generals3 said:
Rebel_Raven said:
Not all devs need to fall under the definition for sexism to exist in the industry, but if some do, then there's sexism in the industry.
You can't pretend that there's zero sexism regarding the portrayal of women in the industry.
I've provided massive amounts of links where the female protagonist has been replaced by a male one. We've treateded that topic pretty well.
But you seem to be talking about the sexialuzation factor. It's really simple. Protagonists are usually designed for the target audience you say the games are aimed at. Men.
That means protagonists of either gender are made for men first, women second...if ever. The easiest way to get a guy's attention is generally a woman's T&A, looking attractive, and guns, especially regarding women.
Bad games are built on this idea like X-Blades.
Even playable games are built on this.
I'm hard pressed to think of a AAA where the female protagonist was actually designed to be ugly. Guys generally aren't restrained by looks at all.
Most female protagonsits are at least inoffensive to look at. In fact more than a few are actually based on models. Generally this is not for the benefit of women, mind you. While guys can be based on models, it's sure not for the benefit of women for the most part.
I'll end that bit of rant with this. The sexualization of characters is discriminatory towards women. Not only in the reliance on T&A, but in who the sexualization is aimed at. It's not universal across the industry, but pretending it's thre seems like a bad joke to me.
Look Raven we two have been over this a lot together. I won't convince you what you call sexism is what i call free market in a capitalistic system and vice versa.
You say sexism, i say targeted marketing.
And male characters don't look bad either btw. They may not look "pwetty" but they look appealing for their audience. On that aspect both female and male characters are equal. Both are made to appear appealing towards the target market.
That your demographic happens not to spend enough to warrant targeting is not their fault, it's your demographic's fault. Marketing is about making money not losing it to please social justice crusaders.
Regardless of point of view, yours or mine, it's based on gender, both in character design, and who it's targeted at, and who it's not targeted at, and the treatment of the representatives in the product. It is discriminatory, and hsd predjudice which puts it under your own definition of sexism.
Your definition does not say it has to be malicious, or intentional, though I would call it intentional in more than a few cases. It is malicious in a few cases.
The fact that it can be interpreted this way, and it's by no means a stretch to interpret it that way, IMO, means people are going to have a problem with it.
Just because it can be done in the name of business, and I'm not saying it's 100% either way, does -not- make it immune to being called out. If we allow businesses to not care about anything but making money, well, this world would be a lot worse than it is.
It's entirely possible to have a moral compass as a company, or industry -and- make money.
I don't imagine writing it off as a business decision will really convert people. They likely understand it's business related, but, like me, they don't really care because it's just absurdly common, and so one sided.
Even if they -do- buy it, I'd imagine they won't buy it forever. I bought it before, a long time ago. Now I just can't excuse it anymore. The industry decided it didn't want to change. Infact, I dare say it got worse.
I'm not saying it's the worst form of sexism in business, but it's there, and frankly more than a few people have a problem with it. Perhaps if it weren't so prevailent in the mediam people wouldn't have a problem with it. I can, and do blame the industry for it's prevailence. Can the industry redeem itself? Sure. I'd love it if they wanted to.
Thing is, if they don't want to, sooner or later people will force them to. I'm sure we don't want that, but it's more up to the industry than it is us.