Jimquisition: Vertigo

[Velocir_X]

Considering how extensive TVTropes lists usually are, delving into the most obscure of obscure series, that's actually a pretty short list (especially in non-lit categories, which I realize isn't what we were talking about but is still kinda relevant). Several of those series aren't centered around female characters so I'm not entirely sure if they fit the bill (?) (I didn't want to go through them all, I haven't been trapped on TVT in years and I intend to keep it that way). Admittedly, there are a lot more than I would have expected. But I'm still sticking to the "Twilight aimed at a market that wasn't terribly well served" explanation because it's generally the most reasonable explanation for its success.

They hired who for what? Couldn't they have gotten an actual female game developer or something? Someone who understands how making games works? I know a couple of them have quit due to harassment but there have to be some female developers still around...

Ok, point you on that one. But talking about opportunity cost is participating in the conversation, wheras "I wish this conversation would go away" is really not.

I don't buy the first point though. The only way someone could be "shamed" is if they entered into some part of the conversation, i.e. by clicking on a link that was almost certainly explicitly about this subject. I've avoided these conversations for days and weeks at a time while still following gaming news to a fairly reasonable degree, it wasn't even hard.

I have no idea why I jumped in twofooted this time. Just having a shit day, I guess.

I would describe Twilight not as serving an undeserved market but rather as the predictor of a fad. You wouldn't say Justin Bieber or the Jonas Brothers' popularity was the result of serving an undeserved market, would you?

By shaming I meant the general inflammatory tone of the initial claims of these discussions, and how attention grabbing they are. That probably has no more or different effect than the rampant microagressions of sexism (which in my opinion means not at all) but you can see these people coming from the same place.

As for opportunity costs, what I meant was that people are using imprecise language (all too common). What they mean by "I don't want to have to deal with this discussion" is "I don't want to have to deal with the effects of this discussion" that is the opportunity costs of dealing with sexism, or paying to fix the presentation of Faith (which was quite all right thank you very much) instead of paying to fix ME's shhit combat.

Also man, I feel for you, having a shit day sucks, but damn that's some negative selection. I generally prefer to enter discussions when I have an interesting thought hit me (like the one in my first post in this thread which sadly no one has responded to /shameless bump) /offtopic

 

[Velocir_X]

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

"Zatkin said. It?s also hard to draw many broad conclusions from this data. There are so few games with exclusively female heroes, and those few games are given such a small marketing budget, do we even know how well a large-budget, marketed game with a female hero would perform?"

The study is inconclusive. My best counterargument goes as follows: From the set of games that have had little to no marketing we have seen at least a handful of smash hits (minecraft most readily comes to mind). If the games with female only protagonists belong to that set, and in terms of that set are statistically significant (looking in terms of all games that have had similar marketing budgets to, say, mirror's edge, fat princess or Remember Me, 24 games ain't bad), wouldn't it be logical to expect at least one smash hit with a female only protagonist? This is all tentative hypothesizing of course.

However, they talk about another article in which marketing is identified as one of the strongest predictors of success

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-power-of-review-scores-why-critics-have-more-control-than-we-think1

"Awareness goes a long way. Marketing spend is actually a higher factor on sales than game quality."

Outlier success stories such as Minecraft does not a solid conclusion make, as we both well know. Also, I will guess without reservation that "games with little marketing" is a much, much, MUCH bigger data pool than "games with female protagonists". There are tons of games that come out every year that we never hear about- most without female protagonists.

Because fundamentally whose in charge or who does what duties, does not necessarily have to affect who likes what.

Damn, I need to go to bed. Look around for more scholarly articles about historical tribes with different gender roles (most of them were highly culturally impacted by contact with "western" civilization, which is why we have to go anthropological). I know I've read about others. It's also true that this doesn't really talk about what people "liked"...but then again, historically we were way more concerned with survival and we don't have nearly as much data about leisure time. Because, y'know, they didn't have much. The point I was trying to make is that it is one of the few pieces of data we can get about the line between societal and biological influences in gender roles because we're influenced by the society around us from age 0. Societies with non "traditional" gender roles kinda point towards societal factors, but admittedly data can be a bit scarce.

