Regarding the discussion about feminism in videogames and the way the heroines are portrayed in them, “Street Fighter V” has been criticized because of two characters seen as extremely sexualized – including the Brazilian Laura.
In an interview for UOL Jogos, the producer of the fighting game series Yoshinori Ono guaranteed that Capcom wants to erase that notion so that their game doesn’t disturb the female audience.
“Our objective with ‘Street Fighter V’ is to start over from zero”, explains Ono. “We want the professional players and the casual fans of the series to return, but we also want to reach those who have never even touched a fighting game. So we can’t have something in the game that makes people think, ‘This is not acceptable’”.
Originally, the fighter Rainbow Mika slapped her butt during one attack sequence, but the action was removed. That led some fans to question if some kind of ‘censorship’ had occurred.
“We didn’t make any change because of external influences”, reassures Ono. “Those changes came up internally. We decided to remove that because we want the biggest possible number of people to play, and we don’t want to have something in the game that might make someone uncomfortable”.
The objective, according the producer, is to have characters that people like, and not put them off the game. “Probably we won’t be able to remove everything that could offend someone. But our goal is, at least, to reduce that number as much as possible so that they think ‘Ok, there is this issue here, but it is within the limits’. We want that everyone can play and enjoy without worrying about anything else”, he says.
“Street Fighter V” will be launched for PlayStation 4 and PC on the February 16, 2016.
*The journalist travelled at the invitation of Sony.
This whole "trying to appeal to more people" thing Ono said about the changes to R.Mika's Critital Art is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. No one is going to be offended over cheese cake Mika slapping her butt. What they are going to be offended over is the fact that so far in the cast, other than Karin, every single female character is a sexy girl with big tits on display for young boys to ogle. I mean, what the hell is up with Laura's pants? Why is her butt circled? They'd need to do a lot more than change where the camera goes during their cheese cake wrestler character's CA to fix this. They'd need to stop living in misogynistic Japan and learn that in a game that is ostensibly not about fucking, they maybe shouldn't make almost every single woman sexualized.
Look at a game like Gigantic https://www.gogigantic.com/
It has lots of female characters who - get this - just look cool and aren't sexualized pin-ups for guys to fantasize about. There's nothing wrong with sexy characters, guys like sexy characters and girls like to be sexy characters, but when it's literally the ONLY THING on offer for women or people who want to play as a woman, It becomes very off putting for women and doesn't really invite them into your game. "You're only allowed to be here if I want to fuck you."
The other problem is that even the characters who are sexy, in SF, they always seem like they don't have any sexual agency or power. It never feels like Cammy is sexy because she decided to dress up sexy and show off during her fights. It just feels like she's inadvertently dressed in this bathing suit and then the camera takes advantage by staring at her tits and her ass. Isn't Cammy meant to be the sinewy, lithe, skinny military character? Why does she have big tits all of a sudden in SFV?
I would be all for a character like Poison, dressing provocatively and doing stuff like grabbing the camera during her win pose like Hugo does, but instead of slamming it into the ground like he does, instead jamming it into her tits or butt and then throwing it to the ground and walking away while blowing it a kiss or something. That would add personality and match her character well. BUT NOPE, THAT'S TOO SEXUALLY AGRESSIVE FOR A WOMAN IN JAPAN so you'll never see that. It's all girls getting quietly raped on subways and strong tsunadere characters who eventually love the dorky guy.
I love all this sexy stuff, but I also think there is room for cool or funny or spooky characters who are female and aren't sexy. I also think that women deserve to not be insulted by a game immediately from the pick screen. Where are the female equivalents to characters like Gouken, Birdie, or Dan? Street Fighter 3 made some decent strides forward with characters like Makoto and even Alpha had people like Karin, but why are there so few and why are they always little girls? Oh right, because these games are made in Japan where women are daughters or wives first and so women are either some one I want to bang or someone I want to take care of.
It's too little too late, Ono. Stop making Mika's super look dumb as some token nod towards progressiveness. It's condescending and insulting to the people who complain about stuff like this and shows that you don't actually understand why they are even offended in the first place. Protip: They aren't scared of seeing a butt get slapped.