Can we please get more cool looking outfits for male characters?

[Selova]

Can we ask what sort of factors you guys are taking in?

I ask this because we're getting the impression that the top factor here seems be SE getting the impression that we want more fem glams when the population's has actually been requesting unisex and/or more male glam to equate the fem glam numbers.

I'd just like to point out, that while i agree that males should indeed get more glamour...using the population that posts on the forums is not a really a good indication what the majority wants, people that visit and by further extension post on the forums are a incredibly small minority. At the end of the day they are going to prioritize creating cosmetic items that are going to sell more and female cosmetic and glamour have always yielded more profits than their male counterparts, all you have to do is look at any asian based online game with a cash shop. Female cosmetic items are always more popular and they will continue to be until the actual buying demographic completely changes to a majority that prefer male cosmetics, which i don't see happening anytime soon. It does suck and i can understand why people are upset and I do hope that SE has something planned for people that play male characters, so here's to hoping.

[Nestama]

So why not make the female exclusive gear that is not on the Mog Station unisex, then? They're not giving SE any money (as far as I know) and I know there will be males wearing the Thavnairian Bustier.

[Magic-Mal]

People keep repeating the same thing over and over...

Female glamour sales will always be higher because:
1. Devs aren't making glamour for males. But are making glamour for females to be bought.
2. Devs do not know how to create good looking male glamour(or characters even)
3. Devs are too uncomfortable with making anything remotely cool/masculine for men and sexy/appealing to women who play males.

Everyone keeps saying "Female glamours always get more sales so they'll make female glamours!" Well duh, they're putting all heart into female glamours and no soul into male glamours. So female glamours will CONTINUE to get sales and skew records.

[Theodric]

The 'discomfort' angle would certainly explain some things, though it has some rather troubling implications. How deeply rooted is the bias? I think it's time that the development team addressed it properly and took steps to eliminate it.

[Serilda]

I'd just like to point out, that while i agree that males should indeed get more glamour...using the population that posts on the forums is not a really a good indication what the majority wants, people that visit and by further extension post on the forums are a incredibly small minority. At the end of the day they are going to prioritize creating cosmetic items that are going to sell more and female cosmetic and glamour have always yielded more profits than their male counterparts, all you have to do is look at any asian based online game with a cash shop.

Thank you but this is already pointed out on almost every page of every discussion over the history of this three year debate, and every point has been countered before. The size of the population of the forum isn't so significant as the proportion, and threads on this topic are constant, frequently receiving staff responses in English and Japanese alike and racking up hundreds of thousands of hits. The number of times the question is asked at gatherings, PLLs and so on is significant enough that Yoshida has acknowledged it multiple times in locations all over the world, telling us to be patient and that change is coming then prioritising completely irrelevant fluff over catering to half of the entire playerbase.

Even if the number of people actively campaigning for things like bunny ears and less priority for female characters is small, the number of people with male characters who would enjoy and use things like bunny ears or stubble would be much larger; these people who play male characters are paying to play and have fun just like you are. The number of people with female characters who feel empathy, or who realise that catering to the majority is only one step away from ignoring less popular Roe/Highlander girls for new glamours, is not insignificant. My in-game friends don't post here either, but they all understand how miserable this issue makes me and think it's unfair to single out half of the models in the game and ignore them. Don't underestimate compassion.

Heck, if it became public knowledge that they were being shortchanged you might see quite a few more people annoyed. Instead, we have articles like this which have the exact opposite effect; several of us have come out and said we are specifically using male characters because we originally thought we were going to enjoy a progressive game which treated everyone equally. The times have changed since that article ran.

We have evidence even in this tiny sample set of posters showing that glamour fans are feeling forced to fantasia to female models (several posters have mentioned doing just this) or choose female characters at the start because they happened to hear about the bias early enough before getting attached to their main. You can go back through old threads about the bias and see prolific posters who truly loved the game, whose accounts are now inactive because they just gave up and quit. S-E is sanctioning unfair treatment and cracking jokes about how hard it is to make bunny suits and Thavnair dancer attire for men (it isn't, here are some examples made by the community and here's a bonus of a buff dude in a bunny suit from a Japanese-made title with a male creator aimed at a male audience, showing that it can be done by people who aren't too creeped out by the male form to function). It doesn't make any of us feel good.

This is a game which made a beautiful comeback after a false start which lost the faith of many of its players. Yoshida himself takes player satisfaction very, very seriously, and stakes his integrity on unambiguous statements about how he wants to make a game for 'all of the players' (his exact words) to enjoy. It's absolutely not one of the many dime-a-dozen pandering F2P Asian MMOs which only stay afloat due to crazy female-only fan service costumes, and invest their modelling time into adapting male costumes to female models but never the other way around, and if it's trying to become one then it's natural that a portion of the Final Fantasy fan community, accustomed to much better treatment for the male and female gazes alike over the history of the series, will feel disappointed.

