So women in games. Kind of a hot button if I ever knew one. One aspect about it is that is is often framed as people outside of gameing coming in and pointing out problems. (It's not always this way, but that is the feeling that seems to pop up most of the time.) Now my idea is to just flip that. We are gammers here, so what problems/eye rolling bits have we noticed that we might like to see addressed?
My kind of pet peeve is the Women=Dex/Magic Men=Str/Con trope. It's not always always present, but it shows up often enough that the exceptions are note worthy. (Fable 2.) It's kind of annoying because if you want to play a female character, your kind of locked into these fineness gameplay styles and game after game that can get annoying. (The fip side of it is that if you like fineness gameplay, you're often pushed into playing women.) This trope just bugs me.
I tend to play historical games. If anything, having women shoehorned in annoys me. Like having female Napoleonic Soldiers everywhere for example. Or having female ww2 pilots etc.
At the end of the day, it does little to change the games I play aside from the look and realisticness, but in other games I can think of that I play not based off history I cant think of too many where its a problem.
The better games let you play any class with any sex.
Not usually a problem unless it is a limited hand-held game.
My problem with how women are represented in games is that they should be equally mixed in all the roles.
Like anything you see of a "group" that has been or feels repressed or messed with in general "over adjustment" can occur and suddenly the shoe is on the other foot and the opposite group is now at a disadvantage.
Treat it all like the question of gender does not matter and we may have a little more equality and peace.
The people who speak the loudest tend to be the ones who would have the least amount of fairness and empathy if the scales equalize: there is typically a "payback" period.
Its hard to treat this as gender doesnt matter, because every single aspect of a movie or game is designed. A character is female, for a reason. The type of gun used, is used for a reason. Its all meant to be a well thought out and planned thing. So treating gender like it doesnt matter, is impossible to do, when having a female character is a design choice.
Unless im missing something in how media is designed.
My biggest gripe is the token-ness and predictability of many female characters in a lot of action games. Like that chick from Gears of War. She spent what, like two games as the proverbial "only woman in the galaxy" cause... well cause. She's pretty much only there to remind you women exist and to look pretty.
Kat in DMC, Anya in GoW 1-2, Amy in Sonic (until they got around to adding Rouge, which really, not an improvement), and while there were other women in Dishonored, what exactly is Callista but your sexy secretary? I mean, just about anyone else could have done her job, except they decided there wasn't a mature woman in the game past the first few minutes and just forked her into it.
And as to predictability, well... Kat, basically your secretary. Anya, your secretary. Callista, your secretary. I like Cortanna, but she's still kind of your secretary. These characters could be completely absent and the story wouldn't really miss them (well, someone would have to do Cortana's job, cause Chief really did need someone to handle his appointment book) and I kind of find their presence an insult to my intelligence. Video games are not action movies, the husband isn't going to convince the wife to sit down with him and watch him play some Halo just cause you threw a woman into the story are the closest available vacancy.
Yeah token females who are essentially just your secretary eye candy have kind of gotten old. Bayonetta at least mixed it up
Swastakowey wrote: Its hard to treat this as gender doesnt matter, because every single aspect of a movie or game is designed. A character is female, for a reason. The type of gun used, is used for a reason. Its all meant to be a well thought out and planned thing. So treating gender like it doesnt matter, is impossible to do, when having a female character is a design choice.
Unless im missing something in how media is designed.
See how you treat women and men in your day to day life.
How do you treat either of them different?
A woman at my work acts all flirty and it gives her a real advantage getting the guys to do things for her.
It drives her nuts that I treat her no better (possibly less due to the intentional manipulation).
When I met my wife we were working at a pretty hard job, the one guy I worked with kept lifting heavy stuff up for her without even asking.
I told her if she wants help I will help, not do it for her, some of the REALLY heavy stuff I told her I will need her help so be ready.
So I got the girl by being a not quite gentleman...
The issue I have with female representation in games lies mostly around the depth of their character. It's annoying when writers have a female character whose only reason for existing is to be the love-interest/damsel-in-distress for the male lead or, if they're not the damsel-in-distress, the 2-dimensional science/medic/support character who doesn't really have much of a personality beyond "vagina lol".
The lack of female protagonists is also frustrating.
I could generally care less about appearances though. Boob window/armor or attractiveness doesn't bother me at all. Heels and headlights on the other hand, bother me immensely.
There is nowhere near enough representation of female playable characters, and in many games (both old and, sadly, new) the ones that exist are shoehorned in to "agility" or "magic" roles, and some games (like Deus Ex) actually remove the option of having them where they had it previously. Most big-name-game protagonists end up being basically skinhead whiteguys with no personality, too, so it's not like there's anything gained by this bizarre practice.
Talizvar wrote: Like anything you see of a "group" that has been or feels repressed or messed with in general "over adjustment" can occur and suddenly the shoe is on the other foot and the opposite group is now at a disadvantage.
Unless they go to physically count the number of characters and such, many people initially "feel" like a game or TV show is female-dominated when it's actually 50/50, and that there is equal representation when there are actually far more men than women.
As a result, a lot of the complaints about this particular line of thinking tend to not really have any basis in reality. I actually remember on this forum someone having a debate about whether or not a game was egalitarian vs female-dominated, where people ended up literally counting the number of characters of either gender... and it ended up fifty-fifty. Then the people who said it was female-dominated queasily began to argue "well, it certainly FELT female-dominated, I bet they got more screen time"...
Well it's not just the representation of women in games that is the issue, it's true that both genders should be playabel in most games now a days but it should also depend on the game it self as well.
For example like Swastakowey said, it wouldn't make any sense for instance to have female soldiers in a game that takes place during the Napoleonic wars since that wouldn't be historically accurate in that sense.
Both genders are in one way or another badly represented, for instance once more whit war games, it's okay to kill men but if you kill women then people will have a fit. Or that all male characters most of the time have have to have six packs and such in for example fighting games.
That being said, it's easy to some times take the focus away from the game it self and focus more on such issues as these, and well as long as games sell where one of the two genders is being portrayed in a bad way or where certain roles or things are gender locked then this trend will contiue.
My main gripes tend to be all the standard ones about character design. Boob Plate, yadda yadda. Also that we get like 4 stock female character personalities across all nerd media. Anything I'd say, you've heard it all before. My complaints are not unique.
Lately I've been trying to focus on what I do like rather than what I dislike just for my own sanity. My griping isn't going to shake up the industry and change things, so my energy is better spent on what I've think has been done well.
Like I'm willing to forgive some of the missteps in the class designs and a couple creepy plot points in Bravely Default when it comes to Edea, because we got an enjoyable character playing to an archetype that isn't one of the 4 stock female characters personalities. She felt confident and convicted without being the grating "Touch Girl" caricature. She even gets some genuine character development by the end.
I love Mass Effect, but watching Miranda run around in combat wearing high heels gets me every time. I can deal with the skin suit, fem-Shepard's boob armor, maybe even going head to head with the 1400 lbs Shadow Broker in a punching battle, but no one is going to wear heels into a combat situation.
I do kinda take issue when games treat men and women exactly the same. Like the GoW 3 women who are some how just as strong as the steroid-pumped Marcus Fenix. It's not hard to come up with plenty of combat roles where women could excel in games without turning them into token characters, sex objects, or women-just-cause. Mass Effect did it pretty well with Liara as a brilliant biotic scientist, Kasumi as a master thief, Miranda as a great leader, Jack as a crazy biotic, EDI as EDI, Samara, Ashley, Tali.
Deus Ex 3 had Faridah Malik who was a kick-ass pilot and Megan Reed who was the research director of a major corporation.
Melissia wrote: There is nowhere near enough representation of female playable characters, and in many games (both old and, sadly, new) the ones that exist are shoehorned in to "agility" or "magic" roles, and some games (like Deus Ex) actually remove the option of having them where they had it previously. Most big-name-game protagonists end up being basically skinhead whiteguys with no personality, too, so it's not like there's anything gained by this bizarre practice.
Something that really to bug me when I thought about it is that we really don't have any actually blank slate characters. Like for example it is very hard to think of a single game character that doesn't have a designated gender.
Swastakowey wrote: I tend to play historical games. If anything, having women shoehorned in annoys me. Like having female Napoleonic Soldiers everywhere for example. Or having female ww2 pilots etc.
At the end of the day, it does little to change the games I play aside from the look and realisticness, but in other games I can think of that I play not based off history I cant think of too many where its a problem.
This is the sticky wicket. Should you include women in a setting were women wouldn't be expected. It's some times gets more sticky when people some times underestimate women's presence in some fields.
LordofHats wrote: My biggest gripe is the token-ness and predictability of many female characters in a lot of action games. Like that chick from Gears of War. She spent what, like two games as the proverbial "only woman in the galaxy" cause... well cause. She's pretty much only there to remind you women exist and to look pretty.
Kat in DMC, Anya in GoW 1-2, Amy in Sonic (until they got around to adding Rouge, which really, not an improvement), and while there were other women in Dishonored, what exactly is Callista but your sexy secretary? I mean, just about anyone else could have done her job, except they decided there wasn't a mature woman in the game past the first few minutes and just forked her into it.
And as to predictability, well... Kat, basically your secretary. Anya, your secretary. Callista, your secretary. I like Cortanna, but she's still kind of your secretary. These characters could be completely absent and the story wouldn't really miss them (well, someone would have to do Cortana's job, cause Chief really did need someone to handle his appointment book) and I kind of find their presence an insult to my intelligence. Video games are not action movies, the husband isn't going to convince the wife to sit down with him and watch him play some Halo just cause you threw a woman into the story are the closest available vacancy.
Yeah token females who are essentially just your secretary eye candy have kind of gotten old. Bayonetta at least mixed it up
Tokenism is not good, but my worry is that the fear of tokenism is maybe more of a problem then tokenism itself. The solution I like is to include more women who aren't just a token jester, but some people think the solution is to just not include women.
I love Mass Effect, but watching Miranda run around in combat wearing high heels gets me every time. I can deal with the skin suit, fem-Shepard's boob armor, maybe even going head to head with the 1400 lbs Shadow Broker in a punching battle, but no one is going to wear heels into a combat situation.
I do kinda take issue when games treat men and women exactly the same. Like the GoW 3 women who are some how just as strong as the steroid-pumped Marcus Fenix. It's not hard to come up with plenty of combat roles where women could excel in games without turning them into token characters, sex objects, or women-just-cause. Mass Effect did it pretty well with Liara as a brilliant biotic scientist, Kasumi as a master thief, Miranda as a great leader, Jack as a crazy biotic, EDI as EDI, Samara, Ashley, Tali.
Deus Ex 3 had Faridah Malik who was a kick-ass pilot and Megan Reed who was the research director of a major corporation.
nomotog wrote: Tokenism is not good, but my worry is that the fear of tokenism is maybe more of a problem then tokenism itself. The solution I like is to include more women who aren't just a token jester, but some people think the solution is to just not include women.
That does seem to be sadly common.
SneakyMek wrote: For example like Swastakowey said, it wouldn't make any sense for instance to have female soldiers in a game that takes place during the Napoleonic wars since that wouldn't be historically accurate in that sense..
Except it would be historically accurate, because there were women participating in those wars as soldiers, as there has been since the dawn of time.
This reminds me of people who complained that if a CoD game had a black main character it'd misrepresent what the US military's demographics are (an actual thing that someone argued on Dakka). Basically it sounds more like a lame, unimaginative excuse to exclude rather than actually caring about accuracy. Fun is more important than historical accuracy regardless, but this is true especially of the layman's idea of historical accuracy, which is anything but accurate and oftentimes is just a fantasy instead.
nomotog wrote: Tokenism is not good, but my worry is that the fear of tokenism is maybe more of a problem then tokenism itself. The solution I like is to include more women who aren't just a token jester, but some people think the solution is to just not include women.
That does seem to be sadly common.
SneakyMek wrote: For example like Swastakowey said, it wouldn't make any sense for instance to have female soldiers in a game that takes place during the Napoleonic wars since that wouldn't be historically accurate in that sense..
Except it would be historically accurate, because there were women participating in those wars as soldiers, as there has been since the dawn of time.
This reminds me of people who complained that if a CoD game had a black main character it'd misrepresent what the US military's demographics are (an actual thing that someone argued on Dakka). Basically it sounds more like a lame, unimaginative excuse to exclude rather than actually caring about accuracy. Fun is more important than historical accuracy regardless, but this is true especially of the layman's idea of historical accuracy, which is anything but accurate and oftentimes is just a fantasy instead.
Napoleon did muster the entire able-bodied population, that was a big part of his advantage over the traditional European powers, who mostly kept to small professional armies, meanwhile Napoleonic France had literally hundreds of thousands of conscripts. Wouldn't be surprising to see women playing more important government functions, after all they needed all those men for the front.
I love Mass Effect, but watching Miranda run around in combat wearing high heels gets me every time. I can deal with the skin suit, fem-Shepard's boob armor, maybe even going head to head with the 1400 lbs Shadow Broker in a punching battle, but no one is going to wear heels into a combat situation.
I do kinda take issue when games treat men and women exactly the same. Like the GoW 3 women who are some how just as strong as the steroid-pumped Marcus Fenix. It's not hard to come up with plenty of combat roles where women could excel in games without turning them into token characters, sex objects, or women-just-cause. Mass Effect did it pretty well with Liara as a brilliant biotic scientist, Kasumi as a master thief, Miranda as a great leader, Jack as a crazy biotic, EDI as EDI, Samara, Ashley, Tali.
Deus Ex 3 had Faridah Malik who was a kick-ass pilot and Megan Reed who was the research director of a major corporation.
But yea, the heels in combat are ridiculous.
I always laugh at that. I mean she is the only character who is sexualized. But then I remembered. OH yeah... Thats the character. I always saw her as the sleeper agent that had sex and shot the guy in his sleep.
I wouldn't put it past her.
I have a problem with just how few there are compared to straight white male protoganists.
As it is now I feel like Antia which this discussion stems from is quite wrong.
I mean who are amongst most famous nintendo characters. Zelda, Samus Aran, Princess Peach, and my personal favorite Farah.
Who's zelda? She's a sage.... She's an extremely intelligent princess of Hryule. Very rarely is she actually a damsel in distress. Is so wise and powerful, she is credited as not a prize, but as a guide. She is more of the wise mentor that gives you advice through the story, and occasionally helping the player. Zelda is responsible for sending link back in time. And holds a friendship with Link. Nothing else. No romantic relationship has ever happened between Link and Zelda (From my memory)
Samus Aran? Asian Woman who has been trained by alien bird race to kick major arse. She don't need no man, she has been kicking the asses of pirates for well.... Years.. By herself.
Who is Farah? Farah is the female protoganist Prince of Persia sands of time. What is she? She is a badass. She is a princess of india, and is an archer. She actively helps the Prince (Who was quite a dick), she is the only likable character, until the prince finally grows on you. But then in the third game she is even more fantastic and is even stronger. But she was sort of sexualized. For some odd reason.
The games industry has written a few. But I would like to see an increase in female characters that are playable.
But then I got reminded that Halo has actually really strong female characters. Cortana, Dare, Miranda Keyes (lets face it shes a badass), and Kat (Who sadly dies the most unheroic way possible but I get the reason why.)
There are series out there. And people often forget them.
I mean Bioshock is rife with fantastic female characters. Strong woman who actively try to kill you and get a lot more characterization than some of the men do.
There are many times when I just remember gaming has done it. But it has not written stories about one thing....
Mothers. Mothers are underrepresented in gaming. Along with fathers. Family relationships have not been shown as often as I would like.
There are a bare few that are.
Two Brothers (not a tale of two brothers, but just Two Brothers) That explores it. But it explores death more than family.
Asherian Command wrote: Samus Aran? Asian Woman who has been trained by alien bird race to kick major arse. She don't need no man, she has been kicking the asses of pirates for well.... Years.. By herself.
Ah, congratulations on wiping Other M from your memory.
Asherian Command wrote: Samus Aran? Asian Woman who has been trained by alien bird race to kick major arse. She don't need no man, she has been kicking the asses of pirates for well.... Years.. By herself.
Ah, congratulations on wiping Other M from your memory.
I have no idea what you are talking about
Oh you mean the game about sammy baran. Yeah I hated that game.
Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
Asherian Command wrote: I mean who are amongst most famous nintendo characters. Zelda, Samus Aran, Princess Peach, and my personal favorite Farah.
Who's zelda? She's a sage.... She's an extremely intelligent princess of Hryule. Very rarely is she actually a damsel in distress. Is so wise and powerful, she is credited as not a prize, but as a guide. She is more of the wise mentor that gives you advice through the story, and occasionally helping the player. Zelda is responsible for sending link back in time. And holds a friendship with Link. Nothing else. No romantic relationship has ever happened between Link and Zelda (From my memory)
Samus Aran? Asian Woman who has been trained by alien bird race to kick major arse. She don't need no man, she has been kicking the asses of pirates for well.... Years.. By herself.
If you think Samus is asian... well...
Zelda is actually
Spoiler:
The reincarnation of the goddess Hylia who was trusted to protect the triforce after the departure of the three that made it, who chose to be reborn as human and who like Link and Gannon is forced to be reborn endlessly in the same conflict. She also made the master sword, so holds a much more important role than just a sage.
Which is why she is so wise and actually even more useful than you mentioned.
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Nadezhda Durova served in the Russian cavalry, Anna Anna Lühring served in the Lützow Free Corps, Joanna Żubr served as a soldier for Poland and was the first woman to ever get the Polish equivalent of the Medal of Honor (Virtuti Militari).
We have similar tales in the US Civil War in the same time period, as well as throughout history in general.
SneakyMek wrote: In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
The desire to claim "no women ever participated in these wars" or "the women who participated don't deserve to be represented" is in fact a part of this thread's focus, since it is a problem that I, a gamer, have with the depiction of women in games
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Nadezhda Durova served in the Russian cavalry, Anna Anna Lühring served in the Lützow Free Corps, Joanna Żubr served as a soldier for Poland and was the first woman to ever get the Polish equivalent of the Medal of Honor (Virtuti Militari).
We have similar tales in the US Civil War in the same time period, as well as throughout history in general.
SneakyMek wrote: In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
The desire to claim "no women ever participated in these wars" or "the women who participated don't deserve to be represented" is in fact a part of this thread's focus, since it is a problem that I, a gamer, have with the depiction of women in games
Ok, so some very rare examples. Very rare. Out of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers we have some ish stories of women in combat. They do not, outside of exceptional circumstance, deserve to be represented in most wars, due to their tiny minimal combat presence.
Im sorry if its offensive that people dont want to see women all over the front lines in a Nepolionic setting, when there shouldnt be.
Some exceptional examples, are not evidence for massed female ranks of soldiers. In any war really, even today. Fantasy and sci fi is fine to have such representation, but not history. Unless the story is specifically on the exceptional case of a female soldier.
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
So they were a little like battlefield waiters/merchants. That is actually kind of cool. That could actually be a cool feature to see in a game.
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
So they were a little like battlefield waiters/merchants. That is actually kind of cool. That could actually be a cool feature to see in a game.
Camp Followers they're called. They make up huge numbers of armies as they travel between battles etc. Many being families of the soldiers or those looking to profit through trade (of various things) etc.
They are in mount and blade ish which is kind of cool.
Truly, this is a revelation that will change the world forever.
Swastakowey wrote: I prefer to learn about the average joe, and have accurate representations.
I disagree.
You want to play your fantasy ideal of what the era looked like, and you don't want to be "the average joe", whom died from dysentery or some other ailment rather than being shot by the enemy. Because a truly accurate historical representation would make for a really crappy game. You want to skip the parts you think are boring, and get to the exciting parts.
My biggest problem with women in games is they have no character development and are completely flat. I personally couldn't care less if my protagonist was female and her nemesis or partner was male, or vice versa. The gender doesn't matter to me, but how you use the character, give them nuances, develop their personality, that's what matters. You wanna give her boob plate? Go ahead, but at least make her interesting. You want Duke to wear a banana hammock? Fine, but at least make me like him for more than being a Rambo archetype (not that that role can't be entertaining, but there is more to life than cheap one liners).
I love Arnold Schwarzenegger and all his 90's movies. They're easy, stupid, and actiony. They don't sell you on being anything more than that and thats what makes them great. Don't put in a female character just to fill the status quo, put them in the game and make me care about them.
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Nadezhda Durova served in the Russian cavalry, Anna Anna Lühring served in the Lützow Free Corps, Joanna Żubr served as a soldier for Poland and was the first woman to ever get the Polish equivalent of the Medal of Honor (Virtuti Militari).
We have similar tales in the US Civil War in the same time period, as well as throughout history in general.
SneakyMek wrote: In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
The desire to claim "no women ever participated in these wars" or "the women who participated don't deserve to be represented" is in fact a part of this thread's focus, since it is a problem that I, a gamer, have with the depiction of women in games
Ok, so some very rare examples. Very rare. Out of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers we have some ish stories of women in combat. They do not, outside of exceptional circumstance, deserve to be represented in most wars, due to their tiny minimal combat presence.
Im sorry if its offensive that people dont want to see women all over the front lines in a Nepolionic setting, when there shouldnt be.
Some exceptional examples, are not evidence for massed female ranks of soldiers. In any war really, even today. Fantasy and sci fi is fine to have such representation, but not history. Unless the story is specifically on the exceptional case of a female soldier.
Some of the bits I have read suggest it's not as rare as people think. There was a essay that involved man eating lamas I might be able to dig up. Basically it was about how our perceptions some times overwrite reality. We assume women didn't fight (or do anything in those times) that we don't even look. Like they found some tombs of warriors and simply neglected to check their gender because they assumed they were all men. After they tested, turned out a lot of them were women.
