Are mainstream devs deliberately discouraging women from gaming?

[Kahunaburger]

A) Women did not, as it turns out, have a negligible role in the politics of medieval Europe. See above post. As a rule, you will find that in most places in times 50% of the population did not sit around doing needlework.

B) Once you have lone individuals going into battle against giant fire-breathing lizards, you've already taken liberties with the social dynamics of the times (if a giant fire-breathing lizard were to show up on the doorstep of the Holy Roman Empire, they'd respond with armies, ballistas, and/or cannon, not a dude in plate armor) and with the limits of the human body (good luck finding a swordfighter - regardless of gender - who can take on things that can level villages, armies, etc. by himself/herself).

a) yes some of them were queens, maids. farmhands or writers, the point being that for the most part military duty has historically been a male duty. Which for the most part is the style of game which is in question

Really? How many fantasy games feature a soldier as a protagonist? Most fantasy protagonists are lone monster slayers, treasure hunters, macguffin deliverers, revenge-seekers, and uniters of elves and men. I.e., activities that either did not historically exist or that have an IRL analogue that people of both genders historically performed.

EDIT: Also, women fought in medieval wars. It was unusual, but not unheard of.

b)fantastical elements do not excuse poor settings.

I agree. Anyone who thinks that women historically stayed in the kitchen/bedroom has not done very much historical research. It always cracks me up when people try to pass off settings where men do literally everything, infection doesn't exist, the legal system is ignored, and rulers sit around waiting to hand out quests to protagonists as "ye olde medieval tymes."

In purely fantasy games where it has been established via other character actions and ingame tells that females have a different social role in that setting then go nuts. Often this is not the case.

Let's put it this way - a fantasy author would have to work his/her ass off to convince me that a pre-industrial society with more rigid social roles than actual pre-industrial societies makes sense at all. Settings where it's unthinkable that a woman picks up a sword for any reason are just as stupid as something like the Qunari or Little Lamplight.

 

[deadish]

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?).

Won't matter IMO, AC games are not designed for women.

Kingdoms of Amalur treats the female character like she is a man (constant flirts from female characters) to the extent where she is forced to marry a women if she wants to complete a quest line, there is no option to just say 'No' and complete the quest that way.

Don't mistake for malice, what can be adequately explained by incompetence. KoA isn't exactly the best made game in general.

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.

Most game developers are male, hence are only good at designing games for their own gender. Resulting in few female gamers as the games don't fit their taste. The female gamer market is small and mostly uncharted territory, so publishers don't bother trying to please that market due to risk.

To date, to my knowledge, there are only 2 games/genre that have any sort of a sizable female audience. The Sims and Final Fantasy - the latter due to the presents of bishounen; which of course pisses off the male audience.

Which brings us to the other problem, the taste of males and females in entertainment is almost completely mutually exclusive. Hollywood found that out long ago - put Schwarzenegger in a movie, you will get mostly men; cast Robert Pattinson, you get mostly women.

So those of you dreaming of how awesome it will be to have your girlfriends play games with you ... you are in for a rude surprise. If there are game ever made to cater to them, chances are you will fucking hate them.

Edit: I won't be replying for a while because the fucking captcha system is broken for me. A blank picture ...

 

[Phasmal]

So those of you dreaming of how awesome it will be to have your girlfriends play games with you ... you are in for a rude surprise. If there are game ever made to cater to them, chances are you will fucking hate them.

Being a girlfriend who plays games I beg to differ.
Also, just wanted to point out MMO's are very popular with women too.

Don't assume that all women want the same thing or that we want the games industry to exclusively target to us. All we would like is for them to maybe tone down the sexist bullshit that still gets a pass.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

This is why when you actually get a female protagonist, they usually make a massive deal out of this, either by making a story or at least sub-plot around the idea of a female in a male-dominated area (which is quite a cool little story actually), or by over-sexualising the women crazily (I'm thinking Lara Croft). They don't really just make a normal game where the protagonist happens to be female, not normally.

Well, there's Metroid, where Samus Aran's identity was kind of shrouded in mystery (some people thought she was a robot) until the very end (if you completed it fast enough), and until Other M, the games didn't really treat it as a big deal (although that may be because there wasn't much of a narrative in the early games). Her gender didn't get in the way of the plot, she was mostly in the suit and there weren't any cheeky tit shots either.

