Identity politics is the reason were here, were being divided for others personal gain (imo the media and activist grps). Wake up to this shit and protect ours/yours values/ traditions.

Wow there is a lot of fools showing their whole ass on this thread, imagine being so stubborn over the idea of being team red or blue, it's a forum for a video game franchise we all love simmer the hell down and get some perspective or develop a hobby for your mundane ass life that you decide to come on a MK fansite and preach nonsense.

BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER

Did Beran honestly do any of those things in his statement? Reproducing it here:

"You’re not going to wear a bikini to a fight,” he explained. “You’re not going to be showing so much skin. I think it’s just what the game is about: you’re going in to fight for your life, and you’re not going to be wearing such scantily clad items. I’m sure that will disappoint some fans. We don’t have bathing suit fighters, and I think that’s fine. If people are disappointed, I don’t regret making that change.”

I don't see any calls for progressive ideals, leftist jargon, mentions of Anita Sarkeesian (dear lord), or even that much condescension. Yeah, the term "bathing suit fighters" reads as snarky, but that seems more like a dig against DOA than anything else. But, yeah, I've been a fan of Kitana's since her debut, and I've prayed to see her retire that flippin' blue bathing suit leotard for two decades. Not because it offends my precious feminist sensibilities, but because it is boring and stale and unimaginative and not creative!

Can someone please show me, in the actual words Beran uses, where is the call for "SJW censorship?" Where is the feminist totalitarianism? Beran is making a claim about what the aesthetics of the game are meant to convey: he's advocating for a less cartoonish Mortal Kombat: "I just think it's just what the game is about: you're going in to fight for your life, and you're not going to be wearing such scantily clad items." Is he actually "fellating himself" over this reasoning? He didn't pat himself on the back for being woke. He simply said, to paraphrase: "This is the type of Mortal Kombat I'm envisioning: less a focus on T&A, more a focus on the violence. I know some fans like the T&A, but I'm standing firm in this aesthetic choice." He did not actually disclose any political or ideological reasoning behind his statement. ALL of that has been inferred and projected onto Beran by the anti-SJW crowd on this forum. But he didn't even say it!

Of course he did not say it directly and he doesn't have to. The result of his design speaks for itself.
And the fact that MKX and MK11 became darker and more serious than the previous episodes has nothing to do with the ugly female faces, hijabs and flat chests. The darkness and seriousness could be perfectly fine if they for example used the face and body-shape of someone like Ronda Rousey for Sonya, someone like Rachelle Glover (who was actually the official cosplay actor for Kitana in MK9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN1F0zIDK9U ) for Kitana, someone like Patricia Velasquez for Jade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjgIkc_tGLc
Patricia Velasquez is btw the perfect Jade.

Oh and someone like Rose Leslie as Skarlet :)
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/webdr01/2013/5/8/13/enhanced-buzz-20226-1368033608-1.jpg

Sorry for double post. This post can be deleted.

Sorry for double post. This post can be deleted.

Please stop saying "hijab" just to troll. She's not wearing a hijab. It's a hood. You're being intellectually dishonest just to score some weird cheap political points about some perceived alliance between SJWs and Islamic fundamentalism. This is conspiracy theorism codespeak.

It is also a huge logical leap to assume that the existence of aesthetic differences between MK9 and MK11, with regards to the presentation of female characters, MUST be attributed to some cultural mandate to cover women's bodies. Standards in character design fluctuate over time for any number of reasons, including but not limited to different technical capacities with new innovations, trends in art/pop culture, historical epochs (pre-9/11 vs. post-9/11 aesthetics), and sure, ongoing cultural debates about the politics of representation in different visual mediums.

It's difficult to take the anti-SJW crowd seriously when they frequently present a Manichean vision of the world, where "feminists" represent everything evil and unjust, trying to infringe on the unalienable right for video games to feature sexually objectified female characters. The world is more complicated than this! Even if, for argument's sake, Beran came forward and said watching Tropes vs. Women in Video Games convinced him that the female designs in MK must be changed, you would still have to argue that this change is necessarily wrong, immoral, or constitutes "censorship." Censorship is the punitive banning of certain ideas or art objects; having game developers talk and have a dialogue with certain feminist critiques of representation, and perhaps be swayed by the arguments they pose, is not the work of censorship. It is the work of a dialectic between the artist and the critic, a productive, generative exchange that has been going on for centuries. I would happily place a bet with you that future installments of MK will feature scantly clad blow up dolls once again, when the contextual framing for character design once more spins on the wheel of time.

