Poll: Videogames and Women

[Farseer Lolotea]

Sure things could improve, but keep in mind that other art forms are mired in their own degrees of sexism. Movies leap to mind, sure in our current day and age women are written into much stronger roles (in general) but there is still plenty of exploitation for sex appeal, at least here in America. Things are progressing, female lead and supporting characters can range from compelling to vacuous sexpots but there is a range.

Oh, it's definitely cultural. No argument at all.

I suppose railing on the sexism is the only way to accelerate the progress, but it seems just a bit wishy washy to expect game design to start going against the shallow desires of its primary demographic.

The same people who critique games are often critiquing mainstream media in general.

Also, guys within a particular age range may still be the primary demographic, but it's not nearly as big of a gap as it used to be.

 

[Vault101]

let me break it down for you:

ugly chicks think its a marginalization of women

hot chicks think its amazing and there's not enough of it (beauty = narcissist)

normal guys don't really care, T&A never killed anybody (some enjoy it more than others) Overall it'll come down to preference like people that hated Uncharted because it wasn't Lara Croft

insecure guys are outraged and offended

.....WOW..

that really has to be one of the stupidest things Ive ever heard

Im not ugly (you know ugly as in its the first thing you think when you see the person) so your argument isnt looking too good

 

[Pharsalus]

Also, guys within a particular age range may still be the primary demographic, but it's not nearly as big of a gap as it used to be.

Perhaps, the group has aged some but I would argue that the tastes have matured little. More women play games than ever but, while not all of them are just playing The Sims and casual games, I still get the impression from my own real world interactions that women who play fighters, fpss', and action games are an exception to the rule.

Now though I realize the circular nature of my argument; perhaps the generally degrading treatment of women is a prime cause of the lack of female participation in more "serious" genres of gaming. But then I can't recall meeting any women who were into strategy games, and those tend to have very little gender bias, except for C&C.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

More women play games than ever but, while not all of them are just playing The Sims and casual games, I still get the impression from my own real world interactions that women who play fighters, fpss', and action games are an exception to the rule.

Funny...everyone in both of my sizable, long-standing, level-25 WoW guilds is female. For all the talk of women only playing casual games, the population among MMO players is also on the rise.

As for strategy games? The game itself is one thing; the community is another. As I've pointed out several times, hostile communities are a far bigger deterrent than a few plate bikinis.

 

[Savagezion]

It does not work to have Miranda dressed like a prostitute, and telling me to respect her.

Go to the club Friday night. That's actually fairly realistic.

Also, guys within a particular age range may still be the primary demographic, but it's not nearly as big of a gap as it used to be.

I agree, but the gap still needs to close further I think. Now we have a gap, before we had a missing audience. I think we need to get to the point where it is just a small division. and I think the rising generation is going to offer that. I ain't proud to admit this but I push gaming off onto my nieces because I want to see this gap close. (They are active kids in general) As well, when playing around my nieces I pick girl characters over guys a lot solely to get their attention. I also play games with female centric characters. (Mirror's Edge, Tomb Raider, many "make your own character" games, etc.) They find it funny but it does invoke curiosity out of them considering my brother, their dad,is always picking the "manly man" gaming experiences.
I am merely trying to subtly make sure they are aware that there are a variety of female characters in the gaming world. The youngest has gotten fully behind it and when watching me start a game will encourage me to pick the girl, not for lolz, but because that is what she wants to see. If the girl were extremely promiscuous I would decline but I never have had to yet. That said, I wouldn't play Bayonetta in front of them.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Go to the club Friday night. That's actually fairly realistic.

But how much is going clubbing actually about respect, for anyone?

I agree, but the gap still needs to close further I think. Now we have a gap, before we had a missing audience. I think we need to get to the point where it is just a small division. and I think the rising generation is going to offer that.

Oh, no argument at all.

 

[CaptainKarma]

You should clearly introduce this woman to Metroid, Mass Effect 2, and Ocarina of Time. There are definitely games where the women aren't bimbos clad in strategically placed ribbons, even though said games are often hard to find.

I'm going to put you on the spot here, just because you're the latest in the thread to suggest Mass Effect 2.
In Mass Effect, we have:
Commander ShepHERd: Palette swap from a male. She's a decent female character because her sex is utterly irrelevant, which definitely works. She's also dressed like a gorram tank.
Miranda: Yes she's massively competent and a pretty decent character. She's also eye-candy made flesh, with a ridiculous form fitting outfit and absolutely gratuitous ass shots.
Tali: Young naive girl who idolises Shepherd for all the times he's rescued her. Has a romance that's laden with creepy undertones. Risks her health and her life just to have sex with Shepherd. That takes submissive to a new level.
Jack: Practically naked, emotionally scarred psycopath who Shepherd cures with his dick.
Samara: Ancient and powerful police officer. Inexplicable has a foot of cleavage.

