The Big Picture: Gender Games

RJ Dalton

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garjian said:
i meant in actual games. rule63 exists for almost everything on the internet in general... of course i wouldnt claim that nobody has ever drawn a female E. Honda, a popular character for what... 20 years or something? :/
It wasn't so much ignoring everything else as it was failing to connect point a to point b. I've also been known to occasionally fail the Turing test.
 

neon_goggles

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I was reminded of J. Sheas post on Soul Calibur about how the male characters costumes makeing more sense then the female charters most of the time when watching this video. The post can be found here:
http://exploringbelievability.blogspot.com/2011/05/analysis-soul-calibur.html
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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Maybe it's just me missing the point completely, but the examples from Japanese games, I just wrote them off as just cultural differences and left them at that. If I saw a Western game company do the same thing, then I would raise more of an eyebrow at them.

But Japan did bring Heather from Silent Hill 3, and she didn't dress like a total whore, and she was a great female character. I wouldn't recommend any feminist to look at the soundtrack cover to that game, even though it's a great soundtrack, but I will give them credit for trying.

Yes, there are gamers that really need to think before they speak, but so do some feminists since this is something that both sides need to communicate clearly on. Personally, I get irritated by both sides since they make the problem worse than it really should be. Feminists do have a point when there's a character that's not dressed for the occasion, if you will, but gamers need to respect that and understand where they are coming from, and try to get game companies to get that.

Also, a few people mentioned 3rd Birthday, and I have this to say. I must be a disgrace to my gender since I loved that game and I didn't have much of a problem with the whole clothing thing (read: I thought it was stupid and moved on), again I just wrote it off as Japan being Japan and me not living there to get it, and that's not the game's fault.
 

BRex21

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Princess Rose said:
From a feminist gamer, here's a good example:


The original cover of Parasite Eve shows Aya Brea looking determined about something, and Melissa hovering in the background, looking simultaneously sexy (awesome cleavage) and horrifically mutated (mantis arms). It clearly showed that this game was all about two powerful women attempting to kill each other - two women enter, one woman leaves.

On the other hand...

[img width=300 src=http://www.justpushstart.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/parasite_eve_2_box_art.jpg]

Parasite Eve 2 is Aya looking sleepy and showing a lot of leg for... no real reason. She still looks like a cop, which helps us know that she's a cop, and we do see some weird dudes in the background that we'll be murdering during game play, but it doesn't convey the same strong message as PE1.

And finally...

[img width=300 src=http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/the-third-birthday-walkthrough-box-artwork-wallpaper.jpg]

The cover to the third game. Aya... is wearing leather and torn jeans. And standing around with little to no expression on her face. No determination, like the first game. No slightly sleepy sadness like the second game. Just... blank. Like she's a blow-up doll or a Japanese love pillow.

It's sad really. A lot of time and effort went into that third cover, but the original "five minutes using screen-caps from cut-scenes and Photoshop" cover looks WAY better. Cheap as the original cover is, it tells the whole story of the game right there on the cover. On the other hand, Third Birthday tells us nothing on the cover - except, perhaps, that Aya's clothing will get torn in a sexy fashion during gameplay. Which it does.

So there you have it - Aya was always sexy, but her portrayal has gotten less interesting even as her graphics have improved - because too much attention is paid to her looking sexy rather than her being awesome.

Pro tip: If your female character is attractive and doing awesome things, then that will MAKE her sexy. Awesomeness makes a character more sexy. Stupid poses... don't.[/spoiler][/QUOTE]

This example is FAR better than anything I caught in MovieBob's video. There is no point to bringing fighting games into the mix and probably if you know ANYTHING about ANY of his male character choices you looked them up too. Here however you have a perfect example of a narratives main character being sold on pointless T and A, well leg anyway.
My pet peeve as of late has been mass effect. In ME1 all the women on your crew wore practical armour that provided shielding and protection. In ME2 you have a woman who wears a belt to cover her nipples and one wearing a catsuit so tight you need a bottle of lube to get into it every morning. Seriously when you go into a alien ship with no atmosphere that is exposed to the depths of space, you put on a friggun shirt, its just common sense.
You will never convince people that the T and A in fighting games is in any way worse than a guy in a thong and leopard head, when the characters are just vacant shells, but you will convince them by showing a characters depth and identity taken away and replaced with jiggle physics and vogue shots.
 

cbert

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HyenaThePirate said:
This isn't a complex issue.

