Marketing to men is a big way MMOs are sold. Sanya looks at how breasts are used by just about every game out there.

Here’s the thing. Marketing is the science of reaching as many people as possible, and hitting as many of their purchasing triggers as possible. Putting imagery on a box is not a study of individuals, or even niches. Men, as a rule, are more visually oriented. Men, as a rule, like looking at nearly naked ladies. So there may be two MMORPG readers who wouldn’t dream of buying a game because of the breasts on the box. The people whose livelihood depends on grabbing your attention (and soon thereafter, your wallet) are going to go for what they know will work fastest on the largest number of people.

So join me on this wonderful tour of game imagery, as the industry puts its breast foot forward.

Read it all here.

 I love Guns... xD (all my MMORPGs avatars are girls...)

By the way, Japanese call the strategy of showing some skin in suggestive poses "FAN service"

So.... this begs the question now. What kind of box-art DO you make if you want it to attract a female audience?

Maybe they should have several different boxes with different art on them, like WoW had. Some with semi-clad women, and some with less obvious stuff.

Sanya, if you think that Vulcan image is something the ST license holders wouldn't approve, well, sister, you don't know jack about Star Trek.

From the Original Series:

To Enterprise (and trust me, there are some shots of T'Pol here that are way more revealing; search "mirror T'Pol...and yes, they are shots from the series)

and we'd be remiss to forget Voyager's Seven:

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a red-blooded heterosexual male. I'm not going to find offense with any of those pictures there. That said, an attractive woman on the cover of a product won't blind me to the flaws of said product. Understandable the vast majority of my gender doesn't work that way. If anything putting a scantily clad woman on a video game to me is a warning that what's in the box isn't all it's cracked up to be most times.

i enjoyed this column. i knew most of the box art covers and obviously the whole lara croft thing, but i hadn't seen most of those banner ads before. i found the section on Civony absurdly amusing. i think gaming could use more objective gender studies. it seems to get plenty of negative stereotyped attention and i'm sure a lot of us on this site have heard the rule "there are no girls on the internet," but that's obviously not the case. i'm curious what marketers would do to appeal to women. especially if most women aren't "visually oriented," as was mentioned in the article. hmm... food for thought. thanks for the read.

Easiest way to put it is just that "Sexuality attract attention".

Nothing attracts the attention of a heterosexual man than a beautiful women dressed in skimpy outfits.  On the other hand, how skimpy and what defines beauty can vary between each person, but generally there is a commonly accepted standards, and it is not hard to achieve those standards through drawing.

Personally I find giant boobies to be a turn off.  I am more of a shape man, not a size man.  However, when the artwork is well done then how big the the breasts are never even cross my mind.

Truthfully though, it is harder to get a woman interested than it is for a man.  (Much like other aspects of life)  The only way to appeal to the vast populace of women (I am not saying all) a game probably need to also promise love, wealth, and emotional attachments.  Which if the MMO works as a dating service then it might serve the that purpose, but there are better dating services that take up alot less time.  It might work for some, but not enough to make huge changes in the marketing strategy.

Another issue is women do not actively feel disgusted by a drawing of a beautiful woman in skimpy outfits in general, but men will feel or obligated to be repulsed by a drawing that features a male in outfits that are considered "unmanly" or "uncool".  This also applies to colors, no matter how manly a piece of armor looks, being pink is enough to make most men insecure about wearing it.

Men's gender insecurity is much much worse than that of women's in general, which often manifest itself as a obligated rejection of any thing that are considered not befitting of a male role.  However, lets stop here before it turns into a social and psychological analysis.

Sex sells isnt exactly new. Its used to sell just about anything you can think of and has been for a long time.

I like women as much as any red blooded male but if i bought everything i saw that featured breasts or suggestive imagery then i'd be in so much debt lol. With such an abundance of advertising i'm not sure how much sinks in as i know i just switch off to most forms of it now. Sure i still look at big billboards with sexy models but i wouldnt have a clue what product they are trying tp push.

And of course the main reason we get so much sex is advertising is a male dominated industry but they have evolved over the years to target women and children a lot more while the gaming publicity industry is still in its infancy.

It works on me. Sexy art makes me look twice - if it's too blatant like evony then i'll probably be suspicious it's trying to cover up a bad game but as long as it stays within the "suggestive but not too blatant" range then i'll look thrice too. I've never bought a game just because of that (so far) but it does make me more likely to read up on the game.

I actually don't think there's that great a difference between imagery that would work for both males and females. In both cases you're trying to create an object of desire but with a different context. As well as an image being a direct object of desire there's the desire to be like / look like the image. For me some kind of elfy ranger dude spying on an orc camp through a bush would have a similar pull to Firiona Vie in bondage but for opposite reasons. It's why you get so much imagery of kickass female characters in sexy outfits. The females notice the kickassery while the males notice the outfits.

Not entirely sure of the message here. Is it;

(a) The game industry is comprised of low-down dirty men who exploit women for monetary gain?

or

(b) Men are stupid and buy anything with boobies on the box?

My answer to choice (a) is; There are men who exploit women because there are women in the world who allow themselves to be exploited. By the way, many of these women reap the benefits as well as their evil masters.

My answer to choice (b) is; So what? Those men who do (hypothetically) select purchases based on this principle are acting in accordance with their genetic coding.