The only sexualization I can think of is if you completed the games fast enough, you got to see her in a bikini or similar revealing clothing. And, I guess, maybe the Zero suit.

 

[orangeban]

This is why when you actually get a female protagonist, they usually make a massive deal out of this, either by making a story or at least sub-plot around the idea of a female in a male-dominated area (which is quite a cool little story actually), or by over-sexualising the women crazily (I'm thinking Lara Croft). They don't really just make a normal game where the protagonist happens to be female, not normally.

Well, there's Metroid, where Samus Aran's identity was kind of shrouded in mystery (some people thought she was a robot) until the very end (if you completed it fast enough), and until Other M, the games didn't really treat it as a big deal (although that may be because there wasn't much of a narrative in the early games). Her gender didn't get in the way of the plot, she was mostly in the suit and there weren't any cheeky tit shots either.

The only sexualization I can think of is if you completed the games fast enough, you got to see her in a bikini or similar revealing clothing. And, I guess, maybe the Zero suit.

Yeah, Metroid handled the whole thing well, shame that most games don't follow Metroid in that regard.

 

[joe-h2o]

So those of you dreaming of how awesome it will be to have your girlfriends play games with you ... you are in for a rude surprise. If there are game ever made to cater to them, chances are you will fucking hate them.

Being a girlfriend who plays games I beg to differ.
Also, just wanted to point out MMO's are very popular with women too.

Don't assume that all women want the same thing or that we want the games industry to exclusively target to us. All we would like is for them to maybe tone down the sexist bullshit that still gets a pass.

This is one of the biggest disconnects for me, that despite all the evidence to contrary there is still a prevailing attitude that "women don't play games". Without addressing that misconception first, the over-sexualisation of female game characters is a lost cause! (although it doesn't mean both issues can't be tackled simultaneously).

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Also, do none of these game developers realize that many men have quick and easy access to the internet and, thus, porn, and if they want to see a fictional female character bending over to show the audience there arse every five seconds, they could just Rule 34 it? I don't need the Zero suit or Other M to fap to Samus Aran, a well-characterized and strong female character in many of her games, when I could literally just search it and be whacking off to my favourite bounty hunter in all her naked glory in the space of 10 seconds.

This is the 21st century, people. We do not need to wait one hour and twenty minutes into a film just to see half-naked Keira Knightley dryhump some guy, or play as some scantily-clad succubus in chainmail underwear to get a hard-on. We don't need fucking video games to do that, when we have the internet.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, most of the Final Fantasy games do a reasonably good job at representing women, sometimes even the ones with revevaling clothes and/or large breasts. Final Fantasy VII's Tifa Lockhart, for example, has good characterization.

 

[Phasmal]

So those of you dreaming of how awesome it will be to have your girlfriends play games with you ... you are in for a rude surprise. If there are game ever made to cater to them, chances are you will fucking hate them.

Being a girlfriend who plays games I beg to differ.
Also, just wanted to point out MMO's are very popular with women too.

Don't assume that all women want the same thing or that we want the games industry to exclusively target to us. All we would like is for them to maybe tone down the sexist bullshit that still gets a pass.

This is one of the biggest disconnects for me, that despite all the evidence to contrary there is still a prevailing attitude that "women don't play games". Without addressing that misconception first, the over-sexualisation of female game characters is a lost cause! (although it doesn't mean both issues can't be tackled simultaneously).

Indeed. The misconception that women will only play something if you pinkify it to eye-searing level is one that gets right on my nerves. I try to be a loud-and-proud female gamer, in the hopes that people will realise we exist but it doesn't seem to be working. Honestly...

 

[onegirlgaming]

So those of you dreaming of how awesome it will be to have your girlfriends play games with you ... you are in for a rude surprise. If there are game ever made to cater to them, chances are you will fucking hate them.

Being a girlfriend who plays games I beg to differ.
Also, just wanted to point out MMO's are very popular with women too.

Don't assume that all women want the same thing or that we want the games industry to exclusively target to us. All we would like is for them to maybe tone down the sexist bullshit that still gets a pass.

This is one of the biggest disconnects for me, that despite all the evidence to contrary there is still a prevailing attitude that "women don't play games". Without addressing that misconception first, the over-sexualisation of female game characters is a lost cause! (although it doesn't mean both issues can't be tackled simultaneously).

