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I can't think of many games that have no women.

Women represented in a decent role?

Samus Aran? Kerrigan?

 purplefood wrote:
Women represented in a decent role?

Define a decent role. Really what kind of games are out there? Most of the ones people would complain about women not getting good roles are ones like CoD where we are dealing with subject matter long culturally delegated to men. Are we really gonna argue that Ashley Williams (Mass Effect), Lilith (Borderlands), Cortana (Halo) or even Bella (A:CM) are given poor roles in their games? Really what people complain about is that there aren't more female MC's, but in a market still largely made up of men why do people expect that to change?

Yeah I managed to get 5 or 6 and it took me 30 minutes.
Women's representation in games is poor. Positive representation is even worse.
Note: Positive representation doesn't preclude evil characters.

From memory: Chell, GLADOS, KOS-MOS, various FF characters, what's her name from Gears of War, what's her name from Super Mario Galaxy...

Holy cow, how did I forget Alessa?

What is a decent role?

Men are commonly portrayed as violent sadistic murderers in games and no one bats an eyelid. Just as men are varied so are women, calling for them to have only "decent" roles is beyond stupidity.

Characters in games are just that, characters.

In regard to women wearing stupid clothes in games or having weird proportions, so do the men in games too.

Bullockist wrote:


Men are commonly portrayed as violent sadistic murderers in games and no one bats an eyelid. Just as men are varied so are women, calling for them to have only "decent" roles is beyond stupidity.

Characters in games are just that, characters.

Bullock gets it.

Decent roles in video games are kind of far between period not just for women but for men. Most video game characters are just faces with lines. They don't get much characterization.

 purplefood wrote:
BS do they.
Have you ever tried naming all the games you can think of where you play a positive female character?
I tried and I didn't get that many.

To be fair the games women are more likely to play at least allow customization of the main character's sex and race and pretty much everything. That's a big part of a lot of rpg's actually. I guess the logic still seems to go that women aren't into more action oriented games just like action oriented movies often don't attract women. I'm not going to say it isn't unfair to women but the games women are more likely to play seem to show women in more main roles. Oddly enough this still doesn't prevent women from playing 'the witcher' or 'duke nukem'. In fact in scares me some women enjoy such games quite a bit.

The whole mistreatment of women or men seems to be more of a society thing and people tend to group people together for mistreatment when generally they forget about the more important individual in most cases. Suddenly because one game isn't considered fair to women suddenly no woman can enjoy said game or it has to be changed and any woman that may have enjoyed it is wrong. I dunno i just imagine that some supposed feminists (that some might call 'femi-nazis') would probably insult a girl for liking attention from guys or trying to flirt or be sexual even if they wanted to. I feel they forget about actually helping the person and instead helping some unthinking, unfeeling mass as a whole and not really helping anybody. I dunno isn't it more important to help a person and what they want instead of what you believe others want. How is it you're right to impose rules on an entire group of people whether your male, female or some gigantic space jelly? Men enforcing rules on gamer girls is as bad as women enforcing it on other women (except the 2nd feels a lot more offensive in my eyes). Then again what do i know.

As far as men being unfair to women how about this as an example of something different. Supposedly twilight has men doing a lot of big things and women are on the sidelines and yet women eat this crap up because some ultra-supermen fantasy creatures that are completely perfect want them despite however little sense it makes. Oh and it was written by a woman for women. While incredibly stupid is it entirely women's right as a whole to decry this as horrible to all women even though a good portion enjoyed it. Yeah it's crap i'm sure but deep down your opinions are being enforced on others and their right as a woman, person, etc. is being stripped from them when your opinion of what they should be outweighs their own. Have fun with that thought.

Even evil characters could be a positive role. A strong, smart and motivated character (Regardless of gender) is easily a positive role regardless of whether they are trying to kill you or not.
Incidentally I don't believe negative representations of men are particularly beneficial to anyone.
Like my mother always said.
There should be balance in all things.

Well you know what i don't enjoy. I don't enjoy how in tv shows often the men are the stupid characters always being irresponsible and being terrible role models whereas the main female character (often the wife in comedy shows) is the voice of reason and getting along and all that crap. Sure it's probably done for entertainment purposes but it seems over-done and untrue. I'm willing to accept that others enjoy this though and that it's just done for the sake of comedy and to move things forward.

