Final Fantasy XIV's Gear Design Is a Shining Example of Gender Equality in Games

Lately there's a lot of hubbub about sexism in video games, with many writers dropping rivers of virtual ink on virtual paper denouncing how this or that game happens to be (according to them) a terrible affront to women.

Square Enix has been under the crosshairs of this kind of discourse lately because of a few relatively skimpy costumes appearing in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, so it's interesting and ironic to see that another game of theirs, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, is a shining example of gender equality in gear design that other developers should probably follow.

[-Gespenst-]

Yeah that's pretty cool. It's a little bit weird that the body types for the hume male and female (human surrogates) are very specific though. Any characters that have "weird" body types and shapes belong to entirely different races in the game- i.e. not hume / human. Slightly weird message that sends out. Also still no homosexual relationships.

[Abriael]

You can have all the homosexual relationships you want in the game :D

[-Gespenst-]

Really? Did they finally introduce that? I wasn't aware.

[NexGen]

So...you're getting a weird message that the non-human races don't look like humans? They're not human (nor humes) and look different - what's the message that you're finding?

As for the relationship thing, a female npc tried to hit on my female toon. Even stated that I might be surprised that she preferred other females.

[-Gespenst-]

You're totally missing my point. I'm talking about body types. The "hume" race, who are obviously supposed to be the stand in for us, for humans, all have "perfect" bodies. There are no dwarf (I know, not a pc term) sized humes, no skinny humes. They're all just "beautiful" people.

There ARE small and lanky etc. people in the game, but for some reason they don't get to be "humes". Or in other words, the "human race". How does a small person feel playing this game if they want an avatar that resembles themselves? It'd be inaccurate for them to pick a "hume" if they were going for something similar to themselves (thinly disguised human race surrogate), they have to pick some non-human if they want their avatar to be small. How would that make you feel? Bit shit I'd imagine. It gets across the message that you can only be human if you're medium height with a "beautiful body", and also idealises these features as somehow constituting a proper human.

You can't just justify it by saying that's what the narrative demands. It reflects entrenched views on its creators part no matter how he or she wants to isolate his / her narrative. Most things like this are fantastical renderings of people's own perspectives on reality.

Also, there are many cases when a person of unusual body-type (relative to the game's selectable hume body types) might, wilfully, or with resignation, decide to just be a hume. So in other words, they're caving in to assuming a hume avatar that represents an ideal they can't hope to achieve. As a feature in the game, it kind of enforces a fixed and central idea of what a "human" should look like.

[greyhaven33]

@gespenst
I think you are severely overthinking this, lighten up

[NexGen]

Yeah, it's pretty absurd.

[mep69]

"There are no dwarf (I know, not a pc term)"

This is the internet, Fuckoff and leave your P/C shit out of it.

[helghast102]

"Also still no homosexual relationships."

What difference does it make? as far as game systems go there is still no heterosexual relationships, so really, why bring it up?

[KonsoruMasuta]

Can we stop with all the sexism and gender equality articles? They are annoying.

[SeraphimBlade]

Can we stop with the actual sexism and gender inequality?

Well, then, no.

[Whitefire]

Lol, you mean what you perceive to be a inequality, but in reality was never meant to be or is actually a non story. Do we really need to know in our gaming life that males are running around half naked along with women? No. If men barely wore clothes and women in the game barely showed skin no one would care.

[Anthotis]

If sexism and gender inequality produce character designs like Quiet's, then it should be encouraged.

[ShinMaster]

The issue of inequality does not lie in video games. So even if you fix it with all the complaining. It wont change real life. Video games are fantasy.

[ShaunCameron]

Maybe when these self-professed liberals and feminists finally have the courage to take women off the pedestal and hold them to the same standards they usually hold men to.

[Abriael]

Might want to actually read it. It helps in actually understanding the context and intention :D

[KonsoruMasuta]

Oh, I read it. It's a good article but you have to agree that this topic has been beaten to death lately.

[Abriael]

@KonsoruMasuta: that's exactly the point. Shifting the point to uncharted territory which is a lot more pertinent.

[celestiatem]

You can only call it annoying if there's no precedence for there to be articles of this style. Turning a blind eye to a legitimate issue we have as a culture/society will only make things worse. If you're annoyed with the amount of them, work to fix the inequality.

[SeraphimBlade]

The sight of these half-naked men make me very happy.

I'm sure that will never be taken out of context.

[Lykon]

same here ... mmmmm sword fights ...boing boing boing ...slap ...giggle

[slinky123456]

Because seeing a woman in a bikini that you'd see at every beach in the world and then a man wearing a woman's bikini bottom is the equality we're aiming for.

I don't see any problem with presenting woman as what they have represented themselves as. Some have huge boobs some have small, some wear hardly nothing some where everything. Just cause men like it and want to see it doesn't make it inequality, it's equality cause woman have chosen to dress this way for years, just as it is mens choice to see it or not.

[Lykon]

what about those early jean claude van dam films ... his fighting thong just about covered his penis ..i'll never forget seeing his buttocks part with those high kicks. damn

[TheVideoGamHer]

"Maybe games should take a page from the book of classical art, which celebrated the beauty of the male and female body equally without feeling shy to display men’s sculpted abs, thighs and buttocks as much as it did with the curves of the ladies. When you go to the Uffizi museum in Florence and walk in front of the majestic “David” by Michelangelo, you don’t see dudes running all over the place and ripping their eyeballs off because they’re exposed to some (artistically sculpted) male flesh."

That's all I ask for. Sexuality and nudity is natural, but the APPARENT pandering and those who are blind to it annoy me to no end. I know that we don't live in a Utopian society, but at what point will the community stand up and realize that these developers are devaluing them and reducing them to sexually depraved individuals and not people who enjoy other factors of characterization? People who don't think gaming is a viable hobby already feel that way about us, why must we give them YET another reason to continue these thoughts?

[spicelicka]

Why not pursue equality by eliminating sexual references all together, both male and female. I think if naked are being indecent, so are naked men, but why not just make the men wear proper clothing? Isn't promoting female sexuality for the sake of equality pretty much degrading them in accordance to what men would want. I mean all straight men would love nothing more than to see naked women so why are feminists fighting for something that doesn't even benefit them in reality?

Legally it makes sense if the rights come in, but morally it's total contradiction.