A Conflicted Defense of Xtreme Beach Volleyball

I really despise the term “guilty pleasure”. The implication that subjective tastes were something that needed to be defended has just never sat quite right with me. Yet it persists, a common aspect of how we consume media in general, as if the quality of the things we enjoy are a point-by-point reflection of our quality as people.

This is a silly notion, of course, as a majority of us simply don’t care, either because we’re tolerant or just too caught up in ourselves to be worried about what other people do. That said, there’s really no way for me to proclaim my fandom of the Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball games without someone coming to the (rather logical) conclusion that I’m a creepy weirdo. I can’t blame anyone for this, and I’m not really here to confirm or deny that one way or another, but I will say that my appreciation for the series comes from a less obvious place that I will try my damnedest to explain.

As an adult with an internet connection, I am well aware of the existence of pornography and my continued time in ye olde cyberspace has exposed me to the many flavors of that particular Baskin Robbins, whether or not I even wanted that exposure, so just functioning as a “boob simulator”, playing to the basest perverted instincts, there really isn’t a place for it. (Also, boobs don’t work that way.) Even acknowledging that there are many a pubescent youth with much more time on their hands and/or subsets of culture that I’m simply not tapped into that do just want the eye candy, that’s never been why I came to Zack Island.

I suppose one could question if that enjoyment is somehow a byproduct of authorial intent, but you don’t really have to. We know why the series was made. It certainly wasn’t for the gripping narrative or character development. Even if you want to briefly consider Itagaki’s claim that the DOA girls are like daughters to him and that he doesn’t want to exploit them, you don’t feel particularly ashamed of your words and deeds for calling bullshit. So why do I like them? More bafflingly, why have so many of my past girlfriends liked them?

What I seem to tap into with the series is an odd feeling that I can enjoy them irrelevant of their purpose, but also without resorting to a sense of derisive irony. It’s different than my reverence for a bad Ed Wood movie, for example. Underneath the indubitablely gross surface level are shades of an actual good game. It’s a melding of genres that offer a lot of the things we typically look for in other titles; variety, replayability, relationship building, and a bra-full of collectibles. It’s a sports game and a dating sim and a shockingly addictive casino all rolled into one to make something undeniably unique. It’s a leisure platform without a stated endgame. It’s Animal Crossing with passive-aggressive gift giving in place of predatory raccoons and real estate. In a word, it’s relaxing.

After spending a considerable amount of time with the games, I still don’t feel like I’m in a position to argue that they’re “good”. Ignoring that that term means different things to different people anyway, they still inhabit a niche of a niche. In a way, that’s a benefit to them, as there still exists an air of mystery to the sub-systems within, the minute detail of why certain character interactions only work in certain situations. Japanese game design has rightly been criticized for its frequent unwillingness to evolve and the antiquated portrayals of women that are seemingly locked in an anime dimension where it’s perpetually the year 2000, but there’s a certain respect for the unknown, an obfuscation of mechanics that we rarely see Western development pull off anywhere near as well. Yes, Hitomi does like light blue wrapping paper for her cooking gifts, but I’m unsure if she was a morning person or not. It’s silly, but… it needs to be. It’s the only way to really diffuse the otherwise unforgivable presentation that would typically drive away a person like myself.

It’s harmless, in a way, while still being a bit presumptuous. I want to say it’s easier to enjoy because it’s so comfortable in its own skin, but I reach a point where I’m unsure of who exactly I’m trying to convince. It’s not guilt, per say, so much as a need to understand myself and how I can be drawn to such a thing. It’s that contradiction that’s oddly attractive. “No, this actually has merit” I hear one side of my brain arguing.

Meanwhile, the other side snickers, shrugging.

“Whatever man, enjoy your boob game.”

This was a good read. Though I totally understand why some refer to things as 'guilty pleasures'. I myself would definitely, for example, refer to KoRn's Untouchables album as being a guilty pleasure, because I understand how cringeworthy their music seems these days.

There is nothing that inherently stops a boobie game from being good. Most aren't because they're just an excuse for boobs. Video games need a Russ Meyer because Beyond The Valley of The Dolls is a cinematic masterpiece.

