Ladies, how about you?

[TehCookie]

I can't say I ever felt like that. There have been plenty of games where the protagonist turned me off from playing them but it was never due to gender and more due to bland/cliche characters or hyper-masculinism. I also rarely self-insert myself in games I play, I role-play as a character so they can be a different gender than me. On on few times I so self-insert I need to play female that's part of who I am.

Though usually I like making eccentric bishounen characters when I role-play for some reason, it livens up any game.

 

[Vault101]

Lol, that is exactly the impression I was getting. He was mansplaining the shit out of someone else's emotions.

good to know I'm not totally out of it....

that and I think he's really failing to see the bigger picture

 

[sonofliber]

okay im speaking as a male here so i could be bias, but..... why dont you play better games? honestly and from the top of my head i dont remember many good games with a 20,30 year old white male, the uncharted series comes to mind, but nathan was a copy of indiana jones, besides that dishonored its implied that corvo could be emily father, kratos is...kratos, draksiders 2 you play as death, far cry 3 you could say, but honestly its first person and....i dont even think you have feets in that game.
i think the reason it turns you off its not because they are heterosexual white 20 something males, but because they are cliche and the stories sucks

 

[Meg Galuardi]

I enjoy games where the protagonist is male and a fleshed out character (think Assassin's Creed, Prototype, Red Dead Redemption) but I do get annoyed when its supposed to be a sort of blank slate character and its always a male. I suppose I wouldn't mind as much if there were mainstream games with a female protagonist that is not fetishized.

(Think Portal- we need more Chelles. Females where its not really important that they are female.)

 

[APersonHere]

(Think Portal- we need more Chelles. Females where its not really important that they are female.)

Portal is also highly unique because the "enemies"--not just the big evil overlord boss--are portrayed as being feminine. There are many games with strong female protagonists and antagonists, but it's quite hard to think of any games in which they also make up the disposable rank-and-file.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

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I'm going to leave what's between you two to you two, but I just want to say that I appreciate the effort to converse that both of you have made with me - in your own methods and styles.

I'm actually feeling better - though I haven't go out game shopping yet (busy busy) and am still just putzing around Skyrim with my new DLC (PS3 player) for the time being. And I'm pretty happy that the thread hasn't devolved into flamewar

I think the thing I like most about my playing the insert characters is the stories I write for them in my own head. Not fan-fiction (ok, I wrote one, but I kept it to myself so that's still not weird!! lol @ myself) but the little dialogs and imagined interactions I have with them are much more comfortable when I'm not also pretending to be a guy version of myself. I do a lot of "wearing the pants" in real life enough for my own tastes. I'll admit to replaying DA and ME as much for the romances as for the whole stories, even though I'm in a long term pretty comfortable / happy relationship. My fiancé teases me about my virtual boyfriends. Heck, I've always wanted to play a male Hawke to Anders relationship just to see the dialog differences, but then I'm stuck in male Hawke the whole game so I always end up not. Stuff like that.

Glad to know your feeling better. Hopefully your real life has gotten a little bit less stressful for the moment that enables you to relax. Also fan fiction is just practice for when you actually take the risk and create your own world and characters and sharing the adventures they go on. Everyone likes to imagine a different path or scenario for a character. It's like how there is manga and dojin in japan. Dojin is utilizing existing characters from anime and video games for example. While Manga is the creation of their own characters and scenarios.

As for Vault, yeah not going to deal with that. Personally I'm not going to deal with a fellow escapist who belittles me and honestly thinks and portrays me as pretentious and then agrees with another escapist that I'm somehow sexist because I'm just trying to have an earnest conversation by taking the time to ask questions to make ya think and relate to you rather than simply tell ya everything you are feeling is normal. I can't tell anyone on this forum if what they feel is normal because I have to take the time to actually get to know ya first. But at the end of the day I feel offended and insulted by Vault that a fellow escapist thinks so little of me when the main reason we are both here is that we have video games as one of our main hobbies.

