Are mainstream devs deliberately discouraging women from gaming?

[MomoElektra]

If gender of the main protagonist is stopping you from playing a game . You are doing it wrong . I guess authors who write books with a male protagonist hate women also . Oh not to mention movies with guys as the protagonist , they hate women also .

I mean really ... Why do people look for things to nitpick . I actually find you're claims rather sexist against men .

Wonderful strawmen with the "If you think this is X, you are actually X yourself"-defense of the privileged, not-bothered individual.
If only it wasn't so predictable.

 

[LilithSlave]

If gender of the main protagonist is stopping you from playing a game . You are doing it wrong . I guess authors who write books with a male protagonist hate women also . Oh not to mention movies with guys as the protagonist , they hate women also .

I mean really ... Why do people look for things to nitpick . I actually find you're claims rather sexist against men .

I have to wonder if you're ignoring things on purpose.

We didn't say women aren't willing to play as men. The problem is how many developers shy away from creating female protagonists. Especially ones that aren't hyper-sexualized.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I mean really ... Why do people look for things to nitpick . I actually find you're claims rather sexist against men .

LOL wut? What on earth did she say that was "sexist". Do you even know what sexism means?

Jesus I don't even know why I'm asking, it's perfectly evident you don't.

 

[MomoElektra]

We didn't say women aren't willing to play as men. The problem is how many developers shy away from creating female protagonists. Especially ones that aren't hyper-sexualized.

That's it, in a nutshell.

In ME I played a paragon MaleShep, because that's the kind of man I'd like to admire. And I played a renegade FemShep, because that's a badass woman I'd like to play. And I love how I can do both, whenever I want.

At first I was miffed that I couldn't romance Kasumi, but to be honest, once I learned about the "exotic asian woman"-trope, I did not mind so much.


I stopped playing Risen because that's a storyline that excludes me, as a person, and what I want from a game (i.e. emotional, escapist involvement). And now I will not play the Witcher either.

 

[Kahunaburger]

It never ceases to amaze me how much kicking and screaming there is about stuff that should be uncontroversial like: "hey, maybe we should have fully characterized human beings with XX chromosomes in our games alongside fully characterized human beings with XY chromosomes."

 

[Shadu]

[snip.

"But I'd rather have more of a variety in my males than have to watch a female on screen" <- do you have some kind of probelm with that?

I just perfer looking at guys, that's all. Nothing wrong with a female on screen, but dudes are more pleasing to me. But I won't reject a game just because of a female main character.

 

[Kahunaburger]

At first I was miffed that I couldn't romance Kasumi, but to be honest, once I learned about the "exotic asian woman"-trope, I did not mind so much.

Outside of her visual design, Kasumi isn't all that exoticized as a character IMO, so I don't think there'd be that much danger of this happening. That said, I really, really, really like the fact that there is at least one major young female character in a Bioware game who has her own stuff going on and isn't written around being sexually available to the protagonist.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Outside of her visual design, Kasumi isn't all that exoticized as a character IMO, so I don't think there'd be that much danger of this happening. That said, I really, really, really like the fact that there is at least one major young female character in a Bioware game who has her own stuff going on and isn't written around being sexually available to the protagonist.

The problem with Kasumi wasn't that she was stereotypical in any way. The problem with Kasumi was that she sucked. Seriously underwhelming character.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Outside of her visual design, Kasumi isn't all that exoticized as a character IMO, so I don't think there'd be that much danger of this happening. That said, I really, really, really like the fact that there is at least one major young female character in a Bioware game who has her own stuff going on and isn't written around being sexually available to the protagonist.

The problem with Kasumi wasn't that she was stereotypical in any way. The problem with Kasumi was that she sucked. Seriously underwhelming character.

I actually really liked her. But then again, I also really liked Zaeed, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Not having to walk through miles of conversation tree to interact with those characters endeared them to me somewhat, and "morally ambiguous anecdote guy" is always my favorite of the 5 or so characters Bioware likes to write over and over again.

Now, is Kasumi + her mission + a SMG worth $10, in retrospect? Haha, no.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I actually really liked her. But then again, I also really liked Zaeed, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Not having to walk through miles of conversation tree to interact with those characters endeared them to me somewhat, and "morally ambiguous anecdote guy" is always my favorite of the 5 or so characters Bioware likes to write over and over again.

Now, is Kasumi + her mission + a SMG worth $10, in retrospect? Haha, no.