When women and females start buying video games and showing support of those games without a.) trying to look as hot and adorable as possible in cosplay costumes at gaming conventions and b.) in the quantities that 14-40 year old men do then we'll see the industry move away from this sort of thing.

It's simple demographics. By any measure you'd care to review male, and especially young adult males outnumber "female game players" by such a large margin I'm not even sure it's comparable at this point. Sure everyone knows a girl or two who "plays video games" and some of them might even be "hardcore" about it, but for the most part girls are too busy with other interests than sitting indoors slogging their way through yet another title. Even girl "friendly" games or neutral games like Kirby, Super Mario brothers, and stuff like that only get casual attention.

If I'm wrong, somebody needs to show me several substantive studies showing this is not the case, because I certainly couldn't find any that do.

And just like big blockbuster hollywood crapfest films, the games industry caters to the audience that banks for them. They could care less about the feelings of a subset of society that doesn't provide a noticeable portion of their profits.

Until such a time that women are storming gaming stores the way men do, expect plenty of big tits and camel toe armor.
Forty-two percent of all players are women and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry's fastest growing demographics.

Today, adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).

Source: http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp

Protip: Look up "video game demographic information" before you make claims about video game demographic information. Consider that this comes from the ESA, who have a vested interest in reporting accurate statistics on the matter.

Edit: full study (2011) available here: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf
 

vortexgods

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Wow, I wrote a long post, I think it would be wrong to inflict it on this forum without spoiler tags. It's a long response, but I felt it was warranted:

I always think its dumb to try to respond to this, because normally you are responding to people who have the typical, messed up Puritan view of sexuality. (Which is that sex is wrong, it's particularly wrong for women, and women who look like they actually enjoy their sexuality are evil and must be destroyed.) This is called the [a href="http://madonnawhore.com/"]Madonna/Whore complex[/a] usually, and its sometimes mistaken for feminism, when it's usually just good old fashioned father-knows-best paternalism. This offends me because I have a sexy wife who enjoys her sex appeal, and I'm in love with her and have been for 12 years. Please put the scarlet letters back in the 17th century along with the witch burnings!

In Japan, of course, they have a whole different set of sexual hangups that don't necessarily translate. However, this particular one doesn't really exist over there in this way.

So you end up with a culture clash, which expresses itself in typical Puritan hostility to sexy women. Especially sexy women with agency (there's normally much less objection to sexy women who are helpless victims, as in American games like Duke Nukem'). In other words, plenty of people don't like women like Taki, or Mai, or Cammy who can kick your ass and look good doing it, but they'd be ok if those women were tied up and hanging in the background like Mary Jane Watson-Parker in Spider-man for the Sega Genesis.

As Quentin Tarantino said, people were OK with Alabama until she decided to fight back against Virgil.

Now, when the first woman appeared in the most important, revolutionary fighting game in Japan, she didn't have that much sex appeal. I'm speaking of Chun-Li here of course. Chun-Li wasn't deformed, and she dressed in a feminine manner, but she wasn't designed with sex appeal in mind:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II/Characters/Chun-Li[/a]

About the only thing I can say about her is that she's bare legged. Her legs seem muscular. Her breasts aren't particularly large. She's in a pretty dress, but not one that is "sexy." I mean, I think she's pretty, but she's not exactly Shampoo (who appeared in a 16-bit fighting game based on Ranma 1/2):

[a]http://animebaths.wikia.com/wiki/Shampoo_(Ranma_1/2)[/a]

Chun-Li was popular, and when SNK and a few other Japanese companies figured out there were riches to be had by making Street Fighter II over and over again, they introduced other female characters. For example Art of Fighting had King:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Art_of_Fighting/Characters/King[/a]

Who basically wears drag and mostly looks like a Bishonen guy, and Yuri:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Art_of_Fighting/Characters/Yuri[/a]

Yuri is likable enough, but hardly a sex goddess. On the other hand you had the Fatal Fury series. In the first Fatal Fury women were notable mainly by their absence.

Then came Fatal Fury II.

Kaboom!

