The opposite of feminism in gaming?

[JellySlimerMan]

I will just post this here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat/videos?view=0

Aaaaaaaaand this one:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GirlWritesWhat

And no, telling me that "anyone can edit that wiki" isn't a valid criticism. After all, Anita uses it the same wiki as well and she is a "professional", right?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/FeministFrequency

 

[Rebel_Raven]

[snips]
Simply put it'd prove that male protagonists have that decision made against them, too. But you can't, or won't provide such evidence. This means that the decision is leveled against female heroes exclusively. Hence the decision is made based on SEX, and thus SEXism.
Until male and female representation can stack up equally in terms of problems, there's no equality.
Until female representation is looked at in the same light as male representation, there's no equality.
And the way I see it, things are heavily unequal on the female sex.

Until men can have babies there will be no equality! No. This is silly.

I would like to thank you sincerely for your insight into the female perspective. You've helped me to bridge the gap I was grappling with in trying to come to grips with why females are under represented in the game industry.

I've been pushing for more female inclusion, and insisting that females were not being oppressed. I see oppression as an act that unfairly takes the labor or lives of a subset of people and does not give them a fair reward.

My position is that since no one is preventing women from being in the game industry, and that what few women do make a job of game development find it as difficult and rewarding as men do, that women aren't being oppressed.

However, after further examination, and careful consideration of your response I think I see the issue far more clearly now.

Well, I'm glad I could shed some light on the issue.

The burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary Evidence. That decisions are being based on gender alone is an unproven claim. If the decisions are not based on gender but on other criteria, it's not sexist.

1: First off, you again? Didn't we agree to stop this the last time we went around a few pages ago since none of us could change the other's opinions? We made our points. I thought it was over. I was glad it was over, honestly.
Am I that fun to argue with? Are you bored?

Please don't think we can't change each other's minds, you've caused many changes in my mind, and I change yours even if only in a small way when you understand these words. I do find you interesting to debate with, and, no, you're not boring at all, quite the opposite is true.

I'm just saying that we shouldn't shame the entire game industry. Perhaps go after individual instances of sexism that there is evidence for? How do you think we could engage the publishers that are being sexist? For the more general female representation issue I think there is another problem than just sexist publishers...

Fair enough, and you did get me thinking some, but it was on off topic points more than anything. things I'm not really here in this thread to talk about. Points that may well be important, but they aren't part of the topic at hand.

I never said I was boring to debate with. It just the simple fact that I've had a lot of people argue with me out of boredom on their part. They didn't really care about the subject.

Honestly my opinion on the gaming industry in general cannot be swayed until I can see a real change, or more evidence than I can produce otherwise. There's not much of an other side with me until then.
The reason why is that not every instance of this sort of thing will get reported on. It possibly will now be more likely since people are cutting suit, and speaking out, but there's no telling how often my gripes happen out of the public eye.

I'll certainly grant you that there are instances where I applaud, and respect parts of the gaming industry, like DontnoD's stand to protect Nilin from being turned into a guy, or Naugty Dog's stand to protect Ellie from being removed from the cover, but those are still related to the problem.
As easy as it might sound to lay the blame on producers who caused these incidents, there's the developers that bow to the producers and change the game on their whim.
And it's not just the producers, and developers, either. Focus groups, and the people that run them are part of the problem. Naugty Dog made that clear as did Jim in a recent video. I realize you aren't in to me relying on Jim, here, but the man makes a lot of sense to me. Market testers abuse focus groups. They taint the answer by selectively chosing people, and poison the well because of it.
All this corrpution on seemingly every level leads to a general conventional wisdom that female protagonists hurt sales among larger companies.

Of course, I haven't forgotten you, here. You're part of the gaming industry. You're a bright spot, yes, but too much of the rest of the industry stands tarnished.

Honestly, I pitched an idea, roughly, on the forum you linked, and was asked if there was any reason it has to be a female protagonist. It bothered me some that I had to justify that decision. Sure it might have come up if I specefied male protagonist, but I'm less inclined to believe it. Sure it might have been wrong place wrong time and there's probably been other times where a female protagonist was offered unquestioned. Still, it reminded me of an article I read, and ironically I can't find it despite knowing it exists.
Basically a person on a game developer team mentioned having to justify a female character, yet male characters needed no justification at all.

It sort of reminds me of an old riddle that might screw with people today.
It goes, roughly like this.
"A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies at the scene and the son is rushed to the hospital. At the hospital the surgeon looks at the boy and says "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son" .... How can this be??"

It stuck with me when I was stumped by this in my youth. Never occured to me that the answer might just be

Spoiler

The surgeon is the boy's mother. Hell I had to be corrected on it as I stumbled for answers. Sure there's multiple possible answers, but the mother was the last one on my mind.

You never did really elaborate why you picked a fight with me even though you're not opposed to female protagonists, though you did insist on me needing to convince you to make one. To which I replied that you shouldn't need convincing. I more or less said if you wanted to make one, make one. If you did there shouldn't be anyone in your way that wouldn't be in your way if there was a male protagonist instead.

