Escapist Podcast: PAX Panel: What Women Really Want From Female Characters

[Ariseishirou]

So, because you've failed to make any valid points whatsoever you trot out ad hominems about vocabulary (which only demonstrate your own ignorance, as both have difference nuances, both of which apply here).

You continue to fail to produce any evidence about first response professionals, so you lie about ever having done so, continuing to cite instead irrelevant and contradictory studies about bystanders (that you didn't even clearly read).

Though having failed to support your claim about doctors and soldiers, I don't see what other option you have, true.

And by the way, because I am petty, you're the one wasting your own time sir. No one is forcing you to continue to whine about "Ewww relating studies to discussions is too hard!"

You're still here, repeating the same lies about your own claims and citing unrelated studies that you plainly failed to understand, madam.

 

[Grahav]

One thing that I have been pondering is the place of evil with female characters.

Female antagonists are rare; main female antagonists are rarer; and complete monster female protagonists are the rarest of them all.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Monster/VideoGames

Is there a stereotype of women being inherently good or is the men that are bastards?

Do women have to do less evil to be reviled?

 

[Avistew]

I have to disagree with the notion that gender is interchangeable. While it's nice to say that "people are people, regardless of gender", gender plays a huge role in how people view the world, and just how they act in general. Men and women have different values and respond differently to their environment, and have different ways of thinking, especially considering gender roles relative to their culture. As far as Psychology is concerned, things like gender and culture change everything. This, of course, doesn't mean the character has to be stereotypical, but that should go without saying.

The problem is that gender isn't a binary thing but a spectrum. No, not even a spectrum, but a cloud of spectrums. It's a collection of characteristics that are more commonly found in people who identify as male or in people who identify as female (depending), within a specific culture (and that can vary from one culture to the next, as in something that's a "guy" thing somewhere is a "girl" thing somewhere else).
But the presence of any given characteristic isn't enough to mean the character is male or female, as there isn't any characteristic found in all males but no females (or vice-versa), nor is it usual for an individual to only have characteristics tied to one of the two.

As a result, in practice, a person with a given set of personality traits might identify as male, female, or neither, and this regardless of their sex as well. This makes the whole issue way too complex for anyone to say "this character is actually male" or "this character is actually female", any more that you can just walk up to a person and tell them what their gender is.

Games should have realistic characters, focus on the human factor and the story, and if they take place in a sexist culture it will make sense for the character's experience to be based on their sex (although not necessarily their gender) but to some extent, yes, any character who works as male could also work as female.
That doesn't mean you need to create a character as male then change all pronouns and add breasts. But that does mean that the focus should be on making a realistic characters, and not adding characteristics you feel are more feminine to a template. Characters shouldn't be created as male then turned female, and it's a shame that nowadays the default seems to be male. They should be created as characters and given the sex and gender that fits best for the story that you're trying to tell. And when it absolutely does not matter in any way, yeah, you can probably flip a coin.

 

[Susan Arendt]

female protagonists? how about some more female antagonists as well? like more Glados and Darth Traya type villains? if were are gonna see more female protagonist i was to see the reverse as well.

I agree. The few female villains that crop up tend to be over-the-top cartoons along the lines of Isla the She-wolf. That's part of why I'm excited for Uncharted 3, where the villain is not only female, but over 30. (And voiced by the amazing Helen Mirren.)

 

[daftalchemist]

I wish there were more amazing female villains. I can't believe how easily people mess them up. The only seething example that sticks out in my mind, however silly it may seem, is Baroness from the G.I. Joe movie. She's SO. COOL. in the beginning. Kicking ass, not even caring. She runs into the guy she used to love, whatever, brings up some buried feelings, but she'll deal with it, that's cool. And the part where her scientist husband gets killed is beyond amazing. For a moment you see a glimmer of actual emotion. That she really did care for him, and she's sorry about what happened to him. And then it's right back to "I did that on purpose, let's go". But what happens to her in the end? She stops being amazing because she's so in love, and love heals every hurt that she's been carrying around for years, blah, blah, boring!