The sci-fi thing is actually a interesting thing to being up because I have seen people make arguments that you can't include women in combat even there. The example I am recalling was actually a little silly. They were trying to argue that women couldn't fight because they didn't have the muscle mass, but it was a cyber punk setting so you know all the fighters had most of their body replaced with cybernetics. The argument was not only silly it flew right in the face of the themes of the setting.
jreilly89 wrote: I love Arnold Schwarzenegger and all his 90's movies. They're easy, stupid, and actiony. They don't sell you on being anything more than that and thats what makes them great. Don't put in a female character just to fill the status quo, put them in the game and make me care about them.
So why would a woman playing the same role, in a straight up easy, stupid action flick, bother you?
Why is it okay for a man to be boring and one dimensional, but not a woman?
Truly, this is a revelation that will change the world forever.
Swastakowey wrote: I prefer to learn about the average joe, and have accurate representations.
I disagree.
You want to play your fantasy ideal of what the era looked like, and you don't want to be "the average joe", whom died from dysentery or some other ailment rather than being shot by the enemy. Because a truly accurate historical representation would make for a really crappy game. You want to skip the parts you think are boring, and get to the exciting parts.
No actually, I wish I could play a game where you can randomly die of disease etc on the go.
There is a reason I play about 4 games, because not even those games satisfy my desire for realism.
There is a reason why I play IL2 Sturmovik the most, I spend 99% of the mission flying over kilometers and kilometers of landscape with limited ammo, fuel and weather in the hopes of maybe scoring a kill. If I die, or crash or anything, i have to do it all over. Pilots being usually the most well fed and safe from common ways of dying means that its not reasonable to expect you will be alive for the next sortie. Most sorties are very long and "boring".
My ideal game is one where I get to be put in the shoes of people before me, something only history books can achieve (if that). My friends hate it (because I dont play games with them for this reason).
So you have no idea what my ideal game is. My friend tried telling me id find it boring to die of disease on the march, but frankly disease (unlike women in combat) have actually had a major role in warfare and should be represented with huge importance. In my opinion.
But I know one thing, a HISTORY GAME where you fight on the battle field, shouldnt not include women outside of special circumstance.
Sci fi and fantasy is all fine and good to have them, because its not real etc.
jreilly89 wrote: I love Arnold Schwarzenegger and all his 90's movies. They're easy, stupid, and actiony. They don't sell you on being anything more than that and thats what makes them great. Don't put in a female character just to fill the status quo, put them in the game and make me care about them.
So why would a woman playing the same role, in a straight up easy, stupid action flick, bother you?
Why is it okay for a man to be boring and one dimensional, but not a woman?
I find that rather bizarre.
To me, it depends on the movie. In Aliens Vasquez is like that, but she is awesome.
Like i said, sexualization doesnt bother me, men are often stupid in proportions to. What I hate is that too often character archetypes are what i see. The Tough girl, the Bubbly one, and others. Unless it is meant to be that way. But some games just shoe in the "Tech Girl who knows everything about computers" kinda gak with no ryme or reason.
jreilly89 wrote: I love Arnold Schwarzenegger and all his 90's movies. They're easy, stupid, and actiony. They don't sell you on being anything more than that and thats what makes them great. Don't put in a female character just to fill the status quo, put them in the game and make me care about them.
So why would a woman playing the same role, in a straight up easy, stupid action flick, bother you?
Why is it okay for a man to be boring and one dimensional, but not a woman?
I find that rather bizarre.
me too, and I find most characters in games to be flat and 1 dimensional with hardly any character development.
hotsauceman1 wrote: To me, it depends on the movie. In Aliens Vasquez is like that, but she is awesome.
I would love to see a Vasquez style character get her own video game series.
Certainly she'd be no worse a character than Duke Nukem at any rate, and I'm one of the oddballs that actually liked DNF.
hotsauceman1 wrote: What I hate is that too often character archetypes are what i see. The Tough girl, the Bubbly one, and others. Unless it is meant to be that way. But some games just shoe in the "Tech Girl who knows everything about computers" kinda gak with no ryme or reason.
I find it annoying when the girl is shoehorned in to that position because the devs apparently don't seem to want to have her be holding a damn rifle instead.
jreilly89 wrote: I love Arnold Schwarzenegger and all his 90's movies. They're easy, stupid, and actiony. They don't sell you on being anything more than that and thats what makes them great. Don't put in a female character just to fill the status quo, put them in the game and make me care about them.
So why would a woman playing the same role, in a straight up easy, stupid action flick, bother you?
Why is it okay for a man to be boring and one dimensional, but not a woman?
I find that rather bizarre.
I think you are reading too much into my comment. I would absolutely LOVE a Rambo-esque female protagonist. But guess what, in the 90's they just didn't make them. That, and no one can match Arnold's unique slur/yells
My point was that I think it's stupid to have female characters just for the sake of having them. Multi-gender/class combinations work in games like WoW and Mass Effect because the narrative focuses on the protagonist regardless of what/who they are and also does not require any character development to advance the story. But in games like say Final Fantasy or Silent Hill, throwing in female side characters just to have them doesn't make sense. Take for example Silent Hill 2. IIRC all of the side characters are female, but they all have great character development and add to the story by being female. They aren't just thrown in for the sake of equality, they are there because they add depth to the narrative and you are genuinely invested in them.
If you can do this with either gender, more power to you, but don't give characters race or gender just to say you're diversifying the cast
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
So they were a little like battlefield waiters/merchants. That is actually kind of cool. That could actually be a cool feature to see in a game.
Camp Followers they're called. They make up huge numbers of armies as they travel between battles etc. Many being families of the soldiers or those looking to profit through trade (of various things) etc.
They are in mount and blade ish which is kind of cool.
In mount and blade they are more magickarp solders. I do kind of like how M&B handles women in a setting that wouldn't really be friendly to women warriors. It lets you be one and then has you face challenges that make sense. (I say makes sense because it's not a real life setting and I am not a history professor. I don't know if it is realistic. It just matched what I expect the setting to be like.) Like how you have to get married to become a vassal. (You know unless you just do what I do were you get fed up with a kings sexism and just take a castle for yourself )
jreilly89 wrote: My point was that I think it's stupid to have female characters just for the sake of having them.
You really didn't make that point very well though.
That basically assumes that male should be default, and that women should only exist when there is an explicit narrative reason for them-- an argument I disagree with. Why not assume women as default and only include men when there's an explicit narrative reason? Or not assume either one, and just flip a coin each time to determine gender?
Working off of the assumption that "unless you have a reason for them to be female, assume they're a male" isn't the only way you can make games. And I would argue it isn't even a good way to do it, certainly not the way we should be doing it.
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
So they were a little like battlefield waiters/merchants. That is actually kind of cool. That could actually be a cool feature to see in a game.
Camp Followers they're called. They make up huge numbers of armies as they travel between battles etc. Many being families of the soldiers or those looking to profit through trade (of various things) etc.
They are in mount and blade ish which is kind of cool.
In mount and blade they are more magickarp solders. I do kind of like how M&B handles women in a setting that wouldn't really be friendly to women warriors. It lets you be one and then has you face challenges that make sense. (I say makes sense because it's not a historical setting and I am not a history professer. I don't know if it is realistic. It just matched what I expect the setting to be like.) Like how you have to get married to become a vassal. (You know unless you just do what I do were you get fed up with a kings sexism and just take a castle for yourself )
I agree, they fit into the setting, while giving you the option to play as one being an exception. Rather than having female warriors all over the place, they are exceptions. Women are still a huge part of the game too.
Although there is a female who enters all the tournaments and always wins when no king is present. I make it my goal to find her outside of the tournament and kill her for good. Although I can never find her.
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
So they were a little like battlefield waiters/merchants. That is actually kind of cool. That could actually be a cool feature to see in a game.
Camp Followers they're called. They make up huge numbers of armies as they travel between battles etc. Many being families of the soldiers or those looking to profit through trade (of various things) etc.
They are in mount and blade ish which is kind of cool.
In mount and blade they are more magickarp solders. I do kind of like how M&B handles women in a setting that wouldn't really be friendly to women warriors. It lets you be one and then has you face challenges that make sense. (I say makes sense because it's not a historical setting and I am not a history professer. I don't know if it is realistic. It just matched what I expect the setting to be like.) Like how you have to get married to become a vassal. (You know unless you just do what I do were you get fed up with a kings sexism and just take a castle for yourself )
I agree, they fit into the setting, while giving you the option to play as one being an exception. Rather than having female warriors all over the place, they are exceptions. Women are still a huge part of the game too.
Although there is a female who enters all the tournaments and always wins when no king is present. I make it my goal to find her outside of the tournament and kill her for good. Although I can never find her.
They even have female rulers. Well after you lead a rebellion that is.
jreilly89 wrote: My point was that I think it's stupid to have female characters just for the sake of having them.
You really didn't make that point very well though.
That basically assumes that male should be default, and that women should only exist when there is an explicit narrative reason for them-- an argument I disagree with. Why not assume women as default and only include men when there's an explicit narrative reason? Or not assume either one, and just flip a coin each time to determine gender?
Working off of the assumption that "unless you have a reason for them to be female, assume they're a male" isn't the only way you can make games. And I would argue it isn't even a good way to do it, certainly not the way we should be doing it.
Again, misreading my post, or more likely, I am not clarifying it enough. I am all for female protagonists, I just feel that in too many games, female side characters are added to round out the cast rather than serving as interesting characters with depth. I am currently playing Tomb Raider, and being Lara Croft is a blast. She's interesting, she shows depth, and she changes as the game continues. There are side characters that are male and female, and half of them are flat and meaningless. I feel they were thrown in to round out the cast, because I could really not give two gaks about them dying.
Honestly, I'm not trying to insult you, but I feel like you are intentionally trying to find something offensive in my post.
Yea, shes like my Nemesis. I make sure to knock all the women out of the tournament early because of her. I dont know whats up with her stats, but its pretty predictable now.
Swastakowey wrote: Although there is a female who enters all the tournaments and always wins when no king is present. I make it my goal to find her outside of the tournament and kill her for good. Although I can never find her.
Swastakowey wrote: Although there is a female who enters all the tournaments and always wins when no king is present. I make it my goal to find her outside of the tournament and kill her for good. Although I can never find her.
jreilly89 wrote: I just feel that in too many games, female side characters are added to round out the cast rather than serving as interesting characters with depth
Which is a result of the problem I described, really.
"Assume male as default" means that they create characters with interesting personalities, and then think "wait, we need a woman", and then make a character who has no personality afterwards. I really do think the coinflip idea is the best solution here. Make interesting characters, and assign their gender after the characters are made interesting. You'll get some interesting combinations to be sure, much more so than how most games write characters anyway.
jreilly89 wrote: Honestly, I'm not trying to insult you, but I feel like you are intentionally trying to find something offensive in my post.
I'm not. That was honeslty the impression I'm getting from your posts. I think I get what you're getting at though.
Swastakowey wrote: Although there is a female who enters all the tournaments and always wins when no king is present. I make it my goal to find her outside of the tournament and kill her for good. Although I can never find her.
Wait, what.
Does nobody else have this problem?
It happens in all my games.
Sword sisters tend to do well in the tournaments because they are some of the more powerful units. It's just your response to it sounds crazy.
jreilly89 wrote: I just feel that in too many games, female side characters are added to round out the cast rather than serving as interesting characters with depth
Which is a result of the problem I described, really.
"Assume male as default" means that they create characters with interesting personalities, and then think "wait, we need a woman", and then make a character who has no personality afterwards. I really do think the coinflip idea is the best solution here. Make interesting characters, and assign their gender after the characters are made interesting. You'll get some interesting combinations to be sure, much more so than how most games write characters anyway.
Agreed. I would much rather have an equal amount of male/female protagonists, but I think when people try to write characters for a game, it's much easier to go "Hey, I'm a boy, I identify with boys, I'll write up my main character as a boy". As for the coin flip, eh, I'm torn. It would add diversity, but I'd want to see more examples of how it turned out. I feel a lot of protagonists could be gender swapped, but for some narratives it may not make sense and they'd have to be altered.
jreilly89 wrote: Honestly, I'm not trying to insult you, but I feel like you are intentionally trying to find something offensive in my post.
I'm not. That was honeslty the impression I'm getting from your posts. I think I get what you're getting at though.
Good. I'm not trying to be insulting, I just feel that sometimes on these forums, it's too easy to be vague on posts and accidentally offend people. That, or some people are intentionally looking for something to be insulted by. I'd like to think it's the former
jreilly89 wrote: Agreed. I would much rather have an equal amount of male/female protagonists, but I think when people try to write characters for a game, it's much easier to go "Hey, I'm a boy, I identify with boys, I'll write up my main character as a boy". As for the coin flip, eh, I'm torn. It would add diversity, but I'd want to see more examples of how it turned out. I feel a lot of protagonists could be gender swapped, but for some narratives it may not make sense and they'd have to be altered.
The only narrative I can think of where it wouldn't make sense would be motherhood. But then again, games never touch that anyway so...
Melissia wrote: That basically assumes that male should be default, and that women should only exist when there is an explicit narrative reason for them-- an argument I disagree with. Why not assume women as default and only include men when there's an explicit narrative reason? Or not assume either one, and just flip a coin each time to determine gender?
Most likely because male is overwhelmingly the default for the sort of professions that a lot of games tend to include. Special operations soldier, fighter pilot, 17th century swashbuckler, whatever. If your argument is "use the rare examples instead of the common ones," that's fine, but asking why woman isn't assumed as default seems a little basic.
Seaward wrote: Most likely because male is overwhelmingly the default for the sort of professions that a lot of games tend to include.
They're games, there's no reason this should be the case. Your player character is by definition exceptional over the non-player characters to begin with, even if for no other reason than they can keep trying after they die through reloading the stage/restarting the game, where NPCs generally can't (or at least only ever do so at the whims of the player), and through the player's improving skill or luck, they can make it further than last time.
Also, I think my position on historical accuracy as it applies to games is fairly well known by now (in that I feel that it's nothing more than a lame excuse to make crappy games), so that's probably not a productive line of discussion with me.
Seaward wrote: Most likely because male is overwhelmingly the default for the sort of professions that a lot of games tend to include.
They're games, there's no reason this should be the case. Your player character is by definition exceptional over the non-player characters to begin with, even if for no other reason than they can keep trying after they die through reloading the stage/restarting the game, where NPCs generally can't.
Also, I think my position on historical accuracy as it applies to games is fairly well known by now (in that I feel that it's nothing more than a lame excuse to make crappy games), so that's probably not a productive line of discussion with me.
That's true, they are games. And I could certainly make an American Civil War strategy game that included Sukhois and Super Hornets on the, "It's a game, lol" basis, but I suspect a lot of other players wouldn't necessarily share your view that anything goes at any time. No game is completely realistic, but many games do try to cleave close to it when possible. Some more than others. In the ones that try harder, you'll see more "default" males, because, well, that's what reality tends to reflect.
Seaward wrote: That's true, they are games. And I could certainly make an American Civil War strategy game that included Sukhois and Super Hornets on the, "It's a game, lol" basis
I think I played that game. Was about time traveling or something. Lame excuse for a plot, but gunning down confederate soldiers iwith a minigun was cathartic.
Seaward wrote: No game is completely realistic, but many games do try to cleave close to it when possible.
And I feel they are invariably worse off for it, especially since most of the time the ones that try to be realistic often end up failing to be realistic at all anyway.
No game is completely realistic, but many games do try to cleave close to it when possible. Some more than others. In the ones that try harder, you'll see more "default" males, because, well, that's what reality tends to reflect.
Sure, but now that you've established that the decision for what realistic features to leave out or put into the game is entirely arbitrary, "it's more realistic this way" no longer serves as an adequate defense or justification. To wit, why is it acceptable for a game to be unrealistic in that it allows you to, say, respawn after you die, but it's a sin to not alienate 51% of the Human population by having women or brown people (in the case of a World War game, for example) be represented in a setting that they historically didn't play a large role in?
I imagine that one possible answer would be that it might piss off sections of the player base, but who cares? The number of people who would outright not play a game because it has female soldiers in a World War 2 setting, for example, would be in the extreme minority I imagine.
If you value historical realism (which I can perfectly understand, I'm kind of the same), how do you think about games' (or even movies') habit of omitting female soldiers where they could be expected? Is this not an act of historical revisionism as well?
SneakyMek wrote:For example like Swastakowey said, it wouldn't make any sense for instance to have female soldiers in a game that takes place during the Napoleonic wars since that wouldn't be historically accurate in that sense.
Sure it would - there were lots of crossdressers. It is their total absence that is the inaccuracy.
On topic, my personal problems with the representation are clear and obvious tendencies regarding:
- unwarranted gender role bias (swordsman <-> archer/mage/thief, not to mention the recurring "damsel in distress" trope)
- visual character design (sexualised bodies and clothing, esp. heels)
- outright omission or "tokenism" (this one also applies to non-White males, though)
- general lack of female protagonists (according to devs, with publishers specifically rejecting titles based solely on this reason)
- a considerable portion of gamers ignoring the above as if it did not exist, or should be considered a normal and healthy symptom of society
Seaward wrote: I'd disagree. There are, for example, some very realistic flight simulators out there.
To some definitions of realism yes (I could raise several objections to most of them being "realistic", but that'd just be pedantry). Most of them I'd say suck as games though, and are mostly just useful as learning tools, and even then only if you have the right gaming equipment (analogue joystick, for example).
If you value historical realism (which I can perfectly understand, I'm kind of the same), how do you think about games' (or even movies') habit of omitting female soldiers where they could be expected? Is this not an act of historical revisionism as well?
Amusingly, in this regard, Company of Heroes 2 is more historically accurate than every single WWII simulator ever released that I have heard of. And I've heard of quite a few.
Melissia wrote: To some definitions of realism yes (I could raise several objections to most of them being "realistic", but that'd just be pedantry). Most of them I'd say suck as games though, and are mostly just useful as learning tools, and even then only if you have the right gaming equipment (analogue joystick, for example).
I'd say I have more hours flying in the realz, so I'm going to side with my own judgement on what's realistic and what's not when it comes to flight simulators.
And some people want the most realistic experience possible. The Arma series is nowhere near as popular as CoD, for example, but it still has quite a following. And an awful lot of people play it as realistically as they can, too, which involves a lot of walking around and not shooting at stuff. They seem to enjoy it.
Melissia wrote: And one should hardly blame me for saying "please make a game that makes me want to give you my money."
Not at all. Just as you can't blame the developer for ignoring you when there's a massively larger group on the other side saying the same thing, but what they want runs counter to what you want.
Melissia wrote: And one should hardly blame me for saying "please make a game that makes me want to give you my money."
Not at all. Just as you can't blame the developer for ignoring you when there's a massively larger group on the other side saying the same thing, but what they want runs counter to what you want.
The group isn't "massively larger". The ultra-realism crowd is fairly small.
Melissia wrote: And one should hardly blame me for saying "please make a game that makes me want to give you my money."
Not at all. Just as you can't blame the developer for ignoring you when there's a massively larger group on the other side saying the same thing, but what they want runs counter to what you want.
The group isn't "massively larger". The ultra-realism crowd is fairly small.
'Tis indeed, but I'd imagine it's quite a bit larger than the "women should be the default for all time periods, settings, occupations" crowd for the genres for which it would matter.
I continue to fail to believe these ultra-greedy anything-for-a-buck megapublishers are deliberately leaving massive amounts of money on the table in the name of sexism. I think the massive amount of money on the table is mythical. I think they think that, too.
Strawman arguments don't make for polite conversations, Seaward. My preferred suggestion was clearly stated earlier in this thread
What, flipping a coin? Same argument applies as far as the realism crowd goes.
The number of people who would be quite happy with roughly equal representation of the genders is much larger than the ultra-realism crowd.
Even if you assume only women would be happy with that situation (Which, as this thread shows, is a false assumption), that's still a much larger group.
Melissia wrote: And one should hardly blame me for saying "please make a game that makes me want to give you my money."
Not at all. Just as you can't blame the developer for ignoring you when there's a massively larger group on the other side saying the same thing, but what they want runs counter to what you want.
The group isn't "massively larger". The ultra-realism crowd is fairly small.
'Tis indeed, but I'd imagine it's quite a bit larger than the "women should be the default for all time periods, settings, occupations" crowd for the genres for which it would matter.
I continue to fail to believe these ultra-greedy anything-for-a-buck megapublishers are deliberately leaving massive amounts of money on the table in the name of sexism. I think the massive amount of money on the table is mythical. I think they think that, too.
The ultra greedy do anything for a buck publishers leave all kinds of money on the table. That is kind of their problem. Like how they don't make survival horror or RTS games because they really can't be bothered to step outside their comfort zone. It's not necessary sexism, it's incompetents.
People assume that corporate executives are somehow hyper-rational, which really hasn't ever been a proven thing. A lot of them are quite the opposite, in fact.
Melissia wrote: The number of people who would be quite happy with roughly equal representation of the genders is much larger than the ultra-realism crowd.
No, it isn't.
What's interesting to me is that you actually do see "roughly equal" or even overrepresentation in certain genres. I'd assume these are the types of games where publishers and developers are aware there's a sizable female player contingent. RPGs especially spring to mind; has there been a western RPG released lately that doesn't allow you to choose your gender? That suggests that types of games where you're not seeing "roughly equal" representation probably don't have much of a discernible female demographic interested in playing them.
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nomotog wrote: The ultra greedy do anything for a buck publishers leave all kinds of money on the table. That is kind of their problem. Like how they don't make survival horror or RTS games because they really can't be bothered to step outside their comfort zone. It's not necessary sexism, it's incompetents.
Why would they need to make those kinds of games when they can gak out another Call of Duty and guarantee hundreds of millions of dollars?
Seaward wrote: RPGs especially spring to mind; has there been a western RPG released lately that doesn't allow you to choose your gender?
I believe so, yes.
I don't buy those kinds of games, so I'd be hard pressed to think of names off the top of my head, but I recall there being several released on steam in the past few years.
