Games Aren't Fair to Women, and Even Duders Should Care

Power fantasies... why are they always "male"? I mean, unless your character is going around sticking his dick into every woman he sees (the ultimate in male power fantasies) then why does it matter?

I mean, specifically in regards to games. The thing that draws us to them is their interactivity, it's the core of their existence in the artistic pantheon. But, controls aren't gendered. The feelings of success and the endorphin rushes are not gendered. Gameplay loops are not gendered. Or are they?

Gears of War for example: sticking an enemy with a torque bow shot feels great. Mowing down ten dudes after achieving an active reload feels amazing. It's raw adrenaline. Is that part of the male power fantasy? Are women not allowed to like violence? Or is the presence of a *gasp* male character on the screen really clouding the fun part of games for them that much?

For me, OLD Tomb Raider is a power fantasy. It has nothing to do with Lara's looks, either. But I get to explore rooms and figure out puzzles and swan dive from four stories up. Awesome.

Metroid is my favorite power fantasy. I get to find secrets and grow exponentially more powerful as I explore an alien planet, isolated and alone. What, I'm a lady? Sure.

In a medium where story is only required to provide context for level design, and characters are borderline unnecessary beyond giving the player feedback, it seems a little silly that some people are so mired in the minutiae.

But hey, if your enjoyment of a video game is really actually dampened by the genitalia of your avatar on a consistent basis (WTF), then you should be happy to know that there will inevitably be more female characters as long as (a) More females get into game development, and (b) games press and progressive gamers continue fellating any game that has a lead female character who is dressed sensibly.

In the meantime, I'll just be over here, staying "tonedeaf" for enjoying different artistic mediums for different reasons.

No one said that fewer women play games, but people did make the point that the target demographic of AAA games is largely male. If I remember correctly, the study you are referring to explicitly makes the point that women make up the largest part of the audience for mobile and social games - thus accounting for the absurd revenue of Candy Crush and the like. You may think it sucks, but, as I said, video games are big business and AAA blockbusters are required to make several million sales to please shareholders. Thus, it is completely reasonable to target the most consistent demographic and follow the same design blueprints that are known to be successful year in and year out - otherwise known as Ubisoft-syndrome.

In a roudabout sort of way, it's even a bit silly to complain about gender representation in video games at the present moment. With the advent of Steam and digital distribution, diversity is at an all-time high and the number of female developers breaking into the industry is increasing exponentially year-to-year. Hell, indie devs are largely responsible for bridging the gap between PC audiences and mobile/console users by developing more accessible games on what are traditionally thought to be more hardcore or intimidating platforms.

@theht: I'm not saying game developers should you use this as a justification; I was simply pointing out a fact that OP had misconstrued to add to his point. I too believe games should expand in all directions, and that means we need more diverse characters. But, I'm not going to ignore the business side of things and how that influences game development.

A lot of gamers have this notion that since games are art there is inherently just as much artist integrity going in to make them as say a poem or a book. But in reality to make certain kinds of game (AAA) you need a budget and a budget comes with a lot of concessions. That's one of the great things about the indie scene, at the moment. There are a lot of developers pushing the boundaries of the medium on low budgets. It's these people we need to support, it's their games we need to support to show big AAA publishers they can let developers go outside the AAA comfort zone because it is not a risk, there is a market for these types of games.

I don't think enough gamers speak with their money. They complain a lot about whatever issue bugs them, on message boards, and then they keep purchasing and supporting the games, companies, practices, etc. that they are complaining about.

And vice versa. There are plenty of really deep RPGs available on smartphones/tablets now like Baldur's Gate, KotOR and Dragonfall.

No offense, but that is sort of an asinine comment. Recorded history may not be the whole truth, and in fact it may be a complete lie, but it is the only thing we have to go on. You cannot make assumptions of what cultures outside of recorded history deemed attractive. Either way, that is irrelevant because at a biological level (not accounting for the minority or abnormality) women in the cultures that we do in fact have a record on have always been deemed as the fairer sex. Meaning they were the gender of beauty, of frailty, and of motherly love. If you want to argue that that is not an accurate representation of all women and that there should be more variety, then we may have something to discuss, but again, not accounting for modern issues of gender identity, men are men and women are women. We are different creatures and the way we are presented in media will always be different.

@johnnyhalo666: Sorry, that wasn't directed at you in particular. I was using the statistics thing as a stepping off point.

But to your point, I think we can recognize a business' methods as practical for them, while still rejecting those practises. I understand the safety of not trying to do anything that deviates from the all-knowing spreadsheets, but I don't support it. And it's worth noting that there are developers who push back on some of those demographically concerned requests. I don't expect every AAA game is wholly developed to fall in line with what's safe; there are big devs out there doing some different stuff, and it's fantastic.

