• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

SFV R. Mika default costume was deemed too revealing by ESPN

vg260

Member
Do you think they that very audience that would normally critique is going to actually be watching this in general more than 2 maybe 3 seconds?

If anything, they are going to be like, "What the fuck is this gaming shit on MY ESPN?", long before they care about overboob on a cartoon character.

It is going to be the countless gamers who on average, would not care either way that is the audience. Just as I do not watch the mind numbingness (to me) of poker on there.

Point still stands... hypocrisy based on the stigma still that, 'games are for kids'.

No, but if they do and see that, it's going to be an obvious point of contention for an already hostile viewer. Not to mention even many fans of the game have issues with it.

They made the right call going with the less revealing of two ridiculous outfits. They're not going to win the battle of trying to expose any hypocrisy by sticking with the original in this instance.
 
Yeah but it's not the Attitude Era and longer. They now call women that wrestler Superstars just like the men instead of Divas. There aren't any more strip matches. There isn't any oil wrestling. People grew up.

While the Divas title was retired for the return of the Women's Chapionship, they still refer to certain female wrestlers as Divas, and they also have a show called Total Divas which emphasizes petty drama and the looks of their cast. Oil wrestling may be gone, but let's not pretend like there's not a lot of sexualization of women wrestlers still, even if WWE is now doing it in a very roundabout, PG friendly way.
 
Also, from what I remember (as I didn't follow the SFxTekken reality show thing to closely) Ari's did nothing close to groping anyone so he'd never belong on a list with those other two anyway. Unless there's something I'm forgetting.

Sexual harassment only counts if it's physical?
 

Finaika

Member
Having sfv on ESPN is embarrassing because it's not a sport, costumes don't matter at that point

Also love the American mentality of "hey a game with people beating the shit out of each other, perfect for broadcast!"

But show some skin and that's over the line

Violence vs nudity, what a weird line to draw

They're not actually beating each other, its just a game.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
What's with america's weird fear of anything even remotely sexual? Blowing heads up? Ok. Showing cleavage? Ban that shit.

Is there a certain reason for that?

This country was deep rooted and colonized by Abrahamic practitioners. Which, despite the rhetoric of separation of church and state... most of the laws, cultural taboos, etc., are carried from that of the church.

Simplest way I can describe it.

No, but if they do and see that, it's going to be an obvious point of contention for an already hostile viewer. Not to mention even many fans of the game have issues with it.

They made the right call going with the less revealing of two ridiculous outfits. They're not going to win the battle of trying to expose any hypocrisy by sticking with the original in this instance.

Not going to argue there. I just was pointing out the funny, considering the beach volleyball notoriety they are known for, lol.

I know right?

When I tune into ESPN I wanna see real sports like the Spelling Bee.... and poker

I chuckled.
 

Zafir

Member
Seems like some people haven't seen female wrestling before. Yeah, R. Mika's outfit is a little over the top, but most female wrestling outfits from what I've seen do show a generous amount of skin, so of course they will take advantage of that. :p

img-thing

wwe-diva-maryse.png

ME_078_Photo_09.jpg


Oh well, this is not surprising. At least SF5 is getting more exposure and it deserves it because imo it's a great game.

Oh definitely.

Mika doesn't really act like those kind of wrestlers though. I mean they act showy and dress showy. Mika dresses showy, but acts very childlike really.

But really all of this is a different discussion - more of a discussion of why the designs are bad. Rather than why ESPN banned them for being too revealing.
 

pizzacat

Banned
Also the people trying to say "where's muh real sports", this got a more positive reaction than when they played heroes of the storm.

I don't know the numbers or anything but I would expect capcup to show up here too
 

Palculator

Unconfirmed Member
What's with america's weird fear of anything even remotely sexual? Blowing heads up? Ok. Showing cleavage? Ban that shit.

Is there a certain reason for that?
It's not even fear per se. Look at their porn industry, it's massive. There's just a weird trend of everything sexual having to be cordoned off into its own completely separate thing such that no pure activity is tainted by its presence. Heaven forbid!
 