Seaward wrote: That suggests that types of games where you're not seeing "roughly equal" representation probably don't have much of a discernible female demographic interested in playing them.
Only if you assume that the companies producing those games are being perfectly rational, which is an assumption not easily proven given the past actions of the producers.
I don't buy those kinds of games, so I'd be hard pressed to think of names off the top of my head, but I recall there being several released on steam in the past few years.
As vague as that is, I'll assume there's been at least one or two a year. Which would make them the exception rather than the rule, so...social agenda achieved in that genre, I guess?
Seaward wrote: Only if you assume that the companies producing those games are being perfectly rational, which is an assumption not easily proven given the past actions of the producers.
I assume that multiple competitors looking at the same market and making the same decision about what to avoid has a roughly rational basis, yes.
Is it a western problem? Japanese has lots of games with strong female characters usually in RPG's on the other hand there are all these strange Japanese novel type games, and not to mention lots of just strange games in general, but it seems that here in Japan there are more games with female characters because lot's of girls in Japan play games and no one bats an eye.
And about objectifying women in games, yes it is overly done in the west but in japan there is this whole market of yaoi stuff with guys on guys.
The whole game industry still has that idea that most gamers are males in their puberty, and make games accordingly.
Here's how I perceive the situation. Generally (obviously homosexuality sits outside the scope of this theory) males are attracted to females. When males fantasise about that aspect of their reality, they chose the best, most exciting, path to realising that sexual fantasy. Not many males would fantasise a sexual encounter that resulted in the woman slapping him across the face or belittling him.....no, that's reality, fantasy is escapism. So extrapolating this "logic"..... men have created many entertaining outlets to share and conjour those fantasies, games, movies, porn, books, music...you name it. In every case, access to these mediums is through choice.....so, if you're a male, who doesn't share those fantasies you have the option to forego the "club" or create your own! Simple.
The main problem I see here, is a form of entitlement! People are of the opinion that if someone is going to create a form of entertainment it SHOULD immediately cater for their particular needs?!?! Aside from the sheer impossibility of developers being able to cater for EVERYONES specific tastes, why should they? If the developers make something that really offends the social collective they won't make money.....again, simple! So if these games full of over sexualised female fantasies are so offensive why are they generating so much revenue for their producers?
Finally we come to the main point, should people be able to tell you how to realise your sexual fantasies, and what's right and wrong? I mean, let's be clear here, some people fail to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and those people deserve the full force of society's disdain, but for the majority of people who can make that distinction (talking to males now in particular) is it right that some feminist walks in and wants to carve up your "club" just because she thinks your fantasy woman's breast are to big? Or that the fantasy woman is TOO willing to present you with sexual favours?
In my opinion, with regards to gaming in particular, why don't these feminist groups put their money where their mouth is, start developing their own games? Rather than asking the male dominated games developers to rewrite their ideals, get out there and make your own?!? If those feminists are right, then their games will sell and the misogynistic games, so prevalent today, will fall by the wayside.....of course, this will NEVER happen! Firstly, those feminist critics are only equipped to criticise, they lack the knowledge and ability to create, secondly, sex really does sell! We're not talking about just making a few "racey" games, well, boring....we're talking about rewriting the way, fundamentally, that men view women! Natures very own reproductive code! Good luck with that.
Seaward wrote: I assume that multiple competitors looking at the same market and making the same decision about what to avoid has a roughly rational basis, yes.
Why?
That's not necessarily a safe assumption.
Delephont wrote: The main problem I see here, is a form of entitlement!
Seaward wrote: I assume that multiple competitors looking at the same market and making the same decision about what to avoid has a roughly rational basis, yes.
Why?
That's not necessarily a safe assumption.
Delephont wrote: The main problem I see here, is a form of entitlement!
Delephont wrote:In my opinion, with regards to gaming in particular, why don't these feminist groups put their money where their mouth is, start developing their own games?
Perhaps because the games industry is largely dominated by a few big publishers (whose money is a requirement for funding big titles), and because said publishers have in the past rejected games based solely on the idea that "the hero is a woman, people won't be buying that". Many renowned devs - including the studio responsible for the character in your avatar - have criticised this. So any such ideas, the more "radical" they are, would have to be moved into the segment of indie products, where they obviously have to struggle with much smaller budgets.
In short, I think you seriously underestimate the consequences of women having, based on the social norms at the time, missed out on the pioneering phase of gaming back in the 80s, where it was still possible to shape the nature of this industry by hacking together amazing games in your garage, and actually make a long-lasting name for yourself and your little studio. Effectively "being late to the party" now means they have a much harder time getting their foot in the door of this "boy's club".
Additionally, I suppose it also depends on how you see games as a medium. Are they really just a toy to cater to some base instinct and chemical responses of the human body? Or are they a form of art, and do they join in shaping society, given that they are part of the environment your kids will grow up in? Because if it's the latter, then I'd say that perhaps we as a society should be more careful what sort of values we instil in the next generation, and at least strive for more variety in games rather than dogmatically pushing the same tropes again and again because "sex sells".
Lynata wrote: Additionally, I suppose it also depends on how you see games as a medium. Are they really just a toy to cater to some base instinct and chemical responses of the human body? Or are they a form of art, and do they join in shaping society, given that they are part of the environment your kids will grow up in? Because if it's the latter, then I'd say that perhaps we as a society should be more careful what sort of values we instil in the next generation, and at least strive for more variety in games rather than dogmatically pushing the same tropes again and again because "sex sells".
You said, in summary, "I'm being catered to, therefor there's no reason other people should also be catered to"-- which is itself pretty entitled. And you said this after saying "the problem is entitlement". This fits a few definitions of the word "irony".
But certainly, I agree, the problem is entitlement.
Delephont wrote:In my opinion, with regards to gaming in particular, why don't these feminist groups put their money where their mouth is, start developing their own games?
Perhaps because the games industry is largely dominated by a few big publishers (whose money is a requirement for funding big titles), and because said publishers have in the past rejected games based solely on the idea that "the hero is a woman, people won't be buying that". Many renowned devs - including the studio responsible for the character in your avatar - have criticised this. So any such ideas, the more "radical" they are, would have to be moved into the segment of indie products, where they obviously have to struggle with much smaller budgets.
In short, I think you seriously underestimate the consequences of women having, based on the social norms at the time, missed out on the pioneering phase of gaming back in the 80s, where it was still possible to shape the nature of this industry by hacking together amazing games in your garage, and actually make a long-lasting name for yourself and your little studio. Effectively "being late to the party" now means they have a much harder time getting their foot in the door of this "boy's club".
Additionally, I suppose it also depends on how you see games as a medium. Are they really just a toy to cater to some base instinct and chemical responses of the human body? Or are they a form of art, and do they join in shaping society, given that they are part of the environment your kids will grow up in? Because if it's the latter, then I'd say that perhaps we as a society should be more careful what sort of values we instil in the next generation, and at least strive for more variety in games rather than dogmatically pushing the same tropes again and again because "sex sells".
If I was a developer atm I would actually be putting less female characters in. The easiest way to introduce new characters is as enemies and in the current climate as soon as you make many female enemies you are going to be media slammed for encouraging violence against women. It's kind of a catch 22
Delephont wrote:In my opinion, with regards to gaming in particular, why don't these feminist groups put their money where their mouth is, start developing their own games?
Perhaps because the games industry is largely dominated by a few big publishers (whose money is a requirement for funding big titles), and because said publishers have in the past rejected games based solely on the idea that "the hero is a woman, people won't be buying that". Many renowned devs - including the studio responsible for the character in your avatar - have criticised this. So any such ideas, the more "radical" they are, would have to be moved into the segment of indie products, where they obviously have to struggle with much smaller budgets.
In short, I think you seriously underestimate the consequences of women having, based on the social norms at the time, missed out on the pioneering phase of gaming back in the 80s, where it was still possible to shape the nature of this industry by hacking together amazing games in your garage, and actually make a long-lasting name for yourself and your little studio. Effectively "being late to the party" now means they have a much harder time getting their foot in the door of this "boy's club".
Additionally, I suppose it also depends on how you see games as a medium. Are they really just a toy to cater to some base instinct and chemical responses of the human body? Or are they a form of art, and do they join in shaping society, given that they are part of the environment your kids will grow up in? Because if it's the latter, then I'd say that perhaps we as a society should be more careful what sort of values we instil in the next generation, and at least strive for more variety in games rather than dogmatically pushing the same tropes again and again because "sex sells".
I think you raise some excellent points! In particular, the " boys club"! This is exactly what it is. However, it's not a club we all HAVE to subscribe to is it? Here's a couple of (non sex based) examples. I like certain types of video games, these games are not represented on, say, the Wii.....so, I don't own a Wii, I don't follow Wii development....it's simply not on my radar. I guess I could petition for change, get a big movement going, but, I realise that my "desires" are not the be all end all of society opinion, so I'd rather move on and find something I do enjoy, rather than ruin it for those who are content. I could give a similar example of Football, I hate it, so, does that mean Football should be banned, never shown on TV again? So women missed the opening stages of the "boys club".....what's stopping women from creating something else entirely? Has society devolved so much that video games are THE ONLY mode of human entertainment? The " boys club" had to grow from nothing, is there a suggestion that women are incapable of creating something, anything, according to their own fantasies and needs? I mean, in theory, something created to fulfil female needs specifically would absolutely succeed based on the fact that EVERY female would support it.....surely?
With regards to concerned parenting; having my daughter / son play male oriented games is really the least of my many worries. Online porn, child grooming, the looming war in the Ukraine, Police brutality, religious extremism, bullying and rampant commercialisation and others are all vying for top spots unfortunately long before female objectification in video games gets a consideration.
You said, in summary, "I'm being catered to, therefor there's no reason other people should also be catered to"-- which is itself pretty entitled. And you said this after saying "the problem is entitlement". This fits a few definitions of the word "irony".
But certainly, I agree, the problem is entitlement.
Well, I would agree with your point.....if it were accurate.
Here's a revised summary:
I'm being catered for by accident (I'm male, enjoying a male devised product), I realise others are not catered for, also by accident (females, not enjoying a male devised product). I can see that those not catered for, could be catered for (females), if they devised their own product rather than constantly telling me the product I enjoy (as a male) is wrong.
Seaward wrote:Perhaps with some sort of Hays Code, for example?
Ideally, I'd rather see a shift in attitude. Censorship, even if it is intended to serve a honourable goal, will only serve to rile up the masses and deepen the rift between already firmly entrenched groups of gamers. Also, personally I wouldn't say that there is something wrong with sexist games per se - but rather their prevalence. They should (depending on the contents of the specific title) either use that sexism as a background element of their setting/story where appropriate, or be a niche product catering to specific tastes of a hopefully not-too-large group of people - not what feels like an accepted standard representative of what "the gamers" as a whole want to see.
Perhaps I am a bit too naive/idealistic there. But either way, that is what I would consider the "step forward". The push to change the industry, however, has to come from the consumers and affiliated media. It won't happen by itself, or at least not nearly as fast.
Unfortunately, the consumers are currently split and engaged in a flamewar of "social justice warriors" and "feminazis" versus the "white guy defence force", to use the buzzwords people like to throw around, and I'm not sure how exactly the industry will react to this, if at all.
Bullockist wrote:If I was a developer atm I would actually be putting less female characters in. The easiest way to introduce new characters is as enemies and in the current climate as soon as you make many female enemies you are going to be media slammed for encouraging violence against women. It's kind of a catch 22
There's a point to this theory, as I've seen some criticism which I would deem unwarranted. On the larger scope, however, I see the opposite. Simply offering a gender choice for the player character is a fairly easy statement to make and one that will be hard to attack - and whereas some recent western RPGs have generated negative feedback for the lack of this option, other games gain positive feedback for the specific inclusion.
As for the usage as enemies, I'd say it really depends on how exactly you design them. If you don't use sexualised clothing or otherwise set them apart from male enemies, any criticism that the game might still attract on this front will be negligible and easily drowned by rational dismissal. At least I do not recall any game getting trashed by the media because of a reasonable and un-objectified inclusion of female characters - do you have any examples, or was your comment more regarding a potential fear of the studios rather than fact?
Delephont wrote:So women missed the opening stages of the "boys club".....what's stopping women from creating something else entirely? Has society devolved so much that video games are THE ONLY mode of human entertainment?
If your solution for the current issue is that women should just drop gaming entirely and do something else, I'll have to politely disagree. As a society, we should strive for more inclusion, not segregation. Otherwise equality will forever be impossible.
Really, that argument is awfully close to making Black people sit in the back of the bus, because hey, they don't have to sit elsewhere right? And why would women need a right to vote? They can say what's going on in the kitchen!
I'm fairly sure that this is not what you were trying to express, but you have to admit that it's the same dangerous path.
If I was a developer atm I would actually be putting less female characters in. The easiest way to introduce new characters is as enemies and in the current climate as soon as you make many female enemies you are going to be media slammed for encouraging violence against women. It's kind of a catch 22
I dunno, punching Talia's all-female henchmen in Batman: Arkham City seemed entirely decent to me.
Though I still have a few gripes with that game (Catwoman's boobwindow for example) despite its otherwise excellent quality.
That said, could some of you guys explain to me why, in the history of gaming, I have never seen a female character of this type beyond the one I created myself?
Spoiler:
I mean, sure, it's a stereotypically male role, but surely there could be at least a few?
Ashiraya wrote: I dunno, punching Talia's all-female henchmen in Batman: Arkham City seemed entirely decent to me.
Though I still have a few gripes with that game (Catwoman's boobwindow for example) despite its otherwise excellent quality.
That said, could some of you guys explain to me why, in the history of gaming, I have never seen a female character of this type beyond the one I created myself?
Spoiler:
I mean, sure, it's a stereotypically male role, but surely there could be at least a few?
'Behemoth' armour is surely not reserved for men?
Right?
Right?
Because it's not sexy and as a young male I want my women to look sexy.
I being a collective I, and while that's not a justification, it's the explanation. The video game industry is convinced that women don't play video games, and sex is a powerful marketing tool.
Personally? I'd never put that armor on my female characters because- hey, it's just not very flattering, But I think such an appearance should absolutely be an available option in games for people who desire it, when applicable. Who is anyone to say that people shouldn't be allowed to dress their characters in srs business armor.
Delephont wrote:So women missed the opening stages of the "boys club".....what's stopping women from creating something else entirely? Has society devolved so much that video games are THE ONLY mode of human entertainment?
If your solution for the current issue is that women should just drop gaming entirely and do something else, I'll have to politely disagree. As a society, we should strive for more inclusion, not segregation. Otherwise equality will forever be impossible.
Really, that argument is awfully close to making Black people sit in the back of the bus, because hey, they don't have to sit elsewhere right? And why would women need a right to vote? They can say what's going on in the kitchen!
I'm fairly sure that this is not what you were trying to express, but you have to admit that it's the same dangerous path.
Massively different and unrelated points! I can't even imagine how an intelligent person, as you appear to be, arrives at this point!
What you're talking about are basic human rights violations, on the one hand segregation due to a persons colour and the removal of a persons right to participate in social determination based on gender?!?! I never even hinted at this!
OK, so I'm saying, computer games are there for everyone to enjoy, its a thing! If certain people don't like them, for whatever reason, find something they do enjoy, rather than demanding that it be changed to suit their needs. No removal of rights or segregation!?!
Let's take needle work as a hobby, well, I'm a male, it doesn't cater for my needs, I demand more breast and female sexualisation, change it NOW!! See how ridiculous that statement is, and yet, that's what I hear when the feminist start to bang the drum about computer games! Perhaps men missed the boat when the "girls club" got underway with creating knitting / needle work as a "thing"...... Oh well, never mind, boys created video gaming instead.......and balance was restored!
Delephont wrote:OK, so I'm saying, computer games are there for everyone to enjoy, its a thing! If certain people don't like them, for whatever reason, find something they do enjoy, rather than demanding that it be changed to suit their needs.
But that's the thing. People do enjoy gaming. They do not enjoy certain trends in the industry.
Really, it's like looking at Hollywood and complaining that there's too many damn sequels and remakes lately. Would you brush off this criticism with words like "so go make your own movie" just because you may happen to enjoy sequels and remakes?
Delephont wrote:Let's take needle work as a hobby, well, I'm a male, it doesn't cater for my needs, I demand more breast and female sexualisation, change it NOW!!
Done.
You can craft what you want when it comes to needlework. Nobody is going to stop you! Arguably it becomes more difficult when we get to an industry where you are just a consumer; where you might like to see something happen but do not have the power to create it all on your own.
I also maintain that media - and games are a part of this - have a profound influence on how gender roles and expectations are defined, simply because children grow up in an environment where such media feature prominently, thus affecting what they would consider "normal".
Melissia wrote: There is nowhere near enough representation of female playable characters, and in many games (both old and, sadly, new) the ones that exist are shoehorned in to "agility" or "magic" roles, and some games (like Deus Ex) actually remove the option of having them where they had it previously. Most big-name-game protagonists end up being basically skinhead whiteguys with no personality, too, so it's not like there's anything gained by this bizarre practice.
Something that really to bug me when I thought about it is that we really don't have any actually blank slate characters. Like for example it is very hard to think of a single game character that doesn't have a designated gender.
Lynata wrote: Unfortunately, the consumers are currently split and engaged in a flamewar of "social justice warriors" and "feminazis" versus the "white guy defence force", to use the buzzwords people like to throw around, and I'm not sure how exactly the industry will react to this, if at all.
Doubt it will at all. In the US alone, people spent 20 billion dollars on video games last year. People are screaming at each other in comments sections and on forums, but that'll have about as much impact on the video games industry as the people screaming at each other at Huffington Post and BigGovernment do on politics.
Or, as a confessed social justice activist over at the Guardian put it,
For me, the problem with the gamer community that has aligned around the #gamergate hash tag is that it doesn’t seem to know what it wants or what it fears – or at least, the problem is that what it fears isn’t going to happen. There’s a sense that social justice warriors are going to “ruin games”. But how? This is a tiny subset of writers and developers sharing a left-leaning ideology – they are big on Twitter, but they are not going to convince Activision, EA, Capcom or any other multinational games corporations to stop making games that conflict with their beliefs.
The games industry is a global, multi-billion dollar giant, fuelled by money, not dogma. There will be no social justice revolution – just as the rise of feminist film criticism in the 70s and the explosion of indie cinema in the 80s did not stop Hollywood from making blockbuster sexist action flicks.
Personally my problem is the perpetual sexualization of female characters. This result in very monotonous and usually very bad and ridiculous character design. It has reached the point where boobplate is present even on otherwise very good characters, even though it does not make any sense.
Also lack of representation.
Swastakowey wrote: I tend to play historical games. If anything, having women shoehorned in annoys me. Like having female Napoleonic Soldiers everywhere for example. Or having female ww2 pilots etc.
Honestly, why would anyone ever not like to play a game based on her story? Man in the refrigerator because nazis? Buy tank. Kill nazis. Fix and improve tank. Kill more nazis!
jreilly89 wrote: I think you are reading too much into my comment. I would absolutely LOVE a Rambo-esque female protagonist. But guess what, in the 90's they just didn't make them. That, and no one can match Arnold's unique slur/yells
jreilly89 wrote: But in games like say Final Fantasy or Silent Hill, throwing in female side characters just to have them doesn't make sense. Take for example Silent Hill 2. IIRC all of the side characters are female, but they all have great character development and add to the story by being female. They aren't just thrown in for the sake of equality, they are there because they add depth to the narrative and you are genuinely invested in them.
Are you saying that a character must have a reason for being female, or are you saying that you want all character, regardless of gender, to have a great character development? I am with Melissia on the flip coin thing. On a different media, SMBC has been doing basically that for years, with both gender and race. Including when two characters are going to have sex. And it is working extremely well.
Okay, being a one-page joke webcomics mean the characters are not going to have any kind of development altogether, but still, I have troubles understanding what could make gender so important that if you flip it, the story does not work anymore.
Delephont wrote: I'm being catered for by accident (I'm male, enjoying a male devised product), I realise others are not catered for, also by accident (females, not enjoying a male devised product). I can see that those not catered for, could be catered for (females), if they devised their own product rather than constantly telling me the product I enjoy (as a male) is wrong.
Do you devise your own product? Yeah, I thought so. So, why the hell do you expect others to devise their own products? That seems quite a bit hypocritical.
BlaxicanX wrote: but it's a sin to not alienate 51% of the Human population by having women or brown people (in the case of a World War game, for example) be represented in a setting that they historically didn't play a large role in?
There were plenty of “brown people” (assuming North Africans count as “brown”) fighting during WW2. I know, because it is closely related to my country's history, because of the whole colony stuff. Of course, U.S. citizens will likely not have heard about them. But yeah, really, if you are going to have FFF in your WW2 games, you would rather have a bunch of Arabs and/or Black peoples if you want historical accuracy. Of course, if you are only representing the pacific front, or only depicting U.S. forces, it is different, I guess.
BlaxicanX wrote: That's a poor example. There's nothing about needlework that makes it female-inclusive.
The rest of your post is not-sure-if-srs level lulz.
Same with video games! Anyone can play those games and make of them what they will. Contrary to popular belief, being offended is a choice!
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Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: Personally my problem is the perpetual sexualization of female characters. This result in very monotonous and usually very bad and ridiculous character design. It has reached the point where boobplate is present even on otherwise very good characters, even though it does not make any sense.
Also lack of representation.
Swastakowey wrote: I tend to play historical games. If anything, having women shoehorned in annoys me. Like having female Napoleonic Soldiers everywhere for example. Or having female ww2 pilots etc.
