Are mainstream devs deliberately discouraging women from gaming?

[Cursedwolf]

Am i offending you in some way that you feel the need to target me with useless and ill thought out statements?

I get that you think that Men's movements are stupid. and that in proxy you think i'm just some dumbass punk kid following a trend.

But hey. that's your opinion. i respect that. I just hope that somehow you'll find it within yourself to be at least polite and smart with your comments, and not just spurt out random junk because you feel the need to bring me down a few pegs.

 

[Subaltern]

Hey, don't hate on me. i'm just a random guy wanting to let his voice be heard. these forums are for people to post their opinions and views, so, respect mine and try and be just a little bit constructive.

Kthanxbai.

Bye! I hope your men's movement makes some headway before it collapses under the accumulated weight of comically misdirected pathos.

Wow, that site is absolutely hilarious and pathetic.

Nice spam, Cursedwolf!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Am i offending you in some way that you feel the need to target me with useless and ill thought out statements?

I get that you think that Men's movements are stupid. and that in proxy you think i'm just some dumbass punk kid following a trend.

But hey. that's your opinion. i respect that. I just hope that somehow you'll find it within yourself to be at least polite and smart with your comments, and not just spurt out random junk because you feel the need to bring me down a few pegs.

Nonsense. I don't think the CONCEPT of a "Men's Movement" is stupid. Lord knows our gender has some moving to do. I think "A Voice for Men" is stupid. Which it plainly, plainly is.

By the way, I'm attacking "A Voice for Men", not you. Unless you are the founder of "A Voice for Men", in which case I'm sorry, but I just can't stop laughing.

 

[Axyun]

This is a pretty terrible excuse, though. Games should have proper writers, and proper writers should know how to write outside their gender. If a gaming company can write for a fucking orc, they should be able to write for a woman. Or at least write a woman who has more dimensions to her personality than "tits".

I'm not trying to "excuse" anything. I'm not saying my personal experiences make it OK for women to be little more than tits on spandex.

And the example you gave is extremely terrible. Writing an Orc is easy, as all monsters are. No one wants to or needs to identify with a monster, so trying to make them appealing to a demographic is not necessary. Additionally, an Orc is little more than a really ugly, angry man. One-dimensional characters are easy to create, hence the prevalence of one-dimensional women in gaming.

Worse so, your statement comes across as stating that women are as simple as Orcs. Might want to mind your wording. And no amount of vindication validates your statement.

 

[Cursedwolf]

Well, That's nice.

I'll have to remember that our gender has to keep on moving, sure. all those men who died for your liberty and rights didn't do enough, i'll just have to think about that one the next time i think about having Equal Rights for both men and women.

That's all i'm going to say, i'm not going to reply anymore. have a nice life.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm not trying to "excuse" anything. I'm not saying my personal experiences make it OK for women to be little more than tits on spandex.

And the example you gave is extremely terrible. Writing an Orc is easy, as all monsters are. No one wants to or needs to identify with a monster, so trying to make them appealing to a demographic is not necessary. Additionally, an Orc is little more than a really ugly, angry man. One-dimensional characters are easy to create, hence the prevalence of one-dimensional women in gaming.

Worse so, your statement comes across as stating that women are as simple as Orcs. Might want to mind your wording. And no amount of vindication validates your statement.

FINE it was a bad analogy. Although to be fair I'm getting tired of lazily written orcs, too. I want my monsters to have some proper motivations.

It's still reasonable to expect a male writer to be able to write acceptable female characters, and visa versa. The opposite sex isn't that fucking inscrutable.

 

[Subaltern]

Well, That's nice.

I'll have to remember that our gender has to keep on moving, sure. all those men who died for your liberty and rights didn't do enough, i'll just have to think about that one the next time i think about having Equal Rights for both men and women.

That's all i'm going to say, i'm not going to reply anymore. have a nice life.

If you're so interested in equal rights, why not try doing something in real life instead of joining random forums and spamming your terrible, whiny website?

That's how feminists were able to do so much for women, people of color, and LGBTQ folks.

Maybe that's a lesson straight white dudes can take to the bank for their straight white men's rights "movement".

 

[HellbirdIV]

I just had a barely on-topic thought;

Making the protagonist of the next Assassin's Creed female would probably be pretty distracting from a story point of view. I mean, ignoring the issues of being a woman in the american revolutionary era, you're still Desmond "astral projecting" or whatever into the mind and body of a woman - you don't think he might be a little bit massively uncomfortable with that, assuming he's not a closet transsexual?

Feels like either they have to just ignore the issue presented (which would be insulting) or the issue will sort of derail the plot entirely - to me at least, the obvious solution is to make the protagonist male as before.

That said, if the integration of Desmond's mind into a female body became a plot point...

Hmmm... Tests....

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well, That's nice.

I'll have to remember that our gender has to keep on moving, sure. all those men who died for your liberty and rights didn't do enough, i'll just have to think about that one the next time i think about having Equal Rights for both men and women.