Indeed. The misconception that women will only play something if you pinkify it to eye-searing level is one that gets right on my nerves. I try to be a loud-and-proud female gamer, in the hopes that people will realise we exist but it doesn't seem to be working. Honestly...

The problem is that a fair amount of women (myself included) *like* the more female orientated titles AND the more mainstream fare as well but find themselves potentially unable to express their likes without feeling like they're helping women gamers take a step backwards.

I enjoy playing powerful, busty female characters because I'm not that in *spit* real life, games are for exploring what's not available to you after all. That said, it does get on my nerves when every cut-scene is angled so conversations are conducted at breast height.

It would be brilliant if during the development phases more women could be involved to stick their oar in and say "Reaaaaaaaaaaally?"

 

[Guilherme Zoldan]

Well I dont think its intentionaly trying to alienate women, its just that most of the developers are male, so they do stuff that they like. That is to say masculine power fantasies.
I have nothing against those, but yeah it would be nice if we could have more games that are not completely testosterone-fueled.

 

[Phasmal]

The problem is that a fair amount of women (myself included) *like* the more female orientated titles AND the more mainstream fare as well but find themselves potentially unable to express their likes without feeling like they're helping women gamers take a step backwards.

I enjoy playing powerful, busty female characters because I'm not that in *spit* real life, games are for exploring what's not available to you after all. That said, it does get on my nerves when every cut-scene is angled so conversations are conducted at breast height.

It would be brilliant if during the development phases more women could be involved to stick their oar in and say "Reaaaaaaaaaaally?"

Yeah, sadly some people do think that women are a hive mind and can't like mainstream titles if some women like other things, or if they like a bit of both. It's okay to like different things, I mean, I've played the Sims before- which is what most people think is the extent of what women will play. And I like the Sims (well not now because it has this horrible bug where it stops).
But I don't like it half as much as I like things like Team Fortress, Skyrim, WoW, L4D.

 

[Tanner The Monotone]

-

I think it's because females in games are often over-sexualized to bring in the sex factor in games and that most video gamers are male and like to visualize themselves as the main character, which can be hard when the main character is the opposite gender than you.

 

[Screamarie]

So those of you dreaming of how awesome it will be to have your girlfriends play games with you ... you are in for a rude surprise. If there are game ever made to cater to them, chances are you will fucking hate them.

Being a girlfriend who plays games I beg to differ.
Also, just wanted to point out MMO's are very popular with women too.

Don't assume that all women want the same thing or that we want the games industry to exclusively target to us. All we would like is for them to maybe tone down the sexist bullshit that still gets a pass.

This is one of the biggest disconnects for me, that despite all the evidence to contrary there is still a prevailing attitude that "women don't play games". Without addressing that misconception first, the over-sexualisation of female game characters is a lost cause! (although it doesn't mean both issues can't be tackled simultaneously).

Indeed. The misconception that women will only play something if you pinkify it to eye-searing level is one that gets right on my nerves. I try to be a loud-and-proud female gamer, in the hopes that people will realise we exist but it doesn't seem to be working. Honestly...

And then when you are loud and proud people holler than you're trying to be an attention hog or just doing it so guys will like you. It's a fucking no-win situation.

And if you point out to a guy that "yes, I like sims and final fantasy, but I also like Mass Effect and Fallout and just about anything you do" then they spout off that "you're the first I've met, so that doesn't disprove anything I said."

I swear it's like they're trying so damn hard not to believe it's true. It often makes me feel like I'm a little kid again wanting to play with the so-called "boy toys" and getting harassed for it. But it will get better, just gotta keep reminding myself of that.

As to the original topic as many people have pointed out I doubt it's deliberate. But while everyone tries to boil it down to one problem I think it's a whole shit storm of them.

Some of it's because Devs are mostly male, so they are either hesitant if not outright afraid to portray women because they don't know how.
It's the prevailing belief that even if there are more female gamers they only play casual games and therefore won't care about the next fantasy RPG.
It's money and time put in to have a seperate female main character. I'm certain on Mass Effect alone Bioware could have saved millions, billions if they'd only had a male shepard. (though that doesn't explain why there aren't just more games with a female lead).
It's a whole LOT of things.

But with time it will get solved as long as we call devs and fellow players out on their shit without getting overly upset about thing that doesn't really matter. Priorities people!

 

[LilithSlave]

Or are you gonna say who plays Nintendo in't a true gamer?!