Plus there's the whole argument that other historical records have been skewed by males dominating the field (anthropology) in the 17-1800s when it was starting up in the modern sense, eras in which male domination would have been assumed... but that's a whole other kettle of fish I don't know a whole lot about and my god I have to get up at 7 it's 1:00 gnight.

Yeah I got to go too. Night.

If you look I'm not in anthropology. (actually in chemE and materialsE but) I happen to have a love evolutionary psychology ever since reading Dawkins' early work, so yeah. Those things you posted, though, are mighty interesting, and I'd love to see them examined from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, sadly I'm not the one for the job.

 

[varmintx]

I was racking my brain to come up with a character that fit your criteria. The closest was Chris from Suikoden III [http://suikoden.wikia.com/wiki/Chris_Lightfellow], and even then, she's certainly not unattractive (though thankfully she wears proper armor not that idiotic breasts built-in kind). She's good at heart, but is forced into morally questionable situations as documented in that wiki.

 

[MaximumTheHormone]

or..?

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them

Looking at broad stroke data really isn't helpful as it paints in strokes of generalizations and, as the article says, there aren't that many female exclusive protagonist titles (24 out of like 669 games).
We could use specific example to see if games are given similar marketing measures that they will sell to the same extent.
Tomb Raider vs. Uncharted 1
- Both action/ adventure titles from fairly highly held developers
- Tomb Raider had more money to spend on marketing and multiple platforms to make up for Sony's endorsement
- Tomb Raider had a budget of 100 mil, compared to uncharted 1 20 mil
- similar meta critic, both positive though (Lara Croft 86, Uncharted 88)
- Uncharted was a Sony exclusive, Tomb Raider launched on all but Wii + handhelds, therefore it had a higher sale potential
From this information it would seem that these titles are comparable, if not that Tomb Raider has the slight advantage marketing wise. However the sales data for these games:
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune- 4.16
Tomb Raider (2013) - 2.84
-source: VG Charts
inb4 Uncharted has been out longer, if Lara Croft was out for longer it would sell more.
inb4 what about selling 3.4 million?
1) Squenix have already denoted Tomb Raider 2013 a disappointment and after the initial marketing push sales have slumped, whereas Naughty Dog relied on close to Sony (Something Squenix had, but decided to swap for a multiplatform model) to ensure a strong presence at sony marketplaces and in Ps3 related media (while still remaining with a marketing budget well below Tomb Raider's)
2) 3.4 mil units were shipped to retailers, however not all of these were sold thus 2.84 mil retail sales while Squenix can still boast they got a decent return.

 

[white_wolf]

Wow....just wow Jim....I know you said you were being serious but I really can't tell! I spent the entire thing laughing really a dinosaur was it?!

I don't count dinosaurs when we're talking about human fem heros here I think Faith would work out I liked her design. To me she was nice her tattoo was cool and look wise the design staff played it safe, I heard that some players hate her looks sayings she's not pretty at all but Faith isn't sexed up she's very normal, practical, and isn't doing her job solely because of a man sure she works for one but who doesn't? She decides to help her sister on her own.

But really a dinosaur?...no...I can't wrap my head around how that counts its an animal! But either way its still very pathetic however games or at least the developers don't seem ready or willing to make fem heros as complex as the males they can't even get a prescripted male lover for the fem hero and have them kiss only let alone ask them to make the fem heros more complex then Faith, Alyx, or Nilin are.