I find Japanese sexism often gets a pass from westerners because it feels more alien to them. It seems OK to objectify some girl's ridiculously bouncy breasts because she doesn't seem like a real person anyway. If this type of content would typically drive you away, you might want to think real hard about why this game gets a pass.

That said, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with adult content in games provided said games are kept out of the hands of minors. I just wish there were a better solution to that than whatever's in place now, because I see a whole lot of kids playing them.

This was pretty much the entire purpose of what I wrote, the conclusion being that it doesn't get a pass in that respect, but has merit in other areas.

As far as kid getting their hands on adult content of a sexual nature, video games are pretty much the last place I would put my concerns, and the same goes for violence. Movies are still far more graphic than anything a video game can produce.

As far as the game in questions goes, I think a lot of people who criticize it probably don't understand how silly and light-hearted it is. Never played the game myself, but I have seen it played, and it's all pretty mild.

Plus, it's given the world some fun you tube videos.

I haven't even seen it effectively demonstrated that games like DOAX3 are sexist. It's the kind of thing that "sounds" true and is easy/popular to swallow.

Yeah pretty much. A lot of calls of sexism these days just seems to be cases of "I don't like this and I don't like that it exists so I'll call it sexist".

I don't think these are my kind of game, but hey if you enjoy them OP then fucking right on.

@wolfgame said:

The culture that generates games like DOAX3 is undeniably sexist. Confucian values in particular are still very prevalent throughout Southeast Asia, including Japan, and very much value males over females. Look at the gender imbalance that happened in China due to their one child policy. The Korean prostitution industry accounts for 1.6% of the nation's GDP despite being illegal. Look at Japanese hostess clubs, maid cafes and massage parlors. Treating women like second class citizens is still very much a thing in many parts of the world, and this game is in many ways a reflection of that.

@sinusoidal: I guess the disagreement would be in what ways DOA is responsible for any of those things.

This was a well written blog post. Back when I rented the sequel I noticed it had a unique mixture of genres as you noted. As well as having a set of compelling mini games that kept me coming back for more. You did a good job explaining why you like these games.

Will this game have a casino? If so I'm all in. I had a lot of fun gambling away all my volleyball winnings in the old games.

In addition to that, it sounds like a whole different discussion. One minute someone is saying Grand Theft Auto V is racist, the next minute someone says that hasn't been effectively demonstrated, and then it's pointed out that the game comes from a culture that has issues with race.

But "does it come from a culture that has issues with race?" was never the question being asked. And if "does it come from a culture that has issues with sexism?" was proof of sexism in a video game, I could use the same point to argue that Super Metroid is sexist. Or any game ever, for that matter.

[edit] Just for fun, I went looking on Metacritic to see how the original DOAX was received. This blurb from Game's Radar was especially good:

In essence, it is - and this is delicious irony, for something supposed to be the Ultimate Teenage Male game - about playing with dolls. It's possibly the most girly game of all time; relationships, shopping, and fashion.

And that's the funny thing about all this. Take away the breast physics, and this is a total "girl game." Of course, speaking as someone who really enjoys managing relationships in games, and spends way too much time playing dress-up in character creators / virtual clothing stores, I'm not one to judge.

@wolfgame said:

It's not responsible for sexism in the same way that blackface isn't responsible for racism.

Blackface isn't responsible for racism, it is a result of racism. Without racism in the first place, you would never have blackface. For that analogy to work, DOA wouldn't be responsible for sexism, it would be a result of sexism, and that leads us right back to where we were before. How is DOA sexist? I'm not saying DOA is or isn't sexist--and I could probably make a case for both--but you've not doing very much here to present a convincing argument, IMO.

And going back to this from the OP:

I want to say it’s easier to enjoy because it’s so comfortable in its own skin, but I reach a point where I’m unsure of who exactly I’m trying to convince. It’s not guilt, per say, so much as a need to understand myself and how I can be drawn to such a thing. It’s that contradiction that’s oddly attractive. “No, this actually has merit” I hear one side of my brain arguing.

Meanwhile, the other side snickers, shrugging.

“Whatever man, enjoy your boob game.”

Personally, I'd just ask yourself if you'd enjoy the game without the boobs and skimpy bathing suits. If the answer is yes, then I think you're safe. I've asked myself the same question about the DOA fighting games, and I'd still play them even without all the bouncing and revealing outfits. They're just good fighting games.

