Let's Discuss: Furries (or Anthropomorphic Animals) as a game aesthetic.

[DeadPotato]

Important: I'm not talking about Furries as in the Internet (or real life) culture. This post is only about Furries (or AA) as a game aesthetic, as in character art, character design in games.

So, what's the deal with Furries? What are Furries anyway?
Generally I feel like it can be split into 3 general categories with increasing animal-like features:
1. Humans with animal features (example: human, with cat ears and tail)
2. Humanlike animals with animal features (example: a cat with a human anatomy)
3. Animals behaving like humans (example: a cat, a normal cat)

A lot of games that use the furry aesthetic land on category 1, 2 and very rarely 3.

Let's talk general appeal.
I find that people are generally okay with category 1, as it's still mostly human.
Less people are fond of category 2 and even less with category 3.

Why is that?
Is it because of the Furry internet (and real life) culture that people stay away from games with a furry aesthetic?
Or do you think that there's any other reason other than not liking it?

P.S. This is an opinion of someone looking outside in, I'm just curious. As well as trying to figure out and understand the whats and whys about the artstyle.
Thanks for reading! C:

 

[redknight00]

Don't overthink it, people like what they like, and most prefer to only fuck humans.

 

[baneini]

People are more willing to accept something as normal if it doesn't venture too outside of their pre-existing categories of classification. The more human like the easier it is to accept a character as normal and appealing. If its too far out people go "that game isn't for me". Like anime the artstyles evolve and furry artists can see what works and what doesn't to bridge the gap to have a larger fanbase and tilt their cg's away from the more off putting animal features.

One theory is that autists particularly like furries because they can have brightly colored and cartoony designs. They can understand it more easily.
Japan has the whole moe thing going on, cat girls are moe and you can make them endearing because they act erratically making you want to care for them.

Theres people who irrationally hate "furries" whatever that happens to mean to them and you're not going to find much answers from them. How do you get emotional about something that doesn't impact you in any way? Who knows. That group of people likely overlaps heavily with anti-gay or anti-trans groups who want to establish a white ethnostate. Perhaps they're fascinated by it but suffer from cognitive dissonance.

In the west you're going to suffer from people liking the furry games aesthetic but feeling embarrassed to talk about it and being apologetic for no reason.

 

[HarveyD]

There's a fuck ton of shit that gets me off in animated or hentai style that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole in real life. Furries being one of those.

Why do less people like the more extreme types of furries? The same reason less people like more extreme BDSM. It's just not for them.

 

[khumak]

If it's some alien race that is humanoid but has some animal features I don't mind (elves/orcs/cat people/whatever) but bestiality is a hard no for me along with any futa/tranny type stuff.

 

[215303j]

I don't really see the point or the appeal of furries to be honest.
Can't say that I hate it, but I don't like it either.
So I just ignore them.

 

[9thCrux]

1. Humans with animal features (example: human, with cat ears and tail)

How dare you to lump together amazing cat girls with carpet or shoe skin things!

I absolutely refuse to generalize girls with animal ears-and-tails with lizards and dogs walking on two legs...
One of my future projects is about women with animal ears and tails but there is no way in hell I'm adding the furry tag!
No! Never! Ever!!!

On a more serious note; cat girls is as far as I can go (fox girls, dog girls, bunny girls, and the sort are good as long as they're similar to cat girls).
And I think they should have their own tag to separate them from the furry bunch.

 

[kytee]

I'm here with my pitchfork, where do we burn the furries?

For me personally, I don't like watching sex with anything that isn't 100% human. I can make exceptions for fox and cat ear headbands but that's about it. Bestiality is about the biggest turn off there is for me though, so it's near impossible for me to get sexually attracted to furries. But people like what they like I guess. I want to hear from people who really get off on furry shit. I want to know why they like it so much.

 

[Fliptoynk]

I think some dev wants a she mc get knotted either by kobolds or bojack. Might be good one, give it a go.