I believe the reason humans have all the technology they do is because of this one instinct:
- An observation in opposition to one's belief is worth exploring.

I think we're having a back and forth because we've both observed something about the game industry that is in opposition to our belief about it. We must explore this. For Science!

I've explored the gaming industry. Honestly, there's not much of an other side to my argument. I've far more evidence to support my claim than vice versa.
I'm not saying everyone on the other side is bad, here. They might be on the other side out of ignorance of what's going on, or some intense desire to believe the problem lies elsewhere, but if my ever growing pile of links can't show them anything, then, well, I gotta start wondering.
To me, it's painfully obvious why I stand where I do, and why I can't really budge on the matter.

2: Funny how you equate pregnancy as a "problem," nevermind a problem in the videogame industry on par with being told it's not even an option.

I find your choice of words interesting. I didn't mention pregnancy as a problem, but I really wanted a female's perspective on the situation. It seems you're quite right: The "Problem" is that pregnancy in the videogame industry isn't even an option!

Spoiler

I admit that my initial statements were a bit tricky: "Until men can have babies there will be no equality! No. This is silly." This is a rhetorical device I use to get people thinking about something deeply; I call this a Quantum Entangled Ironic Pairing.

The construction is thus: Two possibly related statements where the second is ambiguous and may be taken as in reference to the first or to some other statement ('male pregnancy is silly' vs 'your statements are silly'); The first statement can be taken as ironic or not ironic (male pregnancy being a requirement for gender equality). This has a good chance of causing high cognitive load because the ironic superposition can not be collapsed to determine if the statements were being serious or not without additional information. Ambiguity of the second increases the potency of the first without collapsing the quantum ironic field. The effect is proportional to the degree of difference in ridiculousness and seriousness when considered true vs false.

I'm sorry for being a bit tricky, but I think it was important since it was the primary rhetorical device you latched onto.

I was half joking in that it would be silly to think we can't have equal rights if only women have babies, but I was also serious in that having babies is the cause of many equality issues and the primary cause of gender roles. Pregnancy issues are also most important to the deepest levels of our ancient minds.

The reason I went the way I did in seeing your mention of pregnancy is because I was talking about problems in specefic in videogame equality, and focusing on that. Bringing pregnancy up was akin to relating it to relating it to problems of equality in the gaming industry.

As important as equality is outside of videogame industry can be, and the topic being worth talking about, it's not what I was getting at. I've noticed several talks in my history of forum going (not necessarily this forum) get derailed as people bring other areas of equality in to question that are not related, at all, to the topic. You'll have to pardon me if I want to focus on videogames specefically, and trying to avoid a subject change. I don't want this topic getting out of focus.

And it's not like science isn't already working on a way for men to get pregnant, or at least theorizing about it. Wikipedia is a decent start on the whole topic if you're -really- interested.

Indeed. Stem cell research is amazing too. Some day the poor folks with gender dissonance may actually get fully functional sexual organs with their sex change operations. Retroviruses can even change a person's DNA and allow them to produce proper hormones naturally. This is beside the point, however. The important thing is that we started thinking about the issue of parenting in relation to the game industry.

Well, strangely enough, I think parenting is being tackled a bit more in the gaming industry thanks to The Walking Dead (tell tale Games version), Amy, The Last of Us, and Skyrim, Heavy Rain, and the Sims just to name a few. Granted it's a bit rare that we tackle biological relationships in parenting, but I feel like we're getting closer to it thanks to games that seemingly revolve around taking up the protection of a child from one end of the game to the other, or even the subject getting attention.

Pregnancy, as you said, is not getting so much attention in videogames. It'd be interesting seeing a game revolve around it for a bit, though.

Further, I'm certainly not trying to make men pregnant by a long shot even if it -was- relevant to the topic at hand.
I only looked it up since you brought it up. If a guy wants to get pregnant that's on him.

Interesting point. Isn't the fact that men in the game industry don't get pregnant VERY relevant to this topic? What would change in the game industry if half those men did get pregnant? Which is another way of saying: What would be the implication of having an equal 50/50 women and men percentage among workers in the game industry?

[/quote]
It's possible that pregnancy could have impacted society which could have impacted the game industry, but theorizing about it won't change what's going on. It's an interesting what if.

As for having a more 50/50 split of gender in the gaming industry, differing points of view would be brought up.
Things like this,
http://dgaider.tumblr.com/post/36214913229/the-female-perspective-in-game-development
would probably happen more... provided the person speaking up against the presented scenario were respected enough to be heard out.

It'd be nice if everything was 50/50, but I'm thiking it's overly optimistic. I'm not going to sit here, and say that everything absolutely must be 50/50.

3: I'm not making assumptions. It's been talked about in interviews, it's been reported, it's out there. I've linked -you- to the incidents NUMEROUS times. I'm more willing to believe it happened than it didn't happen, and you already failed to convince me it hasn't before.

