Game Theory: Are SMITE's Goddesses TOO SEXY?

WARNING THE FOLLOWING VIDEO MAY CONTAIN SCENES OF ANCIENT ARTISTIC NUDITY THAT WILL BE PURELY FACTUAL IN NATURE and decidedly not arousing in any way shape or form If you expect to be tantalised titillated or otherwise thrilled you will not be unless you have a strange affinity for thought provoking discussion on classical antiquity in which case go WILD! Anyway viewer discretion is advised [Music] hello internet welcome to game theory the show that likes to keep you on your toes by saying we'll do part 2 on the wii u but then decide to push that off til next week maybe it's a strategic decision or maybe I just get distracted easily like a squirrel chasing nuts this is already shaping up to be a fun one now I don't know about you guys but recently I've been smitten with smite it's a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game mo ba for short and if the acronym MOBA also brings to mind more letters like LOL and dota you'd be R IG HT but smite is different than the rest of the alphabet soup oh sure there are still the requisite three lanes and central jungle area that I as an admitted noob to the genre still have no clue what to do with but the key design feature that makes SMITE stand out from the MOBA crowd is that it's set in the third person rather than from a top-down perspective that simple camera change makes the game feel much faster and incredibly more action-packed like a satisfying mix of God of War lemmings and bloons tower defense so a free game with unique and satisfying action definitely the reason I started playing but what really sold me was the concept hi-rez Studios the developer and publisher of the game made a ballsy decision to have their versions of Heroes champions mega evolutions be God's from various religions and mythologies ranging from chinese and Egyptian to norris Hindu and even mayan it's like a super smash brothers crusade edition now as someone who appreciates a smart game this was certainly something that I instantly latched on to seeing both visual and behavioral references to the character source material was something i really liked and being exposed to God's I never heard of like the Mayan a shack cha hack hack shawk shawk AKA Thor with a lightning axe was pretty darn awesome but not everyone was as appreciative as i was in 2012 the game started to come under fire from some members of the Hindu community upset that their deities were included as playable characters the goddess Kali became the central figure in this debate as news blogs chidded smite for her over-sexualization calling her a victim of pornification for the sake of attracting a young male demographic hi res stayed firm at first but eventually had to change a few of the character designs in response to the outcry my question though is this were they actually wrong is the design of Kali the other shapely females of the smite universe merely slices of video game cheesesteak sorry uh cheesecake two very different things there or was this a case of a Miss informed media looking for a hot story and ignoring all the facts let's start with kali since she's the focal point of the controversy looking at her original character design she's um she's a huh what was I saying oh uh yeah let's just say the under boob is strong with this one so at first glance i could see why people were in a titty over whoo okay uh so at first glance i can see why people were in a tizzy about this design but then look at this this is a classic representation of kali so is this and this one to notice anything about the way she's portrayed or rather don't notice anything like clothes for example in most depictions kali is clad with just a skirt and a well-placed necklace of skulls in fact she's quite beautiful for a multi-armed blue skin to snake tongue God adorned and severed heads and limbs but hey maybe you're into that sort of thing you see it all goes back to Kali's lore in Hinduism Kali is Sanskrit for she who is black and is commonly associated with death violence sexuality and motherly love huh one of these things is not like the other anyway she first appears in Sanskrit culture during a battle between the goddess Durga and the demon she's um rock Toby ah Rack rack to be aja rock rock me amadeus broke the beach whatever they just said AKA blood seed much cooler every time dergah struck the demon drops of blood would fall to the ground and a clone of the rock would form can i just say what an awesome boss battle this sounds like by the way anyway it moves straight out of final fantasy dergah used angry brow and her furrowed forehead some and kali kali literally used lick to catch the drops of blood which prevented any more of the clones from forming allowing Durga and Kali to win the battle gain 3,000 XP and ten gold with this being Collies most famous story the original moveset hi res gave her and smite mirror this lure specifically the move siphon blood see she captured blood the story to defeat our enemies and she siphons blood in the game to also defeat our enemies. Historical references at work so the moveset coupled with the severed heads, the blue-skinned multiple arms, curved blades, all in all smites characterization of Kali closely resembles the historical inspiration, accusing the game of pornifying her when the source material is already topless--seems a bit extreme--but Kali isn't the only goddess here with the design that leaves little to the imagination so maybe there's more evidence of pornifying at work trying uh huh alright ancient cultures man i love them but the names just kill me a net it's it's got to be neth right no NEITH Jesus Oh man he should totally be in this game as a healer! No? All right, give it time anyway, Neith is one of my favorite characters in the game and is labeled as the Egyptian weaver of fate if Kali's alt was under boob are Egyptian Archer here is spamming the side but again is this just fanservice for the frequenters of deviantart to hi res credit it isn't check out the way she was portrayed throughout ancient Egyptian art Oh yeah! Look at that *who...