Report: Direct Correlation Found Between Video Game Sales and Tightness of Female Avatar’s Clothing

A new report has emerged that will undoubtedly come as a shock to many game developers, art directors, and diversity specialists: games featuring female (women) avatars in skin-tight clothing (or no clothing at all) have higher sales than those that don’t. This revelation is sure to send designers scrambling back to the drawing board, as no amount of copium seems likely to change this rather unsavory fact.

According to the study, humans enjoy looking at other good-looking humans—an apparently deeply ingrained behavior that has driven our mate selection for tens of thousands of years. If we’re to believe this, that would mean that using attractive characters in video games, then putting them in revealing clothing, could drive sales through the roof. This is hard to believe, of course, and it directly contradicts every single principle I, as a modern audience, enlightened gamer, have been told I believe.

This information is certainly difficult to swallow, and honestly, we can think of only one or two games that might fit this criteria off the top of our heads. Games like Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Stellar Blade, Nier Automata, Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, the old Mortal Kombat games, League of Legends, Soul Calibur, The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil, Bayonetta, Dead or Alive, Metal Gear Solid, Fire Emblem, Mass Effect, Halo 1-3, Xenoblade Chronicles, Devil May Cry, Metroid, Batman: Arkham Knight, Dragon Age (not Veilguard), Tekken, and Black Myth: Wukong, just to name a few.

So, maybe there’s some truth to this theory after all. If we look at the inverse, we see that games where developers have chosen to either alter or downplay their characters' features tend to see sales drop. Could it be that the old adage “sex sells”—a stereotype that has held true for thousands of years—didn’t suddenly lose its power just because gender studies became a college degree? We’re not saying you need to have attractive women in your games to sell copies. Think of it like running. You don’t need to wear shoes when you go running, but it sure as hell helps.

We’re not experts on this, so it’s impossible to say for sure whether men actually like looking at attractive women in revealing skin-tight clothing. What we do know is that if we were game developers, we'd be cashing in on this “hidden goldmine” of knowledge, just in case it turns out to be true. It seems like a pretty solid strategy, especially when you’re not distracted by your empty Steam charts, filled with the cries of the so-called “modern audience.”

Source: Trust me, bro.