That's all i'm going to say, i'm not going to reply anymore. have a nice life.

Nice straw man too, by the way. It's a shame you're leaving. You fit right in!

 

[Fr]anc[is]

you dont even need to play the game to know that if you were mutated with special powers and had become sterile, of course you would be trying to get with all the women its what every guy would do in real life.

Oh hey look, all encompassing sexist generalizations in a thread about sexism. How appropriate.

 

[Subaltern]

anc[is]

you dont even need to play the game to know that if you were mutated with special powers and had become sterile, of course you would be trying to get with all the women its what every guy would do in real life.

Oh hey look, all encompassing sexist generalizations in a thread about sexism. How appropriate.

That's the only thing one can ever be sure of when it comes to topics like sexism, racism, or homophobia.

 

[Axyun]

I'm not trying to "excuse" anything. I'm not saying my personal experiences make it OK for women to be little more than tits on spandex.

And the example you gave is extremely terrible. Writing an Orc is easy, as all monsters are. No one wants to or needs to identify with a monster, so trying to make them appealing to a demographic is not necessary. Additionally, an Orc is little more than a really ugly, angry man. One-dimensional characters are easy to create, hence the prevalence of one-dimensional women in gaming.

Worse so, your statement comes across as stating that women are as simple as Orcs. Might want to mind your wording. And no amount of vindication validates your statement.

FINE it was a bad analogy. Although to be fair I'm getting tired of lazily written orcs, too. I want my monsters to have some proper motivations.

It's still reasonable to expect a male writer to be able to write acceptable female characters, and visa versa. The opposite sex isn't that fucking inscrutable.

Agreed and agreed. I hate monsters and villains that are evil "just because". And I would hope a male writer should be able to write convincing female characters. But the current situation states that they either can't or can't be bothered to. Only course of action is to either convince them that they need to or introduce people to the industry that will be willing to.

 

[Ryank1908]

In certain cases gaming is still immature in this regard. WoW and it's ilk are one of the biggest offenders for me - all the men are gigantic and muscular and all the women are lithe and curvy? Not to mention that the womens 'armour' tends to be a bit... lacking.

There are still games out there that handle female leads well, to be fair - Mass Effect, for instance, and the TES games.

 

[DeltaEdge]

I'm making the assumption that most developers and such are male for this post. Assuming that this is still the case, I would think that they aren't intentionally excluding women, but rather, they are just going with what they know, simply because it is easy to write what you are familiar with. I know that if I were writing a story, since I am a male, I would be more inclined to make the protagonist of my story male. Sure, I could have a female protagonist, but I really don't know much about women and how to properly differentiate them from men without being sexist, and if I wanted to keep my story going in the same direction, I would most likely and unintentionally just end up making the female protagonist basically just a male protagonist in female skin so to speak.
Also, kind of a given, but if there were more female devs, (once again, assuming that they are the minority, and if they aren't, then my bad.) then we would most likely have more gender balance in games in general.
Even then, I don't think it would be unlikely that they would do some of the same things that the current devs are being punished for doing. If there were more female devs, then we would probably have more sexualized males with skimpier armor...etc. I think that people wouldn't have a problem with it if the sexualizing of genders was done equally. I think people would be okay if there were as many weak sexualized male characters as there were weak sexualized female characters.

 

[Korten12]

I'm surprise not many women find Baird from gears of war attractive? He's not as bulky as Mascus and he's not married like Dom and he doesn't talk about "one night stands" with women like Cole Train.

But whatever.........

Also Gears, at least 3 has some good female characters, hell I play as Sam in the multi as she was one of my favorite characters.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I personally think this is a simple matter of Game Developers living in the biggest bubble in history. That, or, developing a game that has a protagonist that can be customized is very hard to do. I can easily take the title of this thread and supplant women with "Blacks", "Latinos", "Asians", "Gays", "Physically Challenged People".

It particularly galls me when I see the developers in their interviews saying "We wanted to create a character that gamers can relate to". It's not hard to feel that the developers are looking into the mirror when they are trying to figure out what the gamer audience can relate to.

I also think it's telling that a male gamer will pick a female character to play in a customizable game because of various options. He likes looking at women more, change of pace, what have you. The only time I ever heard of one of my female gamer friends deliberately choosing a male character has always been so they wouldn't get sexually harassed while gaming.

However, and I'm assured the denizens of the Escapist are among the exceptions to this, but I never have met someone who picked a different race as a customizable protagonist. This is barring being an alien species. From what I've seen, the majority of people who play games might be flexible with gender, but if they are picking human they are sticking to their race. I feel this is common enough that developers should understand that one gender/one race protagonist are definitely not characters that we all can relate to.

While we're on the subject, I've never understood why female protagonists are so important to female players. As a guy I have no problems playing those relatively rare games with female leads. Hell, sometimes I play as a female in games that allow you to choose. Or does it go a bit deeper than merely the protagonist's gender...?

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.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

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.

 

[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?