To go further, the average gaming consumer is now old enough to go get ACTUAL PORN. And get the specific porn we want. And have tastes besides "girl in bikini" or even "girl" at all.
Wanna get a slice of that girl-gamer market cake? You won't get much from bikini girl with a staff.
I mean, mainstream female videogame costumes *are* still quite skimpy quite often. They just aren't as over-the-top as they used to be. But I think the main factor is when you turn on one audience with T&A you turn OFF others with angry letters. Just like your recent Doom comics.
... however, I doubt anyone would spend tons of money on a game just because it has skimpily dressed anime girls in it, considering there are enough free hentai doijins and games on the internet to last you two lifetimes, with actual nudity and sex.
FGO's biggest cash cows are actually Jeanne Alter (people like her because of her characterization and gameplay), Ereshkigal (people love her because of her role in the story), Merlin (because he is broken), and Skadi (because she is even more broken than Merlin). Sure, waifu-ism is still a thing...
However, those games are not the ones that define the genre, and the successful one are not successful because of fanservice. Case in point, swimsuit Arturia depicted here. She is popular not because she is in a swimsuit, but because she is a great Arts servant that can chain her NP.
The thing is, gacha-games are a huge market, and generalizing like this is, while not entirely wrong, is lacking nuance. Sure, for every FGO, Girl's Frontline, and Dragalia Lost, there are probably a dozen or so cheap cash-grabs with fanservice up the wazoo.
this is one of the thing bug me most in rpg mmo. And it mostly the player fault, supply vs demand. If the players stop buying this shit, the dev would stop making it. There this game that I used to play, it could spend time adding a new set of armor for female character. NOPE! 5th set of bikini.
And of course, old games were heavily targeted only at straight white males, and new games are targeted at anyone, because women and aces and gays have money too, and it makes no sense to ignore their money just so someone can jerk off to your game for a second and not spend any more money.
It's simple. If you look at actual sales figures, sex really doesn't sell all that well in Triple A games in Western Markets. Lara Croft is usually pointed to, as the big one, but if it's only about Tittilation, shouldn't actual stripper, BloodRayne, be bigger? Lara's just in a tank top and shorts.
I was disappointed in Girls Frontline's handling of it actually. The plot was serious about how they were disturbed that they were just dolls and artificial weapons yet their extreme fanserviceness was never addressed despite the obvious connotations of that in the context of what they were.
Arknight was already mentioned, but can we please remember Girls Frontline, that have both clushes and fanservice (Beach season, underboob/sideboobs, tsundere/yandere/so-much-deres, lingerie/damage arts) AND complex and psychologically devastating ploy at the same time?
Most of those gacha games come from Asia, which has different societal values than America. Unless it's China or meant to be sold there some day, in which case you can expect anything too revealing to be censored (literally, with the government censoring them).
Arknights is surprisingly good for gacha. It's cat/bunny/horse/demon/angel/bear/lizardgirls (and a handful of boys) tower defense, but everyone's wearing a decent amount of clothes. Even a few I've seen who aren't wearing as much, the art doesn't highlight it.
TBF, fanservice is only half the fun of Summer Artoria. The other half is how broken she is as a DPS.
Also, a lot of those gacha games do come from Japan, and they don't seem to care as much about western pearl-clutching. Besides, it's not like they won't make all of the money either way.
Want to make a fan service machine? Awesome, people who want that will buy it, those who don't won't. People shouldn't push their ideals on artists. If someone isn't making something you like, move on, find someone who does. Authoritarians suck.
I hate when people shame artists to make something that isn't their vision. Want to make a female empowerment game with sensible armor for women. Awesome, people who want that will buy it, those who don't won't.
The problem with AAA gaming and pc/sjw/lgbt stuff is that they whine about "whamens rightz" but then then go staight to slut-shaming anything remotely feminime.
Yes, sex sells. But it doesn't mean they are all sluts. Most of the time it is a far more genuine form of empowerment than feminazi dogma.
In FFXIV people can choose freely to have a full plate mail or bikini armor and some people choose one some choose the other... in both male and female characters.