Honestly, why would anyone ever not like to play a game based on her story? Man in the refrigerator because nazis? Buy tank. Kill nazis. Fix and improve tank. Kill more nazis!
jreilly89 wrote: I think you are reading too much into my comment. I would absolutely LOVE a Rambo-esque female protagonist. But guess what, in the 90's they just didn't make them. That, and no one can match Arnold's unique slur/yells
jreilly89 wrote: But in games like say Final Fantasy or Silent Hill, throwing in female side characters just to have them doesn't make sense. Take for example Silent Hill 2. IIRC all of the side characters are female, but they all have great character development and add to the story by being female. They aren't just thrown in for the sake of equality, they are there because they add depth to the narrative and you are genuinely invested in them.
Are you saying that a character must have a reason for being female, or are you saying that you want all character, regardless of gender, to have a great character development? I am with Melissia on the flip coin thing. On a different media, SMBC has been doing basically that for years, with both gender and race. Including when two characters are going to have sex. And it is working extremely well.
Okay, being a one-page joke webcomics mean the characters are not going to have any kind of development altogether, but still, I have troubles understanding what could make gender so important that if you flip it, the story does not work anymore.
Delephont wrote: I'm being catered for by accident (I'm male, enjoying a male devised product), I realise others are not catered for, also by accident (females, not enjoying a male devised product). I can see that those not catered for, could be catered for (females), if they devised their own product rather than constantly telling me the product I enjoy (as a male) is wrong.
Do you devise your own product? Yeah, I thought so. So, why the hell do you expect others to devise their own products? That seems quite a bit hypocritical.
BlaxicanX wrote: but it's a sin to not alienate 51% of the Human population by having women or brown people (in the case of a World War game, for example) be represented in a setting that they historically didn't play a large role in?
There were plenty of “brown people” (assuming North Africans count as “brown”) fighting during WW2. I know, because it is closely related to my country's history, because of the whole colony stuff. Of course, U.S. citizens will likely not have heard about them. But yeah, really, if you are going to have FFF in your WW2 games, you would rather have a bunch of Arabs and/or Black peoples if you want historical accuracy. Of course, if you are only representing the pacific front, or only depicting U.S. forces, it is different, I guess
You clearly haven't understood anything that I wrote.
Delephont wrote:OK, so I'm saying, computer games are there for everyone to enjoy, its a thing! If certain people don't like them, for whatever reason, find something they do enjoy, rather than demanding that it be changed to suit their needs.
But that's the thing. People do enjoy gaming. They do not enjoy certain trends in the industry.
Really, it's like looking at Hollywood and complaining that there's too many damn sequels and remakes lately. Would you brush off this criticism with words like "so go make your own movie" just because you may happen to enjoy sequels and remakes?
Delephont wrote:Let's take needle work as a hobby, well, I'm a male, it doesn't cater for my needs, I demand more breast and female sexualisation, change it NOW!!
Done.
You can craft what you want when it comes to needlework. Nobody is going to stop you! Arguably it becomes more difficult when we get to an industry where you are just a consumer; where you might like to see something happen but do not have the power to create it all on your own.
I also maintain that media - and games are a part of this - have a profound influence on how gender roles and expectations are defined, simply because children grow up in an environment where such media feature prominently, thus affecting what they would consider "normal".
Actually, with regards to the Hollywood example, yes, I would say don't watch them. If the entire movie industry was sequels only, and this offended you, I would suggest that movies is not the hobby for you, try something else.
The thing that seems to be missing in this exchange is, what about the people who DO want over sexualised women in their games? Are they entitled to less rights than you? A few posts back you advocated that these games be relegated to a niche sub sert of gaming as opposed to being the mainstream......well, why can't that be the rule of thumb for feminist friendly games? Are we not advocating the same thing from different perspectives?
BlaxicanX wrote: That's a poor example. There's nothing about needlework that makes it female-inclusive.
The rest of your post is not-sure-if-srs level lulz.
Same with video games! Anyone can play those games and make of them what they will. Contrary to popular belief, being offended is a choice!
I am offended that you would suggest such a thing!
And I'm at once gladdened that your exercising your choice to be offended, but I'm now offended that you're offended by my suggestion that to be offended is a choice.......now what?
Delephont wrote: You clearly haven't understood anything that I wrote.
Oh, I did not? Is your idea that women has a group should start designing video games? Did you happen to have missed the whole multi-billion dollar game industry stuff? There is no need for that. If there are enough people wanting more female characters, and less sexualized ones, and if they manage to get that message across to that big industry that, like every billion-dollar industry, cares first and foremost about getting money, it will be enough. Hence the people calling for more female characters, and less sexualized one.
That is realistic. What you propose is naive, and as Melissia put out, self-entitled. You are trying to make it look like you deserve to be catered to because of the work other people did. How damn entitled is that?
Delephont wrote:Actually, with regards to the Hollywood example, yes, I would say don't watch them. If the entire movie industry was sequels only, and this offended you, I would suggest that movies is not the hobby for you, try something else.
What you are advocating here is stagnation. There was a time when people were offended by the amount of sex and sexualisation you are currently enjoying, too. Arguably, times have changed, and they will change again, as there is a growing demand for greater variety in games.
I'm sorry to hear that you don't like this idea of greater variety and inclusion and would prefer to have the industry cater to your own preferences as much as possible - but it is the same process of evolution that allowed you to enjoy these preferences in the first place.
Delephont wrote:The thing that seems to be missing in this exchange is, what about the people who DO want over sexualised women in their games? Are they entitled to less rights than you? A few posts back you advocated that these games be relegated to a niche sub sert of gaming as opposed to being the mainstream......well, why can't that be the rule of thumb for feminist friendly games? Are we not advocating the same thing from different perspectives?
I don't believe so, because those games currently do not even occupy a niche as they are largely simply not being made, due to the aforementioned issues of developers refusing funding or otherwise push against a growing demand from both the consumers as well as designers.
Also, as I mentioned before, I believe in games also having an educational role in society. Segregating products promoting equality into a niche, in favour of those that promote sexism and racism, just seems like something a civilisation should not do. At least not when it truly wishes to achieve an egalitarian state some time.
Delephont wrote: You clearly haven't understood anything that I wrote.
Oh, I did not? Is your idea that women has a group should start designing video games? Did you happen to have missed the whole multi-billion dollar game industry stuff? There is no need for that. If there are enough people wanting more female characters, and less sexualized ones, and if they manage to get that message across to that big industry that, like every billion-dollar industry, cares first and foremost about getting money, it will be enough. Hence the people calling for more female characters, and less sexualized one.
That is realistic. What you propose is naive, and as Melissia put out, self-entitled. You are trying to make it look like you deserve to be catered to because of the work other people did. How damn entitled is that?
Hey, if the video games industry actually does change because [BECAUSE] of market forces, then fine! If the majority of gamers want an end to over sexualised females and more female leads, then again, who can complain? The minority status would have been reset, and I would be saying to those guys (or girls), if you want objectified women in your games go and make those games yourself.....or pick a different hobby.
I'm not saying I deserve a damn thing, if I haven't earned it through my own work! I'll buy a game, and either it ticks my box or it doesn't BUT I'm not sitting at home demanding that developers make a game that suits my sensibilities, I can exercise my human right to chose what "entertainment" I expose myself to.........if someone else's hard work hits a positive note with me, I acknowledge that it's an accident rather than by design.
Delephont wrote:Actually, with regards to the Hollywood example, yes, I would say don't watch them. If the entire movie industry was sequels only, and this offended you, I would suggest that movies is not the hobby for you, try something else.
What you are advocating here is stagnation. There was a time when people were offended by the amount of sex and sexualisation you are currently enjoying, too. Arguably, times have changed, and they will change again, as there is a growing demand for greater variety in games.
I'm sorry to hear that you don't like this idea of greater variety and inclusion and would prefer to have the industry cater to your own preferences as much as possible - but it is the same process of evolution that allowed you to enjoy these preferences in the first place.
Delephont wrote:The thing that seems to be missing in this exchange is, what about the people who DO want over sexualised women in their games? Are they entitled to less rights than you? A few posts back you advocated that these games be relegated to a niche sub sert of gaming as opposed to being the mainstream......well, why can't that be the rule of thumb for feminist friendly games? Are we not advocating the same thing from different perspectives?
I don't believe so, because those games currently do not even occupy a niche as they are largely simply not being made, due to the aforementioned issues of developers refusing funding or otherwise push against a growing demand from both the consumers as well as designers.
Also, as I mentioned before, I believe in games also having an educational role in society. Segregating products promoting equality into a niche, in favour of those that promote sexism and racism, just seems like something a civilisation should not do. At least not when it truly wishes to achieve an egalitarian state some time.
OK, fair points! Stagnation is really a state where (in this case) the market is demanding change, but that change is being suppressed! As I responded above, if the majority of gamers want an end to female objectification, then it should happen! However, how will that change take place? If the almighty dollar is driving the industry, simply talking about change while filling their bank accounts really sends a weak message!
Let's go back to my response to the Hollywood example. So, you take my advice, and stop watching those remakes and sequels! Immediately, you stop feeding the machine....now, let's say the majority of movie goers feel like you, and they take my advice.....two things happen, firstly the industry is forced to consider change, secondly, you will bring and end to the industry in its current incarnation, thereby setting the scene for something new to evolve to replace it! And let's face it, what would be lost if the movie industry (in this example) ceased to be? It wasn't meeting the needs of the market anyway, so it might as well die.
This, however, presupposes, that others do in fact agree....and, enough others to form a majority! Going back to gaming, is this the case? Do the majority of gamers want an end to female objectification? That is the real question here!
Delephont wrote:OK, fair points! Stagnation is really a state where (in this case) the market is demanding change, but that change is being suppressed! As I responded above, if the majority of gamers want an end to female objectification, then it should happen! However, how will that change take place? If the almighty dollar is driving the industry, simply talking about change while filling their bank accounts really sends a weak message!
Not really. Talking about it and raising a ruckus feeds into market analysis. Developers and publishers alike need the media to promote their products, and the past has clearly shown that they do consider it serious enough to attempt to explain their positions, and react to accusations of sexism etc. In some cases, things were even changed. So, talking about it serves the double purpose of raising awareness towards other gamers, as well as telling the publishers what at least a part of their (potential) costumer base would want to see/buy.
All change starts with talking.
Delephont wrote:Going back to gaming, is this the case? Do the majority of gamers want an end to female objectification? That is the real question here!
And one I would not know the answer to. On one hand, the number of consumers who would want more gender-related variety just for variety's sake or because it appeals to their preferences is probably relatively small (albeit rising constantly, already suggesting it is only a matter of time). But on the other, I could see a large portion of gamers who do not actually care about those preferences, yet would still support this change based on their opinion of this medium as a whole, in that it, as a form of art, is capable of so much more and does not deserve to be held back by an industry focused on the lowest common denominator and "established wisdom". Because the concept of games with female protagonists not selling seems to be about as controversial as the publishers' insistence that space games would not sell. The kickstarters of Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen should have clearly demonstrated otherwise.
Well just to be clear, I agree, debate is essential to let others know they're not alone in their thinking! So, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be "talk"..... however, I don't think that talking about change WHILST simultaneously continuing to purchase / financially support the games you profess to find offensive sends a strong message. Eventually, it will come down to a decision to buy or reject!
Delephont wrote: Hey, if the video games industry actually does change because [BECAUSE] of market forces, then fine!
I do not think anything else could make it change.
Delephont wrote: However, how will that change take place? If the almighty dollar is driving the industry, simply talking about change while filling their bank accounts really sends a weak message!
By making it an advantage to have better female representation. Of course one is not going to base his or her purchase only on that on factor, but it will be one. But this is not enough, because if you do not make it clear that this was one of your factor, the people making the decisions about game might not understand it. Hence why it is also important to speak about it.
Similarly, if a game has a Linux version, I am much more likely to buy it. It is not even activism, it is just that it is much more convenient to me. But here, it is quite easy at least for the makers of this game to notice that I downloaded only the Linux version while for female character representation… unless I talk about it, it is pretty easy to miss it.
nomotog wrote: So women in games. Kind of a hot button if I ever knew one. One aspect about it is that is is often framed as people outside of gameing coming in and pointing out problems. (It's not always this way, but that is the feeling that seems to pop up most of the time.) Now my idea is to just flip that. We are gammers here, so what problems/eye rolling bits have we noticed that we might like to see addressed?
My kind of pet peeve is the Women=Dex/Magic Men=Str/Con trope. It's not always always present, but it shows up often enough that the exceptions are note worthy. (Fable 2.) It's kind of annoying because if you want to play a female character, your kind of locked into these fineness gameplay styles and game after game that can get annoying. (The fip side of it is that if you like fineness gameplay, you're often pushed into playing women.) This trope just bugs me.
It's a hot topic for sure, far more than it needs to be as one or both sides always resorts to some base form of douchebaggery. Outside sources commenting on the status quo of characters in gaming is the same as those who don't watch sports but feel the need to comment on the way a particular team or set of teams plays; it's nonsense and ends up being one more way for those people to gain popularity by saying some sort of controversial crap concerning a topic in which they know nothing.
All in all, I think things have gotten far better than where they were. The only female character I ever saw growing up in my video games was Lara Croft, and let's face it, she was eye candy. Badass. But eye candy nonetheless. The thing is, very few bother to see the progress that's actually been made. Everyone is very keen on commenting on how women are objectified and treated as second class in video games; but no one comments on the spotlight a lot of different games have shown on their female characters.
I think it's easier overall to see a man as a hero, I guess. I don't really care who I'm playing honestly. I tend to identify more with male characters because I'm a guy, but at the same time there are games I won't play unless I can play as a woman. *Shrug* Give it time I guess.
Delephont wrote:Well just to be clear, I agree, debate is essential to let others know they're not alone in their thinking! So, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be "talk"..... however, I don't think that talking about change WHILST simultaneously continuing to purchase / financially support the games you profess to find offensive sends a strong message. Eventually, it will come down to a decision to buy or reject!
Oh, absolutely.
Personally, the way women (or men, too) are portrayed in a game is something that factors into my purchase decisions. Not as the sole decisive factor, but one of many on a list of "checkboxes" concerning what I'm looking for in a game, together with an interesting story, a cool setting, a proper interface and contols, support for mods and multiplayer, or sufficiently immersive visuals and audio, and many more. So, for example, I do not simply refuse to buy a game solely because it may not offer gender selection during character creation if the game is otherwise too awesome to miss out on, such as with Deus Ex HR. Yet at the same time, I have in the past both purchased games (Remember Me) or refused to purchase them (The Witcher) because of this and similar factors, as the vast majority of games happen to be less of a "must-have" in my eyes and/or have the sexualisation aspect be more "extreme", making these questions more important.
So, one factor out of several. It's like how I'd love to buy Might & Magic X, but won't, because uPlay. I'm sure we all have a mental checklist of the things we are looking for in games, and our own individual thresholds of when a purchase can still be justified, and when not. I also got Sleeping Dogs mainly because even though the protagonist is male, he is an Asian for a change, and the game takes place in Hong Kong.
Delephont wrote: I'm being catered for by accident (I'm male, enjoying a male devised product), I realise others are not catered for, also by accident (females, not enjoying a male devised product). I can see that those not catered for, could be catered for (females), if they devised their own product rather than constantly telling me the product I enjoy (as a male) is wrong.
So men don't have to work for it-- you can just sit there and expect games to be made for you, no effort involved-- but you expect women to have to put out a ton of effort even as women are continually ignored by the big name producers, in order to have something catered to us?
That's really entitled still. You think you should have special privileges that other people shouldn't have, by nature of something which you born with and did not work to get.
At least, that is how you have been expressing yourself. Do you understand where this is coming from? I'm not asking to be treated differently, I'm asking to be treated the same as you are-- to get games I'd like to spend my hard-earned money on. Oftentimes, those games simply don't materialize, and without me speaking out, they probably never will. And when women DO make games, they aren't given the same level of attention by producers a when men do it, anyway, so your request just doesn't work.
Frankenberry wrote: The thing is, very few bother to see the progress that's actually been made. Everyone is very keen on commenting on how women are objectified and treated as second class in video games; but no one comments on the spotlight a lot of different games have shown on their female characters.
Oh, I see the progress, but we still haven't gotten far enough. Video games did not raise me to accept partial victories
Ashiraya wrote: I dunno, punching Talia's all-female henchmen in Batman: Arkham City seemed entirely decent to me.
Though I still have a few gripes with that game (Catwoman's boobwindow for example) despite its otherwise excellent quality.
That said, could some of you guys explain to me why, in the history of gaming, I have never seen a female character of this type beyond the one I created myself?
Spoiler:
I mean, sure, it's a stereotypically male role, but surely there could be at least a few?
'Behemoth' armour is surely not reserved for men?
Right?
Right?
Because it's not sexy and as a young male I want my women to look sexy.
I being a collective I, and while that's not a justification, it's the explanation. The video game industry is convinced that women don't play video games, and sex is a powerful marketing tool.
Personally? I'd never put that armor on my female characters because- hey, it's just not very flattering, But I think such an appearance should absolutely be an available option in games for people who desire it, when applicable. Who is anyone to say that people shouldn't be allowed to dress their characters in srs business armor.
"Hey my name is samus Aran and take offense to that."
I mean games really need more female counterparts. I mean right now what is defined as mature? Guns, violence, sex and death.
What is really mature?
Apart from being 'dark'.
I know some dark games, that are well and truly dark.
(I Have no Mouth and I must scream, which features a female character)
There are so many problems I have with the games industry. Whenever we try to be dark and moody, we lose sight of what truly is adult. I often sit down and read books, and figure out what I would classify as 'adult'
Because most attempts currently to be adult, have only backfired.
Frankenberry wrote: All in all, I think things have gotten far better than where they were. The only female character I ever saw growing up in my video games was Lara Croft, and let's face it, she was eye candy. Badass. But eye candy nonetheless. The thing is, very few bother to see the progress that's actually been made. Everyone is very keen on commenting on how women are objectified and treated as second class in video games; but no one comments on the spotlight a lot of different games have shown on their female characters.
Okay, Samus Aran and Elaine Marley (in Monkey Island 2) versus LoL and Smite. I am not sure I agree with you. Partly, maybe, but it is far from black and white.
Delephont wrote: I'm being catered for by accident (I'm male, enjoying a male devised product), I realise others are not catered for, also by accident (females, not enjoying a male devised product). I can see that those not catered for, could be catered for (females), if they devised their own product rather than constantly telling me the product I enjoy (as a male) is wrong.
So men don't have to work for it-- you can just sit there and expect games to be made for you, no effort involved-- but you expect women to have to put out a ton of effort even as women are continually ignored by the big name producers, in order to have something catered to us?
That's really entitled still. You think you should have special privileges that other people shouldn't have, by nature of something which you born with and did not work to get.
At least, that is how you have been expressing yourself. Do you understand where this is coming from? I'm not asking to be treated differently, I'm asking to be treated the same as you are-- to get games I'd like to spend my hard-earned money on. Oftentimes, those games simply don't materialize, and without me speaking out, they probably never will. And when women DO make games, they aren't given the same level of attention by producers a when men do it, anyway, so your request just doesn't work.
Melissa you have the exact same choises as everybody else. You buy and play the same games as everybody else.
The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games. Nobody is interested in gakky mobile games.
Delephont wrote: I'm being catered for by accident (I'm male, enjoying a male devised product), I realise others are not catered for, also by accident (females, not enjoying a male devised product). I can see that those not catered for, could be catered for (females), if they devised their own product rather than constantly telling me the product I enjoy (as a male) is wrong.
So men don't have to work for it-- you can just sit there and expect games to be made for you, no effort involved-- but you expect women to have to put out a ton of effort even as women are continually ignored by the big name producers, in order to have something catered to us?
That's really entitled still. You think you should have special privileges that other people shouldn't have, by nature of something which you born with and did not work to get.
At least, that is how you have been expressing yourself. Do you understand where this is coming from? I'm not asking to be treated differently, I'm asking to be treated the same as you are-- to get games I'd like to spend my hard-earned money on. Oftentimes, those games simply don't materialize, and without me speaking out, they probably never will. And when women DO make games, they aren't given the same level of attention by producers a when men do it, anyway, so your request just doesn't work.
Melissa you have the exact same choises as everybody else. You buy and play the same games as everybody else.
The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games. Nobody is interested in gakky mobile games.
The door is to your left.
That is completely and utterly sexist of a comment.
I suggest you take back your entire argument as it is completely flawed in its logic and delivery.
WE do not say that in the industry.
The fact you say that about a million dollar making industry is appaling.
Do you know what game makes the most money per a year other than World of Warcraft?
Candy Crush. And guess what.... The most used device is a mobile phone. They make over 1.6 Billion Dollars per a year.
illuknisaa wrote: Melissa you have the exact same choises as everybody else. You buy and play the same games as everybody else.
She do not have games that cater to her interests as much as you do.
illuknisaa wrote: The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games. Nobody is interested in gakky mobile games.
He's also apparently ill informed. Gakky mobile games are making lots of money
And as to my thoughts, yeah. I actually would prefer that if you're just going to throw someone in for tokenism, I'd rather they not be there at all. At least then the devs are being real with the fact they don't give a damn instead of hiding behind the "no no we're not prejudiced, look see there's a girl right here! With huge titties."
I'll take honest prejudice (Well, I suppose it could also result from piss poor writing ) over dishonest tokenism thank you
Oh course, the natural improvement is to make game's with decent characters. It's kind of hard to have a well rounded character who just stares and grunts while loading his shot gun and waiting for the next mob to show up. Kind of gotta have relationships (and no not just romantic ones) and that alone would be a massive improvement. I didn't like Halo 4 too much, but it offered one major improvement; Master Chief felt like a real human being in that armor rather than a robot programmed to shoot off one liners, and to me that happened because his relationship with Cortana gave him significantly more depth than he'd had in previous games (and likewise for Cortana). That relationship made the character's human rather than flat stand ins for the plot.
LordofHats wrote: And as to my thoughts, yeah. I actually would prefer that if you're just going to throw someone in for tokenism, I'd rather they not be there at all.
