Blizzard Dev Offers Apology for Response to Sexualization Question

[wizzy555]

I don't understand what the big deal is. every developer is not under moral obligation to subvert design tropes. It is somewhat odd that in WoW the male orcs, trolls and undead are all hunced, twisted monstrosities, but the girls are all basically discolored humans with bad dentistry,

Actually there is history to this. The original horde females looked as ugly as their male counterparts. But this was changed after fans complained about it.

I don't know if the feedback came primarily from men or women.

 

[scw55]

Hell, I'd say MMO's are comparatively progressive on the subject, because no matter how you look or what gender you pick the game treats you the same way. WoW doesn't seem to have any opinion on gender other than that it thinks girls are pretty; it's not helpful but I don't think it's really the core of the problem either.

I think the problem is the games that have only one main character which you play is the vast majority male.

Games which don't care about your gender/race are games can only discuss broad themes. Or they don't discuss anything.

Games where you play THE only main character revolves around themes, but also themes relevant to the main character. Often themes to do with male-ness (heroism/chick magnetness/strength etc...)
Sometimes when a game does have a female lead, the themes are often tied around stereoptical womany things (Father issues (Metroid M), boyfriend issues, issues relating to a MAN).

What would be welcomed would be a game with a female lead where anything to do with men is irrelevant. She's an individual in her own right.

Playing games that aren't biased is great. But sometimes as a male, I might find it interesting playing a Main character where the story explores her. I don't mean a female character which is just a 'man with boobs'.

(The difference between Lara Croft and Femshep is that Lara Croft as an individual is designed by the Game Designer. Femshep's is designed by the player.)

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

It's not really about sexualization.

It's about the laziness that people approach other people. I personally get tired seeing Black guys who are still wearing their pants down low, speaking in improper english, and slower on the uptake but quicker with violence. You know, the kind of black guy that was really, really prevalent before in gaming.

Yes, before you take out your Lee Everetts, things have gotten better. But not without a little muck raising. And they aren't completely better.

I think it's very fair that a gamer public that doesn't just look like a few billion Justin Biebers would like fair representation. And yes, that is Billion with a B. Those of us who started this remembered how rare it was to find someone else who played games still. Now we're probably the most vocal and connected audience there is.

But I remembered when people treated me like a Unicorn in the 80's; 'A black kid who plays games and enjoys them? Rpgs, not football?! This totally shakes my world view!'. I also remember feeling weird not seeing me anywhere. And before the throngs of 'THEN PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE DEVELOPED THEIR OWN GAMES' come out, relax yourself and remember that there were very few American and European game designers back then. All we had is what Japan gave us. And their view of themselves in animated form combined with the... I guess general acceptance of White male heroes help painted the landscape we're in now.

Women are not moving breasts and sexual-lust fodders. I am attracted to only women. There are some women out there who make me feel that way just by being them. And yet I am repulsed by women who just make their entire being about the fact that they have the ability to copulate. That bugs me. In Manhattan, I see it all the time and I feel there's nothing more unappealing than those women.

I get tired of it. And you know what? It's like the Sexualization debate in and of itself. A lot of you are tired of it. A lot of you. You wish you didn't have to see it so often and you react negatively towards it. Congratulations. You now fully understand our point of view of hyper sexualized women. If it happens occasionally, fine. It takes all kinds. But if a highly suggestive woman who more poses than actually stands, and it doesn't seem like she owns a shirt that goes even half way up her cleavage appears to be the only acceptable or even expressed form of women out there... Yes, that gets tiring. And yes that gets to be a problem.

I know the flavor of the month nowadays is for white males to feel persecuted against because so many people stand up and ask for different representation that might focus on their point of view. But you're not. No one is damning you for being born the way you are. What people are saying is that your world view is being catered to almost exclusive. And that we as a more diverse Gamer Audience would like the same amount of catering. And barring that, representation that does not come from stereotypes and childish thoughts or wants.

 

[Erttheking]

Again with this shit.

This is getting ridiculous.

If you can't handle sex, maybe you just need to gouge your eyes out so you'll never have to see a naked man or woman ever again, since it's apparent that these people can't handle it.

