Poll: Videogames and Women

[Vault101]

I'd like to see a gaming heroine with small boobs and hairy pits. I think that would really throw people for a loop.

I find your comparision between not shaving and small breasts a little...distasteful

small breats are not as off putting as body hair

(yes yes I do get the joke and all)

 

[TehCookie]

-snip-

Notice how every non-videogame example you posted probably has sexy men in advertising their products. Old Spice dude for deodorant, athletes for shoes, hot guys shirtless in jeans ads (I tend to notice Levi does that quite often). If I took the time to look I probably could find an attractive guy eat fries or posing for a picture.

So how are any of videogame characters you posted exploited for fanservice? Not that many people oppose sexy women in games, just the way they act. Oh and I'll clarify fanservice as fanservice directed towards the female gamers. If you sexualize men for other men that doesn't help female gamers at all. I find it worse since it's just outright ignoring them.

People like fanservice. I'll admit I like fanservice. I'm not saying we should get rid of it, but we should level the paying field a bit and have fanservice for all!

 

[iLikeHippos]

I've been trying to get my sister into videogames lately (need an extra player for my HoN team), but one thing that's putting her off is the utterly reprehensible attitude that games, and gamers, have towards women.

We've all laughed at the Evony ads. But even mainstream games like

Spoiler: Mass Effect

Spoiler: Soul Calibur

Spoiler: Ninja Gaiden

treat their female characters like...pieces of meat to be drooled over. Is this really the image we should be presenting to the world? The press is quick to label games as juvenile adolescent male fantasies and our response is to EMBRACE this criticism? What the hell?

And the community is barely any better. Friends of mine regularly keep their identities secret (unless teamspeak is involved) because of the torrent of abuse they get online. Don't believe me? Check out the fabulous http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ to see the vitriol lady gamers get.

This attitude is PERVASIVE. Look at Battlefield 3, banning women from its launch party (rather than telling the men "Dude, don't be a creep"), the creator of a fighting game (forget which, MvC maybe? I've lost the link) discussing, in a panel about female character design, which of his creations he'd like to have sex with.

Games have an image problem. But we don't want to fix it, we're happy in our little corner with our boobalicious characters and internalised misogyny.

We can be so much BETTER than this. How can we expect gaming to be taken seriously as an artform, and as a hobby, when we're happy to let this behaviour run unchecked?

It do not think it be a matter of sexism, but a matter of minority.

Let me tell you a story from one of my most brilliant teacher I've ever known. He told me a story, of when the first black people emerged into the society of Sweden. It was such a rarity, so the people often watched in awe as a black man crossed the street. "Look! It's a black one! :O" they'd often go; but not out of any form of racism as Scandinavians have no beef with the African-originating public. Not at all racist, no feelings of hatred or anything, but sheer awe. It even affected the industry a bit in their commercials, hell, everything in society.

Frankly, I see the same thing with the female population in video games and teamspeak, etc. and even those who stay long enough to enjoy the game, can find the people stare at them and go "Look! It's a girl! :O" and just outright leave due to the awkwardness. And as such, I feel it has come to the minds of even publishers, that they take note of this rarity.

However, as more and more black people integrated into the Scandinavian community as a whole, you won't see anyone today go "Look! It's a black one! :O" They rather go "Meh".
I feel the entire world population would go "Look! It's an alien! :O" once little green marshians becomes the real deal and visit, so long as they keep within the tiny numbers of one or two spaceships at a time and not a massive invasion.

You know what we need? A great transfer of females emerging with the gaming community; make it less odd. Turn the minority to a moderate community.
Either that, or a huge sex-change bonanza.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

I do tend to agree with people who say video games tend to over-sexualize women, I don't think anyone can really argue they don't (whether or not it's a problem is another issue, and I'm still deciding on that).

What I don't get is when someone looks at a game like Mass Effect, sees a character like Miranda, and assumes the whole game is nothing but a hot girl for guys to drool over. It's kind of like looking at an attractive girl and automatically assuming she just must be some dumb bimbo.

Still I'm all for bringing on more over-sexualized guys in video games. There is no reason not to aside from twelve year old boys complaining that they feel gay because they're controlling a sexy man.