The bottom line is; Most men like looking at beautiful women and those not-so-beautiful will persecute the male species for this predilection.

Khal - I used to work Star Trek conventions as a volunteer just so I could get in for free. Setting up hundreds of folding chairs so we could all enjoy the anecdotes of Red Shirt #47 is my specialty :)

With that said, my first reaction to being told the Vulcan image was too extreme to be in the game was "DEANNA TROI, DUDE." Followed by "T'POL WEARING BLUE GEL." Also, I used to play a drinking game where you had to do a shot every time you thought you saw Uhura's hoo-ha. I mean, for real, those skirts and the Uhura perch were just a disaster waiting to happen.

Um, so, my point is, I am aware of the naked lady stuff in Trek Lore. Probably to an unhealthy degree.

But I haven't seen any of that in the game, and I'm reliably informed that Stripper Vulcan there was an image that was created strictly for the magazine, and does not appear in game, and the rumor is because it wouldn't have been approved.

Hope that clarifies!

Originally posted by Grym

Not entirely sure of the message here. Is it;

(a) The game industry is comprised of low-down dirty men who exploit women for monetary gain?

or

(b) Men are stupid and buy anything with boobies on the box?

My answer to choice (a) is; There are men who exploit women because there are women in the world who allow themselves to be exploited. By the way, many of these women reap the benefits as well as their evil masters.

My answer to choice (b) is; So what? Those men who do (hypothetically) select purchases based on this principle are acting in accordance with their genetic coding.

The bottom line is; Most men like looking at beautiful women and those not-so-beautiful will persecute the male species for this predilection.

c) Some of the posters on a previous thread said games marketing didn't involve copious amounts of boobage and leather straps. This retort post is a (pleasingly) data-heavy proof of the original point.

Grym: Er... neither? Last week a couple guys were bitching that it was just AWFUL of me to point out that there are huge numbers of dudes, particularly in the 18-34 range, who will seriously buy anything with tits or triggers.

I was chatting about this with my editor, and we thought a little picture tour of advertising would make a fun column.

Anyone who tries to fight human nature will lose.

I do feel that it is silly of people within the gaming industry to sniff and say they market at men because women don't buy games in the same numbers... when the default style of marketing is clearly aimed at heterosexual males, and I couldn't resist throwing that point in there.

But no adult professional gets bent out of shape at the idea that boys like boobs. It'd be like being offended that grass is green. I made a lot of snotty comments about Evony because... dude, look at the ads! I can't resist that kind of snark bait!

Or I could have just let Tupo answer, because he did it faster and better :)

/bow

I'm man enough to admit i just looked at the pictures and read the paragraph about DAOC.

I'm just waiting for someone to say they don't look at box-art boobies, but pick up the box for the feature list instead.

BEWBS! ;)

Originally posted by Dana

Marketing to men is a big way MMOs are sold. Sanya looks at how breasts are used by just about every game out there.

Here’s the thing. Marketing is the science of reaching as many people as possible, and hitting as many of their purchasing triggers as possible. Putting imagery on a box is not a study of individuals, or even niches. Men, as a rule, are more visually oriented. Men, as a rule, like looking at nearly naked ladies. So there may be two MMORPG readers who wouldn’t dream of buying a game because of the breasts on the box. The people whose livelihood depends on grabbing your attention (and soon thereafter, your wallet) are going to go for what they know will work fastest on the largest number of people.

So join me on this wonderful tour of game imagery, as the industry puts its breast foot forward.

Read it all here.

Wow,this is amazing,because not more than an hour ago,i saw the new Atlantica add,and thought the exact same thing lol.Funny how sometimes you think you are the only one ,with that line of thought and something like this pops up.

I would have to say this deserves a VERY simple response...TRUE..how TRUE.It does not work on me,i am far too finicky,but i bet it works on a lot,i remember the hundreds of related posts before AOC came about.

Heck look no further than You tube videos,people put out some videos to show off their talents ,and every post is related to the females looks,it is is pathetic really,tons of immature people out there.Now i realize some videos are a joke and are nothing more than sexist videos,so they deserve what they get,but not all are like that.

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Originally posted by Kainis
I'm just waiting for someone to say they don't look at box-art boobies, but pick up the box for the feature list instead.

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Personally, I always looked at system requirements.

I almost wrote this same article myself when I saw the first ad you showed in this.  I enjoyed it very much so I guess I can skip this one :)

Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar pops into my head after reading this write-up :)

I really love boobies

There is a booby prize? Where can I sign up and if I win can I get them in a C cup :)

So true.

If they advertised for none heterosexual males between 14-whatever, they might have more woman playing.  But seeing half naked woman on everything related to gaming can easily turn off many people.

So don't expect that to change.

I loved it! Witty and fun. Social commentary one loves to see. Sanya's wit is great! I enjoy so many  of her articles.

Waiting for FF14 is a bi**ch , but Sanya and friends make it an easier time.

Very funny and extremely true! First article that made me laugh here in a long while.

One thing though Sanya..

I don't know how this photo of me keeps getting reposted.

I had returned from the barn after cutting some fresh steaks off of our Angus cows out back and saw this guy snap a pic in my direction. I thought he was a nature lover snapping farm pics but next thing you know, I'm see my body all over the place!

Please stop using me as a sex object. Thank you.