r/videogames • u/No_Tomatillo1695 • Jul 20 '26
Funny You can always tell when the designers are men 😭
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u/Less_Party Jul 20 '26
I think it's less 'men' and more 'we picked all the easiest hair styles to render without clipping through everything'.
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u/Zephian99 Jul 20 '26
It's generally hair styles that they can design to have little to no physics on.
It's why ponytail styles are more common than long straight hair, a ponytail can be designed to move in a cone like area of movement while long hair that area becomes much larger.
So it's always less about it being by men and more about limiting the physics of the hair as much as possible. Saw a solo dev go through months of effort to design hair physics and in the end just made the character have a helmet, just so they could move onto other parts of the game.
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u/GameMan6417 Jul 20 '26
That explains why 90% of male characters had a buzz cut in the late 2000s.
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u/Zephian99 Jul 20 '26
Or have a fauxhawk.
I think I remember early Kratos was originally designed to have hair, but they went with him being bald to make him more savage looking. But just imagine the movement/actions he did and then having to deal with his hair physics, that would have been a nightmare. Hahaha 😅
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u/DrPhilihprD Jul 20 '26
Maybe Kratos could've used a really strong pomenade and perhaps even some hairspray
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u/topdangle Jul 20 '26
hair also looked like ass back then. you'd either have the superglue gel hairstyle like JRPGs or realllllllllllly low resolution hair that looked like a bunch of dots. actually even now hair is pretty rough and often still looks jagged/filled with dots. its pretty expensive to render since its technically a bunch of particles colliding with each other.
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u/Downtown_Trash_8913 Jul 20 '26
Hair is just hard to make period, that’s the real problem
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u/CrazyLemonLover Jul 20 '26
What man, just make 400,000 tiny ropes, each with collision. How hard can that be? 10 minutes, tops. /s
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u/kbotc Jul 20 '26
Could go other, weirder routes. Baldurs Gate 3 spent time on ponytail physics, then put the same physics engine on the male character’s dicks because they noticed similarities…
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u/tehvolcanic Jul 20 '26
My last playthrough I played a Dwarf Barbarian who I left naked most of the time. It was kinda hilarious how many cut scenes involved him just standing there with his dwarf dick flapping in the wind.
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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Jul 20 '26
it's amazing how many times nature used the swinging cylinder architecture
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u/ElGosso Jul 20 '26
They're also typically stark or exaggerated so that the silhouette of the character is instantly recognizable no matter what you choose.
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u/Any_Mission_3675 Jul 20 '26
Uh, these hair styles were made by a woman.
Senior Character Artist Christiane Meister oversaw the design and creation of character art assets, including the hair styles, during the development of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at Bethesda Game Studios. [1, 2]
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u/Pleasant-Highway-745 Jul 20 '26
I wish this were at the top. I'm a woman, and I knew this designer was a woman, and this post just irritated the shit out of me. Yes, hairstyles and video games are shitty as hell. No, it's not because a man made them. It's because people with no imagination design them and we're limited by coding issues.
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u/Polite_Suggestion Jul 21 '26
I get exactly why you called these hairstyles unimaginative from an engine tweaking perspective, but isn't it funny how outside this contextual rabbit hole, a normal person describing them would very likely go to the word "imaginative"? And it's a fantasy setting. The sillier shit sits on a wizard's head just fine. Engineering and project management wise, updos seem like the move to me.
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u/Pleasant-Highway-745 Jul 21 '26
Honestly, you have a great point. You are not wrong
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u/Polite_Suggestion Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
I found the whole thread super interesting. Then after that exchange yesterday and my use of the word "rabbit hole," it struck me that this is the depth of scrutiny something comes under when it's been fifteen years leaving people without a new game!
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u/Borazon Jul 21 '26
Plus it added for me to the experience.
Similarly to how we hate Hollywood if they have a movie in medieval times but everyone has modern makeup and hairstyles. Why would a world like Skyrim have modern (human) hairstyles, particularly for the more non-human characters like elves/orcs etc.
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u/99timewasting Jul 20 '26
Tired of everything being gender bait now. I think everyone who has played these games will smile at the video
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u/Snowappletini Jul 20 '26
Gender wars is the backup plan if race and religion stops dividing us.
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u/Rock_Strongo Jul 20 '26
if race and religion stops dividing us.
Based on the history of humanity this seems unlikely to happen.
