Tippy said:
My theory is that a large percentge of women may PLAY games, but they're not as interested in MAKING them - yet they demand equal and fair representation. They demand that male developers cater to their tastes, their wants and needs. This is of course, purely a theory and I'm yet to find actual statistics to back it up (I'm still looking, help me!).
I have a lot of problems with this. First of all, whether you intended to or not, you have made a lot of very bad implications here. The first of which being that you address "women" as some sort of collective group with homogeneous feelings about games and shared desires for what they want them to be. I think you can see how flawed that is in practice. Second, you have implied that somehow "women" as a collective group have some sort of obligation to participate in the creation of games. I don't care who or what you are talking about--you should never hold it against any gender for doing
anything statistics say they don't want to do. That's like saying a lot of women have to be babysitters because men won't pick up the slack (and that because of that, clearly men are lazy bastards who have no right to complain about what sort of child-care is available for their baby).
Third, you have implied that women are necessary to make games that appeal to women, or at the very
least do not repel them. And if that is how you feel then I'm afraid Joss Whedon would like a word with you.
Fourth, you have implied that games are purely a creative industry and that market trends have absolutely no say in what is created (in other words, "games that appeal to women don't get made because there aren't any women around to make them"). Which, as the advent of casual games has proven, is not the case at all. Do you think that before casual games hit it big, nobody wanted to make quirky short games that could be played in smaller increments of time than full-length games? Of course not, that's just absurd. That's like arguing nobody wanted to capture a portrait quickly and easily before photography was invented.
But casual gaming platforms gave those ideas a feasible place to go, and their boom in the market gave them demand, which brought in investments for all of those ideas to be brought to life.
So clearly market trends have quite a bit to do with the kinds of games that we see. Meaning if there is a higher demand for games that appeal to women, it is perfectly reasonable to expect the market to compensate and fulfill that demand. While games are a creative medium, they are also a business, which means they are subject to supply and demand. Meaning if women are demanding games, it would be rather idiotic from a business standpoint for everybody to just ignore them and not divvy up a supply. There may not be a lot of men who know how to attract women, but if there is enough of a demand the market will seek them out.
And fifth, you are implying that games that appeal to women are so different from games that appeal to men there can be almost no overlap. Since there are a good number of women who have played and enjoyed games just as they are for a few decades now, I think it's safe to say that is also an inaccurate assumption. Last I checked, the things most women take umbrage with in male-centered games (or rather, what makes a game male-centered rather than gender-neutral) is the exclusion of females where there could easily be some, and the appearances of these females favoring how men like to see them (sexually) rather than how women like to see themselves (effectively illustrated here [http://womenfighters.tumblr.com/]).
The first is easily solved, and the thing is you technically you don't even
need women to fix this. Look at Team Fortress 2. I have logged over 600 hours in that game and I have never once been bothered by the all male cast. Their dynamic is so great and their characters are so fun and well-characterized that it doesn't feel like anything is missing. The game plays like a Saturday Morning Cartoon, but with blood and swearing. The female element isn't there for the same it isn't there for a lot of cartoons--it's just not necessary, because that's not where your focus is.
I don't play a lot of games that could serve as an example to the contrary, but I have played some CoD and Halo, and I will tell you from my experience I felt very detached. In TF2 I've got those fun characters to project myself through and draw pathos from, but in those games you're sort of expected to roleplay through your avatar. But in CoD you're always white guy number 2023409302984, so there's little for me to identify with there. And in Halo I guess you can have what they call "customization," but if all I've got to identify with is a suit of armor or a suit of armor with two lumps on the front, identification is difficult under any circumstances (though that may have more to do with the armor in general rather than the lack of gender distinction).
Anyway, my point is the genders are missing in those games, but because there isn't anything to shift that focus of roleplaying to I feel left out. So, just throwing in some female models for multiplayer would be nice. And as for games with actual stories and character, I think it is perfectly possible to carry a good gender-neutral story without a female--just look at The Hobbit. While inclusion of well-characterized females is always appreciated, having a story that appeals to both men and women comes down to good writing more than anything else. Pixar also lacks movies with female leads, but their stories transcend gender. They don't write stories about genders--they just write stories, and damn good ones. Or, they could not go the gender-neutral route and actually throw some worthwhile females in there. And how successful that is ultimately comes down to writing and storytelling, just as with the all-male stories.
As for the other one about the appearance of females in games, that one is very easily remedied. Design armor to be practical, not sexual. As shown in that tumblr [http://womenfighters.tumblr.com/] I put up earlier, it isn't hard to make armor for females that doesn't look like Ivy from Soul Calibur. Well, it might be hard for certain artists, but again it's all about fulfilling the market's demands and tracking down those people who do have a knack for it. Or, just design one set of armor and give it to both genders. Skyrim is a perfect example of this strategy.
I know I am drawing a lot of conclusions from just a bit of text, and I apologize in advance for any conclusions that are wrong. But these are logical fallacies I see in these discussions very often and I am hoping this clears up any you or any others may have fallen prey to. Neither you nor anyone else is to blame about the current state of affairs with women and video games. The only thing anyone can do wrong at this point is assign blame to anyone over any perfectly natural market trends, and to vilify anyone's desire for change in the market. Because it's changes in the market which brought video games into being, and it's changes in the market that have kept them moving forward ever since. To say that change is bad now is just absurd, and goes against the very principle that brought games to life in the first place.