I'm sure the same is true for the DOAX games. People probably play them for the same reasons they play games like Animal Crossing or Mario Party. If the only thing they had to offer was a TV screen of bouncing breasts, as you suggested, there are more effective ways of seeing that sort of thing.

Blackface was a portrayal of blacks intended to trivialize them. It's a stereotype of black people. It put all black people into a nice, neat little package that made them easier for racist audiences to accept.

Isn't DOAX doing the exact same thing to women?

If this is an example of "sexism", you guys must really be nitpicking. After all, none of the female characters exhibit any real negative characteristics and they have just as much character development as your average jughead bodybuilding male FPS protagonist. DoA actually puts women on a pedestal and pushes males off to the side and while they're only really put on a pedestal for their beauty, isn't it a good thing that they're important in the first place? To me, it's way more insulting if a game places no importance or significance on females and just treats them as an objective. Without females (albeit heavily exaggerated ones in more ways than one), Dead or Alive wouldn't be able to exist, and you can't say that about most games.

This is an honest question - if Dead or Alive's girls were all ugly, would you have no problems with the game?

Not at all. DOAX can be viewed as a celebration of the female body.

There is nothing inherently demeaning about showing beautiful women. It stems from the notion that has become more and more prevalent that sexy = sexism, which is so very very wrong and rooted in a deep misunderstanding of what sexism is.

@456nto said:

I think that depicting all women as ugly would be just as sexist as depicting them all as huge breasted playthings. Whether I have a problem with that or not is another story entirely. I'm not opposed to some cheap titillation.

See, to me a "celebration of the female body" would involve a few more body types than exaggerated voluptuousness. Let's be honest, at best it's a celebration of huge boobs and barely-there bikinis.

Sounds like you're running out of arguments, dude.

The more people scream "sexism", the duller the word becomes. Nobody takes that word seriously any more because lots of people misuse it. People need to reserve that word for actually significant injustices towards women - like awful, unfair treatment of women in places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - and stop using it over very petty video game shit that they just happen to disagree with. Like Dead or Alive not having enough variance in body shapes (which is strange, because Xtreme 3 has a flat chested girl on the cover).

To you?

Ah, of course. The, quite common, notion that everything has to cater to everyone. As if the creator of Dead or Alive should sit with a checkbox of every possible body variant and create a character around each.

Its not how creative processes work, and simply because it lacks something doesn't mean its a political message to say "if you aren't this, you are inferior". Its simply the way the designers wanted to design the characters. Why can't a celebration of big boobs exist?

Also your exaggerated comment is kinda moot, its fiction. Of course features are exaggerated, why stick to 100% realistic proportions when you can do whatever you want?

You also say they are playthings, but they are just playing with each other and having a lot of fun. You are putting in a context that simply isn't there. The games are very playful, very relaxed minigames with pretty ladies. Which is backed up by the fact that the games are very popular among women, who plenty came out and commented on that exact fact when the controversy around the localization was being discussed.

@456nto@atwa You've both clearly been in too many arguments over this stuff with someone who isn't me to bother arguing with my points rather than theirs. Good day to you.

I believe this is a bad-faith argument that claims to know and then generalize the feelings and opinions of people who enjoy DOAX. Just as not everyone plays GTA because they hate cops and want to kill them, not everyone plays DOAX because they don't respect women and just view them as objects.

To continue your race analogy, you can listen to 90s era gangsta rappers and appreciate the storytelling and struggle of inner city youth caught in a system and a culture that is sadly working against them, or you can view them as a bunch of stupid stereotypes, judge them for them being in their situation, and only care about the beats.

But that doesn't make rap music racist, even though it can certainly deal in stereotypes, and the person listening may very well be a bigot. It's how you feel about the media you consume that makes something objectification. That's why I prefer the word sexualized to objectified. There's still a subjective debate there, but there isn't a claim to know someone's personal thoughts.

I make no such claims to understanding why people who enjoy this game do so, or how it makes them feel. I don't think the sexism prevalent in this series annuls its value as a game either. I believe it's entirely possible for someone to watch one of those old Looney Toons with blackface in it, actively enjoy it, and not be a racist. That doesn't make that cartoon not racist. Just like I think it's possible for someone to enjoy a DOA game and not be sexist. That doesn't make the game not sexist.

