Just read this article on Grantland about the no female lead in GTA. Interesting article but I disagree with the fact that no females in the GTA universe were horrible people. (Catalina for instance). Still interesting and short read.

Personally I wouldn't want to play as a female lead character for a GTA game, but I know other people want too.

A Bioware dev tweeted this. I disagree with this tweet more than the article. He claims its his industry which is completely laughable.

But i agree with this.

@jimmyfenix: I feel like I know where this is going.

I'm going to spell this out Ms. Lambert and others like her.

No creators - either big companies, small companies, individuals, etc - are under any obligation, moral, creative, or otherwise, to put either women, men, racial minorities, people with disabilities, varying religious groups, etc in to their work.

If I want to write a story about being a woman fuck you for wanting it to be about a man. It's not your story!

If Rockstar wants to write a game about three men, well... you already know.

Lambert misses the point constantly in this, uh, blogpost.

"Oh, but Orange is the New Black has women and they're violent too! See, masculinity". No. GTAV is about literally being a human male, an organism that usually has a penis between its legs and has certain societal expectations surround it. It has nothing to do with women not being violent people or whatever.

The only rational argument she could have made is to include transgender folk and women who identify as men - or, more actually relevant to the game (and I imagine it will be addressed) since it is a big point for masculinity, homosexuality, and them who exist on that spectrum (identifying as more feminine or masculine).

But nooooooooooo

For Lambert it's all me, me, me, me, me.

You get a weird, fucked up look into her own insecurity when she calls the yoga classes slutty. Er... woops?

Yes, yes, yes, there should be more women characters in games but stop pointing at every game and going this one, this one!

More critics telling artists what to do, before their work is even out and able to be judged. Like you say in the OP, she ignores female characters from GTA's past too.

And you can play as a woman online.

I feel like this is gonna turn into yet another sexism thread.

I feel the same way.

Here we go again...

I would really like them to have a female protagonist, and just generally there should be more in games, but R* not making one does not make them sexist.

Rockstar has justified perfectly well why they feel like they wanted to create a story with three male protagonists in GTA V. That's all I need. Continued complaining about this is nothing more than whining, at this point.

@falserelic: Get that popcorn ready Relic.

Are female gamers really "desperate" to play Grand Theft Auto games as a female? Desperate seems like a pretty strong word.

Anyway, whatever the reasons of the writer might be, he's got the right to those reasons. Nothing I've seen so far seems particularly misogynistic, it just seems like GTA's writers like writing male characters.

Yep I'm just going to drink my water and enjoy this thread.

So it begins...

:)

Ugh, can someone with the power to lock threads, please do so on this one? It's just gonna turn into another shitstorm.

More then likely it will, but I know how the mods likes to give things a chance first, and it wouldn't be fair to the op. So well just see how this thread will come along before judging.

This exact thing happened with the OP asking female opinions on Quiet's clothing. It was a total shitfest by page 2.

Have they? Have they addressed it at all? Not trying to start an argument, I honestly don't know if they ever said anything about it.

@milkman: the quote is this "the concept of being masculine was so key to this story." (Source)

I, for one, enjoyed Ms. Lambert's article. I got out of it that she wishes Rockstar, who have so consistently pushed video game stories into mature, adult spaces (GTA IV, RDR) have just gone ahead and made another crime game with dudes at the lead. Nobody's played it of course, and I'm sure it'll be at least a very good story, but it would be nice for them to make another leap like the one from San Andreas to IV, story wise. But hey, maybe V will be a revelation in video game story-telling.

I do feel like a lot of the advancements in story telling in games right now are happening in indie games, with stuff like To the Moon and recently Gone Home telling fantastic stories. To an outsider who doesn't always see that stuff though, it still might seem like a bunch of cigar-smoking, Unreal Engine 3-powered supermen duking it out as far as the stories go.

Well, I read the article, and it's basically "they're not making the game I want).

...I think it would be really cool if they made a GTA game with a female protagonist.

...I also think the story they're telling in GTA5 seems really good.

Rockstar's telling the stories they want to tell. I'm not sure accusations of bigotry are necessary.

Not sure what that even means but okay, I guess. I'll suppose I'll see what's so "masculine" about the story when I play the game.

I think it would be interesting to play as a woman in GTA but I totally trust them to continue telling the great stories they always have done. Rockstar have generally had well developed female characters (apart from the ones you pay for sex and then run over) in their games so I don't see it as much of a problem.