Ok seriously, are you honestly going to tell me that that statement isn't a gross oversimplification?

 

[CJ1145]

I think the problem here is that the dev didn't get the irony when he said they were trying to make cool characters. That "cool" women to them seems to mean hyper-sexualized, busty babes with wide hips and metal bikinis says a lot of (bad) things about where we are as a culture.

 

[rbstewart7263]

I think the problem here is that the dev didn't get the irony when he said they were trying to make cool characters. That "cool" women to them seems to mean hyper-sexualized, busty babes with wide hips and metal bikinis says a lot of (bad) things about where we are as a culture.

because the only thing they think is cool in regards to women is hyper sexualized ones? thatd be like me saying that I like frappes and then we go on to say that the only drink I think anyone should ever drink is starbucks coffee and to forego water? Really we need to stop with the "they did a thing so its how they see all womenz" stuff its annoying

 

[Dragonbums]

Again with this shit.

This is getting ridiculous.

If you can't handle sex, maybe you just need to gouge your eyes out so you'll never have to see a naked man or woman ever again, since it's apparent that these people can't handle it.

Ok seriously, are you honestly going to tell me that that statement isn't a gross oversimplification?

Not to mention that it's not even close to being accurate. Like at all.

 

[Ryebread]

Ya but the same can be said for men in gaming. This gen has really not been much other then your same old male stereotypes or just the plain old macho dude hero type. Only a handful of games are really building the complete package of a character anymore most now are just reusing a stereotype or giving you the choice of what gender you are to make your own package.

That argument has been brought up a lot in other scenarios, such as the revealing spandex costumes of supermodel-bodied heroines versus the tight spandex-clad muscular bodies of heroes. That argument has also been refuted in various ways, even on the Escapist itself, and the simplest one would be: stereotypically-sexy female bodies are a *sexual* fantasy for targeted male audiences, i.e. what males want to *access*; stereotypically-muscular male bodies are a *power* fantasy for targeted male audiences, i.e. what males want to *be*.

I apologize if I summarized that argument poorly, but the gist is that sexualized women and muscular men are both designed specifically for male audiences. Kratos was never predominantly posed in thongs, reclining seductively on chimera-skin rugs. The Gears of Wars series never featured burly marines waiting upon a female protagonist.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Ya but the same can be said for men in gaming. This gen has really not been much other then your same old male stereotypes or just the plain old macho dude hero type. Only a handful of games are really building the complete package of a character anymore most now are just reusing a stereotype or giving you the choice of what gender you are to make your own package.

That argument has been brought up a lot in other scenarios, such as the revealing spandex costumes of supermodel-bodied heroines versus the tight spandex-clad muscular bodies of heroes. That argument has also been refuted in various ways, even on the Escapist itself, and the simplest one would be: stereotypically-sexy female bodies are a *sexual* fantasy for targeted male audiences, i.e. what males want to *access*; stereotypically-muscular male bodies are a *power* fantasy for targeted male audiences, i.e. what males want to *be*.

I apologize if I summarized that argument poorly, but the gist is that sexualized women and muscular men are both designed specifically for male audiences. Kratos was never predominantly posed in thongs, reclining seductively on chimera-skin rugs. The Gears of Wars series never featured burly marines waiting upon a female protagonist.

if you put a man in a full fledged suit. and then had him recline on a couch with his ass in the air it would not be as attractive to females as it would be if you had a man do it. different sexes tend to like different things sexually with some exceptions. I dont care if your the one chick who wants to see kratos with his knees together sticking his butt in the air your probably one out of 20. So when you say things like that your making a false equivalance. one does not mean the other and vice versa.

 

[Ryebread]

How well known are these games, or how well known will they be? What will the quality of the games be? I don't mean to split hairs, but a game is hard pressed to be successful if no one knows it's out there, and if it can't stand on it's own regardless of the protagonist, it will fail.
I'm still wary of the industry's treatment of female characters.

