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I don't think it makes sense to armchair analyze game sales, budgets and success, especially relative to one another. While you can look at things like team sizes, dev time, estimated sales, etc. the reality its that Bloodborne, Horizon and Stellar Blade all have different development and release circumstances that inform expectations and what qualifies as a success. Deciding that one game "wins" by some arbitrary metric is just a pointless exercise because we simply don't have all the data, and it's even dumber to then stretch that out into a narrative about whether sex does or doesn't sell.

It's pretty clear to me that anyone who is looking at Stellar Blade and saying the game sold well explicitly because of its character design is being disingenuous, though. It's a solid Souls-adjacent action game wth a weak narrative, plus some questionable character design choices, plus a new franchise from relatively unknown developer... it seems like it did about in line with what you would expect, about in line with something like Lies of P. The character design may be responsible for some initial interest from certain audiences, but I mean, Elden Ring is literally right there. That game mostly has characters that don't fit into conventionally sexy designs, and it sold magnitudes more than Stellar Blade. By that logic I guess sex actually doesn't sell?

So yeah, basically that's just a dead end to argue I think. It's far more interesting to focus on the game content. How is it depicting both women as well as men? What are the gender roles at play? Are these characters depicted in a way that's positive, affirming and that challenges negative stereotypes, or in ways that are harmful and regressive? Are there any underlying ideologies being expressed or discussed by the game? What do the characters say about the developers and about players?

I think you can look at numerous threads across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and even Resetera and find that numerous people stated their intent to purchase this game based off of the character's design. I would say it's reasonable to assume that the characters design influenced purchasers, which was clearly not the case for something like Elden Ring. To say "sex doesn't sell?" based off of a rather contrived defense is far more disingenuous than to say that the game sold some significant amount of copies, or was talked about more, or was seen due to algorithms in Social Media because of sex. Can I get a definitive count on the number of copies sold due to, in any amount, the exaggerated physical features of the character? Nope, of course not. Can we make educated guesses and state that it was a factor in purchasing for some amount of people? Absolutely. And I don't think it's a stretch. Sex games sell on Steam and even the Nintendo Switch. They sell a lot. No one is being shamed for this - sex is great. However, in this situation, it's being used to sell to one demographic while alienating and misrepresenting another. Hell, whether we know the purchasers intent is known is irrelevant - we do know the creators intent.

And to your list of questions: all of them can be answered the same way. The characters are clearly meant to have exaggerated features typically associated with people assigned female at birth. Historically, men have used this representation of women to create fantasies that fulfill desires rooted in misogyny. The character’s anatomical features were designed and meant to be used for marketing as much as the gameplay was. For that reason, I think it's fair to judge the game on its appearance. Visuals are a significant part of every game, and if I feel a character is depicted for reasons meant to gratify someone else sexually, or propagates unfair stereotypes, then I don't like it. That's my opinion, yes, but I wouldn't say that gameplay is any more of a valuable aspect. Replace gender with race. If a character had exaggerated racial features (cough cough Barrett), and it was used to sell the game, what would we say? Would we say "well are they a strong character?" No, the stereotypes and harmful representation overrides that. With gender it's the same. With any discrimination it's the same.

I do take umbrage with saying "how does it depict men AND women", when we live in a patriarchal society. The developers and primary demographic for this game, it's safe to assume, are people with privilege. How they depict men is nowhere near as helpful or harmful as how they depict women. Further, the actions of the developer towards some subset of employees was targeted due to gender. I think making it a "both sides" issue really is a non-sequitur.

All aspects of a game are relevant to its very existence. It's like saying "don't judge a painting based off of its use of the color blue, judge it based on all the other colors". Well, it wouldn't be *that painting* without the color blue. Video games *are art*, and all art is both the sum of its parts and more than the sum of its parts. You can show great technique in one area, while lacking in others. You can make a great painting from a technical standpoint, but if it's a "woman with jiggly parts", I think people are allowed to form opinions around that, and those opinions aren't contradicted by the quality of technique or use of paint or whatever.

Okay, I don't know what happened here but I feel like my post may have been colossally misinterpreted.


I don't want to discount that character design is important in a game's sales and success. Obviously it is. What I'm saying is people boiling the game's success (or failure) down to that alone isn't very practical or compelling. For every person who decides they want to hitch their wagon to the game because there's a pretty anime sexy lady, there's plenty of other people who look at it and go "not for me dawg". We don't have those numbers or know how many people react that way to the game, or how that converted directly into sales, so we're dealing purely with anecdotes and vibes.

My thing about using Elden Ring wasn't me seriously making that claim, it was pointing out the absurdity of the logic to say that sex appeal (or lack thereof) is primarily responsible for sales of a game in this category. When talking about the business side, directly comparing Stellar Blade to porn games on Steam isn't really valid in my view, because they are simply not the same product category or market, even if some of the audience may overlap. From a sociological and media studies perspective obviously that's a different story.


You don't need to preach to me about this. I think Stellar Blade's characters and depictions of women suck ass and it was an immediate turn-off for me. I think people who are championing the game as some sort of right-wing culture war victory are idiots and scumbags. I think the developer also sucks and I'm disappointed Sony chose to promote this specific game so heavily.


Except it's not a non-sequitur? You don't need to tell me about the patriarchy, I've been an open feminist since my late teens, read and studied plenty of it in uni almost two decades ago and continue to hold those views well past that point. As a woman, please do not assume that I'm somehow minimizing the experiences of women through a passing mention of how men are also negatively affected by patriarchal society and regressive, limited gender roles - because they are. That's not "both sidesing", that's just facts. (Not to mention how patriarchy and the binary gender system hurts non-binary people too).

