Editor’s Choice: Minecraft Rule 34
It exists.
Obviously it exists; if it didn’t exist, Minecraft wouldn’t exist. That’s just the infallible rule of the internet. Something something sex. Done. Walk away. Money please.
John: So I have a title for my column today: “Editor’s Choice: Minecraft Rule 34″. I just need to get the rest of it now
Sam: Writes itself
But does it? On the one had I feel like I got you here under false pretences. You came here wanting blocky cocks and animé girls built out of lava (not to be confused with animé girls built out weapons) and what you’ve found is a column about gender.
Can I make it up to you by sharing some actual Minecraft Rule 34?
Ok, that one does require a bit of imagination, how about this one:
Still nothing? Ok, fine, here’s the Encyclopedia Dramatica section on Minecraft Rule 34. Go at it.
I’m glad we got that out of the way early, I didn’t want there to be any tension between us.
The reason this column is late, apart from me being a terrible human being, is because yesterday I spent most of my day trying to squeeze as much out of our server as possible. The reason: Harry’s article got very popular, very quickly. In part due to the choice of title used on the post’s Reddit submission; the first word was “Girl”. Thirty thousand page views later and the server is fine, and my column is late.
Struggling to keep the server up for a huge influx in visitors (many of who read one word that caught their eye and clicked) reminded me of something: Videogames in general are shit at portraying sex and gender. All men are smart, strong, bold and cool. All women are sexy, wear revealing clothes and don’t take offence at those sketches you make. Men are cocks and women are whores.
The main reason I hated Enslaved: Odyssey to the West when I played it at the Eurogamer Expo was because of this. The woman has super tight pants (with a rip on the arse), a tiny waste, cleavage on show and looks like she was designed by teenage comity. The guy is topless, super muscular, has tattoos and gives off the impression he could do more than one cock push-up.
Ignoring the fact it’s blatant teenage wanking material, is this really what we should, as an industry, be showing to everyone? It’s horrific and utterly classless.
But it sells! Apparently. And the “Modern Games Press”, second only to money and the real press in ability to actually change things, follows suite. Rarely does gender get brought up. And if it does, it’s almost always a woman doing the talking (because, of course, as a woman in the games industry the fact you are a woman is something you should talk about. Like a black or middle eastern comedian telling nothing but racially based jokes), or a guy making some half-arsed point we’ve all heard before.
“When I’m not looking at porn, I defend women’s rights to be sexy and not sexy. Touch me!”
Sex doesn’t sell anything, but it makes people pay attention. And by “people” I mean the average person who looks for gaming stuff on the internet. Much like the majority of people who will have clicked on this very article. This is nothing to be shameful about.
If you post a Top Ten Tits list it’ll get you money. Pretending like it doesn’t is just as much of a problem as relying on it. We have to accept that horny teenagers are a large part of our global community. But they aren’t the most important part, and they sure as hell aren’t the smartest part. But they are a part.
I’m getting to my conclusion, don’t worry.
Most people who read and play games will pay attention if they see the word “SEX” written somewhere. They’ll sneak a peek at some virtual boobs or spend a few moments checking out some new adventure game’s strong and slutty main female. This is not something we can ignore, but, like a middle-aged man accepting that sometimes he enjoys looking at man-thighs, it’s something we need to just accept and move on from.
Both using sex to get money and interest, and pretending like you are above it somehow are both wrong. We need to find a compromise that accepts the nature of the industry, but maintains at least some level of class and intelligence.
tl;dr: grow up, I’m going to watch porn.
Header image from forums.robloxhq.com.
I’m generally behind this, other than using Enslaved as an example. Admittedly I’m probably that game’s biggest fanboy and so I have a somewhat skewed perspective, but I think in the context of the game’s world the character designs make sense. Well, other than the rip in Trip’s trousers right on her arse, that really is unjustifiable. That aside though, I feel they do a good job of explaining and justifying the designs, the characters are strong enough to overshadow their admittedly cliché looks and they never used the appearance of the characters as an actual selling point; the most prominent characters on the box are Pigsy, the obese, old, dirty comic relief character and a giant robot dog.
I do get very tired of every female video game character having a massive rack and skin tight clothes and I’m equally tired of the hulking, walking penises that make up most male protagonists, but I think Enslaved is probably the one single example where it actually works out well and doesn’t feel cheap or sleazy. The game’s just recieved a big price cut at GAME so I’d suggest you play the whole thing, it’s really quite special narratively.
Then again, as I said, I’m pretty much obsessed with that game so what I say probably isn’t worth much.
But otherwise, totally on-board. It’s annoying that the best way to generate interest in something is to stick some breasts in it but I can’t blame games and sites for exploiting that when it works so well and is so easy.
It makes sense from a business perspective.
I can’t help but think of Bioshock Infinite when reading the second half of this write-up. The woman you’ll likely be fighting alongside has massive tits being pushed in your face everytime you look at her. Maybe the clothing she’s wearing is ‘accurate’ to the period and she could turn out to be the best NPC companion since Alyx Vance, but come the fuck on Irrational. The people looking at Bioshock Infinte aren’t buying the game for tits and all they’re going to do is introduce the people that Gavin wrote about in his Reach article. Its not necessary.
With the male characters at least it kind of makes sense that they’re hulking bricks. The only type of people who I can entertain doing the ridiculously unbelieveable things that I see in a lot of action games needs to be an unbelieveable character.
Agreed completely. This has slightly been a thorn in my side since I started reading Nukezilla – having to guesstimate the collective criticism of sex has been kinda tough. This article clears that up and makes it very easy for me to say “Oh, yeah. Sure.”
Also, write more please, John. If you have a moment, y’know.
i’m so glad i’m a pc gamer, not console, because on pc moders can take the tits out so i can focus on what’s really important!