Eacaraxe said:
Rebel_Raven said:
I'm snipping, because I really feel this productive vein of conversation is drawing to a close.
Absolutely, there's way too much sexist dudebro shit out there on the gaming market. That by all means ought to change. We're totally on the same page. That doesn't change the fact
it exists because there is a market for it, and that not only is the path of least resistance for making triple-A titles, but also the most lucrative. It is a
response to market forces, not a
cause for market forces.
It's not as if a game company one day got the wonderful idea to make "Super Hooker Fighter XTreme", and an entire generation of males upon seeing this title realized tits are awesome and want to see more of them. Game companies realized the majority of their audience is male, and since men like tits, tits can be put in video games and make them more popular. It's not just oversexualization of women although it's certainly the issue with greatest exposure (heh), that extends to male power fantasy and every other iteration thereof comparative to the female experience and representation of women in games. And women, by and large, as you said yourself interpret this as a Hobson's choice and
buy the shit anyway.
Meanwhile, indie and small-time developers aren't started and grow in a vacuum. They're not athlete's foot or herpes for god's sake. People don't buy their games, which limits their exposure and their revenue, putting them in turn in a catch-22. If they're making good, female-friendly games,
buy them and give them word-of-mouth advertising. We in the western world live in a capitalist paradigm in which consumption drives revenue, which in turn drives growth. Look at BioWare, one of the more forward-thinking triple-A companies out there in terms of gender and gender issues and representation, which
started as an indie company and grew because people liked and bought their games. The "next" BioWare isn't going to be the "next" BioWare, unless people look past the fact they're an indie company and buy their games!
That's the issue at hand. Why would companies find a different, riskier way to have their cake and eat it too,
when they already have a way to have their cake and eat it too? It's going to be market forces that drive reform in the game industry, and that will never,
ever coalesce unless people like me, and you by your own admission, start speaking with their wallets -- and advocating others do so. That's where Sarkeesian threw the bloody ball and ran away from it screaming, in my opinion, is she didn't just say "don't buy sexist games".
It's no secret that I'm well aware guys like boobs. I like boobs, too! I think everyone does.
I recognize sex sells, and I'm willing to make compromises in light of that. It's a valid, but pretty cheap sales tactic, especially when it's most of what the game's draw is when the game is not a sex game.
I still gotta think that when women wanting to game are faced with the likes of Ivy Valentine, and women made in a similar image are going to get a bit turned off at their abundance, which is why I clammor for variety. Women don't have to dress that way to be hot, yet it's the easiest way so it gets done more often. If we're going to invite them, a balance between sexy and conservative needs to be found, and it's not that frikking hard to do that, IMO. Clothes that are even remotely flattering, and stylish can acomplish a lot without showing a ton of skin.
You bring up a point in the power trip. I crave such experiences, and that's a part of the reason I push for more female playable characters.
An NPC is pretty much never going to give me a power trip, even if she were a goddess that supported the playable guy through out an entire game. Power trips are only really power trips when the player wields the power. It's as simple as that.
That said, I gotta feel it's safe to say I'm not alone in that opinion.
The thing about indie games is that they have to be appealing enough for word of mouth to work. That's really really hard to do for one game. No one game is going to fell the notion that women hurt games.
Even with multiple recommendations, it's unlikely to be significant outside of the indie scene.
Few indie games are runaway successes, after all.
Even fewer are to the point they get a AAA treatment. Considering Portal is one of them, I'd say it hasn't done as much as I'd have hoped a popular game with a female protagonist would do for representing female protagonists as evidence that a female protagonist doesn't kill a game.
People had little to zero problems with Chell, and the game is what I'd think of as a success, but here we are, still, struggling to find games with female leads that aren't trashy looking, in good games, that aren't gender select.
Further compounding the problem is the simple fact that until indie games can have a strong presense outside of the PC, and IOS arenas they're going to be limited by the audience. Maybe the Xbone, and the ps4 will be that bridge for that, but we won't know until we get there.
Even -then- an indie game will have to be successful enough in reaping profits that the gaming industry takes note. That's an insane goal. Minecraft hasn't even gotten there since I see little attempts to copy the formula. Actually, no attempts outside of other indie games come to mind.
And even if the industry tries to copy the formula, I would still worry that if the indie game originally had a female playable chracter that she'd get removed in favor of a guy only game. I'm not really alone in the worry, either.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-20-bastion-developer-teases-transistor-for-pax-east
The indie scene, as lovely as it is, just doesn't seem up to the task of showing the world that women don't hurt a game. There's too much in the way.
That isn't to say a person can't try, and prove me wrong. The person that proves me wrong aughta get a nobel peace prize, and get more money than god.
The gaming industry is absolutely not having their cake, and eating it, too near as I can tell. All the financial troubles they're facing is proof of that, IMO. The layoffs, games failing despite reaching multi-million sales, radical ideas from Ubisoft, Xbone's DRM/rstrictions, DRM in general, the talks of piracy and used games, etc., etc.
IMO there's a large difference between having women as consumers, and having -happy- female consumers. Some might be content, and some might be happier, but their moods have room to go up, and when morale increases word of mouth certainly will, too.
The problem with "don't buy sexist games"/ vote with your wallet is that:
1: Guys in general get catered to enough that they don't really care. It's basically "eff you! got mine!" It's not universal among guys, but It's enough that the industry isn't hell bent on changing any time soon.
2: The Hobson's Choice. If we don't buy into it, will we really be able to game? If we do boycott the games we feel are sexist, how long will we have to?
3: Getting large amounts of people to actually do this. Between the guys that have theirs, and the people that crack under pressure I doubt we'd have enough to make a dent in the industry.
But this brings up an interesting notion. Looking at a more golden era where Tomb Raider games were common as well as Parasite Eve, and a handful of other less memorable games in the psx and ps2 era with women at the lead, plus Resident Evil games where you had a choice to play as a girl, and then looking at things in the ps3 era where such games are seemingly far less common, and the seeming increase in financial troubles, maybe people were already voting with their wallets? Maybe the industry is sinking because they seemingly abandoned a lot of female gamers, and guys that liked a woman as a lead?