Or better, rather than include a brand new character, just select randomly half of your cast and gender-swap them. Bang! Instant female character generation .
LordofHats wrote: Oh course, the natural improvement is to make game's with decent characters. It's kind of hard to have a well rounded character who just stares and grunts while loading his shot gun and waiting for the next mob to show up.
Not all games need developed character. Old-school FPS had their charm too. Seriously, some more Serious Sam or Painkiller title could be awesome.
LordofHats wrote: He's also apparently ill informed. Gakky mobile games are making lots of money
And as to my thoughts, yeah. I actually would prefer that if you're just going to throw someone in for tokenism, I'd rather they not be there at all. At least then the devs are being real with the fact they don't give a damn instead of hiding behind the "no no we're not prejudiced, look see there's a girl right here! With huge titties."
I'll take honest prejudice over dishonest tokenism thank you
Oh course, the natural improvement is to make game's with decent characters. It's kind of hard to have a well rounded character who just stares and grunts while loading his shot gun and waiting for the next mob to show up. Kind of gotta have relationships (and no not just romantic ones) and that alone would be a massive improvement. I didn't like Halo 4 too much, but it offered one major improvement; Master Chief felt like a real human being in that armor rather than a robot programmed to shoot off one liners, and to me that happened because his relationship with Cortana gave him significantly more depth than he'd had in previous games (and likewise for Cortana). That relationship made the character's human rather than flat stand ins for the plot.
Agreed. I mean friendships in gaming and family relationships have yet to be explored in the medium. I mean it would be quite awesome to see a sister have to save her brother. Where she is the badass, and he the damsel. I mean it wouldn't be that hard to create a character like that.
And she meets creatures on the way that she forms a friendship with.
Throughout the entire game she would only make friends, and no romantic interests. I mean she might be attracted to some people, but she won't throw away everything for them.
I find it vastly interesting that the most notable game that I can think of a simple relationship is.... Well Shadow of the Colossus. Its a relationship between boyfriend and girlfriend. But the girlfriend doesn't do anything. We know nothing about her, except she's pretty and they guy is willing to go from heaven to hell to save her. That is an interesting relationship as it tells volumes about the characters themselves. She is not a damsel in distress, in fact she's dead. She's gone, but the character has not lost himself to remorse and pain. (or this might be his pain and remorse coming out and desperation to find a way to save his girl)
That is something I rarely see in games. Genuine relationships.
LordofHats wrote: And as to my thoughts, yeah. I actually would prefer that if you're just going to throw someone in for tokenism, I'd rather they not be there at all.
Or better, rather than include a brand new character, just select randomly half of your cast and gender-swap them. Bang! Instant female character generation .
LordofHats wrote: Oh course, the natural improvement is to make game's with decent characters. It's kind of hard to have a well rounded character who just stares and grunts while loading his shot gun and waiting for the next mob to show up.
Not all games need developed character. Old-school FPS had their charm too. Seriously, some more Serious Sam or Painkiller title could be awesome.
Or more half life titles.
I mean gordon freeman rarely talks, for all we know he is a transgender male. Who only knows sign language.
LordofHats wrote:And as to my thoughts, yeah. I actually would prefer that if you're just going to throw someone in for tokenism, I'd rather they not be there at all. At least then the devs are being real with the fact they don't give a damn instead of hiding behind the "no no we're not prejudiced, look see there's a girl right here! With huge titties."
I'll take honest prejudice over dishonest tokenism thank you
Hmmh. As I was pondering this earlier when the issue of tokenism came up, I thought I'd still prefer the token. But you make a convincing argument, as far as I'm concerned.
Of course this not only applies to women, but also non-White male characters.
It makes me think how much different movies and games would be if the writers would roll dice for such things, instead of defaulting to the same archetype again and again. And what effect this might have on the populace, over generations.
LordofHats wrote:I didn't like Halo 4 too much, but it offered one major improvement; Master Chief felt like a real human being in that armor rather than a robot programmed to shoot off one liners, and to me that happened because his relationship with Cortana gave him significantly more depth than he'd had in previous games (and likewise for Cortana). That relationship made the character's human rather than flat stand ins for the plot.
Though the first thing that springs to mind when the name "Cortana" pops up is how she was made less of a Avina-style AI and more of a glowy naked angel (right up to the belly-button) with each game, in terms of visuals. I get that this was very likely done so that the (male) gamer would look at her and think "damn, I'd tap that", but it is a bit sad that the writers thought this was necessary, rather than focusing on her voice and character.
It's like with EDI in ME3. Don't get me wrong, I love Mass Effect, but when they took what started as a simple voice and turned it into a sexbot, I cringed a little. It's just so ... juvenile. Heavy-handed.
Talizvar wrote: Like anything you see of a "group" that has been or feels repressed or messed with in general "over adjustment" can occur and suddenly the shoe is on the other foot and the opposite group is now at a disadvantage.
Unless they go to physically count the number of characters and such, many people initially "feel" like a game or TV show is female-dominated when it's actually 50/50, and that there is equal representation when there are actually far more men than women.
As a result, a lot of the complaints about this particular line of thinking tend to not really have any basis in reality. I actually remember on this forum someone having a debate about whether or not a game was egalitarian vs female-dominated, where people ended up literally counting the number of characters of either gender... and it ended up fifty-fifty. Then the people who said it was female-dominated queasily began to argue "well, it certainly FELT female-dominated, I bet they got more screen time"...
Yes, agreed that when used to a certain "standard" when it shifts, it will seem wrong at first, I can understand your point.
When someone falls back on "feelings" arguments, it is hard to make them be wrong: it is their feelings, problem is it opens them up to personal attacks. I personally like to try to give everyone a fair shake, it is these discussions that help examine the question: am I blind to some "unfair" behaviors of mine.
I would be careful about dismissing how others feel vs. "reality", objective evidence of fairness is a good start but those feelings of unfairness (or entitlement) need to be addressed.
At some point I have to form an opinion, make a decision and not be triple guessing myself or it makes for a sad human being: one can only handle so much analysis-paralysis.
Melissia: I have seen many of your discussions and you have had quite a few people take some hard runs at you, you give about as good as you get but with a alot more logic:
What would you suggest a person who genuinely is trying to be fair to do, say in regards to the fair treatment of women?
I have a suspicion the answers will vary with each person's experiences.
"Do to others as you would have them do to you." is my position until proven otherwise.
My suggestion is, if you aren't sure what to do in terms of fairness, one neutral, unbiased position is simple: When writing characters, write the character first, then flip a coin to determine if they're male or female after the character has been written.
This removes human judgment from the equation entirely, allowing you to say "look, we tried an unbiased, fair system for determining a character's gender" and then just focus on writing good characters instead. It's not perfect by any means, but it is gender-blind, and that's better than just assuming male as default by a long shot.
Didn't say developed. Said rounded (there is actually a difference, not being rude mind you). Careful ambiguity is one the great lost arts of modern characters.
In a very twisted way, the best example of a 'rounded character' that is not a 'developed character' is Alucard from Hellsing. Very little of the story is actually spent developing him at all (actually, pretty much none of the story is), but the story gives us a man who at first appears sadistic, arrogant, and unapologetic about anything he does. Story goes on, and the facade is torn away, revealing a broken man who loathes himself and desperately seeks a worthy death. The Hidden Depths behind that character are shocking when revealed, rounding him out greatly while giving him no real development at all; Alucard at the end of Hellsing, is essential the same person he was at the beginning, more or less.
I'm not necessarily asking every game to be a masterpiece of story telling, merely wishing they weren't so damned lazy.
Also, I actually would think that good human judgment would be better than the "coin flip" system. But it's clear that a lot of people are worried that they can't trust their judgment. Which is fine. So it's an alternative.
I think that we have to move away from the elitism in games. The smart phone is the most popular console for video games. Why someone playing Titanfall more worthy of the title 'gamer' than someone playing candy crush? The Wii made so much money because it aimed at making games accessible to a wide range of people. And they all should be considered gamers.
I am glad that games have made progress over time. I was glad that in Gears of War 3 that Anya picked up a gun and played the same as everyone else. It was definitely a step forward.
illuknisaa wrote: Melissa you have the exact same choises as everybody else.
That's like telling a gay man "you have the same choices on who to marry as everyone else, why do you demand equal rights? So either marry a woman or don't marry at all."
illuknisaa wrote: The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games.
Not true at all-- plenty are developing games for the PC as well, and a few even have managed to get games on places like XBox Live. Furthermore, mobile games are the easiest market for indie devs to enter in to to begin with, so it shouldn't be a surprise that new developers, with limited funds and little support from big name companies, would enter in to that market first. It's just good business sense.
While I personally am not interested in them, I would like to point out that mobile games make up two thirds of all phone application revenue. Last year, the worldwide gaming market netted $93 billion US dollars in profit; of that, $22 billion was made in mobile games, which is by far the fastest growing segment of games. By the standard definition of supply and demand, this indicates that there is a massive demand for mobile games.
Lynata wrote: It makes me think how much different movies and games would be if the writers would roll dice for such things, instead of defaulting to the same archetype again and again.
As I mentioned above, I am pretty sure that is how SMBC is working. Or close enough. The main result is that you stop caring about the gender or race of the characters, in my experience. Because it just does not give you any kind of preconceptions on who they are.
Also, I actually would think that good human judgment would be better than the "coin flip" system. But it's clear that a lot of people are worried that they can't trust their judgment. Which is fine. So it's an alternative.
I mean, there are different philosophies to approaching characters. I wouldn't be so arrogant as to say 1 way is the right way, but to me, part of a character is getting into that character's head. When I write female characters, it is a struggle because I'm a man not a woman but in that respect I'd rather try and fail than not try at all. Who a character is (as well as what they are) is an important part of their person. I doubt I'd be able to write a character and then pick their sex at random afterwards. I've certainly at times flipped a character's sex because it dawned on me the story and character would function better that way, but I usually sit down and say "Bob is *writes out character premise*"
If this results in a story that contains no women, I'm libel to just bite the bullet and deal with it than think "better add a chick." Though I can't say that's ever happened to me I usually come up with diverse casts. Probably about my only real talent as a writer, cause it sure as hell ain't prose.
AdeptSister wrote:I think that we have to move away from the elitism in games. [...]
Elitism will probably always be an issue - it's not just a gaming problem, but evolutionary baggage that still has us think in a "we vs them" mentality in many situations. It's why we as a species are still so fond of generalisations and placing people in neatly pre-labelled boxes instead of judging them as individuals.
Melissia wrote:Also, I actually would think that good human judgment would be better than the "coin flip" system. But it's clear that a lot of people are worried that they can't trust their judgment. Which is fine. So it's an alternative.
Ironically, just today I read this. The last paragraph in particular sounds related to the discussion at hand.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:As I mentioned above, I am pretty sure that is how SMBC is working.
SMBC?
Only saw your reply after I posted, btw. I did notice you were going about the same point.
That said, could some of you guys explain to me why, in the history of gaming, I have never seen a female character of this type beyond the one I created myself?
Spoiler:
I mean, sure, it's a stereotypically male role, but surely there could be at least a few?
'Behemoth' armour is surely not reserved for men?
In my attempt to stay positive this time around I've seen something rougly along those lines a couple of times. I'm assuming by "Behemoth" armor you mean heavy armor with a large face-concealing helmet with some variety of horn-like protrusion coming from it. Judge Drace from FF12 is the most recent example I can think of:
Spoiler:
It was a nice surprise, considering the games other designs... (ugh, staying positive...)
I'll admit it's rare to the point I cannot think of an example the "Evil" version of this, what with the glowing dark energy and KillingYouAxe. I swear I saw something in the early or mid-90s on the Sega Genesis or the like, but it's escaping me at the moment.
LordofHats wrote: I mean, there are different philosophies to approaching characters. I wouldn't be so arrogant as to say 1 way is the right way, but to me, part of a character is getting into that character's head. When I write female characters, it is a struggle because I'm a man not a woman but in that respect I'd rather try and fail than not try at all.
Perhaps the solution here, since most games are created by teams, is to have more than one writer.
Also, how do you determine who should be male and who should be female to begin with? Because you could easily flip a coin to determine their gender BEFORE you write them, if you think gender needs to play a role in how they act.
If I was a developer atm I would actually be putting less female characters in. The easiest way to introduce new characters is as enemies and in the current climate as soon as you make many female enemies you are going to be media slammed for encouraging violence against women. It's kind of a catch 22
I dunno, punching Talia's all-female henchmen in Batman: Arkham City seemed entirely decent to me.
Though I still have a few gripes with that game (Catwoman's boobwindow for example) despite its otherwise excellent quality.
That said, could some of you guys explain to me why, in the history of gaming, I have never seen a female character of this type beyond the one I created myself?
Spoiler:
I mean, sure, it's a stereotypically male role, but surely there could be at least a few?
'Behemoth' armour is surely not reserved for men?
Right?
Right?
all the time on city of heroes, i seem to remember seeing some obese female heroes- or as close as you could make them anyways- lets go with chunky. City of heroes had such a variable character creation that you literally saw characters of all types, and having 5 costumes meant much variation, mine normally had - normal superhero, variation 1, battler armour, evening wear and variation 3.Not saying i didn't make some sexualised heroes, because I sure did, but mostly got comments like nice costume rather than hot or would bang
Lynata- I was talking about the fear execs would have against portraying violence against women (I don't know how sexualised costumes would have any effect on percieved violence on women in games ) when it would simply be a case of making violence against women the same as vs men in video games.
That is completely and utterly sexist of a comment.
I suggest you take back your entire argument as it is completely flawed in its logic and delivery.
WE do not say that in the industry.
The fact you say that about a million dollar making industry is appaling.
Do you know what game makes the most money per a year other than World of Warcraft?
Candy Crush. And guess what.... The most used device is a mobile phone. They make over 1.6 Billion Dollars per a year.
So if I say gakky mobile games are gakky I'm sexist? lolwut?
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
illuknisaa wrote: Melissa you have the exact same choises as everybody else. You buy and play the same games as everybody else.
She do not have games that cater to her interests as much as you do.
illuknisaa wrote: The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games. Nobody is interested in gakky mobile games.
This is false.
Skydiving doesn't cater to people who are afraid of heights.
How it is false. Last time I looked companies that are mostly female develop mainly mobile games. Lets be fair here. Mobile games made by men are gakky too.
Candy crusher is making money? That doesn't make it "not gakky" or interesting.
Melissia wrote: Not true at all-- plenty are developing games for the PC as well, and a few even have managed to get games on places like XBox Live. Furthermore, mobile games are the easiest market for indie devs to enter in to to begin with, so it shouldn't be a surprise that new developers, with limited funds and little support from big name companies, would enter in to that market first. It's just good business sense.
Name one game that was/is made by women. Even a failed kickstarter is good enough.
It does not have to have horns, or anything at all. I was just referring to 'evil-looking armour big enough to significantly increase the user's size'.
all the time on city of heroes, i seem to remember seeing some obese female heroes- or as close as you could make them anyways- lets go with chunky. City of heroes had such a variable character creation that you literally saw characters of all types, and having 5 costumes meant much variation, mine normally had - normal superhero, variation 1, battler armour, evening wear and variation 3.Not saying i didn't make some sexualised heroes, because I sure did, but mostly got comments like nice costume rather than hot or would bang
Lynata- I was talking about the fear execs would have against portraying violence against women (I don't know how sexualised costumes would have any effect on percieved violence on women in games ) when it would simply be a case of making violence against women the same as vs men in video games.
Didn't say developed. Said rounded (there is actually a difference, not being rude mind you). Careful ambiguity is one the great lost arts of modern characters.
In a very twisted way, the best example of a 'rounded character' that is not a 'developed character' is Alucard from Hellsing. Very little of the story is actually spent developing him at all (actually, pretty much none of the story is), but the story gives us a man who at first appears sadistic, arrogant, and unapologetic about anything he does. Story goes on, and the facade is torn away, revealing a broken man who loathes himself and desperately seeks a worthy death. The Hidden Depths behind that character are shocking when revealed, rounding him out greatly while giving him no real development at all; Alucard at the end of Hellsing, is essential the same person he was at the beginning, more or less.
I'm not necessarily asking every game to be a masterpiece of story telling, merely wishing they weren't so damned lazy.
Oh well, let us just say that from time to time, I enjoy games where the main character is (or could as well be) a 0-dimensional cardbox. Like Daniel from Painkiller. I mean, you literally never see him outside of rare and useless cutscenes, I am not even sure you hear him, and the levels are awesome from a visual point of view, but there is absolutely no continuity behind them. Alucard appears sadistic arrogant and unapologetic, Daniel (or Doomguy, I guess, or a bunch of early FPS game main character) is a gun that you move and use to shoot at demon monster things.
Also that is certainly the characters that are the most easily genderswap, because their whole identity is just a goddamn skin, and solo FPS means nobody is ever going to see it anyway.
Melissia wrote: Also, how do you determine who should be male and who should be female to begin with?
Huh, suppose I do technically flip for sex at the beginning of working on I suppose XD Usually I just start with the male protagonist then add a second who is random (most of the time I juggle at least 2 POV's), but I usually do detailed character histories. I mean, what adolescent, male or female, doesn't have a childhood crush? Or a parents, even if they don't know who their parents are. I tend to fill out all the back story for someone and a lot of my extras come from there, so I guess in many ways I initially start out with societal defaults and mix it up as I go.
Bullockist wrote:Lynata- I was talking about the fear execs would have against portraying violence against women (I don't know how sexualised costumes would have any effect on percieved violence on women in games ) when it would simply be a case of making violence against women the same as vs men in video games.
Hmmh, do you have an example for this? I can't recall anyone raising a fuss about Fallout 3, for example, and you can blow scantly-clad people up by the limbs there. Dragon Age can get pretty bloody as well. And in ME3 I had a lot of fun popping those female Cerberus assassins' heads off with my heavy pistol.
Melissia wrote:"Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal", a comedy webcomic.
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
There is a fairly long list here of military cross-dressers, which of course includes men who disguised themselves as women but mostly is women who disguised themselves as men in order to fight.
So there it is, proof of women soldiers in many wars. Not sure if this is useful given that they were disguised as men in order to fight, but it could be used for a game plot in which you play a woman who wants to fight and must find ways to conceal your femininity from the rest of the soldiers.
There was also a Carry On film that had this as a plot, in which a young woman disguises herself as a new midshipman to join a warship. Royal Navy ships often carried women in non-direct combat roles since some officers had the privilege of bring their wives on voyages.
Back on topic, computer games are fictions, so it seems to me it is not a major problem to insert ahistorical characters into their plots.
illuknisaa wrote: Name one game that was/is made by women. Even a failed kickstarter is good enough.
3-D Tic-Tac-Toe on the Atari.
Yes, I own both an Atari and this game. Another such game was Centipede, a game still copied by a lot of phone games today.
You did ask for "one game that was/is made by women".
Others include Dear Esther (A bizarre experiment of a game; some might accuse it of not being a game at all), Monaco, Braid, Guitar Hero, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Portal, The End of Us, Legacy of Kain and Soul Reaver, Suikoden...
There's been a good number of games developed by women or with women in important or lead development roles-- and, frankly, a lot of them are the more interesting games out there to me. Thankfully, dev companies and producers are getting smarter about including more women on their teams, though it's happening quite slowly.
My kind of pet peeve is the Women=Dex/Magic Men=Str/Con trope.
Well, to be fair, that's closer to reflecting sexual dimorphism than it would be the other way around.
While true, it is nowhere near the levels that it is often portrayed as. The difference between a man and a supersoldier is colossal compared to the difference between a man and a woman.
Melissia wrote: Also, how do you determine who should be male and who should be female to begin with?
Huh, suppose I do technically flip for sex at the beginning of working on I suppose XD Usually I just start with the male protagonist then add a second who is random (most of the time I juggle at least 2 POV's), but I usually do detailed character histories. I mean, what adolescent, male or female, doesn't have a childhood crush? Or a parents, even if they don't know who their parents are. I tend to fill out all the back story for someone and a lot of my extras come from there, so I guess in many ways I initially start out with societal defaults and mix it up as I go.
Well, at least you're thinking about the process you use. Perhaps you'll refine the process and make it better because if it.
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Ashiraya wrote: While true, it is nowhere near the levels that it is often portrayed as. The difference between a man and a supersoldier is colossal compared to the difference between a man and a woman.
Also?
Bows take a TON of upper body strength to use, meaning it does NOT reflect the supposed gender dimorphism that Sigvatr refers to.
nomotog wrote:My kind of pet peeve is the Women=Dex/Magic Men=Str/Con trope.
Well, to be fair, that's closer to reflecting sexual dimorphism than it would be the other way around.
While true, it is nowhere near the levels that it is often portrayed as. The difference between a man and a supersoldier is colossal compared to the difference between a man and a woman.
Not to mention that averages should never constitute a rule. Else you arrive at the very essence of cliché.
nomotog wrote:My kind of pet peeve is the Women=Dex/Magic Men=Str/Con trope.
Well, to be fair, that's closer to reflecting sexual dimorphism than it would be the other way around.
While true, it is nowhere near the levels that it is often portrayed as. The difference between a man and a supersoldier is colossal compared to the difference between a man and a woman.
Not to mention that averages should never constitute a rule. Else you arrive at the very essence of cliché.
Indeedy. The strongest woman is far stronger than the average man, and you rarely play average characters.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3470 Browse it a bit. Not only most of the strips are awesome, but try to find any pattern in the use of male/female or race, I dare you .
First, publishers are interested in mobile games, because those makes tons of money. Second, there are many women that work on non-mobile game and many mobile games that are made by men.
You should definitely try DC Universe Online, it has tons of character costume option (well, many are not available from the start and need to be gained, though). I will try to get a few nice costume on my character to screenshot for you later if I have time before leaving the lab.
Name one game that was/is made by women. Even a failed kickstarter is good enough.