I'm tired of women becoming evil because of some wrong done by a man, and I'm tired of women giving up being evil because a man comes along and fixes all their pain. Can't women just be evil because they want to be evil? I'd like to think so.

 

[internetzealot1]

"Why can't there be a contest to redesign ManShep?"

Because you can do that in the fucking game. Jesus, what is it with people thinking Shepherd is an actual character.

 

[Jake Martinez]

Were any of the women on the panel queer in any way?
I just ask because very often discussions of "what woman want" often ends up being "what heterosexual women want" but just unstated. Or woman == traditional femininity. Or woman == motherhood in the context of heterosexuality.

I think that is one of the problems I'm having with what was otherwise an awesome panel. A whif of heterosexism.

I'm getting the feeling that none of the women is an awesome butch lesbian. That changes some perceptions around gender issues in gaming or other places.

Thank you for bringing that up. That's something I'll have to try and address for the next time we do this panel.

Honestly, you don't even have to be a butch lesbian to be a female with a different perspective on this. My wife for instance is a real fashionista. When presented with the opportunity to customise any type of game character she will agonize over it for hours. She also invariably chooses "sexier" types of clothing or appearances for her characters. She likes it. But then, it's her choice...

I think what the real debate here is around choice. For some people, it's really frustrating to have to make a choice to play a game that they really want that presents characters to them in a way they don't like. For some people, they hate the idea of game developers feeling pressured to de-sexify characters, then this might be something that they like (see the amazing shrinking breasts of Laura Croft, whom in her next game will probably be a 12 year old boy).

I honestly feel that there needs to be a level of maturity here amongst consumers to recognize that the entertainment industry is selling fantasy to people. Television, magazines, movies and video games are all pretty much the same in that regard - in fact I would challenge that in video games you often get more realistic portrayls of the variances in human appearance, albeit usually in secondary or npc characters. The main characters are all generally the same pre-packaged stereotypical cool pretty people.

I don't find anything inherently bad about this. I would say however then when possible, it would be fantastic for game developers to cater to people's choices (Saints Row the Third has a hysterical sex appeal slider for their game that I think is a brilliant piece of social commentary on our society).

Another thing to consider is that framing the debate about what developers should do in terms of their presentation of characters, instead of focusing on encouraging them to offer choice, is that you're going to find that you run into opposition from people who actually like the very things that you don't. Nobody really wins in that scenario.

 

[Freechoice]

So, because you've failed to make any valid points whatsoever you trot out ad hominems about vocabulary (which only demonstrate your own ignorance, as both have difference nuances, both of which apply here).

You continue to fail to produce any evidence about first response professionals, so you lie about ever having done so, continuing to cite instead irrelevant and contradictory studies about bystanders (that you didn't even clearly read).

Though having failed to support your claim about doctors and soldiers, I don't see what other option you have, true.

And by the way, because I am petty, you're the one wasting your own time sir. No one is forcing you to continue to whine about "Ewww relating studies to discussions is too hard!"

You're still here, repeating the same lies about your own claims and citing unrelated studies that you plainly failed to understand, madam.

It's a troll. The best way to avoid it is to not feed it. How can it be reasoned with when it pulls its own logic from thin air?

 

[JackyG]

I have a feeling that now we are starting to see more women working in the industry we will by default see more realistic representations of women in games. of course this is an industry built primarily by nerdy men and as it has become more open and more of a variety of people from different backgrounds come into it we start to see new and more engaging games from every part of the spectrum; especially women.

I would like to see a first person shooter developed by an almost entire female team just to see what they would do with it. and no this isn't me saying a bunch of girls couldn't make a shooter; I'm GENUINELY interested as to what the outcome would be without the testosterone!

 

[JackyG]

Ah hell, double post. may as well use it!

I've been playing enslaved, I think Trip is a pretty well thought out female character. that is she is a well thought out character to begin with, just like Monkey; the protagonist.

