Female Gamers: Are you tired of being presented with no dignity?

[Naheal]

After reading through this incredibly large amount of rediculous complaining about advertised sex in video games (most of which I end up agreeing with in the end) few people seem to be bringing up the "lore" standpoint.

As a male gamer, I'm just as irritated when I see costumes for a female lead from the extreme northern part of Greenland wearing little to nothing as far as clothing compared to a guy who's supposedly in the middle of the fucking desert wearing something that would make an eskimo look like he's dressed lightly. However, when I look into games such as Warhammer Online (the Dark Elves more specifically) and Neverwinter Nights 2 (I have a seperate complaint about that one, but more on it later) I'm actually clapping for glee when I see a scantily clad Witch Elf or Sorceress.

Why? Simply because of the fact that for 25 fucking years the Warhammer setting has established the idea that a group of reasonably attractive, but incredibly psychotic, women seem to enjoy the idea of being near-nude. Rather then being upset about the fact that they're wearing what could barely be considerd underwear but still have enough cloth to be conisdered a swimming suit, I'm more upset about things such as a male Sorcerer within the story, simply because of the fact that they aren't even supposed to exist.

On the other side of the "every elf woman should be scantily clad" coin, I find myself gawking in awe at games such as Neverwinter Nights 2 which, impressively enough, give your female characters armor that LOOKS LIKE IT ACTUALLY PROTECTS SOMETHING. My only irritation with this game is that the "romance" option that you have as a male player is a hippy elf girl with an incredibly jealous streak and a history of stalking you. Strangely, this is supposed to be bought as simple attraction rather then an obsession and was disappointed when I didn't have the option when I found out to remove her head from her shoulders.

Though I see little point in actually mentioning it now, I suppose I should AT LEAST mention the fact that I am a heterosexual male who sits rather comfortably on the fence of this issue and is happy to argue either point.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Ivy's cool and all but I fear what will happen in the next SC game, she's going to be all boobs and less clothing than she already has.

Same. I prefer to imagine her looking like she did in SC2...which isn't hard, since that's the one I still play.

Personally I'd go for girls in ALL forms of media to not have overtly gigantic breasts and guys to not be overtly muscular macho men.

Mostly, however, I just ignore it and in games such as SC4 I make my own character who looks like a more realistic kind of girl.

Honestly, it's the clothing more than the chest size that bothers me (though yeah, I tend to minimize the chest slider during my character creation, too). I don't really have much of a problem with large-breasted female characters who <url=http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/3599/340l.jpg>don't <url=http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/208/404964-arcueid_large.jpg>dress <url=http://bestgamewallpapers.com/files/tales-of-the-abyss/tear-grants.jpg>like <url=http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Other/Features/2008/Street%20Fighter%20Retrospectives/Chun-li%20and%20Blanka/screens/Chun-Li_SF_Alpha_2_Gold--article_image.jpg>skanks.

_>

And there's still a few I don't mind, anyway. I'm sorry, lack of dress or no, <url=http://www.capcom.co.jp/fate_uc/img/wallpaper/wp10_1024x768.jpg>Rider is still awesome.

I'm sorry to point out this but do you notice they are all japanese type characters?

Japanese type? Not sure how you mean. Three of them (Sakura, Arcueid, and Rider) are drawn by the same guy (Takashi Takeuchi, of TYPE-MOON), and the others happen to be from Japanese games (Tales of the Abyss and Street Fighter), but...

 

[KazNecro]

I cringe more so over when woman are portrayed simply weaker/hardly appear or contribute at all, but I usually just see that in other places rather than games.

I've met several women gamers who are not at all uptight about top-heavy, skimpy-dressed, female characters. But their main concern HAS been about how women are portrayed as weaker than their male counterparts. And if they ARE portrayed as being strong characters, then they automatically need to have some kind of underlying vulnerability. This is usually the moment when a strong male character swoops in to comfort her and be chivalrous.

It's a tired old formula designed to stroke the male audience's ego, insofar as making us believe that all women require us to protect them. If anything should change in female chars, it should be in personality and character development, not necessarily in form.

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

Ya know, I have yet to ever see any form of game as some hard representation of anything worth fussing over. Oddly enough, the female gamers that I speak with tend to like the scantly dressed chics. Then again they also have high sex drives and are more crass than I am so perhaps that colors my whole tint on things.

 

[Fritzvalt]

It's true, but the trend is going on the decline. In the 90's a female character's cup size was as important as anything else. Nowadays, most games trying to get by on T & A are pretty horrible and mocked by the comunity. There are a few notable exceptions, namely coming from the fighting genre, but a decent amount of great games are now starring realistic and emplowered women (Beyond Good and Evil being my favorite.).

 

[michael_ab]

Yeah, but to be fair i hate the representation of most male characters in video games as well. Yeah, because we are all totally muscle bound idiots without a brain in our heads, who have so many issues that our only way to deal with a problem is "kill it to death". Heck when was the last time you saw a regular looking male character in a video game & no "gangsta" looking characters don't count... there is nothing normal about gangsters.