Patriarchy is obviously massively disproportionately worse for women, that's why it's called patriarchy, but I don't see how me mentioning that the way a piece of media depicts men is also relevant to its depiction of women is problematic to you. Gender is a spectrum where various aspects of identity and expression exist in relation to one another. Feminism and social studies are concerned chiefly with systems of power and the causes and effects of them, and understanding how a piece of media conceptualizes men is useful for how it conceptualizes women, as well as everyone in between and outside that as well.

User banned (permanent): Antagonizing another member over multiple posts in a sensitive thread. Account in junior phase.

You're being exceptionally defensive for someone who apparently agrees with these things, and there's really no call for this level of hostility. Stating your gender and stance on feminism doesn't change the words that you used in your post, or how an audience will receive them. Saying "please don't say this to me" is a pretty baseless method of implying that you are impervious to internalized misogyny or misunderstandings around cultural issue, which no one is. I don't care about your identity or history - that's not what your post is about, and it's about as relevant as my identity and history. You have a right to your opinion, and I responded to it. I don't know anything about you, but I felt your post could easily be interpreted as misdirecting from the relevant aspects of this conversation, and I responded to it. Someone who reads your post won't say "oh well they have years of experience with feminism and still hold those ideals".

You absolutely did both-sides things and argue that we're focusing too much on the sexualization of the characters, when that's the central part of the discourse around the game right now, for a variety of reasons. No one is boiling down the success or failure of a game to the sexualization - that's a highly reductionist take on this conversation and diminishes the importance of the criticism being levied against it. We're focusing on that topic because it's the most relevant aspect to this situation, and hell, I'd say the side which is critical of the game would have every right to make it all about that topic. You're still both-sidesing - you keep implying that both parties are arguing based on a fallacious understanding of the key topics, which I think is highly unfair. Saying "well we don't definitively know the actual impact on sales so we shouldn't argue one way or another" is a non-sequitur. You're detracting from highly relevant points and reducing them because you don't see their importance. Others can find these things more important than you, and I explained why. I don't mean this passive-aggressively, but I think you *do* need to be told these things. See why these things are important to others, and let them talk about it. If you don't want to engage in that side of the conversation, then don't. And certainly don't argue against the people who are defending the ideas that you claim to champion, which is what your original post was doing.

You did make that claim about Eldin Ring. It's literally what you wrote. FromSofware's titles have a completely different context around them and make no attempt to market using exaggerated sexualization of women. That argument only makes sense if you think the other party is arguing that *all games are sold based on sexualization*, which, again, no one is arguing. That's a strawman, and again, a nonsequitur. Comparing a game which markets heavily based on sexuality to other games which market based on sexuality is meant to emphasize that, yes, sex does sell. Using sex as a marketing tactic does work, and is being used in this context. Saying "well, Eldin Ring is successful without sex" is completely irrelevant.

Just want to say thanks to @Morrigan, @Naiad and @PallasKitten for the support. I was really worried I did something wrong or stepped onto a landmine I had no idea was there.

However, I'm bowing out for the foreseeable future because it is clear this thread and forum is not actually a safe environment, nor do I want to have to feel like every comment comes with the caveat that I have to defend myself from unwarranted attacks, down-talking and demands I justify myself. So I guess if the goal of that person was to get me to stop posting, congratulations, mission accomplished.

While I don't agree with giving the asshat the satisfaction of feeling like he was right in his behavior to mistreat you in the way that he did, I still completely understand the mental toll and anxiety that comes with feeling like you're walking on eggshells every time that you post.

I will be sad to see you leave feeling this way, but mental health is important and sometimes people have to do what is best for them, not for everyone else. You didn't do anything wrong.

I've been challenged all my life so I can stomach it to some extent, however, I'm not going to judge another woman for not being able to. It's rough. It's bullshit. It's unfair. It's mentally exhausting. People should fucking behave better and they don't.

Take care of yourself.

You did nothing wrong at all, and I have no idea why that person seemingly came in out of nowhere swinging at you for no obvious reason. I definitely understand just not wanting to deal with that and bowing out. I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes feel the same way you do on various online communities, and it absolutely sucks that has to be the case so often.

Wishing you the best.

I've appreciated your contributions to the thread and your insight has been invaluable. I don't get why some men feel comfortable arguing on things like this (without the lived experience of sexism and oversexualisation) with such misplaced intensity and hostility and some of us men have kinda ruined the point of this space, sadly. Even if this forum is predominantly a male majority, it's important to have a space for women to be listened to, validated, discuss and even debate amongst themselves. So I totally understand you bowing out but you'll be always welcome to come back! 🙏🏾

I want to chime in and say that I don't think you did anything wrong and they were out of line to attack you. This needs to be a space for discussion and you getting burned out is a failure on us as a forum. I like your posts and I'm sorry you have to step away and like people have said your mental health is first priority. I can just click ignore normal threads but it's not fair when this one is supposed to be special and you don't feel safe here. Anyway, I don't have any quick or good answers, just sending positive vibes your way

Good luck @coffeecat! Hope you find somewhere safe from people like that, you did nothing wrong.

Yeah, this place isn't one. Not anymore at least.

It's not okay that this person was able to just come in, attack you and dip out without any consequences.