I liked Zaeed too. He was one of the few morally ambiguous characters in a game I originally expected to have many. Kasumi...bleh. She was so simpering and bland, and her storyline was...less than enthralling. I didn't mind her special mission, but that had more to do with Shepard being stereotypically awesome than anything Kasumi did.

However, you liked her, so I'll stop crapping on her now.

 

[chinangel]

I j ust think that most devs are uncomfortable writing females. it's easy to write a male, but the moment you make a female main character in a violent game, you run the risk of making them kinda masculine...but i fail to see the problem with that personally. /shrugs

 

[Beliyal]

Lately I have noticed that female gamers are being discouraged for all sorts of reasons.

Assassins Creed 3 said that a female protagonist wouldn't fit into the period of the game (yet a Native American would be acceptable and wouldn't rouse suspicion wherever he went?).

I'm a girl and I adore Assassin's Creed, but I don't think it needs a female protagonist. That's just my opinion of course, and I wouldn't be mad if they put one in, but I believe it doesn't fit (because of time periods). The new protagonist for AC3 is not only Native American, he is a child of an English father and a Native American mother. I don't think that would rouse suspicion wherever he went, at least not as much as a woman in pants and with swords would. And besides, AC never lacked strong female characters (Maria from AC1, heaps of characters from AC2/Bro/Rev; they are all tough, intelligent and educated). All in all, I don't think it's necessary for us to play as a woman in AC, but I wouldn't mind if we did.

I don't mean to go into tin foil hat territory here but as someone who has been gaming for a very long time it almost feels like we are going backwards with gender acceptance in games (outside of Bioware.) and the mainstay excuse of devs seems to be that mistreatment of women is part of their universe or time period and so must be accepted out of hand. These are often in games where there are giant bug monsters or other fantastic occurrences.

Sometimes I wonder whether we will ever be accepted as part of gaming or the very excuse of 'men are our main demographic' is going to discourage women from playing games and therefore not allow the demographic to balance out.

I know that I'm in the minority here and I'm probably going to get shouted down pretty badly but please think about what it's like to grow up loving a past-time that no one seems to want you to be involved in.

I agree with the rest, sadly. I think we're slowly trying to advance, but there are always examples of stuff that makes me facepalm. Still, I have hope for the best. Recently, I was amazed at Mass Effect 3 for acknowledging your gender instead of slapping the same dialogue on you, not accounting for whether you play as male or female (when you talk with the female krogan, and you play as a FemShep, you exchange a few female bonding sentences. It was a really nice touch). It's a good step forward and I'm sure more will follow. It's certainly better than before, they at least accept that women play games too and are somewhat trying to fix problems.

That is the stupidest thing I have heard today. Why would they deliberately try to sell less of there product? Sure they might not go out of their way to make games perfect for both genders but why would you double the programming when most people don't even care?

That's the point, isn't it? Would games really sell less if they didn't have the macho stereotype or tits-on-stick characters? Would you consider the game is not worth your time and money because it might have an actually well developed character with personality and motivations, but a lack of cleavage? Is that really why you (or anyone) plays a game? People go through 30 hours of a game to see pixel boobs?

1) I serriously doubt it they're doing it on purpose
2) Why should they bother catering to women? They're still the large minority in hardcore gamers. What if they can't write for a female main character, but they can for a male? They should go out of their way to please the 1% who might buy their game?

Same questions as above. Would it not please you to play as an actual character, instead of walking boobies? Are we still in the mindset where men should only be pleased by women as mindless decoration, and with women that should just keep their mouth shut about it or be gone from the medium? And we're not a "large minority in hardcore gamers". Unless you have some actual numbers to prove it, I think that's an outdated stereotype that doesn't work anymore. Women are still socially discouraged from participating in gaming, that's true, but we're not 1%. And even if we were, don't you think that the problem may be in the fact that games are made to please porn-seeking drones? Because, they are a minority too, I don't think all men are generally happy with looking at cardboard boxes with naked legs in their games. It's insulting to both genders. And when it's insulting to both genders, we have a legitimate problem.

 

[Phasmal]

Spoiler: Image Snip

It never ceases to amaze me how much kicking and screaming there is about stuff that should be uncontroversial like: "hey, maybe we should have fully characterized human beings with XX chromosomes in our games alongside fully characterized human beings with XY chromosomes."

Okay, I lol'd.

While I don't think devs are trying to actively discourage female gamers (though sometimes it certainly feels like it), I do think that they don't give a shit about female gamers.

