Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
Japan doesn't have a track record of shying away from fan service. It's extremely popular over there, as evidenced by many JRPG's having a whole bunch of fan service for both male and female characters. FFXIV is a strange exception, which suggests that any issues are due to the development team itself - because other titles in the franchise do not suffer from the same limitations and do not shy away from, say, displaying a bare chested male character with his nipples intact.
Could be the market it's trying to get into in western countries? Honestly there are many decisions that don't particularly make sense unless there's some sort of strange frame of mind making decisions at the top. I'm just saying a lot of times things gotta make it past someone who knows where the money is to be grabbed and who they'd like to make sure wants the product.