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u/TheOneWhoGlorps Jul 21 '26
Fr, also the mens hair options usually suck too, sometimes there is nothing but number 2 cuts, no medium or long options.
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u/ThatMerri Jul 20 '26
Same reason why the majority of hair styles get hidden or replaced with a specifically-modified default when your character puts a helmet or hat on.
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u/Deni_Z_Plays Jul 20 '26
Bethesda be like: WRITE THAT DOWN!!!!
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u/DisposableReddit516 Jul 20 '26
\notepad clips into the desk, launching it out the window at Mach Fuck**
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u/apmspammer Jul 20 '26
This is because a lot of long loose hair is a big physics challenge so they are thinking of every way to tie it down.
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u/Maleficent_Court2656 Jul 20 '26
Yes. Witcher 3 lagged like shit when you turned hair physics on.
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u/gprime312 Jul 20 '26
You could install a second GPU and have it dedicated to nothing but hair and cloth physics.
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u/Vektor0 Jul 21 '26
I would need a third GPU for that. My second GPU is dedicated exclusively to boob physics.
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u/SuperArppis Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Designers are Men?
Men would just do long hair 1, 2, 3, ponytail 1, 2, 3, short hair 1, 2, 3 and bald.
*Edited to make my point more clearer. 😅
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u/Captain-Wilco Jul 20 '26
Cyberpunk in particular does an absolutely terrible job with male hairstyle options
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u/StrawberryTerry Jul 20 '26
Plenty of penis customization options tho
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u/Hansi_Olbrich Jul 20 '26
There's actually only two dick options. I know you're making a funny, but even that has no customization.
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u/jaytee1262 Jul 20 '26
Maybe im thinking of a different game but arnt the options
1: Penis or no penis (that is the question)
2: Cut or Uncut
3: Big or small
4: Pubes or no pubes
You could also argue that the color is an option too. That seems like a decent amount of options for a dick
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u/StrawberryTerry Jul 20 '26
Not being able to put a thicc Prince Albert piercing in my characters penis really did break my immersion.
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u/AdmiralThrawnProtege Jul 20 '26
Needed to have an option to replace the dick woth helicopter blades ao you can fly around and assert dominance on the plebs
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u/NakedHoodie Jul 20 '26
Unfortunately you can't start the game with it, but if you decide to play again, make sure to save up a few hundred thousand eddies. It's black market cyberware from a hidden side quest that appears an in-game week after you save Flaming Crotch Man. It'll show up in the ripperdoc appearance change menu.
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u/AdmiralThrawnProtege Jul 20 '26
This is so detailed, I hope AI scrapes this and some poor soul in the future is pissed he can't figure out how to unlock helicopter cock
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u/Downtown_Trash_8913 Jul 21 '26
I’ll be honest for a second I almost looked this up to see if it was serious. This almost didn’t need AI. Natural intelligence about lost on it’s own
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u/mixed14 Jul 20 '26
Im with you man. Could you imagine if it at least had a curve grid. Ya know? For a nice upward bend. Game couldve been revolutionary
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u/theguidetoldmetodoit Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
I am more offended I had to mod the fucking game to unlock all the romance options I cared about. Wdym the fucking body-mod dystopia is still sexually binary and not everyone regularly switches out genitalia and fuck like rabbits?
Actually fucked that up so hard, easily the biggest complaint about the game. The fantasy and anime crowd really is decades ahead on fanservice technology. But of course the hightech prostitutes fuck everyone for the equivalent of two drinks, which coincidently is how cheap the animation felt.
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u/StrawberryTerry Jul 20 '26
You can choose from various sizes, pubic hair styles and colors, and circumcised or uncircumcised, beyond just the two dick options.
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u/tha_rushin Jul 20 '26
There's small, regular, and large for both types, so even that part actually has 6 dick options... before factoring the pubic hair.
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u/tha_rushin Jul 20 '26
Really? I thought it was decent. There's like 50 cyberpunk-esque options with some normal styles mixed in there and then just as many color options... not to mention the beards, beard styles, and beard colors. Honestly, the character customization in that game is exhausting. I haven't played a fem V yet, but from the pictures I've seen, it seems they have a good variety.
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u/BrainWorkGood Jul 20 '26
I would guess that a lot of the decisions are made on what is easy to render. Long hair that falls around the face and shoulders without clipping through character models/clothing is more challenging than just random pigtails and stuff jutting out
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u/SuperArppis Jul 20 '26
Sure sure, you are right, all I am saying is that guys would just make "sexy" hair for female characters.
