One size doesn't fit all: Riot looking to add diversity among female champions

Michael Dunaway
By Michael Dunaway, News Editor Posted:
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The balance between male and female character diversity in video games has been a much talked about subject throughout the course of modern gaming. Males often come in all shapes and sizes, from small portly fellows to the large and lanky. Females on the other hand, generally fall into the cliched stereotype of big boobs and an athletic body. Chances are their wardrobe also has some sort of protective design flaw, exposing their mid section.

Many of our favorite games are guilty of this one-sided diversity, including League of Legends whose current lineup of female champions leaves a lot of body types out. For the most part, female champions in League tend to follow a "toned with tits" design philosophy. That's all about to change according League of Legends producer Omar Kendall, who answered a fan question regarding female diversity at this year's Comic-Con.

As reported by Polygon, Kendall mentioned it was "something that we're paying a lot more attention to now" and said the studio was implementing "new strategies for what our champions look like." These new strategies include adding a new "diversity" category to champion design which takes into account the characters body type and body shape.

The studio plans on making good on its promise to bring in new diversity among its female heroes starting with a new champion who's "coming out soon (TM)". Not only will the addition of a new female champion design bring about greater diversity among League's female roster, game designer Brian Feeney also mentioned it would allow the studio to come up with new silhouettes for heroes based on the new body shapes. These changes in female silhouette design will make it easier for players to identify female champions on the fly, which is important for making split second decisions in-game.

What type of female character design would you like to see added to the roster?

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About the Author

Michael Dunaway
Michael Dunaway, News Editor

Michael Dunaway has been part of the MMOBomb team for years and has covered practically every major Free-to-Play MMO title since 2009.

More Stories by Michael Dunaway

Discussion (48)

Janna 9 years ago
Ok the next skin is "back to the kitchen girl team"

Atashi 9 years ago
Annie, Kayle, Poppy, Lulu and Tristana (maybe Leona for your armor + shield) from LoL and the others cited from Dota2 are escaping from the female stereotype.

Stan 9 years ago
I have something to add to this shit ..

First il say stop adding skins and stupid stuff to the game and work With the Trolls / feeders game ruiners and so mutch more ADD a system to help and avoid playing with those tipe of ppl .

Focus on skins and stupid stuff and let blizzard come and take over with Heroes of the Storm ( at least they think about avoiding trolls and so on, with a simple thing `` putting a map with team work only )

alexial 9 years ago
Being a girl gamer myself, I find that I like to play the cute, stereotypical female characters. I don't care for realism or ugly ones. It's obviously a game just for fun...

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crazygamex 9 years ago
why not make em customisable?

Anyone Else Notice? 9 years ago
Anyone else notice that new Irelia splash art on the picture?

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xCROOKEDx 9 years ago
I thought they were already starting to go this direction, but what do I know. Anyways, choice hurts no one, so w/e.

wakalaka 9 years ago
The best part is that this champ will probably legitimately be OP because feminists will keep screaming sexism if she gets any needs.

Never give into femists. Never.

Marvin 9 years ago
#Suggested by a bunch of ugly feminazis(not feminists) that get offended by every person that looks better than them.

I also wonder where are they complaining about the bunch of Females-Only Gyms/Clubs in real life?If your fighting for equality you better not be fighting for the one that only satisfies your views/gender.

So many spoiled politically correct f*cks this day that I can only laugh and not take them seriously.Good for them the Internet exists, for that is the only place they go complaining about things like this.IRL they act VERY differently.

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qwe 9 years ago
we need more childish female or muscle type?
male and female have different type of beauty

Flevalt 9 years ago
"Males often come in all shapes and sizes, from small portly fellows to the large and lanky. Females on the other hand, generally fall into the cliched stereotype of big boobs and an athletic body."