I do agree that supporting independent developers who make more use of their creative freedom is a great way to influence those spreadsheets (while also getting the other sorts of games you want). Speaking with your money though, at least when it comes to not buying those safe AAA releases, seems less cut and dry when you want more ofsomething else, while not necessarily wanting less of what the AAA devs are putting out.

That is mostly my point. 9 out of 10 big budget games misrepresent sexuality, genders (which are not binary, by the way) and impose false gender roles and ideals on people, and on other cultures that already have a different perspective on sexuality.

All that I ask for is more diversity, and the acknowledgement that there are many more ways of looking at "idealized" beauty and sexuality.

By the way, gender identity is not in any way a modern "issue". That is only what the church wanted you to believe:

http://www.academia.edu/3718444/Introduction_to_Medieval_Constructions_in_Gender_and_Identity_Essays_in_Honor_of_Joan_M._Ferrante

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dressing,_gender_identity,_and_sexuality_of_Joan_of_Arc

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409409878

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_medieval_Europe

FemShep is Jennifer Hale voicing a buff manly dudebro brodude who happens to have ladyparts, ladylooks and slightly different romance options. That's why I stuck with OG Shep.

Male and female game characters look the way they do for the same reason that it's primarily attractive people, made all the more beautiful by their highly skilled makeup teams, that succeed in acting. It's a non-issue. The way a character looks need not say anything about the character at all. More often than not, in games, tv and movies, if the character's appearance isn't somehow important to their character (i.e they're meant to be sexy, or meant to be ugly, or meant to be non-descript looking) then they'll be attractive for purely aesthetic reasons, and that's just fine. In actuality, it's much more of a potential issue in tv and movies than in games because then you're dealing with hiring people based on attractiveness rather than acting talent. In games, it doesn't matter how attractive the voice actor portraying the character is, the character can still look beautiful while the actor has a hunchback, a peg-leg and two glass eyes.

There perhaps is an issue with the depiction of female characters in some games; Not visually, but narratively. Unfortunately, the discussion has been co-opted by a certain disingenuous someone, at least in the public forum. It's also worth mentioning that there is just as big a problem with male characters. Ultimately, most characters are poorly written and have no depth or complexity.

Not average for modern day US/UK I suppose, because she isn't overweight. I assumed you were implying that Sera's figure was unusually 'sexified' in some way, which clearly isn't the case. There's nothing out of the ordinary about her figure at all. Stacked? She's like a b-cup, maybe just pushing a c, not exactly unusual.

AFAIK it's the same body model all the female companions use, presumably so that making gear work on everyone required as little work as possible. Of course, it's usually down to the player how she is dressed, but this is Sera's default 'just hanging out' appearance:

Hardly 'stacked' or 'showing it off' if you ask me.

Do female characters in games need to look attractive? No.

Do i prefer it if they are? Yes.

Games are escapism to me, in reality i'm a nobody, nobody around me stands out as being special or deserving of anything, life kinda sucks. Video games let me have fun in an environment i am the king of, without guilt, without consequence, without prejudice.

Obviously there's a catch, female gamers put up with a lot of games tailored towards me, but games have always been dominated by a market of guys like me and i don't think we want to give up liking the things that we like, suddenly games would become a lot more tame and dull and we can't make two or three versions of every game to appease everyone.

Also, and don't get mad at me here, but there's always this argument...

We should all learn to share.

Publishers need to take some financial risks to realize they're not actually financial risks.

It's not really the audiences fault for buying the things they buy.

I've been trying to come up with a well articulated post, and I realized I've written many times about what I enjoy in games, when it comes to characters and "representation" on the whole, and what I don't like. Most of my blogs have some element of talking about games from a female perspective, whether I try to be funny about it, or I end up being more serious. There are some overriding things that I come back to all the time. Do games have enough good representations of female characters? Not really, though it's certainly better than it's ever been, so I can't complain too much. Can the people making games do better? Sure, and that goes for male characters too, or any number of types of characters. Is talking about wanting different types of characters or how a certain gender/race is portrayed bad? No, talk is good. Is it something that needs to be in every conversation about every game? No, not at all. That gives us a lot of leeway in what we talk about and how we decide to talk about it.

