Sony Wants More Women Interested in PS4
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Kinda my point. Even naked guys with ideal bodies and bondage chains aren't seen as being attractive. We assume that the male gaze is the only legit one, and then we're disappointed that everything looks like it panders to it. It's a catch 22.Phasmal said:
You don't have to assume that though.
It's easy, just reverse your expectations and see if the evidence still fits. So by way of example I'll reverse what you said:
Bayonetta is a female power fantasy, NOT a sexual fantasy. After all, she never actually has sex! She's always in control, she's hyper-capable, always rescuing and dominating men, she rescues a child, etc, etc.
Kratos is designed to look sexy. He has an ideal and scantily-clad body, tied with chains (from a female goddess I believe?) and he spends a lot of time proving himself and being useful to women, whether goddesses or mortals, but at heart he's a bad boy he cannot be contained by any rules. If he was around today he'd be riding a motorcycle. But of course, at heart there's a great tragedy, so his tough guy exterior is only just that, etc, etc.
I'd say BOTH yours and my examples here are correct. You can be a power fantasy AND be a sexy icon, from different points of view. They're not mutually exclusive, right?
Sorry, but... no.oreso said:
Kratos is not designed to look sexy. He is designed to look powerful. Some women may find him attractive, but that does not mean he was designed for them (hell if you follow that path of logic the ponies in MLP are sexualised because some people find them attractive). He is designed to look attractive to men in that they want to be him, not to women in that they wanna do him.
You can argue Bayonetta all you like, some people do claim she is an empowered sexual fantasy character, I stay out of that debate because 1) Not played Bayonetta and 2) Don't really mind either way.
But Kratos was never designed to be a sexual character for women.
Yes, he has his shirt off, but that does not automatically make him sexy, neither does him being muscled.
There is more to sexualisation than that. He is a power character through-and-through.
EDIT: There is a great image with examples of power fantasies vs sexual fantasies and I CANT FIND IT. If anyone knows the one I'm on about please post it here.
EDIT2: Also, I'm not entirely sure if you are aware that I am in fact a woman, so even without `male gaze`- Kratos... still not sexy.
My girlfriend recently became interested in gaming, so hmmm...let's see what you can do to keep her interested.
She likes visceral action games, like God of War. Even though she can handle Kratos' eye gouging she can't stand chainsawing locusts or stomping necromorphs
so I guess find some delicate balance in bloodiness.
She likes fast paced action games like FPSs. Probably my fault, I'm a gun-on-rails shooter fan (like time crisis 2) and she enjoys it along with me.
Also she appears to like the fighting genre, since she's looking forward to Injustice and can mop my buttocks in Tekken on console or arcade cabinet (and enjoys doing so).
So, uh, be nice to your customers and keep doing what you're doing, I guess? Oh, although she doesn't have this
she enjoys playing a lady who can kick butt. So get ninja theory to stop antagonizing fans and get them to make Heavenly Sword 2, see if the same can be done for ubisoft with Beyond Good and Evil 2 and you're good to go.
One more thing, she hates pink.
She likes visceral action games, like God of War. Even though she can handle Kratos' eye gouging she can't stand chainsawing locusts or stomping necromorphs
...in Dead Space, the one thing she can't stand is when I would stomp a necromorph to death. Yet she had no problem watching me get attacked and hacked to pieces. Me thinks she just enjoys watching me struggle or lose.
She likes fast paced action games like FPSs. Probably my fault, I'm a gun-on-rails shooter fan (like time crisis 2) and she enjoys it along with me.
Also she appears to like the fighting genre, since she's looking forward to Injustice and can mop my buttocks in Tekken on console or arcade cabinet (and enjoys doing so).
So, uh, be nice to your customers and keep doing what you're doing, I guess? Oh, although she doesn't have this
female gamer who can't play a game if it does not have a female protagonist as the player character
One more thing, she hates pink.
This is a fascinating topic. Women represent nearly half of all gamers but not only has that number risen directly alongside the iOS explosion (not Sony's target market) but that 2008 survey had 80% of them as only playing the Wii where consoles were concerned.
This makes a significant market that is being missed by major game companies that is only being met by casual companies and handheld games. I don't personally think that's because women like those games better, I think it's because the AAA games are geared towards men in a non-trivial number of ways.