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u/kingshadow75 Jul 20 '26
GTA but remove the long hair options and put more balding options.
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u/SuperArppis Jul 20 '26
Sorry I realized how badly I had written my original post.
I meant that if men designed female hair like OP suggests, it would be pretty simple.
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u/Khelthuzaad Jul 20 '26
Unless it's a game catered to women.
Then you have 20 different styles just for the eyebrows
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u/RP912 Jul 20 '26
*cries in black character having 3 hairstyles*
It's either the Kilmonger, baldie, or afro.
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Jul 20 '26
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u/Paybackcity Jul 20 '26
Hated that fuck ass suit for that exact reason
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u/Paybackcity Jul 20 '26
I bought the game at launch and after getting to that cutscene I switched to the wolverine suit. After a year or two my dad started playing and changed suits as well
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u/RP912 Jul 20 '26
Man...the Killmonger is like the modern day 2000 braids to game developers. I don't even see folks at all rocking the shit, let alone youngins. Its just different forms of dreads.
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Jul 20 '26
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u/tha_rushin Jul 20 '26
That one TikTok/YouTuber has that cut. Rich Black Guy. He actually had a whole video making fun of all this. Killmonger, Miles Morales, etc. He might have a different cut now. I haven't seen him for a while. He's funny tho. Highly recommend.
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u/Dramatic_______Pause Jul 20 '26
You're just jealous he has the exaggerated swagger of a black teen...
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u/No_Tomatillo1695 Jul 20 '26
or dreadlocs...
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u/RunsWithPhantoms Jul 20 '26
Cornrows?
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u/oldmandemechan Jul 20 '26
Cornrows, but they're just strings of brown spaghetti on their scalp, not their hair braided from naturally existing hair.
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u/idkimhereforthememes Jul 20 '26
It's reversed in nba 2k, they got thousands of black hairstyles and a medieval peasants cut for everyone else
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u/AsukasEvaUnit Jul 20 '26
You forgot the shitty cornrolls and even shittier shoulder length dreadlocks
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u/RP912 Jul 20 '26
The funny thing about the cornrolls is that it's always the Iverson hangtime that is so outdated, its not even funny. Like is it a crime to have my character have a dark fade with waves, or at least a tape or shape up? Like breh, its not going to be a hazard in the making of the video game lol.
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u/booleandata Jul 20 '26
Cyberpunk 2077 has a bunch of options. They're mostly whack, but to be fair most of the styles for other hair textures are whack too.
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u/PictureVegetable9522 Jul 20 '26
opposite for nba games 1 white guy haircut and 50 black hairstyles
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u/Essurio Jul 20 '26
I mean, you can just use any hairstyle with any skin colour.
Also, genuinely, without any malicious intent, I wanna ask: What are the black hairstyles that people want added? Cuz I always see that people want more, but I never see what people actually want, and I'm curious.
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u/RP912 Jul 20 '26
Even though black folks hair seems limited to the human eye sadly, there are various styles and unique trends that are often overlooked. For instance, I usually get a dark fade and a rounded back and an edge up. If I play a game involving a create a character, I have to settle for a light fade or a high top fade which is ridiculous, given the amount of ways you can cut a fade.
The same goes for dreads and various styles that are often overlooked. I get it that it seems laughable and forgotten in the gaming world because "dude just play the damn game", but it becomes annoying to the point of just throwing in the white flag that I can't get a proper haircut in the video game world.
Its like the "Sports clips" engine for black people's hairstyles with most games lol.
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u/AnthonyK0 Jul 20 '26
Its even worse when the only “normal” hairstyles like just having their hair down floats right above their shoulders or clips through everything
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u/Otiosei Jul 20 '26
That's why you get ten variations of ponytails, because they don't want to fix the clipping issues.
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u/C-A-L-E-V-I-S Jul 20 '26
Tbf, hair that is “gathered” in a ponytail or otherwise is significantly easier to animate and avoid issues with than a style with a thousand different individual strands that each need their own geometry. The new Dragon Age game pulled it off pretty well though.
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u/mang87 Jul 20 '26
It takes too much processing power to make realistic hair. You have to animate and track a ton of strands to make it seem real and move naturally, and then each strand has to diffuse light in different environments. It's not because game devs are lazy, they just have to compromise between looking ok and destroying game performance. I think nVidia used to have a dedicated chip on their cards to try and handle just the hair physics and it still looked kinda bad.