Zafir

Member
fictional characters have to now agree to wearing a costume

what the hell am i reading
No... If that's what you took from what I said I don't know what to tell you.

Character's should wear something that goes with their personality. A design which is a total disconnect with the character is a bad design.
???
Either she has choice over everything she does (if she likes and wants to fight, if she likes pizza with pineapples, if she likes to wear costumes, if she prefers morning showers to evening ones etc etc) or she doesn't because it's a character.
You can't be selective choose when she is or when she isn't based on the subject.

In any case this episode pretty much validates that most if not all the changes made in the game were made because of reasons outside creative freedom which is a lot of people were trying to argue against in all the threads this kind of topic sparked.
I don't even know what you're on about.

Having played through both of her character story, and the main story. Never once has she really acted in anyway "sexual" if anything her personality is kind of childlike and excitable. That's a total disconnect with her outfit.

Fighting on the other hand, her career is based around it. She's constantly contesting with other characters, like the fact she fights with Ibuki for a good proportion of the main story. It makes sense that she would be fighting.
 

pizzacat

Banned
Besides feeling no strong way about this.
One has to wonder what else ESPN would've asked to change.
Idk if it was ESPN or not but the characters had they payable costumes unlocked. With all the Nash mirrors I saw yukadon flash to the battle outfit for Nash (the one that looks like d dark) and then pick his story one.

It could have been he didn't like it or maybe ESPN is banning ninjas :eek:
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Did they show that bullfighter get gored? Some news show my girlfriend was watching did. That disgusted me.

What is more disgusting is a 'sport' out of taking the life of an innocent being after you already tormented/tortured it for weeks before the event.

"Traditions of CULTure" should not be 'protected', when barbaric and is based on continuing to torture then kill a defenseless life. While illegal as it should be, (but lets say if not for the argument), people would lose their shit if they showed clips of dog or cock fighting.

But this is going to get off topic, I said my peace.
 
No... If that's what you took from what I said I don't know what to tell you.

Character's should wear something that goes with their personality. A design which is a total disconnect with the character is a bad design.

I don't even know what you're on about.

Having played through both of her character story, and the main story. Never once has she really acted in anyway "sexual" if anything her personality is kind of childlike and excitable. That's a total disconnect with her outfit.

Fighting on the other hand, her career is based around it. She's constantly contesting with other characters, like the fact she fights with Ibuki for a good proportion of the main story. It makes sense that she would be fighting.

you might believe her design is a disconnect from her personality but the creators don't and that's all that matters. I also don't know what someone's personality has to do with what they wear.
 
To me, this is just sort of representative of the crossroads we are at. When people are critical of these sorts of sexualized outfits, this is what the discussion was about. Not specifically that ESPN2 might air the EVO finals necessarily. But what do you think the problem was with the outfit? And it's not like like ESPN is approaching this with their outsider, out-of-left-field thinking. Their criticisms are most likely the exact same criticisms you've been seeing about this for the last several years from within the industry.

I'm not going to pretend that I deserve to be the arbiter of this stuff. Fans can like what they like and creators should be allowed to design what they want. If they want to make a character with tons of cleavage a bare-ass slapping, that's their prerogative. And if that's what the fans want, then so be it. But when people talk about wanting to make gaming bigger and more inclusive, I think this is a shining example of what is being discussed. Here's a chance for a packed crowd in Vegas to watch a live event of people playing a video game and for that to be aired on ESPN2. And the only concession was that one outfit had to go. As a fan, you may fight tooth and nail to keep this kind of content in there, but I think there's a lot of people out there that may already be your audience or could potentially be your audience that find this type of thing weird and offputting.
 
I'd say it really doesn't help the perception that people have of people who play games in general right now.

I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that the public perception of wrestling fans during the attitude era was not very positive as a whole. If the idea behind putting SFV on ESPN is to entice a mainstream audience, it makes total sense.

Some had a negative perception of it while others had a positive reception of it. But my main point was that if they aren't going in with a perception that fits into the mold, then they're unlikely to come out with it. Does such a perception exist in the general public when it comes to female character designs in gaming? I really don't think it does. The perception exists among certain gamers, but that's not really something that's traveled into the general public.