The character of Mai Shiranui is introduced:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Fatal_Fury/Characters/Mai[/a]

She's a bona fide sex symbol, guaranteed to put Puritans of both sexes up in arms... and a major hit. Capcom would respond with Cammy, another Femme Fatale type:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II/Characters/Cammy[/a]

After this, you could divide fighting game females into two types. The non-sexy ones that everyone forgets about, like Pai in Virtua Fighter:

[a]http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/virtua-fighter-remix/screenshots/gameShotId,12036/[/a]

(I think you're pretty, Pai!)

And the sexy femme fatales, like Lei Fang in the deliberately sex drenched, less "serious" competitor of Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive:

[a]http://deadoralive.wikia.com/wiki/Lei_Fang/Outfit_Catalogues[/a]

Now I've heard that other countries besides Japan make fighting games, and I think I might actually have played one once. I think it was ugly, hard to control, and the characters were stupid. Actually, I think I played more than one non-Japanese fighter like that. Unfortunately... I don't have anything good or interesting to say about them! Gomen Nasai I guess!

With Japanese games, often sex appeal is one trick used to compete against rivals. For example, Soul Edge made itself very different from Tekken including increasing the sex appeal of its fighters (sorry [a href="http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Features/2009/07/Ugly%20polygon%20babes/Screens/P%20to%20Z/Sarah--article_image.jpg"]Sarah[/a], but you are just too tough looking!). On the other hand, the only sexy female in Samurai Spirits until [a href="http://snk.wikia.com/wiki/Mina_Majikina"]Mina Majikina[/a] (designed to be the opposite of innocent and childlike [a href="http://snk.wikia.com/wiki/Nakoruru"]Nakoruru[/a]) was introduced late in the series was Mai Shiranui in her cameo in [a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/mai-shiranui/94-182/all-images/52-300913/gen_an/51-1335187/"]Gen-An Shiranui's ending.[/a]

[a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBh79lLO7RY"]In closing... [/a]
 

Belaam

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The_root_of_all_evil said:
But there you go again. There is no point making these sort of statements because they're rude and unhelpful to an ongoing discussion. If you believe something like that then you need to at least provide proof - and preferably a way to resolve it.
Okay... let's look at MetaCritic's top 5 games of all time.

1. GTA IV - Let's just say that the cover art features guys with guns, riding motocycles, helicopters, and cars while the sole woman pictured is licking a lollypop.

2. Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 - Mario must rescue the princess *sigh* while also repairing an observatory for another woman. In the sequel, we lose the second woman.

3. Tony Hawk's Proskater 4 - This one, I will happily admit was pretty balanced, gender-wise. You could be whatever gender you wished.

4. GTA III - More or less similar to the complaints to GTA IV. Female NPCs have a somewhat more important role, but not much.

5. Half Life 2 - Definitely a win for female characters. Biggest complaint is that you have to play as Gordon and not Alyx.

Note that not a one of these features a female protagonist. It's really not "rude" to point out facts. In all of the above, women are victims, villains, or at best, a sidekick in need of rescue.

The_root_of_all_evil said:
Simply saying "Side A is wrong" is no better than "This".
Well, frankly, Side A is wrong. Flat Earthers are wrong, also. It's not being opinionated, or rude, or anything else. Sometimes people are wrong. Even about things they believe very strongly. Often especially about things they believe very strongly.
 

awdrifter

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Let feminists have their panties in a bunch, as long as we buy the games we like, devs will keep making them. There are less games targeted at female because there are less female gamers. If you want devs to make games that you like (I don't really know what a feminist would like, lol), then start playing and buying more games. This reminds me of the Mass Effect sex scene scandal and the hot coffee mod scandal. These are just feminists sticking their heads into something that other people enjoy.
 

lollypopalopicus

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bob was right on the money about Mai. i was interested about her as so i looked her up, and found her to be a likeable character. as for her outfit, while the character dresses that way deliberately to distract males, while i find that method ingenious and would probably be very effective. The problem there is that, the game developers probably designed her that way, not for having character with a smart strategy but as Bob said, for male players.
 

cbert

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awdrifter said:
Let feminists have their panties in a bunch, as long as we buy the games we like, devs will keep making them. There are less games targeted at female because there are less female gamers. If you want devs to make games that you like (I don't really know what a feminist would like, lol), then start playing and buying more games. This reminds me of the Mass Effect sex scene scandal and the hot coffee mod scandal. These are just feminists sticking their heads into something that other people enjoy.
Forty-two percent of all players are women and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry's fastest growing demographics.

