Update the Male T-shirt
by BONZO, HSM team writer
T-shirts are great quickly-produced giveaways and rewards. It is a standard 3D model that has seen little variation, other than the image map which textures it. Other developers have produced their own T-shirt designs; Diesel, where they made them a little tighter and the sleeves shortened to show off the guns and create a little more form-fitting look to the garment.
That said, the standard Home t-shirt still remains the standard.
There’s nothing wrong with t-shirts, and often it is the design graphic which makes the difference between a good t-shirt and a bad t-shirt. The feel of the fabric is often the difference between a cheap t-shirt and a quality t-shirt in real life.
T-shirts look better on females
In Home, however it is mostly the graphic, and the fit. This generally only applies to the male avatar t-shirt. The fit is generally perfect on female avatar. It is form fitting, sexy without being obscene, and always looks good even with a badly-designed graphic. However, on males, somehow they missed the mark and the t-shirts tend to look like a small child’s underoo t-shirt on an adult avatar. The bottom seam is too short; it hovers at waist line or just above it, and the sleeves are squared and popped.
Style is subjective. Not everyone likes to wear a tight form fitting t-shirt, and somehow that style has gotten the stigma of looking “gay”. However, it doesn’t have to be spandex-tight, and there is a difference between tight and form fitting. We don’t all like to look like we are wearing a five year old’s t-shirt, and we also don’t all like wearing a nightshirt that’s ten sizes too big. The sleeves can be forgiven, but the bottom seem cut can’t. It just hangs too short; at the very least, extend that part of it. T-shirts are a staple of casual wear, and the current fit doesn’t look casual, nor does it look as if it were tucked in precisely — more like it was a bargain bin manufacturer error item.
Is it really that big of a deal?
Yes.
New developers creating new items are generally using an existing model to introduce new virtual commodities into Home. With the exception of Lockwood, and to a degree Diesel, it is mostly t-shirts that are brought in, and not much more fashion wear is developed for male avatars that isn’t combat ready, bling, outdoor or sports wear. Yet with the current model in place it is a major deterrent to purchase when you are a guy.
I wanted the Domo t-shirts; I wanted several of the Q-games pixel junk T-shirts, and I wanted some of the Marvel wear, but one thing held me back: the fit of the t-shirt. And I am not alone on this — while discussing new t-shirt designs introduced, the recurring complaint and discouragement was the t-shirt model.
T-shirts are cool, they can be cool, and they can be a viable commodity to give away, to reward, and even sell. Some t-shirts have looked so good that I bought the female version of them. But the majority of the male users still have a gender identity hangup about their avatars. Cross-dressing an avatar is not the same as cross dressing yourself, but it is understandable that we do see an extension of ourselves in the avatars since they aren’t a character with a backstory of their own. We are the backstory for the avatars. So this majority with such a vexation won’t buy the better-fitting female t-shirt or the awkwardly fitting male t-shirt.
Heavy Water updated their Heavy Peeps, and LOOT — so far the leader of retroactive updates — updated their Sunset Yacht, their Active Camera, Active Items, and Stage Set. The T-shirt needs an update; it is a minimal, simple item that could very well revitalize an expansive wardrobe and a large stockpile of commodities currently in the catalog. Retire this old model, and revamp it. Drop the lower seam to below the waist, make it a little more form fitting, and don’t pop the sleeves. If anything stroke the egos of the male users, widen the shoulders a bit, inflate the chest a little or at least add a few rips. Trust me, most gamers think they are Rambo, regardless of their real-world physique; let them keep thinking that, and draw off it. Give them a more bulky body.
If nothing else, stop using this model. There was a different model we have seen in the Killzone t-shirt reward, and the Dead Island t-shirts. This model was a little more form fitting, the sleeves shorter and not popped to stick out and make your arms look scrawny by comparison. In real life t-shirts come in many varieties accommodating different styles, from obscenely tight and ridiculously large mumus. With all the content and options available there are two paths to go in: continue to offer a t-shirt as a giveaway or reward which quickly makes its way from achievement to the storage box, or slap a price tag on it and sell a few without really making up for the development for it.
Or, choose a new path. Revamp it. Change the product. Update it and breathe new life into it. If you really want to move it and not just sit on product that doesn’t move due to lack of interest, offer different sizes. From form-fitting, to the large hip-hop style sizes, to average lengths — but please, get rid of the standard 1980’s style belly shirt that doesn’t even look like it would fit a grade school child. One size does not fit all.
September 1st, 2012 by BONZO | 5 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Agreed.
Lol, mumus. I want a muuuumuuuu!!! That would be so funny! But seriously, I totally agree with this whole thing. The statement made about the danger of going too tight and looking “gay” kinda made me laugh, I’ve been told a few times I dress “gay” lol! I just put it down to the fact that most gay men have a thing called taste and style, it’s no biggie, you just have it or ya dont! Heh, heh.
Nearly EVERY Home T I own is confined to storage, due to the cut. It’s not that it makes me look scrawny on the arms (coz we’ll, I am so I’m fine with that) no, it’s more because the whole of the default t-cut looks like starched cardboard hung on a coat hanger. They needed get rid of the current design, everyone I know in Home is now at the point where being given a free t-shirt is now the equivalent of being forced to take a leaflet from one of those guys on the street.
You know what I’d like to see? V-neck T-shirts. Seriously.
Yeap, I’d be happy with a few V-necks. I’d also be a damn site happier if they’d unbutton the top of most male shirts. Seriously, who goes around with their CASUAL shirt buttons done all the way up!?
And while I’m on a rant; can we PLEASE have some plain shirts (with top 3 buttons undone) under a decent suit jacket? Every, single, shirt-jacket combo is too formal for just floating around casually in. I mean, if I can get that combo in GTA4 or Saint’s Row for going on massacres, SURELY I should be able to get it for socializing with in Home?
/rant over
I know it’s been awhile, but does anybody know any good shirts available? Pottermore’s vest looks great and form-fitting, but that’s just about all I’ve got. My PSN is Ernestophiliac.