It is well within your right to maintain that you find the new character models "ugly." No one can take that from you. It is not, however, an opinion universally shared, and pretending otherwise is fallacious.

All of the back and forth gets old, and I’m guilty of it, so;

The last thing I will say at least tonight, if not permanently on this is that it’s NRS ignoring us completely that is the biggest issue. . I wouldn’t mind if the main costumes were like they are. I think they are ugly af, but whatever. Kasumi’s bodysuit in DOA6 was ugly to me, but I’m fine with it in Story Mode. However, they kept the original costume as an option outside story mode, because they don’t hate their own fans, and aren’t smug leftists. Or if only one of six costumes was traditional that’s be fine, or if they were in a dlc you had to pay $30 for. I have no interest in forcing anyone to do anything. I’m not an SJW. If people think a costume is sexist, I get no pleasure forcing people to use it.

Just one sexy suit for Jade, Kitana, Mileena. Skarlet too, if possible. And maybe a costume like Cassie’s endurance costume, and Jacqui’s Basic Training costume. The latter two are actually “revealing” now smh. The entire pack could cost $19.99. Or $29.99.

But even that is morally repugnant to them, which I find morally repugnant myself, hence my no buy stance. Straight men and gay/bi women are just out of luck with those kind of “core values,” and that’s a d*** move if there ever was one. One of the best conversations I have had on this was with a lesbian gamer who was more outraged than I am.

The idea that it has to be all MK9, or Kuckold Kombat, is a completely false dichotomy. I have all sorts of sexy mods for X. Yet no one has to see them. The triggered are spared the unfathomable depths of the horrors of exposed cleavage.

And I know this, I will never tolerate any feminist idea or attitude again, since this is where it ends up. I have no power, but if I ever do, I’m going ham on their azzes lol. I guess they just have to control everything? They took the swimsuit contest out of the Miss America pageant lol. God forbid a man want to look at an attractive women. See some tiotties, rip some heads off. What’s better than that? Can’t even frickin relax like a red blooded male anymore smh. Can’t even escape that s#|# in a damn video game.

The worst of it is the nostalgia. That weirdo they are calling Jade (retconned as Reptile’s sister? Lol) is not the same character that so elegantly beautified my 9th grade bedroom, whose radiant aura, sun-kissed skin (lol-dramatic on purpose for the cheese), and sleek outfit blended well with the constant Megadeth playing night and day in there lol.

But you can see here with the feminist replies that they can’t be reasoned with. They sit there throwing out jargon and at the same time claim SJWs are a myth. They even go play the “entitled” schtick. I was mildly supportive of feminism before all of this, despite having witnessed some of its excesses. It was my wife (conservative Catholic) who would rail on feminism. Funny how my pious wife, who prays the Rosary daily, shows more skin in Mass than Jade does in Mortal Kombat 11. Think about that. Her best church dress shows some skin around her collarbone, is partially sleeveless, and only barely goes past the knees. Is that not the craziest thing?

Feminist are frickin extremists apparently. Those characters are not covered up. They are not “toned down.” They are not “no longer bikini fighters.” They are completely and utterly covered up, in largely unshapely clothing. Whether it’s like a burka or not is irrelevant. The fact is, there were women in Afghanistan wearing LESS clothing, at least when I was over there, smh.

@midwestdad43 : See, this is where I’m at a complete loss. Your totalizing rejection of “feminism” utterly befuddles me, because you A) have not proven that “feminism” is responsible for these character designs, B) seem entirely ready to abandon something you once loved simply because of a perceived absence of T&A, and C) you cannot claim to know that ALL female outfits in the game will lack cleavage because we simply haven’t seen all of them yet!