I've never been in an argument with anybody else about Dead or Alive because I've never really cared that much about it but I thought this blog post was interesting, so I am arguing with you exclusively. Telling people "you're not really arguing with my points" when people clearly are is a very obvious defence mechanism that makes it clear as day that you've effectively ran out of counterpoints and you don't have enough respect for the person you're arguing with to say "okay, you got me". Granted, this kind of honourable conduct is rare on the internet and it's almost entirely impossible to change somebody's opinion based purely on internet arguments alone but you could make it a little less obvious when you're lying and just want jump out of a debate that you're losing.

This has gone about as well as expected.

@xerseslives: I enjoyed how you tried to reconcile your enjoyment of this game with it's skeevier elements. It's always nice to see someone trying to figure out why they like something that has some potentially problematic elements, rather than pretending those problematic elements don't exist.

Did you interact with the photo shoot sections of DOAX or did you ignore that element? I can see an argument that the minigames and dating sim stuff is fun, if creepy. But, the photo shoot stuff just seems like it would cross the line if I was just playing for the lighthearted minigames and casino stuff.

@thatpinguino: I put it in the category of the pole dancing stuff in the second game. It didn't serve much of a purpose to the "game" parts, so I really never engaged with it.

@xerseslives: The thing I appreciate about games like Senran Kagura and DOAX games even though they aren't my thing is that they don't pretend they are something they are not. If you want to play those games, that's your prerogative as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not surprised there is some competent enjoyable mechanics in DOAX, it's not like Tecmo doesn't know how to make a fun game. If you are an adult I don't think you have to justify your like of it, I think it's pretty human to able to compartmentalize feelings about something. Not everything in this world has to be binary. You can't control what other people think of it, or how they view you for liking it, but most everybody has some sort of so called guilty pleasure.

A big part of the reason I think there is such a reaction to Dragon's Crown, Xenoblade and Fire Emblem:Fates to name a few is that their controversial sexified elements were to the average potential US consumer seemingly bolted onto games that not only didn't need them but also where it didn't fit into thematically at all. Their presence can causes an odd dissonance to outright disgust to the Western player depending on that person's attitudes about that sort of thing.

But DOAX doesn't do that at all. It's pretty clear from one look that it's got heavy bent on pandering fanservice. And that thematically fits with what the product is.

i.e. If you buy a Senran Kagura you should know exactly what you are getting, but you might be put off that your favorite T for Teen SRPG Nintendo series now has a face rubbing minigame.

I feel like this risks going slipping down the slope into pedantry, but I might as well take the leap.

What you're describing is stereotyping. When it comes to the depiction of blacks, it is used in service of racism, but it itself is not racist. While it certainly isn't respectful, the idea that an entire race is beneath you as a whole is different from the means by which you attempt to make that race monolithic, thus easier to seem to be beneath you as a whole.

Neither is ideal by any means.

WOW.

I would argue that it can be quite the opposite. Because westerners often perceive western culture to be sexists towards women via the common use of objectification, they can sometimes refuse to entertain the idea that it's possible for other cultures to celebrate, say, the female body without being degrading.

Blackface was a portrayal of blacks intended to trivialize them. It's a stereotype of black people. It put all black people into a nice, neat little package that made them easier for racist audiences to accept.

Isn't DOAX doing the exact same thing to women?

Without getting to much into blackface and rather focusing on DOAX; I disagree that such a thing would necessarily be sexist.

Lack of nuance, oversimplification and shallowness with regards to characters aren't a sign of prejudice, but simply bad writing. Creating characters that have little interests outside of interacting with the player, don't have arcs, and don't ever exhibit more than 4 emotions doesn't mean that you are prejudiced towards the people you are basing the characters on. It just means that your writing skills aren't very good.

All of these flaws are necessary but not sufficient to be evidence of prejudice in writing, in my opinion. For that you have to add things like willful misrepresentation and an abundance of negative traits.

Video games are notorious for their writing just not being very good but I think we shouldn't mistake that lack of ability for malice.