Actually, no. My real life has gotten exponentially more stressful thanks to a new puppy and arguing with my man about actually doing something for my graduation party planning, ending in sobbing when he took the below the belt shot about my parents not loving me. (We made peace, but it still has been rather a terrible evening) But, thanks for asking. I'm feeling better about playing as a dude in some game in the future, to bring us back on topic. I do think what I felt was normal, but I didn't like feeling it any better for that fact.

I dabble in fiction for fun - had a running story for a few years now I tinker with when I get the notion, but I usually keep to essay writing and research papers when school's on. My "fan fiction" or - as I prefer - "in character diaries" / "tales of X" are really more for me to remember a particular gameplay experience from my then-perspective in character. Like home movies, or snap shots, but words on a page. I usually stick semi-close to the in game events, though I do diverge to varied degrees depending on the instance. The more open the game the more I tend to add on.

 

[VanQ]

I personally never really cared much about my gender being reppressed and all that jazz. i play games i like, end of story. i dont take offense at games about guys, it was never really a girls world until recently. i dont find i need strong female role models to look up to, i can find male ones and real, alive females. Maybe im desensitised to feminine and the "patriachy" and all that, but other than my ability and the expectation of me to one day give birth to a screaming pile of flesh, im fine with being female and a gamer and playing skyrim and assassins creed alike.

I wish there were more girls around here like you.

Male: I know you said you didn't want us around but I kinda wanna have some input anyway. I happen to gravitate towards games with female main characters myself. Given the chance in any game like Skyrim/Fallout/MMOs I also tend to play female characters. I found myself quite attached to the new Lara Croft than say, Nathan Drake or Marcus Fenix but I realize that Lara is one of the few female leads even out there.

I find most male lead characters either boring or too macho for me to relate to. Characters I find myself relating to tend to be more like the Protagonist in Persona 4 or Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia. Characters that are strong but don't have shoulder muscles so large they completely obscure the neck.

I'm not attempting to start an argument here but I think that there is definitely more room for better male characters in games as well as females and it disappoints me that people don't see that both genders suffer horrible representation. Just because there is a larger amount of characters representing my gender, doesn't mean I have better representation, just a wider array of shit characters with rippling muscles and a tendency to shout "boo-yah!" or something equally ridiculous.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I personally never really cared much about my gender being reppressed and all that jazz. i play games i like, end of story. i dont take offense at games about guys, it was never really a girls world until recently. i dont find i need strong female role models to look up to, i can find male ones and real, alive females. Maybe im desensitised to feminine and the "patriachy" and all that, but other than my ability and the expectation of me to one day give birth to a screaming pile of flesh, im fine with being female and a gamer and playing skyrim and assassins creed alike.

I wish there were more girls around here like you.

Male: I know you said you didn't want us around but I kinda wanna have some input anyway. I happen to gravitate towards games with female main characters myself. Given the chance in any game like Skyrim/Fallout/MMOs I also tend to play female characters. I found myself quite attached to the new Lara Croft than say, Nathan Drake or Marcus Fenix but I realize that Lara is one of the few female leads even out there.

I find most male lead characters either boring or too macho for me to relate to. Characters I find myself relating to tend to be more like the Protagonist in Persona 4 or Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia. Characters that are strong but don't have shoulder muscles so large they completely obscure the neck.

I'm not attempting to start an argument here but I think that there is definitely more room for better male characters in games as well as females and it disappoints me that people don't see that both genders suffer horrible representation. Just because there is a larger amount of characters representing my gender, doesn't mean I have better representation, just a wider array of shit characters with rippling muscles and a tendency to shout "boo-yah!" or something equally ridiculous.

Oh I'd agree that better characters (male/female/sprite with no gender distinctions) would be nice all around. I haven't (and wouldn't) say guys are represented so well (more often, in more prominent roles typically, top billing generally, but not terribly compellingly) that they couldn't stand to be improved upon. Of course, that fact doesn't change that female characters at the protagonist slot need quantity as well as quality to play catch up. One thing doesn't negate the other.

