Pin-Up of the East

[ThunderTitan]

>How often are images of half-naked men on advertisements?<

Men don't complain because the less they think about naked guys the better....


And what's with feminism being bad? You don't want women voting or something?

[Ethric]

Scantily clad people in advertisements (of both genders) is a distraction if the ad is for anything but underwear or porn (maybe more stuff but you get my point). Seems better to complain on the grounds that the ad has nothing to do with the product than from an exploitation of the body-point of view, IMO. Some really orcish looking orc-chick chopping of heads would have been more apropriate

As for fantasy in general, scantily clad people of both sexes appear. But if one feels there's too few men, well then that means more women ought to start writing/drawing

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Sex sells, sure, but why? Don't you think it sells rather BECAUSE society is still a long way from overcoming the Christian heritage of brandishing the alluring aspects of the body as devil's work.

Sex sells because human beings are sexual beings. Sexuality is primary to our nature.

If you think kids are not exposed to more alluring pictures than the female orc at school (or on your TV) you are naive. Other kids are going to bring pornograpic magazines to school and your kid will be curious. Curiosity and attraction to the opposite sex are natural. Open your eyes and watch the TV commercials that are displayed even during children's programs.

And if you don't monitor your kids 100% if the time they are on the internet they are going to see a quite a lot even accidentally.

I don't remember what rating the game has, but it has enough of a rating that your kid has seen a lot more than he's going to see in the game.

GOW

[Jolly Joker]

Scantily clad people in advertisements (of both genders) is a distraction if the ad is for anything but underwear or porn (maybe more stuff but you get my point). Seems better to complain on the grounds that the ad has nothing to do with the product than from an exploitation of the body-point of view, IMO.

It seems you don't know what ADVERTISEMENT means.

Strangely enough I agree with GOW.

[ThunderTitan]

Sex sells because human beings are sexual idiots.

Plenty of kingdoms have fallen because the ruler put his libido before common sense.

But yeah, that's why it sells, because people like sex... and they just assume that makes everything related to it good (what they say and think consciously is rather irrelevant).

[Cleanpea]

This Newspost got 44 comments in less than 24hours. That kind off explains it all

[Corribus]

@Sir Charles

“I love women and I love looking at beautiful women, but what Nival did here is simply unnecessary. It's turning a labor of love that NWC worked on for years into cheap trash. "

Yeah, I hate to bring this up, but NWC drew sketches of topless naga tanks as concept art for an H3 expansion pack, and then leaked them, so that argument doesn’t really hold water.

@Jolly Joker

"It speaks volumes of the perversion this society lives in when people complain about sexually alluring semi-nakedness of persons in a fantasy strategy game because it would be inappropriate for kids when the game is all about killing something which of course is NOT inappropriate."

It’s sort of what I was saying in the Movie Thread. It’s ok to show violence but not sex. I don’t really see why one’s taboo and another’s not. The violence in some of the video games that 8 year old boys play can be very explicit, but show a woman with revealing clothing – even if there’s no nudity – and suddenly people are saying the game’s indecent for kids. There’s something that doesn’t add up.

@Ethric

"Scantily clad people in advertisements (of both genders) is a distraction if the ad is for anything but underwear or porn (maybe more stuff but you get my point). Seems better to complain on the grounds that the ad has nothing to do with the product than from an exploitation of the body-point of view, IMO."

You clearly don’t know much about how advertising works. Advertising, particularly in magazines, isn’t about telling people about your product. That’s why advertisements often have very little text. People flip through magazines (or in the case of cover art, walk by the aisle) very quickly. People who want to read magazines don’t want to read advertisements. They skip advertisements. So when you are flipping pages very quickly, advertisements that are successful are the ones that cause you to pause in your quick page-skipping just long enough to get their brand name stuck in your head. People who read gaming magazines are for the most part teenaged boys. That’s the demographic. So what is most likely to get a teenaged boy to pause on a page long enough to see a brand name: a picture of the computer game’s box with a screenshot (among a whole magazine filled with game screenshots) OR a half naked woman? It’s pretty obvious actually that it’s the perfect strategy to make their advertisement stand out. Of course it has nothing to do with the product, but that’s not the goal of the advertisement. The goal is to make you aware of the product. Half-naked woman = interesting = “insert game name here”. That’s the mental connection the company is giving you. It’s the same reason Calvin Klein might have an ad with a woman getting out of a shower with a pair of their jeans slung over a chair in the background. And it’s the same reason you DON’T see ads with half-naked women in, say, Women’s World or Better Housekeeping. Ads in those magazines cater to THEIR demographics. Advertising 101, man.