And don't forget Skullgirls! It might be debatable with some of the fighters in its primarily-female roster, but I have a particular soft-spot for Peacock's old-school-cartoon design. It would be good to shine focus on particular developers too, since Valve has often come out with less-objectified characters (Chelle, Zoey, Alyx). Also, some indie game developers tend to shy away from the blatant sexualization that bigger companies resort to.

I concur with your argument, and would like to bring up percentages. It's nice that there are about 10 to 15 games out there that can declare its female protagonists to be well-rounded non-bimbo characters, but what would the following ratio look like? {2013 Games with strong non-sexualized heroines} : {2013 Games in Total}

So yes, this question needs to be asked more and more and more and more until I can like and identify with a female character that doesn't get objectified. Because that kind of shit is not only offensive and condescending to me and other adult gamers that don't want to be treated like horny teenagers but it's harmful to women in the real-world.

Testify! Every time a game shoves heaving bosoms into my frame of view, it's like the devs are screaming "Shove some tits in his face and he won't care about poor gameplay and minimal bug-testing!" If inserted without thought and meaning, gratuitous cleavage and ass-shots feel like scented smokescreens, like waitresses in tight shirts luring customers to buy sub-par wings.

This is what I don't understand about the people defending the omnipresence of overt sexuality in games. While it may work for some games (Bayonetta arguably), blatant sexual imagery is a marketing tool meant to appeal to the male libido's wallet. Beer ad models don't improve a beer's flavour, and showgirls don't improve a car show's cars.

Which is all well and good. They aren't a charity; they have to sell the game and push the product. If using sex sells more copies, then all the better right? But games have deadlines, and games have limited budgets. When everything is coming down to the wire and they have to decide between coding a new multiplayer map or animating a hot springs cutscene, well they'll have to go for what sells the best and if that happens to be sex...

Games can be deep and fun and have sexy ladies in it all at the same time. But if devs have to choose, I would much rather they focus on making a better game with less animations, as opposed to a grindy snore-fest that shakes tits in my face everytime I level up.

"We want better games. Not softcore porn. Games!"

That's the message we gamers are trying to send, right? No matter what we think of crudeness or prudishness, we are all surely valuing gameplay over imagery?

if you put a man in a full fledged suit. and then had him recline on a couch with his ass in the air it would not be as attractive to females as it would be if you had a man do it. different sexes tend to like different things sexually with some exceptions. I dont care if your the one chick who wants to see kratos with his knees together sticking his butt in the air your probably one out of 20. So when you say things like that your making a false equivalence. one does not mean the other and vice versa.

While you're missing my point, thank you for giving me another example! As I've said before, Kratos (and other manly man heroes) are not meant to sexually attract the player. They are meant to be worn by the player so they can share the feeling of being powerful (and perhaps being "sexually attractive" as well). We "get" the heroines; We "be" the heroes.

 

[rbstewart7263]

How well known are these games, or how well known will they be? What will the quality of the games be? I don't mean to split hairs, but a game is hard pressed to be successful if no one knows it's out there, and if it can't stand on it's own regardless of the protagonist, it will fail.
I'm still wary of the industry's treatment of female characters.

And don't forget Skullgirls! It might be debatable with some of the fighters in its primarily-female roster, but I have a particular soft-spot for Peacock's old-school-cartoon design. It would be good to shine focus on particular developers too, since Valve has often come out with less-objectified characters (Chelle, Zoey, Alyx). Also, some indie game developers tend to shy away from the blatant sexualization that bigger companies resort to.

I concur with your argument, and would like to bring up percentages. It's nice that there are about 10 to 15 games out there that can declare its female protagonists to be well-rounded non-bimbo characters, but what would the following ratio look like? {2013 Games with strong non-sexualized heroines} : {2013 Games in Total}

So yes, this question needs to be asked more and more and more and more until I can like and identify with a female character that doesn't get objectified. Because that kind of shit is not only offensive and condescending to me and other adult gamers that don't want to be treated like horny teenagers but it's harmful to women in the real-world.

Testify! Every time a game shoves heaving bosoms into my frame of view, it's like the devs are screaming "Shove some tits in his face and he won't care about poor gameplay and minimal bug-testing!" If inserted without thought and meaning, gratuitous cleavage and ass-shots feel like scented smokescreens, like waitresses in tight shirts luring customers to buy sub-par wings.