 

[Vault101]

-snip-

Notice how every non-videogame example you posted probably has sexy men in advertising their products. Old Spice dude for deodorant, athletes for shoes, hot guys shirtless in jeans ads (I tend to notice Levi does that quite often). If I took the time to look I probably could find an attractive guy eat fries or posing for a picture.

So how are any of videogame characters you posted exploited for fanservice? Not that many people oppose sexy women in games, just the way they act. Oh and I'll clarify fanservice as fanservice directed towards the female gamers. If you sexualize men for other men that doesn't help female gamers at all. I find it worse since it's just outright ignoring them.

People like fanservice. I'll admit I like fanservice. I'm not saying we should get rid of it, but we should level the paying field a bit and have fanservice for all!

Well that was pretty much my point, you'll see as many "hot guys" in commercials/movies/tv series/games as you see "hot gals", and I don't really see any kind of exploitation either way, as they aren't being forced to pose or participate in any of it against their free will or against their beliefs, it's a job like many others and it is based on basic biological primal urges to find certain physical traits more attractive than others. I don't see any problem with that, but the people that do seem to often be rather one-sided in comparisons and there's always the ingenious argument that women apparently don't like sexualized/muscular men, but that that is apparently a "male fantasy" or something (I don't want to look like either The Hulk or some girly man-boy prevalent in most JRPGs either), in which case a lot of the commercials you talked about at first would apparently miss their mark xD

Also, more often than not the people complaining actually *do* oppose "sexy" people in games, if it would be only about the characterization, then more often than not it's barely existant in a lot of video games and it isn't restricted to a certain type of character, it's just bad writing in general (or no writing at all, as it's more about the shooting of things).

All that said, I don't really judge how good a game is on either how many "good looking people" there are or usually characterization in general much at all... let's break down my favourite games of this year:

Witcher 2 - it has some erotic scenes and attractive characters but mostly excels through the telling of its story and showing of ambiguous morals supported by some of the best visuals in any video game
L.A. Noire - great character story, although it has its faults in the gameplay department it made that up to me by reminding me of TV series with HBO/Showtime type of quality
Space Pirates and Zombies - surprise of the year, great gameplay as a space sim/shooter and only a bunch of cutscenes with a few still images and text for characterization
Portal 2 - great story and funny characters
Battlefield 3 (Multiplayer) - just military men shooting each other, fun stems from gunplay and using the right tactics at the right time to be able to turn around and win a match
Terraria - no characterization to speak of, fun stems from gameplay
Magicka (CoOp) - barely any characterization at all, more of a parody and fun stems from gameplay
Saint's Row: The Third (CoOp) - the first game that has both exaggerated and sexualized female and male characters with jiggly physics and pokes some good fun out of both, the fun stems mostly from the similarly exaggerated gameplay and activities though

Basically, looking at it I don't much care either way, as long as a game is fun I could aswell play as a representation of a 10 year old (Costume Quest), some sort of weird ant-like creature (Psychonauts) or any sort of critter or individual, but I also don't see a problem with any of them being attractive or having "assets" (Mass Effect 2 for instance), in some cases I even prefer it or it might raise my interest to start with and I've never seen a game be bad or good because of that as an isolated singular reason.

sexualisation aside how many of those games have female player charachters?

my point? not much...but somtimes I want to play as a chick, rather than a brown haired white male...(yes the demp graphic is guys) but Im just saying

because my probelm is not with skimpyly clothed females

 

[lunam-kardas]

Yeah it's messed up. I mean hell, in Mass effect 2 they used the shadow broker dlc to explain that Thane's armor had a window to prevent his kepler syndrome from acting up. But when a chick has a similar feature in her armor, it's so you can see cleavage.

I know that's not a really big thing to notice but there's nothing about this topic that I can really add that hasn't already been said by much smarter people.

 

[TonkaBix]

I'm (obviously) a chick and have been gaming all my life. Over the years you can see there have been strides by certain developers to make games more gender neutral and less degrading to women, but we have a long way to go yet.