They stick to stupid stereotypes and pandering because gamers accept it. I don't think this will go away until we can solve the major issues with sexism in a community that most of the time will try and deny such problems are even there.

A big part of the problem is the game industry simply seeing female characters as things to pander to males with.

As for the guys shouting that there are too few female gamers to justify it, there are a lot more female gamers than you think there are. A lot do not wish to identify of such simply because of the shitty treatment they will recieve. And for the people who say it doesn't matter playin as a dude, it shouldn't matter playing as a woman.

I'd be much more likely to pick up a game if it happpened to have something different than the standard glaring brown-haired white dude.

 

[Axyun]

I don't think developers are deliberately not catering to female gamers. I think they just don't know how to cater to them. Software development, gaming or business, is absolutely dominated by males. I've been working in the field for 8 years now, spanning many projects and clients and I can count the number of female developers I've worked with on one hand.

Male developers know what your typical male fantasizes about: strength, power, intelligence, confidence, honor, bravery, cunning, resilience, fearlessness and sexy, sexy women.

Call me dull, shallow and a misogynist loser, but if I were charged with creating a game with a female lead, I'd have no idea what principles women fantasize about in themselves, whether or not they align with the male fantasy (sans sexy, sexy women) and if they matter to the same degree.

I can guess. I'm pretty certain female gamers wouldn't mind a female lead that is strong, intelligent and confident. It seems obvious to me but ultimately I'm just guessing. I'm guessing because I'm not a woman. It takes a woman to know and define women fantasies. The best I can do as a male is hypothesize and resist my base urge to give them triple Ds and as little clothing as possible.

Women need to become more involved in the industry. Build and show us what you want because, obviously, males are unable to deliver. And getting involved will be tough because of how male-dominated the field is, but it needs to be done if women want to be consistently well represented and catered to.

 

[Cursedwolf]

Who is Zeel? And what's wrong with being a feminist? I am very confused!

Zeel is he whom we do not speak of. And being a feminist isn't a bad thing, but people who don't know what feminism is come up with all sorts of cockamamie reasons to demonize the movement.

Why would anyone who considers George Clooney attractive in any way play fantasy games in the first place...?

That you felt the need to ask that question rather illustrates the root problem with your arguments.

Before you say that being a Feminist is not a bad thing, perhaps you should look at the evidence that says,

Being a Feminist, -is- a bad thing.

and this isn't demonization, this is just plain and simple facts about what the Feminist Movement is about, and the people who follow them.

http://www.avoiceformen.com

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I don't think developers are deliberately not catering to female gamers. I think they just don't know how to cater to them. Software development, gaming or business, is absolutely dominated by males. I've been working in the field for 8 years now, spanning many projects and clients and I can count the number of female developers I've worked with on one hand.

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".

Before you say that being a Feminist is not a bad thing, perhaps you should look at the evidence that says,

Being a Feminist, -is- a bad thing.

and this isn't demonization, this is just plain and simple facts about what the Feminist Movement is about, and the people who follow them.

http://www.avoiceformen.com

Oh GOD. Please don't. Just...please. Don't. Please.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Who is Zeel? And what's wrong with being a feminist? I am very confused!

Zeel is he whom we do not speak of. And being a feminist isn't a bad thing, but people who don't know what feminism is come up with all sorts of cockamamie reasons to demonize the movement.

Why would anyone who considers George Clooney attractive in any way play fantasy games in the first place...?

That you felt the need to ask that question rather illustrates the root problem with your arguments.

Before you say that being a Feminist is not a bad thing, perhaps you should look at the evidence that says,

Being a Feminist, -is- a bad thing.

and this isn't demonization, this is just plain and simple facts about what the Feminist Movement is about, and the people who follow them.

http://www.avoiceformen.com

Kenji? Is that you?

 

[Cursedwolf]

I don't think developers are deliberately not catering to female gamers. I think they just don't know how to cater to them. Software development, gaming or business, is absolutely dominated by males. I've been working in the field for 8 years now, spanning many projects and clients and I can count the number of female developers I've worked with on one hand.

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".

Before you say that being a Feminist is not a bad thing, perhaps you should look at the evidence that says,

Being a Feminist, -is- a bad thing.

and this isn't demonization, this is just plain and simple facts about what the Feminist Movement is about, and the people who follow them.

http://www.avoiceformen.com

Oh GOD. Please don't. Just...please. Don't. Please.

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.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

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.