The assumption I was getting at is that you seem to think the problem is caused by men, whereas I think the problem is caused by the lack of women. Being a naturally competitive male who can't have babies I just couldn't get my head around why the game industry wasn't at least half full of women (or more, since they excel in liberal arts). It's not like anyone is keeping women out of the game industry, right? They have the opportunity to work there just the same as men do. This belief is seemingly in conflict with some subconscious observations...

This is where we get to the sticky situation of questionable hiring practices, support of the idea that there should be more women in the industry, sexism in the work place, and a vast swath of obstacles against women joining the industry that, well, I'm not well prepared to talk about due to the immensity of the whole thing. That said I'm not going to jump into it like I know what's going on. I don't have a myriad of links behind this.

And again, I'm not saying men are the cause of the problem. I don't know how many female producers there are out there, nor if any ever stood in the way of a female protagonist, and I'm not saying they'd never do it. I'm not saying all men are responsible, or if any of them are. If it's largely, or exclusively men that are behind my gripes, that's just coincidental. As I stated before, I'm leveling my accusations against the industry as a whole (though there are a few respectable bits, they're the exception, not the rule), regardless of gender of the person that caused the problem.

Women -are- facing problems differing, and I feel are more numerous, from men IN THE VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY... Which really has little to do with pregnancy. Few games even touch pregnancy, and I'm okay with that.

I always take notice where people use words like "I feel". The wisdom of feelings is underrated among most rational thinkers, but not me. People who ignore feelings and only focus on logic are fools. Feelings are our earliest and strongest memories, encoded in our genes through evolution. Feelings are inherently rational because evolution found the emotional responses to be beneficial far more often than not, i.e., feelings are statistically significant subconscious reasoning which must be taken as seriously as logic to achieve maximum progress.

Note: I'm over explaining my thought processes not because I think them important to you, but for the benefit of any who might read this not thinking emotions have any place in logical decision making.

I know you meant to distinguish videogame industry from the romance novel industry, but what's more important is the fact you capitalized the words. This is an indication of emotionally charged words -- Emotions are how our ancestor's genetic imperatives make themselves known to us. Our feelings are the wisdom of the ancient ones who first felt them, and they were handed down to us from one generation to the next over millions of years. Feelings are the birthright of all humans.

I definitely agree with you on the view of the use of "I feel."
I would like to add my view in that it's less hostile, and that it makes it clear that it's the opinion of the person using the 2 words.

I'm just a bit defensive over being dragged into another topic that's off topic. That's all.

So you really went out there on this one. Zoomed way out of the point. Are we even on the same topic? I'm trying to stay rational, and focused on videogames, and here you are ... doing what you're doing.

Well, I apologize. I assure you I'm being sincere with you. Sometimes you have to cast a wide net and see what turns up. The teapot alien was a reference to a famous logical argument first made by Bertrand Russell [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot]. Although I seem silly sometimes, it's just a ruse; I actually take you very seriously because women can think in ways that are hard for me to consider. I rely on women for a woman's perspective because it's usually a different outlook than my own. It's not sexist, it's just human nature because of our sexually dimorphic ancestry -- We share a common ancestor with chimps at about six million years ago. We were once as they are now: A territorial tournament species where males compete with each other to win mates, and females value the social status of males when considering mates... We're very different now, but those instincts are still with us in the back of our minds, literally: thalamus and amygdala, esp.

Considering a female perspective, it seems there could be a problem with the territory of the video game industry that women might feel strongly about.

I know you're trying to take it seriously, and I'm well aware the perspectives of men, and women differ due to a lot of reasons. What's important is that we be open to the points of views of others. It sounds strange, I know, considering I'm the one that's saying it, and here I stand unwaivering in the firm belief I'm right, but I'm not seeing proof otherwise. Or even evidence. Sure, people provide numerous excuses, but those excuses don't really mean anything to me anymore, and so long as those excuses can be used, they will be used, and things will be hard pressed to change.

If he doesn't want to believe, and it's become really obvious I don't agree with him, it's time to pack it up, and move on. Find someone else that might be more agreeable. Here's some advice. Learn from history, and do the same.

So that got me thinking about history, and specifically about women entering predominantly male workplaces, and the implications that entails; I went looking for similarities to the game industry.

Because Feminism has its roots in communism it trains us to focus on fighting against those we perceive are in positions of power. However, Feminism's core flaw is that for every powerful man it spotlights as a target at the top of society, it shamefully ignores a million men at the bottom of society. Feminists typically don't cry out for equal representation in jobs at the bottom of the social ladder; They point at a glass ceiling and ignore the glass cellar upon which they stand.

Think of all the really crappy, dirty and dangerous jobs. Coal Miners, Garbage Collectors, Brick Layers, Lumber Jacks, Plumbers and Sewage Treatment Technicians, Janitors, etc. They're male dominated jobs too. Women don't typically want those jobs, but they are necessary to fill, so men do them. These jobs are hard, and largely thankless, many are so physically demanding that a woman wouldn't be advised to do the work while they were pregnant. Women can do these jobs as well as men, but our genetic wisdom causes us to instinctively protect women and children from danger at all costs -- which isn't sexist, it's survival of the species, evolution.