That being said, it's really not that big a deal. Some games portray women as sex objects and some don't. Many movies, songs, art pieces do it. So honestly if you have a problem with the way anything is being portrayed in a game.... play a different one.

It's that simple!

 

[Savagezion]

-snipped for space-

"but but...other people are doing it too" isn't really valid justification, when video games do it worse.

And look at the men you posted. Large and ripped, effeminate and coifed, fat, thin, tall, lots of body shapes. While nearly all women are two grapefruits on a stick.

And like Lolatea said, there's a huge HUGE difference between sexualising men in a "I'm gonna kick your goddamn arse" way and the way women are portrayed as literal objects.

I think "other people are doing it too" isn't really a justification so much as a "You can't win this fight" claim. Basically, showing that this type of marketing goes deeper than just games. It is in media in general.

As well, you do have games like Wet, Mirror's Edge, Alice (McGee), Beyond Good and Evil, Metroid Prime, Dreamfall, Folklore, Resident Evil, Heavy Rain, Okami and more that all as games, treat women respectively. This is the ones I could think of that have a predefined female protagonist in them. I could expand the list so greatly I don't want to type it if it was to list ones that merely have women in them that don't treat them as objects.
I know that is only a handful but I am sure I could dig up more. The important thing to note though that I realized while making the list is that these games are the best sellers of this catagory and they are considered "moderate" or "low" in commercial reception. There is exceptions in there like Resident Evil and Metroid which are huge draws in general. But I do find it interesting that the most famous non-sexualized female protagonist games have moderate sales at best.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Portal. (But I see that as more of a robot game)

 

[Vault101]

I dont really have that much of an issue with how women are displayed in games. Ya I know its rare to find one who isnt just there to be a sex object/piece of meat but it just doesnt bother me but I think it is a major part of the problem.

.

Ive already said this...but

personally..after all the game Ive played currently in this generation, my experience hasnt been that bad..at all

most of thease "over the top" sexualised charachters some from fighting games (non western?) and over the top stuff like Bayonetta

sure the females we have usually taken a backseat to the guys...but hardly any of them have worn less than a bikini

Its not the way they dress but its the way they act and are treated in games. The majority of female characters are in games to act as sex objects. I dont care if you want to put a women in nothing but a thong in your game as long as you have an actual reason and she has a personality beyond stereotypical dumb blond who drools over men.

ok then..hmm from memory (glances over at games collection)

-Fallout games...thease games have so many tough females its almost as if they are trying to compensate for the PC being more likley to be a man

-Darksiders...I dont remeber the plot..at all (other than waaarrrghhh Im war and Im going to kill you) BUT theres this female angel *google search* and it apears she HAS HER MIDRIFF COVERED! *gasp* is the armour for fitting? yes but fuck its actually armour..why am I mentiong this? because artstyle is based on comic books, so I think its worth mentioning, is she a sex object?....from what I can remember she is a leader of sorts

-Dragon age....well there IS morrgian...but she is hilarious and I supose you could argue its the way she is..and even then there are many other females fully around doing stuff (ok theres the dalish and their midriffs...but still)

Left 4 dead- Zoey..nuff said

Batman Arkham asylum- uuhhhhh...hmmm....well considering the scource material...yeah ok moving on..(but to be fair they are super villans)

F.E.A.R. 2- one of your team (the leader I think) is a chick..thats somthing? right?

Alice madness returns- dont think alice is sexualised at all

Assasins creed 2- other than the courtsans you have..umm whats her name Catalina doing her thing..and that theif girl too...other than that given the historical setting I dont expect women to be running around assasinating people (oh wait..)

Deus Ex- I havnt played that much but you have your plucky pilot..and all the other women seem normal

Knights of the old republic- speaks for itself

Mass effect 1and 2- Shepard..ashley Liara, Tali all great female charachters and Miranda too..does she have an ass? yes...is it relevant in some ways? yes...