Mass Effect has some good points with its characterisation, but at the same time its female characters are pure fan-service. Don't even get me started on the weird bisexual-but-not-really-but-totally-hot-lesbian Asari.

BioWare can be pretty progressive at times, but they shot themselves in the foot massively with ME2.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Mass Effect has some good points with its characterisation, but at the same time its female characters are pure fan-service. Don't even get me started on the weird bisexual-but-not-really-but-totally-hot-lesbian Asari.

BioWare can be pretty progressive at times, but they shot themselves in the foot massively with ME2.

Yeah, Bioware has a reputation for...how shall I put this? Missing the point by a hair's breadth.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

I think there's room for improvement for the women but i find it 10000x worse when the guys look like freaking hulks

Even if there weren't a hell of a lot more variation among male characters: looking like a power fantasy is "worse" exactly how?

 

[CaptainKarma]

I think there's room for improvement for the women but i find it 10000x worse when the guys look like freaking hulks

It's not worse. It's not even comparable. I'll let the esteemed Dr Nerdlove explain it for me:
http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2011/11/nerds-and-male-privilege/all/1/
(actually everyone should read that, cos DrNL is awesome)

 

[Jakub324]

Gears of War (especially 3) was responsible with female characters. Developers could definitely learn from Epic. Come to think of it, Oblivion had sensibly armoured women as well. What changed between 2006 and 2008, when Fallout arrived on the scene and clad female Raiders in bras?

 

[Vault101]

Gears of War (especially 3) was responsible with female characters. Developers could definitely learn from Epic. Come to think of it, Oblivion had sensibly armoured women as well. What changed between 2006 and 2008, when Fallout arrived on the scene and clad female Raiders in bras?

female raiders are just as scantily clad as male raiders...also keep in mind the raiders are likly inspired by the costumes of mad max

the PC can be a women...a sensibly cloths one at that, and there are SO many tough "clothed" women in thr fallout games (as ive said) its like they are compensating for the PC more liley being male

-female paladins
-female rangers
-female NCR solders (hell a female has a VERY high command posiition)
-kickass females in general

anyway I saw an action figure of a female warior from gears of war...I almost wished I had played gears so I could get it..because she looked really cool (and actually covered up..not overly sexualised)

 

[Lunar Templar]

anything can always be better, in the case of female characters in videos games, yeah, could use a lot of work, but them again, so could the male characters, in the interest of being fair, i see a lot on 1 dimensional characters across the board, Marcus Fenix (or how ever its spelled) and Master Chief are as much apart of the same process that resulted in Ivy and Bayonetta.

but we'll get there, eventually.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

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.

Oh tragedy, men like women, what has this world succumbed to?

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with liking tits and ass? We're happy because this isn't sexist, it isn't wrong in any way, it's just displaying what the creator thinks is a physically appealing woman.

Instead of complaining about women being displayed sexually, which makes you a sexist, you should be complaining about women not being fleshed out enough as characters and relying on their image too much.

Gamer attitudes are a different issue, specifically guys being dicks.

 

[ConstantErasing]

I am going to vote "room for improvement". I will admit it is pretty bad at times but it isn't completely bad. Yeah it needs a lot of work and I wouldn't say its completely "tolerable" but it isn't a total "travesty".

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Oh tragedy, men like women, what has this world succumbed to?

That's a red herring.

This is about "men liking women," you say? Then why, if a woman complains about it, does the first line of defense always seem to be to start flinging insults?

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with liking tits and ass? We're happy because this isn't sexist, it isn't wrong in any way, it's just displaying what the creator thinks is a physically appealing woman.

Instead of complaining about women being displayed sexually, which makes you a sexist, you should be complaining about women not being fleshed out enough as characters and relying on their image too much.

So...it's "sexist" to criticize the portrayal of female characters, but not to reduce them to tits and ass. How do you even figure?

Gamer attitudes are a different issue, specifically guys being dicks.

Shouting down criticism is a pretty rotten attitude in its own right. Just saying.

I was joking. Calm down...

I was perfectly calm when I wrote that (although some other posts in this thread have been a bit exasperating).

It's simply that some people will claim that power-fantasy male characters are "just as bad" without the slightest hint of irony (which is kind of bizarre, IMO). So there might have been a bit of "not sure if serious" to it.

 

[Savagezion]

Go to the club Friday night. That's actually fairly realistic.

But how much is going clubbing actually about respect, for anyone?

I see what you are trying to say but games and clubbing are about respect equally as much. Both are recreational activities. Clearly, respect is important to these chicks that like to dress up like hoochies. There was a poster here just a while back in some thread I was reading on this site, that said that she likes to wear tops that accentuate her big boobs or something and that drawing unwanted advancement/looks was a fault of the men and not her choice of clothes to wear.

