX Is Basically The Sopranos Of Video Games (According To Its Makers)

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
AKA Acclaim

There aren't many reasons to ride a BMX bicycle instead of a normal bicycle, unless you're a bit of a masochist. There are even fewer reasons to play a video game about riding a BMX bike, which is probably why Acclaim Entertainment decided they'd turn the 2002 edition of their Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX series into a parade of gratuitous nudity and fart jokes.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
AKA Acclaim


Those are definitely not Mirra's natural boobs.

Besides the usual biking / dicking around you do in these games, this version included "goals" like assisting firemen, looking after stray dogs, and helping children in the park -- activities that seem better suited to bicycle cops than a dude with pegs jutting out of his bike wheels, but what do we know. Completing such missions in this BMX utopia earns you cash ... which you can then spend on a strip club, looking at clips of real strippers dancing nude. You also have the option to create your own topless female riders, which look as erotic as the graphics available to us in 2002 allowed.

6 BS Excuses Developers Gave For Adding Boobs To Video Games
AKA Acclaim


That is to say, EROTIC AS FUCK, obviously.

After gaming websites pointed out that the game looked stupid as hell, Acclaim defended themselves by claiming they were "setting new benchmarks with BMX XXX." They lamented that video games are held to a different standard than "other entertainment media with comparable content." Like what? Oh, like The Sopranos, for example. Apparently, setting some scenes in a strip club puts you in the same league as one of the most critically-lauded television series ever.

U
AKA Acclaim


Also, who can forget the classic episode where Tony does a sick trick on his bike and Silvio farts on him?

One person who didn't buy their explanation was BMX rider Dave Mirra himself, who didn't know he'd be surrounded by naked butts when he agreed to lend his image to the game. He ended up suing Acclaim, and successfully got them to scrub his name and likeness from this turd. The game sold terribly and Acclaim closed two years later. Such is the cost of being ahead of your time.

Isaac's favorite video game is Super Monkey Ball for the GameCube. Tell him how dumb he is on Twitter, @NotFunnyIsaac.

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