* Like playboy, 2600 BC seriously though Again, we see a beautiful, well-figured goddess, who just so happens to be topless and this is perfectly normal for the time Ancient Egyptian women often wore simple sheath dresses called "kalasiris." The dresses were held up by one or two straps and were worn down to the ankle while the upper edge could be more and above, or in this case, below the breasts beading was often used for embellishment of course a game can't have topless women and tight sheath dresses shimmying being from lane to lane so high res did the tasteful thing and covered Neith with something fitting for her origins draping her in a light linen cloth which was a common material throughout ancient Egypt then embellishing her with beads and adding strap-like detailing to hearken back to those old dresses the thing on her head, well, Neith was the goddess of war and of hunting as such, he had as their symbol two arrows crossed over a shield in ancient Egyptian art she's often wearing that emblem on her head see the two arrows and a shield? ok so maybe there's a bit of artistic license there but still hi res recreated that exact emblem right there and the similarities are more than just pixels deep true to her origin as goddess of hunting Neith is an archer in the game that why do you ask if she called the Weaver of eight well apparently we're not the only one to have a difficult time telling what that thing on her head is I mean an oval and two curvy lines doesn't scream to be shielded two arrows anyway later generations of Egyptians had a hard time telling what that was - because her symbol looked a bit like a weaving loom when you squinted at it the right light and because her name spelled out in hieroglyphics included a character that looked very similar to a device used for weaving later generations of Egyptians just assume that she was also a goddess of weaving in fact this resulted in a complete class change she went from being a water-based daddy representative of the waters of creation to the goddess responsible for weaving the entire world into existence on her loom with smite took this whole backstory and ran with it giving her powers to represent both of her forms spirit arrow to represent the Huntress and world Weaver unravel and broken we've to represent the seamstress of the world overall and accurate and all-encompassing portrayal it seems like the only thing they didn't include a reference to is that she's sometimes picture nursing a baby crocodile why they didn't include any reference to that is beyond me so the game is batting 2 for 2, sports reference, gamer reference, G.G., smite, GG, but surely smites rendering of Aphrodite must be pure cheese cake right i mean she's got like frilly hooker boots and sexy blonde hair all tied up, a clear case of porn ification right let's see how she normally look a whole whole way okay stop it hey this is admittedly artistic mastery ok but still we live in a puritanical age this stuff is not fit for the eyes of the YouTube audience all rights seriously who do you think we are Arabic boobs TV all false modesty aside though hopefully we've proven . here female figures in religion and mythology whether you're talking kali aphrodite or even the Virgin Mary represent femininity fertility and motherhood because let's face it women are different than men their bodies do different things and they should be celebrated for its these figures represent idealized females for their respective societies and oftentimes the exaggeration of their sexual attributes were meant to reflect their roles as beautiful women Aphrodite Greek goddess of love beauty pleasure and procreation of course she's gonna be pictured in the nude with voluptuous curves just like she is in the game well except for the whole new part the flowing blond hair tied up like that it's erotic because it's meant to be it's a reference to Botticelli's painting the birth of venus and the frilly hooker boots a clear reference to her being born from the sea see how they look like pins happily there is no reference to the back story there where Cronus cuts off Uranus is little space rocket meteorites throwing them all into the sea which results in Aphrodite arising from the sea foam that would require a much different character skin speaking of i prefer afro d myself so overall quite contrary to the claims of this being shameless pandering to a male audience the way smite designed and equipped its characters was well in line with both the goddesses lore and historical depictions in an industry filled with cup sizes larger than the national debt smite took the high road and made female characters that had powers beyond jiggle physics reading through the website is a prime example of tangential learning at its finest it's clear the designers took great care to consider every aspect of the Gods floor when creating these pages that said look at the new design for Kali she looks like a female Valkyrie feeling much more north than Hindu her attacks are fine but nothing feels uniquely her own time back to that origin story we talked about the tragic irony of this whole controversy is that before she was Kali goddess of destruction fueled by blood and war now she's a melee assassin with high single target damage by demanding the character change because they were afraid of her being a stereotype they turn the character and what the most feared a stereotype so what have we learned today hopefully a lot but if there's one moral to the story I think it's this from here on out video game industry you should strive to treat every female character like a goddess but hey that's just a theory a game theory thanks for watching welcome back to the super amazing and card tournament after a long hiatus last time if you can remember that far back you overwhelmingly chose to have your leg ripped off and get beaten to death with it rather than getting an explosive punch to the groin all i can say that result is huh this week we're playing the 8-bit dating game who would you rather take out on a date: Kali, Neith, or Aphrodite? I don't know they're all pretty intimidating if you ask me or if you prefer males: Shock: he makes it rain he makes it rain Thunder axe or Thor second fiddle to Loki thunder hammer click on one to choose and next week the thrilling conclusion to the virtual boy wii-u episode. Talk to you again in a few days