I find that when you're on the outside, like me, it's hard to find the right words to express the frustration that comes with some things that are all too common in games. And it's not enough to ever make me hate games or not want to play them. In fact, I only ever find it registering in the most egregious examples of bad representations, ridiculous clothing or boob physics, the stuff that breaks the suspension of disbelief for me as a player. It's like in The World is Not Enough, when that movie introduces us to Christmas Jones, played by Denise Richards, and tries to tell me that she's a nuclear physicist. I'm not buying it, nope, no way. I know why you hired that actress to play that part and it's not because of her SAT score. Just like I know why the creators of Dead or Alive design their female characters the way they do. It's not because it makes them look like capable warriors, ninjas or wrestlers, it's because they look pretty and they appeal to their audience. And even though I find it ridiculous and silly, and the boob physics make me roll my eyes, it's totally okay. And, I admit to you all now, that I have put more hours into Dead or Alive: Dimensions for the 3DS than any normal human being probably should. But it's a great game! AHHHHHHH!

This is what I deal with everyday, the balance between wanting powerful, fun, cool female characters that I can take some amount of pride in, but also totally enjoying the ones that aren't anywhere near those lofty standards. And that is totally okay. Not every character has to be the perfect example for one's gender, the problem is when almost all of them appear to be the worst stereotypes of their gender. Balance is important. You can have the candy, but too much and you get sick and tired of it, at least I do. I want variety. I want to have the introspective "walking simulator" type game that makes me experience a story in a new way, but I also want stuff like Doom and Gears of War. I want to cry and feel and think deeply but I also want to cut a dude in two with a chainsaw gun or punch a person in the nether regions while Rob Van Dam does a voice over. There isn't a situation where if one type of game, or type of character, is made then the other will automatically not be made. The idea that asking for something is calling for the demise of something else is all kinds of preposterous.

I guess, in the end, I appreciate what I have now. I like all of the cool, strong female characters that I have grown up with. Princess in SMB2, Mary in Alien Syndrome, Julie in Zombies Ate my Neighbors, Baroness and Scarlett in GI Joe for the C64, the Rogue in Diablo, Maya and Lilith in the Borderlands games, Faridah Malik in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, all of the awesome ladies from Disney and Square Enix in the Kingdom Hearts games, Elizabeth in Bioshock: Infinite who we got to play in the DLC, Eleanor Lamb in Bioshock 2, Chloe and Elena in the Uncharted series, Ellie, Marlene and Tess in Last of Us, Kat in Halo: Reach and Veronica Dare in Halo 3: ODST, and on and on. Still, seeing how good female characters can be also makes me long for more. It's a natural feeling, to see the awesome things that can come when developers care about the characters they create and hope that others can follow. It's something that happens with more frequency nowadays, but I can't say that I wouldn't like to see more. And, as always, this goes for all characters. Flat, boring stereotypical female characters, male characters, black, white. We need better in sum total, and I think that that is a good thing to ask for or wish for in the games we play.

Don't have anything constructive to add to the discussion, but my question about the thread title is: isn't "duder" a gender inclusive term?

And no, "dudette" is just plain stupid.

@jadegl: I hope everyone who's participated in this discussion read this. So far, it's been a whole lot of dudes talking about why representation does or doesn't matter, so I'm glad we have at least one woman's perspective.

I'd completely forgotten how great a character Faridah Malik is. I ended up replaying a huge chunk of Human Revolution because she died my first time through and I didn't cop on that she could be saved until way later. Christ, they need to make another one of those.

The thing is that most game devs are men and most core and hardcore gamers are also men. That is why most games are designed around a male centric point of view. It's nature. The number of female core and hardcore gamers and devs on positions of power don't out weigh the current demand for female centric and gender neutral games. The market will change if the ratio of creators and customers change in any meaningful manner.

In fact it is realistic. You only have to check the statistics for violent crimes and such, comparing men to women.

PS: are men getting the short end of the stick here? If something is sexist as not being equal to men and women, but it does match the statistics and is realistic in that sense, does that mean that reality is sexist?

@jadegl: The idea that asking for something is calling for the demise of something else is all kinds of preposterous.

Explain this statement in the context of limited resources. Do you really think that if what this thread is asking for is enacted, that there will be any significant spike in revenue for those that do enact it?

@conmulligan: Somebody's comment isn't more valuable than others because of what's between their legs. Propositions are correctly evaluated with logic and coherence not genitalia.

@gamefreak9 said:

Dude, we're not debating some quantifiable scientific theory, we're having a subjective discussion about how women are represented in games. Since only a woman can fully understand and articulate how that might matter to them, any conversation without that perspective is inherently less valuable.

You did. But I think you miss one important point. I haven't read all the comments in the thread, but let me summarize what I've seen in the thread (which is the usual old story):

The economic argument: Games are produced to make money, they evolve to be what consumers want. E.g. if there are several hundreds of FPS franchises it's because that's what people want, if there is only one The Sims franchise then maybe there's not so much (economic) interest on that.