I also have to say i'm tired probably more of shows from a decade or two ago where somehow men are never right or if they are they just have to somehow lay down and let the women have their way in said show. That's not right. I don't enjoy watching guys get verbally made into their woman's b*tch esp. since i see my half sister do this to her husband quite often who is in most cases completely fantastic to her. I'm not saying women are always wrong. I'm saying women aren't always right and in fact often times men are right. It's a very basic thing and it's not right for men to always be considered wrong or to not get their way sometimes. If women always get their way in a relationship they'll expect this and just automatically assume their way is how things should be and make decisions for both. It'd be the same way if men always got their way.

Another thing i don't understood is in the pursuit to make women equal to men on the gaming front people feel a need to make women a bigger deal and to have all women competitive teams. Having an all women team doesn't cause women to become included it only separates women as a whole from being accepted and included into gaming as a whole. If you want to help women get integrated in gaming then have mixed sex teams. Stop broadcasting women as needing extreme special attention and instead broadcast them with equal attention.

So yeah just my opinion but this is indeed just my opinion and nobody else's.

 LordofHats wrote:

Bullock gets it.

Most video game characters are just faces with lines. They don't get much characterization.

Same with movies from Hollywood though. What is it with the lack of character in western erm ..characters in movies/games.

Laziness I think. That and young folk who have never read a book and think Master Chief is a master piece of characterization.

I think that writer should be more concerned with seeing a doctor about a possible STD if he thinks penises look like mushrooms than overanalysing a game.

Flamingkillamathingy, I completely agree with what you posted. In Aus we are just coming out of a period of advertising were all men seemed to be dumber than 3 year old girls.

I think by making "special" teams does exactly what you stated.

I am all for realising that people are different and enjoying the difference , but putting people on a pedestal for a racial or sexual status actually does the opposite of what is intended by the lauding.
Take for instance when we had our first female prime minister all the focus was on her being first female and what frickin haircut she had.Instead of focussing on her policies ect. My response "she isn't female , she's a politician, that's another class of human all together".

 LordofHats wrote:
Are we really gonna argue that Ashley Williams (Mass Effect), Lilith (Borderlands), Cortana (Halo) or even Bella (A:CM) are given poor roles in their games? Really what people complain about is that there aren't more female MC's, but in a market still largely made up of men why do people expect that to change?

Because the market, by which we mean the market that buys games, isn't largely made of men, it's made of women; and it's been so for a long time. And of course because gaming is no longer seen as a male hobby. But indeed, the examples you cite are excellent, as is Commander Shepard herself, and Hawke from Dragon Age 2. Bioware has done excellent work in this arena.

Shepard actually is a good example. There's even a variant of the box art that features FemShep which is an industry first.

PS, that reference to Aliens: Colonial Marines reminds me; I'm still totally butthurt over that game.

 Ouze wrote:
PS, that reference to Aliens: Colonial Marines reminds me; I'm still totally butthurt over that game.

Is it that bad? Was thinking of picking it up...

You should buy the collector's edition.

Edit: Just kidding; I can't do that to another Dakkaroo, even for the lulz. Not even for lulz.

 Ouze wrote:
PS, that reference to Aliens: Colonial Marines reminds me; I'm still totally butthurt over that game.

So am I. But hey! Bella's character was just as stupid as everyone elses. Equality man

 LordofHats wrote:
Shepard actually is a good example. There's even a variant of the box art that features FemShep which is an industry first.