Borderlands- you have lilith..is she a little sexualised? oh sure...but she could kick your ass and is just a badass mercenry using all she has

Oblivion- other than the obsession with muscrabs the women seem fine in that game

Dead space- ok nicle doesnt *do* alot shes just kind of there to be saved...then Kendra just tells you what to do..they arnt overly sexualised though and I guess if I really was going to defend it you could say they have their place in the plot...oh and then there ellie from dead space 2..she does stuff

Bioshock- hmmm Im not seeing many problems here

Red faction Gurrela- the women are jsut as active as the men in the fight

Red dead redemption- we got Bonnie Mcfarlane

Infamous- trish isnt sexualsed shes a doctor..I figure they made her a doctor to make it seems like shes a little more active than "damsel in distress" you also have that FBI agent whos fucking with you (I havnt played infamous 2 yet and would rather know nothing about that game)

Far cry 2- one of your "buddied" is a chick..and think she can come save your ass...I think

Mirrors edge- player charachter..nuff said

Portal- speaks for itself

The Sabotour-....from the little I played...yeah ok you can have that one...because aparently female natzi officers dress excatally like strippers

Saints row- well yes..but given the subject matter..BUT to counteract that you can be the biggest badass female ever..so Im willing to let that slide

Look..Im NOT trying to say there isnt a probelm...there are plenty (how many of those females are non-optional player charachters?)

but my Point is..in my expereince it hasn't stood out to me all that much (most of the time), and Im a chick who enjoys stuff like games and comics..so I will admit I do give stuff a little leeway, rather than get hung up on it


so no...I DONT want my charachter running around in a thing...unless she has a DAMN good reason

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Also, more often than not the people complaining actually *do* oppose "sexy" people in games[...]

And this complaint just won't die, no matter how many times people explain that it isn't the case.

For example, here's a hot chick with a sword, in a rawhide halter top [http://pathfinderwiki.com/mediawiki/images/0/0b/Amiri.jpg]. (Who, admittedly, is from a tabletop game...but who quibbles?) I can just about guarantee you that complaints about her being mere fanservice are few and far between. And while you'll hear the occasional complaint about Asha Catari [http://www.diebythearrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/wp9-1280x720.jpg], they tend to be from people with next-to-no familiarity with Rift.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Agreed. It seems to me that the simple answer isn't the answer some are even willing to entertain. Either all games have to change and feature unattractive heroines who are super-smart and never wear tube tops or girls can't play games. At all. Ever.

Maybe if the girls who are bothered by it would stop staring at the sexy female characters and analyzing them for a few minutes, they might notice all those muscle-bound heroes who have been trying to get their attention for a while...

And that's two more ticks on my bingo card: a "you want female characters to be ugly [http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=4#3]," and a "but men are drawn unrealistically, too [http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=4#13]!" Is a classic "UR JELUS!" next, then?

Read the links and be enlightened.

How dare you link to Tv Tropes! I've been trapped in there for over an hour now.

Sorry. Sometimes I link it without a warning. And it's not always deliberate, even.

OT: Personally I just don't buy games that are advertised with breasts. As a woman, I feel that these games were never designed for me to want them. But I don't think Bayonetta counts though. She has shoes that are GUNS. How awesome is that?

On the one hand, yeah; Bayonetta is awesome on several levels. On the other, one of the game's creators made a rather offputting comment at one point. Plus, I don't currently own either a 360 or a PS3.

Hopefully, as more women come to like playing games advertising departments will start losing money from lost female customers who just won't buy something with a pair of tits plastered across the front of it.

Maybe. It would depend on game companies noticing that not all of their customers are self-entitled adolescent boys with weird ideas about women. But maybe.

 

[lunavixen]

There is always room for improvement, no matter the issue, unfortunately people (gamers more specifically) just don't care that much.

But... Is it so wrong to have a piece of entertainment designed to be enjoyed by men?

It's not only men that play games, even if they are aimed more towards them, it is still a bit sexist because of the objectification of women (not trying to make you mad, just pointing it out)

And before anyone asks, yes, i am a woman

 

[Zaik]

Video Games aren't more or less likely to use sex to sell than any other form of media. It's slightly more apparent than *some* other forms of media, due to not needing to adhere to realistic human shapes(because real humans are completely unnecessary in the graphical design), however it isn't any more or less guilty of it.