Also I have no idea who Manveer Heir is but comments like that do nothing to advance anyone's point of view. There are issues around sexism worth talking about in games and all media but attacking great devs like Rockstar in such an insulting manner is not going to win anyone round. Chose your battles carefully and act respectfully.

Although do I wish people would stop ferreting out the odd idiot tweets and try to make out are representative of anyone other than their own stupid selves. There are plonkers on both sides of the argument, we should shut them out and only listen to the people prepared to talk reasonably

For starters part of it is going to be about being a father, dealing with your family, being retired, all that. So that is one area we know it will be "masculine".

Anyways, I still find it so dumb to pick on Rockstar when they are one of the companies doing a good job at this. Bonnie in RDR is one of the best female characters in any video game. She is strong, funny, smart, principled, and she is not eye candy or a love interest.

They weren't saying the story is masculine, but that's it's about masculinity

Masculinity is not defined by having a penis.

i dont even care anymore im tired of discussing this

@milkman said:

The use of the word "masculine" weirdly set people off, for whatever reason, but they explained to what length they went to do field research on gangs, from law enforcement, and so on, and came away wanting to tell the story of older men who were stuck in that business for the sake of their families, and how it led to destroying their lives, basically. Whether or not this satisfies some, it does at least seem like they put a some amount of thought and consideration into the story, and it's being unfairly criticized by people who ask the "WHY ISN'T THERE A FEMALE PROTAGONIST IN ____" of every new release to keep ruffling feathers.

.................

Kind of part of it though!

Having a penis doesn't make you a man. Being a man makes you a man.

This is ridiculous and I'm checking out before it goes even more kind of sideways.

Yeah. There doesn't NEED to be female representation in everything. If they want to write male characters because it works for their story more than a woman does then WHY IS THAT A PROBLEM

I am of the belief that telling a good story is more important than representing every demographic. I didn't watch The Dark Knight and get pissed off that the prisoner dude that "saved" the boat of civilians wasn't asian or something.

From here on out, every game that features a male protagonist is going to have multiple articles and threads dedicated to saying how it should have had a female protagonist instead.

Sounds stupid? This is still what's been happening for the last year or so.

All this does is keeping me from ever giving a fuck about any of it because there's so much bullcrap to wade through to find the genuinely good articles and posts raising some real issues that i have just given up and immediately shut down any possible discussion around this subject that is headed my way.

Yeah, seems like people loves to start drama for no reason. They make it seem like women never gets attention which is bullshit. You got female singers, fighters, actors, political figures, and all sorts of others.

Yeah, I don't know where they get this idea of "inequality" from. Hell, if they want to make an argument for inequality, they should go question why female pornstars get paid at least 10 times as much as male pornstars do. There haven't been any complaints about that, have there?

As a regular reader of Grantland (and someone who's listened to all but one or two episodes of Girls in Hoodies, the all-female Grantland podcast "hosted" by Molly) I was really disappointed by this article. Molly generally comes across as a pretty down ass chick but this article reads way too much like a rant on Fox & Friends. I left this comment on the top comment, which I agreed with wholeheartedly:

"Stole the words right out of my mouth in regards to GTA's historical treatment of women. The mindless drones out on the streets tend to be vapid and sexualized but so are the men. I don't think it's fair or interesting for GTA's lack of a female protagonist to have been causing such a stir ever since the game's announcement; this is like being angered by the fact both main characters in The Departed were played by men, or Tyler Durden wasn't a woman, or whatever. Saint's Row's very essence is customization, it is the game Grand Theft Auto was...almost a decade ago. Grand Theft Auto is a tailored experience like an Uncharted or a Tomb Raider, only with a grand dose of emergent gameplay on the side. Rockstar are free to tell whatever stories they want to tell. If one of them comes to involve a woman down the line, that's great, but there's no point in chastising them for not having a main character as a woman. You're essentially calling their story process flawed because they forgot to represent a demographic in a pie chart."

What was perhaps most surprising to me was how adamantly defensive she was of Miley Cyrus' VMA performance. Not the racial aspects, but her willingness to be sexualized without much actual sexuality at her disposal. They did a whole podcast about how it's unfair to live in a world where Miley Cyrus gets ridiculed for shaking her ass in booty shorts on TV, but then she comes at GTAV for not featuring a woman in the lead role when the creators are clearly neither equipped to or interested in exploring that aspect of people, at the moment.

I am surprised this thread has not turned to a shit show. Good job everybody! I will be looking forward to being a woman in GTA Online to get a different prospective of the game.

Yeah, its a double standard.

Besides compared to the 1960s where women had to fight for equality in the work place, women came along way. Especially jobs that were mainly for men are now available for women aswell.

