I'm not a huge fan of Anita, but I admit she has some points, and gets us talking. Good on her for being less dry in person than in her videos.
One one hand, this is a conversation worth having because the problem persists heavily.
On the other, what has to be said has been said. It's really hard to continue this conversation as the material doesn't change, we just get more examples of it. The best we can do is hope newcomers glean something from this, and gain some awareness of the problem.
Say what you will about her, she does have some points. The industry really sucks in portraying women as PROTAGONISTS.
It's not for lack of writing ability. Lara Croft, Samus, Nilin, and a ton (Not saying there are lots of them compared to guys, or in general) of other female protagonists were written by men.
Look at other media. TV, Movies, books. Men write those. Those include women in reasonable portrayals at times.
And on the flip side, women do write men.
I'm gunna be real here. NPCs don't matter near as much as the protagonist in the grand scemes of things to me. The game doesn't get completed by NPCs.
A cool NPC doesn't stack up vs a cool protagonist to me.
Peach might be a princess, and rule her own kingdom, but a lot of the actual use of her power is left to our imaginations. Without actual impact in the game, I can't say I really care because in the game they do all of jack shit. Franky the fact that Bowser curbstomps the kingdom, waltzes up, and kidnapps Peach means she must be a crappy ruler to not have proper defenses after nearly a dozen kidnappings from the same guy. that's the only thing I really know about Peach's prowess as a ruler.
Bear with me here.
Think of videogames as movies. The protagonist you play is the lead role. Your role.
Basically I'm tired of feeling typecast as as a 20s-30s white guy with short to no hair.
Very rarely do I get to feel like I'm playing as my own gender.
I mean, I like being able to invest as much of myself as possible to enjoy the escapism of games.
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kinda sums it up, too indirectly. When kids play outside pretending to be their favorite videogame character those little girls are faced with a lot of less than wholesome options, and very very few wholesome ones. Frankly, a lot of female NPCs while "important" as members of the cast, they also get a lot of the boring jobs. Lets see you consistently play Charlie's Angels where you're Charlie all the time, and no one, and nothing else while the girls go out to do the interesting stuff.
I gotta say there's more guys you could dress up as for imagination play time than there are women without ... well, trouble. <.<
To me, if you want to play as a woman in games, you are "Priness Leia" in that the character can be compitent but fanservice is expected (And generally something more people remember you for), some obscure woman, or a stripper, or some combination in the grand scheme of videogames. I'm not saying these women can't exist as symbols of the status quo but can we get variety?
And when you do play as them, they're usually stuck as rogues, medics, mages, gunners, or archers. Keeping in mind these games are set in fictional worlds where our norms need not apply, the few variations of roles seems rather confining. To resume the movie metaphor, I don't like being type cast.
I mean typcasting sucks regardless of who you are. Patrick Stewart kinda regretted playing Picard. Yeah, we love him for it, but typecasting screws up getting more diverse roles, and it's not all that fun.
If you want to be a guy? You certainly have your choices. Nathan Drake, Link, Mario, Kratos, the protagonists from Infamous, numerous white guys in FPSes, Marcus Phoenix, Phoenix Wright, Professor layton, etc.
Their methods of getting through a game are generally more diverse as they can be medics, rogues, mages, gunners, warriors, archers, etc. Pretty much what little women often get to be, and far far more. Plus they generally get the more intersting abilities.
Blank slate create your own avatars are kinda off the table here as they generally invest diddly in gender for better or worse, and even with them on the table, they're far, and few in between.
I mean, lets look at Grand Theft Auto Online for one. Aside from the start, prostitutes serve with the same animations as they would with a guy which should go without saying why that's wrong.
Hushsmush charges you 500 dollars regardless of gender despite saying women chat free, not that I expected much out of it, but hey, it's there.
There's also a lack of accessable male sex partners.
Of course we know they'll likely get less respect than the female prostitutes being gunned down by homophobes, or something. <.< Then again there's the handful of people that stand outside a club in drag. Poor guys must get no end of crap as it is.
