There's something deeply funny to me that the same political side that demands representation for everyone in everything is then stunned to know that if EVERY character *doesn't* represent something the typical audience likes/wants to see that audience will go elsewhere. This is not rocket science, and it's such a deeply american problem it's honestly hilarious and frustrating at the same time with your culture's obsession with moralizing media consumption and production only somehow ever registering one way. If your game's characters look lame, uninteresting, and nothing like most people would want to *be,* nobody's gonna buy it. It's that simple. Progressives keep banging on about how people need to be represented to want to partake in a piece of media,\* then when a piece of media that represents exclusively stereotypical members of a portland polycule shows up and people are surprised if it's played exclusively by *some* polyamorous portlanders (not even all of them if you look at the stats). \* which is yet more horseshit america-centrism, the rest of the world is used to not being represented in most media we see since americans make most of it, and i'd rather laminate my own testicles than subject myself at an earnest attempt from an american at representing *my* demo. --- Furthermore: Overwatch is *super* diverse, but all their characters (yes, even the fucking gorilla, Winston is handsome as fuck *and* he passes the harkness test) look *appealing.* Their bodies look well proportioned, even Roadhog who is a morbidly obese alcoholic with visible cirrhosis looks more visually appealing than *any* concord character, because even he looks like an idealised and larger than life (pun very intended) version of a morbidly obese alcoholic. Meanwhile concord characters look like frumpy cosplayers that wouldn't qualify for 3rd place at a backwater anime con somewhere in whatever US state has the worst inbreeding rates. Your example with DRG is very fitting as well because I don't think *most* people would call those characters sexually attractive (but trust me, *some* absolutely do), but they are extremely visually *appealing.* Bold recognizable shapes that fit their roles, good color combinations, fun presentations. Concord looks like it's about to scold you for microaggressing someone, DRG looks like it's about to attempt to burp another country's national anthem it hasn't even heard before. DRG oozes goliardic fun, while Concord looks and feels like the used dishrag at the bar where that team's art director will end up working if there is any justice in the world,

You absolutely can. Something bad and uninteresting is not an *improvement* on something mediocre and uninteresting. You don't get points for the jump if you shatter both your knees on the landing and the kneecaps fly out into the stands killing one of the hotdog vendors.

> demonizing queer repsentation as ugly. They're not, they're specifically saying Concord's character design is ugly for a lot of very practical and valid reasons, and *also* it's only representing a very specific minority of people who are a spit in the bucket of the total audience numbers necessary to support a *paid* live service title. So it's both doing a disservice to itself by just being incompetently made AND playing into the stereotype that minority rep always ends up ugly (an already very common sentiment due to how often cases of it sucking are spotlit) because it has basically nothing but that. Ironically had Concord had a more *actually diverse* cast, and not overwhelmingly represented a handful of pet groups the designers seemed to overwhelmingly favour, it would have not been possible to attack it as "they're all lame fat and/or gay." It still would have tanked, so on balance not much of an issue, but still.

> People aren’t exactly ranting about how Winston (a Gorilla) isn’t sexually attractive Well that's for 2 reasons: 1. He's a single character, the vast majority of characters in any successful piece of media are at least somewhat appealing, and this stands true for OW. 2. Winston is a stud

I really love goofy and weird characters. I have no idea how they managed to look everyone off

People buy McDonald's menus for pokemon cards and throw the food away. People also buy Pokémon cards.

Exactly! In games like these, there's slowl absolutely room for minority or less "appealing" character design. Give them interesting abilities that match their character design and they'll see play. But you should also have some conventionally "appealing" characters because it turns out people like to role play as someone more attractive than they see themselves IRL. Provide a good mix so people can role play however they want, and keep things balanced such that some of the minority characters see play by the min/maxers.

There's absolutely room for interesting LGBTQ and minority characters in a mainstream game. For example: - femboy who happens to be really good at sniping or shanking people - obese person as your tank or support - trans (either way) as a ninja or shape shifter (maybe a little on the nose?) And so on. Make them interesting to play as, and *also* include some "traditional" characters (hot, scantily clad women, muscular men, etc). Each character should be interesting, visually distinct, competitive to play with, and not too stereotypical. Games should be fun first and foremost, then interesting, etc. Including minorities is a pretty distant nice to have, so if you're going to do it, make them fun and interesting to play with.

Right? Overwatch has the fat dwarf engineer, the chubby ice girl, the scrungly paraplegic pyromaniac, six distinct lesbians, and a gorilla. Wild variety of costume design and body type. It is almost impressive how every single character in Concord is... askew. They look like cheap cosplays of themselves.

Just in time for Sony to release another Overwatch-like destined for the scrap heap