If you want to talk about negative perceptions that the general public have of gamers, i'd say that it's that they're in a room by themselves playing Call of Duty for hours on end. This is what the mainstream media pushes as an image of gamers. So just the very existence of EVO defeats that perception. Because it's all about a large group of people coming together to play games. And while online is important to fighters now, they're generally games played in person with other people rather than alone by yourself.

Female wrestlers generally don't have their ass cheeks out like that, and even when they wear two piece bikini style outfits they don't show near as much cleavage as Mika.

No, but the cameraman certainly makes sure that he gets certain shots of female wrestlers when they're already wearing very tight and small shorts. As you could see by how popular certain gifs of AJ and Paige are (or were in AJ's case).
 
Yeah but it's not the Attitude Era and longer. They now call women that wrestler Superstars just like the men instead of Divas. There aren't any more strip matches. There isn't any oil wrestling. People grew up.
Isn't SFV set in the 90s? Mika seems hella appropriate.
 
Hey I am cool with this, as long as ESPN2 makes sure to raise a stink about Urien's default costume next year. Assuming it's the same as Third Strike

His manly ass is too much for TV to handle.
 

LeleSocho

Banned
No... If that's what you took from what I said I don't know what to tell you.

Character's should wear something that goes with their personality. A design which is a total disconnect with the character is a bad design.

I don't even know what you're on about.

Having played through both of her character story, and the main story. Never once has she really acted in anyway "sexual" if anything her personality is kind of childlike and excitable. That's a total disconnect with her outfit.

Fighting on the other hand, her career is based around it. She's constantly contesting with other characters, like the fact she fights with Ibuki for a good proportion of the main story. It makes sense that she would be fighting.
Her costume is nothing out of the ordinary for her job though? Appearence is part of her career too.
One could almost argue (not really) that she's showing less skin than her real life counterparts... also has it ever be stated that she doesn't like the costumes she wears?

Man i don't even know why i'm having this discussion since i think that Mika's design is trash...
Now Juri... that's where the damage has been done, her default in SSFIV was perfect and now she's a clown biker with an eyepatch ;__;
 

@Wreck

Member
To me, this is just sort of representative of the crossroads we are at. When people are critical of these sorts of sexualized outfits, this is what the discussion was about. Not specifically that ESPN2 might air the EVO finals necessarily. But what do you think the problem was with the outfit? And it's like like ESPN is approaching this with their outsider, out-of-left-field thinking. Their criticisms are most likely the exact same criticisms you've been seeing about this stuff for the last several years.

I'm not going to pretend that I deserve to be the arbiter of this stuff. Fans can like what they like and creators should be allowed to design what they want. If they want to make a character with tons of cleavage a bare-ass slapping, that's their prerogative. And if that's what the fans want, then so be it. But when people talk about wanting to make gaming bigger and more inclusive, I think this is a shining example of what is being discussed. Here's a chance for a packed crowd in Vegas to watch a live event of people playing a video game and for that to be aired on ESPN2. And the only concession was that one outfit had to go. As a fan, you may fight tooth and nail to keep this kind of stuff in there, but I think there's a lot of people out there that may already be your audience or could potentially be your audience that find this type of stuff weird and offputting.

well put.
 

Foggy

Member
I honestly wouldn't be shocked if their impulse was more to dull the "culture shock" of seeing an absurdly sexual videogame character appear while changing the channels. Or more simply their method could be it was "too weird" vs "too sexual". The difference between showing a female bodybiilding competition vs a first-time foray into competitive fighting games.
 
Oh definitely.

Mika doesn't really act like those kind of wrestlers though. I mean they act showy and dress showy. Mika dresses showy, but acts very childlike really.

But really all of this is a different discussion - more of a discussion of why the designs are bad. Rather than why ESPN banned them for being too revealing.

Yeah, I didn't want to derail the thread or anything, I was just showing that most female wrestlers traditionally have a history of exposing a lot of skin sort of similar to what R Mika is wearing except maybe she is a little more exaggerated I guess you can say. Wait a minute, didn't ESPN used to show female body builders and beauty contests or is it my imagination?
 
Top Bottom