During the first world war women entered the workplace and filled many jobs left by the men who went to war. The women performed above and beyond the call of duty but some jobs like factory work were dangerous and hard. Factory work had always been dangerous, but it wasn't until women entered those positions that we demanded higher workplace safety standards, and won better workers rights for both men and women factory workers through our ancient and wise instinct to protect women...

The thing is, I don't see myself as a feminist. I don't see myself as much of any -ist. Sure my views on the gaming industry sync up with feminist views a bit. Not entirely mind you, but they do sync up some.

Bringing feminism to the conversation is kinda lost on me. All I really know is it gets a bad rap thanks to extremists, and not everyone is an extremist in the feminist movement, and that pursued properly it can be a good thing.

Yes, it's natural to want to protect women, and children. Our evolution demanded it. Yes, it did lead to some good things.
Still, there comes a time where women, and children don't want to be protected. Examples where that protection is not healthy.
I feel that the videogame industry is one of those examples where the protection of women is less than healthy. Yes, Mortal Kombat fatalities against the female combatants make me squirm a bit more than they do vs the guys, and I definitely didn't relish seeing the results of a failed quicktime event in Tomb Raider, and it's annoying when a female gets killed off for seemingly no reason (I.E. a big bad guy you're going to kill anyhow kills her just coz she's there) but I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, either. These sorts of things happen to male characters, too. Still, I can critcise when I feel it's done in poor taste, or too often.

Women want the representation, and those that do, I hope, are prepared to take the good and the bad with it. I know I am. Bad writing, shallow characters, bad gameplay mechanics, violence, and death scenes, and so forth are these things I'm prepared for in exchange for seeing more female protagonists, and being treated with respect, and given agency, and depth, and be treated similarly as the male protagonists, and all the other positives that should come with the exchange.

I'm just a person looking at the game industry, taking an interest in it, formulating an opinion based off of aquired data, accumulating more data, and going with it until there's evidence otherwise. I'm doing this as a person trying to do something I perceive as right, and I do take some bonus comfort in that it's a fight that could lead to good for others.
That said, I'll support those who I agree with, and if they happen to be feminists, then that's just coincidence, and even then I reserve the privillege to not agree with everything they say on the matter.

- http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7qDd2i/www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-03-28-bioware-female-characters-will-follow-commercial-success. Again a link which proves nothing. It merely talks about "accepted wisdom". It doesn't prove said wisdom is wrong.

It talks about the mentality a lot of producers have. They won't support female protagonists only games until it has a financial success.

Problem is, it's not likely to happen because virtually every game made by major industry names is made to sell in the millions, and be AAA, and they simply won't support the games with female protagonists they put out setting themselves up for failure.

Well, I think that if there were more female game developers and producers then the problem would just solve itself. So, why is it that there aren't many women game developers? Women and men are on equal footing when it comes to being clever and creative.

Again this is where a lot of things factor in that are both in, and out of the control of women.
Shady hiring practices, sexism in the work place, social pressures/influences, work preferrences, feeling qualified, and other obstacles. It's a giant can of worms to say the least.
Still, I am not going to pretend this isn't changing, and I'm not going to pretend the change will be quick.

Still, the key thing here is that it's the jobs of the people, men, and women alike, in the game industry to provide videogames. Like pretty much any industry, if people don't like what the industry is doing, those people can criticize freely.
The expectation for a critic to undergo a radical lifestyle change just to fix the problem themselves can be quite unrealistic at times, and that expectation needs to be handled, and presented responsibly.

Am I saying women don't like male protagonists? Of course not. I like Batman enough to buy his games now and then. I liked John Marston from Red Dead Redemption even though I couldn't relate to him at all. I like Deadpool, so I have my eye on his upcoming game.
Thing is, I'm sure sooner or later a some women playing the male protagonists, swimming in a sea of games where they have no choice but to play as a male protagonist are going to wonder "Hey, why can't I be my own gender?"
I know I did! And it was well before the internet got into full swing.

Well, men are genetically predisposed to be competitive and warrior like. If we look at the armed forces, we'll find mostly men, especially on the front lines. Art usually reflects life, even in works of fiction. I do agree that games are a different beast. Games include the player so we need to be more considerate about who the players are, and how they'll feel in the roles we script them in.

Here are some of my favorite games over the years.

Spoiler

Jill of the Jungle

You play as a strong female protagonist to rescue the helpless Prince.

Lunar - Silver Star Story - Complete (ps1)
Oh man, I LOVE this JRPG, Luna's singing made such an impression on me, she really makes this game.
The cast has plenty of important female characters, you play everyone through the course of it.

One Must Fall - Female robot pilots? Yep.

Spin Jam - Addictive puzzle game. A female boxer, super intelligent baby, even a Furry in a costume in there.

My ultimate favorite competitive arcade game: Virtual On.
Even has pink and blue seats, and both 'male' and 'female' fighting robots.

Two female characters on the cover. It's been over a decade since I played it so I don't remember the names, but the dark armored women dragoon was my best and favorite character.

Damn that's a big hammer.