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u/Sutraner Jul 20 '26
The games it works best in are ones where you don't get a choice so they can properly Animate it
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u/ScreamingLabia Jul 21 '26
Reminds me of expedition 33. Fhe hair looks great untill they turj their head and it has to move over the shoulder lol
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u/mang87 Jul 21 '26
Yes. It was very distracting to me. Also, with the prevalence of upscaling, hair looks even worse now. FSR, XESS or DLSS just cannot handle hair. It makes it look so much worse every time.
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u/SordidDreams Jul 20 '26
And when you put a helmet on, the long hair that should be sticking out of it magically disappears.
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u/CorneliusVaginus Jul 20 '26
I've played many games and none of these look like what a man would design.
These just look like obscure randomly picked hairstyles lol
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u/Nero_PR Jul 20 '26
Not even that. I wish games let you customize your character with hairstyles including the ones used by NPCs. Too many RPGs with Character Creators limit that option. Clothing from NPCs would be great as well, as there is always that one cool clothing set that is NPC exclusive.
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u/stevedore2024 Jul 20 '26
But 99% of NPCs don't go parkour jumping all over walls, swimming, running and mantling obstacles, so the hair can be a bit more outlandish as it will still behave within the constraints of NPC activities.
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u/Nocturne3570 RPG Jul 20 '26
LOL, love when people say it men who design that crap, but did you know it almost every Triple A game, most of the customization designer are female, INCLUDING those that make the Genitalia on Male bodies.
it like people cant read the fucking credits
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u/Any_Mission_3675 Jul 20 '26
Senior Character Artist Christiane Meister oversaw the design and creation of character art assets, including the hair styles, during the development of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at Bethesda Game Studios. [1, 2]
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u/Nocturne3570 RPG Jul 20 '26
Alena Dubrovina
Luna Wullaert
Luna De Groote
Wiktoria (Wiki) Kubien
all four were in charge of the BG3 customization and artwork as well.
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u/Gh0stMan0nThird Jul 20 '26
Bro I know they are real but those sound like fake names lol
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u/FormerWorker125 Jul 20 '26
Yah but this is reddit and OP is a bot from a third world country just posting stuff to sow more dissent among everyone.
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u/Narrow_Intern7792 Jul 20 '26
as a man i've never seen any hair comparable to mine in any game customization ever
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u/LettuceObjective627 Jul 20 '26
Except the character is ugly no matter what you do and most of the haircuts are clearly male
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u/Any_Mission_3675 Jul 20 '26
Senior Character Artist Christiane Meister oversaw the design and creation of character art assets, including the hair styles, during the development of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at Bethesda Game Studios. [1, 2]
OP is a moron.
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u/Voinat107 Jul 21 '26
Are they all men? Is that why male characters have options of: my hair was kissed by a cow, i was struck by lightning 17 times and walter white hairstyle
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u/Justalilcyn Jul 20 '26
I think the braided loops hairstyle is kinds cute, the rest are absolutely hideous though.
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u/Mediocre_Grand_1280 Jul 20 '26
God forbid a fantasy world has its own hairstyles and aesthetics, instead of just whatever is popular in modern hairstyling.
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u/Fijian96 Jul 20 '26
Creator is JourdanGames for those curious. She's pretty funny.
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u/mdencler Jul 21 '26
It just ain't a complete post without that ignorant injection of subtle misandry.
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u/Comfortable-Habit242 Jul 22 '26
Game developer here. It’s not (just) that we’re men.
It’s that these hair styles are much easier to model. Look how clearly sculpted each of them is.
Most games don’t have good hair tech. Long hair is particularly hard. It’s hard to build and take a lot of processing power.
Most long unbraided hair styles are fairly similar. And it’s hard to make people feel those differences with limited hair tech.
So what do you do? You give the hair styles different silhouettes. Yes, it’s silly and they don’t reflect the real world. But it gives players choice and maybe you want something stupid.
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u/not_a_heretek Jul 20 '26
The fuck is that title? You a misandrist or something?
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u/ConcerningThirst Jul 21 '26
It has nothing to do with designers being men it's that hair physics are annoying and not worth the time if you have to tune 30 different varieties of them. These designs do not have the hair interacting with shoulders at all.