For every useless woman character that has to be rescued four times an hour and hides watermelons in their shirt, there's a roid raging dude with a throat full of gravel and a chin so wide you could mount a push bumper on it.

Why continue to weep about this? It's a non-issue.

 

[Vault101]

Video Games aren't more or less likely to use sex to sell than any other form of media. It's slightly more apparent than *some* other forms of media, due to not needing to adhere to realistic human shapes(because real humans are completely unnecessary in the graphical design), however it isn't any more or less guilty of it.

For every useless woman character that has to be rescued four times an hour and hides watermelons in their shirt, there's a roid raging dude with a throat full of gravel and a chin so wide you could mount a push bumper on it.

Why continue to weep about this? It's a non-issue.

hmmm...surprisingly level headed comment coming from YOU of all pople

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

hmmm...surprisingly level headed comment coming from YOU of all pople

Well...except for yet another "but men are drawn unrealistically, too [http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=4#13]!" some flippant dismisal [http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=4#17] as a "non-issue [http://derailingfordummies.com/#moreimportantly]," and the whole strawmanning of critique as "weeping [http://derailingfordummies.com/#overemotional]" bit, anyway.

 

[Vault101]

hmmm...surprisingly level headed comment coming from YOU of all pople

Well...except for yet another "but men are drawn unrealistically, too [http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=4#13]!" some flippant dismisal [http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=4#17] as a "non-issue [http://derailingfordummies.com/#moreimportantly]," and the whole strawmanning of critique as "weeping [http://derailingfordummies.com/#overemotional]" bit, anyway.

you know what?...yeah I take it back...

(If I remeber correctly we are talking about the same person who thourght that if things were different women would simply be herded around like cattle as inferior beings or somthing)

 

[Savagezion]

And the community is barely any better. Friends of mine regularly keep their identities secret (unless teamspeak is involved) because of the torrent of abuse they get online. Don't believe me? Check out the fabulous http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ to see the vitriol lady gamers get.

That's probably the biggest part right there is the community. BTW, I checked out that link and I have been reading them for like 2 hours. Some is distasteful, some is easily ignorable due to the lack of intelligence behind it, and some is just crazy funny. I have became good friends with some people online by not being a stuck up prude and just taking the message for what it is, banter. Most of them seem to come from MMOs or FPS games where even guys get sent stuff that call you 'slut', '*****', 'whore', etc.
I am not trying to discredit the outcries of the situation, but I see many of those comments thrown my way as a male. My own friends as well as strangers do it. As a competative gamer, I think it important you have thick skin and a sense of humor or you will be miserable with it. I am not saying it is right, but it is sadly a social custom at this point. I don't do it (except to my close friends) in hopes it will one day die, but I acknowledge it is there. I think everyone should; as late teens - early 20s age group has the largest amount of time and money to commit to games thus will always be prevalent in these kinds of games. And they like them some cuss words and typically see the world as "too conventional" feeling the need to push boundaries. Hormones have a lot to do with that, but there it is.

This will not change anytime soon if at all. You know why? Competitive gaming is most popular with the age group that likes seeing this:

This is human nature on display in all our "not politically correct" nature. Time may not even solve this. We are mad at people just stepping into maturity for not yet being mature and enjoying partaking in offensive material.

Like I said, not trying to take anything away from the discussion, merely attempting to add something I feel should be noted to it.

EDIT: I should probably add some parts of the gaming industry encourage this type of behavior, some don't. It would be nice to see more discourage it but don't expect that to happen from any game trying to market to that age group. (Specifically, competitive gaming)

 

[Arakasi]

How to sell a game to a primarily male, heterosexual audience 101.
Sex appeal.

Ta-da!

If the audience was primarily female, I'm certain that there would be equivalent objectification of men.
Thus, no inherit sexism, just apparent sexism.

As for how some GAMERS treat women, now that's something that needs to be worked on.

 

[Mr. In-between]

I'd like to see a gaming heroine with small boobs and hairy pits. I think that would really throw people for a loop.

I find your comparision between not shaving and small breasts a little...distasteful

small breats are not as off putting as body hair

(yes yes I do get the joke and all)

She could be French?