I don't understand how for instance they can make some fine supporting fem characters like Alyx, Bonnie MacFarlane, or Catarina Sforza but can't seem to translate these into fem hero arcs or have these ladies be heros of their own games again I think its due to the fact when they make a fem hero she needs to be multifaceted can't be turned into 1,000 clones in game after game like the troubled past, war hero, with a chip on his shoulder is so very much a go to for quick story lead and the developers, publishers, stock holders, or all three don't like that idea very much.

 

[kklawm]

Really the Hollywood movie industry has much the same problem, I went through my entire collection of DVDs and I had some specific rules:
a - The most interesting/strong role must have been played by a women
b - The character must be unique and interesting
c - She has to be the defining character of the movie (not necessarily the main, the one who sets the tone)
d - She wouldn't be easily replaced by some other woman (seriously, Hollywood loves eerie clone white young females)

Now there were some movies, like May or The Queen that had strong female roles, so to be fair it isn't as bad. But when I switched the role I got a PLETHORA of male roles with strong/interesting characters unplayable by a different actor (at least not to that style). Pirates of the Carribean, Iron Man, Wild Wild West, any Batman movie, actually any Superhero movie, Taxi... the list goes on and on.

What I'm trying to say is that the lack of strong female characters, or even perhaps strong female actors that get a chance instead of some new T/A is more broad than just games.

Oh also, my personal favorite female character is Kreia from Kotor 2, she just RULED that game, and I think it's a shame you didn't include her here. That to me fits all your rules, and I love her role and that game.

EDIT: Oh she isn't player controlled, okay point taken.

EDIT2: Aha!! What about Yoshi?! a- Female, b-Not stereotypically attractive c-Playable

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

youtube=5GgflscOmW8

I used to have respect for you. But now you lost it. This post invalidates everything that you said on this thread. And It's not about whether someone agrees or disagrees; it's not about your use of fallacious arguments. It is about the blatant and obnoxious dismissal for another's opinion. It's about completely ignoring what they have to say so that you can continue your selfish ranting. This post, right here, demolished any credibility that you had and reduced your arguments the the shouting of a child who wants attention. Good luck with your "debating". Hopefully no one else saw your pathetic attempt at trolling.

Absolutely no one at all. Just the moderators.

I was also enjoying his multiple debates, so it's surprising that he just threw up an abnoxious TLDR video then.

R.I.P. Monxeroth, shall not be missed, amen.

OT, to anyone in general: Personally, this reminds me a little of the White Guy Defense Force argument at the beginning, the part about people being apparently okay with playing as a bipedal fox (Fox McCloud from Star Fox) but not as a black man. Is the argument here that being unattractive, or at least not inoffensively attractive, is really so horrible for women that they'd rather not play as that character, when they've probably played as ugly/grizzled men or other creatures plenty of times? That any story that doesn't involve devotion to a man isn't worth telling? I hope the next few paragraphs aren't off-topic twaddle...

From my favorite example, all of the characters in Thomas was Alone had insecurities, and despite the fact that they were all single colour rectangles, I didn't feel that Claire hating her weight and size and generally lacking confidence, or Laura feeling that everyone was just using her as a tool, would have been unbearable for a women to play as.

And as for the whole "We can't just change details to please the whiners that would screw up the story"... That sometimes makes sense in the right context, but when it comes to games like the much touted Gears of War, you can NOT claim that making the women actually look battle worn instead of flawless barbie dolls is going to be detrimental to the overall experience. In such circumstances like that, the argument is invalid and you know it.

 

[Something Amyss]

After reading all the examples brought up in this thread, I have to say, This was a poorly thought out episode. Vast majority of times I find myself agreeing with Jim, but not this time.

Most of the examples I've noticed fail at least one of the given criteria, so what do you disagree with?

Female Sheppard is a great female protagonist. I only played her in ME and she made the game wonderful (especially the voice actress)

FemShep falls into "player avatar" though. I bet a lot of her "character" was injected by you.

What about the fat princess from fistfull of cake?

What are her motivations? That would be important and I've never played the game.