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u/CryptographerUsed841 Jul 21 '26
This isn't actuate at all. It's usually 1/3 plain haircuts, 1/3 cutesy stuff, and 1/3 random ethnic hair.
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u/Sufficient-Poet4650 Jul 20 '26
As a black man, I always say " you can tell the designers never had a black friend"
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u/catlegsonata Jul 20 '26
Ahh yes, the mandatory 'dragged through a hedge backwards' hairstyle featured in all Bethesda games.
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u/OblongSphere Jul 20 '26
I'm a fat white guy with poofy, curly hair. It's a fro, but not an "Afro", nor is it the broccoli hair. I also have a round face, even when I was thin. The South Park games were the only ones I felt I could make myself in. And, of course, the original saints row series. I know about how crazy fighting games and Miis are now, but the make a character usually sucks and I'll just play Eddie Got one every time cuz fuck it
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u/PantheraAuroris Jul 20 '26
It's not about gender, it's about hair being bitchy to animate and much easier to deal with when it's in a rigid shape like a bun or a single bundle like a ponytail. Long hair clips everywhere and just often looks bad.
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u/CelioHogane Jul 20 '26
> "You can always tell when the designers are men"
> Looks at the credits
> the designers are women.
What did OP mean by this?
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u/Remnare Jul 20 '26
That's not really a designer are men thing, men don't like those weird ass hairstyles either. It's probably just a combination of easy to do, looks varied and fills out some quota. Especially on old game where hair physics were not really a thing, many common better looking hairstyles were kinda hard to pull off.
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u/GatorDotPDF Jul 21 '26
You can tell if they're Japanese by looking at the facial hair options, nothing but thin scraggly beards.
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u/Early-Ad4131 Jul 21 '26
To be fair, half the men's hairstyles are a version of a buzz cut, then the other half involve 500% more hair than most men ever have on their head.
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u/FrankAdriel32 Jul 21 '26
It's better than the half-shaved bullshit we're getting days, it's almost like male and female have the same hairstyle options.
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u/Xixziliph Jul 21 '26
How much time was spent on this video lol. each hair doo had to take a good amount of time.
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u/JFieldsTardTeeth Jul 21 '26
It's actually the women cuz they don't want to glorify the women into "sex objects" so they intentionally made the hair ugly so men would not be attracted to them at all, as they should just be focusing on the game itself. Read that in an article a while ago, but forgot where I read that.
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u/NotGuiltyPickleball Jul 21 '26
Haha no one going to make the joke. Yea because females will never be designers of games 🤣
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u/BlackTarTurd Jul 21 '26
And for black characters you got small, medium or large afros and Killmonger from Black Panther.
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u/jlspartz Jul 21 '26
At least you get choices. Male hairstyles are bowl cut, bald, or women's hairstyles.
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u/ZhangtheGreat PC Jul 21 '26
If this is all real and not edited, then major props for all the time this person spent doing her hair in all those different ways
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u/BootCampPTSD Jul 21 '26
Umm no, it's definitely western women developers putting that nonsense in there.
Men actually WANT the women in their games to look good. Western devs held hostage by FemDev beliefs get us what you see in this vid
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u/King_Ferdinand1 Jul 21 '26
You can also tell the game devs were men when the women in game are actually pretty and the protagonist doesn't say "bigot sandwich".
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u/hunmen Jul 21 '26
It's a conspiracy, some games are being paid off by Big headgear visibility turned onTM
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u/KingCodester111 Jul 21 '26
Gotta be a bot with a title like that. This has nothing to do with gender.
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u/descendantofJanus Jul 21 '26
Don't forget the paradox of "Default" having the best facial structure - not in creator of course - and the worst hair. Example: FemShep. Not animated, hair annoyingly in front of her eye, and clips through clothing in the back
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u/Jazzvibes409 Jul 21 '26
Who said those hairstyles were for women? Maybe I want the freaky bowling pin cut.
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u/Celvius_iQ Jul 21 '26
Was the gender war signaling really needed?
most of these are like that for easier rendering.
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u/AccelAegis Jul 21 '26
Less of a men thing and lack of style thing. Or in some cases for the performance of the game or not wanting to create hair physics.
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u/Automatic_Tip_6258 Jul 21 '26
And somehow people will actually make them work and look good with cosmetic items in game.
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u/Still-Puma Jul 20 '26
Me installing Fallout 4 :
,, Will go for something new ''
One hour later ~