@turambar I agree. From that point of view, DOA is merely stereotyping and ignorant of reality rather than sexist exactly. It's not necessarily portraying women in a negative light. But at the same time, it's still hard - for me at least - to reconcile the shameless way it goes about it with a reverence for women. Photo modes, pole dancing! (I was unaware of that until this thread.) It seems more like the creator is wishing that more women were like this rather than celebrating women that look like this because his representation of the female form is so one-sided. Of course some of that could be due to hardware limitations, but I still find it hard to believe that such a uniform representation of the female figure is a benign celebration of it.

@theht "WOW." You agree or "WOW." you don't agree?

@imsh_pl It could be. It's entirely possible for cultural misunderstandings to result in misinterpretations of intentions. Isn't it also possible that something could maybe be intended to be a "celebration of the female form" and end up being sexist anyway? The same argument applies to bad writing. If something appears sexist just because it's written poorly, is it precluded from being actually sexist?

The main argument being thrown up in the game's favor is that it's a "celebration of the female form". If you're celebrating something, why would you depict it so unrealistically?

That's a good point, and I think you're right. If someone wants to play Dragon's Crown for its gameplay, and they happen to dislike the sexualized nature of some of the characters, it's only natural that they would be really upset if it bothers them enough to detract from their enjoyment of the game.

Somewhat ironically, I think the same explanation can be used for why social issues in video game coverage and reviews bothers so many people. If someone doesn't agree with various ideological concepts--in the case of feminism, things like patriarchy, objectification, damseling, male gaze, etc--the nature of the politics that they disagree with clashes with their intent of simply finding out more about a new video game. It's enough to detract from their enjoyment of the gaming coverage in question, so it bothers them.

Now, you can say that people who don't want social issues in their video game coverage should just get over it, and if they don't want politics in their gaming reviews, they should just go to other websites that write the sort of game coverage that they want to read. That they shouldn't have a say in how Polygon--for example--writes, or if they write about social issues, and they shouldn't pressure them to change just because they dislike their politics. I agree with that, and I feel Polygon should be able to write what they want to. But at the same time, I hope most would see at least some level of hypocrisy in gamers and journalists telling developers to change various games to suit their politics, while telling people upset with Polygon's politics that they should stop complaining and just go to a different website.

And the same certainly goes for anyone who would say "leave DOAX alone!" one minute, and "Undertale is pushing a liberal agenda that doesn't belong in video games" the next. That's a hypothetical, but I'm sure that opinion is out there.

Either "if you don't like it, go find something you do like" is a concept that someone truly stands by, or it's not. Too often, it seems to be used only when it benefits someone's personal politics. At the same time, though, a life-long appreciation of the beat-em up genre, and an extreme dislike of overly sexualized female characters would make Dragon's Crown a real bummer. I get that.

I don't think it would be a stretch to call male strip clubs "a celebration of the male form" but I don't find them to be sexist, I wouldn't expect to see a large variety in body types, and I wouldn't judge the women (or men) who are there to be objectifying the male strippers. And any strip club would be FAR more graphic than the content in DOAX.

Nothing about a strip club is designed to be depicted realistically. It is a celebration of an ideal, which is subjective itself. My body type--thin and not very muscular--wouldn't be found in a strip club, and I'm fine with that. It's pretty understandable.

Also, and correct me if I'm mistaken, but you still haven't mentioned any ways that you feel the content of DOAX itself is sexist. You seem to be arguing from a point where the fact that DOAX is sexist is already established, but you've talked very little about the game itself.

and on this note I back out.. Wow indeed.

The thing is, for me we're back to square one. To me DOAX doesn't appear sexist. Granted, I haven't actually played it, and I'm making the assumption that it's basically your standard anime dating sim with boob physics thrown on top.

I almost always find dating sims to have quite abysmal writing and characters one dimensional to the point of it being funny, but I don't subscribe this to sexism. Again, they might very well be sexist - I even mentioned that sexism is one manifestation of bad writing (the 'necessary but not sufficient' bit), since sexist characters are most often caricatures presented as real characters.

@sinusoidal: I'm surprised by the comparison. I agree of course, but the equivalency stops only with neither being the cause of sexism or racism respectively. The comparison itself unfortunately insinuates that DOA Xtr3me Bij V-Ball itself is sexist in a way that isn't dissimiliar to the way blackface is racist, except DoAXBV isn't actually sexist you see.