Super Puzzle Fighter 2 (turbo) -- Also Streetfighter, and Mortal Kombat, female characters. Darksiders, etc.

I didn't cherry pick, these were the first games that my random-game-selector program spit out from among my favorites collection (excluding a couple ASCII text games like LoRD and Zork). The full list has plenty of 8 bit and 16 bit and modern AAA games and indie games too... I could go on, and on, but I'd say at the very least half of the games have a female protagonists or female playable characters, most have at least strong female characters, and the rest are split between a single male lead or just don't have humans.

Maybe that just says something about me and the games I like to play? I never really wondered why I couldn't play as the prince in Jill of the Jungle. Don't get me wrong, I agree there need to be more females in games, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the game industry I know being overtly sexist against females. That's not to say some publishers aren't discriminating, but I just think it's possible there could be some other explanations too since in the past the industry was even more heavily saturated with male game developers, and they didn't seem to have a problem with females in games.

Lets not forget that in reality women are trying to get front line work in the military in the US (one of the most recent lawsuits comes to mind), and may well have gotten it in other cultures, and it's not just a 2013 thing. History has assorted mentions of the rare woman on the front lines, fighting, and generally being the more or less typical guy history writes about aside from being a guy.
Shaka Zulu had a group of them, the women of russia who served as snipers during the wars, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Ching Shih, and here's a short list http://listverse.com/2008/03/17/top-10-badass-female-warriors/
and another: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_piracy

Then there's women in boxing that take is seriously, there's female MMA compeditors (one known for breaking an arm by the name of Ronda Rousey), and I'll likely get criticised for bringing it up, but Female wrestlers in professional Wrestling which is a physically demanding job with opportunity for injury, such as having seen broken noses, bleeding, and so forth, and that's just in the western world. Japan's women's division of pro wrestling (known as Joshi) can get pretty wild. Then there's the women in roller derbies.
Just a handful of modern interpretations of women who are warrior-like, and compeditive.

These women exist, genetic predisposition be damned.

I know you're not saying they don't exist. I'm just saying, they do.

As for favorite games, I've a list of my own that stretches back to the point that I don't even know where to begin, and it's a bit clouded because of the simple fact that I'm willing to overlook a lot for the opportunity to play as a female character. I'm not saying female protagonists don't exist, and have never existed, I'm just saying they're annoyingly rare, and as you've aknowledge, being discriminated against.
It's not as bad with indie games. They tend to not have to go through the red tape major games do to get out there.
Games in the past didn't really have to contend with focus testers, and such things that created the conventional wisdom that female protagonists don't sell.

Bluntly, I'd say the reason you don't ever wonder why you don't get to be the prince in Jill of the Jungle, and the sort is the simple fact that you can have that outlet easily in many other games. Male protagonists are bountiful, and from all walks of life, and constantly appearing.

When romance novels are actively saying "no" and try to interfere with a writer's desire to make a male PoV romance novel, and oppress the art of it, then YES, that's SEXISM. And like the gaming industry, I don't care -why- it happens, it's happening, and it's wrong.

Well, IMO, a few 'No's wouldn't necessarily mean folks were being sexist. It would have to be a repeated theme of a studio, not a bunch of different examples from different studios. We'd need to do a survey of the number of times someone wanted to put strong female characters / protagonists into games vs the number of times they were denied. Maybe such a thing could be proposed? I wouldn't know who to contact, maybe someone at GDC [http://www.gdconf.com/] could run such an anonymous survey? Oddly, I feel they'd actually be more receptive if it were a woman asking them to do it.

It's not so much individual instances of the discrimination, rather how often those individual appearances happen, and what impact they have on the industry. And the way I see it, it's lead to an impact bad enough that female protagonists are being discriminated against because they're female.

A survey could work, but it I gotta wonder how honest a person would, or could be, or if any of the people who could shed light on the matter could even be contacted. It'd be a heck of a study considering the number of sources they'd have to approach. I'll see what I can do. I highly encourage that anyone reading this does the same. I'd really rather not fight alone here. It'll likely take more than one request to get anything going.

And, to me, it doesn't matter how many, or how oft it happens, be it in romance novels, or videogames, I'd want their ideas to happen. I'd like them to not have people in their way.

Again, I've linked you to many examples the last time we talked. Way to ignore them! Female protagonists, and the people who want to create them -are- being oppressed.

Oh, I didn't ignore them. I just didn't comment about them specifically. I'd need an actual study before I start calling people sexist outright, because libel laws could be used against me and false accusations could kill my software business and livelihood. It's not that I think you're wrong, just that I don't know either way, so I'm trying to focus on finding a safe solution.

Game devs always want to put more stuff in games than they have time for, there's never enough time, bugs always get left in, features always get cut. In fact, they have to work like mad, sometimes for months at a time 7 days a week, 80+ hours a week, it really sucks!

I'm well aware of that situation. Imagine if the guy from DontnoD outted people? It's part of the reason I worry for a survey being taken.