 

[Sphere42]

Where's the "I don't really care about them in and of themselves" option? To me that even applies to category 3 although plenty of those fall out for "aesthetic" reasons. With all the non-furry porn tropes being fairly unrealistic as well (arm-sized dicks staying hard for hours and producing litres of highly addictive cum even on a futa with no testicles) and the ridiculous costumes in non-porn art animal features just don't really stand out to me that much. One thing which does tend to make me cringe is them being written as humans imitating the animal they look like, as in clearly just playing rather than actually having animal instincts or a "mixed mind".

Ironically the main reason I "seek out" furry content also is what often ends up being the most off-putting: the prevalence of other fetishes. And I don't mean bestiality that one is par for the course but I like belly inflation, stomach bulges and egg-laying where only the latter has any real justification in this context. On the flip side there seem to be major subcultures around inflating the entire body like a balloon, gory penetrations, hard vore and messy scat/diaper play all of which I find ugly and vile. In that regard I presume it's a "nothing to lose" mentality, they're already ostracised for being furries (both the people and the characters) so indulging in other fetishes doesn't really harm them further.

As for the actual furry itself I think there are several distinct cultural leanings and everything above mostly falls into the western "anthro" section. Catgirls, fox girls and to a lesser extent some other "cute furry critters" mostly seem to be a Japanese thing which the western world is slowly adopting. Some probably hail from western cartoon animal culture like Roger Rabbit. Demihumans were prevalent in ancient Greece and tend to have fairly clear rules (i.e. mostly human face and torso with fully animal limbs, in porn they can have multiple sets of genitals if both the human and the animal portion contain their respective "normal" locations). Much of what I see on "furry" sites isn't even an outright half-human but a fantasy creature or a mix-and-match chimera, at the very least their colours and patterns really don't make any sense biologically speaking. Compared to western non-furry art I also see a massively larger fraction of hermaphrodites and other mixed-sex configurations.

 

[DeadPotato]

I absolutely refuse to generalize girls with animal ears-and-tails with lizards and dogs walking on two legs...
One of my future projects is about women with animal ears and tails but there is no way in hell I'm adding the furry tag!
No! Never! Ever!!!

I feel like people lump in Kemonomimi (translated: animal ears) genre into the general Furry genre is because the animal characteristics both genres use in their character designs, when both of them are different in essence.

And I think they should have their own tag to separate them from the furry bunch.

Absolutely! I think they should too!

 

[DeadPotato]

I want to hear from people who really get off on furry shit. I want to know why they like it so much.

I don't LOVE furries, but I don't hate them. I'm just kinda okay with it. Maybe it's the character design aspect?

 

[kytee]

I mean good character design is always aesthetically pleasing whether it has animal features or not. Said animal features being sexually desirable is my question.

 

[DeadPotato]

I mean good character design is always aesthetically pleasing whether it has animal features or not. Said animal features being sexually desirable is my question.

For me it's always just in the 'cute' region, never sexy.
It was never: 'It has cat features therefore it's sexy.'
It was more like: 'It's sexy but it also has cat features.'
There's a subtle difference in there I guess?

 

[khumak]

I mean good character design is always aesthetically pleasing whether it has animal features or not. Said animal features being sexually desirable is my question.

I think for most people it's more of a fuzzy line where if the character looks close enough to a human and is attractive, then the animal features can be tolerated/ignored/overlooked, but they don't add to the appeal at all. Unless you're talking Cosplay type stuff with people wearing a Catwoman costume or something. I do like that but it's not an actual catwoman.

 

[VelvetPython]

Are we only talking about H-games? Animal Crossing is a noteworthy example of #3.

I appreciate some furry art, although I hate a lot of the stuff that inevitably crops up browsing it (diapers, six legged cat centaurs with wings, that it is all 60% gay). I guess what games are actually produced depends on what the designer likes, and thinks will be popular. There's an audience for everything, even a game where a realistic dog fucks another realistic dog.

 

[DeadPotato]

There's an audience for everything, even a game where a realistic dog fucks another realistic dog.

I would love to see that game, for legit academic purposes. Like, how would it even work? Would it even work as a H-game?

 

[VelvetPython]

Didn't they do something like that in Tokyo Jungle? And like, you could catch fleas instead of STDs?

 

[polywog]