@GOW

Well said.

[Cleanpea]

But what is the improper thing here? That women are half-nude, and men in armour? --no, that can't be it, because here are the powermale archetype - bare-brested warriors from heroes5:



golem

djinn

rakshasa

titan

minotaur

war dancer

berserker

Thane



These creatures display a rather unified expression of what a males' torso should look like. Sexist? The Inferno faction is almost ALL nude, Dungeon is ALL ABOUT nude.



The only proper factions would be the Necropolis (no improper nudity there), and the Haven (everyone have decent armour, even the griffins and horses). But these factions are pure male - Or that depends, whether heroes count, and whether the angels are male...

[theLuckyDragon]

Advertising 101 sucks.

[Corribus]

Hey, I didn't invent it. It's just very logical. Companies want to sell their products in a competitive market. They grab your attention any way they can. The best way to do that for products marketed towards teenaged boys (and 20-30-something boys ) is sexual images. Like it or not, they grab your eyes, make you pause and look at the ad. If you see a title or product name associated with it, then the ad is successful. Is that wrong? I don't know. But don't blame me, and don't blame Nival. Blame hormones and biology. People have been using sex to sell products for centuries. This isn't something new, so I'm not sure why everyone is so shocked and outraged over this.

[Cleanpea]

Most of the posts aren't shocked, they are drooling;)

[ThunderTitan]

The best way to do that for products marketed towards teenaged boys (and 20-30-something boys ) is sexual images.

Right, it doesn't work on old people at all. BTW, there's this documentary called Century of the Self, it features some old car commercials... in one the car's extra 4 inches make all the difference, and in another sitting at the wheel makes women expound the cutest sounds...

@Cleanpea

I believe C calls them the 90%...

[theLuckyDragon]

Hey, I didn't invent it. It's just very logical. Companies want to sell their products in a competitive market. They grab your attention any way they can. The best way to do that for products marketed towards teenaged boys (and 20-30-something boys ) is sexual images. Like it or not, they grab your eyes, make you pause and look at the ad. If you see a title or product name associated with it, then the ad is successful. Is that wrong? I don't know. But don't blame me, and don't blame Nival. Blame hormones and biology. People have been using sex to sell products for centuries. This isn't something new, so I'm not sure why everyone is so shocked and outraged over this.

I'm not shocked or outraged, I just think that the truth expressed by what I bolded in your message sucks. It's a sneaky method that makes use of our weaknesses.

[Ethric]

Scantily clad people in advertisements (of both genders) is a distraction if the ad is for anything but underwear or porn (maybe more stuff but you get my point). Seems better to complain on the grounds that the ad has nothing to do with the product than from an exploitation of the body-point of view, IMO.

You clearly don’t know much about how advertising works. Advertising, particularly in magazines, isn’t about telling people about your product. That’s why advertisements often have very little text. People flip through magazines (or in the case of cover art, walk by the aisle) very quickly. People who want to read magazines don’t want to read advertisements. They skip advertisements. So when you are flipping pages very quickly, advertisements that are successful are the ones that cause you to pause in your quick page-skipping just long enough to get their brand name stuck in your head. People who read gaming magazines are for the most part teenaged boys. That’s the demographic. So what is most likely to get a teenaged boy to pause on a page long enough to see a brand name: a picture of the computer game’s box with a screenshot (among a whole magazine filled with game screenshots) OR a half naked woman? It’s pretty obvious actually that it’s the perfect strategy to make their advertisement stand out. Of course it has nothing to do with the product, but that’s not the goal of the advertisement. The goal is to make you aware of the product. Half-naked woman = interesting = “insert game name here”. That’s the mental connection the company is giving you. It’s the same reason Calvin Klein might have an ad with a woman getting out of a shower with a pair of their jeans slung over a chair in the background. And it’s the same reason you DON’T see ads with half-naked women in, say, Women’s World or Better Housekeeping. Ads in those magazines cater to THEIR demographics. Advertising 101, man.

Yes yes, of course it WORKS. In retrospect, distraction wasn't the right word to use. Clearly. "Irrelevance" might better fit what I tried to say. Good lecture though, man

Advertising by means of applying attractive yet highly irrelevant factors is cheap. If it works or not is beside the point.