Safe solution? It's kinda difficult. It's easy to say "get in the industry and change things." Even if women get in the industry more, there's more to it than that. Pretending it's just that easy is ludicrous. If it was just that easy, we'd probably not be here talking about this matter.

Also, thanks for the link. I had NO idea this existed, and am looking into it. Instead of bludgeoning me over the head with nonsense, you could've lead with that, and been much more helpful!

You may also enjoy the gamedev subreddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/], and especially check the side bar for engines, resources, and other communities. Good place to ask questions about gamedev problems, programming bugs, mechanics and story, or just to engage the game dev community and ask them to put some strong female roles in their games.

Gamedev.net [http://www.gamedev.net/page/getstarted.html] is decent, but they can be pretty abrasive at times, it's not a gender thing but a pompous "know-it-all" thing; They're getting better.

Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/] has lots of in-depth articles by industry veterans.

I appreciate the links, but keep in mind I'm not cut out for creating games. Still, they might be helpful to others who see this post, so I do appreciate them greatly.

Not everyone has a solid internet connection, the drive to keep their fingers on the pulse of gaming, cable, the care to see what's going on at events like the GDC, or E3. The most information they might get is word of mouth in person, or television.

Hmm, you might check out ScreenShotSaturday.com [http://screenshotsaturday.com/] they pull from twitter's #screenshotsaturday and reddit has a dedicated thread once a week on saturday to show off progress and get a bit of attention. If you give feedback it's always appreciated.

Rock Paper Shotgun [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/] does a weekly summary of select interesting indie's (usually) and Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/] picks up on things from #screenshotsaturday sometimes too. Of course folks can just hit up #screenshotsaturday on Twitter [https://twitter.com/search?q=%23screenshotsaturday] directly. IMO, indies are probably most receptive and are going to take over everything anyway now that publishers are obsolete: Publishers don't add any value to the game, really, and we can now fund game devs directly via Kickstarer or Indiegogo [http://www.indiegogo.com/], etc. I think croudfunding is a better model because it gives gamers a chance to give feedback on the games during development, and the projects that don't get funded are just crappy games that no one would buy anyway (so devs don't waste time making crap games). Kickstarter is basically free advertizing and market research, sooo, yeah, I think traditional publishers are going to have a hard time keeping up as this stuff snowballs. MS better wise up.

The point is: It's an exciting time for gamers. There's tons of opportunity. A Girl Gamedev Group could really kick some ass, IMO.

I think you missed the mark there. I do appreciate the links, but the context of that was more in looking out for the people who get their gaming news primarily off television commercials, and not necessarily even off of cable.
If marketing never reaches those people, sales will hurt because of it.
Not everyone pays a huge amount of attention to the gaming industry, either. They mostly just see what advertisement gets put out there that's easy to see.

Essentially, yes, I am saying the game industry is blaming a game's failing on the female protagonist regardless of anything else. That whole "conventional wisdom" thing, the links that state that some producers are actively against female protagonists, the dearth of female protagonists in general, the lack of agency the female protagonists get, and such do point towards the conclusion as far as I'm concerned. If not, it may as well be for all the good it's doing.
If it did not exist, then a female protagonist would not be singled out for change, would it? If you want evidence that they are being singled out, look a few pages back, will ya?

Speaking of being singled out, maybe those publishers or studios need to be singled out. I think petitioning them to get more women in their ranks and on the covers of the game would help. If nothing else it could show them how many gamer girls and guys actually do want to play female protagonists. Even an open letter endorsed by a bunch of folks might turn the heads of those greedy bastards. Really, their market research is so bad and they're so stupidly secret about everything that they don't have a good dialog with gamers -- I think they've still got a dumb view of the game industry from the 90's where the playerbase WAS just a sausage fest.... but they managed to get good female roles in a good portion of the games I played back then, so it all just seems odd to me.

Of course the people in the game industry, and possibly even entire companies in the gaming industry need to be singled out. The problem is, who's going to have the power to single them out? The ability to investigate them all, and the ability to not be ruined for outting them?

And, yes, a lot of the tainted info the industry gets has a hand in the problem female protagonsits face.
I don't think it's entirely old views. Newer views like asking all the wrong people too often has a hand in the modern additions to the mentality.

And, it's true some women managed to become the heroes of their own games in the past, and present. The thing is obstacles only female protagonist seem to face are coming to light recently which is really making people wonder if there couldn't have been more of them, and wonder how many more aren't being given a chance.

And, now, the whole thing about why I'm not making my own game, even though I've been over this with several other people in this very thread:

Do you really belive I have the talent to do such a thing? You don't know me, my talents, or my skills, where I am, my financial situation, my resources for videogame making, my connections to people with the talent, etc.
My laptop is sub-ar (a 4.1 rating on windows, and through experience with it), I don't know anyone with the artistic talent to make videogame graphics, I don't have the financial income, I don't grasp code all too well, and I don't even have a clear vision of what I want!

If I were to make a game, yes, I'd want the game to be amazing, and mold breaking. Infact I'd want it to be -amazing-, and AAA worthy.