Roberta Williams was the developer of the KQ games and the cofounder of Sierra. I believe the later games were codeveloped by another woman, though her name escapes me.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3470
Browse it a bit. Not only most of the strips are awesome, but try to find any pattern in the use of male/female or race, I dare you .
Yeah, as mentioned before I even know and regularly read it (well, whenever it pops up in my feed) - the abbreviation just totally escaped my mind. And I didn't know that rather interesting bit about the characters. I guess I just assumed they were established characters.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:You should definitely try DC Universe Online, it has tons of character costume option (well, many are not available from the start and need to be gained, though). I will try to get a few nice costume on my character to screenshot for you later if I have time before leaving the lab.
Or Champions Online! *shameless plug*
Okay, personally I only play it in phases of a couple weeks every few months. But I do remember a rather cool character design that was some paraplegic woman who wore a suit of bulky, menacing power armour she interfaced with via a series of painful spikes drilled into her spine - her hero name was "Iron Maiden".
SneakyMek wrote: Well there where so called cantinières that where females that had followed regiments to the battlefield,they did however not take part in the battles themselves.
Each French regiment had women authorized to accompany it on campaign. Designated cantinières or vivandières, they wore clothes of at least partly military design. Their official function within the regiment was to sell tobacco and refreshments such as cognac from their carts and care for the wounded. In the latter role, some inevitably ventured into harm's way and became casualties. Marie Tête-du-bois, the cantinière of the 1st Grenadiers of the Guard, was cut in two by a cannonball at Waterloo.
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
In any case..lets not get too side tracked from the main focus on this thread.
There is a fairly long list here of military cross-dressers, which of course includes men who disguised themselves as women but mostly is women who disguised themselves as men in order to fight.
So there it is, proof of women soldiers in many wars. Not sure if this is useful given that they were disguised as men in order to fight, but it could be used for a game plot in which you play a woman who wants to fight and must find ways to conceal your femininity from the rest of the soldiers.
There was also a Carry On film that had this as a plot, in which a young woman disguises herself as a new midshipman to join a warship. Royal Navy ships often carried women in non-direct combat roles since some officers had the privilege of bring their wives on voyages.
Back on topic, computer games are fictions, so it seems to me it is not a major problem to insert ahistorical characters into their plots.
Agreed. I mean there was a game recently called wolfenstien the new order where one of the main villains was an old woman. Actually the entire cast was mixed race. They all were americans, brits, french, deutsch, polish etc.
Melissia wrote: Well, at least you're thinking about the process you use. Perhaps you'll refine the process and make it better because if it.
Eh, I'm pretty pleased with it as is really. I guess it starts off from my assumption that most people without some kind of push are societal default. There's a reason for someone to be outside the norm. Assuming sci-fi/fantasy, you get the bonus of being able to create the societal defaults which can always be fun
Bows take a TON of upper body strength to use, meaning it does NOT reflect the supposed gender dimorphism that Sigvatr refers to.
And that's not even getting into the issue that really, physical strength in combat has its worth, but is probably less relevant than other factors. Namely training, equipment, experience, etc. Boudica and Sparticus both had armies consisting of a large number of women, and they did okay until Rome finally decided fooling around wasn't getting the job done. Lets be fair, women or no women, you're motley hacked together army is probably gonna get rolled by the Legion
Melissia wrote: Well, at least you're thinking about the process you use. Perhaps you'll refine the process and make it better because if it.
Eh, I'm pretty pleased with it as is really. I guess it starts off from my assumption that most people without some kind of push are societal default. There's a reason for someone to be outside the norm. Assuming sci-fi/fantasy, you get the bonus of being able to create the societal defaults which can always be fun
Bows take a TON of upper body strength to use, meaning it does NOT reflect the supposed gender dimorphism that Sigvatr refers to.
And that's not even getting into the issue that really, physical strength in combat has its worth, but is probably less relevant than other factors. Namely training, equipment, experience, etc. Boudica and Sparticus both had armies consisting of a large number of women, and they did okay until Rome finally decided fooling around wasn't getting the job done. Lets be fair, women or no women, you're motley hacked together army is probably gonna get rolled by the Legion
But if it is superbly trained like a legion then its a different story.
Actually that would be cool. A game that focused on a medevil world where women rule with an iron fist. And men are sexualized.
Actually that I come to think of it that doesn't sound too appealing due to the fact that would be deemed sexist.
Name one game that was/is made by women. Even a failed kickstarter is good enough. There are quite a few games. Diablo 3 reaper of souls was written by woman.
Only by women? Do you have any idea of the number of people it takes to make a game? What about I ask you to name any AAA title made only by men?
Legend of Grimrock?
No, that is what you said. I didn't take your quote out of context. You said mobile games as well. But that is still a video game. You are insulting all female designers everywhere!
While true, it is nowhere near the levels that it is often portrayed as. The difference between a man and a supersoldier is colossal compared to the difference between a man and a woman.
Oh, I never said so. Just stated that sexual dimorphism is a thing and the usual stats differences reflect upon that. Though, actually, I mostly think that this was the reason back in the days and people simply adapted to it ever since.
Correct. Triple A games are usually multi-cultured as they are suppose to garner a larger audience.
Any good company employs the best available personnel regardless of gender, but rather for qualitfications. Opening up to both male and female employees largely increases your company's efficiency. Any "We only hire (wo)men!" suggestion is stupid as hell and doomed to begin with.
Bows take a TON of upper body strength to use, meaning it does NOT reflect the supposed gender dimorphism that Sigvatr refers to.
Jumping to wrong conclusions again. Bows profiting from DEX is different from the stat reflecting upon gender dimorphism. Not sure if you seriously doubt that the latter exists.
While true, it is nowhere near the levels that it is often portrayed as. The difference between a man and a supersoldier is colossal compared to the difference between a man and a woman.
Oh, I never said so. Just stated that sexual dimorphism is a thing and the usual stats differences reflect upon that. Though, actually, I mostly think that this was the reason back in the days and people simply adapted to it ever since.
Correct. Triple A games are usually multi-cultured as they are suppose to garner a larger audience.
Any good company employs the best available personnel regardless of gender, but rather for qualitfications. Opening up to both male and female employees largely increases your company's efficiency. Any "We only hire (wo)men!" suggestion is stupid as hell and doomed to begin with.
Its often a thing they their best to do. To have multicultured teams actually adds to how the game is done and the issues it can touch on.
And that whole idea that most designers white males. Yeah that is starting fade. Sorta.
Melissia wrote: There is nowhere near enough representation of female playable characters, and in many games (both old and, sadly, new) the ones that exist are shoehorned in to "agility" or "magic" roles, and some games (like Deus Ex) actually remove the option of having them where they had it previously. Most big-name-game protagonists end up being basically skinhead whiteguys with no personality, too, so it's not like there's anything gained by this bizarre practice.
Something that really to bug me when I thought about it is that we really don't have any actually blank slate characters. Like for example it is very hard to think of a single game character that doesn't have a designated gender.
Diablo III.
Who in Diablo 3? I know you can pick your gender and that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about a character who just has no know gender. Like V from order of the stick. Are they a man, woman, something in between? We don't know.
Sigvatr wrote: Bows profiting from DEX is different from the stat reflecting upon gender dimorphism.
Asserting this does not make it true. You haven't really provided a reason why this is the case.
There's three assertions going on in this branch of the conversation:
"Bows take more strength than swords"
(this is something that is provably true, comparing the draw strength of bows vs the strength needed to swing a sword)
"Bows are typically assigned to DEX characters"
(again, for the most part this is provably true, it is a tradition amongst games)
"When women are assigned as DEX characters, this reflects gender dimorphism"
(you're arguing this is true)
The logical conclusion that comes from these three assertions is that, if all three of these are true, then women must therefor be physically stronger than men. Since the first two assertions are provably true, the assertion that is in question is number three.
Melissia wrote: Well, at least you're thinking about the process you use. Perhaps you'll refine the process and make it better because if it.
Eh, I'm pretty pleased with it as is really. I guess it starts off from my assumption that most people without some kind of push are societal default. There's a reason for someone to be outside the norm. Assuming sci-fi/fantasy, you get the bonus of being able to create the societal defaults which can always be fun
Bows take a TON of upper body strength to use, meaning it does NOT reflect the supposed gender dimorphism that Sigvatr refers to.
And that's not even getting into the issue that really, physical strength in combat has its worth, but is probably less relevant than other factors. Namely training, equipment, experience, etc. Boudica and Sparticus both had armies consisting of a large number of women, and they did okay until Rome finally decided fooling around wasn't getting the job done. Lets be fair, women or no women, you're motley hacked together army is probably gonna get rolled by the Legion
But if it is superbly trained like a legion then its a different story.
Actually that would be cool. A game that focused on a medevil world where women rule with an iron fist. And men are sexualized.
Actually that I come to think of it that doesn't sound too appealing due to the fact that would be deemed sexist.
You are correct. It is sexist. Do you know why it is sexist?
I don't know if that's sexist in the way you're thinking of it (though I would agree it strikes me as sexist, but probably for different reasons), but the reason that bothers me is because it sounds like some kind of extremist separatist-feminist strawman.
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Sigvatr wrote: Yep, because you made the assertion. I talked about STR/CON.
Melissia wrote: Well, at least you're thinking about the process you use. Perhaps you'll refine the process and make it better because if it.
Eh, I'm pretty pleased with it as is really. I guess it starts off from my assumption that most people without some kind of push are societal default. There's a reason for someone to be outside the norm. Assuming sci-fi/fantasy, you get the bonus of being able to create the societal defaults which can always be fun
Bows take a TON of upper body strength to use, meaning it does NOT reflect the supposed gender dimorphism that Sigvatr refers to.
And that's not even getting into the issue that really, physical strength in combat has its worth, but is probably less relevant than other factors. Namely training, equipment, experience, etc. Boudica and Sparticus both had armies consisting of a large number of women, and they did okay until Rome finally decided fooling around wasn't getting the job done. Lets be fair, women or no women, you're motley hacked together army is probably gonna get rolled by the Legion
But if it is superbly trained like a legion then its a different story.
Actually that would be cool. A game that focused on a medevil world where women rule with an iron fist. And men are sexualized.
Actually that I come to think of it that doesn't sound too appealing due to the fact that would be deemed sexist.
You are correct. It is sexist. Do you know why it is sexist?
Probably because of either the males are put into an area.
Or that females wouldn't do something else. Currently I am class. And don't really care as much.
Delephont wrote: I'm being catered for by accident (I'm male, enjoying a male devised product), I realise others are not catered for, also by accident (females, not enjoying a male devised product). I can see that those not catered for, could be catered for (females), if they devised their own product rather than constantly telling me the product I enjoy (as a male) is wrong.
So men don't have to work for it-- you can just sit there and expect games to be made for you, no effort involved-- but you expect women to have to put out a ton of effort even as women are continually ignored by the big name producers, in order to have something catered to us?
That's really entitled still. You think you should have special privileges that other people shouldn't have, by nature of something which you born with and did not work to get.
At least, that is how you have been expressing yourself. Do you understand where this is coming from? I'm not asking to be treated differently, I'm asking to be treated the same as you are-- to get games I'd like to spend my hard-earned money on. Oftentimes, those games simply don't materialize, and without me speaking out, they probably never will. And when women DO make games, they aren't given the same level of attention by producers a when men do it, anyway, so your request just doesn't work.
I'm not really sure how to respond to this. People make games, I don't have any influence on those games, apart from tail end funding when I buy them. Those games, through no input from me (directly) objectify women. I'm a man, again, through no design of my own, and I like women. Because I make a big distinction between fact and fiction, I'm not offended by the objectification of women in computer games, because, putting it bluntly, it corresponds to my own sordid fantasies.....being a man! So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.
If I have special privileges due to an accident of birth, I would suggest the "issue" lies with those offering the privilege, not the recipient. That said, computer games could be labeled as a form of artistic expression, do any of us have a RIGHT to demand that artists caster for our particular needs? Just because something exists doesn't mean it HAS to cater for every facet of society! Great if it does, but what does?
People often talk about how everything should be inclusive, yet at the same time people talk about valuing individuality....how can you have both? Religion is very inclusive, and comes nowhere near accepting individuality, look at the middle east, look at what religion tries to do with anyone who isn't a monogamous heterosexual........perhaps its time to realise that right now, the video games industry is not designed to cater for females, just like the oil and gas industry isn't designed to cater for environmental sustainability...... It doesn't have to be that way, but it is! Change will ONLY come if people stop supporting the current incarnation and actively work to create a new one.....
Delephont wrote: So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.
The entitlement is the assertion that anyone who doesn't fit your "straight white male" category should either just shut up and enjoy the games catered to you, or go and make their own games-- things which you do not have to do. Basically, you asserted (And continue to assert) that you should get the benefits of society without working for them, while anyone who is different from you should have to work for those same benefits.
Who in Diablo 3? I know you can pick your gender and that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about a character who just has no know gender. Like V from order of the stick. Are they a man, woman, something in between? We don't know.
Okay, Asteroids. What gender is the ship from Asteroids.
Delephont wrote: So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.
The entitlement is the assertion that anyone who doesn't fit your "straight white male" category should either just shut up and enjoy the games catered to you, or go and make their own games-- things which you do not have to do. Basically, you asserted (And continue to assert) that you should get the benefits of society without working for them, while anyone who is different from you should have to work for those same benefits.
Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males", probably because the product is developed by " straight white males". Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration? So Porsche should change their design of the 911 because mothers with 6 kids can't currently use them?? Newsflash they were never designed to cater to that demographic!
In reality, there is nothing stopping other "non straight white males" developing their own products. So what if the major players have billions of dollars to play with, why does that somehow detract from an independent developer being able to cater for the needs of their target market, if the product is good, and there's a market, it will sell....end of!
If people are too lazy, or disenchanted to get off their asses and cater for themselves, why should anyone else. If straight white males are creating an artistic outlet for there collective sexual fantasy, then great, good for them! If you can enjoy that as well (assuming you're a female) hey have at it......if not, well, sad day for you......there's the keyboard, there's the code, get developing.
Who in Diablo 3? I know you can pick your gender and that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about a character who just has no know gender. Like V from order of the stick. Are they a man, woman, something in between? We don't know.
Okay, Asteroids. What gender is the ship from Asteroids.
That counts. My thought is more why doesn't it happen more often. There are a lot of games, particularly FPS, that have a character who is meant to be you and they have very low characterization. They often don't even have a real name, just a code or nick name. They almost always have a gender though. I think you could just level these self insert characters genderless.
Delephont wrote: So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.
The entitlement is the assertion that anyone who doesn't fit your "straight white male" category should either just shut up and enjoy the games catered to you, or go and make their own games-- things which you do not have to do. Basically, you asserted (And continue to assert) that you should get the benefits of society without working for them, while anyone who is different from you should have to work for those same benefits.
Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males", probably because the product is developed by " straight white males". Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration? So Porsche should change their design of the 911 because mothers with 6 kids can't currently use them?? Newsflash they were never designed to cater to that demographic!
In reality, there is nothing stopping other "non straight white males" developing their own products. So what if the major players have billions of dollars to play with, why does that somehow detract from an independent developer being able to cater for the needs of their target market, if the product is good, and there's a market, it will sell....end of!
If people are too lazy, or disenchanted to get off their asses and cater for themselves, why should anyone else. If straight white males are creating an artistic outlet for there collective sexual fantasy, then great, good for them! If you can enjoy that as well (assuming you're a female) hey have at it......if not, well, sad day for you......there's the keyboard, there's the code, get developing.
Developers can make a game for whatever demo they want. Bu I think the point is that that demographic you mentioned is not representative of the majority of gamers. And those gamers are telling the market they want change.
Who in Diablo 3? I know you can pick your gender and that isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about a character who just has no know gender. Like V from order of the stick. Are they a man, woman, something in between? We don't know.
Okay, Asteroids. What gender is the ship from Asteroids.
What is the gender in many games really. I mean most games like that we don't know.
My problems with how women are treated with games:
1) female protagonists; despite the popularity of Samus Aran and Lara Croft among a "Mostly Male Dominated Market" developers are told that they can't make a game with a female protagonist because they don't sell. They then take games with female protagonists and refuse to market them, making them.... not sell. Yet when Lara was advertised with New Raider, she sold a staggering amount of copies (Just because it wasn't "Successful" enough due to outrageous sales figure expectations doesn't mean it didn't sell a ton of copies).
2) Lack of "The Other Side"; Where is the Duchess Nukem? Where are the male FF characters ( )? Nobody wants Duke Nukem to go away (Though there are plenty who want him back), because he doesn't need to, but the other side would be nice to see once in a while.
3) We need some sillier female stories, as well as some more serious female stories, or actually just more female stories; Where is the tale of sisterly love? Of the Hero of The Ages forgetting his Sack Lunch and it's your job as his mom to track him down and give it to him? We have games where it's a father losing a child, what about a mother?
4) It would be really nice if female characters weren't just relegated to "Damsel in Distress" or "Bad Bitch". I want more Disney Hercules Megs ("I'm a Damsel, I'm in Distress, I can handle it; have a nice day ")
Edit: Stuff like "Not So Secretly A Princess gets Kidnapped and Protagonist goes out to save her, and while he's gone NSSAP comes back after freeing herself and wonders where the hell the Protagonist went off to" would be a nice play on the formula.
AdeptSister wrote: Developers can make a game for whatever demo they want. Bu I think the point is that that demographic you mentioned is not representative of the majority of gamers. And those gamers are telling the market they want change.
It's very representative for certain genres/platforms. The idea that the majority of, for example, PC strategy game fans in this country aren't white and male is kind of out there, really.
AdeptSister wrote: Developers can make a game for whatever demo they want. Bu I think the point is that that demographic you mentioned is not representative of the majority of gamers. And those gamers are telling the market they want change.
It's very representative for certain genres/platforms. The idea that the majority of, for example, PC strategy game fans in this country aren't white and male is kind of out there, really.
Maybe. But more and more games and media are not being made for just Americans. Starcraft (unless you don't include RTS as strategy) extremely popular in South Korea. Or LoL. Heck look at the demographic for fighting games. If EVO is representative of the American fighting game demographic, it is changing.
AdeptSister wrote: Maybe. But more and more games and media are not being made for just Americans. Starcraft (unless you don't include RTS as strategy) extremely popular in South Korea. Or LoL. Heck look at the demographic for fighting games. If EVO is representative of the American fighting game demographic, it is changing.
I would say almost no games are being made exclusively for Americans anymore, if they ever were.
But as we discussed in the recently-locked thread regarding Smite's representation of Chinese gods, the demand out of the Asian market isn't for more representation, it's for more blonde Caucasian sex kittens.
Asherian Command wrote: No, that is what you said. I didn't take your quote out of context. You said mobile games as well. But that is still a video game. You are insulting all female designers everywhere!
Melissia wrote: And when women DO make games, they aren't given the same level of attention by producers a when men do it, anyway, so your request just doesn't work.
The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games. Nobody is interested in gakky mobile games.
At this point people should just completely ingnore everything you say because you take stuff out of context, make false accusations and rile people up because of that.
The point of asking for a game which is made by women was to find out that women moke something other than mobile games.
I don't care if the dev has men as long as over 50% is female. Game can still be in developent or be a failed crowdfunding project (kickstater, indiegogo etc.)
Just for those who are interested. Witcher 2 was made men. The only woman in CDPR is/was some lady in pr department.
AdeptSister wrote: Maybe. But more and more games and media are not being made for just Americans. Starcraft (unless you don't include RTS as strategy) extremely popular in South Korea. Or LoL. Heck look at the demographic for fighting games. If EVO is representative of the American fighting game demographic, it is changing.
I would say almost no games are being made exclusively for Americans anymore, if they ever were.
But as we discussed in the recently-locked thread regarding Smite's representation of Chinese gods, the demand out of the Asian market isn't for more representation, it's for more blonde Caucasian sex kittens.
You always want to be a little weary when you assume what companies are doing is what people want. They don't always sync up.
illuknisaa wrote: Witcher 2 was made men. The only woman in CDPR is/was some lady in pr department.
Did Witcher 2 fix that bug from the first game where all the dialogue was replaced four letter words and references to genitalia on a continuous loop? I mean without that bug is was perfectly serviceable as you run of the mill awkwardly-controlling RPG set an interchangeably generic "Gritty" setting so devoid of joy and humanity it may as well have been populated by snarling robots. However with the bug... actually never mind that bug did they fix all those other things?
Delephont wrote: So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.
The entitlement is the assertion that anyone who doesn't fit your "straight white male" category should either just shut up and enjoy the games catered to you, or go and make their own games-- things which you do not have to do. Basically, you asserted (And continue to assert) that you should get the benefits of society without working for them, while anyone who is different from you should have to work for those same benefits.
Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males", probably because the product is developed by " straight white males". Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?
Ooooh! Ooooh!
I got this one!
Look at GW: they target the "collector market that wants to buy their jewel-like models"!!!
There are quite a few examples of a targeted market where making sense or not, they are happy to exclude other potential customers.
Easy fix: try not to buy their stuff if it makes you upset both as the non-target market or the more activist target market (I try so hard with GW... you win some, you lose some).
Melissia: Yes, they should try to be more responsible and be more inclusive (even from a business viewpoint it only makes sense).
The reaping the "benefits of society without working for them" is a rather nasty generalization, there is a case that some demographics may have more resources available than others so the question of "why" becomes all the more acute. We all seek personal advantage where we can, if it takes aligning with some "faction" many do not pause.
Delephont: Another subscriber to "Life is not obligated to be fair."?
Delephont wrote: Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Just because I reach an entirely different conclusion than you doesn't mean lack of comprehension.
Delephont wrote: Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males"
Citation needed.
Seriously, citation needed. Because you're making an assertion without evidence.
You're making the assertion that the only market that matters is the Straight White Male market, and claiming that it so massively dwarfs any other target demographics that there's no reason to even consider them at all.
