Why do video game characters wear the same clothes?

[IceBrand]

And they don't wear it once or twice, but every single day! You would think they would smell horribly. Do they have sets of the same cloths? Also it seems no matter how old they get their cloths seem to age with them.

[Nobody]

Lazy developers

[Jiac]

Same logic as a video game character being stabbed multiple times in area of vital organs and living because..."Tis' just a flesh wound." Really though it is to make them stay in their iconic clothes,it's better than having to do in game laundry,or recreating the Sims.

[Rewjeo]

because lazy

[Roxas]

It's to keep them in familiar, recognizable getups.

[cyron]

Lazy developers

not lazy, lets take fe as an example

if we assume that each chapter the unit has a different outfit for every chapter they are in and if we assume that there will be 35 characters in the game, and 30 chapters, starting party size of 5 with 1 new unit per chapter then

c1 for the 5 initial units you need 150 portraits

c2 179 portraits

c3 207 portraits

c4 234 portraits

c5 260 portraits

it keeps getting higher, its to much work,

if we were to assume each unit had outfits then thats 210 portraits

basically if there are lots of characters like in fire emblem its impractical,

and if its in a game with animated cut-scenes then they either have a nightmare hand drawing all the outfits or the programmers have to make a excessively complex code to render all the different outfits

its not that producers are lazy its that its impractical

Edited August 16, 2013 by Wintersmith

[NinjaMonkey]

In the first Paper Mario game, Princess Peach mentions that she has twenty versions of the same dress.

Also, she changes her clothes during the sports spin-off games.

and if its in a game with animated cut-scenes then they either have a nightmare hand drawing all the outfits or the programmers have to make a excessively complex code to render all the different outfits

its not that producers are lazy its that its impractical

And yet they can do different models when it comes to battle animations (for example, Edward's outfit differs depending if he's a Myrmidon, Swordsmaster or a Trueblade).

Edited August 16, 2013 by NinjaMonkey

[riariadne]

And yet they can do different models when it comes to battle animations (for example, Edward's outfit differs depending if he's a Myrmidon, Swordsmaster or a Trueblade).

1-3 sprites for a unit isn't that bad compared to like 40 for every unit.

[cyron]

In the first Paper Mario game, Princess Peach mentions that she has twenty versions of the same dress.

Also, she changes her clothes during the sports spin-off games.

And yet they can do different models when it comes to battle animations (for example, Edward's outfit differs depending if he's a Myrmidon, Swordsmaster or a Trueblade).

as captain america said, thats less, also thats a very limited set of actions, i was talking about cut scenes like the ike vs black knight ones

[Loki Laufeyson]

Same reason a lot of anime and animated characters in general wear the same clothes all the time. Its just animated physics. If you are animated, forget changing clothes! (unless your name is Sakura Kinomoto!)

[Samias]

In hand drawn animation, every time you design a new outfit, that's something new that you have to learn to draw consistently. In anime a lot of the difficulties of costume changes are lessened by keeping frames fairly static so they can draw less. With feature films with lots of movement (ie Disney, Don Bluth), you'll see characters keep costume change to a minimum. Feature-quality 3D films generally also don't like to change costumes either because they have to develop a new set of physics for the new outfit. In games with prerendered FMVs like most of the Final Fantasy games, they can't afford to remake that scene with different outfits that have different physics, which is why there is no customization whatsoever.

Setting up costumes for 2D games is every bit as difficult as animating for TV/movies, and often with even larger casts. Even for static portraits, an additional costume for the entirety of the cast would be another 40+ portraits. 3D is a little easier for generic outfit changes like in FE:Awakening because you can model a single body to be reused for every member of that rig size (in FE:A it's 3 per gender it seems), but individual outfits with lots of customizations are really time consuming, which is why you rarely see more than 3 unique alternate outfits even for a small cast. Games like World of Warcraft basically model from a base rig for every new piece of armor, which is why there can be so many different types of armor. Many parts are only retextured and require no new models at all.