Tropes vs. Women in Video Games

[Kelthaz]

Anita Sarkeesian from Feminist Frequency, who you may know for doing a video on the Bechdel Test, is creating a new series focusing on women in video games. She has created a kickstarter project to fund this series that has already raised more than $20,000, so this should be an interesting series to keep an eye on.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8I0Wy58adM&feature=g-all-u[/yt]

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games

 

[DAYoung]

Very cool. Will tweet forthwith.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

There are already games focused on the female audience - social media games on Facebook - which are now migrating to stand-alone (zynga.com, etc) because they're all sick of Facebook taking a huge chunk of their profits. Those games often feature female protagonists simply because that's the target market, and just as you'd expect, they tend to have maybe B-cups at the most. They're generally helpful and blandly heroic, but nobody invests much effort in their personalities. The player, after all, is the personality.

I've tried to start discussions about this just due to my interest in social media games as a business. I'm actually not very impressed with their gameplay (well, the Dash series is pretty addictive, I'll admit), but I'm extremely impressed by the way they're taking over while traditional packaged-good games are becoming a mere niche in the overall games business.

Doesn't seem like this forum is much interested in those types of games, but I'm just pointing out that the notion that "games aren't for women" is woefully outdated. There's a case to be made that women are taking over the games business. Certainly the existing business trends are towards more of the social media style games, because they are easy to get into and free to play (they make their $$$ off virtual goods and subscription upgrades, plus some ads). Those style of games are going to become ever more predominant as the global game industry expands.

Anyone who's interested in what female characters look like in games that are pitched to women, check out one of the most popular protagonists, the spunky waitress, Flo, of the mega-popular Dash series. You can download free one hour demos at a lot of sites, but I like Big Fish Games for whatever reason. Going by their stats, the real big sellers are adventure/hidden object games, which also usually feature female protagonists (unseen except in cut scenes). The whole genre is basically a dumbed-down version of Myst.

 

[Tiberius]

Don't forget Chell from Portal.

 

[Kelthaz]

There are already games focused on the female audience - social media games on Facebook

That's exactly the problem. At the risk of sounding elitist, social games are to video games what Big Brother is to television. Female gamers would be insulted to be told that their games are on facebook. Yes, most gamers are women if you include social games, but that's not what the discussion is about.

The problem is with the core gaming industry. Games such as Halo, Call of Duty, Skyrim, Bayonetta, Team Fortress 2, Dragon Quest, God of War, etc. are terrible when it comes to the portrayal of women. I can't even imagine how uncomfortable it must feel to be a female hardcore gamer.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

You know what's funny? Stereotypical portrayals of black people are considered deeply racist and embarrassing, and virtually unheard of in modern media. And yet stereotypical portrayal of women is seen as barely worthy of mention, much less criticism: big breasted, long-legged bimbos; damsels in distress; women who exist only to be prizes for men to claim. They just get taken for granted and hardly anyone seems to care, and yet they are such awful stereotypes.

Apparently, the woman doing this series has also been getting rape/death threats over this, too. Just great.

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a man.

 

[Tiberius]

You know what's funny? Stereotypical portrayals of black people are considered deeply racist and embarrassing, and virtually unheard of in modern media. And yet stereotypical portrayal of women is seen as barely worthy of mention, much less criticism: big breasted, long-legged bimbos; damsels in distress; women who exist only to be prizes for men to claim. They just get taken for granted and hardly anyone seems to care, and yet they are such awful stereotypes.

Apparently, the woman doing this series has also been getting rape/death threats over this, too. Just great.

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a man.

That's why I like Chell in Portal. A realistic looking woman who is the hero and solves problems using intelligence.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

You know what's funny? Stereotypical portrayals of black people are considered deeply racist and embarrassing, and virtually unheard of in modern media. And yet stereotypical portrayal of women is seen as barely worthy of mention, much less criticism: big breasted, long-legged bimbos; damsels in distress; women who exist only to be prizes for men to claim. They just get taken for granted and hardly anyone seems to care, and yet they are such awful stereotypes.

Apparently, the woman doing this series has also been getting rape/death threats over this, too. Just great.

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a man.

That's why I like Chell in Portal. A realistic looking woman who is the hero and solves problems using intelligence.

And Portal was a smashing success, as was its sequel. Hopefully that has a positive effect on the portrayal of women in video games, but things like that take years to really sink in.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

Alex what's-her-butt from Half-Life 2 as well. Valve does okay with this trope sometimes.

The numbers of vapid, large-breasted placeholder characters vastly outnumber the cast of strong, realistically-proportioned females in videogames and that's something I'd really like to see changed. For example Mai Shiranui's two defining character traits are having huge boobs and being really obsessed with her husband or fiance or whatever (Only played a few KOF games a long time ago), and that's not an attractive reflection on the hobby/industry/etc. as a whole IMHO.