This is an assertion made without any evidence backing it up, and in fact, with tons of evidence-- as well as comments from developers themselves-- that this assertion is inherently flawed and wrong.
Delephont wrote: Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?
Because they're people.
Claiming that someone is entitled because they want to be treated with equal respect is, frankly, a real jerk thing to do. And that's exactly what you did. And what you keep doing. There's nothing "entitled" about wanting to be treated equally. By definition, entitlement requires one to ask to be treated in a special manner which other people do not get. Which... is what you have been doing with your arguments.
Delephont wrote: So where's the "entitlement" if 99% of the outcome is purely accidental.
The entitlement is the assertion that anyone who doesn't fit your "straight white male" category should either just shut up and enjoy the games catered to you, or go and make their own games-- things which you do not have to do. Basically, you asserted (And continue to assert) that you should get the benefits of society without working for them, while anyone who is different from you should have to work for those same benefits.
Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males", probably because the product is developed by " straight white males". Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?
Ooooh! Ooooh!
I got this one!
Look at GW: they target the "collector market that wants to buy their jewel-like models"!!!
There are quite a few examples of a targeted market where making sense or not, they are happy to exclude other potential customers.
Easy fix: try not to buy their stuff if it makes you upset both as the non-target market or the more activist target market (I try so hard with GW... you win some, you lose some).
Melissia: Yes, they should try to be more responsible and be more inclusive (even from a business viewpoint it only makes sense).
The reaping the "benefits of society without working for them" is a rather nasty generalization, there is a case that some demographics may have more resources available than others so the question of "why" becomes all the more acute. We all seek personal advantage where we can, if it takes aligning with some "faction" many do not pause.
Delephont: Another subscriber to "Life is not obligated to be fair."?
Yes and no.
Put aside all the big money and corporate bullshog and you have (generally) some guys sitting in a room getting sweaty about their latest fantasy! Let's assume its a video game, and these guys think it will be awesome to have some women running around, easy for sex, with breast enough to shame Dolly Parton.....imagine a really crass game, and then some! So these guys think they've done good. They haven't considered Jews, Muslims, Christians, Animal rights, Feminists, Blacks, Hispanics, Little people, disabled people, Refugees, or War veterans.....they've simply sat in their room and had a fantasy. So, they now float the game on the market, it makes millions.....it's a best seller in fact.
Now, over the horizon comes the Feminist brigade......these guys are like criminals in their eyes, why? Well, not only did they fantasise in a way that the Feminists didn't agree with, they had the audacity to share it.......and......gnnn gnnnn MAKE A GOD DAMN PROFIT.......AAAaaaaAaHhhhh. How dare they dream, and how dare they make money from such sordid objectification of the opposite sex!!
So, in order to atone for their "sins", they will now have to make a game that ignores their fantasy in the way the want to portray it, it WILL have women that look like the average Jane on the street (don't want to give women a body complex), those women WILL likely NOT respond to any in character sexual advance, in fact the females will NOT have any need for men whatsoever! These in game women will NOT conform to any socially derived gender stereotypes (you know, caring about makeup, shopping, gossip, etc) even though 89% of women in reality DO conform to those stereotypes!......And to top it off, just because the PC brigade is in full swing, let's make it Jew, Muslim, Christian, Black, Hispanic, disabled friendly as well.........and the incentive to do this? Well, to keep xxx% of the population of the world happy, even though only a fraction of that xxx% will even buy the game in the end anyway
Delephont wrote: Now, over the horizon comes the Feminist brigade......these guys are like criminals in their eyes
A pointless strawman argument.
I'd have to spend twenty minutes just compiling a list of things wrong with that one sentence, never mind the entire post. Frankly, it's not worth the effort if this is the kind of response that you're going to be giving.
Asherian Command wrote:
No, that is what you said. I didn't take your quote out of context. You said mobile games as well. But that is still a video game. You are insulting all female designers everywhere!
Melissia wrote: And when women DO make games, they aren't given the same level of attention by producers a when men do it, anyway, so your request just doesn't work.
The reason why women don't get attention from publishers is because women make gakky mobile games. Nobody is interested in gakky mobile games.
At this point people should just completely ingnore everything you say because you take stuff out of context, make false accusations and rile people up because of that.
The point of asking for a game which is made by women was to find out that women moke something other than mobile games.
I don't care if the dev has men as long as over 50% is female. Game can still be in developent or be a failed crowdfunding project (kickstater, indiegogo etc.)
Just for those who are interested. Witcher 2 was made men. The only woman in CDPR is/was some lady in pr department.
Mate I am not the only who is pointing out to you, that is a sexist idea. That sentence is completely sexist.
You are implying that women can't make games.
That women don't make games.
That is how it is read.
That is how it is grammatically written.
That is the context and meaning of the sentence you have written.
And we aren't talking about crowd funding. Infact there have been games recently that have been crowd funded. I mean do you know who does the majority of the art and design of most of relics games?
No?
Well....
That would Be Allision Theus one of the major artists at relic entertainment and a member of the Extra Credits team.
http://beastofoblivion.deviantart.com/
There is not one person that makes a video game. it is a complete team effort.
We have Animators, Programmers, Developers, Designers, Artists, Liasons, and many more. The most important people and most famous are the Designers. The ones who have power over all the others. They are the people that communicate their ideas and can work as writers. They are the more flexible people as well.
It is one of the few fields that combines almost several hundred skills. And if a game design studio so wished. They could probably become their own animation company or tech company.
There are many people in the gaming scene that are women.
The mainstream media has never even heard of them sadly.
But your remarks are completely incorrect. You made that remark and I am refuting it. I am not getting a rise out of it, nor am I taking it that way. I just found it completely insulting to female designers. Some I am friends with. AS a complete and utter insult.
Delephont wrote: Either you genuinely don't understand, or you're being willfully ignorant.
Just because I reach an entirely different conclusion than you doesn't mean lack of comprehension.
Delephont wrote: Everything has a target market, for computer games the target market is "straight white males"
Citation needed.
Seriously, citation needed. Because you're making an assertion without evidence.
You're making the assertion that the only market that matters is the Straight White Male market, and claiming that it so massively dwarfs any other target demographics that there's no reason to even consider them at all.
This is an assertion made without any evidence backing it up, and in fact, with tons of evidence-- as well as comments from developers themselves-- that this assertion is inherently flawed and wrong.
Delephont wrote: Now, I keep hearing about how hard it is for "others" to do their own thing, well, tough......why should people who don't fit into the target market feel they deserve any consideration?
Because they're people.
Claiming that someone is entitled because they want to be treated with equal respect is, frankly, a real jerk thing to do. And that's exactly what you did. And what you keep doing. There's nothing "entitled" about wanting to be treated equally. By definition, entitlement requires one to ask to be treated in a special manner which other people do not get. Which... is what you have been doing with your arguments.
Citation needed? Hmm, well, I don't have the numbers, but I can theorise based on extrapolation of data! Here we go, let's see.
Firstly, we're having this debate regarding objectification of women in video games, and we can both agree (I hope) that this isn't an isolated phenomenon! Therefore, I can conclude that there is in the minds of either many people (or a vocal minority) a "genuine" problem.
Secondly, the video games industry is doing quite well as a whole, with production values rising and the investment in games hitting record breaking levels, in some cases rivalling the production vales of the movie industry.
Conclusion: There appears to be a "problem" (as witnessed by debates like this), however, the offending industry is not only continuing to survive, but it's thriving.......logical conclusions: 1) There isn't an issue, 2) The people complaining are hypocrites who continue to purchase the games that they state offends them, or 3) The issue is real, people are offended, but only form a significantly small minority as to have no financial bearing on the market!
So while the target market may indeed NOT be "straight white males" (and I used that phrase as a direct quote from one of your earlier posts!) it doesn't appear to be poo faced hard line Feminists either. Given that it's those hard line feminists who want things to change, I imagine market demographics are more of a problem for them then those "straight white males" you keep referring to.
As a straight white male, I wish I felt more like games were made for me. I might not feel like some 90+% of them were utter gak at that point. Seriously, my Steam list of games I've had for months that don't have more than 3 hours of play time on them is pathetically long, and my Eve Online hours played proves I don't have attention issues.
daedalus wrote: As a straight white male, I wish I felt more like games were made for me. I might not feel like some 90+% of them were utter gak at that point. Seriously, my Steam list of games I've had for months that don't have more than 3 hours of play time on them is pathetically long, and my Eve Online hours played proves I don't have attention issues.
Sorry I am laughing way too hard.
Seriously guys stop making me laugh.
I might have to take a break for a bit.
I mean you may say, "There are no games made for me."
That is very true.
I mean I like edgy and dark games. I mean truly dark games. And guess how many of those games I encounter?
(VERY FEW)
I like games like Home, where the story changes and the end changes according to what you do during the game.
Or no one has to die. Where a fire breaks out in an office building.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that games aren't made because there's some dark conspiracy to only make them for straight white men. They're not made for straight white men. They're made for companies, to turn a profit. What turns a profit? The same thing that turned a profit yesterday. The creative process is a widget, and we gotta stamp out as many of them as we can before they shut down the factory.
You could make every single game about a transexual asian woman who's from the future, and I wouldn't give a damn, so long as it wasn't just some contrived crap dragged and dropped into a previous game with a lame veneer of freshness smeared over it. THAT'S the reason why the gaming industry is fethed.
To the original observation of how women are represented in games? Sure, sex sells. It does so in games, just like it does in commercials, movies, conventions, physical games, tv shows, billboards, music videos, web sites, teen magazines, adult magazines, and damned near any other medium that you could be exposed to.
I mean, I understand the crusade. I can see why it would be annoying at best, degrading at it's worst even. It just seems overzealously focused and myopic. There's a culture there that extends far beyond video games.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Well, okay, maybe the problem is that they ARE marketing games to straight white men, but not to people who, you know, actually enjoy games.
I find it odd that you say overzealously focused and myopic. Why shouldn't there be focus? A lack of focus means things probably won't get done in the first place. It's hardly myopic, either-- it's taking a long view of the industry that many people simply refuse to take; companies don't like taking it because of the infestation of short-termism in American corporate culture (seriously, just look at how different American companies define "long term" compared to, say, Asian companies... the difference is astounding!), and fans don't like taking it because it often makes them uncomfortable. But it's still an important conversation to have.
Well, because it's ALL media, not just games. It seems strange to only limit the desire for change to one form of media, while others continue on, as bad or worse. Okay, maybe to use an example. Consider the Twilight books. I've not read them, so this is probably a bad example, but I'm going to continue anyway. I've had discussions about them, inluding critical estimates of them from several intelligent women who described the lead character as being a weak women who's fairly incapable and helpless.
Maybe it's because I go among gaming forums, not twilight forums, but I don't see the same level of reaction to that kind of stuff, and that's what's being targeted at women.
So now we are talking about escapism or fantasies (elicit or not) being floated into the market place that may "exploit" various portrayals of people.
Been going on a long time with books.
Various romance novels have all kinds of "classy" portrayals in either gender.
I like "Anita Blake" books but still feel like I am getting a kick in the now and then from that particular author (probably how women feel with some male authors).
I think the female role into gaming development is still not far enough into the management / business decision making part so they may have good representation in work force but little influence on finished product.
"Green Light" on Steam and Indie support in general may give more freedom for leveling the playing field.
So, just like with the various Harlequin Romance books made good money in the past, "trash" games appeal to a similar market (different demographic however).
I remember as a kid reading the "Red Sonja" comics and thinking her skills with sword and strength of will was awesome, really wondered on the point of the metal bikini.
Always thought at least leathers or chainmail was better and the long hair was always a problem and should have been cut.
<edit> Point being, the older version would have a whole different take on the comic.
The thing is, it may start off as a good story, then a "shotgun" approach is wanted, so add eye candy, risky content, so management gets those sales they wanted.
Errr... I find it odd that you think that feminists haven't criticized this book. I mean, it's not like it hasn't been criticized by just about everyone else
Fair enough then. To be honest, outside of Dakka, I spent considerably small amounts of time online outside of strictly technical research, let alone going to websites discussing Twilight for whatever reason. I suppose the only thing I'm actually causing me to operate under those assumptions is my own genuine ignorance of the situation.
Hey, I don't know. I just came here to point out that Roberta Williams was a female software developer pages back. My big dumb brain just made me keep thinking on the topic.
Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.
LordofHats wrote: Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.
Its funny that is an exceptional good market now, as people still produce it. Smuttygirl fiction I call it.
LordofHats wrote: Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.
Its funny that is an exceptional good market now, as people still produce it. Smuttygirl fiction I call it.
I don't even have an issue with 'smuttygirl' fiction. I have an issue with bad fiction, and Twilight made pretty much every mistake under the sun (I've read similar books/series that were at least decent). The movies were great comedies though.
LordofHats wrote: Twilight has be criticized as terrible by both MRM and Feminists. You know something is just plain awful, when MRM and Feminists are both willing to agree that it's awful for basically the same reasons.
Its funny that is an exceptional good market now, as people still produce it. Smuttygirl fiction I call it.
I don't even have an issue with 'smuttygirl' fiction. I have an issue with bad fiction, and Twilight made pretty much every mistake under the sun (I've read similar books/series that were at least decent). The movies were great comedies though.
Oh god yes.
The only equalivent in gaming that I know of is Ride to Hell Retribution.
Talizvar wrote: So now we are talking about escapism or fantasies (elicit or not) being floated into the market place that may "exploit" various portrayals of people.
Been going on a long time with books.
Various romance novels have all kinds of "classy" portrayals in either gender. I like "Anita Blake" books but still feel like I am getting a kick in the now and then from that particular author (probably how women feel with some male authors).
I think the female role into gaming development is still not far enough into the management / business decision making part so they may have good representation in work force but little influence on finished product.
"Green Light" on Steam and Indie support in general may give more freedom for leveling the playing field.
So, just like with the various Harlequin Romance books made good money in the past, "trash" games appeal to a similar market (different demographic however).
I remember as a kid reading the "Red Sonja" comics and thinking her skills with sword and strength of will was awesome, really wondered on the point of the metal bikini. Always thought at least leathers or chainmail was better and the long hair was always a problem and should have been cut. <edit> Point being, the older version would have a whole different take on the comic.
The thing is, it may start off as a good story, then a "shotgun" approach is wanted, so add eye candy, risky content, so management gets those sales they wanted.
'
Here is a reimagined piece.
And yes that is a woman.
A badass redheaded woman.
I would like to see a game made out of that character. Who is free to do whatever they want.
There are quite a few artists who have taken a similar stance.
Slarg232 wrote: Ride to Hell was just plain old offensive. I didn't want my money back, I wanted EVERYONE to get their money back on that one.
I disagree actually. I loved it. I thought it was so bad that it made it really stupidly funny. The glitches were kind of funny.
It wasn't really offensive. The graphics were so bad I thought the main character is Hispanic.
daedalus wrote: Well, because it's ALL media, not just games. It seems strange to only limit the desire for change to one form of media, while others continue on, as bad or worse. Okay, maybe to use an example. Consider the Twilight books. I've not read them, so this is probably a bad example, but I'm going to continue anyway. I've had discussions about them, inluding critical estimates of them from several intelligent women who described the lead character as being a weak women who's fairly incapable and helpless.
Maybe it's because I go among gaming forums, not twilight forums, but I don't see the same level of reaction to that kind of stuff, and that's what's being targeted at women.
Maybe I just don't get it somehow.
Like you said, you are in a gaming forum so you get gaming related complaints. There was a ton of feminist criticism of Twilight. Heck, there was a lot of mainstream criticism as well.
People are not limiting their complaints to one medium, just to the medium at hand. And one cannot solve a global problem at once: You have to break it up in pieces, address one issue, and use the success to support another issue.
I do not feel any obligation to respond seriously and deeply to a post that calls me a gak-faced hard-liner.
Indeed, are you actually able to respond to anything without twisting it to suit your petty agenda? Where have I call you specifically a name? I do believe that quote you've so typically purloined was aimed a movement. Considering the way you conduct yourself I guess it's really hardly surprising that you would align yourself with such a cult.
What's ironic about your post, in keeping with most fanatical movements, you people will find any and every excuse to be insulted. Which indicates that, no matter what the video game (and any other industry) does to try to appease your whining, you'll always find some displeasure, some minor slight with which to launch your next crusade......once a victim, forever a victim.
Anyway, good luck, I trust the video games industry will do much the same as me, and simply place you and your "movement" where you belong.....on the ignore list!
I think the gender of your character is often secondary to the game itself. The gender of a protagonists (or a group of protagonists) should flow naturally from the story being told. One should inform the other.
Talizvar wrote: The better games let you play any class with any sex.
That's a strikingly colossal generalisation. What determines how good a game is is often, y'know, the game itself (gameplay, mechanics, story, music, graphics), not which gender you can choose.
We are altogether too focused on gender when it's one of the least important aspects of games. To quoteAmy Henning, the writer on everything from the Legacy of Cain series to the Uncharted series:
"You just write people, honestly. It's not any different. I think that if you're over-focused on the gender, you're probably writing a pretty one-dimensional character. Gender's not that huge of a component of personality, I don't think. At the end of the day, I think our humanity is the bigger component. I try to just write everybody like...genderless in some ways. Which I think is what makes them interesting."
The issue is just that we keep buying the stuff, same with GW, people are complaining but are still buying the stuff, so the developers go, why make different games they keep buying our crap.
Oh and X-blade is bad, one of the few games i stopped playing because it was that bad (and i am a trophy nut) lately i got blades of time which is basically the same game with better graphics.
H.B.M.C., I am not sure how the gender of the protagonists inform the story. Especially since you (rightfully so, imo) how gender is not a big part of personality.
Sorry for the confusion, I mean that the story should inform what characters show up. If a female character fits into the story being told, then it should have a female character. If the half-bear/half-falcon blind transexual possessed by the spirit of a Latino war-veteran fits the story... then that is the character that should be there.
That's not to say you can't come up with a great character and then write a story around that, but, again, the gender of that "great" character is an aspect of that character, not their reason for being. A character isn't interesting because they're a man or a woman. They're interesting because of their back-story, their attitude, the way they interact with people and so on.
As a gay man, I require all females be removed from games and all males be highly sexualised for my pleasure.
On a more serious note, I had great enjoyment reading a certain users posts and thinking to myself "How the feth can you think that way when it's been pointed out repeated times how wrong you are by multiple people?". Great fun!
H.B.M.C. wrote: If the half-bear/half-falcon blind transexual possessed by the spirit of a Latino war-veteran fits the story... then that is the character that should be there.
Not going to lie, I would play the gak out of that game. It shall be called...Bearmanbird : Revengence
H.B.M.C. wrote: If the half-bear/half-falcon blind transexual possessed by the spirit of a Latino war-veteran fits the story... then that is the character that should be there.
Not going to lie, I would play the gak out of that game.
It shall be called...Bearmanbird : Revengence
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's called "Dragon Age: Inquisition."
H.B.M.C. wrote: If the half-bear/half-falcon blind transexual possessed by the spirit of a Latino war-veteran fits the story... then that is the character that should be there.
Not going to lie, I would play the gak out of that game. It shall be called...Bearmanbird : Revengence
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's called "Dragon Age: Inquisition."
Will you able to romance a pigeon? If not, I will be very disappointed. I mean, Hatoful boyfriend did it.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Apparently, magic makes you weightless.
The lack of heavy armour allows the warrior to make full use of her agility instead of being burdened (= dragged down) by weight. Don't you see? It's science!
Speaking of Dragon Age, I have to say that those games had some cool nice and bulky armour designs.
H.B.M.C. wrote: If the half-bear/half-falcon blind transexual possessed by the spirit of a Latino war-veteran fits the story... then that is the character that should be there.
Not going to lie, I would play the gak out of that game.
It shall be called...Bearmanbird : Revengence
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's called "Dragon Age: Inquisition."
Will you able to romance a pigeon? If not, I will be very disappointed.
I mean, Hatoful boyfriend did it.
If not, you can rest assured that David Gaider will show up at the next PIGEONROMANCEGAMERCON to apologize and promise to do better.
You know I would like to see some of the excuse for bad armor used logically to make a character. Like your a wizard, you have magic so you don't have to wear armor. Heck you can wear what ever you want because your the bloody wizard. How would someone dress if they could dress however they wanted.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Apparently, magic makes you weightless.
The lack of heavy armour allows the warrior to make full use of her agility instead of being burdened (= dragged down) by weight. Don't you see? It's science!
Speaking of Dragon Age, I have to say that those games had some cool nice and bulky armour designs.
So, uh, she gives some woman as a pet to some soldier to cheer him up, and your conclusion is “Gods don't think much of mortals”? That is an interesting one. I also fail to see you reasoning about creating. I mean, even if bypassing normal procreation, you were to create a clone, or any other kind of sentient, living being, would you consider him/her/it an object because of it?
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: So, uh, she gives some woman as a pet to some soldier to cheer him up, and your conclusion is “Gods don't think much of mortals”? That is an interesting one. I also fail to see you reasoning about creating. I mean, even if bypassing normal procreation, you were to create a clone, or any other kind of sentient, living being, would you consider him/her/it an object because of it?
You mean the same gods that regularly rape, kill, and destroy vast swaths of mortals out of spite or just uncaring?
I mean people remember Zeus right? Regular Rapist god? And then his wife Hera attacks the mortal instead of Zeus out of spite for his cheating?
I mean Nu Wa literally created humans out of clay itself, is the value of something higher because it's now 'sentient' to a god who deals with the heavens?
ZebioLizard2 wrote: You mean the same gods that regularly rape, kill, and destroy vast swaths of mortals out of spite or just uncaring?
In Smite? Because certainly you are not suggesting that Smite has any real connection with the actual lore of those Gods ?
Anyhow, I still think it works pretty good as an unintended allegory .