This is what I don't understand about the people defending the omnipresence of overt sexuality in games. While it may work for some games (Bayonetta arguably), blatant sexual imagery is a marketing tool meant to appeal to the male libido's wallet. Beer ad models don't improve a beer's flavour, and showgirls don't improve a car show's cars.

Which is all well and good. They aren't a charity; they have to sell the game and push the product. If using sex sells more copies, then all the better right? But games have deadlines, and games have limited budgets. When everything is coming down to the wire and they have to decide between coding a new multiplayer map or animating a hot springs cutscene, well they'll have to go for what sells the best and if that happens to be sex...

Games can be deep and fun and have sexy ladies in it all at the same time. But if devs have to choose, I would much rather they focus on making a better game with less animations, as opposed to a grindy snore-fest that shakes tits in my face everytime I level up.

"We want better games. Not softcore porn. Games!"

That's the message we gamers are trying to send, right? No matter what we think of crudeness or prudishness, we are all surely valuing gameplay over imagery?

if you put a man in a full fledged suit. and then had him recline on a couch with his ass in the air it would not be as attractive to females as it would be if you had a man do it. different sexes tend to like different things sexually with some exceptions. I dont care if your the one chick who wants to see kratos with his knees together sticking his butt in the air your probably one out of 20. So when you say things like that your making a false equivalence. one does not mean the other and vice versa.

While you're missing my point, thank you for giving me another example! As I've said before, Kratos (and other manly man heroes) are not meant to sexually attract the player. They are meant to be worn by the player so they can share the feeling of being powerful (and perhaps being "sexually attractive" as well). We "get" the heroines; We "be" the heroes.

Fair point ill concede. I only want to get behind something that seeks a balance between sexualized women and non sexualized. bringing things for my male pleasure shouldnt be a problem. catering exclusively to me is a problem. Also assuming that there are not women out there who might enjoy some sexualized female stuff is off to me. but still I concede the point I debated earlier."tips hat"

 

[UberPubert]

Which is all well and good. They aren't a charity; they have to sell the game and push the product. If using sex sells more copies, then all the better right? But games have deadlines, and games have limited budgets. When everything is coming down to the wire and they have to decide between coding a new multiplayer map or animating a hot springs cutscene, well they'll have to go for what sells the best and if that happens to be sex...

Games can be deep and fun and have sexy ladies in it all at the same time. But if devs have to choose, I would much rather they focus on making a better game with less animations, as opposed to a grindy snore-fest that shakes tits in my face everytime I level up.

"We want better games. Not softcore porn. Games!"

That's the message we gamers are trying to send, right? No matter what we think of crudeness or prudishness, we are all surely valuing gameplay over imagery?

Half-baked assumptions and equating any game that features a scantily clad female character to a Hooters seems like a terrible thing to base an argument off of, and it's why I always have problems with people trying to insert this line of thinking into every game and medium.

Ridiculous hyperbole aside, I can promise you no multiplayer map was ever sacrificed for a cut-scene: The teams and resources devoted to these assets are not just in completely different departments but are under completely different directors, and in the case of pre-rendered cut-scenes they're usually outsourced to studios that don't even have a tangential relationship to the game developer. And you can't even argue that it's money badly spent elsewhere, it's budgeted before production even starts and multiplayer maps are almost always tacked on at the end (see: most expansions, DLC, and user-created content for multiplayer games).

The same goes for almost all your other complaints. The animation department that tosses in a boob jiggle is not the same one that controls game mechanics (unless it's an indy game, but that's not what this topic is about). The same team that's responsible for writing the backstory or dialogue for a character isn't the same one that actually does the modelling or textures (if the former team is lucky they'll get the same concept art to work with, final renders from the 3D modelling team won't come in until much after, and by then the voice actors are already at work).

You can't just say, "If we have less of that, this will be better" when the two aren't actually related.

And who are you to say games can't be more about imagery? I'd say there's recent titles (Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Unfinished Swan) that value imagery highly and have minimal game play. Who made you or anyone else who's similarly concerned about the issue the gatekeepers on what is or isn't acceptable in video games?