Sleaze and skeeze don't an inferiority-pushing product make. You know what's sexist? Pageants. Real life beauty pageants. A bunch of 3D anime women playing beach games on a resort while their boobs rebel with all hellish fury against the very laws of physics itself? Puerile.

To defend the person that I've spent most of my time in this thread debating, just because someone makes an analogy, that doesn't mean they're suggesting both examples are equal in terms of offensiveness, inappropriateness, or harmfulness. I've made comparisons to people defending abusive game companies like battered wives defending their husbands, and I had to wade through all sorts of "WOW" posts afterwards, rather than addressing my actual point. OBVIOUSLY those two things are nowhere near equal, and the only thing they share is an abused party defending their abuser.

Neither of you are addressing the point. Expressing incredulity doesn't refute what I say. I say blackface and the depiction of women are comparable in that they're both unrealistic, stylized depictions of a group of people intended to entertain those not of that group and that those depictions both arise due to a willful ignorance of reality rather than some kind of "celebration". If your incredulity is indicative of some massively overwhelming logic as to why this isn't the case, please share.

@spaceinsomniac Strip clubs in the west are very different beasts from their equivalent (Maid Cafes, Hostess Clubs, Massage Parlors, the ubiquitous 'Da Bang' in Korea) where the workers are often coerced - if not outright forced - into performing sexual favors for their clientele if they want to keep their jobs. Even still, they're typically not the nicest places to work. But I digress.

There's no one simple reason I can point to for feeling that DOA is sexist. It's combination of seeing a lot of very similar depictions of women and my experience with the way women are treated - particularly in southeast/east Asia. I live in Korea. Women come from all over Asia to get plastic surgery done here so they can fit into some idealized vision that media like DOA propagates.

Do a Google image search for Korean beauty pageant. No, you're not being racist. They all look the same. It's because, if you're female and you want to be successful around here, you've got to look like that, and that look is one quick, relatively cheap operation away. Nevermind that many of those women were perfectly beautiful before that operation.

@imsh_pl I guess I kind of addressed your point above as well. It's the fact that this one-dimensional, abysmal depiction of women rings so close to what's expected of women in Asia that I feel the game is sexist.

Those sorts of comparisons can approach levels of tactlessness that are occasionally worth acknowledging. Hitler, etc.

I already addressed your point.

Objectification means treating a person as a commodity or an object without regard to their personality or dignity. I wouldn't know how to explain it any easier. Now we can go into whether or not video game characters have personality/dignity/feelings but that's a whole other can of worms. The way I see it, the creator of the game depicts female characters in bikinis playing volleyball. This in of itself is totally fine. It's the other, creepy aspect of the game that earns the objectfying label.

The creator has modes to put them in suggestive poses, has pole dancing sequences and stalker-esque camera photo ops. This is where I feel the game goes overboard and can be viewed as women being totally objectified. Objectification of women has played a huge part in sexism, in the west and in the east. Therefore, it stands to reason, that a game which objectifies women as a major mechanic is, inherently, sexist.

Awesome that you live in Korea. That gives you an interesting perspective on your feelings regarding issues like this, I'm sure. I wish I knew that earlier. As far as the google search is concerned, are you talking about this?: http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/347304/korean-beauty-contestants-not-so-look-alike-afterall

It sounds like that has proven to be false--ironically by Kotaku of all places--or perhaps you're talking about another example.

Personally, I find it interesting that games can be held up as sexist trash while other parts of media have just churned it out for decades, just look at the fashion industry and the way it treats models (especially in Asia as mentioned above). I think the market has kinda spoken here - The DOA Extreme series has sold like garbage here, which has led to the third one not even making an appearance. And as our dollar up here in Canada stays low relative to the US, our standard AAA game prices have rocketed up $25 in the last two years, so people are simply buying fewer games now, with niche titles first on the chopping block.

But I guess what the last few years of following video games, and the reactions of fans to them on the internet have taught me: stop caring what the internet thinks. Arguing is fruitless, as the end result is simply what I am saying now, I don't care and haven't yet seen any argument compelling enough to make me. I probably have shitty taste according to some, and I should just stop worrying about it and play things I am interested in. Those people would have been just as appalled to see me blowing up demons in Doom or handing cash to 2D strippers as Duke Nukem twenty years ago, and I didn't lose sleep over them then, and I see no reason to do so now.

Locked at behest of original poster.