When Gameplay Gets in the Way of Boobs

What is the most sought after feature in a videogame, any videogame? Some would go for a polished gameplay, others prefer a good story, while others still choose all-out action over anything else. But what do the publishers of free-to-play games, mainly MMORPG and strategy genres think we want the most?

Boobs.

We don’t care if the story is clichéd to death, or if the action is stale. What we, pubescent and easily excitable players want when we’re browsing for a new game to play and spend a little cash on microtransactions is some cool wallpaper with a bare-naked lady. Not the band, mind you.

We see it in almost every F2P games out there. Runes of Magic. Allods Online. Vindictus. Perfect World International. Atlantica Online. A Mystical Land. And don’t even get me started on the city-building games such as Evony, Batheo or Dragon’s Call, with their seductive advertisement ladies that in some cases didn’t even made it to the game itself.

Oddly enough, this strategy seems to work in some cases, at least if we go by the millions of registered players regularly advertised by each game. That’s a strategy in itself, but we’ll go there another time.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with showing some flesh in videogames. Who doesn’t like to look at a sweaty Lara Croft gracing the box of a game, or a Zero Suit Samus Aran? But there’s one fundamental most free-to-play developers are forgetting: these are strong characters, sexy but with some meat to them (if you know what I mean), pretty faces with backstories to support their appearance. That’s something the F2P games are still lacking and need to carefully address.

As they always say, it’s not the size that matters, but what you do with it in the game.

Editor’s note: which F2P female characters do you consider particularly attractive, both in looks and personality? Leave your opinion in the comments section.