@Gamer_152 said:
I didn't say that this wasn't worthy of attention because it was an iOS games, but a few things have to be remembered here; 1. When we're talking about video games and video game culture, we're generally not referring to the mobile game market. 2. The people who get discussed by the press and community most and the people pouring the most resources into games aren't working in mobile games, that's just the nature of the industry, 3. Most importantly, there have been little to no underlying issues with the depiction and treatment of women in the social game space, the same cannot be said for the more traditional game space.
Now if this product was made by someone like Rovio or Zynga, then this would deserve to be a much bigger story, but this is made by Generic Social Game Company #801, meanwhile in AAA games a lot of the questionable content we see is coming from the big names in the industry. The "What if the roles were reversed?" argument ignores the fact that the gender issues that are raised within the "core" industry and community are never purely about isolated incidents, but that the incidents that cause controversy come on the back of much larger trends in the way the industry and community treats women, and happen within the context of societies and cultures where the questionable treatment of women carries within it a lot of baggage and is to some degree ingrained in our societies and cultures as a whole to this day. The only way we could truly see the roles reversed here is if we were living in some alternate history timeline where things had gone very different for men, "core" games were almost solely aimed at women, men were frequently objectified and played second fiddle in games, and men encountered significant trouble in both the industry and community because of their gender.
I think there could be an interesting and relevant article in the questionable iOS games that do pass certification, but when an article has already been written about certification I think it makes this slightly less necessary, I think "We might as well" is a poor justification, and we have to understand that this product is an isolated incident, and therefore very different from the products that arguably discriminate against women that we see throughout the "core" industry.
To your first 3 points there:
1. When we are talking about how many female gamers exist, as an argument for more female targeted games, we certainly are talking about the social and mobile space, else numbers like "almost half of the gamers" would never come together.
2. True. But I think there is a qualitative difference between "here is a dead corpse of a woman" and "beat and torture your boyfriend for points!" that makes up for the importance difference of the markets.
3. Arguable. I see no issues in the traditional game space. Most of the games are in the same kategory that action movies would be in for gameplay mechanic reasons. Most of the action movies are catered towards men. Hence both video games and action movies frequently have the same character types. Actually I believe if you think about it that way, the video game industry is way more progressive than the film industry. Name the action movies starring a woman in a lead role, and a man as the love interest and support. I can name a bunch, but certainly more games that fit this criteria.
And to the rest, as I am sure you can guess already, I disagree a bit. And frankly, I don't care about how the situation was before my time. I grew up in a society were women and men are supposed to be equal, but more often than the other way around, it seems like society treats women better.
My best friends father pretty much died because of this but that's a bit too much for this topic I suppose.
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