Yeah, but I think you're underestimating yourself. If you did have time to make a game you probably could. Folks have to work up to AAA levels over time, so my advice to folks just starting out is always to start with something very small and simple first and make the next game a bit bigger and make a series of increasingly more challenging to create projects. Going all in on something huge is usually folly unless you've got some veterans on the team. Collaboration threads on TIGSource are a good place to find folks with art or music or programming skills, even folks just looking to do stuff to get experience. There's also classifieds on gamedev.net.

I've got a 6 year old laptop that I use for playtesting games as my 'minimum system requirement' rig. Since my code is cross platform (linux,mac,windows) I sometimes do some quick coding [http://www.geany.org/Download/Releases] and compiling [http://www.mingw.org/] and even 3D modeling [http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/] on it instead of going back and forth between my main dev machine. It doesn't take a beastly machine to make even moderately demanding games. Hell, the current gen consoles are pretty craptacular compared to even an older PC.

Everyone has to start somewhere, I always start with tetris when I pick up a new programming language, it's got all the very basics covered (input, animation, sound, etc). Once I've got the tools all working and the bases covered, I just start over and experiment with stuff and see if something fun comes out. Lots of games, like Portal, started out as just an abstract accidental experimental mechanic and then everything grows organically from that. "Portal Engine" was a whole class of game engines from the 90's, a rendering technique for connecting areas without noticeable seams, but in Portal the game (then Narbacular Drop) they just tried to use the rendering engine feature as an actual game mechanic...

I really don't think I'm underestimating myself. I appreciate the supportive attitude, and links, but again, the realities against me making my own game are pretty monumental.

Making a small game with a female protagonist that doesn't have an impact is far and away from the goals I'd have. I'd have to go all in to meet my goal. I'd have to have resources well, and truely out of my grasp on every level.
Making a game while ignoring my goal is distasteful to me. It wouldn't have my drive, or passion. I have to do what I want, or it won't even have myself as a full supporter.

Also, the reason consoles are craptacular is because there's less demands on a Console than a PC by and large. It can be less powerful because it's more focused. It's why I prefer consoles. I pop in a disc, or boot up a downloaded game, and I don't have to worry about it at all. I don't have to defrag, optimize, worry about viruses, and such. It's just more reliable with less maintenance.

I aknowledge that Pc has a massive amount of advantages thanks to modding communities, and so forth, but my laptop can barely run warframe, or vindictus. Hell, an android emulator bogged it down.

IMO, used in malice too often, the whole notion of one "making your own game" can become tarnished, seen as a cop-out, and used as a weapon by people defending the status quo for what ever reason to silence the people who speak out against the game industry.

Like I did, LuisGuimaraes who took note of our debate, I thank you, too, for actually giving some help in the matter as opposed to basically telling me to make my own game and leaving me at that... even though you essentially did that last time we debated the matter.
Honestly, like gamejams I had no idea something like this link existed, period. To the point that I didn't even consider looking for it, nevermind how to look for it.

Still, I've so many real reasons I can't make my own game that I can't list them all off the top of my head, but thanks to you, I can offer some help to others in the matter. I do appreciate it.

Then I got to thinking: What sorts of problems would keep women from becoming game developers? The fact that Men Don't Get Pregnant! Or, more specifically: Women Do. I think that's the core of the problem right there. The AAA game industry mostly SUCKS to work in for Everyone! [http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html] Just like the dangerous and difficult factory jobs before there were any women factory workers, game developers have really bad working conditions!

Humanity's ancestors were territorial. Our feelings inform us what areas feel safe, and also warn us to leave a place if there's some sort of danger or when we're doing things that are stressing us out too badly. First and foremost our instincts uphold that prime directive: Protect Women and Children. Procreation is what matters most to our hind-brains.

I believed that women had just as fair a shot at making games as men do in the AAA game industry, but my subconscious observed some contradiction that was worth exploring -- A fact I knew that just didn't match up with my belief. My feeling that things are more complex than simple sexism stems from the fact that the game industry is a hostile working environment for raising kids.

I think the ultimate solution to the problem of female representation in games would be to make the working conditions in AAA games better for family life and more friendly for female (and male) game developers: Publishers have to stop the crap that is "crunch time". I'm sure the publishers know how planning works [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy]. The Publishers are being oppressive pricks... Right? The folks making the games are working really hard, but they're not getting the benefit of a safe and comfortable worklife, or job security. Because of the way Publishers take big gambles with the future of the studios it's destroying the game industry with worker churn, and driving down the pay grade as well. Crunch time isn't really needed, they just cut production costs so damn close that it makes their budgets too tight. IMO, game devs need a union.

If you keep pulling the kind of shit that Publishers get away with in any other business, then all the workers will revolt or leave. Why would anyone agree to work under these horrible conditions? Because the bright light of interactive art draws humanity like moths to a flame. Every new expressive communicative power has had the same effect in the past. Right now if you want to make the biggest boldest brainiest games, and contribute to the active cultural mind (as opposed to the ancestral one), then folks have to put up with the crap the Publishers dish out. That needs to change.