You bring the the counter argument of being a little represented consumer (probably minority) in the market. Markets screw minorities. I like the over the shoulder perspective more than the first person perspective, yet I play FPS games because they are still great, despite of that. A very moderate opinion and argument, IMHO. The problem is: due to market dynamics, if few people like some kind of games, few games like that will be made.

The bad market analysis counter argument: what is misrepresented are not minorities, but many people that were never given a chance to be hear. This is a stronger argument. Here producers have made a crappy market analysis and are losing a lot of money because of that. How efficient are markets? Is the available information perfect? Judging the success of Nintendo (DS and Wii), I would say not at all, there was a blue ocean out there and there may be even bigger ones. How many females are just being pushed away from games just because the box art is not appealing to them? We will never know, but when something is inclusive it seems to be unexpectedly successful I'm still puzzled by the success of Minecraft. Someone mentioned indie games, that are more gender neutral and also more sexist, they simply cover a wider spectrum, that's their thing, experiment. This should be slowly fixed by inefficient markets, unless...

This is the point I want to make:

Markets may be leading us to bad places. This may be heresy to libertarians, but IMHO people are shaped and societies evolve, either in controlled ways (normally known as education) or in uncontrolled ways (which I would consider perversion). Games are communicating a lot, and they are subcommunicating even more (this is something I have been wanting to elaborate for a few years and it will stay that way for a few more), to summarize, one simple example: "nothing is impossible". Games never challenge you to do something plainly impossible (what a dick move would that be), try to do a PhD on computer science solving an undecidable problem and you will get a clear perspective of impossible (not "very difficult", totally impossible). There are impossible things in this world. Games and fiction in general are telling everybody many things, at a not fully conscious level, the world is virtual, but the achievement feels kind of real and it's subconsciously associated with the context. So, digressing back, games subcommunicate and people buy this message to a greater or lesser extent, in a conscious or unconscious way. The point is: should we let the markets decide how this message is without discussion or thinking at all about it? HELL NO! There is no freedom if the choices are not responsible and thoroughly thought, being a slave of your lowest impulses [without being questioned by anyone (they better not dare to!)] is not being free whatsoever. People don't like other guys minding their businesses, but they should definitively mind their own businesses because it needs to be done. So there's a lot to discuss here, and I think that's the point that was missing. I elaborate more:

Brain is a muscle. Watch porn 16 hours a day every day and your brain will be melted. Study maths that schedule and your social skills will get sooner or later rusty, even your verbal communication will be "strange" after a while. Read novels and your mind may be gone. This applies to skills and similarly to memes and culture. How much nudity, gore, unrealistic expectations about human bodies and so many other things are good? I've no idea. The human mind is very complex, probably much more than the body, and it seems to be unclear how much sugar is good, such a basic thing like sugar, which anyway varies from one person to another. The point is: apparently nobody knows and I see no reasons why we should think that the markets are going to do the right thing, markets tend to appeal to something lower than mediocrity, for a very simple reason, it's about appealing the greatest number of people, the average people [has someone read up to here? you are better than average ;-) ], but if you are to make any error about going over or below average, usually below average errors are cheaper and more profitable. Putting references to Shakespeare in a game is plain waste, boobs are a safe value.

If nobody knows, let it be. But that is probably not going to take us to lower and lower mediocrity. Hopefully we all can tell the difference between fiction and reality, probably only very few can explicitly define it. @cikamementioned games as escapism. However, games have traditionally been used to learn, learning should be fun and games should be educative (happily I did already elaborate on that, yay!). In short, if what we experience in a game (with fun, that's mandatory, otherwise it's not a game) was useful for real life then that would be much better than if what we experience is in fact harmful.

But don't get me wrong:

Markets may be leading us to good places. Religion seems to help to contribute to psyche stability, but through trauma (amputation of critical thinking) more than by actual improvement, growth or development. Nudity and nudism may actually be good to accept the physical existence of our bodies and their diversity (not everybody is exactly equal, and that's fine), I see a lot of references in the media to wear or not wear a veil or other religious symbols, but not so much about nudity. Virtual violence may be a good stress reliever and help to reduce real violence. And maybe if nerdy skinny people or fat people want to do something about it to be more similar to some fictional characters that could be good for them, not for aesthetic reasons (which should not be overlooked) but mainly for health reasons, also discipline and accomplishment are good things. Maybe. Perhaps. I don't know, and millions of opinions are not going to make us know anything. We need facts!

So the real point is: is up for us to decide where we want to go, were games should take us, as individuals and society. That's our freedom, our choice and our responsibility, and that must be thoroughly thought, if you are too young to do that or to be willing to do that then your parents will have to choose for you. And remember, that thought process must be guided by facts and evidence, not unfalsifiable statements, biased opinions or self-contradicting alleged revelations of a god. The invisible hand of the markets is just like the invisible hand of evolution, it wiped out most of the life in this planet in six previous occasions, it's not to be trusted just because we didn't get to that fate yet.

