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(12-22-2014, 11:40 PM)Flickering Ember Wrote: The Western idea of beauty can often times be much more rugged, even for females.
I don't know that I necessarily agree with this. I think beauty is subjective no matter what culture you are in. I'm sure there are probably at least a few people in Japan who find Roegadyn women beautiful, which is probably the best example of a woman with a rugged appearance we have in FFXIV. I'm willing to bet there are probably a lot more people who find Hyur or Miqo'te a lot more attractive (and thus more appealing to play) than there are people who would want an Argonian or something like that, in either the West or the East.
You have to keep in mind that FFXIV is a multination game, it has to appeal to the beauty standards of not just it's home country of Japan, but also Northern America, France, Germany, the UK, Australia, and China (I may be missing a few places, so forgive me if I have). Beauty can be incredibly different in all of these places, but ultimately using typical beauty standards that are common worldwide (such as with the Hyur and Miqo'te) is a safe bet.
People tend to be far less critical of what Male characters look like in video games because it's incredibly difficult to go wrong with them. If male characters almost all look the same, or fit into certain stereotypes or follow certain societal standards nobody really gives a shit. If the same thing happens with Female character models people lose their freaking minds over it.
In short, it's not really lazy on SEs part. They made the race exactly how they wanted it to look, based on the concept art (which is usually done looooong in advance before renders and ingame models start getting done). What they did do though was play it safe, make a race they knew would appeal to the larger portion of their demographic, which at the end of the day while you can object to it, you can't fault them for it. They are a business after all, and the bottom line is they want to and need to make money on their product, which meant making Dragon Waifus instead of Argonians.
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