[Talraen]

There is a lot of conjecture on both sides of this issue, and I'll freely acknowledge I may be completely wrong in my assumptions here. But is it really so hard to believe that maybe the actual demand for female glamours is just higher than that of male glamours? I mean, women's clothing departments are much larger than men's in the real world, even though men actually spend more on clothes. See also: the Style Savvy games, Barbie dolls, etc. These things are marketed almost exclusively to women, and focus largely on women's fashion over men's.

Also, again, the fact that the game used to be very gender balanced and has skewed towards women implies that that is what the market actually favors. Clearly Square Enix didn't have a glamour bias at the start of 2.0, where do you suppose it came from?

[Pomelo]

Also, again, the fact that the game used to be very gender balanced and has skewed towards women implies that that is what the market actually favors. Clearly Square Enix didn't have a glamour bias at the start of 2.0, where do you suppose it came from?

It came because they decided that any set that was the male equal to a female set was made unisex. Thus if you played a female character you could have more glamours for your buck.

Sailor Suit and Spring were some of the first "new outfits". Sailor was also given to girls because the devs thought it seemed cute.
Then the Gambler set was unisex, despite Females having the Bunny Outfit (....TWO Bunny Outfits)
Thavnairien Bolero....unisex again, despite the girls having the Bustier.

So players think to themselves, well...If I go Female...I'll have more options at my disposal.
And SE lap it up by making more and more Female only glamours, because they seem to sell well, and then push it as the fault of the players.

[Serilda]

But is it really so hard to believe that maybe the actual demand for female glamours is just higher than that of male glamours? I mean, women's clothing departments are much larger than men's in the real world, even though men actually spend more on clothes.

Also, again, the fact that the game used to be very gender balanced and has skewed towards women implies that that is what the market actually favors. Clearly Square Enix didn't have a glamour bias at the start of 2.0, where do you suppose it came from?

Why are clothing departments for women bigger in the real world? The conventional thinking is that it's because women like to buy clothes. It's a massive generalisation and one which self-propogates.

In FFXIV, however, there is no rule saying that girls who like guys, guys who like guys, girls who like girls or any other configuration of gender/preference necessarily matches their character's gender. Their character gender is a completely arbitrary flag (especially in the case of Lalafell, who use the exact same model for both genders anyway and should never be genderlocked out of any gear ever). Whether I'm male or female in real life has no relationship whatsoever to my desire to dress up in FFXIV. The FF series has always dressed both male and female characters beautifully in a mix of masculine and feminine clothing, and attracted people of all preferences and tastes as a result. It's practically one of the hallmarks of the series.

An in-game glamour bias appearing during ARR makes no sense commercially, because they believed at the time (by their own admission) that the gender split was equal if not in favour of male characters, and they weren't making extra money from the in-game items (any argument that it might get more theoretical sign-ups from female characters could be countered by the amount of money lost dealing with people like myself who end up ragequitting and swearing off all future S-E products). It would definitely have taken more man hours to adapt the Best Man's Suit to the female form than to set the bunny ears to work on all genders, since they don't even need remodelling - just positioning slightly, and the Japanese fans were specifically promised that it would be done 'as a priority' back in 2015, which to me shows intent to either delibrately mislead all of the players with male characters or some serious failure to prioritise. However, either way it's not something you say when your intention is to deliberately favour female characters. If that were the case, I would have had infinitely more respect for Yoshida if he had just said 'no bunny ears, all female characters are played by women and only women wear clothes IRL' back then rather than leading me on for years by pretending to understand the issue.

A cash shop glamour bias appearing after the outcry over the in-game bias also makes no sense to me, because they cannot possibly have enough data to compare how worthwhile it is when they have been phoning the male options in for so long. I never bought any of the male-only cash shop glamours because they didn't arrive until after I was embroiled in this problem of being treated like a second class customer; I didn't buy Aymeric's (which I actively like) because to do so would have accepted the insult of S-E releasing his hairstyle as a unisex item against all of their own supposed principles. I buy - well, bought, not spending a single cent there any more - tons of other unisex and fluff items on the cash shop and as merchandise tie-ins, but gender locked items don't work in the favour of anyone with a male character. And since other people openly fantasia to gain access to be better glamours, any stats from the cash shop broken down by character gender are questionable.

Will people spend more on better items? Yes. That is absolutely unquestionable. Do female glamours always have to look better than male ones? I don't think they do. The women (and gentlemen of discerning taste) who shop in those vast womens clothing departments in the real world could appreciate finely tailored menswear too, and unlike the real world a game lets them actually wear it and have it fit them properly no matter what their shape. The designers are capable of this. The High House Justaucorps looks just as good as the Bustle. The Songbird outfits for both genders look great. The South Seas Talisman is a very acceptable masculine alternative to the bikini top it replaces. If we didn't know they were capable of good work, we'd believe them more readily when they suddenly act as though fair treatment is impossible. If it really is that hard to make a bunny suit or bustier fit the male form, I am happy to break out Blender and adapt some using nothing but existing in-game assets if they want help. They have already modelled all of the parts I'd need to do it.

If the game has changed from the one I first joined, and S-E is no longer intending on catering for 'all of the players' as everyone is suggesting, they need to be much more clear about this than then have been historically. It's not fair to mislead us with platitudes and broken promises.