As well, this could easily be dismissed as a in-game cultural thing. Mass Effect's universe has a sort of "show off your body" fashion style to the men and women. I would post a pic of a tribes woman in Africa showing her goodies to make the point but I am sure just mentioning it will do it without actually needing the pic and the mod warning. The poster I originally quoted can't respect a woman that shows off her body? A chick wearing something conservative is a lady, but she is a tramp when she wears a wetsuit. I mean how can any guy respect a character like this:

My point was basically, there is characterization in there that is realistic based on the culture present in the game that is an re-enforced by our culture in reality.

To expand on the culture of the game, it tends to be accepting and promote form fitting attire no matter your species:

Showing more skin is entirely based on the NPC. Berenziah liked showing off some cleavage, it was just her personal style in that culture. Like Ashley's style is wearing armor much like Shepard, and the hooker Sha'ira actually wears a form fitting kimono style outfit that isn't revealing at all. Same with the Asari from the counsel. Form fitting attire is the style to the culture present. Much like women walking around topless in Africa aren't any big deal there.

 

[Vault101]

You should clearly introduce this woman to Metroid, Mass Effect 2, and Ocarina of Time. There are definitely games where the women aren't bimbos clad in strategically placed ribbons, even though said games are often hard to find.

I'm going to put you on the spot here, just because you're the latest in the thread to suggest Mass Effect 2.
In Mass Effect, we have:
Commander ShepHERd: Palette swap from a male. She's a decent female character because her sex is utterly irrelevant, which definitely works. She's also dressed like a gorram tank.
Miranda: Yes she's massively competent and a pretty decent character. She's also eye-candy made flesh, with a ridiculous form fitting outfit and absolutely gratuitous ass shots.
Tali: Young naive girl who idolises Shepherd for all the times he's rescued her. Has a romance that's laden with creepy undertones. Risks her health and her life just to have sex with Shepherd. That takes submissive to a new level.
Jack: Practically naked, emotionally scarred psycopath who Shepherd cures with his dick.
Samara: Ancient and powerful police officer. Inexplicable has a foot of cleavage.

Mass Effect has some good points with its characterisation, but at the same time its female characters are pure fan-service. Don't even get me started on the weird bisexual-but-not-really-but-totally-hot-lesbian Asari.

BioWare can be pretty progressive at times, but they shot themselves in the foot massively with ME2.

soooo...moral of the story?

Femshep FTW!!

unrelated but I found what Im assuming is fan-art (good fan-art of a website for desktop backgrounda), depciting her as female...which I found refreshingly awsome

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

Oops, your argument, not mine.

Word of advice: saying what adds up to "NO U" doesn't help your cause.

I have expressed my opinions (other people have those, you know). You're welcome to disagree with my views but deciding that I'm wrong because my views differ from yours and quoting a few points that coincide with your views doesn't prove anything except that we disagree.

Save the energy you're wasting on me because until you're open to the fact that everyone with a vagina doesn't automatically agree with and support the whole "video games are picking on girls for these 1 million reasons" attitude and are open to sharing ideas with everyone; not just those who agree with you, you're gonna be quoting and copy/pasting rather frequently, I think.

Hey??you wanna get all touchy, break out the "but that's just your opinion!" non-argument, and stick your head in the sand? That's on you.

But as they say: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And denying the existence of any problem at all doesn't change that. At all. (And no, being female is not the free pass you seem to perceive it as.)

So you're just complaining about how people are supposedly just diagreeing with your views because they differ(which is a laughable and overused defense that looks like a cop out), instead of defending your point at all. Well that's great. If you're just trying to distract from the issue.

Also, this.

 

[Iron Lightning]

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.

I'm uncertain about the validity of this complaint. It seems to me that the sexist pigs who fuck with women for being women are oftentimes the same people who fuck with everyone simply because they're hidden beneath a veil of anonymity. As a man who plays online I've gotten a fair share of abuse from trash-talking simpletons merely for existing. People calling me a fag, kicking me for winning a game, sending me insulting messages, etc. Vitriol is nigh omnipresent in the multiplayer community.

Yes, the nature of insults hurled at women is different than those lobbed at men but I believe the reason for this is that the English language has gendered insults.

So, I'm not certain that the vitriol women get in multiplayer games is symptomatic of a pervasive sexist attitude against women so much as being the fault of the same immature punks who insult everyone.

Anyone, male or female, who has played multiplayer games for any significant period of time has a story about being insulted by some douchebag for no reason.

Of course, your example about the Battlefield 3 game opening is deplorable but you must remember, we're talking about EA here who as you know are the most horrible cockclowns in the medium. If Ice-Pick Lodge or Valve did something like this then I'd believe you more readily.