Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I wouldn't be surprised if some women reject female leads unless written extremely well under the belief that they are being pandared to.

Red panda communism? IMO games should have gender neutral leads. Let players decide.

 Manchu wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
IMO games should have gender neutral leads.

Yeah, I agree -- outside of licensed characters at least. For example, you can and have to play Catwoman for some parts of Arkham City but overall it's Batman's story and switching him out for Batgirl (or even Robin for that matter) would not make for a better game.

Ooo, I wouldn't bring comics into this discussion. If anything has misogynistic overtones it is western comics...

http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/

I dislike Felicia Day. Her acting hasn't impressed me and for some reason every other comment about her is how how she is...at the risk of invoking the "2/10 would not bang" meme...I just don't see it.

Not sure how you mean that. Do you mean that guys saying that an attractive girl isn't attractive or that the first thing a guy does is judge a woman's appearance?

I think the notion that actresses rely on their appearance to be successful is very outdated. I can't think of a particularly famous actress who is renowned for her acting ability that is particularly stunning. If anything the most attractive ones are lambasted as being mediocre and never become extremely successful despite their good lucks.

I also think the only reason anyone thinks they look as a good as they supposedly do is because that message is constantly shoved down our throats by the media.

I meant outdated in the sense that it simply isn't true.

Kate Winslet is flat out unattractive (imo) and I don't see how anyone outside of a select few would honestly say she's a particularly attractive woman. Who cares? She can act, that's all that matters. If anything incredibly attractive actresses would be detrimental to a film as it would be harder for audiences to relate to them as they would be so idealistic.

 Manchu wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Kate Winslet is flat out unattractive (imo)

Would not bang, huh?

As I don't believe sex outside of marriage or a committed relationship is morally acceptable, the answer would be no. Not only to her, but to actresses I do find physically attractive.

There are men I would have relations with before I voluntarily touched Kate Winslet.

Given that I do not know her personally the only thing I can comment on is her acting.

I don't see how saying she is unattractive is related to #4. I don't consider her decoration. How is this any different than saying I don't understand why women find a certain male actor to be attractive?

Leonardo Dicaprio for example. Don't get it...at all. He's an excellent actor though.

I judge everyone's appearance though. Hairstyle, facial structure, clothing, muscularity, muscular aesthitics, tattoos, piercings, etc.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
You didn't just say "she's unattractive."

 Amaya wrote:
There are men I would have relations with before I voluntarily touched Kate Winslet.

You requested further clarification.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also don't think sexuality is black and white, as in you are hetero or homosexual. I don't consider myself bisexual. I would never engage in actual relations with a male, but I have no problem admiring one as being sexually attractive.

Apparently this means I look at everyone as decoration.

I don't see how observations are dehumanizing unless you intentionally reduce individuals down to their appearance. Simply because I think someone is unattractive does not mean I make any assumptions about their intelligence, personality, or interests.

You're equating judging someone's appearance with dismissing all other traits. There is a difference between judging their appereance and judging them on their appearance.

Cracked #4 is stating that men are doing the latter to women.

Apparently my opinions on sexuality and attractive males have frightened everyone away.

 LordofHats wrote:
Should probably mention that damsel in distress doesn't just exist in video games (oh right I said that pages ago).

Do you always point out things that are obvious and should be assumed?

 Monster Rain wrote:
Pervasiveness of the trope, to me, doesn't equate in all cases to a desire to deprive females of agency. Again, I agree that the trope is pervasive. We part company at attributing it to a cultural devaluing of women.

It equates to, at worst, lazy storytelling.

I don't quite agree with that, but I also don't agree entirely with the sentiment that it is entirely free of misogyny either. The same goes with almost all misogynistic parts of games. I don't think very many of them are done intentionally to devalue women. I think a lot of it is done without thinking.

The same has been true of racism. How many racists have hated people they've never met, met someone of that race (I hate that term, it is inaccurate), and realized how stupid their racist beliefs were?

Interesting thing.