[Bandobras Took]

It speaks volumes of the perversion this society lives in when people complain about sexually alluring semi-nakedness of persons in a fantasy strategy game because it would be inappropriate for kids when the game is all about killing something which of course is NOT inappropriate.
Isn't it strange that things that are meant to enrich the life of each person sooner or later are thought as "inappropriate" and even more than that, while things that society tries to ban, killing, violence and so on, are considered in order?
Can anyone remember kids or juveniles becoming a raping fit from having looked at some "indecent" content?

I can remember being sexually abused as a child long before anybody tried to attack me with a battle axe. The latter, to date, has yet to happen.

And yes, the person who did it was led there by indecent pictures.

Is someone really saying that semi-naked, scantily clad bodies no matter the sex are something a kid shouldn't see? Don't you ever go into a public bath?

That is exactly what I'm saying. Semi-naked, scantily clad bodies are something a kid shouldn't see, and are not for public exposure to adults, either.

Sex sells, sure, but why? Don't you think it sells rather BECAUSE society is still a long way from overcoming the Christian heritage of brandishing the alluring aspects of the body as devil's work.

You've got the wrong Christians, given that most of them around the fourth century had no clue what their doctrine actually was.

My religion treats sex as something extremely sacred -- not something to be paraded around like a K-Mart blue-light special.

In general, society has lost the difference between sacred and taboo -- they assume that something has to either be forbidden or completely unrestrained, and there are very few who have the correct view, which is that there is a specific time and place for it.

[Corribus]

@Ethric

Advertising by means of applying attractive yet highly irrelevant factors is cheap. If it works or not is beside the point.

Actually I think it's the whole point. If it didn't work, they wouldn't be doing it. Using tantalizing images to capture the attention of possible consumers is what good advertising is all about. By cheap I take it you mean "underhanded" and not "inexpensive". I just don't understand why you would think it is underhanded.

@B.Took

I can remember being sexually abused as a child long before anybody tried to attack me with a battle axe. The latter, to date, has yet to happen.

That's not a fair comparison. When was the last time you were seduced by a dark elf witch? My guess is that that, to date, has yet to happen. Because you haven't been attacked by a battle axe, and because you haven't been seduced by a dark elf witch, then both by your logic are appropriate in a fantasy game, correct?

And - doesn't your religion treat life as sacred? So I assume that you disapprove of any act of violence in media, including non-lethal forms, as well as fantasy depictions of violence.

[Elvin]

>In general, society has lost the difference between sacred and taboo -- they assume that something has to either be forbidden or completely unrestrained, and there are very few who have the correct view, which is that there is a specific time and place for it.



That seems so true.

[Corribus]

@Lucky Dragon

I'm not shocked or outraged, I just think that the truth expressed by what I bolded in your message sucks. It's a sneaky method that makes use of our weaknesses.

So you blame the advertisers for taking advantages of your weaknesses, rather than yourself for allowing yourself to be manipulated by your weaknesses? ALL advertisements capitalize on your weaknesses. They WANT you to buy a hamburger, so they target your weakness for junk food. They WANT you to buy a TV, so they target your weakness for new gadgets. They WANT you to buy video games, or go to watch a movie, so they target your weakness for sexual or violent images. They WANT you to buy a fancy bottle of whiskey, so they target your weakness for alcohol. They WANT you to go to disneyworld, so they target your weakness of your love of your children. They WANT you to subscribe to their online dating service, so they target your weakness for companionship. Do you get the point? Humans are rife with weaknesses, and that's the basis of our economy. We consume because we want things. So why single out sex as shameful one?

[Kareeah Indaga]

"Other kids are going to bring pornograpic magazines to school and your kid will be curious."



Eh? What school did you send your kids to?



And developers (and advertisers, publishers etc.) thinking with their pants that the consumer can't think with their brain is part of what gives Heroes V its decidedly less than universal acceptance. I'm not even reffering solely to the ridiculous Dungeon outfits, either!

[Ethric]

By cheap I take it you mean "underhanded" and not "inexpensive". I just don't understand why you would think it is underhanded.

Doesn't "underhanded" mean dishonest, secretive or similar? Not quite what I meant.

I meant that there is less labour involed in slapping on a pinup as opposed to try to make an advertisement that actually speaks of the positive attributes of your product. Cheap in effort and creativity, and by that I guess indirectly cheap in money. And yes, also cheap in that it is directed at hormones and instincts as opposed to at the intellect.

Not that I look down upon all use of sexiness in advertisements, it depends on the product and the style. But this is just opinion.