Pets? I saw her giving out companions. Someone wanted a... sheep (was it?), another one wanted a wife, and the final one wanted a big cat to play with.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: So, uh, she gives some woman as a pet to some soldier to cheer him up, and your conclusion is “Gods don't think much of mortals”? That is an interesting one. I also fail to see you reasoning about creating. I mean, even if bypassing normal procreation, you were to create a clone, or any other kind of sentient, living being, would you consider him/her/it an object because of it?
I wonder if it is too much of a leap to try and compare that attitude to the attitude that players have about NPCs in video games. Yep. Tottaly.
The idea of objectification takes on a whole different element when your talking about objects doesn't it? Then you get how NPCs in a video game kind of tap dance along the line of objects and people. You have some NPCs that are basically tools of the player. (See AC2) Then you have some NPCs with agency of their own. (See most video game enemies.) Anyone ever think about that at all?
H.B.M.C. wrote: I saw her giving out companions. Someone wanted a... sheep (was it?), another one wanted a wife, and the final one wanted a big cat to play with.
If you see nothing cringeworthy here, well, good for you, I guess.
nomotog wrote: I wonder if it is too much of a leap to try and compare that attitude to the attitude that players have about NPCs in video games. Yep. Tottaly.
The soldiers and the woman are both NPC, but their treatments are… quite different .
H.B.M.C. wrote: I wonder if it is too much of a leap to try and compare that attitude to the attitude that players have about NPCs in video games. Yep. Tottaly.
The soldiers and the woman are both NPC, but their treatments are… quite different .
When will people learn how to properly chop up quotes. I wonder if that is a thing. Like if female NPCs are done differently then male NPCs. Ya it's likley a thing, but I'll pose it as a question because I can't answer it yet.
Talizvar wrote: The better games let you play any class with any sex.
That's a strikingly colossal generalisation. What determines how good a game is is often, y'know, the game itself (gameplay, mechanics, story, music, graphics), not which gender you can choose.
Yes, it is a generalization, it happens, "many" games, "many" I liked (better) allowed your protagonist to be either gender.
I am not saying what made the game "good" was that option, many games I would deem "good" happened to have that option.
That specific quote was in reply to an observation that certain types of character classes were tied to a given gender while I was pointing out games like Diablo 3, Torchlight, Mass Effect let you pick what you want. So a bit out of context dude...
We sometimes like to identify with the character we are playing so to dress it up however you want can become a form of play all in itself. A guy friend of mine ALWAYS plays female characters in games if given the option. I have made a point not to ask why...
I would argue that in Diablo 3 and Torchlight, you don't get to pick a gender. You get to pick the illusion of a gender. You HAVE no gender in those games, because it has no applicable difference in the game I've been able to discern. It's a cosmetic choice.
That might be the wrong answer, since it implies that gender is nothing but social construct, but that really is a glaring portion of it that can't be ignored. It's like claiming that nethack was the original gender-inclusive game because it let you pick whether your @ was male or female. Except that nethack probably actually had crazy nuanced ways in which that it was actually significant.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Gah, fething nethack:
Gender (whether you are male or female) is relatively unimportant; the only real difference is that females can lay eggs if polymorphed into a suitable monster, and males can't. It also has the cosmetic effect of influencing whether incubi or succubi will try to seduce you.
Still a more complicated and better written game than Diablo 3.
It makes no difference in the game because logically, within the adventures you go through in the game, it should make no difference.
And now we've hit that impasse where it's all important, yet unimportant. I just feel like if you have a choice you can make, it SHOULD have some impact on a game, however minor. Otherwise it's about as relevant as what volume I play the game at. I don't know, maybe I play games wrongly, but those just don't feel like those are important features. I'd rather you have one character, if you have to make it female, then make it female, but make it INTERESTING that I'm this person. Diablo 3/Torchlight don't even have characters, at least in any way that I can recognize. They have a manifestation of well defined powers and measurable skill numbers that dictate what they are and what they do. They ARE the graphical representation of @ from nethack.
So, we should just be "people" or is gender distinction something we need to cling to?
I swear if I was a developer I would let the player "seed" the game by asking "Do you find men or women attractive?" and configure NPC's in the game accordingly.
Allow for also "No preference" and randomize.
Done.
Those looking for a fight can go elsewhere.
It makes no difference in the game because logically, within the adventures you go through in the game, it should make no difference.
And now we've hit that impasse where it's all important, yet unimportant. I just feel like if you have a choice you can make, it SHOULD have some impact on a game, however minor. Otherwise it's about as relevant as what volume I play the game at. I don't know, maybe I play games wrongly, but those just don't feel like those are important features. I'd rather you have one character, if you have to make it female, then make it female, but make it INTERESTING that I'm this person. Diablo 3/Torchlight don't even have characters, at least in any way that I can recognize. They have a manifestation of well defined powers and measurable skill numbers that dictate what they are and what they do. They ARE the graphical representation of @ from nethack.
If you listen and read the journal entries for the characters in diablo 3 you can see they each have their own personality in their own way. It's just not "Shown" outright as other characters in many others, for example the Witch Doctor felt sadness over killing the spider queen and was disappointed in her death, while the Wizard's are quite arrogant but yet they seem to have a healthy respect for things.
Diablo 3's characters aren't spoon fed to you, you have to listen to them and read what they write to see their personality.
It gets more complicated than that though because then to have any depth beyond "I hit it with my $ADJECTIVE longsword of $VERB" you have to then have multiple variations of conversation and interaction with any other characters based upon that choice, which quickly makes for vastly increased complexity, and we're only even considering "traditional" genders here.
I mean, if the point is just to hit it with the sword, I guess that's fine for people who think it's fine. It's not for me, but then again, very few games are.
I guess I'm just asking that we don't go dressing up a game that has an extra model and a flag to indicate gender as somehow better, because it trivializes the significance of any interaction between characters that show zero difference between the two. I'm not saying we should treat men and women differently, I'm saying that people treat other people differently based up EVERY difference of appearance, and neglecting to make characters that do that is making characters that are flat and robotic.
Have you looked at that damn thing:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/55370/ Have you seen how fine-grained the customization is? How much work it implies from the dev'? I am pretty sure aesthetic-only choice are not unimportant!
(Not even talking about those games that makes their money only from selling special skins…)
No, I gave up on Saints Row after I got 2 for the PC and it didn't run stable on a brand new current-gen computer at the time. I hear they're quite good though.
I am aware of the effort required in customization. I ask you though, does it actually make a difference when you're actually PLAYING the game?
Diablo 3's characters aren't spoon fed to you, you have to listen to them and read what they write to see their personality.
So then they have triggers which cause audio to play and different quest text based upon the character. Does that change anything happening in game? How does that affect the world? Does that make them have to express choices as factors of their gender? Are any of those things factors of the gender, or factors of the class?
daedalus wrote: I ask you though, does it actually make a difference when you're actually PLAYING the game?
Yeah. Just the same difference as playing with lovingly painted and converted miniatures versus playing with only untouched bases.
daedalus wrote: So then they have triggers which cause audio to play and different quest text based upon the character. Does that change anything happening in game?
Not anymore than any other story part of most games.
daedalus wrote: So then they have triggers which cause audio to play and different quest text based upon the character. Does that change anything happening in game? How does that affect the world? Does that make them have to express choices as factors of their gender? Are any of those things factors of the gender, or factors of the class?
Why would gender matter?
Other than the player to identify more with their "avatar" on the screen?
"Problems I would have with how women are represented in games." My problem is that how they are represented should not matter.
The role could be a guy, girl, transgender or a bug-eyed alien and they are there to further the plot or supply XP points and their sex or lack thereof should mean squat.
daedalus wrote: So then they have triggers which cause audio to play and different quest text based upon the character. Does that change anything happening in game? How does that affect the world? Does that make them have to express choices as factors of their gender? Are any of those things factors of the gender, or factors of the class?
Why would gender matter?
Other than the player to identify more with their "avatar" on the screen?
"Problems I would have with how women are represented in games." My problem is that how they are represented should not matter.
The role could be a guy, girl, transgender or a bug-eyed alien and they are there to further the plot or supply XP points and their sex or lack thereof should mean squat.
Then what does it actually matter what the gender of the character is, if it doesn't matter what the gender of the character is?
daedalus wrote: Then what does it actually matter what the gender of the character is, if it doesn't matter what the gender of the character is?
Sometimes games like to reflect reality.
Usually our gender is somewhat apparent.
The dialogue, or situational moments in a game should not require gender of the NPC or player to determine or hinge on what happens.
That is my first stab at defining how the gender of the character "should not matter".
Feel free to take another run at it and see if I have to think a little harder...
Anyone is of course free to provide facts that proves that there where female soldiers in the front like during Waterloo and during the Russian expedition.
It's not quite proof (as I cant remember exactly where I read it online), but one of the historical publications that I regularly read online has found, due to new DNA testing technology that as many as half of all warrior graves in the "Viking region" were that of women. As in, around half of the fighting force were female. But then, when you look much deeper at scandinavian society from the 700s-1100s they were VERY progressive compared to much of the rest of Europe.
daedalus wrote: Then what does it actually matter what the gender of the character is, if it doesn't matter what the gender of the character is?
Sometimes games like to reflect reality.
Oh, okay. Reality, right. I'm tossing fireballs, swinging swords at daemons, and I'm the descendant of some race of demigods or some gak, but if I can't do the exact same thing as a female, that's where reality sets in?
Usually our gender is somewhat apparent.
You'd think, and I agree completely. If it's so apparent, why does no one in game seem to notice?
The dialogue, or situational moments in a game should not require gender of the NPC or player to determine or hinge on what happens.
Not always. In my day to day interactions with people, at the workplace, at the bar, wherever, I feel like the fact that someone is male or female comes up at least once a day or two. I'm not saying it has to happen. I'm just saying that it trivializes the choice by it not. Might as well let the person be male, female, or a textureless white cube devoid of apparent feature. It's not BAD, it's just not immersive. Then again, we're discussing Diablo 3.
That is my first stab at defining how the gender of the character "should not matter".
Feel free to take another run at it and see if I have to think a little harder...
Speaking of reality, art imitates life, so once america stops being sexist and actually support equality for everyone, it will be reflected in their movies and games.
That is my first stab at defining how the gender of the character "should not matter".
Feel free to take another run at it and see if I have to think a little harder...
I feel like you're getting snide.
Was not intent, but can see now that it would look that way.
Was more a comment of smoke may come out of my ears as I try to think of further arguments to whatever you choose to "take a run at".
Featureless cube comment, yes, I gave that a passing thought but we do not typically talk to featureless beings, it still needs to be a "person" to be any fun at all.
The "reality" I was referring to is we use at least a little bit in fantasy settings as we sling fireballs around or we would have nothing to make sense of it all.
I am not trying to make a strong case for realism being a requirement in a game, just some items of familiarity to engage the player.
The physical aspect of gender is usually noticeable in everyday life and understandably would show up in a game whatever the setting.
The "metal bikini", the "curvy chest plate" all have a feeling of auto-include for some of the fantasy games.
I keep having this image in my head that drives home what looks normal is not necessarily so (this image may leave a mark! warning!)
http://imgur.com/16yGO What has been seen cannot be unseen...
So, other than keeping up appearances, does gender matter in a game really? Some insist in sexual relations so that again goes down various dark paths...
Talizvar wrote: So, other than keeping up appearances, does gender matter in a game really? Some insist in sexual relations so that again goes down various dark paths...
I think it certainly can and in some cases even should. Sex and gender are part of who people are, it's part of how we experience the world and other people. I think there is a lot of space in many good stories for characters to be informed and shaped by gender and sexuality without being wholly defined by it, or strictly confined to gender stereotypes.
Persona 4 is a very, very good example of this. The characters in that game all clearly have identities shaped by gender and their stories all touch on the matter at least a little. Some as a major part of their character arcs. However, none of them can be entirely defined strictly by the elements influenced by their sex or sexuality, even those whose stories are intensely focused on their gender.
The interpersonal relationships are what can drive a story and romance compatibility comes to question so gender does come up in this regard.
I had a female friend of mine ask me if I thought she was a lesbian. Best reply I could think of was "I think you are not prejudiced by the sex of the person you find attractive."
The dialogue of a person can be witty, fun and interesting no matter what gender it comes from. You personally determine if that person is appropriate to have a relationship with. Same goes with your tastes in media.
nomotog wrote: You know I would like to see some of the excuse for bad armor used logically to make a character. Like your a wizard, you have magic so you don't have to wear armor. Heck you can wear what ever you want because your the bloody wizard. How would someone dress if they could dress however they wanted.
Robes and a fething hat.
Because those loose robes-- so comfy. And the hat keeps sun off your eyes and rain off the head!
nomotog wrote: You know I would like to see some of the excuse for bad armor used logically to make a character. Like your a wizard, you have magic so you don't have to wear armor. Heck you can wear what ever you want because your the bloody wizard. How would someone dress if they could dress however they wanted.
Robes and a fething hat.
Because those loose robes-- so comfy. And the hat keeps sun off your eyes and rain off the head!
Also, it's stylish.
However, as Bill and Ted taught us, heavy robes make playing Twister difficult. So there's pros and cons to every outfit.
nomotog wrote: You know I would like to see some of the excuse for bad armor used logically to make a character. Like your a wizard, you have magic so you don't have to wear armor. Heck you can wear what ever you want because your the bloody wizard. How would someone dress if they could dress however they wanted.
Robes and a fething hat.
Because those loose robes-- so comfy. And the hat keeps sun off your eyes and rain off the head!
Also, it's stylish.
However, as Bill and Ted taught us, heavy robes make playing Twister difficult. So there's pros and cons to every outfit.
nomotog wrote: You know I would like to see some of the excuse for bad armor used logically to make a character. Like your a wizard, you have magic so you don't have to wear armor. Heck you can wear what ever you want because your the bloody wizard. How would someone dress if they could dress however they wanted.
Robes and a fething hat.
Because those loose robes-- so comfy. And the hat keeps sun off your eyes and rain off the head!
Also, it's stylish.
However, as Bill and Ted taught us, heavy robes make playing Twister difficult. So there's pros and cons to every outfit.
I never said heavy robes.
Well with light robes you're restricted to tropical to temperate climates
nomotog wrote: You know I would like to see some of the excuse for bad armor used logically to make a character. Like your a wizard, you have magic so you don't have to wear armor. Heck you can wear what ever you want because your the bloody wizard. How would someone dress if they could dress however they wanted.
Robes and a fething hat.
Because those loose robes-- so comfy. And the hat keeps sun off your eyes and rain off the head!
Also takes less time and effort to put on and off, and you do not even need to remove them to, you know, answer the call of nature! It makes riding a bicycle or a flying broom harder, though. And it is not the ideal choice for using that levitate spell!
BlaxicanX wrote: The issue I have with female representation in games lies mostly around the depth of their character. It's annoying when writers have a female character whose only reason for existing is to be the love-interest/damsel-in-distress for the male lead or, if they're not the damsel-in-distress, the 2-dimensional science/medic/support character who doesn't really have much of a personality beyond "vagina lol".
The lack of female protagonists is also frustrating.
I could generally care less about appearances though. Boob window/armor or attractiveness doesn't bother me at all. Heels and headlights on the other hand, bother me immensely.
I couldn't care less about the gender of a protagonist, or their race. The bigger problem seems to be people just shoving in minorities just for pandering. I don't give a damn about the gender or race of a protagonist, I just care that the game is fun. And if it's an RPG or any story driven game and not multiplayer, then if everything is written well. The problem isn't a lack of diversity, it's a lack of quality. Assassin's Creed II was fun, but that was just because of the free-roam assassinating, not that godawful conspiracy plot that feels like it belongs on the History Channel at 3AM.
With the amount of perverted scumbags out there that try to take upskirt pictures of unwilling women without our permission, a lot of women who like wearing skirts already take to wearing shorts under them as it is.
Wyzilla wrote: I couldn't care less about the gender of a protagonist, or their race.
Me neither, normally. But not only do I enjoy getting a bit a variety, I also understand that this is a pretty easy position to hold for a white man. I have a very good Iranian friend who is really about as far as you can get from being centered on ethnic or racial stuff, yet still when we went to watch Prince of Persia she told me how it was pleasant to see people that looked like her for a change. And that is even though none of the actors were actually Iranians .
Melissia wrote: With the amount of perverted scumbags out there that try to take upskirt pictures of unwilling women without our permission
I thought that was a Japanese thing. It happens a lot in the US a lot too? Damn.
I ought to try robes once. Just to see how it feels. But it makes bike hard and climbing pretty much impossible, so I doubt I would wear one regularly.
daedalus wrote: Then what does it actually matter what the gender of the character is, if it doesn't matter what the gender of the character is?
Sometimes games like to reflect reality.
Oh, okay. Reality, right. I'm tossing fireballs, swinging swords at daemons, and I'm the descendant of some race of demigods or some gak, but if I can't do the exact same thing as a female, that's where reality sets in?
Usually our gender is somewhat apparent.
You'd think, and I agree completely. If it's so apparent, why does no one in game seem to notice?
The dialogue, or situational moments in a game should not require gender of the NPC or player to determine or hinge on what happens.
Not always. In my day to day interactions with people, at the workplace, at the bar, wherever, I feel like the fact that someone is male or female comes up at least once a day or two. I'm not saying it has to happen. I'm just saying that it trivializes the choice by it not. Might as well let the person be male, female, or a textureless white cube devoid of apparent feature. It's not BAD, it's just not immersive. Then again, we're discussing Diablo 3.
To this point, I personally would find more "enjoyment" out of games like Skyrim/TES (because you're supposed to get immersed in the character/world) if they made comments based on your gender. With "standard" Skyrim, if I have my character (Male or Female, it doesnt matter), people pretty much all say the same thing: "You might want to put something on" What I'd like to see is the occasional "cat call"/compliment by various townsfolk if my character is walking about in their loincloth. And keeping things interesting, it'd be fun to have the randomly gay/lesbian person in town, just to throw you off
This is why America is losing damn it. Over here some twits just drill a hole in the wall and look through it, but in Japan they have damn shoe cameras. Amateur hours guys. Freaking amateur hour.
sirlynchmob wrote: It's an add campaign by american apparel that got banned in the UK.
What?
Ensis Ferrae wrote: To this point, I personally would find more "enjoyment" out of games like Skyrim/TES (because you're supposed to get immersed in the character/world) if they made comments based on your gender.
Yeah, in those kind of games, it make sense. It does not need to be big different though. Just very specific and occasional occurrence.
sirlynchmob wrote: It's an add campaign by american apparel that got banned in the UK.
What?
Ensis Ferrae wrote: To this point, I personally would find more "enjoyment" out of games like Skyrim/TES (because you're supposed to get immersed in the character/world) if they made comments based on your gender.
Yeah, in those kind of games, it make sense. It does not need to be big different though. Just very specific and occasional occurrence.
Wyzilla wrote: I couldn't care less about the gender of a protagonist, or their race.
Me neither, normally.
I wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that ninety percent of games have the same exact boring personality-less scruffy white guy as their main character.
After over eighteen years of gaming, I'm tired of playing as that melon-fether. And that majorly impacts my purchase decisions, I skip a lot of games because of this, that if they didn't have this same character, I'd buy.
To this point, I personally would find more "enjoyment" out of games like Skyrim/TES (because you're supposed to get immersed in the character/world) if they made comments based on your gender. With "standard" Skyrim, if I have my character (Male or Female, it doesnt matter), people pretty much all say the same thing: "You might want to put something on" What I'd like to see is the occasional "cat call"/compliment by various townsfolk if my character is walking about in their loincloth. And keeping things interesting, it'd be fun to have the randomly gay/lesbian person in town, just to throw you off
Yeah. That game looks like a barrel of laughs, but $25 is a bit steep for a visual novel (there's a reason I haven't been buying them even though the genre has finally started hitting the Steam store).
To further expound upon my previous statements, I liked the way that Fallout/Fallout 2 handled, at least partially. They got it right in that some people just treated you like gak, and you had to figure out a way to work around that. Some people would treat you like gak if you were male, and some people would treat you like gak if you were female. Some people treated you like gak regardless. THAT'S reality, and gritty, and believable.
Where they got it wrong was letting you just arbitrarily feth pretty much anything that you encountered if you were female for favors of some sort. Of course, you didn't have to do that, and it came up in more than one occasion as a man also, but it did kind of have a lingering "WEMEN... HEHEHEHE" vibe to it.
Of course, according to some not fully confirmed things I understand going around the internet, fething people for favors might not be far off from reality either.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
MrDwhitey wrote: I much prefer playing as a spaceship or a tank than generic white guy.
My temptation to confuse the hell out of anyone who has friended on Steam is tempered only by my temptation to not pay $25 when I could just do it with strange and ambiguous drunken messages.
It gave different options that (in my opinion) were realistic for each gender. As a women, you didnt have to sell your body, but just like in real life, the option was there.
Stats are universal, some perks and options arent. Gender was more than a skin, but didnt change the way you played the game unless you chose to use your gender to gain perks (sometimes degrading yourself in the process).
Best RPG games made in my opinion. Especially some of the scenes you find in the desert (talking cows, doctor who, aliens, killer rabbit from the holy grail etc). Great fun.
It gave different options that (in my opinion) were realistic for each gender. As a women, you didnt have to sell your body, but just like in real life, the option was there.
Stats are universal, some perks and options arent. Gender was more than a skin, but didnt change the way you played the game unless you chose to use your gender to gain perks (sometimes degrading yourself in the process).
Best RPG games made in my opinion. Especially some of the scenes you find in the desert (talking cows, doctor who, aliens, killer rabbit from the holy grail etc). Great fun.
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa
Fallout 2 has doctor who and montey python stuff in it?
.
I usually come up with diverse casts. Probably about my only real talent as a writer, cause it sure as hell ain't prose.
?
now and then from that particular author (probably how women feel with some male authors).
