Lost Ark developer shares absurd response to criticism of female characters

gamedeveloper.com:

Amazon Games has issued a statement to Eurogamer that responds to various criticisms about how the Smilegate-developed ARPG Lost Ark portrays its female characters. In the statement, franchise lead Soomin Park makes promises to improve wardrobe and class options for the game's female characters, but also offers some absurd reasoning for why it's retaining some sexist design decisions.

Those sexist design decisions have been called out by players and critics alike. The core issues have to do with a strict gender divide for the game's different classes, and imbalances in the game's wardrobe and animation options for male and female characters. 

Instead of offering any transparency for why Smilegate RPG chose to limit its female characters to sexy wardrobes, Park offers a defense of players who prefer "the original Korean version" of Lost Ark as an appeal to authenticity. 

Female characters in Lost Ark are largely locked into outfits that seem to be designed with sex appeal in mind, and have character models and animations that tack in the same direction (community editorial coordinator Holly Green, who's spent some time with Lost Ark, described one of these animations as a "horny sailor moon transformation sequence"). Male characters have wardrobes that seem designed for fantasy warfare, and do not have the same animations.

The gender divide for the game's different classes is also suspect because they seem to map onto conventional gender stereotypes. There are only male characters for the game's Warrior class, and only female characters for the Mage and Assassin classes--men are allowed to exhibit physical strength, while women are locked into displaying intellect and guile.

The Gunner and Martial Artist classes do offer some