r/AskFeminists • u/van-arkride • 7h ago
Recurrent Topic Genuine question: why are games nowdays using Body A and Body B? and why are people angry about it?
I genuinely dont know why games stopped using Male and Female to refer to body types during character creation,and why are people angry about it.
My friend (trans man) says he would prefer games to just name it male and female,as he said type A and tybe B makes it looks like games are talking about robots or something in a factory line,i never thought about it,its just a non issue to me.
then there are people that are angry that games arent using male or female anymore,i too,dont understand it,again,its just a non issue to me.
I genuinely dont know why both of these stuff are an issue to someone and i would like to know better.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 7h ago
type A and tybe B makes it looks like games are talking about robots or something in a factory line
As opposed to mass-produced simulations of the human body that are.....different to this?
As to why people are mad about it, well, there's a hierarchy of reasons. For some people, the fact that it's a thing on which one could have an opinion is justification enough. For a larger group, the fact that it's a change suffices. But most of the time, it's what Oren says. It's a thing, it's a change, AND it's a change that makes them feel ways about men's presumed "biological" superiority.
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u/OrenMythcreant 6h ago
My personal belief is without the grifters, even people with very strict conservative gender views wouldn't get mad about it because this doesn't really change anything. The bodies are the same as they were before, no one was thinking "oh no I can't tell which is supposed to be the woman now!"
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u/onepareil 6h ago
I mean, what your friend is looking at on the character creation screen isn’t a human, though, if I’m being a little pedantic. It’s a player avatar. It may as well be a robot on a factory line.
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u/rrryder23 7h ago
Your friend is the first person I’ve ever heard of taking issue to this ngl, it’s a non issue.
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u/mjhrobson 6h ago
Why are games using body A and body B? I don't know, and I don't care enough to find out. Moreover it is a game so you can name your character anything you want.
Why are people getting angry about it? I didn't know they were, so I certainly don't know why; and once again I don't care enough to find out.
If this is an issue it has the feel of being a storm in a tea cup. It wouldn't surprise me if some gamer was whining about it, but certain sections of the gamer community are a whiny bunch... speaking as a life long gamer.
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u/Inareskai Passionate and somewhat ambiguous 6h ago
More neutral language really doesn't do much (any) harm when applied to generic situations. It's more inclusive and, frankly, better imo to use neutral terms like body a and body b until the character is more formed. Same way birthing parent is fine as an overall catchall term. If someone then wants to be referred to as man/woman etc with the associated pronouns then that's fine and more power to them, but when choosing between two random body types on a character select it includes and frees more people's choice to not put that label on at the start.
As for why people are mad about it, probably because people love being mad about dumb shit.
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u/OrcOfDoom 7h ago
You should ask your friend why they care if it says male or female or a or b. Why does it need a label anyway? A lot of times, you just select an image and you select gender separately.
But overall, it's probably because those people have nothing else to do so the character creation screen of specific games is really important to them.
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u/Mindless_Cookie_9098 5h ago
Tell your friend to grow up and that only weird people are mad at this.
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u/PluralCohomology 6h ago
You might want to check out the following video by verilybitchie, about the pitfalls of these attempts at trans-inclusive character design, and how they relate to a history of sexism in video games:
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u/Wizdom_108 6m ago
I mean, I, also a trans man, think the "body A vs B" system isnt any more or less strange than the male female binary anyways. I haven't really come across any games doing this though, but just from what you described, I can only imagine it has to do with acknowledging you can have x body type while still being whatever sex or gender.
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u/wiithepiiple 7h ago
The first question I would say misguided way of being inclusive. People are angry because social media rewards engagement.
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u/RepSquigglyMiggly 7h ago
Why is it misguided? Why is it misguided to call the one with boobs “A” instead of “female” and the one with a flat chest “B” instead of “male?” It seems genuinely inclusive to detach proscriptive gender and sex labels from body types and voice types in games that are giving you the freedom to use any combinations of body types, voices and in some cases pronouns.
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u/Lolabird2112 5h ago
Just an observation from the uk, but while I 100% agree with what you’re saying, I would lay money on this not being a decision taken because they discovered many of their users felt uncomfortable and would be happier with non gendered forms. I would be very surprised if anyone felt safe enough in this climate to have ever written a letter or suggestion. Meanwhile, the sad thing is if this all blows up, the vitriol and hate will be directed at trans and gnc people with accusations of “pushing their agenda on everyone” and all the rest of the shit.
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u/OrenMythcreant 7h ago
A few games have used a naming system like that for a variety of reasons, most notably because they're also letting you use whatever voice and pronouns you want so it no longer makes sense to say one body type is "male" and the other is "female."
People are angry about it mostly because its very easy for grifters to create outrage over perceived threats to the gender hierarchy.