Furthermore, softcore (and hardcore) porn is a perfectly fine commodity, why can't we have videogames that are like that?

 

[Genocidicles]

Many people will say that video games, mmorpgs or mobas are targeted towards men rather than women so it's okay for them to pander towards men and marginalize women. No. 50% of gamers are women and a lot of the people I know on League and knew on WoW are/were women. And another thing, even if women made up 5% of the gaming community it's still no reason to ignore them in the development process. Maybe if more games didn't objectify women to absurd levels and actually wrote women well then more women would play games and it wouldn't be seen as such a boys' club.

But here's the thing... these games aren't made for women.

I would assume that half of movie watchers are female, but you don't see every film being made for men and women. You see the action films and such for men, and the romcoms and such for women.

It sucks that there are no big budget games being game for women, but then most big budget games aren't all that great anyway.

 

[lacktheknack]

Bottom line if you don't like the design don't play the game

This.

This is why I don't play TERA (I think that's right, but I'm afraid to Google it), Soul Calibur, or Dead Or Alive.

I'm not asking them to change, they just won't see my money while in that state.

 

[cefm]

The interviewer asked a question that was way off-topic, so I don't really assign a ton of blame to the dev for not seeing that one coming. I DO however assign blame to their PR coaches because this is really amateur-league stuff. You're in the gaming industry - you need to have a few standard talking points hammered in and rehearsed well or you shouldn't have a job as a PR flack, and some of these are going to deal with gender imbalance of the player base, of the characters/storylines, and of course female sexualization. It's not that hard to come up with some bland non-controversial responses, print them on a card, and hand them out to everyone who steps in front of a microphone.

 

[AlexWinter]

Many people will say that video games, mmorpgs or mobas are targeted towards men rather than women so it's okay for them to pander towards men and marginalize women. No. 50% of gamers are women and a lot of the people I know on League and knew on WoW are/were women. And another thing, even if women made up 5% of the gaming community it's still no reason to ignore them in the development process. Maybe if more games didn't objectify women to absurd levels and actually wrote women well then more women would play games and it wouldn't be seen as such a boys' club.

But here's the thing... these games aren't made for women.

I would assume that half of movie watchers are female, but you don't see every film being made for men and women. You see the action films and such for men, and the romcoms and such for women.

It sucks that there are no big budget games being game for women, but then most big budget games aren't all that great anyway.

Yeah that's just an example of internalized misogyny.

Are you trying to say it's okay because they're supposed to exclude women? If half of gamers are women and developers are ignoring that to target only men, despite it being the complete opposite of a good business model, then that's just another problem. It makes women feel like they're not allowed to like video games, it makes women feel afraid to enter the field of games development and it makes it seem okay for men to marginalise women.

I mean, can't you put yourselves in the shoes of a woman for a moment and think about how that feels? Shit, I'm a guy and knowing that League is occasionally marketed towards guys that like to objectify women with unrealistic body images makes me feel pretty excluded and grossed out, despite enjoying the gameplay.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

The Industry's way of dealing with females is bullshit,as it is possible for a game with a female protaganist to be succesful(Portal,Tomb Raider).Its a slow process,in the 80s and 90s I honestly could not remember to many games that starred female protaganist or appealed to females,(with exception of a few niche RPGs),however in the 2000s weve seen an growth in female participation in a male dominated hobby,its true not all the games I mentioned are Call of Duty levels of mainstream but its a growing process,weve been reaching new depths with storytelling this generation,we will just have to see how devs handle female characters in the current gen(PS4,Xbox One.)

In the late 90's we had a small explosion of female protagonists thanks to the girl power era. I saw a Xena game, Parasite Eve, Tomb Raider at the height of popularity. I'm a bit too frazzled to work up a huge list, but regardless, the girl power era's end ended the golden age of female protagonsits giving many people ammo to be angry at female representation.

I'm in agreement that the industry has to grow into being more welcoming of female protagonists, but I gotta worry how long it'll actually take, if it's actually even really happening.

