Are mainstream devs deliberately discouraging women from gaming?

[Fappy]

As a guy, but not a white guy, after a while you just want to be represented. It's nothing more than that. Sometimes, you want to just feel like you can actually be the protagonist that you're controlling, and it's hard to believe that when he or she looks nothing like you.

I gotta say, I've never, ever felt the need to see echoes of myself in my character. I don't think I've ever made a protagonist who was a lanky white guy with bed head and achey joints. He'd be a shit protagonist. I almost always roll women when they're available. Not for the oh-so-trite "I like dat virtual ass" reason, either, I just feel more comfortable with them.

I can totally see why someone would want the ability to see themselves in their character though. I'm just rambling.

But the virtual ass is awesome. I have fond memories of ME1 FemShep in light armor jogging around Noveria.


MMMMMMM.... DAT ASS.

Oh... ummmm.... somewhat on-topic with what you guys are saying: I had this funny encounter with my step dad (who, lets face it his generation is a bunch of racists) walked in on a game of LFD2. Me and my sister were playing the two white guys (can't remember their names) but since it's an FPS and we were looking at the two black characters with us he assumed we were playing them and asked, "Why are you playing black characters?"

I lol'd.

I played a black female Sith in Kotor once just to throw him off.

 

[DeltaEdge]

I think people would be okay if there were as many weak sexualized male characters as there were weak sexualized female characters.

So male readers and filmgoers responded positively to Edward and Jacob?

No, but that's because it's still not something that happens that often (to my knowledge). I think that if it became commonplace, then people wouldn't really care. (Unless they were actively trying to end the sexualization of both genders entirely)
Edit And I don't think males were speaking out against them for being a sexist false representation of men. They probably just thought they were "gay".

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Quotes!

The hell man. You quoted everyone in this thread but me. I feel so left out.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I think people would be okay if there were as many weak sexualized male characters as there were weak sexualized female characters.

So male readers and filmgoers responded positively to Edward and Jacob?

No, but that's because it's still not something that happens that often (to my knowledge). I think that if it became commonplace, then people wouldn't really care. (Unless they were actively trying to end the sexualization of both genders entirely)

Objectification of women in media is commonplace. Do you think all or even most women don't care about objectification?

 

[lacktheknack]

"Sexual harassment is an integral part of the fighting game community"

Short answer: Yes. Yes, they are.

If they aren't, they're doing a spectacularly poor job of convincing me otherwise.

 

[Substitute Troll]

I'm sorry, but did I miss something? When has Geralt ever treated women badly?

 

[lacktheknack]

I think people would be okay if there were as many weak sexualized male characters as there were weak sexualized female characters.

So male readers and filmgoers responded positively to Edward and Jacob?

Had they not have been a vampire and werewolf and hyped beyond recognition, I bet people wouldn't have cared all that much about yet another standard dumpy romance novel.

 

[lacktheknack]

I'm sorry, but did I miss something? When has Geralt ever treated women badly?

In the opening cutscene of the original game, his asking price for saving the girl was some money and a night of sex with her. That tends to rub people the wrong way.

 

[DeltaEdge]

I think people would be okay if there were as many weak sexualized male characters as there were weak sexualized female characters.

So male readers and filmgoers responded positively to Edward and Jacob?

No, but that's because it's still not something that happens that often (to my knowledge). I think that if it became commonplace, then people wouldn't really care. (Unless they were actively trying to end the sexualization of both genders entirely)

Objectification of women in media is commonplace. Do you think all or even most women don't care about objectification?

I think they do, but equality is also a big issue. If both sexes were portrayed in an overly sexist manor, then people might not be as upset as if it were just a single sex being singled out. But if things became equal, then I guess people probably would try to straighten out the issue of sexism in genders until that problem is fixed. I guess what I'm saying is, people will probably be more concerned about things being gender equal first, and then once things are equal, tackle issue and eliminate it on both sides. To give an example of why I think this, I was on youtube and found a video for a shooter game where someone had a gun and was shooting students in the school. The person was searching specifically for african american people, and shooting only them. In the comments, people weren't in an uproar about how defenseless people were being shot in a school, they were upset mainly about the fact that only the African American people were being shot. If the person shot people equally, then people would probably move onto the fact that someone is in a school campus shooting unarmed people.

 

[w00tage]

I think it's part of gamer developer/marketer culture - they both overlap right in the area of crotch motivation. Game developers are pretty much enslaved, so they don't get the essential social / life interactions, including romantic development, that is essential to us humans. While marketing has a very high population of brains-between-their-legs BS artists (let's face it, it's the perfect vocation for that type, so it's no surprise they gravitate to it) who can actually prove that pushing the sex button results in higher sales of pretty much anything.

Put the two together regarding character design and even in franchises where appearance is already preset and the audiences' expectations are well defined, you get Hulk Batman and Sleazy Quinn. Given a blank canvas, you're going to get ridiculousness out of that combination every time.