 

[Vault101]

I personally never really cared much about my gender being reppressed and all that jazz. i play games i like, end of story. i dont take offense at games about guys, it was never really a girls world until recently. i dont find i need strong female role models to look up to, i can find male ones and real, alive females. Maybe im desensitised to feminine and the "patriachy" and all that, but other than my ability and the expectation of me to one day give birth to a screaming pile of flesh, im fine with being female and a gamer and playing skyrim and assassins creed alike.

I wish there were more girls around here like you.

I don't like the implication here....

I have no issue with male charachters (if I did then playing games would be damn near impossible) however I do often wish for more female charachters, I dont think theres anything unreasonable about that, after consuming enough media its somthing you start to notice



[quote/]I'm not attempting to start an argument here but I think that there is definitely more room for better male characters in games as well as females and it disappoints me that people don't see that both genders suffer horrible representation.[/quote]
I do....more variety in characters is good for everyone...regardless of gender

but the fat is female characters still have less representation..and this isnt just games

 

[rbstewart7263]

Well since it seems to be another wave of discussion about us lady players washing through and it seems to be popping up in every thread, maybe this is a good time for me to post a thought I had awhile back.

This is a question for the female game playing members of the Escapist honestly, and I'm not foolish enough to ask gentlemen not to answer (because that will just provoke all sorts of crap) but the design of the question is directed at my gender so, if you're giving it a go, please stay on topic as much as possible. For the record - this is a question of personal exploration, not a commentary on the industry.

So here's my question: Do you find yourself not feeling a desire to play games that do not offer a male or female protagonist choice, the way others do i.e. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout 3/NV, Skyrim and so forth?

I am finding myself feeling this recently. Having been a player of video games for more than 20 years now, I've played and enjoyed plenty of games that had male only protagonists on offer, but recently I am finding I don't desire to give a title a chance if I can't make... well, myself I guess - or a version of me I choose and I am more comfortable playing a female me in game worlds.

I've speculated that maybe this is simply because I gravitate towards RPGs and that requires a certain amount of immersion to get the most out of as a genre. JRPGs I'm not really counting against that, because you play half a dozen people in those usually and are more of a director of people than inserted into any one of them - kinda like the personal demi-god/dess of whatever party you're rolling around the game world.

Still - people have been saying how good the Witcher is - and this is what brought it to my attention probably a month or so ago, talking about that series with a friend - and I found I have no desire at all to play it. It sounds like a great game, but my turn-off is being a grizzled older man for the entire experience and how I don't think I could get into it in that mode.

Even with little two-player games me and my fiancé play together - one's where there is only the option of picking among dudes I can't really get enthusiastic about, I'm just playing them with him to pass the time together, not for the game itself, and I get indignant that they couldn't throw one sprite in there that represents half the population's sexual characteristics.

Maybe I've just reached a point where, now that it's possible and moving towards more standard, I'm unwilling to settle for less than a choice to play my gender and make my character's face/hair/etc. up to my liking. Maybe I'm just in a bit of a rut playing the same games over and over that offer me that immersion other's don't.

I'm not sure if the old sprite stuff would bother me, it's been ages since I went retro. I'm pretty sure I still love Zelda games even as Link and would enjoy a mario 3 pizza party with friends easily enough, but like I said, it's been forever.


So what's your take? Where are you at? I'm sure I'm not "alone" in this (no one ever is) but I'm having trouble identifying when exactly this shift in my gaming philosophy took place and maybe hearing some perspectives on it might help me identify an "ah-ha" moment.

I appologize if as a male im intruding here. if so feel free to disregard. ahem.

Growing up I used to only like playing male characters and tended to avoid female characters. Now as I grow older I dont mind being forced to play a lady or choosing too. I love the new tomb raider. And the lady pyro Ive made in dark souls is always intriguing to me. Shes the complete opposite of my male knight and I suspect that shes a bit of an embodiment of my sexuality. I have a thing for those roguish hard to get close to kind of girls. But thats my two scents.