Also a lack of accessable strip clubs that feature guys. There's at least 1 out in the city, but like most buildings the doors are sealed. The signs, window dressing.
Yes, I understand that GTAO is a game where the entire focus seems to be shooting eachother, but there's some glaring faults in that game!
Ubisoft said they considered "Beyond Good and Evil" a mistake. Odds are we won't be seeing a sequel with them having said that. With all the things they can change to make part 2 less of a mistake, we won't likely be seeing a sequel.
This came up during talks about "Child of light" a game that Ubisoft is thankfully still making, but seemed against initially.
The one thing the games seem to have in common is a female protagonist.
Despite it all, the game industry, especially producers, is hard pressed to accept women as protaogonists. With the game industry failing in not making enough money, their blind adherence to one market by and large, seems to be suicidal as opposed to, I dunno, getting new customers to add to the unsustainable, underperforming income they're getting now.
In anticipation of the "make your own game" responses I'm 99.99999999999999(Ad infinit)% certain I'll get, I don't have the time, resources, or connections to make my own game, same as most of the people who'll blindly suggest this in an effort to get me to shut up, and little else.
Moreover, a lack of vision, ability to plan, and a great many real barriers stand in the way.
Considering I've laid out why I'm not able to make my own game, I can cross off "ignorance" as one of the reasons I hate "make your own game" as an argument as there's no reason to remain ignorant of why I'm not taking the route.
Now all that's left is, and feel free to pick one:
Malice: This ruins it for the people who'd genuinely give enough of a damn to actually try and help.
Idiocy: I explained why the excuse is ineffective. If you wish to ignore that, well...
Hypocracy: So you're sitting there expecting me to do something you're unwilling to do yourself, and unable to live up to the standards you're seeking out of me?
Genuine desire to help, and (hopefully) the willnigness to back it up: Bless you, you're a credit to the gaming world.
Still, even if I did create my own game, it'd make an impact, how now? You don't know? And you're expecting me to?
One game isn't likely to change everything, or much of anything.
Invariably, voting with one's wallet comes to the conversation.
1: I don't believe there's enough people doing that to make the game industry care, despite massive layoffs, shutdowns, buyouts, and the industry generally becoming far smaller than it once was.
2: Considering my feelings of alienation towards the game industry aren't new here, it's very well possible, IMO, that people have been "voting with their wallets" for more female protagonists since the girl power 90's era ended, and when female protagonists dried up for futuer releases. Hence the industry falling in hard times.
Now, I'm anticipating a few questions.
Q: Do you play as guys?
A: Yes. Sometimes I even enjoy it, but most of the time, I just have hobbes choice. Play as a guy, or don't game.
Q: Why do you want to play as a girl?
A: Because I am one, and I could enjoy the change in perspective/writing.
Q: I'm a guy and can play as a girl why can't you play as a guy?
A: I'd say you can play as a girl because it's a rare luxury and can go back to your default guys any time and have the comforts of playign as your own gender. I want to play as a girl as it is my gender, but it's a rare luxury, and I'm tired of playing as default guys which isn't my preferrence largely due to them being bland, and overabundant.
I-frikking-e: http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/06/22/the-devolution-of-character-designs
In other words, I want variety for guys, too. If I pretty much -have- to be a guy or practically never game, then they'd better frikking be interesting!
Of course, I expect someone to come up with a list that dates back to the dawn of gaming for female protagonists, so I'll address that now.
Do realize that list includes every expensive system, and a lot of expensive games. I'm not made of money.
It's kind of absurd to expect every gamer that wants to play as a female character to buy so many systems, and track down the games when most gamers only look to the future.
Do realize that that list is in no way reassuring of the future of the industry in terms of female protagonists.
Even with things brightening up a bit, I still have much reason to worry about the future of women in videogames... and that's just in the digital world.
One thing puzzles me, though. People like to point out her video use, her wardrobe, her methods, kickstarter, etc. and I gotta wonder... what does that have to do with anything towards the point of female representation she's trying to make? To me, the person making the point, and the point are not the same thing.
/rant