Today, adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).

full study (2011) available here: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf

....why do I feel like I JUST POSTED THIS?

The issue isn't that women aren't playing games - they are. Part of the problem is that they aren't involved in the creation and development process (moar statistics here: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-05/business/sc-biz-0806-women-gamers-20100805_1_international-game-developers-association-game-development-gaming-world )
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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vortexgods said:
Wow, I wrote a long post, I think it would be wrong to inflict it on this forum without spoiler tags. It's a long response, but I felt it was warranted:

I always think its dumb to try to respond to this, because normally you are responding to people who have the typical, messed up Puritan view of sexuality. (Which is that sex is wrong, it's particularly wrong for women, and women who look like they actually enjoy their sexuality are evil and must be destroyed.) This is called the [a href="http://madonnawhore.com/"]Madonna/Whore complex[/a] usually, and its sometimes mistaken for feminism, when it's usually just good old fashioned father-knows-best paternalism. This offends me because I have a sexy wife who enjoys her sex appeal, and I'm in love with her and have been for 12 years. Please put the scarlet letters back in the 17th century along with the witch burnings!

In Japan, of course, they have a whole different set of sexual hangups that don't necessarily translate. However, this particular one doesn't really exist over there in this way.

So you end up with a culture clash, which expresses itself in typical Puritan hostility to sexy women. Especially sexy women with agency (there's normally much less objection to sexy women who are helpless victims, as in American games like Duke Nukem'). In other words, plenty of people don't like women like Taki, or Mai, or Cammy who can kick your ass and look good doing it, but they'd be ok if those women were tied up and hanging in the background like Mary Jane Watson-Parker in Spider-man for the Sega Genesis.

As Quentin Tarantino said, people were OK with Alabama until she decided to fight back against Virgil.

Now, when the first woman appeared in the most important, revolutionary fighting game in Japan, she didn't have that much sex appeal. I'm speaking of Chun-Li here of course. Chun-Li wasn't deformed, and she dressed in a feminine manner, but she wasn't designed with sex appeal in mind:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II/Characters/Chun-Li[/a]

About the only thing I can say about her is that she's bare legged. Her legs seem muscular. Her breasts aren't particularly large. She's in a pretty dress, but not one that is "sexy." I mean, I think she's pretty, but she's not exactly Shampoo (who appeared in a 16-bit fighting game based on Ranma 1/2):

[a]http://animebaths.wikia.com/wiki/Shampoo_(Ranma_1/2)[/a]

Chun-Li was popular, and when SNK and a few other Japanese companies figured out there were riches to be had by making Street Fighter II over and over again, they introduced other female characters. For example Art of Fighting had King:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Art_of_Fighting/Characters/King[/a]

Who basically wears drag and mostly looks like a Bishonen guy, and Yuri:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Art_of_Fighting/Characters/Yuri[/a]

Yuri is likable enough, but hardly a sex goddess. On the other hand you had the Fatal Fury series. In the first Fatal Fury women were notable mainly by their absence.

Then came Fatal Fury II.

Kaboom!

The character of Mai Shiranui is introduced:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Fatal_Fury/Characters/Mai[/a]

She's a bona fide sex symbol, guaranteed to put Puritans of both sexes up in arms... and a major hit. Capcom would respond with Cammy, another Femme Fatale type:

[a]http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II/Characters/Cammy[/a]

After this, you could divide fighting game females into two types. The non-sexy ones that everyone forgets about, like Pai in Virtua Fighter:

[a]http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/virtua-fighter-remix/screenshots/gameShotId,12036/[/a]

(I think you're pretty, Pai!)

And the sexy femme fatales, like Lei Fang in the deliberately sex drenched, less "serious" competitor of Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive:

[a]http://deadoralive.wikia.com/wiki/Lei_Fang/Outfit_Catalogues[/a]

Now I've heard that other countries besides Japan make fighting games, and I think I might actually have played one once. I think it was ugly, hard to control, and the characters were stupid. Actually, I think I played more than one non-Japanese fighter like that. Unfortunately... I don't have anything good or interesting to say about them! Gomen Nasai I guess!