Channel: The Game Theorists

Views: 8,340,047

Keywords: Smite, Goddess (Character Rank), Game Theory (Idea), Video Game (Industry), moba, Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (Media Genre), Kali (Deity), Aphrodite (Greek Deity), Neith (Deity), Online Game (Video Game Platform), Game Theory, Game Theorists, MatPat, MatthewPatrick13, gameplay, objectification, Multiplayer Video Game (Video Game Mod)

Id: UiPZFPYhmzs

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 22 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/Digital_T]

I thought the Kali change was for Tencent and not the backlash

[u/Klonoa134]

i want old kali back now

[u/[deleted]]

I love this video. Point is: Having boobs and showing boobs is nothing to be afraid of. Because guess what, women have had tits since the dawn of time. It's not a big deal people.

[u/Mogtaki]

He was so right with Kali being unique and mythologically relevant to her moveset and now she's just...well, an assassin with movement.

Game Theory is always great to watch. The guy speaks clearly enough for those learning English to understand what he's saying too.

[u/steeleman82]

I'd buy his logic if gods like Neith were actually wearing the REST of the clothing they are supposed to wear. A robe that CAN be worn many different ways does not turn into a character wearing virtually nothing with high heels on.

As far as "accuracy" goes, there are many gods (I'm looking at you Geb) where artistic, creative license wins out over actual reference -->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Geb_end_Nut01.jpg , which I'm totally fine with, but it kind of puts the argument about "accuracy" to bed, as HiRez clearly picks and chooses how accurate they want a god to be. Accuracy works both ways, and so does creative license. I'd even argue that if they were TRULY going for authentic representations, the several of the gods in question would be ridiculously flat chested as evidenced by most of the depictions in this very video. I mean seriously, look at the example pictures of Neith paintings and the kalasiris and then look at how DRASTICALLY different she looks compared to those examples.

If you want to argue that HiRez has the right to use creative freedoms to make gods look however they want, then fine, but don't use logic that's this full of holes to justify every DD cup, half naked female or ripped, speedo wearing male they put into the game.

[u/ThatDudeOverThere]

I liked the video but all of the "take that, feminists!" posting going on here is kinda gross.

[u/ttmore]

I kinda feel like he didn't do justice in this video. Hi-Rez didn't change Kali for sexual reasons. They were, as most of us know, due to Tencent and the skulls issue. I find it ironic he says things like the media running wild on BS, yet most of the premise of this video around Kali and her change was exactly thing, running wild on BS. She obviously needed a rework much like how everyone is asking one for Bastet/Arachne.

[u/yesimanew1]

OMG HE USED THE IMGUR PICTURE OF AO KUANG I MADE AT THE END :D YAY

[u/serisho]

wow.

the tragic irony of this whole controversy is that before she was Kali, goddess of destruction, Fueled by blood and war. Now, shes a melee assassin with high single target damage...