 

[Dream]

And yet stereotypical portrayal of women is seen as barely worthy of mention, much less criticism: big breasted, long-legged bimbos; damsels in distress; women who exist only to be prizes for men to claim. They just get taken for granted and hardly anyone seems to care, and yet they are such awful stereotypes.

The players expect their games to have good looking female characters. After a long day of work/school they don't want to be looking at average females. That's just the way it is because there are so many male gamers. Sex sells.

It is the same way with movies. Why are all the main heroes in Avengers played by good looking actors? It helps sell tickets to woman that might not otherwise be going.

 

[stonester1]

You know what's funny? Stereotypical portrayals of black people are considered deeply racist and embarrassing, and virtually unheard of in modern media. And yet stereotypical portrayal of women is seen as barely worthy of mention, much less criticism: big breasted, long-legged bimbos; damsels in distress; women who exist only to be prizes for men to claim. They just get taken for granted and hardly anyone seems to care, and yet they are such awful stereotypes.

Apparently, the woman doing this series has also been getting rape/death threats over this, too. Just great.

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a man.

That's why I like Chell in Portal. A realistic looking woman who is the hero and solves problems using intelligence.

And Portal was a smashing success, as was its sequel. Hopefully that has a positive effect on the portrayal of women in video games, but things like that take years to really sink in.

Chell is hardly flat chested, plain or dumpy. She is curvy (though not outrageously so), pretty (though not ridiculously so), and clearly fit (out of shape, fat people, male or female, will not be able to accomplish the physical feats she does).

I don't see the controversy about characters in ANY medium being physically attractive, male or female.

 

[-Brett-]

The problem is with the core gaming industry. Games such as... Skyrim... are terrible when it comes to the portrayal of women. I can't even imagine how uncomfortable it must feel to be a female hardcore gamer.

I can sort of see it with the others on that list, but Skyrim?

Cortana aside, I don't see a lot of sexism in Halo, either. Halo fans, definitely, but the games themselves shouldn't be faulted for the quality of the people that play them.

 

[Cutter John]

I for one will always opt for a female character when the choice is given. And hell, I have no probably at all with sexy characters. But sometimes its goes to the level where its uncomfortable to play. Dead or Alive Volleyball was a classic example, where a big chunk of the games processing power was devoted to breast physics.

Tera is the current worst offender.

If you've watched a female character creator on Youtube you know what I mean. Its hard to not make an elf character that doesn't look like Paris Hilton.

Honorable mention for Lollipop Chainsaw. http://www.gamezone.com/products/lo...chainsaw-gets-some-more-sexy-outfits-in-japan

I really wish if a game is going to go down this route, they'd offer a choice between putting your characters in the standard battle bikini, or realisitic combat gear.

 

[captcalhoun]

to be fair to COD, they don't feature a hell of a lot of women because they're fricking war games and the majority of soldiers are, y'know, MEN. the few women they HAVE featured haven't been ridiculous stereotypes. there's a few NPC Soviet soldiers in United Offensive, MW1 had Captain Pelayo who was a Cobra pilot and c'mon, the fact you have to rescue her is solely because she's shot down (no fault of her's) and trapped in her helo. that character was exactly how a woman should be treated in a game: as a person, not as their gender. It could've just as easily been a guy in the Cobra. there's also a female newscaster off-screen. MW2 only has women in it as civvies in the airport massacre, whilst MW3 has several women, the British MI5 Director (obviously taking a cue from the real world female directors of MI5 and MI6), Alena Vorshevsky, the daughter of the Russian president (okay, she's a damsel-in-distress who has to be rescued, but again, it could've easily been a son), a female secratary/PA type on the Russian President's plane (not a babe and not an unreasonable female character role, to be fair) and then there's Mrs Davies and her daughter, victims of the London Chemical Weapon attack - clearly made female for maximum shock value. the other female character is the AC-130's female Fire Control Officer, which is a non-stereotypical female role. all right, i admit, the head of 'Five' and the FCO are off-screen characters, but still...

the only real complaint i'd make is that there aren't more women in the Washington DC medical station at the start of "Of Their Own Accord".

there are other female characters in BlOps and COD3, but not having played them, I can't really comment...

 

[Kelthaz]

I can sort of see it with the others on that list, but Skyrim?

Cortana aside, I don't see a lot of sexism in Halo, either. Halo fans, definitely, but the games themselves shouldn't be faulted for the quality of the people that play them.

I never played Skryim, so I probably jumped the gun on that one. Feel free to take Skyrim off the list.

The problem with Halo is that your guy is a dude. Not a problem in itself, but when 99.99999999% of games have you play as a male character it's a problem. It's the Bechdel Test turned up to 11.

 

[stonester1]

I for one will always opt for a female character when the choice is given. And hell, I have no probably at all with sexy characters. But sometimes its goes to the level where its uncomfortable to play. Dead or Alive Volleyball was a classic example, where a big chunk of the games processing power was devoted to breast physics.