With Japanese games, often sex appeal is one trick used to compete against rivals. For example, Soul Edge made itself very different from Tekken including increasing the sex appeal of its fighters (sorry [a href="http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Features/2009/07/Ugly%20polygon%20babes/Screens/P%20to%20Z/Sarah--article_image.jpg"]Sarah[/a], but you are just too tough looking!). On the other hand, the only sexy female in Samurai Spirits until [a href="http://snk.wikia.com/wiki/Mina_Majikina"]Mina Majikina[/a] (designed to be the opposite of innocent and childlike [a href="http://snk.wikia.com/wiki/Nakoruru"]Nakoruru[/a]) was introduced late in the series was Mai Shiranui in her cameo in [a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/mai-shiranui/94-182/all-images/52-300913/gen_an/51-1335187/"]Gen-An Shiranui's ending.[/a]

[a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBh79lLO7RY"]In closing... [/a]
I have the same thoughts about the matter. It's really hard to discuss this when there's a cultural difference aspect standing right there to muddy up everything. Now if this was based around a Western company doing this, then they probably deserve the amount of scorn their way for dressing up female characters scantily for nothing more than sex appeal.

Also, that's a mighty fine closing. I couldn't help but play that song while reading your post, made it much more festive.
 

Saltyk

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Okay, I disagree with Bob using Nariko in this video. Yes, she is a beautiful woman and her clothes may not be the best things you could wear in a sword fight, but I didn't ever think of her as a sex symbol. I always saw her as a female Kratos (who doesn't wear much himself) with a soul. That is, I always saw her as a bad-ass warrior that could and would easily tear you limb from limb, but she still had those that she wanted to protect, like Kai (who was my favorite character in the game). I see Nariko as a strong woman first and foremost. Maybe I'm alone in this.
 

Xan Krieger

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at 4:21 who is that?

OT: The characters in Dead Island make for good female characters because neither are hot and they are just as capable as the men.
 

cbert

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That Chicago Trib article made me think a bit...

The issue, as I see it, is that we don't have enough games being created by women. It isn't just about character portrayal, hetero-normativity or target audience, it's about who is making games. Bob made an impassioned and, for the most part, accurate point but he missed what I believe the fundamental problem.

The industry could do a much better job of attracting female game creators; statistically, they would benefit from it as the market demographics move toward the 50-50 mark. Other historically male-dominated sectors (science, architecture, engineering, politics, law, medicine... almost everything else besides teaching) have pushed to be gender-equal and I personally think we've benefited from it.

So...MOAR WIMMIN DVLPERZ PLZ!!!
 

scarab7

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Never gave much thought to the idea that this argument was more or less helping the industry avoid dealing with a problem. From what I can see the video game industry is very content in watching two kinds of people argue as long as the gamers will defend the industry rather then resolve the issue.

So if the gamer community and feminist community stop arguing, come to some kind of resolve, will the industry follow? The only way I'm seeing change from the industry is if consumers change their mind set to where it effects their purchase preference. You know, "Your choice is your voice" kind of slogan? Really hoping that this issue can be resolved so that it changes the industry.
 

Zetatrain

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Paragon Fury said:
IceStar100 said:
Sex sells

I'll use Ashley from Mass Effect. Deep she has beliefs and a history. Nothing really skimpy about any of her outfits.

And she was hated by at least to most vocal people. Being called a bigot because she didn't trust aliens even after the first contact war. The first time we made contact with alien a lot of people got killed and the fact it ruined her family name in the military.

There also the fact he has one part about believing in some kind of God. SHOVING RELIGOUN DOWN OUR THROAT.

Thane who his religion is a major part of his character is awesome it seems.
Go look up ME1 Ash vs ME3.

Simple fact is most gamers are male and don't like strong females.
Might as well as every romance author to write a book that closer to what a real male is. Guess what no one would read it.
The fact is if you want a real life woman go outside if you want one who?s a perfect 10 and you would still have a chance with play a video game.
She was hated because of those two reasons, because she was well-written. And Bioware almost certainly intended her to be hated.

Her history and dislike of aliens makes people rage because she comes off as a bigoted, ignorant dolt who has a sore ass because her family got spanked by the Turians in the First Contact War, rather than say the Illusive Man or Miranda who at least seem to have put some logic and thought into their dislike of aliens.

