Pokemon Go added Body Type Customization in an update recently!! It's not just presets of Rail Thin - Moderate Thin - Fat either there are SLIDERS!! And separate face shapes!! It's been eight years sense launch but this is HUGE in terms of Pokemon Character Customization!
I'm surprised that Pokemon Go made that update (though also sad that it took them 8 years to include fat people). I think this makes the first Pokemon game that allows the player to play as a fat person. I hope that'll be an aspect they'll keep for future games, similar to how they gave customization options for generation 6 because the game was based on France, and then that feature was too popular for the game developers to not continue that for every game afterwards.
I don't have the game downloaded, but from the pictures and video footage I've seen, the body type options do seem to be better than the usual "We'll give you one fat body type and call it a day." These are two pictures I found on Google Images:
There's at least one fat body preset with different chest options, and then there's also a way to specifically change appearance aspects like weight, hips, chest, etc.
Fat people need to be represented in more video games, positive representation at that. The excuse I usually hear is "Well, if the game developers include fat people, then they'd have to update animations and clothing to fit the fat bodies! That's more work for the same budget!" And to that, I say: Stop trying to pretend this is just a matter of 'budget' when there's not a single game with player customization that only has fat bodies.
If it truly is so impossible to make video games with more than one body type and that's the sole reason why fat people don't exist in almost any video game universe, then why is the body type always chosen to be represented a thin body type? Game developers are perfectly capable of making a game with customization where the only body option is a fat body. So, why has that never been done? Why is it that every time a person makes a video game with only one body type available, it's Always. Thin.
You know why.
I could talk about this for hours and point out so much more BS rhetoric that fatphobes use to defend fatphobia in video games, but I don't want to spend my whole night writing an essay. Anyways, I'm glad that Pokemon Go has finally started to add some weight diversity to the game, even if this is 8 years late. Let's hope more game developers will do the same.
-Mod Worthy