Honestly, I think Mass effect comes up so much because it's something that you can be reasonably sure people have played, or at least know about. You get more people knowing what you're talking about than if you bring up, say, the women in Persona 4, Disgaea, Etrian Odyssey, or most of the RPGs I play.

The thing about positivity, I was taught to see the whole of a character, while I see others that seem to judge them only by their appearance (both outfits and overall sexualization). I've said it since the Playstation days: everything Lara Croft could be for women (star character, athletic, non-damsel, confident badass) dissolved under the DDs. It can come off as an "all or nothing" standard that, yes, I can see developers and publishers thinking it isn't worth their time to try and appeal to. I'm not in gaming, but I've seen my own boss happily let angry customers walk out never to return because the grief they game him wasn't worth it.

At this point, I think the gender talk is so prominent that do developer or publisher can be totally ignorant of it, al while I understand a desire to find a self serving reason they aren't jumping to appeal to women, I've been in business long enough to at least entertain the idea that they have a legitimate reason. Even ignoring sales demographic issues when stuff like Remember Me flops, if all a company hears is a string of insults over sexism oven one part of a character, when every other element they put in to try and please you goes unthanked and unacknowledged (or even unknown because people can't see beyond the AAA), well, just be 100% honest: how receptive would you be to someone that only brought up your faults, and never thanked your efforts?

Fair enough point on why Mass Effect keeps popping up, but still, there's no other game, especially with a female only protagonist trying to be the next big thing for female representation which is a problem, IMO. Kinda telling when NPCs are often held up over Player characters at times, too.

I generally do look at the entirity of a character. Problem is I have some standards, I guess. A lot of male protagonsits are boring as hell to play as, and percentage wise a lot more women are boring to be. When faced with the option of playing as a boring guy, and a boring woman, boring woman wins because playing as my own gender is less boring.

If the industry wants to be thanked for their efforts, they need to make efforts worth thanking them for, IMO. Remember Me flopped because, despite the beauty of the game, it was sub-par, and poorly advertised. A game needs to be good. Indie games won't fix things, nor will games that don't have the gameplay, and graphics, and such to make it popular.

People can't see beyond AAA because having to research to find games is kinda unfair, IMO. I pretty much have to go well out of my way to know most games with female protagonists even exist, yet people wanting to play as guys take it for granted that they can find games that let them do that.

But now that I think about it, movies aren't terribly shy about making women the stars. Romantic Comedies, Chick flicks, Hunger Games, even the Resident Evil series of movies doesn't seem to get ire up. At least I haven't heard of many feminist outcries aganst the movie industry, and really, the industry has -Twilight- out there, nevermind countless damsels in distress. I'd say it's because of the simple fact that there's a balance of representation that's far nicer to women, and also because movies aimed at women aren't terribly rare. More opinions to go around, more middle ground between all, and nothing to stand on, and be happy with. That's what I want for videogames, pretty much, and the only way to get it is to actually have the middle ground exist, and lots of it, too.

I'd like to point out that these movies are almost universally given a smaller budget. If you ignore the midbudget movies, they're actually very comparable in terms of female representation and protagonists. If you use that comparison as a start, you can make a pretty strong argument that the continued lack of female protagonists in games is largely due to the near absence of midbudget titles.

I dunno, with all the games being released in a gaming year, there's a good many mid-budget titles. The argument doesn't really stand, even looking at those, IMO.

What's stopping women from being in big budget titles, anyhow? They are in movies, and other media.

 

[infinity_turtles]

I dunno, with all the games being released in a gaming year, there's a good many mid-budget titles. The argument doesn't really stand, even looking at those, IMO.

No there really aren't. That's the thing, most of what we might think of as midbudget games are actually pretty low budget. We look at the Kickstarters that get two or three million and we think hey that's midbudget title. AAA games cost about as much as Blockbuster films, and that's without the multiple big names stars jacking up the prices. Midbudget movies? Currently 15-20 million is where most midbudget movies are landing, and though that used to be considered low budget(Slumdog Millionaire cost 15 million in 2008 and was considered a low budget movie), but movie studios have been cutting those budgets and focusing even more on blockbuster titles.