Except that while she might be a positive female role in her backstory, but her individual actions are left up to the player. Unless you are a female playing Commander Shepard, then you are influencing her with your male view. I'm not saying she can't be a positive model, it's just difficult when you consider the fact that a male player is most likely going to choose how he would do it if he were commander shepard. It's a difficult argument Purps and I were debating this earlier, in most cases where player actions in the story are not considered, gender becomes a cosmetic choice for the most part.

purplefood wrote:BS do they.
Have you ever tried naming all the games you can think of where you play a positive female character?
I tried and I didn't get that many.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Catwoman)
Borderlands (Lilith)
Borderlands 2 (Maya)
Portal 2 (Chell)
Dead Island (Xian Mei & Purna)
Fable (option to select your gender)
Fable 2 (option to select your gender)
Fable 3 (option to select your gender)
Fallout: New Vegas gives the option to select your gender
Left 4 Dead (Zoey)
Left 4 Dead 2 (Rochelle)
Marvel Ultimate Alliance (several superheroines)
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (several superheroines)
Metroid (Samus Aran)
Metroid 2 (Samus Aran)
Metroid Fusion (Samus Aran
Metroid Prime (Samus Aran)
Metroid Prime 2 (Samus Aran)
Metroid Prime 3 (Samus Aran)
No One Lives Forever (Cate Archer)
Perfect Dark (Joanna Dark)
Perfect Dark Zero (Joanna Dark)
Resident Evil (Jill Valentine)
Resident Evil 2 (Claire Redfield)
Resident Evil 3 (Jill Valentine)
Resident Evil 5 (Aisha, only if not controlled by the AI)
Resident Evil: Code Veronica (Claire Redfield)
Soul Caliber 4 (Hildegard von Krone)
Super Metroid (Samus Aran)
Tomb Raider (Lara Croft)

Off the top of my head.

 azazel the cat wrote:

purplefood wrote:BS do they.
Have you ever tried naming all the games you can think of where you play a positive female character?
I tried and I didn't get that many.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Catwoman)

Tomb Raider (Lara Croft)

Off the top of my head.

Possibly, by 'positive' he means characters which aren't oversexualised either?

Kovnik Obama wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

purplefood wrote:BS do they.
Have you ever tried naming all the games you can think of where you play a positive female character?
I tried and I didn't get that many.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Catwoman)

Tomb Raider (Lara Croft)

Off the top of my head.

Possibly, by 'positive' he means characters which aren't oversexualised either?

That's a possibility. However, I'd say 'oversexualized' is a poor descriptor in terms of 'positive' and 'negative' images. That is, while Catwoman is oftentimes an oversexualized character, she is such in the same manner as, say, James Bond. Catwoman is typically portrayed as being in complete control of her own sexuality, and I would consider that to be an extremely positive image; to say otherwise, I would argue, is to uphold a debunked and depressing stereotype that women do not and are not supposed to enjoy sex, and avoid everything related to such.

As far as Lara Croft goes, I'm well aware that the character was designed and marketed toward attracting an audience of the opposite sex, however it's not hard to make the argument that her counterpart, Indiana Jones, does that just as well:

He could button that shirt up. But he doesn't.

Um... the Latest Final Fantasy game too...

 LordofHats wrote:
Bullock gets it.

Decent roles in video games are kind of far between period not just for women but for men. Most video game characters are just faces with lines. They don't get much characterization.

Absolutely, lots of people point out there's very little in the way of deep, well written female characters in media. The point being, as Bullock and now you LordofHats has said, is that the same is true for almost all male characters.

I think commentary on gaming goes to a very strange and silly place when it tries to use literary techniques to dissect video games. Now, I'm not saying we can't look for and see sexism in computer games (because we can, and there's lots of it), but that we need to keep in mind that we're talking about a medium that doesn't work in the same way as literature. I mean, you could write a wonderful piece of fiction that ends with the player's female character and the female antagonist realising that their conflict is the result of male enforced gender stereotypes and there's no need for them to fight, and people playing the game will sit there saying 'the feth? where's the the boss battle?'

To those who skipped the movies, you would have seen that sexualizing, objectifying, and otherwise dehumanizing the already normalized view of people in video games affects both men and women.

The title of this thread is a bit of a misnomer, because it suggests that only one side of the scales are tipped. In reality, both are not where they should be.

I mean, you could write a wonderful piece of fiction that ends with the player's female character and the female antagonist realising that their conflict is the result of male enforced gender stereotypes and there's no need for them to fight, and people playing the game will sit there saying 'the feth? where's the the boss battle?'

 sebster wrote:
and people playing the game will sit there saying 'the feth? where's the the boss battle?'

And they'll realize the battle was inside them, all along.

This sounds like an after-school special plot.