Most feminists are not castrating mothers, hellbent on taking away everything you claim to enjoy as a red blooded male. You have been spoon fed this narrative, presented with caricatured straw men, in order to arrive at the conclusion you just reached: that the entire vast network of disparate ideas that constitute the concept of “feminism” must be utterly rejected. Feminism advocates for protection against domestic assault, for protection against workplace discrimination and harassment, for equitable access to healthcare, for the global advancement of lifting women out of poverty and providing opportunity for education. This idea that most feminists lie awake at night and fantasize about how they can “ruin” your favorite childhood toys or sexual fantasies might be the version of a feminist you might feel most comfortable debating, because it is easy to knock her aside as an extreme, condemning harpy.

Would it at all be possible for your rejection of Mortal Kombat to look something like this: “This new game doesn’t seem like it's for me, I like a lot of scantly clad women in my fighters. Shucks!” Must your personal narrative involve a grand cultural struggle blown several sizes out of proportion between a Puritanical force and the teenaged nostalgia from which you long to return? Getting mad at a social movement designed to protect women from systemic violence and abuse because you can’t handle the fact that the world has changed since you were a child is just...well, it’s really sad. Hope you can reconsider.

I'd like to direct your attention to this article, which contains a few more comments from Steve Beran. This is pretty much what I was referring to earlier when he was talking about being more "mature and respectful".

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/03/28/mortal-kombat-11-characters-female/

Here's the thing: Developers should do whatever they feel is best for their game, whether it be respectful, progressive, forward thinking or otherwise, I just wish they'd just talk about the game itself instead of the socio-political implications of certain decisions behind the game's development. Otherwise it just comes across as disingenuous and annoying, but that's just me.

For the record, Kitana in MKX is the best she ever looked, no arguments from me there.

There is such a thing as reading between the lines here. Not once did I say he was calling for "SJW censorship" or "feminist totalitarianism" but rather that his comments on how "mature and respectful" the designs for MK11's female characters seemed to be self-congratulatory, which just strikes me as unnecessary. Referring to his remarks as "fellating himself" was a bit hyperbolic, but it is indicative of how a lot of modern AAA developers in the west act when they talk about being inclusive. There's nothing wrong with wanting your game to be inclusive and to reach as wide of an audience as possible, but I would appreciate it if developers spent less time patting themselves on the back for it and spend more time discussing the actual game itself, and making sure it's polished and ready for release.

The way you paraphrased Beran's statement at the end is, again, all that really needed to be said. Even your take on the importance of aesthetic cohesion would have been a perfectly reasonable explanation, but that's not really what we got here. Sure, people are gonna be pissed off that they're not wearing bathing suits, and that can't be helped, but it would definitely go a long way towards easing tensions in the fanbase (maybe).

Wow. I cannot believe this discussion has went on as long as it has.

I honestly didn't think there was an argument to be had. What exactly are people defending, here? Seeing scantily clan women isn't a right. It's not even a privilege. And why are people trying to politicize this with 'leftist,' 'rightist,' and 'SJW' remarks? It's a bloody video game! lol Mortal Kombat at that.

Point blank, the lack of boobs isn't going to kill you. If you don't like it, just don't play the game. Problem solved.

Thank you so much for your measured response; it is persuasive, and I have a better understanding where you're coming from. I didn't see the line about "mature and respectful," which does carry some heavy "between-the-lines" connotations, particularly the word "respectful," which just seems an odd choice of word to describe a video game where characters are routinely brutalized bloody as a matter of course.

So, yes, I detect a hint of a self-congratulatory tone there, albeit fairly muted. The main crux of Beran's statement was, to me, an attempt to distinguish MK from other fighters on the market, in order to lend an air of prestige to the franchise that its sales numbers and critical praise should warrant. The big irony about Mortal Kombat is that as it grows in mainstream success and popularity, moving from a decaying niche title to a juggernaut in the gaming industry, the changing representation of female characters from MK9 to MKX-11 is a sign of its ascendancy and a testament to its staying power in a turbulent market. It IS a smart business decision to tone down the sexual objectification so the game can reach an even greater market. I understand that this transition produces a melancholic resentment in a subsection of the player base, but it still boggles my mind that this subsection would prefer to dump the game entirely when they feel ignored rather than celebrate the colossal success of NRS in resuscitating an admittedly dying franchise.