There is minimal backlash (en total) against hyper sexualized two dimensional female characters in video games or any media for that matter. Feminists are dismissed as crazy or misandrists by the majority. Multiple males in this thread (and others) have claimed it is a non issue.


But when a woman creates mods with sexualized men (for her standards) she is lambasted as being a homosexual (there are no girls on the internet, remember?) or a pervert.

Given that most people don't understand economics, I wouldn't be surprised if neither of you did.


And the modder was AlienSlof. She quit for a bit over it, but she's proven to be very tempermental and overreactive.

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Given that most people don't understand economics, I wouldn't be surprised if neither of you did.

A Ph. D isn't required to know what "supply and demand" means.

If you really think that is remotely that simple than you don't understand.

 Manchu wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
I liked playing as FemShep, her voice actor put so much more effort into it than her male counterpart.

I prefer FemShep, too, but I wouldn't say ManShep didn't do as good of a job. I just think ManShep is far more generic. When you think about FemShep's voice, it would probably be generic, too -- if there was a long tradition of generic female leads. But there isn't so that performance stands out by comparison to its male counterpart.

Yeah, it has nothing to do with Jennifer Hale being one of the best voice actors out of there of either gender.

Hale's experience and accolades dwarf Meer's. Why can't we just admit that Hale is the better voice actor? It has nothing to do with the fact "female leads" are rare. It's not as if there aren't many female characters with speaking roles in many games to compare to...




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Compel wrote:
I thought it was commonly accepted that nobody understands economics, especially those paid to do so!

People like to oversimplify things. Never a good idea, especially with statistical analysis.

Corporations have proven time and again to be slow to change even when the information was right before their eyes. Data has often been misinterpreted and the true signal lost within static.

Also, simply because women make up a large percentage of gamers, doesn't mean they play the same game males do. Perhaps complaining about the lack of female leads in the FPS genre for example might be an excercise in futility if there is evidence that the vast majority of said players are male.

To do a proper analysis we'd have to assess genres on a case by case basis, not the industry as a whole.

Consider this, women have been shown to prefer RPGs to FPSs. Most RPGs allow the player to choose their own gender and often race (depending on setting). http://web.archive.org/web/20090211101758/http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/gamespotting/102702/8.html

 Manchu wrote:
When you think about FemShep's voice, it would probably be generic, too -- if there was a long tradition of generic(izing) female leads.

You said quite plainly that the only reason Hale's performance was notable was because she was female lead character and that was rare.

That's quite insulting to her talent. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with RPGs, but she has been doing excellent voice work for a long time across many games despite not being a female lead.

 Melissia wrote:
Tell me this, when a white businessman in the 50s turns aside black people, does that mean he hates black people?

Please clarify this statement. I think you're making a grievous factual error here.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Corporations have proven time and again to be slow to change even when the information was right before their eyes. Data has often been misinterpreted and the true signal lost within static.

Also, simply because women make up a large percentage of gamers, doesn't mean they play the same game males do. Perhaps complaining about the lack of female leads in the FPS genre for example might be an excercise in futility if there is evidence that the vast majority of said players are male.

In a recession with competition for decreasing profits I fin it hard to believe that companies don't want to tap into untouched, viable markets. So is the signal being lost because of internal policy, or because there is a cultural imbalance regarding the perception of females?

Also even with the figures in this thread we see that women are still in the minority of gamers.

And the minority can technically be as high as 49.99999%. At what point does the minority become statisically significant?

You also ignored the key point of my post, we have to analyze female gaming on a genre and platform basis. Making gross generalisations is unwise and I can guarantee you any competent company is analyzing sales on a case by case basis.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

 Amaya wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Tell me this, when a white businessman in the 50s turns aside black people, does that mean he hates black people?

Please clarify this statement. I think you're making a grievous factual error here.

The 1950s had black people segregated from white people, both in society and in businesses. For example, frequently, businesses would have two separate water fountains that were labeled "for white people" and "for black people".