Also I give a resounding reccomendation for the witcher 2. Like tomb raider its heavily character focused thus an optional gender for our main geralt isnt really an option. On a side note games without fixed characters like geralt and lara tend to suffer in terms of story.

Oh and tomb raider. love that game.

 

[rbstewart7263]

It seems to me that woman protagonists tend to be ones who complement an "indirect" approach to problems.

For example, Catwoman in Batman: Arkham City couldn't glide like Batman, or even pull herself directly to gargoyles, instead she always had to pounce and climb and so forth, taking much more complex routes around the environment, her moves for dodging and fighting were much more elaborate, presumably for psychological effect, her enhanced vision mode was a representation of various senses such as air currents, heat, smell, and passive echolocation, things she doesn't so much "see" as experience in ways alien to the player.

And then there's Chell from the Portal games, It's a game all about thinking outside the box, GLADOS, who's sort of female, challenges you to do so within the chambers, but the chambers themselves prove to be a box for the even more female Chell to think outside of.

Tomb Raider, where Lara has to work out ways to beat the ancient engineers, not by breaking or overpowering their systems with modern technology, but by testing, predicting, and outpacing them, thinking and moving in ways the ancient engineers presumably weren't aware of. Even the gunplay is focused on keeping your distance by running and flipping around rather than aiming or using cover.

Mirrors edge has Faith beating plenty of armed enemies, but if you're doing the pacifist run, (how I say it's supposed to be played) you either defeat them by doing the opposite to them, running away, or you find ways of approaching them without being in their view long enough to get shot.

That could be societal. When you think of women we always give em bows and stuff which is cool. It makes sense lacking the upper body strength that some men have a woman would be crafty about it I suppose.

 

[VanQ]

I personally never really cared much about my gender being reppressed and all that jazz. i play games i like, end of story. i dont take offense at games about guys, it was never really a girls world until recently. i dont find i need strong female role models to look up to, i can find male ones and real, alive females. Maybe im desensitised to feminine and the "patriachy" and all that, but other than my ability and the expectation of me to one day give birth to a screaming pile of flesh, im fine with being female and a gamer and playing skyrim and assassins creed alike.

I wish there were more girls around here like you.

I don't like the implication here....

I have no issue with male charachters (if I did then playing games would be damn near impossible) however I do often wish for more female charachters, I dont think theres anything unreasonable about that, after consuming enough media its somthing you start to notice

I was only implying that I like her easy going attitude on the matter. That's all, really.

[quote/]I'm not attempting to start an argument here but I think that there is definitely more room for better male characters in games as well as females and it disappoints me that people don't see that both genders suffer horrible representation.

I do....more variety in characters is good for everyone...regardless of gender

but the fat is female characters still have less representation..and this isnt just games[/quote]

Fair enough. I'd love to see more female leads like Lara Croft and FeMC(P3P) around. As I said in my previous post, I very much enjoy and seek out every opportunity to play a good female character.

That could be societal. When you think of women we always give em bows and stuff which is cool. It makes sense lacking the upper body strength that some men have a woman would be crafty about it I suppose.

You should be more careful. That line alone is enough to get a lot of people foaming at the mouth.

 

[starhaven]

Sure - sure, I mean I did Assassin's Creed III recently and that was fine enough (stupid for other reasons) and I knew what I was getting into - but again, that's more a game where I'm less the protagonist and more the deity moving the protagonist about to my whim.

It seems only that games requiring (or where I would desire) an insertion play method are just... not appealing to me if that vessel doesn't have my form.

gonna speak as a male gamer here. i love roleplaying. and its more imersive and enjoyable to me to play a female char. watching a female char act strong and proude and the world around her not careing about her sex. this was done well in dragon age and mass effect. you were a woman you were a grey warden sex was irrevalent. you were shepard solider hero. these actions help imerse me into the world. its alot better to role play a female. than. just anouther me.

 

[rbstewart7263]

I personally never really cared much about my gender being reppressed and all that jazz. i play games i like, end of story. i dont take offense at games about guys, it was never really a girls world until recently. i dont find i need strong female role models to look up to, i can find male ones and real, alive females. Maybe im desensitised to feminine and the "patriachy" and all that, but other than my ability and the expectation of me to one day give birth to a screaming pile of flesh, im fine with being female and a gamer and playing skyrim and assassins creed alike.

