Game Character Design

While searching for a unique video game character, I came across this article about The Aesthetics of Unique Video Game Characters written by Shaylan Hamm, a university student, back in 2008. Within the article, Hamm explores games that create unique characters which step away from the stereotype, and how rare it is to find this in female characters. A great example discussed is the role a female character plays in the game series, Gears of War.

For example, the male characters in the game Gears of War (Epic Games, 2006) reflect the dismal, harsh post-apocalyptic world they fight in. The art style of the game is highly dramatic, and accentuates the damage inflicted on a once-normal society. The masculinity of the characters is exaggerated by their huge, battle-scarred forms, and they seem almost as intimidating as the monsters they are fighting. On the other hand, Lieutenant Anya Stroud is the only female character in the game. She is young, presumably in her early 20's, with a flawless appearance. While not overly-sexual by design, she shows no scars, age, or other features that relate to the world that the men are so physically tied into. Her personality is calm, her background is undeveloped and she seems very detached from the game, as if she were included only to represent a pretty face. The bombed-out buildings and cars have more of a sense of history than Anya Stroud. Could a female character, perhaps older, with a few battle scars, or some gritty humor added to her appearance, be suitable for Gears of War? If such a character were designed, could she possibly appeal to potential female gamers and males as well? If she were portrayed with the same respect and visual interest as the rest of the cast, females may be more inclined to give a game like Gears of War a chance. (Hamm, 2008)

It's a shame that this portrayal of women is so often seen in video games, over sexualised or not, they are often still above a certain level of "attractiveness". But who is to blame for this common trend? For a long time I have assumed it to be a case of "sex sells" and companies just want to use this to make money, however, are consumers just as much to blame?

In an article on Kotaku, (Hamm also discusses this article), two images are posted of of Mirrors Edge main character, Faith.

The image on the left shows the official rendering by Swedish dev DICE of the parkour-inspired, Asiatic heroine - and the other was a reinterpretation edited by an Asian fan, imagining what Faith would look like if she had been designed according to what he says are Asian standards of beauty.

The reinterpretation changes only a couple of things, but they make a vast difference to the way I would judge her character. Her increased breast size is the most obvious change, but her increased eye size and narrowed chin make her look 10 years younger, less powerful and more scared.These minor changes have completely changed the character from being a normal, athletic strong woman to, as the producer of the game states, a 12-year-old with a boob job.

While reading the article, quite a few interesting questions and theories popped up, like do we really want realistic game characters? Would they be any fun? But the theory that interested me most, and fit in with my study of character design was:

Character visuals should represent what the player aspires to be like as a person, not what the player wishes they looked like.

But We Want To Respect Who We Are In Games In other words, "real" game characters act as visual representations of the values, concepts and ideas we'd like to step into when we play a game. They're perhaps symbols of the people we'd like to become. They might instead be representations of the concepts and ideas that work best with the game's plot. When we as gamers react with offense to oversexed or unrealistic game characters, we're not so much offended that the characters are hyper-beautiful or impossible - we're unhappy because we're getting meaningless eye candy dangled at us in lieu of substance. It's not that we hate big boobs. It's that we don't get why someone who represents values we admire would need to flaunt her breasts around. Alexander (2008)

However, some games criticized for their sexualised female characters may actually have good reason for this. Leigh Alexander discusses this theory using the game Haunting Ground, and its central character Fiona.


The dress is rather too short on Fiona – gratuitous flashing is a horror tradition, but the teeny ensemble is not remotely in the realm of plausibility. Moreover, she (another character, the maid Dianna) comments it’s “too tight around the chest.” We’re still in early cutscenes and she’s already talking about her breasts, which are rather sizeable considering her young age. 
Because of elements like these,  it’s quite easy to attack Haunting Ground as distasteful fanservice for lusty-eyed young males; poor Fiona also makes an easy target for video game feminists, for whom even the razor-sharp and indefatigable competence of Lara Croft is not a satisfactory model, simply because the gal likes to wear a crop top and shorts. But Haunting Ground’s peripheral elements are the real star of the game. Fiona may not be a particularly powerful or capable young lady, but she’s effective as an ordinary one, from the cutscene camera’s appreciation of her healthy shape to the sharp sense of her figurative and literal penetrability in the eyes of her pursuers, owing to her somewhat fragile constitution and general powerlessness in the game.

Hamm, Shaylan, 2008 http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/854/the_aesthetics_of_unique_video_.php?page=1

Alexander,Leigh, 2008 http://kotaku.com/5070485/you-gotta-have-faith-does-style-beat-out-realism
Alexander, Leigh, 2007 http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2007/11/column_the_aberrant_gamer_haun.php