The reason people feel like they cant relate is because video game characters have spent so long being so one dimensional. Now they ARE getting depth (not that it hasn't happened before) with more frequency. And as I said above I think as more women come into the industry like with books or music or movies their own interpretations (however right or wrong) will come to fruition.


BIOSHOCK.

 

[realslimshadowen]

I haven't even watched it yet, but I want to comment on how funny it is that the ad for it (for me, anyway) was those Slim Jim Dare "Made From Stuff Guys Need" commercials.

 

[JackyG]

female protagonists? how about some more female antagonists as well? like more Glados and Darth Traya type villains? if were are gonna see more female protagonist i was to see the reverse as well.

I agree. The few female villains that crop up tend to be over-the-top cartoons along the lines of Isla the She-wolf. That's part of why I'm excited for Uncharted 3, where the villain is not only female, but over 30. (And voiced by the amazing Helen Mirren.)

The day they get someone like Meryl Streep involved in a game is the day I hit the ceiling.

 

[Beautiful End]

It's sad because there's only a couple of things I remember from FFX-2:

-Bevelle's 100-level challenge thing.
-LeBlanc's massage scene.
-Yuna, Rikku and Paine's hot spring scene.

So yeah. Two of those have to do with girls doing weird things to each other (It wasn't rated M, I know, but still).

I guess female gamers have more pressure simply because of that: they're female. A horrible misconception that we still see nowadays is that gamers = guys. I'll just throw that out there: I work at GameStop and whenever we have a shift where there's only girls, guys freak out! I once heard a guy walk in and immediately stepped outside and yelled to his friend "Hey! There's only chicks in there! What's with that?" and he left. Not only that but when a girl is working the register, two things happen: Either people are just amazed that this girl knows as much about games as the guys or they just avoid her altogether. And I think it's ridiculous! Some girls at work know perhaps more about games than some guys. Why is that surprising? If a guy is an expert gamer, that's fine. If a girl is an expert gamer, she's probably an alien.
And guys avoiding girls so that they can have a manly gamer's talk with a male employee instead? That's dumb! Are they asking for porn or what? Do they think the girl is gonna recommend Barbie's Horse Adventure over Black Ops?

And it's because of people like these, people who still live in Prehistoric times, that girls are seen as the lesser gamers. They have to strive harder to get up there with the top dogs. And when they get there and start telling everyone about girls wearing bikini chainmails, what's the response?: "Oh, these dumb feminists. Give it a rest and go shave your legs!" (I have also seen that happen, by the way).

I think we're going nowhere until everyone learns to treat guys and girls equally. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon, not because gamers are dumb, but because society overall isn't quite there. Girls still get paid less than some guys with the same positions and there's still guys using phrases like "Make me a sammich, *****!" without joking.
I;m rooting for the girls, though. Giving birth? Pssh, after that, you become bulletproof, I assume.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

Agreed, I never understood this character relate-ability either. I'm always aware I'm playing a game, that's what makes it fun. For me immersion is just the state where gameplay goes so smoothly you can focus on what's happening on the screen instead of silently cursing about unintuitive level design or uncanny valley girls etc.

That's why it doesn't really matter that much to me as what character I play - except for when I get into a bit of a roleplaying mood, but that's a rarity and most definitely not found in BioWare games.

 

[Vuirneen]

I don't agree with Kathleen about established relationships in games/TV not being a form of escapism. I'm thirty four and I've spent most of my life not married. Playing a long-married character would be escapism for me. It would also be an amazing change from the usual game choice.

There are other examples of cool married characters on TV than just Amy Pond in Doctor Who. I've recently enjoyed watching How I Met Your Mother where one of the main characters is a happily married couple.

Good storytelling isn't limited when your characters are in an established relationship. There's a whole heap of stories that can only happen when characters are married. While it seems like there's more choice with a singleton, those storylines have been played out in a lot of different stories on TV, in Films, in Videogames. The untapped goldmine are the newlyweds/ruby anniversary storylines.