Exactly that. Women have been freer that we have ever been in human history. We can pretty much do whatever we want these days, but it's just not enough for some people. It seems they want women to be better than men, to be the dominant gender, and that is just ridiculous.

Mona Sax had huge swaths of gameplay in Max Payne 2, which was technically a Rockstar Games production, despite being developed by Remedy. So it's not entirely unheard of.

I'm really tired of the gender in video games debate. It was an interesting topic 10 years ago nay even 5 years ago. Yet, I feel now while things are far from perfect, video games are on the whole smarter, more inclusive and more sensitive to social issues.
It just seems like a short hand topic for critics, journalists to use in order to preach regurgitated, self masturbatory, "Oh look at me I'm so socially progressive" bollocks.
I'm sorry but that article was so poor and contrived. Yes, having more games with female leads would be great but only if it fits the story the devs want to tell. Writing a story because of positive discrimination is not art but pathetic, weak visioned, pandering.
Games are still evolving as a medium, games criticism should be a reflection of the demographic as well as a inspirational speaking platform to instill new ideas from the community. It should not be a continued spew of hot white noise from an agenda pushing non entity.

Same argument here that I made against people demanding BioWare change the ending of Mass Effect 3:

The artist creates the art and the art is whatever they want it to be.

The person viewing the art can like it, dislike it, disagree with choices, hate the artist, whatever, and that is entirely their prerogative.

But you do not have the right to demand the artist does something different and they do not have to listen or care about your opinion. If enough people feel as you do about the artist's work, then they won't make any money and your problem disappears.

I would like to have more female lead characters in games, and people of different sexual orientations, ethnicities, religions, whatever. As with any fiction, variety is interesting and opens up new storytelling opportunities.

But I'm not going to criticise Rockstar for telling the story they want to tell with the characters they want to tell it with.

...I'll just criticise them for making boring games and never having an original idea in their lives :P

You can play as a female character in GTA Online. So what the fuck is her point then?

@nodima: I saw your comment!

I'm also a fan of Girls in Hoodies and Molly Lambert and was also so very disappointed. She also accuses GTA of only having women as "eye candy or hookers" which is just blatant lying.

It sucks seeing someone whos work you enjoy act so illogical.

Also maybe its just my phone but I'm pretty sure she moved that top comment to the very bottom to hide it?

Dreams crushed ...........

First, that article is terrible and a shame its (again) seen as a mandatory instead of a way to make characters better. Rockstar has some of the best female characters, used stereotypes in sex differences and always walked this line like one of the best.

It actually got me thinking if it might work for GTA V. Trevor and Micheals characters would be a terrible idea and reduce the strengths of the characters as females. But Franklins character might be totally amazing as the strong black repo/gangmember female that kicks the ass of guys with small wieners that buy expensive cars to make up for it.

Also in the overall story you got Micheal as the big bank robber that is whipped at home and I see Trevor also coming home to his fat "jabba the hut" trailerpark miss and going on his knees. When doing the three men heists Micheal seems to be pulling the strings and Trevor being the dominant one but when it really comes down to it "Franklina" gets them back in line.

(This is ofc all just based on the stereotypical views from the characters we got through the trailers and positive that the actually story will be FAR bigger. But would have respected the article more when it came up with some fun ideas instead of just making it a mandatory thing for female emancipation.)

I feel/fear that if Rockstar made a GTA game with a female lead protagonist, the backlash from this specific brand of female gamers would be far stronger than if they didn't. Rockstar being Rockstar, they would address issues in that game that would probably make a lot of people feel uncomfortable; if they didn't you'd just have a super powerful, blank slate of a woman running around fucking shit up.

Yoga is slutty? What?

I think Rockstar is uniquely equipped to write a really compelling and strong female main character and I would love to see one in a GTA game. That said, it's their game. The gender of their characters is entirely up to them. If they had a female lead and she was a stereotypical airhead bimbo only there to serve the men or something equally stupid, I would absolutely see why people would be mad. But they have ultimate say over who their leads are in their story. And we haven't played the game yet. Rockstar isn't just going to ignore females entirely. Remember Bonnie MacFarlane in Red Dead? She was easily one of the strongest, most interesting, well-written characters in the game. Have a little faith in their writing. And maybe play the game first.

There needs to be better stories in games > There needs to be better PC gender diversity in games. Both are needed, but... I think games are still overwhelmingly notorious for lacking story... at least there are more than a few games you can point to which DO have female leads (I'm trying to get through Remember Me again.. beautiful game, so much detail).