I wish there were more girls around here like you.

I don't like the implication here....

I have no issue with male charachters (if I did then playing games would be damn near impossible) however I do often wish for more female charachters, I dont think theres anything unreasonable about that, after consuming enough media its somthing you start to notice

I was only implying that I like her easy going attitude on the matter. That's all, really.

[quote/]I'm not attempting to start an argument here but I think that there is definitely more room for better male characters in games as well as females and it disappoints me that people don't see that both genders suffer horrible representation.

I do....more variety in characters is good for everyone...regardless of gender

but the fat is female characters still have less representation..and this isnt just games

Fair enough. I'd love to see more female leads like Lara Croft and FeMC(P3P) around. As I said in my previous post, I very much enjoy and seek out every opportunity to play a good female character.

That could be societal. When you think of women we always give em bows and stuff which is cool. It makes sense lacking the upper body strength that some men have a woman would be crafty about it I suppose.

You should be more careful. That line alone is enough to get a lot of people foaming at the mouth.[/quote]

I know. I gave up on tiptoing around what I want to say along time ago. Let there mouths foam.

 

[CloudAtlas]

That could be societal. When you think of women we always give em bows and stuff which is cool. It makes sense lacking the upper body strength that some men have a woman would be crafty about it I suppose.

It's still stereotypical and thus doesn't make the characters more interesting.

And, not to nitpick, but the more power a marksman can apply to the string, the more penetration the arrow has, so that might be a bad example.

 

[lunavixen]

It's never really bothered me in the past and it doesn't bother me that much now, though given a choice, i will generally play as a female. Fixed gender protagonists are fine, I prefer a character to be well written and fleshed out (even if that means fixed characters) than a bland multicharacter tale.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Heya, 23-year-old hetero male reporting in, my opinion is worth 1.2 tons of salt.

Till date I've always jumped to play as a female character in any game that let me, so basically every MMO/RPG and Bioware game. ME2 still lists as one of my favorite games to play as a female, I thoroughly fell in love with the story and felt very attached to my character despite us being opposite genders - because I saw myself making all those decisions, gender became irrelevant.

BUT I will admit that is only because gender is ultimately 100% irrelevant because the lines, story, etc remain exactly the same with just a whole lot of "he" getting replaced with "she", so I don't really feel any disconnect because the character is 100% open to getting projected into by literally anyone's personality.

As for games which are more directional and have a fixed gender/character (i.e. more about the individual that the writer intended), my perspective DOES change depending on whether I'm playing as a male or female because if my male protagonist does something badass I will exclaim "wow I'm badass!" while if a female character does the same thing, I'll say "nice, she's badass!". I subconsciously switch from first person to third person, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the character. As long as the characters and story is well-written, I'm in for a fun experience.

Best example is in the latest Tomb Raider game. I don't see myself as Lara Croft, because I'm not Lara Croft, she comes across as weak and getting beaten around a lot. I know that's the tone of the game, but christ look at her, she's like a twig. A rather sexy twig in a tank top with realistic hair. MmmmmMMmmm-*WAAGH* dirty thoughts, dirty thoughts! Shoo!
So instead I focus my efforts on helping HER survive, helping HER kill enemies, helping HER progress through the game. It's not ME who is progressing through the game, I am simply someone who is controlling Lara and seeing how she goes. Does it make the game any less fun or interesting? Of course not!

Off-note...had it been a character of my choice playing that game, I would've been an unstoppable badass who eats rocks for breakfast, has a 3-foot beard and spends everyday reminding mother nature about who's the *****...e.g. a dwarf. What? They're awesome.

I strongly prefer it. But it's not necessary. I hate games with bulky testosterone bombs of males as protagonists though.

Hey there's plenty of games where you're a male protagonist but hardly a bulky testosterone bomb

Spoiler: Darkness 2!