To me it seems everything wrong between women and the game industry actually does have to do with pregnancy and raising kids. No doctor in their right mind would agree that a pregnant women should work under those conditions. Women can't just take off for 9 months because the job is needlessly stressful. The sad thing is, overworked folks perform like shit [http://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer]. Having well rested folks would probably increase their productivity rather than pushing people so hard like they do in "crunch time". It's almost like they want to get every last drop of energy out so folks will be glad when they get laid off after the game is done...

To fix the problem with representation of women in games, we might have to advocate for those mens' rights first. We need to pressure publishers to stop being slave drivers! I'm not sure how to make that happen, but maybe we could point out the fact that their workplace is so hostile that no sensible women could justify it as a career if she ever plans to have kids. If it's destroying the family-lives of men, it would be even worse for women: I mean, it would be nearly impossible for a single mother to work those crunch-time hours.

[/quote]
I can't really argue there. Abhorrent work conditions are abhorrent work conditions, and the problems should be rectified regardless of getting in more female protagonists, or not.

Still, there are women in the industry, and there are guys who can write a worthwhile female protagonist. The fact that when they try to get female protagonists out they meet resistance in the process is still there. The lack of women in the industry isn't really an excuse either. Simply put the obstacles a female protagonist faces needs to be the same as a male protagonist.

 

[VortexCortex]

We need to pressure publishers to stop being slave drivers! I'm not sure how to make that happen, but maybe we could point out the fact that their workplace is so hostile that no sensible women could justify it as a career if she ever plans to have kids. If it's destroying the family-lives of men, it would be even worse for women: I mean, it would be nearly impossible for a single mother to work those crunch-time hours.

I can't really argue there. Abhorrent work conditions are abhorrent work conditions, and the problems should be rectified regardless of getting in more female protagonists, or not.

Still, there are women in the industry, and there are guys who can write a worthwhile female protagonist. The fact that when they try to get female protagonists out they meet resistance in the process is still there. The lack of women in the industry isn't really an excuse either. Simply put the obstacles a female protagonist faces needs to be the same as a male protagonist.

I agree with almost everything you said. I brought up feminism because it's the thread topic, and yeah, the links and advice about game making are for everyone. To summarize for those who skipped passed mountainous walls of text:

I don't excuse the problems developers face when trying to get female protagonists in games. I think some type of anonymous survey of registered game developers, like at GDC, could be a very useful tool for folks to use when they feel females are underrepresented in games. Anonymity would help a bit to shield folks from worry over their employer's opinion of them. You posted links to folks who were willing to speak about the issue. There could be a lot more folks who are afraid to speak out for fear of losing their job, but would give their opinion openly in a survey.

Engaging the developers is only one part of the problem. The other is showing the publishers that gamers want those female characters, I think they do. I even like stories that go into issues that are female focused, because it tells me more about the fascinating females. The only tool I can think of is a petition. Publishers don't like to take risks with their money, just with their developer's jobs (hence: stagnant gameplay retreads); So, lessening their fear of investment in female centered games could be helpful.

I think we need to treat the games equally as an industry and an artform, like movies are; This seems to be happening, just not nearly fast enough. To end the crunch time nonsense and make the industry a sane choice of profession for women and men who value families we need look no further than The Planning Fallacy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy]

The planning fallacy is a tendency for people and organizations to underestimate how long they will need to complete a task, even when they have experience of similar tasks over-running. ... [The] effect has been found for predictions of a wide variety of tasks, including tax form completion, school work, furniture assembly, computer programming and origami. In 2003, Lovallo and Kahneman proposed an expanded definition as the tendency to underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions and at the same time overestimate the benefits of the same actions. According to this definition, the planning fallacy results in not only time overruns, but also cost overruns and benefit shortfalls. The bias only affects predictions about one's own tasks; when uninvolved observers predict task completion times, they show a pessimistic bias, overestimating the time taken.

Instead of relying solely on the game studios for their schedule planning there needs to be input from objective uninvolved observers. This could greatly lessen the last minute rush. Combined with well rested developers that research shows won't waste as much time fixing bugs because they won't create them in the first place, I think the "crunch-time" problem could be solved. Someone's got to stand up for the game developers against the publishers. Calling the Publishers out over creating a needlessly strenuous and unhealthy work environment, especially for women, might have a chance.

The systemic requirement of game developers to sacrifice family life for the job is ridiculous and unfair. Less employee turn-over means more efficient developers for the next project. Say you're a great game developer in the current industry: If it's too hard to have a family then we all lose the brightest most experienced veterans before their prime when they rightly prioritize passing on their creative genes above grinding themselves in the game industry's gears.

Whatever it takes to get there, I think ending crunch-time will be required to finally win equality among women and men in games.

Lastly, to those who decide more by feelings: Keep the Wizard's Rules in mind; Especially the Wizard's First Rule: "People will believe anything if they fear it to be true." Don't let this powerful magic be worked against you.

To the more rationally minded ones: Feelings must be harnessed if you are to ever take advantage of your whole mind. We must use the force of our emotions and search our feelings while applying logic, for this is the way of the Jedi.