BTW: I'm all in favor of character customization specially when it's a rich feature that works fine, some examples are Eve Online, SaintsRow III, and The Sims. But character design isn't really the point.

If fact the typical argument is: "let markets be". And a big part of the market, and even bigger of the potential market (~50%) is underrepresented here. I however challenged the common assumption of any inherent wisdom in the markets, markets are in fact quite stupid, which doesn't imply that they are wrong.

It's not really about what people like (e.g. Marcus Fenix), it's about the message.

Those comparisons don't result in zero women. There are female criminals, combatants and terrorists. Are their numbers equal to men? No, but they are there in the real world, but not so much in games. There are women as enemies in some games, usually as one of the boss enemies.

I don't see him claiming it being sexist, just not realistic, and he's correct.

@cikame said:

Why do we have a Sophia Loren - Jayne Mansfield photo in this thread? 0_o

@gaspower: I believe it is to his point that not all women think alike when it comes to appropriate appearance. Recently somebody asked Sophia Loren about this picture. She said that despite being friends, whatever people imagine she was thinking about with that expression, she was probably thinking it.

@sergio:

Also, those games are set in a fantasy world. A world that is based on real life, sure, but a fantasy world nonetheless.

I am reading a fantasy series at the moment, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, and there are no clear lines when it comes to gender. Women and men both are involved in all kinds of nasty / good shit. The gender is mostly irrelevant in most cases. Armies are made up of men and women in varying amounts. Positions of power are held by whoever was devious or lucky enough to get them, man or woman. It is a very pure kind of equality that only adds to the series and works really, really well.

There is one character, a fifteen year old girl, who deals with enslavement by basically becoming a prostitute for survival. She uses the only thing she has left to her, and in her situation her only advantage, her body. This leads to some very rough stuff (i.e. she gets hooked on drugs, is used as a bartering tool by her defacto pimp for favours etc) but it also shapes the character and moulds a huge part of her personality in ways you would not expect. She behaves like someone who had to use sex to survive in an otherwise fatal situation. IT becomes a very interesting character study that is never meant to titillate, but I imagine if I was to explain her character in passing to someone they would think I was a perv or something for reading the book in the first place.

Video games will never go that far now I think, and it is a shame, because it helps you realize how many similarities there are between men and women. I found myself thinking "If I was in her situation, I would probably do the exact same fucking thing, and feel like she did afterwards." And conversely, It also helps you realize that it is OK to view a woman as an enemy in a fantasy setting. Because, it's a part of the story. There definitely should be more women enemies in games. Where are all the women while these male thugs are being beaten around by batman all day? Are there no women in the city? What are they doing? Are they not capable of hating the Bat? Do women not have feelings of greed or fear or whatever it is that motivates the rank and file henchman?

IF anything I want videogames to grow up even more and respect that I am an adult who can handle adult content. And I don't mean sexy ladies who flash their tits everywhere, I mean real situations that can make what is a world of fantasy seem real. I want women in videogame worlds to have actual, real relationships. If that includes sex, so be it. If that includes promiscuity, so be it. If they are a nemesis who you have to beat the shit out of, so be it, as long as (same with male characters) I feel like my character is doing it for a reason. It is not hard to write for female characters and to put as much effort into them as male characters. For example, Dragon Age Inquisition does a fantastic job with the females in the story. I think any complaints about how they look or dress are myopic and completely ignore their carefully constructed, well written personalities.

Also, some women like to dress sexy. That's just life. There are plenty of women in Dragon Age who do not dress provocatively. (I know we arent specifically talking about DA: I, I just think it is a great example of the direction I would like to see some new games go in).

Games are games. I don't see anyone complaining about the portrayal of females in Gang Beasts!

@trylks: Sorry to say but you don't seem to understand the logic of markets, nobody is saying they are perfect, but the point is that if there is a competitive industry they will use available information to the best of their ability.

The point is that if the information is out there that making more female protagonists doesn't have a significant market then its not our business to complain about it because not enough of us care to fund anything more than a small Indy title(this is a good thing, buying a game just because the protagonist is female or male is very extreme in my book). Or the information is not out there which means making any sort of statement about what should be is nonsense.

Alternatively if you believe there is information out there proving that more female protagonists makes more profits for companies then that's something else and I don't believe that information is there. Most of the information I see points to females being a small minority of the consistent spenders on non-mobile video games.

The only reason this stuff is even discussed to the extent it is discussed is because journalism views spike when this nonsense is discussed.

@conmulligan: This thread is not about assembling opinions of female gamers. The thread goes like this. Fact: less female protagonists than male protagonists. Proposition: this should be changed. Discuss!