O Rly?
Where are the stereotypes in Zelda? Pokemon? Mario? Are Sonic females stereotypes?
Nintendo games surely don't have them.
Let's look at Sony. Final Fantasy, the game that's known for the most erotic male characters. Do you see me going on the street whining that I can never look like one of those characters? No, because it's a matter of attitude that's inappropriate.
Games are supposed to give you the opportunity to be something you are not. I WANT to play a character that's better at everything than me, that can destroy an entire building with a punch or take bullets without minding much. I like to play good looking female chars too. If you don't like playing a dream character, a super hero or you would probably call them "stereotype", then say that you want a character like *input your description* and say why you like to play that character.
But don't make up stories about stereotypes and how 90 60 90 is ruining your self esteem. Games aren't comparable to magazines where models are displayed. You aren't supposed to feel bad about yourself when you look at a video game character cause he is fictional. That model in the magazine is not. The problem lies in your head, you get offended by minor stuff that isn't even supposed to offend you.
It's a childish attribute of attention seeking when you sulk over things not being how you want them and then cry in an attempt to produce the feeling of guilt and pity to get what you want.
And that attitude should never be encouraged by affection.

I would like to see a deformed and fat cripple female champion in a wheelchair. Best would be if the champ did not have any form of make-up, cause that's stereotype too. And it should not have any hair since it's oppressive and man-catering for women to show their erotic parts, so I would say a Hijab would fit as headgear. Best would be if it covered the entire face to not show lips or eyes either since they too are erotic parts. Next we should pay attention to breasts, they musn't under any circumstances be big or recognizable at all so that we reduce the chance for them to be stereotype at all costs since obviously any breast size that is B and above is stereotype already. Best we remove them completely. But what kind of cripple do we make her? Remove the legs, I say. Those are known throughout history to be attention attractors ever since women started showing their legs to make cars stop.

And now there we go. A breastless, obese, faceless female champion, with no legs, clearly that is what everyone ever wanted to be and to play in a video game.
And it certainly can't get any less stereotype than that.

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Waggy 9 years ago
Wow, these people are so cisgender centric.

Who said you need to look like a woman to be a woman? A person can look like anything at all, and if they want to be called a woman it is everybody else’s obligation to call “it” a woman.

Wait, why be so gender-centric anyway?! Who said gender matters? Nobody should care about sex and gender at all. Male and female attributes should be assigned at random. Some predominantly male characters should have a female chest, some predominantly female characters should have a male beard, and some should be completely random. That is the glorious future where all will be happy we should strive for.

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wut 9 years ago
That Annie champion has some amazing tits.

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srsly 9 years ago
Feminists strike again.

As it is, I don't even play female champs, except for a few, select few that are basically core to the meta. I'm not going to pick up a female Gragas, because I'd feel grotesque, which I already do when playing Gragas. I'm also not going to pick up a female Zilean, because I see no appeal in it.

Making a different proportioned design for a champ probably wouldn't make too much sense, unless you can give it some stupid backstory for why they're different.

Gragas and Zilean are literally the only two males that aren't the same shape as every other champ (give or take Pantheon-muscles every now and then), with the exception of the champs like Cho'Gath, for obvious reasons (and we have Elise and Anivia to counter that kind of stuff). I can guarantee you, that when someone is strong enough to compete on a level with a monk who can kick you across an entire lane, a midget who basically controls time and space with dark magic, and a Predator, you'd better hope that you're in shape. Because there's no way you'd be let into the league, anyway, and there's especially no way you're a legend.

It's completely feminazi complaints getting to Riot, because they have droves of people, like the plague, attacking their company with DURR HURR MUH GENDER, for nothing more than the purpose of "we won!" or "a step forward for females, because disgusting males should go".

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Cryght 9 years ago
So We gonna get a big Birtha? and a Very large "Helga" who is strong arm...

if anyone remembers seeing 3 ninjas movie with that "Helga"

Wtf are you talking about 9 years ago
Fable 2 prostitutes? Birdo? Gratilda? Queen Slug for a butt? Mother Brain? Therazane? I really don't think there is a market for any person to play a heavy or ugly female character. I mean a fat ass dude could be a bad ass hero still. I'm sure theres a lot of women out there ready to play a character that makes them feel better because its uglier than her, I remember how well that went with Barbie.

View 1 reply
heh 9 years ago
Probably a female Braum or something

View 2 replies

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