Sexualisation in Gaming: The Problem with MOBA Characters
By Gaming Editor Bonny Murphy
This article was motivated by my frustrations when I first started playing online games. Many of the characters I wanted to play had exciting lore and mechanics however, particularly but not exclusively the female characters, were hyper sexualised. The characters would be fascinating and well designed but they almost always wore very little and made me feel as though women were only represented this way. This felt like a prerequisite to female characters being included at all in games; that they must be portrayed in the heterosexual male gaze to be involved in the gaming space. This is expanded on occasion to the male space where male characters also become oversexualised. This article includes examinations over various characters across four very popular massive online battle arenas (MOBAs). This game genre often included large rosters of diverse characters to play, which you would think would be a benefit, however the oversexualisation in MOBAs has been rampant for many years. Some of these characters have justifiable reasons for their overt sexual nature and designs who I have included to balance the argument surrounding sex and videogames. This article hopes to bring attention to some of the issues surrounding sexualisation in gaming and how it can behave in a positive and negative attribute for players.
League of Legends
Miss Fortune from League of Legends
The first MOBA I am opening with is League of Legends which includes a vast array of characters in a less stylized and more realism-based art style. The first character I will be discussing is the mid-lane staple Ahri. Ahri has been in the game for quite a while and is a nine-tailed fox humanoid creature. Her art style is very sex forward with her base skin and many other skins in the game including deep cleavage and high upper-thigh exposure. The character incorporates her animal elements into a fetishised visual. While this character’s sexuality could be argued to be unnecessary, the character’s lore is based on a cycle of seduction in order to eat. Ahri becomes out of control during sex acts and consumes her partners soul in the process. I wanted to include this character first as an example of justifiable sexualisation due to the lore, however, the extent at which League of Legends pushes the sex appeal can be too far for most.
Following Ahri, the next character I am including is Evelynn, who is a self-stated succubus. The character is almost nude in her artwork and skins, with her whole design hinging on her being the demon of pain and agony. She transforms into the form her prey most desires to lure them in to take their soul. This character is another example of appropriate sexualisation in regards the lore, however like with Ahri, League of Legends pushes this rather far in order to sell sex to its audience.
The next League of Legends character I wish to come to is Janna. She is a wind spirit who, without lore explanation or justification, is wearing a nothing more than a white wispy bikini. This character has no explanation for the attire and promotes the idea that all female characters, regardless of story or lore, must be sexy in order to be included.
Moving to the final female character from League of Legends, Miss Fortune. This character has the most anatomically incorrect body proportions imaginable. This pirate character has a miniscule waist and a cup size beyond what anyone could achieve natural or by surgical means. The character is uncomfortably set in the male gaze and has little to no justification for it. The biggest issue is the unrealistic body standards the character sets by her staggering silhouette.
However, I would also like to include Sett, the male brawler who exists almost exclusively with his shirt off. The character is justifiably strong considering his backstory as an underground brawler however the consistency of this feature aligns with Miss Fortune in the unrealistic body standards the Sett could create for players.
Smite
Neith from Smite
The next MOBA I am including is Smite, a game that’s characters are based on gods and mythology. Smite is a unique case in that its characters are rooted in historical depictions of already existing figures. The first character I will mention is Aphrodite, who in popular culture is associated with sexual love, but in mythos, is more accurately connected with other forms of love, not sexual. Aphrodite is a hypersexualised figure in the game with deep cleavage in almost all skins and artwork. While the goddess is often assumed to be associated with sexual desire, it is understandable to create a sexual character, however like with League of Legends, Smite can push this too far in its ‘artistic’ depictions.
Freya is another Smite character who is depicted rather scantily clad, unlike Aphrodite however, she is not provided with any justifiable reasonings for this. While having some furs on her arms, she is in a bikini-like outfit adorned with decorative furs at points. This look is ridiculous considering the Norse god’s climate and weather conditions. These forms of sexualisation can often be easiest to spot due to the laughable inaccuracies they show.
Neith is also a character from Smite who is sexualised past her character’s limits. She is based on the Egyptian goddess of war and wisdom. With no discernible reason for her various bikini-like outfits. While some could argue Egyptian weather would warrant lighter clothing, this is easily dismissed by the Neith’s numerous skins in other locations all being of the same nature.
The final Smite God I have included here is Anubis. The god is often depicted with a jackal head and a human male body. While this god may be an odd choice, the reason for selecting it lies entirely in Anubis’s skins. Many of his skins are creative depictions of the jackal-humanoid creature, however, there are some skins which remove the animalistic qualities and have Anubis as a mostly shirtless human male figure. This shows that sexualisation stretches as far as animalistic gods and that Smite felt the skin would perform well and sell sex to its audience regardless of the god’s lore.
Dota 2 & Paragon: The Overprime
Aurora from Paragon: The Overprime
This section will include characters from both MOBAs Dota 2 and Paragon: The Overprime. Beginning with Dota 2, the first character I would like to mention is the Queen of Pain. A very similar character to Evelynn from League of Legends, she’s a demonic succubus who thrives on pain. Her lore directly involves her being bound to an infatuated king who enjoyed the company of a dominating female figure until she eventually caused his demise. The character is depicted in a scantily clad bikini with demonic wings and horns. The character is very similar to Evelynn in design and justification for such.
The next Dota 2 character I have included is the Vengeful Spirit. She encompasses vengeance who is bitter and seeks vengeance for herself due to wrongs done to her in her past. The character is adorned in the classic bikini armour common in many of these characters. She is also surrounded by shadows which attempt to act as clothes but to no avail. There is no justification or description for why she is depicted as such. While this is the most egregious form of over sexualisation in Dota 2, in my opinion, the game performed the best of all the MOBAs for justifiable sexuality and fairly designed characters.
My final character comes from the much lesser known MOBA Paragon: The Overprime. The character is Aurora. A sword master with a very standard sword master past. There is no justification for the character’s lack of clothes and her lore provides no explanation either. The most notable and greatly humorous element of her over sexualisation involves her completely non-functional outfit. She has a very revealing leotard with a small skirt descending from below her back. The skirt does not cover her completely however and shows a lone bare ass cheek. While a very funny visual image the character shows the lengths game developers will go to in order to sell sex even when it is hilariously out of place in the context of the character and game.
To close, I hope this encourages others to look at any characters in any games they play with a new lens. I wanted to highlight sexualisation in MOBAs as a whole, the positives and negatives. Some characters are sexual by design and have a backstory that adds flavour and diversity to a diverse cast of characters. This is great for people to understand all monsters, creatures, demons, or simply people in a gaming setting. However, oversexualisation can contribute to warped and rigid views of sex, gender, and body confidence issues. Even though it can be beneficial, I feel as though games could relax and redesign some of these characters to feel more realistic in body and temperament.
