Videogames are being ruined by two things: boobs, and more boobs.

In the glory days of the Gamecube, there was one game I played more than any other. It was a fighting game with beautiful graphics, complex but flowing combat, a gorgeous soundtrack, and overall great gameplay. It was Soul Calibur 2. I can easily say it was among my five all-time favorite games, and for good reason.

But as the trend goes with gaming, one good sequel begets another – and another, and another, and so on until we’re running out of things to stamp the Final Fantasy logo on. And of course, SC2 was followed by Soul Calibur 3, exclusively for the PS2, which sacrificed the perfect combat its predecessor established for a graphical change.

The first and most obvious difference in the character design is that all the female characters went up a bra size and wore less clothing. It left me wondering, what was the point of all this – to make a better game, or to make a better looking game?

Soul Calibur is not the only game to encourage such style changes. Most fighting series, such as Street Fighter and Tekken, make a habit of doing this as if there was a stylebook to making sequels in the genre.

The point is, tits – big ones, and then bigger ones, so that even if the game isn’t actually fun, you’ll be so comfortable watching that you really won’t care after a while. Big bouncing jugs with individual physics engines and crotch shots so outrageous you could see pubic hair if you looked close enough have practically turned fighting games into sexual exhibition. It’s become violent interactive soft-core pornography.

Earlier in the year I was starting to think it had worn down a little bit, and then Soul Calibur 4 was released. Not only was the gameplay twisted around a graphics engine again, but – you’ll never guess – more and bigger knockers, more risqué costumes, and crotch shots abound. Oh, and here’s another good one: you can destroy your enemy’s clothes.

What’s the point of all this, I wonder? Are nerds so enticed by such blatant innuendos that they’d pay $60 a game for this kind of thing? Or is this just a necessary push for graphical advancement? At this point I don’t think the graphics changes are a push for realism. They instead appear to reflect a desire to emulate a fantasy so vivid and appealing that it outdoes regular perversion.

A rack isn’t a prevalent feature in most videogames, technically. Plenty of genres of gaming have a plot to put in with the visual appeal, and you’d be surprised how a good monologue love on the battlefield can distract you from the gorgeous sniper in the jumpsuit with hard nipples. It’s more noticeable in fighting games because the game’s plot is insignificant to how much you enjoy a fighter.

Honestly, no amount of dirty pillows can make up for bad gameplay or a terrible plot. I mean, I like a gorgeous set of twins as much as the next guy, but at this point I’ve seen so many between videogames, the internet, and my life that I can’t hold my tongue anymore. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as too much boobage. In this day and age, developers seem to think no boob is big enough.

I look forward to a brighter day for fighting games. I would compromise to keep the bigger breasts if they weren’t being such an excuse for a quality decline. But gamers, please: ask for more than big bouncing breasts. There’s more to the world than that.

Oh, and it degrades women.