Well...that isn't entirely fair, since the point of that particular game is...well, pretty, chesty girls playing volleyball. Ever seen girls with any kind of bust doing something involving jumping, diving and running?

Jiggle factor is reality.

 

[Reverend]

More to the point, I don't think anyone buys a game like that without knowing ahead of time that there will be boobs involved. I mean just look at the cover.

I can sort of see it with the others on that list, but Skyrim?

Cortana aside, I don't see a lot of sexism in Halo, either. Halo fans, definitely, but the games themselves shouldn't be faulted for the quality of the people that play them.

I never played Skryim, so I probably jumped the gun on that one. Feel free to take Skyrim off the list.

The problem with Halo is that your guy is a dude. Not a problem in itself, but when 99.99999999% of games have you play as a male character it's a problem. It's the Bechdel Test turned up to 11.

Well you see now, that's sort of going to the other extreme which is just as bad. Does anyone think it's a problem that 'The Shawshank Redemption' fails the Bechdel Test? No. Of course not. Taken individually, you can't simply say that just by virtue of having a male protagonist, ALL such games automatically become part of the problem.

To my mind the real problem is a failure of imagination on the part of developers and/or publishers. There's still this overriding perception that most gamers are young males (and lets be honest, though there's a lot more female gamers than ever, it's still male dominated) so when most game makers come up with their protagonist/player avatars there's a natural slant towards making them relatable. The easiest way to do that is by making them as much like the player as possible. This is why most video game protagonists aren't just male, but young, brown haired Caucasian males.

Like Cutter John I generally prefer to pick female characters when given a choice and, I'll be honest, it's partly for the aesthetics, so that make me no better than those who play giggle physics volleyball games. But then, I've known female gamers who, when given the option, tend to pick male characters for pretty much the same reason.

Honestly I don't have a problem with games that objectify women...*so long as they do the same for the men.* Cater for all tastes I say. It's why I was glad to see homosexual romance option in Dragon Age 2 & Mass Effect 3, despite having no intention of using them.

As an aside (and I'm not criticising here, just observing) I find it interesting that when ME3 came out I saw a lot of complaints about how Ash had been sexed up and turned into a slightly less obnoxious Miranda and how Liara's bust size appears to have grown several sizes, but I didn't hear complaint one about how unbelievably buff and ripped maleShep, Vega and Kaiden were. Now see, I grew up around soldiers and the military and they generally aren't built like *that*. Especially not the elite commando types. Have you ever seen an SAS man? They tend to be short wiry buggers who you couldn't pick out of a crowd.

I suppose what I'm really getting at is that I resent Kaiden getting a gratuitous topless scene and Ash didn't.

 

[stonester1]

Word. Since times of old, heroic fiction has been about beautiful women, and ripped, heroic men. Nothing wrong with honoring those tropes. I've no problem with variety, but I do have problems with kowtowing to PC no-fun-niks.

There is a happy medium.

 

[Kelthaz]

Well you see now, that's sort of going to the other extreme which is just as bad. Does anyone think it's a problem that 'The Shawshank Redemption' fails the Bechdel Test? No. Of course not. Taken individually, you can't simply say that just by virtue of having a male protagonist, ALL such games automatically become part of the problem.

Of course that makes them part of the problem. Male characters are the default in the industry and that is the problem. By looking at games individually, you're missing the burning forest for the trees. The point of the Bechdel Test isn't to analyse films individually, but to look at the entire industry to show that women are seriously under-represented as important characters in Hollywood. Video games are a thousand times worse than movies, but gamers are so used to the institutionalized sexism in video games that it comes across as normal.

 

[Reverend]

^Yes, because is has been and still is a male dominated pastime, both in terms of players and game makers. Yes that is changing more every year (and that's great!) but the balance remains fairly heavily in favour of those of us in possession of a Y chromosome. I'm not saying I'm fine with the way things are slanted, nor do I think there isn't any room for improvement (there's tons, I know) but what you're saying makes no sense whatsoever. Should all games have only female protagonists now? Or should there be a quota system in place? No, because that's what they call positive discrimination and in a way it's worse than the other kind. More to the point it'll impinge on the freedom of artistic expression.

As I said, the problem isn't the individual games, it's the perceptions and preconceptions of those making the games. If you force them to artificially and arbitrarily insert female characters just "because they should" then you're not addressing the real problem.

The way I see it at the moment, often the only reason they'll consciously put a female character into a game (with a few notable exceptions) protagonist or no, is to illicit sympathy from the player whom the designers appear to assume are mostly males. Why do you think companion NPCs are so often female? Even the celebrated Alyx Vance falls under this category. It doesn't matter how well they're written, how strong and independent they are, for the most part they're there to make the player feel protective and adjust their behaviour accordingly. Unless and until the attitudes of the developer & publishers change, any attempt to enforce a shift in the other direction will just make things worse. It needs to happen organically or not at all.