Except I'm not trying to justify it or anything, I'm just saying that SC DOES have it worse and that DOA isn't really the queen anymore.
Defending it as saying it doesn't have it as bad is just laughable.
It's all in the marketing and presentation. Lots of fighting games have some amount of fanservice (usually limited to a few characters). But, outside of the flat-out character design of some characters, it's not really played up or talked about as a main feature. Yes, in TTT2, VF4-5 and SC3-5 you can dress up pretty much everyone in a skimpy manner if you so choose (*cough* everyone) but that's pretty much only through customize mode. I'm sure the SC devs never wanted half of the nonsense that actually ended up coming out of SC5's customization mode.
However, DOA goes beyond this. It was certainly no accident that the costume selector focuses on the chest area (also see
Aerospark's post on the Phase 4 costume bundle icon). Other games certainly don't release marketing videos of their "movie mode" where your (female) character is crawling on the ground, sweating, and breathing heavily while you take pictures. Did I mention "Private Paradise"? They didn't
have to make that a thing for this game. They don't have to release next to no merchandise/goods that don't involve bikini wall scrolls and boob pads for their characters...you know, because people might be fans of characters for other reasons...or fans of male characters.
And then take a look at their main site. While other games would have normal screens and vids of...you know...people beating each other up, one would be hard-pressed to look at the DOA5/U screenshot or vid pages and get the impression that this is a fighting game. They didn't have to make sure that when there's a female character involved on their site, you get a nice cheesecake shot of them lying on the ground defeated. That was calculated. Soulcalibur doesn't do that. Tekken doesn't do that. VF doesn't do that. Street Fighter doesn't do that. Not even MK(9) with its completely questionable female attire choices did that. Other games certainly don't have OMG/Legend settings for boob movement. Or where every other costume bundle is "hot" or "sexy" or "naughty" or "dokidoki (heartbeat)".
It's not by accident that DOA happens to be thought of in a certain way even though other games have some manner of fanservice. DOA wants to make sure it's at the forefront. Maybe they originally thought about it not being that way, but they caved. And these are the consequences. Can people be faulted for being superficial and not looking behind all of that stuff (even though TN reeeeeally wants you to know about it) to see the cool fighting system? Perhaps a little. But, let's be for real here. TN is not some innocent party haplessly criticized by the masses.
This is what they wanted. They have to take the good (perhaps DLC revenue) with the bad (
that kind of reputation among the gaming scene).
Perhaps true FGC-ers only do care about the gameplay and its perceived flaws. That's certainly not 100% though, and that really doesn't help with people passing by not affiliated in depth with the hardcore community.