I think the hyperbolic defensive reactions against these changes, which are blatantly disproportionate to the perceived injury or slight incurred, are really telling in that they're not actually about Mortal Kombat or video gaming, even. These people represent a side of a culture war that extends far beyond the reaches of NRS and Mortal Kombat, and unfortunately, for this culture war to persist, battle lines must be drawn in the most bizarre ways in order to mask the very immature complaint that players should be entitled to jiggling breasts in their fighting games. No matter how much a person may dress up this personal need so it more closely resembles a grand political or metaphysical struggle between tyrannical feminism and innocent men, their actual complaint is still heard above all of that paranoid deflection. You want sexually objectified women in video games, and you're upset that you don't get them.

And it's like, that's fine! Who cares? People can want all sorts of things. But the bizarre sense of outrage, the unwillingness to hear that there might be legitimate, even economic, reasons why the objectification is dialed back a notch, is a problem for the psychoanalysts to address. I'm truly at a loss for words reading some of the responses on this thread. I get the sense that my opponents feel the same way, but I genuinely wish for a willingness to come together as mutual fans of the franchise, and not feel so personally slighted by the absence of bewbs.

"Please stop saying "hijab" just to troll. She's not wearing a hijab. It's a hood. You're being intellectually dishonest just to score some weird cheap political points"

"You’re not going to wear a bikini to a fight,” he explained. “You’re not going to be showing so much skin. I think it’s just what the game is about: you’re going in to fight for your life, and you’re not going to be wearing such scantily clad items. I’m sure that will disappoint some fans."

He says that while there are male fighters who go shirtless or even without pants. And the justification given by the ideology of "gender studies" is the fallacy that men go shirtless only to show masculinity, strength, power, etcetera. And this forgets to say that the masculinity or strength, or power in a male athletic or muscular body is a sexual attraction for the opposite sex.

WITHOUT MENTIONING that this fallacy of "gender studies" continues giving the problem that THEY DO NOT WEAR ARMOR.

"He did not actually disclose any political or ideological reasoning behind his statement. ALL of that has been inferred and projected onto Beran by the anti-SJW crowd on this forum. But he didn't even say it!"

Obviously, he will not say it explicitly, he will not hire Anita Sarkeesian or another PHd in "gender studies" or feminist activist SJW to be his spokesperson, but it is clear what he is doing. He is obeying all that these people have commanded him to do either due to shame tactics or any other reason.

"mature or respectful"? Who does he want to be supposedly "mature" or "respectful"?
"Mature"? "Less cartoonish"? This in the same game where crotches are hit and the spinal column goes off?
The beauty or sex appeal is "immature"? Women in sexy MK costumes are "disrespectful"? why?

Maybe Steve Beran did not explicitly say that he is being a servant of the feminist "gender studies" ideology SJW, but it's pretty clear, even that you yourself and all this has revolved around: "" sexually objectified female characters " being this a flagrant jargon or rather NEWSPEAK-word of feminist ideology SJW "gender studies." As well as others like "(women) oversexualized"

"a productive, generative exchange"
"critic" Yes, of course With all those SJW activist journalists who have infested the mass media, they have controlled and infected them,.demanding to impose its entire SJW ideology on everything that exists.

These SJW are not even asking for a DLC Anita Sarkkesian feminist "gender studies" MODE, they want all the games to be completely adjusted according to their morale.

@mahne876: I feel like you're challenging me to a drinking game! Take a shot every time you write "gender studies." I'd be too hammered to even respond to this post at this rate! But let me attempt the old college try.

I addressed in my first post on this thread that there's a difference between designing sexy characters and designing sexually objectified characters. Any character can be sexy to any given person. Yes, muscular, shirtless men are generally considered to be sexy! No sane person would deny this. Also, interestingly enough, slender, fit ladies in skin-tight catsuits: also sexy! This game has many of them! Your mistake seems to be reducing "sexiness" to an equation determined by square inches of fabric over square inches of revealed skin. Solve for se-X, am I right?!