Or etna and flonne from the disgea series? True the last two do fall into the "pretty" category but i think female chars in the disgea universe (not the obviously oversexualized and clearly a prody succuby) do have pretty strong characters.

So they're pretty and therefore fail the criteria, but you're making a case for them anyway. Why?

Does bandage girl from super meat boy count?

She would fail the motivations category.

 

[CleverCover]

Actually, I think this is more recent as I played it when it first came out.
Not much more recent, but Jane from (what I played, she was in a game before that) Fighters Megamix.

She's this huge beefy chick (as huge and beefy as the pixels allow) that likes to fight and apparently wanted to join the marines but has a temper issue. She's from a fighting game and is not sexually attractive in the traditional sense.

Also, she could kick major ass in that game.

 

[Something Amyss]

Alyx from Half Life 2?

Fails criteria 2.

Heather from Silent Hill 3?

Criteria 3.

Many from the Fallout universe?

Multiple possible reasons, not limited to:

-not being playable characters.
-being traditionally attractive.
-being motivated specifically by a man/lacking specific motivation.
-being player-created characters.

Maybe some of them fit, but I can't name any and you didn't name anyone specific.

Are you even trying, Jim?

Are you? He asked for characters that didn't meet specific criteria and you gave him ones that did. That would be like if he asked you to name a comic hero without any super powers and you chose Spider-Man.

 

[Something Amyss]

Actually, I think this is more recent as I played it when it first came out.
Not much more recent, but Jane from (what I played, she was in a game before that) Fighters Megamix.

She's this huge beefy chick (as huge and beefy as the pixels allow) that likes to fight and apparently wanted to join the marines but has a temper issue. She's from a fighting game and is not sexually attractive in the traditional sense.

Also, she could kick major ass in that game.

I never palyed the game, but looking at the interwebs, it seems she might fit.

 

[omnifarious]

In all seriousness, this IS informative to me. I'm looking to be a game dev myself, and I've been doing my best to take cues from Jim Sterling, Ben Croshaw and the likes to help me create something that doesn't fall into the category of "generic" whilst staying away from the artsy "you can only go this way because...REASONS" method of indie game design.

So when I see an episode dealing with things like gender issues and such...I actually get excited! I get to learn something new that I either didn't already know or just didn't take into consideration. Without sounding like a broken record, I realize that gaming as a whole has its own set of tropes. That's just something that happens when a medium becomes just that. I don't want to make a generic game solely for profit. I aspire to create something memorable.

So thank you, Mr. Sterling. Thank you for the inspiration.

 

[minimacker]

Doesn't this apply for movies and... well, media in general as well?

I'm speaking of action movies, the closest parallel to most video games.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

This is ridiculous. You really don't have to go far to find a strong, non-over-sexualised, not-so-good-looking female protagonist. I never understood the fuss over this issue because I was always able to bring up 4 or 5 titles every time someone said there weren't any decent female protagonists.
Here's one.

Here's another

 

[Viredae]

It's not only a gender is likely to be better at writing characters in their own gender, but also more likely to want to.

Why would you assume that? We're talking about fiction - I think many writers want to explore worlds and scenarios and characters that are different to their own. Look how many people write Science Fiction or Fantasy - they aren't writing those novels to explore their own world, but to explore the unfamiliar.

Heck, isn't that what role playing and a lot of video games are about? Playing in a world that you don't experience in your day-to-day life? Most fiction isn't about the author's crappy day at the office. So, why wouldn't a male writer be more interested in writing a female character or vice-versa?

For the same reason people are asking for characters that represent them?

 

[Viredae]

So a fucking documentary has more say and validity over me- a woman, who was at some point a little girl living the stereotype of dolls and princesses because some scientist said "because biology?"

Yes, plain and simply.

A documentary draws more based on scientific facts, so far the only thing you've drawn upon are feelings, and narrow ones at that, "your" feelings to be precise.