We welcome female voices voices but jumping on a post just because a female posts it is nonsense. Also things don't have to quantifiable for logic and coherence to be applied.

I think that some of you may want to read the story about the photo directly from Sophia Loren. So I'm not entirely sure what the point of posting the picture was, and what it was trying to prove, but her own story is that she was afraid that Jane Mansfield was going to pop out of her dress. She wasn't wrong for fearing that based on pictures of that night.

A. Women who buy AAA games are also a minority, the creation of protagonists like that are because of the market shares. Creating more female protagonists isn't going to change how the market is made up, at least in a drastic way.

B. You're talking about creating some arbitrary "balance" as if that would combat sexism. How would that work? Let's say that Sony decided to have its studios create a number of games which all featured female protagonists. The games all came out, they were all well-received, etc, etc. Then what? Are women who were never into video games to begin with going to suddenly buy a new console in order to play these games? Are men who are into playing games going to suddenly change their viewpoints because the MC's of games were ladies?

The reason why there are so few female protagonists is because a lot of the stories in video games feature people who are wholly interchangeable. Their race/gender/whatever very often doesn't matter. Nathan Drake could have been Laura Croft, or some new creation entirely. The guy from Advanced Warfare could have been a woman instead, it wouldn't have made a difference. The identities of these characters are very often completely meaningless in the stories that they tell, and the few instances in which they *do* matter are so hamfisted that no one enjoys them. Did the Native American segments in Assassin's Creed 3 have an emotional resonance with you? Was homeless Ellen Page almost blowing a dude in Beyond Two Souls handled tastefully? Of course not, because all these games have something else going on. All that stuff is just kinda shoved in there as if to say "Look at us, we have heart." The games which actually do it kind of well are the ones that both have good writers and are a weird hybrid between games and movies/TV. Stuff like the Walking Dead, for instance, where you're basically just forced through a series of choices which shape how you build the world and the character. There you'll have an emotional attachment because of the story. Any other emotional attachment I've felt is in something like X-Com, where I try my hardest to not let characters die. And trust me, I'm not paying a shred of attention to the races or genders of people in that.

Yeah, I read his post so I understood. The picture showing up on this thread just really caught my eye and it was just kinda funny.

@gamefreak9: I didn't highlight the post because it was written by a woman, I did so because it was a well-articulated opinion from a woman's perspective, which this thread was sorely lacking. I'm surprised you find that objectionable.

I don't see it that way. Not even currently, for instance for gangs. Sure, there are some, but their numbers are very often negligible, more in the real world than in games. Specially considering historical games (there was more sexism in the past), fantasy games (that are kind of history with dragons), games that represent other cultures (e.g. middle East terrorists), etc.

For example, in Halo Reach there are 5 people (or 6, player included) in the Noble Team, one is female, that makes 20% of the team, if the player chooses female that makes 2/6 = 33%. Currently women are 15.7% of the active army in the US (let me compare with that and not the "real" UNSC numbers). So that's overrepresentation, which on [weighted] average far exceeds the underrepresentation you mention, IMHO.

Next step: get the data and check the p-value for the corresponding hypotheses.

Let's take another example to consider one more thing. Gears of War, famous for it's "manliness". If I'm not mistaken in Gears of War 3 there are 2 females for a total of 7 main characters (Marcus, Dom, Baird, Cole, Carmine, Anya and Sam), that's 29%. In Gears of War Judgement it's 25% (1/4th of the Kilo squad). That would compensate for a zero in both previous franchises, but Anya has been there from the start, and nobody said that the 15.7% of women in the army were evenly distributed along the different roles in the army, I would be very surprised if that was the case. The point of this second example is: you have to consider secondary roles as well.

Realism is not a good argument for the current discussion, as realism is a conservative principle. For example consider how many times you have seen a female president of the US in reality and in some game. I can remember Vanquish at least. Games don't need to conform to reality, there can be a female president of the US, and that depiction can be positive or negative, that should be the point, IMHO.

@gaspower: What I find objectionable is that you didn't mention any of the content of the post but instead just mentioned it was written by a woman. I find that not only objectionable but condescending.

I find this statement strange, but I'm not sure how to articulate why. Games with male protags get made because thats what sells, but why shouldn't we question the reasons behind that? It isn't about "questioning the market" (as though the market is some ethereal being, above reproach and not a concept that only has as much power as we as a society let it), it's about questioning our culture, and the reasons behind why women are not as well represented as men in games. I suspect the reason is much deeper than the amount of women in a game, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have the conversation. Just saying "this is how it is, who are we to change it" helps no one. It's lethargy at best.

I think you were supposed to address @conmulligan.