Shirtless men, while sexy, are not reducible in their designs to their shirtless-ness. They are not objectified; there is a character beyond their well-built pecs. In other words, Jax is not a male bimbo. People objected to the female character designs in MK9 because they weren't just sexy. In fact, they were seen to be in excess of sexiness, almost to the point of grotesque parody. It wasn't everyone's cup of tea! I could spend the next thirty minutes typing why some female characters in MK9 were sexually objectified, but really, would it really convince you of anything? You seem to have an automatic, knee-jerk hostile reaction to the very mention of the words "sexual objectification," attributing your resistance to *takes shot* "gender studies" (oh the horror!). But whether or not you believe the term has merit, it's not, by any means, some radical extremist concept. It's a fairly basic idea, with applications in both human psychology, philosophy, advertising, artistic design, and yes, "gender studies." *pours more whiskey* Maybe you could check out the wikipedia page for it! And by "you," I mean the people reading this who are not mahne876, because I'm pretty sure he's a little too afraid of a niche academic subfield to do his own research on the topic without parroting misapplied Orwellian paranoia every chance he gets!

Sadly, these willful misunderstandings proliferate when deep anxiety and fear of change take root. It's just...it's so sad to see people marshal so much anger and resistance over something like..."gender studies..." *finishes the bottle* to the point where they need to write the words "gender studies" *burps* so many times in a single post just to desperately convince themselves, through repetition, that an adjunct professor in Twin Falls writing a book on feminist literary interpretations of Henry Miller, getting paid $30,000 a year to teach four survey classes, is part of a secret international cabal to reduce Sonya's bust size in Mortal Kombat 11. But, you know, GENDER STUDIES!

I think the hyperbolic defensive reactions against these games, which are blatantly disproportionate to the perceived injury or slight incurred, are really telling in that they're not actually about Mortal Kombat or video gaming, even. These people represent a side of a culture war that extends far beyond the reaches of NRS and Mortal Kombat, and unfortunately, for this culture war to persist, battle lines must be drawn in the most bizarre ways in order to mask the veryimmature complaint that players should not be entitled to jiggling breasts in their fighting games. No matter how much a person may dress up this personal need so it more closely resembles a grand political or metaphysical struggle between innocent feminism and tyrannical men, their actual complaint is still heard above all of that paranoid deflection. You don ́t want "sexually objectified women" in video games, and you're upset that you get them.

HUH! The irony

"You're being intellectually dishonest just to score some weird cheap political points"

Do not you want sexy women in video games?
Well, ask for a DLC "gender studies" edition
AND EVERYONE HAPPY

"is a problem for the psychoanalysts to address"
Now you want to pathologize who does not think like you?
Did you know that this is just an ad hominem fallacy?

Shame tactics, NEWSPEAK-words and now a pathologization of the dissidence...

No, YOU'RE ad hominem fallacy!

*harrumph*

@mahne876: Dude, this is exhausting. If you're entitled to believe that the militant wing of "gender studies" will bring about the fictional world described in the novel 1984, then I am at least entitled to believe that's a crackpot conspiracy theory with absolutely no empirical evidence to support it, and I can have some measure of fun poking holes at your logic.

If your way of "exposing" me is to point out that I think your position is ridiculous, then fine, you got me! I think your position is ridiculous. No amount of allegorizing Orwell is going to change the fact that you're mad this game doesn't have female characters with bigger T&A. And yes, I do find your anger equal parts bewildering and deeply, deeply sad.

See you in the new world! When the evil feminist matriarchs rewrite the herstory books, they'll note the day they slapped a cloaked hood on Jade's head in Mortal Kombat 11 as a crucial victory in their plan for worldwide domination.

When I was in high school, I thought Cortana from Halo was sexy.

.......Teenage me was weird.

you must prove it

Damn, are people still on with this subject?

https://youtu.be/L0MK7qz13bU?t=64

Exactly the same can be said of the feminist ideology and its militants when they started to shout and annoy the gamers and want to censor the games.

But everything would be solved easily with a DLC "gender studies" edition, with censored sexappeal.

And all happy.

"conspiracy theory"? That sounds like "the theory of Patriarchy"

Oh, you mean the theory that some men feel entitled to enjoy and consume women's bodies, and throw temper tantrums when their sexual interests are not explicitly favored? Yeah, what about it?

are you talking seriously?

And then they complain about why they call them SJW.

Are the straight women and lesbians who want the sexy outfits in MK11 included in your sentence?

or only men because they are men?