That documentary holds more weight than your opinion does, just because you don't like it does not make it untrue.

It matters that I'm a woman because at one point I was a girl. A literal person that is the object of the documantery and survey claims.
That's like saying poor Africans don't really know what they are suffering economically even though they tell you to your face what it is because some documentary by a white guy said something else.

First of all, you being an exception to the rule makes you only that, an exception to the rule, an anomaly contrary to the general fact.

YOU may have had different feelings, but that only makes this anecdotal evidence at best, it will never trump cited and peer reviewed research, pure and simple.

Also, it's racist of you to dismiss a proven fact simply because the person who provided it is not part of the demographic being studied, science and fact is genderless, it the demographic of the researcher is irrelevant, only the validity of the fact or research.

 

[Strazdas]

then the mass effect games should be allowed to count as legit examples

I mean, there you can costumize the fem-shep's appearance, but her behavior is locked down to what the game allows you to do - and there in comes the writing and game mechanics, more so than MMOs or sandbox games like Saint's row more random character behavior. (even if it might be fun to imagine randomly rampaging around on the Citadel...)

BUt it already fails the first requirement - not be generally attractive. Femshep is.

And self-created-characters in MMOs and sanboxes doesnt work because the onyl reason she woudl be ugly ifs if WE did it. so thats not really fair since we could do ANYTHING and thne you woudl ahve to list pretty much every sandbox game here but that would be meaningless and wouldnt show anything other than "players can make things look ugly".

 

[KissingSunlight]

You know, seeing how half of people here give examples of women in games, and the other half dismiss them as not meeting the criteria, I now have to say the criteria are actually quite arbitrary.

I want a game where I can play as an underwater dog marine, a space octopus, an alien bacteria or an up-side-down helicopter. But I can't find any games like this! You fail, game industry!

Thank You! I'm not the only one who thought the criteria Jim had was overly specific. I mentioned this before. One theory why videogames don't have very many female protagonists. Vocal game critics have ridiculous uber-specific demands on what the female looks like, story, hero/villain, etc. There is no way game developers can please them. (Unless, you make the female character a purple dinosaur.) You don't hear that kind of demand about male characters in videogames. Most of them wouldn't be able to meet Jim's criteria about female characters.

 

[red_bedbug]

Care to explain why so many women want to be a princess and so few want to be Rambo. Could it be because the vast majority of women do have similar tastes? That would explain why chick-flicks appeal mainly to women, while action movies don't.

I'll say it again:

CITATION.

NEEDED.

You need a citation to tell you that little girls prefer to be princesses and women prefer chick flicks? Have you never met a woman before?

What about everything covered with the Disney Princesses? The dress up dolls aren't aimed at boys.
http://princess.disney.com/shop

Here's a definition of chick-flick:
"a motion picture intended to appeal especially to women".

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chick%20flick

Finally here's a study of movie preferences based on race, age, and gender. They found that women prefer romance; while men prefer action and sci-fi.
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/media3.html

All of them are preconceived stereotypes projected on girls (and boys with action figures and cars) to mold them into cookie cutter demographics of what boys and girls should like.

As a woman myself, I like princesses at first because that is what every other girl liked and girls should like princesses. So, as a normal girl I "liked" princesses. That slowly deviated when I got my first videogame console the N64, and I started to enjoy more "boy" things like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon, and basically said fuck that monsters are cool. Which then lead me to liking shows like Zoids, and ignoring those shit girl shows like the old MLP.
Luckily my parents never forced me back into the "girly" mold, and let me like what I like.

The consequence being that from Elementary to Middle school I was picked on for being a weirdo, a tomboy, and all manner of insults associated with girls that don't fit into the "girly" category. And it wasn't until my High school years that I started to have friends circles that weren't all guys but me.

Today, parents will have no problems letting their little girls buy dolls along with action figures if it so tastes their fancy. Seeing as how feminism has pushed hard to break that stereotype.