You are right not sure how I ended up addressing you.

I don't disagree that we should question it. I disagree with the jumps by people that as soon as they notice something, they call for a change. Sometimes just looking at things from the top down can be interesting but assuming that this lens has helped us understand something deeper is just plain arrogant.

Here's an example to get my point across. Imagine we have a statistic that 99% of football injuries occur in the last 10 minutes of the game. A naive/arrogant policy maker would take this and say "Aha, we should shorten the length of football games by 10 minutes to reduce accidents." Yet this is dumb because you are not looking deeper to see why this is happening. For instance it could be that players just consume their remaining energy in the last 10 minutes whilst before they don't do so as much because they worry that they will get tired and not be able to play effectively. So the real effect of this policy change would be to increase injuries because now the game is even shorter and the last 10 minutes have even more aggression(due to more banked energy).

The deeper thing we could be missing could be any number of things it could be that women just don't care enough(most gamer's just think that game-play is king), or they don't even constitute a major part of the market or just a question of magnitude, i.e that the people who care about there being male protagonists care more than the people who care that there be female protagonists. These are just examples, and I find it interesting to try and understand why but any call to change it without understanding the underlying reasons is only done by people who lack any kind of analytic rigor.

FYI if you are not large enough to constitute a market, this in English means, how much people are willing to pay for it relative to how much it costs, makes it not worthwhile. Generally speaking doing things whose costs exceed the subjective and objective benefits is not good for society.

I think the word market kind of conceals what we are talking about: its people trying to get what they want at minimal cost, a more fragmented market(apart form requiring higher competition) requires people who think the extra cost is justified, I don't think we have enough people who would change their purchasing decision(what we sometimes call marginal buyers in economics) just because of this one change.

@trylks: Ok but I was talking about enemies, not protagonists.

Damn, you seem real mad at me for a lot of nothing that I said.

That reminds me of a video that went around produced by a guy trying to show women gawking at men and their pants especially if they can see large it is. What the makers failed to realize is that it was so poorly and ridiculously setup that many women posted they would look and stare at it too because it was obviously fake leading them to find it absurd, funny, or just weird instead of being turned on.

Men and women like to look at things that stimulate them. What many forget is that there are other "stimulation" besides "I'm excited" that get people to stop what they are doing and look.

publishers should stop following market trends! ROI shouldnt be the number one factor for a faceless corporation! Hurrr durrr

If more females started playing games.. you would see the trend change... just how like every trend in gaming has involved... or movie... or every other medium for example.

@treetrunk: the point is still valid, the examples are not. Fable III has plenty of females in the desert. There were significant amounts of females in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and I could probably find more examples that in the end point (IMHO) at a good likelihood that females are on (weighted) average overrepresented. Which is not necessarily a bad or a good thing.

That information is not there. The people in the industry have no idea about what would happen if they did something they have never done before. That's why I mentioned blue oceans. The information we have is that women play less (video) games than men and that games still up to date keep evolving. It would be nice if games evolved into something that is good for gamers and it gets to everybody. The stories in novels have proven to be good in some cases, there is no reason to think games should be anything less than that. Food is also good, but not all kinds of food an not all amounts are good. "You are what you eat" is not completely true, you are not only material, you have a mind, with memes, ideas and a culture, games have a strong influence on that and how to make the best use of that influence is something that should be discussed.

People seem to lack the information to make correct nutrition decisions, but when it comes to the mind the ignorance is overwhelming. In such an ignorance people will claim that "they know everything", or logically equivalent: "there is nothing that they ignore", which is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. In your words: "The only reason this stuff is even discussed ", so there are no reasons that you ignore. Your posts scream Dunning-Kruger.

But there could be such a "market". I already pointed at the success of Nintendo by appealing to larger audiences, not that they had other chance to survive, but they did, and they did well, and the world is a bit better now because we have things that we wouldn't have otherwise, and people appreciate those things enough as to pay for them. However that's only part of the story.

The purchase decisions that people make when they have money (which gradually increases through time) are very influenced by their early experiences in life (which gradually decreases through time). So putting some arbitrary numbers, if we consider that people have money to spend when they turn 12 and onwards, what they will decide to spend that money into is going to be heavily influenced by their life in their first 12 years. Game developers don't consider women as a big market because they don't buy many games, and they don't buy many games because game developers didn't consider women as a big market before they were 12. Sure, there are exceptions, sure, things are changing. Debatable: things could change faster. Debatable: things should change in a different direction.