Gaming actually has very little in the way of midbudget games. The games industry has primarily big budget and micro budget titles, with fewer low budget and very few mid budget titles.

What's stopping women from being in big budget titles, anyhow? They are in movies, and other media.

They are in big budget titles, just a whole lot less of them just like in movies. Tomb Raider, Remember Me, and Beyond: Two Souls all released this year.

 

[Ryebread]

Are you trying to say it's okay because they're supposed to exclude women? If half of gamers are women and developers are ignoring that to target only men, despite it being the complete opposite of a good business model, then that's just another problem. It makes women feel like they're not allowed to like video games, it makes women feel afraid to enter the field of games development and it makes it seem okay for men to marginalise women.

Fair enough point on why Mass Effect keeps popping up, but still, there's no other game, especially with a female only protagonist trying to be the next big thing for female representation which is a problem, IMO. Kinda telling when NPCs are often held up over Player characters at times, too.

I want to throw in another article here about how marketing throughout the growth/decline/growth of the video game industry promoted the gendering of video games.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed

There was a valid argument for targeting the specific market of young males back when the industry was faltering, but that argument no longer applies today. When video game developers can expand to other age groups and mixed-gender audiences, yet refuse to do so because they were raised on the marketed idea that video games are explicitly masculine, that's a problem that limits the industry's future successes based on antiquated notions.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I dunno, with all the games being released in a gaming year, there's a good many mid-budget titles. The argument doesn't really stand, even looking at those, IMO.

No there really aren't. That's the thing, most of what we might think of as midbudget games are actually pretty low budget. We look at the Kickstarters that get two or three million and we think hey that's midbudget title. AAA games cost about as much as Blockbuster films, and that's without the multiple big names stars jacking up the prices. Midbudget movies? Currently 15-20 million is where most midbudget movies are landing, and though that used to be considered low budget(Slumdog Millionaire cost 15 million in 2008 and was considered a low budget movie), but movie studios have been cutting those budgets and focusing even more on blockbuster titles.

Gaming actually has very little in the way of midbudget games. The games industry has primarily big budget and micro budget titles, with fewer low budget and very few mid budget titles.

What's stopping women from being in big budget titles, anyhow? They are in movies, and other media.

They are in big budget titles, just a whole lot less of them just like in movies. Tomb Raider, Remember Me, and Beyond: Two Souls all released this year.

I don't look at indie games as mid-budget. I look at games on consoles (not so much PC as that'd include indie games which are extremely low budget for a game) that doesn't get advertisement as mid-budget, or so because there's not enough budget to even have a TV commercial. That said, there's quite a few mid budget games to me.

Kick starters are at the low end of budgets.

I'll agree on micro budget titles outside of indie games. Games built largely as more than DLC but not large enough to warrant a full release sort of thing.

The "whole lot less" part is the problem for me, and no doubt many others.

Are you trying to say it's okay because they're supposed to exclude women? If half of gamers are women and developers are ignoring that to target only men, despite it being the complete opposite of a good business model, then that's just another problem. It makes women feel like they're not allowed to like video games, it makes women feel afraid to enter the field of games development and it makes it seem okay for men to marginalise women.

Fair enough point on why Mass Effect keeps popping up, but still, there's no other game, especially with a female only protagonist trying to be the next big thing for female representation which is a problem, IMO. Kinda telling when NPCs are often held up over Player characters at times, too.

I want to throw in another article here about how marketing throughout the growth/decline/growth of the video game industry promoted the gendering of video games.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed

There was a valid argument for targeting the specific market of young males back when the industry was faltering, but that argument no longer applies today. When video game developers can expand to other age groups and mixed-gender audiences, yet refuse to do so because they were raised on the marketed idea that video games are explicitly masculine, that's a problem that limits the industry's future successes based on antiquated notions.

Pretty much, yeah. People have to overcome the old ways of things. Honestly, I think the industry is faltering now because of those old tactics still in play. The lack of trying to get in a larger, more diverse audience is what's going to hurt the industry the most. That, and companies trying too hard to get the money games like CoD, and GTA bring in.