Thane's religion is seen as "awesome" because his comes off as a more reflective, personal philosophy while Ashley gives the very clear impression that her religion is far closer to our modern day "Believe what I say my skydaddy says or I'll hurt you" religions.
Considering how the Turians opened fired during first contact without warning or provocation, I can see why some people would not be too trusting of them.

Unfortunately since the Turians were the first alien race humans encountered some of that mistrust carries over. Also, that part about her family getting blacklisted is only part of her reasoning for distrusting aliens. She explains that humanity needs to be able to stand on its own in case any of the other alien races should abandon them or even turn on them, which is basically the same reasoning Miranda and the Illusive man give. While I do think Ashley should lighten up a bit she comes off as being distrustful rather than a hateful bigot(she dislikes Terra Firma and Cerberus, people who are suppose to be more anti-alien)and her reasons for doing so are kinda understandable. I actually find it funny that some people see her as the equivalent of a religious zealot despite the fact she rarely ever brings up the subject or even mentions it(like maybe three times).
 

cbert

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scarab7 said:
So if the gamer community and feminist community stop arguing, come to some kind of resolve, will the industry follow? The only way I'm seeing change from the industry is if consumers change their mind set to where it effects their purchase preference.
Done and done. Solid point, but what about that really good, well-written game that is terribly, terribly misogynistic?

Written arguments and criticism are more worthwhile than you might think. As the level of conversation surrounding video games continually elevates (scholarly journals, anyone? http://game.itu.dk), game developers more or less "naturally" follow suit. Critics of other entertainment and artistic forms have amassed a tremendous amount of leverage based on their subjective critiques of artistic merit and cultural value; games are too rarely addressed on these terms.

So the arguments may get tedious at times - just like the "are games art?" arguments. But they're important.

If these things aren't worth thinking about, then video games really are just a waste of time.
 

ReiverCorrupter

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cbert said:
awdrifter said:
Let feminists have their panties in a bunch, as long as we buy the games we like, devs will keep making them. There are less games targeted at female because there are less female gamers. If you want devs to make games that you like (I don't really know what a feminist would like, lol), then start playing and buying more games. This reminds me of the Mass Effect sex scene scandal and the hot coffee mod scandal. These are just feminists sticking their heads into something that other people enjoy.
Forty-two percent of all players are women and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry's fastest growing demographics.

Today, adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (37 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (13 percent).

full study (2011) available here: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf

....why do I feel like I JUST POSTED THIS?

The issue isn't that women aren't playing games - they are. Part of the problem is that they aren't involved in the creation and development process (moar statistics here: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-05/business/sc-biz-0806-women-gamers-20100805_1_international-game-developers-association-game-development-gaming-world )
Mmm... There are different types of games. Do men and women all play the same types of games equally, or do the more sexist games actually have a larger male demographic? I think people are forgetting that some games can be aimed at women, and some aimed at men. Keeping this in mind the marketing departments probably adjust content accordingly.

We're talking about money here. A capitalist system will automatically adjust based upon the desires of its consumer base, so I kind of have a hard time believing that it's some oppressive male regime. The publishers are in it to make money, not to keep women down. If their marketing departments have miscalculated then someone will eventually make a game that gets it right, and that company will become more successful, thus fixing the problem. If women really are offended by the games they buy then they should boycott them.

In a capitalist system your money is your vote. If small groups protest something for its insensitivity but that thing still makes money, then it isn't going to change. The only way that there aren't going to be games like DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball is if there isn't a market for it. But I don't think women make up the market for those types of games in the first place, so they can't really stop them. As long as there are horny teenage boys out there that are willing to spend $60 on bouncing virtual mammaries, then someone is going to make that game I'm afraid.

Now, does anyone REALLY think that they can effect a level of social change to the point that teenage boys will no longer be horny and stupid? Good luck with THAT. Lulz. Is it really that big of a deal? I have a hard time buying the idea that it's just video games and other media that cause men to view women as sex objects. It's a pretty culturally and genetically ingrained thing, especially for those who don't live a life of the mind. How can someone respect a woman for her mind when they don't even use their own? Rubes will be rubes, I'm afraid. Yes, I realize that I'm an elitist and I have my reasons, so don't point it out as if it's an argument.