This is a pathetically common assertion.

You know, male players aren't as common as you think(or female players aren't as uncommon... anyway!). Despite the fact the industry seems to like to pretend they don't exist. It's like when people assert that most comic book readers are male, but women(myself included) are buying so much manga that it's becoming huge competition for American comic book makers. Leading to the stereotype that "women like manga" and when women make criticisms about Western superhero comics, it often leads to "go back and read your manga. Superhero comics aren't for your kind."

Women play loads and loads of video games. Really, it's quite common. But it's less often the niche a lot of male gamers are entrenched in. For instance, you might be shocked, but Duke Nukem games don't sell super well among women. While games like Harvest Moon and Pokemon and the Sims do pretty well. And heck, of course even Portal is going to do much better than Duke Nukem. It stars a female character who isn't a piece of sexualized fanservice. And is generally one of the best first person games ever released.

 

[Jun_Jun]

Like your perfect game would be MLP, all nice pastel colours, everybody is always super happy, everything overly cute and rather sickening.

I'm sorry what? No it wouldn't :S

I love Dark Souls, The Elder Scrolls, the fallout series, assassins creed, mass effect, Baldur's Gate. Hell my favorite games as a young lass was the Strike games flying a helicopter and blowing stuff up.

It's just this undercurrent of misogyny and neglect that scrapes away at you and then gets to you after a while...The things I mentioned in my OP were things that came up in the last few days and I've been gaming since 1984.

I think we're just asking for decent female portrayal in characters, just because we want a decent female character (or female representation for the large female gaming population) doesn't mean we want MLP the game. Hell some of the best female game characters don't necessarily have characteristics that would be considered inherently feminine, then again you can give them female characteristics without having to go all rainbow + butterfly + ponies all over the gaming industry. We still love our FPS + RPGs we don't need to change the entire premise and setting of all these genres , it's worked well so far with a few gems, there's no reason to swing the complete opposite direction with gaming just to appeal to a female audience who have enjoyed what they've had up until this point.
A few examples of good strong female game personalties would be:

Alyx Vance(Half-Life 2) I don't think I have to say much more about this character, she's a great typical female companion, all while not being 'girly' or vulnerable.

Zoey (left 4 dead)- what can I say? Valve knows how to write a good female character

Chell (Portal/2)- A great silent female protagonist, probably my personal favourite, She's obviously very stubborn and tenacious and and never willing to just give up when everything gets ridiculous, apparently the reason why she never speaks a word in the portal games is because she refuses to give GLaDOS the satisfaction of a response.

Spoiler

also I just love at the end of Portal 2 how she triggered the booby trap on the stalemate button, blown back, on the ground you just see the ground slightly out of focus with her hands , she pounds her fist on the ground while Wheatley shouts 'What? are you still alive? You've got to be kidding me!' For some reason I just love that scene it sums up her personality perfectly.

Bayonetta I love how guys love to jump on the white knight route with this game saying 'it's sexist women should find this offensive' yada yada yada. But hell even if her character is just a parody of all the overly sexualised characters in gaming history they manage to pull it off without victimising her in a sexual way, she's in control of the situation, she knows she's hot and she acts over the top and sexy because that's how she wants to act, not because she's clumsy and accidentally slips a panty shot into each cutscene. (that's what I mean by victimised sexually, not necesarily physical but shown to be vulnerable) A good example of this is in the opening scene of the game where she is fighting the 'angels' and he Nun costume gets ripped to shreds in some revealing places in a really over the top fashion, she then just rips her torn clothes off and conjures up her 'hair suit' and gets right back to fighting.

 

[Gatx]

Not having female main characters and not wanting females to play games are two different issues. Does Portal discourage males from playing the game?

 

[Starglider]

No sane developer would deliberately reduce their potential audience. The problem is more that they don't have staff who know how to design for universal appeal, or don't think implementing a female protagonist option properly is worth the time & money. It's a vicious circle of copying each other and assuming their genre won't appeal to women because existing games in the genre don't. As an indie dev myself all I can say is that I tried as hard as possible to include strong, interesting playable female characters in my game.

 

[Erttheking]

I haven't noticed it that much, probably because I've been playing games recently where you can swap back and forth between a man or a woman without anything changing that much, IE Halo Reach, Dark Souls, Fallout New Vegas.