Changing this poses a difficult problem though. The current hardcore target market is largely male. Putting out a hardcore game geared towards women could giving up on a significant amount of profit. The best thing that games can do now is simply to stop imposing things that make games geared towards one sex or another. But the question remains whether or not there is a fundamental difference of mentality between men and women that would make some genres more unappealing than others just like women and men have very different taste in other form of media (statistically). So making a female commander shepard would help some female gamers whose taste enjoy this kind of game play, but the nature of the game itself may still not draw the average female over to play.
I look forward to more studies being done in this area.
This makes a significant market that is being missed by major game companies that is only being met by casual companies and handheld games. I don't personally think that's because women like those games better, I think it's because the AAA games are geared towards men in a non-trivial number of ways.
Changing this poses a difficult problem though. The current hardcore target market is largely male. Putting out a hardcore game geared towards women could giving up on a significant amount of profit. The best thing that games can do now is simply to stop imposing things that make games geared towards one sex or another. But the question remains whether or not there is a fundamental difference of mentality between men and women that would make some genres more unappealing than others just like women and men have very different taste in other form of media (statistically). So making a female commander shepard would help some female gamers whose taste enjoy this kind of game play, but the nature of the game itself may still not draw the average female over to play.
I look forward to more studies being done in this area.
Oh, you folks at Sony know what will appeal to women? Do tell. I'm a female and I have no idea what's supposed to "appeal" to me other than the stereotypical pink horsies and dresses and...whatever else, which I presume they're ruling out with their pink console remark. All of which can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned. Just give me more quality exclusives and I'll be happy. As for the gals who aren't into gaming...maybe video games just don't interest them. Practically every household has a console these days or a PC or a smartphone. Anyone can get ahold of games and if they liked them enough, they'd go further with it. Yeah, society is still hindering impressionable girls from getting into "hardcore" games, but I don't think having companies look specifically at appealing to ladies is going to help at all. In a perfect world, companies would be aiming at a large group of people with a certain interest, be that role-playing games, narrative experiences, ect.; not targeting people depending on what set of genitals they possess.
Though this...this wouldn't be a bad thing in my book.DTWolfwood said:
Never heard of Rez, but based off of the 'Trance Vibrator', I choose to assume it's as bad as it sounds.Sacman said:Well, you can;t exactly accuse Sony of not trying... especially when they released Rez, and it's special controller...<.<
Ah, okey, yeah. What the designers intended doesn't really matter so much to me, I just care about the product in front of me (as I'm sure lots of designers don't intend to be racist, sexist, etc, but their products are regardless).Phasmal said:
So sure, MLP is sexualised by some folk, Kratos is sexualised by some folk, and Bayonetta is sexualised by some folk. Regardless of how they were supposed to be designed.
So what I'm saying is, when you talk about the male gaze, you're kinda excluding those other options as being legit. You're assuming that there's this homogenous thing that everyone tries to pander to. Any sexy male is a power fantasy, any sexy female is a sex object. That idea makes sense internally, but so does the opposite. I can easily look at the product in front of me and see the other way makes just as much sense.
Seeing the edit you've said you're a woman. So if we're being candid then my male gaze happens to include Kratos as more desirable than Bayonetta (I love the character, but she's a big turn-off sexually). And on a personal level I guess I just don't like this idea of the "male gaze" because I don't like folk assuming we all like the same thing. And as soon as we accept that we all like different things, this whole notion of "this is just a power-fantasy for men" dissolves... because it's simply not true for the people who see something different. Does that make sense?
Cheers!
I agree with her.oreso said:
I have played all GoWs and not even once thought of Kratos as sexy. I always saw him as some barbaric trope model that makes men feel they want to be like him, never that he was done to appeal to me as a girl. As for Bayonetta, its obvios its made to appeal for men, as the promotion ads asked people to "undress her", unless u swing for the other side, i would never see that as a power-fantasy for a woman, more like a boner-fantasy for dudes.
As for good examples of sexy males that appel and are specifically made for women (or at least for most of the female gamers i know), you can find Bioware and square enix normally know it.
For example, i found quite appealing Alistar Theirin, Zevran and Fenris (dragon age) as well as Carth Onasi and in a minor way Atton Rand (kotor). I know many girls that played the first Dragon age that enjoyed quite a lot (myself included) to make Alistar or Zevran run naked in battle, just because we could take the armor off to a very nice point, plus the depth of the character that is what really attracted us makes it worth it and worth of many sexy fanfictions.