However bless the poor boy that dares to even so much as suggest an interest in a doll or any other "girly" product like easy bakes. The kid will be labelled a potential gay before the child even knows what the hell it means.

Your personal anecdote is inspiring, but that claim is outright debunked (for the most part) in the documentary I keep on posting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE

or if you want to skip the video and go right down to the nitty gritty:
http://www.math.kth.se/matstat/gru/5b1501/F/sex.pdf (Simon Baron Cohen's recent study of newborns)

Things being expressed earlier are MORE the result of biology than culture, not the other way around.

Well, from what I can tell is that what the study actually demonstrates is that women are more versed towards the emotional/social whereas men are more versed towards the physical/action. Which is nothing new, really.

That doesn't really have anything to do with preferring princesses, like, at all. Perhaps when it comes to chick flicks, although those often soppy stories have little to do with true emotions, IMO.

Having a similar story as Dragonbums, I do need to urge you to be careful when making conclusions such as that, since it can easily destroy what we managed to achieve over the past 20 years.

 

[Dragonbums]

Yes, plain and simply.

A documentary draws more based on scientific facts, so far the only thing you've drawn upon are feelings, and narrow ones at that, "your" feelings to be precise.

That documentary holds more weight than your opinion does, just because you don't like it does not make it untrue.

Me describing how it was like to live being a girl surrounded by the princesses phase of many women aren't "feelings". It's first hand fucking experience with the very thing the documentary says to be doing a study on. The only "feelings" part I mentioned in my story, was being picked on for it for the next 8 or so years of my life. Which again aren't "feelings" but are fact.
That's like telling a dude who has lived through poverty as a kid that his different experiences being poor are nothing but "feelings" because a scientific documentary said that poor kids tend to be treated and act like this despite that being different for a many number of poor people. But it doesn't matter because the science of poor people apparently trumps the actual experiences of the very people it's documenting on.

First of all, you being an exception to the rule makes you only that, an exception to the rule, an anomaly contrary to the general fact.

Really? Ask the many female users on the Escapist about whether or not they really liked Princesses as little girls. Because I'm pretty sure a good majority of you will tell them that they "liked" princesses in that they have had one at some point. More than likely bought by their parents whether they asked for them or not, and since this is the Escapist, and is subsequently related to videogames, at some point deviated away from the "girly stuff" early on, and went into "boy territory" and stuck to it.
That's a lot of anomalies and exception to the rules.

Saying all girls like princesses is not fact, because girls liking princesses is something that is constantly perpetuated from everything like television shows, to toy commercials, to even girls of the same gender growing up believing that girls like princesses.
You might as well say 100 years ago, that it is a fact that boys are more attracted to pink because that color was actually associated with boy uniforms back in the day. But it must be true because some researcher did a study on it 100 years ago stating it was fact.

Here's another one, it is a fact that lonely people will own more than one cat.
Oh? What's that? You own dogs/parrots/fish/ferrets/etc. instead of cats? Will your just an anomaly and a exception to the rule because this study says it's fact that lonely people will own cats.

YOU may have had different feelings, but that only makes this anecdotal evidence at best, it will never trump cited and peer reviewed research, pure and simple.

And where exactly do they get that research from?

Also, it's racist of you to dismiss a proven fact simply because the person who provided it is not part of the demographic being studied, science and fact is genderless, it the demographic of the researcher is irrelevant, only the validity of the fact or research.

No it's not.
If you are going to do research on economics, racial, and social beings it stands to reason that no amount of "scientific" evidence will ever be as close to the truth than the racial group that experiences it on a daily basis.
Girls liking princesses more than action figures is about as much as a social construct as boys liking action figures. How many girls would be obsessed with princesses, if they never grew up surrounded being shown constant depictions of children their ages supposedly liking this stuff? How many boys would be into videogames if they weren't advertised from the literal get go as a thing only boys do?