[Theodric]

Fashion for men is a pretty huge industry in itself. A pretty varied and profitable one at that. It did not become a success due to designers making offensive comments implying that the male form is 'icky' or by promising to design something and then failing to deliver it in a timely manner. They became a success because investments and gambles were made and clothing was designed and created to meet the considerable demand.

[Talraen]

Why are clothing departments for women bigger in the real world? The conventional thinking is that it's because women like to buy clothes. It's a massive generalisation and one which self-propogates.

As I mentioned earlier, studies have actually shown that men spend more on clothes than women. Retailers surely know this, yet the women's departments remain much larger. I can't speculate with any expertise on why that is, but I can observe that, at my office, the variance in fashion among women is several orders of magnitude larger than it is among men. I'm guessing those are related phenomena.

In FFXIV, however, there is no rule saying that girls who like guys, guys who like guys, girls who like girls or any other configuration of gender/preference necessarily matches their character's gender. Their character gender is a completely arbitrary flag (especially in the case of Lalafell, who use the exact same model for both genders anyway and should never be genderlocked out of any gear ever). Whether I'm male or female in real life has no relationship whatsoever to my desire to dress up in FFXIV. The FF series has always dressed both male and female characters beautifully in a mix of masculine and feminine clothing, and attracted people of all preferences and tastes as a result. It's practically one of the hallmarks of the series.

I agree with you here, the player's gender probably doesn't have much impact on whether they want to dress up. For instance, the reason my main character is female is because I quickly realized that the game looked amazing and dressing up was appealing. And dressing up a female character is more appealing to me than dressing up a male character, because there are many more options that I like. I made this decision during the 1.0 beta, long before anything was locked by gender.

An in-game glamour bias appearing during ARR makes no sense commercially, because they believed at the time (by their own admission) that the gender split was equal if not in favour of male characters, and they weren't making extra money from the in-game items (any argument that it might get more theoretical sign-ups from female characters could be countered by the amount of money lost dealing with people like myself who end up ragequitting and swearing off all future S-E products). It would definitely have taken more man hours to adapt the Best Man's Suit to the female form than to set the bunny ears to work on all genders, since they don't even need remodelling - just positioning slightly, and the Japanese fans were specifically promised that it would be done 'as a priority' back in 2015, which to me shows intent to either delibrately mislead all of the players with male characters or some serious failure to prioritise. However, either way it's not something you say when your intention is to deliberately favour female characters. If that were the case, I would have had infinitely more respect for Yoshida if he had just said 'no bunny ears, all female characters are played by women and only women wear clothes IRL' back then rather than leading me on for years by pretending to understand the issue.

I definitely think a large part of the reason for the way clothes are locked by gender in FFXIV is just straight up conservatism. Square Enix does not seem inclined to want to make dresses and such for men, even if they won't admit it in those terms. Their excuses on a lack of a bunny suit are pretty obviously ridiculous. Sure, there have been a few exceptions, but there's definitely an undercurrent there. I'd prefer they be honest, too.

However, that doesn't negate potential concerns about demand. I have no problem with people wanting more male glamours, the notion that gives me pause is that the genders must be treated exactly equally. If it turns out that characters of one gender partake in glamour far more than the other (and again, I don't know that they do, but I also don't know that they don't), why should it be equal?

A cash shop glamour bias appearing after the outcry over the in-game bias also makes no sense to me, because they cannot possibly have enough data to compare how worthwhile it is when they have been phoning the male options in for so long. I never bought any of the male-only cash shop glamours because they didn't arrive until after I was embroiled in this problem of being treated like a second class customer; I didn't buy Aymeric's (which I actively like) because to do so would have accepted the insult of S-E releasing his hairstyle as a unisex item against all of their own supposed principles. I buy - well, bought, not spending a single cent there any more - tons of other unisex and fluff items on the cash shop and as merchandise tie-ins, but gender locked items don't work in the favour of anyone with a male character. And since other people openly fantasia to gain access to be better glamours, any stats from the cash shop broken down by character gender are questionable.

This is true, the gender bias outcry started before anything was on the cash shop. But Square Enix has data about how many people use glamours in games. If that data says that female characters used glamour far more often, then it would stand to reason to expect female characters to also buy glamours far more often.

If the game has changed from the one I first joined, and S-E is no longer intending on catering for 'all of the players' as everyone is suggesting, they need to be much more clear about this than then have been historically. It's not fair to mislead us with platitudes and broken promises.

By all means keep asking for glamour. There was an official response on this thread, they're clearly reading it. However, consider that you may be a minority voice here. Or maybe not. Maybe Square Enix is making terrible decisions based on old-fashioned biases. I really couldn't say. But certainly I haven't seen proof of that, either.

Fashion for men is a pretty huge industry in itself. A pretty varied and profitable one at that. It did not become a success due to designers making offensive comments implying that the male form is 'icky' or by promising to design something and then failing to deliver it in a timely manner. They became a success because investments and gambles were made and clothing was designed and created to meet the considerable demand.

That's all true, yet women's departments are still far larger and more varied than men's departments. To a much greater degree than in FFXIV, in fact.