Do you really think I'm that stupid?

And do you honestly think that any good businessman wanted to support such policies? By forcing them to have seperate, yet equal (lol), facilities businesses were forced to invest additional capital into attracting "colored" business or ignore a segment of the populace and lose further profits. It was a lose-lose situation for businesses. Only extremely racist owner would turn away customers.



You're also erroneously comparing two very different things. Actively turning away customers is very different than not attempting to appeal to a certain demographic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Amaya wrote:

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Given that most people don't understand economics, I wouldn't be surprised if neither of you did.

A Ph. D isn't required to know what "supply and demand" means.

If you really think that is remotely that simple than you don't understand.

If I think what is that simple?

Economics...how was not obvious? Are we discussing something else that I missed?

 Melissia wrote:

And do you honestly think that any good businessman wanted to support such policies?

Yes.

I'm not sure if it's that I have an appallingly low opinion of businesspeople or that the average person has an astonishingly high opinion, but apparently we have very different expectations of rationality from them

By definition a good businessman would be interested in maximizing long term profits.

Maybe you missed the "good" part...

In addition, 40 percent of all gamers are women. In fact, the ESA noted that women over the age of 18 represent nearly twice as much of the gamer population, than do boys age 17 or younger.
In the world of online and wireless games, 44 percent of gamers are female, according to the ESA. Casual games account for almost half of the online games played the most often

Emphasis mine.

"The only difference is that women typically spend less time in a single sitting playing than their male counterparts," said Phaedra Boinodiris, chief executive officer of WomenGamers.com.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/64900.html


Are we still honestly entertaining the argument that woman don't make up a significant portion of the total gaming population?

Monster Rain wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Given that most people don't understand economics, I wouldn't be surprised if neither of you did.

A Ph. D isn't required to know what "supply and demand" means.

Monster Rain wrote:It was not my intent to say that familiarity with supply and demand was sufficient for total understanding of the field of Economics.

I can't believe I just had to type that.

Can you explain to me how I was supposed to read those eleven words differently? You made a vapid remark that didn't imply you knew anything about economics. Most people misuse supply and demand anyways...even if they "know" what is...

Melissia wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
By definition a good businessman would be interested in maximizing long term profits.

Wow, the business community is utterly screwed then-- we don't have very many of those, to be sure.

I think the number of failed companies or those in the red would have made that evident. Also, you don't have to be a particulary good businessman to be successful. Simply coming up with a unique and attractive product and avoiding being a complete buffoon will lead to some success.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with video games but there are fewer female leads and therefore less pronounced a "generic" female lead performance.

That's your best counter? Honestly?

Edit: It is really sad that you just can't come out and say Jennifer Hale is a good voice actress.

 Monster Rain wrote:
Amaya, I can appreciate that you're feeling scrappy but damn, man, you are failing at reading.

That was a productive post, do you have any other useful insights or do you enjoy being a mosquito interjecting the occasional nonsensical observation?

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
Given that most people don't understand economics, I wouldn't be surprised if neither of you did.

A Ph. D isn't required to know what "supply and demand" means.

I'm sorry, Monster Rain, can you please explain how am I supposed to interpret this?

I state that most people do not understand economics (after you suggested Melissia does not) and that I wouldn't be surprised if neither of you did.

You stated that "A Ph. D isn't required to know what "supply and demand" means."

Other than an implication that understanding "supply and demand" is somehow the end all to understanding economics, how am I supposed to read your post?


This particularly confusing since most people who claim to understand "supply and demand" have a very rudimentary grasp of the concept and economics is much more complex than "supply and demand".

That's a bit like saying you don't need a PhD to do basic arithmetic when someone points out most people don't understand advanced calculus.

Worst thing you can do with economics is oversimplify. If all someone understands is supply and demand they can't really contribute an informed opinion to a discussion on economics.

There were a handful of female knights. There were female soldiers in the Resistance, Soviet Army, and Finnish army. The Viet Cong had female soldiers.