The female gamer base tends to have an artistic side, you will find that most of the writers and artists that keep some game alive for years through their works (comic's of side stories, or fanfiction) are women in general. You can go to fanfiction and still find updated stories about DragonAge 1 or to deviant art and the same thing, comic artworks that have being kept updated since the game release till this year.
As for other examples, Sephiroth appeals a lot to women, Kingdomhearts as a whole as well.
Women in general are not attracted instantly to beef-looking men without a shirt and in a bikini. A good way of knowing which characters are done for women, is the personality the male character has (This is why many women are attracted to Garrus, myself included) AND then the option to see what he's got under his cloths, or lil glimpses in some scenes here and there that actually make sense. Not the entire character to be nude all time, no; thats just pointless.
Here is my question:
How does the console developer make hardware more friendly towards women when it's in fact games that sell to the audience? How is Sony going to change how developers and publishers do business?
No one is denying that systems selling to a larger audience is a good thing. No one is denying that having more females in development rolls is a good thing. I question how Sony plans on making that happen, or indeed what they can do to spur that forward. Time will tell.
Also, I mean, I can't be the only thinking this, but this is the worst case of bandwagon jumping I have ever seen from a corporate structure. With all the news lately involving women and all the (sometimes) quite inane sexism/misogyny finger pointing that has been happening lately, I get wanting to add your name to the list of people that are "defending against the sexist ways of the entire industry". How does PS4 news or talks have anything at all to do with that? I'll tell you, it doesn't have anything to do with that because they have no way of designing hardware that appeals to a female audience.
How does the console developer make hardware more friendly towards women when it's in fact games that sell to the audience? How is Sony going to change how developers and publishers do business?
No one is denying that systems selling to a larger audience is a good thing. No one is denying that having more females in development rolls is a good thing. I question how Sony plans on making that happen, or indeed what they can do to spur that forward. Time will tell.
Also, I mean, I can't be the only thinking this, but this is the worst case of bandwagon jumping I have ever seen from a corporate structure. With all the news lately involving women and all the (sometimes) quite inane sexism/misogyny finger pointing that has been happening lately, I get wanting to add your name to the list of people that are "defending against the sexist ways of the entire industry". How does PS4 news or talks have anything at all to do with that? I'll tell you, it doesn't have anything to do with that because they have no way of designing hardware that appeals to a female audience.
Yup. I'm a woman. I own a PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS3 and finances allowing I'll own a PS4 in due time. You don't have to make it pink, but I would very much like it if you include the stand so I can fit it into my entertainment center with my other fine Sony products rather than making me purchase it separately. That would be super. You can even make it pink if you really want to, I don't care.Eclipse Dragon said:
... I do have a pink controller for my PS3. Partly because I like knowing which one is mine and party because my fiancé won't touch it with his grubby work-man-constantly dirty with some metal cutting grease hands which gum up the buttons of our other two standard black controllers.
Also - that picture of a pink PS2... I did not know that existed and I'm actually a little tempted. Purple would be great too. Or blue. I am getting a little bit tired of basic black, sure it's classic but... everything I own that is electronic is black these days! The world has colors dammit let's use some of them.
The main thing I got from this article is that House is working at Sony. But they want to increase diversity in games so good for them. I've been really liking the direction Sony's moving in with the PS4 so far, seems like they're really putting in effort to improve themselves.
Ahhh! Totally forgot about THAT! Yeah my primary store sold out of em... then I was moving em around our district, then the district ran out... good times good times. MemoriESSSS Soooo mannnnyyyy Memorrries!Xarathox said:
(and awkward retail moments)... such as "returns for defective units", or "used hardware..." (blink, blink)... there are laws... I think...
Well, lets be honest... if these companies have too many more bad years, be prepared for the porn and peripherals to make a come back... in a big way! Porn... the last commercial prayer of a scoundrel.
Ladies, we most of us, men, have realized that women aren't hive minded creatures.Luciella said:
So why it is so hard for a lot of you to understand that men aren't hive minded either?
Let me talk about me personally (I'm pretty sure there are at least few that think the same way)
I don't find Kratos as power fantasy, rather he is power parody.
Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe Kratos was designed as barbarian, because he IS BARBARIAN? And his clothes and body complexion projects that?
Kratos first response to problem is kill/crush/destroy, and for any more or less mature person such attitude is laughable.
How low you must think about males to even propose that all (or even majority) males dream to be braindead brutes?
Don't you think that if Kratos is power fantasy, he at most can be teenage power fantasy. Any adequate person older than 20y knows that true power comes from knowledge, skills and willpower, not from overgrown pieces of meat hanging from your body or anger.
Would you be surprised that I find Bayonetta repulsing? Even ugly?
Maybe she has awesome personality, I don't know, since I never played the game.
But from physical point of view she isn't sexual fantasy of every single male.
From what you are saying I take that for you character personality plays much more important role, then looks.
I can respect that.
But lets say that Kratos had deep and emotional backstory and character behind him.
Lets say that games did better job to portrait him as tragical character, that is not as much on path of vengeance, but simply tries to achieve sense of justice against gods, who shattered his life into pieces. And his body complexion simply gives him enough strength to punish gods and their minions for injustice they did.
And lets assume that for some reasons you found this sense of honor and justice attractive.
Wouldn't you at that point consider Kratos attractive, like the characters you mentioned you like.
Because if answer is yes (and I assume it's yes) then it means that developers simply did a bad job of making Kratos into compelling character.
And there is no point of arguing if his design is appealing to anyone.
Bad character is bad character no matter how he/she looks.
My personal power fantasy? Simple. Adam Jensen. Diplomacy for him is more important than violence, not to mention that through all the game his main task is not to seek revenge or saving the damsel (or some BS like that), but rather investigate what happened and who was really behind the attack. Basically his doing his job. Boring I know
Well, here's a thought, Sony. How about when a developer wants to make a game that features a female as the main protagonist, or even wants to put a female on the box art, you actually let them. And when publishers won't allow it either, you should encourage more of these games to be developed.
Oh look, problem solved.
When will they realize that women have always been there, have always played the same games, and don't need to be specifically marketed to? I think everyone is sick of brown shooters, not just women.
Oh look, problem solved.
When will they realize that women have always been there, have always played the same games, and don't need to be specifically marketed to? I think everyone is sick of brown shooters, not just women.
Make good games and improve the female roles in them. The type of game isn't necessarily the issue. Heck, I surprised someone on Primal Carnage because he and a friend thought that girls didn't play "violent" type games. There are chicks out there who enjoy sniping people's brains out, and they don't need a pink camo-suit to enjoy it. For games where people can make their own characters, but more options in there aside from slut & sluttier. Write good characters, both men and women. Make more varieties of characters. The guy doesn't always have to be the badass, broody hero and the gal doesn't have to be the weak, submissive/ignorant victim. I could go on and on. I'm just asking that the help make better games and maybe find some way to improve the gaming environment (not sure how that would be possible without overly strict policing).
Female gamer here, I got some friends of mine into gaming by introducing them to RPGs, like dragon age. Most of them just aren't into video games though, like you said they have no interest in sitting down in front of a computer (or console) and playing a game.Doom972 said:
It's nice that they have come out with this after their very male dominated ps4 announcement. To be honest I'd love a pink console but only because pink is my favorite colour not because I have ovaries.
I bought a PS3 last minute because missing out on the JRPG's and exclusives were just painful. Also I think playstation plus is a really good idea and I will be getting a ps4 in the hopes they have it. (I spend way too much money on games.)
To attract women I think they just need to look at games like Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite and go from there. Just stay classy Sony. PS1 AND PS2 were best consoles. (Apart from maybe Gamecube for which I have a soft spot)
If you really want to pull in the girls make a game with Tom Hiddleston in it. Honest. Really it will work. *cough*
I bought a PS3 last minute because missing out on the JRPG's and exclusives were just painful. Also I think playstation plus is a really good idea and I will be getting a ps4 in the hopes they have it. (I spend way too much money on games.)
To attract women I think they just need to look at games like Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite and go from there. Just stay classy Sony
. PS1 AND PS2 were best consoles. (Apart from maybe Gamecube for which I have a soft spot)If you really want to pull in the girls make a game with Tom Hiddleston in it. Honest. Really it will work. *cough*