I do recall that the creators of Fallen Earth once fought that stereotype by having plain-featured women. From what I saw, the face generation devolved that into mild ugliness, and after fans made enough mention of it, they tweaked it so the women looked considerably "cuter". Now that I think about it, I don't recall any other MMO where your character looked pretty much ordinary, and it didn't bother me a bit as far as identifying with my char. In fact, it was kind of all right to see a bunch of ordinary-looking characters (for a post-apocalyptic wasteland setting, that is) running around.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I think people would be okay if there were as many weak sexualized male characters as there were weak sexualized female characters.

So male readers and filmgoers responded positively to Edward and Jacob?

Had they not have been a vampire and werewolf and hyped beyond recognition, I bet people wouldn't have cared all that much about yet another standard dumpy romance novel.

I think this is the key issue.

I've noticed that when male characters are actually written as sexual objects (as opposed to male power fantasies with their shirts off) and a male audience notices, suddenly a lot of dudes are annoyed and/or skeeved out by the characters. For some reason they have a hard time connecting the dots.

 

[lacktheknack]

Nope, women are potential customers too, so discouraging them would be counter productive.

See: EA, Ubisoft, Sony.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

In the opening cutscene of the original game, his asking price for saving the girl was some money and a night of sex with her. That tends to rub people the wrong way.

Ahahahaha really? Really? Did they change that for the Enhanced Edition, or did I just miss it?

Because that's pretty funny.

Terrible, of course. So terrible it's hilarious.

 

[lacktheknack]

In the opening cutscene of the original game, his asking price for saving the girl was some money and a night of sex with her. That tends to rub people the wrong way.

Ahahahaha really? Really? Did they change that for the Enhanced Edition, or did I just miss it?

Because that's pretty funny.

Terrible, of course. So terrible it's hilarious.

<youtube=qtrKfZqokl4>

First thirty seconds. Admittedly somewhat ambiguous, but what are you going to think when the narrator says "It was enough to spend the night with her from dusk 'til dawn"? It's certainly what I thought he was going for.

 

[w00tage]

I'm sorry, but did I miss something? When has Geralt ever treated women badly?

In the opening cutscene of the original game, his asking price for saving the girl was some money and a night of sex with her. That tends to rub people the wrong way.

Especially the girl.

Ba-dum-bump!

 

[Kahunaburger]

In the opening cutscene of the original game, his asking price for saving the girl was some money and a night of sex with her. That tends to rub people the wrong way.

Ahahahaha really? Really? Did they change that for the Enhanced Edition, or did I just miss it?

Because that's pretty funny.

Terrible, of course. So terrible it's hilarious.

<youtube=qtrKfZqokl4>

First thirty seconds. Admittedly somewhat ambiguous, but what are you going to think when the narrator says "It was enough to spend the night with her from dusk 'til dawn"? It's certainly what I thought he was going for.

I think the night they were referring to was the night they spent fighting while he waited for her curse to time out. The intro is basically from a short story, and in that story sex is definitely not part of the deal.

 

[Fappy]

Quotes!

The hell man. You quoted everyone in this thread but me. I feel so left out.

If it's any consolation, it's harder for me to make fun of smart people, so I don't quote them as often. So between being quoted now and the knowledge that you are one of the smarter people here, take this opportunity to bask in your intellectual superiority. Doing so is one of my favorite pastimes, personally.

I assume that implies I am intelligent as well?

Awesome.

/highfives Guppy.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I think people would be okay if there were as many weak sexualized male characters as there were weak sexualized female characters.

So male readers and filmgoers responded positively to Edward and Jacob?

No, but that's because it's still not something that happens that often (to my knowledge). I think that if it became commonplace, then people wouldn't really care. (Unless they were actively trying to end the sexualization of both genders entirely)

Objectification of women in media is commonplace. Do you think all or even most women don't care about objectification?

I think they do, but equality is also a big issue. If both sexes were portrayed in an overly sexist manor, then people might not be as upset as if it were just a single sex being singled out. But if things became equal, then I guess people probably would try to straighten out the issue of sexism in genders until that problem is fixed. I guess what I'm saying is, people will probably be more concerned about things being gender equal first, and then once things are equal, tackle issue and eliminate it on both sides. To give an example of why I think this, I was on youtube and found a video for a shooter game where someone had a gun and was shooting students in the school. The person was searching specifically for african american people, and shooting only them. In the comments, people weren't in an uproar about how defenseless people were being shot in a school, they were upset mainly about the fact that only the African American people were being shot. If the person shot people equally, then people would probably move onto the fact that someone is in a school campus shooting unarmed people.

How about we push back against all sexism, wherever we find it, instead? If the writing/design of female characters is shitty, the solution is not to make writing/design of male characters shitty in the same way.