While scrolling through my facebook news feed today I noticed a post by a girl I went to High School with linking to an article [link]http://jezebel.com/i-really-want-to-play-grand-theft-auto-v-but-im-not-g-727633804[/link] explaining that the author, despite wanting to play GTAV, would not do so on the basis that there is no female protagonist. I read the article through and didn't agree with it, so I decided to post a reply, and as I was doing so I kind of realized that I haven't seen a single mainstream journalist that shares my opinion on this kind of issue. Perhaps that is my lack of exposure, but I would like to hear from any of you regarding the article, my response, or if you know of anyone influential in the sphere of games journalism that holds a similar viewpoint to my own. I'll post what I wrote under this paragraph, thanks guys.
"This will probably not win me any friends, but it needs to be said:
No great work of art is subject to the will of the masses observing it's final expression. The Mona Lisa was not designed by a committee, nor by popular vote. How can you assume the right to improve upon that which you could not make and could not equal? Rockstar Studios's games are consistent in that they all seek to tell us a story. Their story, which came about by their efforts and their ideas, not the ideas or wants of the people who consume it. No creator is motivated by a desire to serve the public. Their vision is their only motive. An album, a novel, an invention, a ideology, an airplane or a structure?that was their goal and their life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users.
Saying that you won't play this game because it you cannot identify with it's protagonists is petty and childish. These three main characters are not people anyone should seek to identify with. There is a wannabe hustler, a has-been career criminal, and a violent, psychopathic drug dealer. These character were created to tell the story their creator envisioned, not to put you in their shoes. Many, many games give you the opportunity to create your own character and experience the game entirely from the perspective you choose to. These are the kinds of games that we should seek to identify with, as they allow us to express ourselves onto the world the designer has created. But that is only because the creator had chosen to give us that opportunity, because that is how the want us to experience their world.
I bought Mirror's Edge (a game with a female lead) the day it was released. Not because of the gender of the main character, but because I was interested in the story the creators were trying to tell. Kameo was the first game I ever owned for the Xbox 360. The idea that male gamers will refuse to play a game with a female protagonist comes almost exclusively from the publishers, those whose motive is not the creation of a game, but the creation of a profitable product. But Rockstar Studios does not bow to an external publisher. They publish their games on their own. If they wanted to include a female lead in their story, they would have. They chose not to, which as the creator, is their inexorable right. Believe me, I do agree that anyone who can say that they are incapable of playing a female character with a straight face is just as poisonous to the medium as anything else you could care to name. And while I do agree that there could certainly be more female leads in gaming, it is not yours, nor anyone else's, place to impose that edict on the men and women who create these games. I hope to god that some of the women who enjoy games today grow up to head their own studio and share their own creative vision with the world. But forcing a creator to change their vision just to cater to those who may feel left out is damaging to any form of artistic expression, games included."
"This will probably not win me any friends, but it needs to be said:
No great work of art is subject to the will of the masses observing it's final expression. The Mona Lisa was not designed by a committee, nor by popular vote. How can you assume the right to improve upon that which you could not make and could not equal? Rockstar Studios's games are consistent in that they all seek to tell us a story. Their story, which came about by their efforts and their ideas, not the ideas or wants of the people who consume it. No creator is motivated by a desire to serve the public. Their vision is their only motive. An album, a novel, an invention, a ideology, an airplane or a structure?that was their goal and their life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users.
Saying that you won't play this game because it you cannot identify with it's protagonists is petty and childish. These three main characters are not people anyone should seek to identify with. There is a wannabe hustler, a has-been career criminal, and a violent, psychopathic drug dealer. These character were created to tell the story their creator envisioned, not to put you in their shoes. Many, many games give you the opportunity to create your own character and experience the game entirely from the perspective you choose to. These are the kinds of games that we should seek to identify with, as they allow us to express ourselves onto the world the designer has created. But that is only because the creator had chosen to give us that opportunity, because that is how the want us to experience their world.
I bought Mirror's Edge (a game with a female lead) the day it was released. Not because of the gender of the main character, but because I was interested in the story the creators were trying to tell. Kameo was the first game I ever owned for the Xbox 360. The idea that male gamers will refuse to play a game with a female protagonist comes almost exclusively from the publishers, those whose motive is not the creation of a game, but the creation of a profitable product. But Rockstar Studios does not bow to an external publisher. They publish their games on their own. If they wanted to include a female lead in their story, they would have. They chose not to, which as the creator, is their inexorable right. Believe me, I do agree that anyone who can say that they are incapable of playing a female character with a straight face is just as poisonous to the medium as anything else you could care to name. And while I do agree that there could certainly be more female leads in gaming, it is not yours, nor anyone else's, place to impose that edict on the men and women who create these games. I hope to god that some of the women who enjoy games today grow up to head their own studio and share their own creative vision with the world. But forcing a creator to change their vision just to cater to those who may feel left out is damaging to any form of artistic expression, games included."
