Do Developers Understand Sexy?

[Belle]

Obviously character is the most important aspect. The problem I see so often today is not that there are sexy characters - I like Bayonetta - but that there is a growing trend to objectify and 'sex up' female characters whose sexuality was never the focus. Samus is a poster-child of this. It wasn't enough that Nintendo took her out of her power armor and put her in a skin-tight suit that showed every nook and cranny, but they went so far as to slap high heels on her, too. I'm reminded of this article:

Samus deserves much better, but instead, she’s gotten so little from her developers, who either don’t know how to design her correctly or simply don’t care. Samus’ character is on a downward trajectory - now her gender, rather than her attitude, has become her selling point.

That said, I think developers do understand 'sexy': they understand that the bulk of people that buy their games - boys in their teens and early twenties - love this shit. And often it probably isn't even their fault, but the fault of someone higher up pushing sales over artistic integrity.

It blows but isn't new; it's just becoming more and more egregious in a medium that we enjoy. All ya can really do is let the industry know you want more Ripleys and hope there are devs out there that desire the same thing.