And here is a critical point in this debate. A market is not a (potential) consumer base, a market is a set of rules that have to be designed to have positive dynamics emerging in them. Games are not completely out of control, there are age ratings and other mechanisms. IMHO, these regulations are too hard on nudity specially when compared with how soft they are on violence and gore. In short, sex brings life and shooting brings death, and we should prefer life to death and make of it a more common theme in our lives, but I would like to end this offtopic before we discuss abortion. The point is that there is some control to games but maybe not enough considering that games try to appeal people that they have previously influenced and that they are still influencing.

Freedom only works when consumers are responsible. If they are not, if they don't make informed rational purchase decisions to pay for something that is truly beneficial, then the whole system corrupts, as they may be paying for something that is detrimental for them, e.g. for their health in the case of food. Now, contrary to food, people don't die for being stupid, you know what they say: "Stupidity is an extraordinary condition, it's not the sick one who suffers for it, but those around". This is for two reasons: 1. the stupid won't die (usually) and 2. it will cause harm (or mild inconveniences) to others (maybe sexual harassment?). Therefore this is more a matter of public health than personal-private health, or metaphorically speaking: the health of the mind/culture of society, maybe even the zeitgeist if you want, something that must be treated with great care instead of letting it rot to the lowest human impulses, with no reflection neither in the individual aspect nor in the public aspect.

The points I would like to see in this debate are:

1. Are games making people better or worse?
2. Could they be doing better? How?
3. If (/once) they are good for people, how do we increase their reach?
4. Should any of this be promoted? (E.g. with non-profit organizations)

I think this is of utmost importance, as this is basically part of the culture and the education that people receive, which can have a strong impact on the life of the people (quality and duration). It's common that some shortsighted people won't see the costs of a bad culture, crime, deaths, or anything else that doesn't involve an economic transaction, but they are there, they cause the destruction of the richness of a country.

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." - Derek Bok

The information isn't there and yet you expect them to take big risks when there's no offsetting potential profits(the market that buys games only because of the sex of the protagonists)?

Saying you understand what kind of dieting is good is complete nonsense. Even doctors who are trained to evaluate human health are basically mostly told that its impossible to run randomized control trials on food and the observational data cannot be inferred from. Saying you know which is definitely good and which is definitely bad, and ignoring things like lifestyle or genetics is just plain ignorant. Also even if people knew something is bad for them doesn't mean anything, if someone enjoys cigarettes who are you to tell them they should not smoke? That's some ridiculous arrogance right there, cultural norms keep you humble at times and you don't know what kind of positive effects that could have.

If you think Nintendo did not properly research their market before launching more accessible products then I have nothing to say to you. Pointing at Nintendo and saying "hey look it worked for them" doesn't take into account that the audience is different, indeed appealing to kids is far easier, and most people already knew the market was there, so fragmenting it made sense.

I love how you put "debatable" on somethings but assume others, for instance you assume clearly that women don't buy products before they are 12 because they are not targeted. If that's how markets worked no market would exist, markets are incremental not designed(think about what that means).

Women do not buy as many "hardcore" games as guys because they are not as interested in them, if you want to say the opposite you must either be a fool or have extraordinary evidence.

Without a doubt your most dubious comment is the things you want to be debated. "Are games making people better or worse?" These are completely meaningless terms in this context. People enjoy them and the enjoyment of them does not harm others, that's the end of that. If your metric is health then we should probably ban most soft drinks, or alcohol, tight jeans, late pregnancy, etc(apparently having babies late or never significantly increases your chance of breast cancer, nun's have the highest rates).

Again "could they be doing better?", completely meaningless, better relative to what? Are you claiming that people have to be using their time only on what's best for their health or society? If so burn all movies and art, probably most fiction too and have people only do things that help society, maybe read books that help them vote better or live hunter lifestyles which is what the human body is optimized for.

"Should we promote video games with non-profit organizations?" Why non-profit? Dude you really need to read a little bit about the world and understand how it works, I don't even know why I responded because its not worth responding to, you either go on tangent and talk about irrelevant things(such as nudity and gore in ratings) or just talk complete nonsense.

@gamefreak9:

Are you saying we should ban tight jeans?

I am very very against this move.

Whaaat? Sera is adorable :/

@trylks: You are making a few mistake in your reasoning referring to choices and markets.

First of all, you cannot say that a choice is irrational, all you can say is that you yourself would not make that choice given the situation. If a person eats a cheeseburger and downs it with vodka that doesn't mean that they are irrational compared to an athelete who eats a salad and drinks a glass of water; it means that they have different ends (the former wants to have an in-the-moment positive rush, the latter wants to live long).

Also: markets are not rules, nor are they entities. They do not make decision, allocate resources or choose who wins. Markets are the sum total of voluntary transactions between human beings in a given area or field. So 'video games market' simply refers to the purchasing and selling of videos games, not some standards set in motion by gaming corporations. They are an effect of personal choices.

Lets just be clear what we are talking about :