-M

this is all i got... but shadow complex?

oh and left 4 dead... and uhhh... hmmm... any of the call of duty games? prototype did a good job of instilling a god complex without the main being a body builder. fable kinda, bioshock arguably, wolfenstein, dark sector, and yes i did have to dig through my collection to find these

 

[michael_ab]

Its called marketing.
Why would i, as a game developer, want to make my product less appealing by representing females in it as bland and unattractive?

I think the point is, there is a difference between an attractive female, and a female with big breasts and/or skimpy clothing. Samus Aran has been appealing to gamers for years, and she spends most of her time in her armor suit.

boomy shooty killy, its not the charactor that sells, thats obvious because shes in a SUIT for all intents and purposes your playing a robot, its the nostalgia that sells, and the gameplay tht keeps it going

 

[spinFX]

What the hell? Women are complaining about being portrayed as athletic and beautiful in games?!

Umm, hello? Men are portrayed in the same way!!!

 

[Lightnr]

Not this again. Who the frack cares about female gamers? Stop whining about girls in video games being hotter than you could ever, ever, ever be. Until they turn all the male characters to fat, greasey, cheeto covered slobs you have no right to complain.
Simple fact is, the majority does not want a fat, acne scarred chick any more than they do in their male leads. Apart from Mario how many ugly, unappealing male main characters are there?
The only thing that really destroys female gamers dignity is when they are seen crying over such a trivial matter.
Society likes pretty people. If you do not like it, do not buy it.

QFT..
at first I thought it would just be insults but you have a very very very valid point.

 

[Neosage]

Men are misrepresented in exactly the same ways, why do you care?

 

[michael_ab]

What the hell? Women are complaining about being portrayed as athletic and beautiful in games?!

Umm, hello? Men are portrayed in the same way!!!

yes but there seems to be a problem relating teenage girls self esteem with the media (gaming included) being flooded with barbie body women, and men do not have this problem, idk why

 

[michael_ab]

maybe this nutshell will help:

men are the primary demographic for video games and, i daresay, media in general,
men like boobs, guns, action, and more boobs. and dont care about uber men
now i am NOT a woman, so this is just me talking out of my ass, but maybe women dont like being a method of advertisment??

 

[IronicBeet]

[/quote]this is all i got... but shadow complex?[/quote]
I hated Claire. She turned out to be a total *****.

 

[Smudge91]

Yeah, but to be fair i hate the representation of most male characters in video games as well. Yeah, because we are all totally muscle bound idiots without a brain in our heads, who have so many issues that our only way to deal with a problem is "kill it to death". Heck when was the last time you saw a regular looking male character in a video game & no "gangsta" looking characters don't count... there is nothing normal about gangsters.

-M

This is true.
Both sex's have a stereotypical representation in games. Men are butch weightlifters who are whitty and like to over compensate the small ness of something with a big gun. Women are big breasted, small wasted and i've seen that most of the time personality is lacking. I'm getting bored of these sterotypical roles, i know sex sells but surely you could maybe have an average guy who to me is far more attractive and sexy than mr steel or miss bouncy. Although to be honest in games i don't really pay attention to the main characters apperance but i still get bored of the stereotyped characters. And breath...

 

[HyenaThePirate]

It's true, but the trend is going on the decline. In the 90's a female character's cup size was as important as anything else. Nowadays, most games trying to get by on T & A are pretty horrible and mocked by the comunity. There are a few notable exceptions, namely coming from the fighting genre, but a decent amount of great games are now starring realistic and emplowered women (Beyond Good and Evil being my favorite.).

Actually that really isn't necessarily a big difference because people miss the point.

These women are designed this way to be sexually appealing. Differences in what is sexually appealing vary from culture to culture and even from person to person. The game designers of Beyond Good and Evil designed that girl to be young, she's probably BARELY 18 if that. For her style of play, her body is just fine, but if you look at her, she still has an appealing form.. and a PINCHED waist. Sure she's not dragging around DD knockers but outside of fighting games, how often do you really see those over-exaggerated boobies in games? Honestly?

And to the person that mentioned Samus, I'm not sure how many men see her as a sexual icon. In fact, I'm not sure how many men actually identify her as a "woman". I know when I'm playing metroid, I dont think "I'm a bad ass chick in space armor!" I think of myself as "space armored hero #4587403" doing my duty and blasting aliens to pieces. Maybe if they added some sort of romantic element to metroid where she made a point to acknowledge her OWN femininity every so often that would be a good argument. But in the world of action games, Samus' might as well be gender-less.

 

[jamesworkshop]

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/glamour.jpg
http://www.summitmedia.com.ph/images/pressrelease/Aug_08/hires_cosmo.jpg

Im calling BS on this look at material aimed at women and it almost always contains attractive women so having attractive female characters whos only purpose is their attractivness should have no problem selling itself to a female audience in a videogame when magazines and movies/Tv
Have been doing it for years in fact and often contain a worded message about skin care/diet/beauty regims with the intent of selling a product that will somehow transform the reader into looking like the women in the images presented.
That exploits women far more than haveing Lara croft in a game does sure most women don't look like her but then most women don't look like angelina jolie perhaps because of that maybe we should put AJ to death for making other women feel bad because she doesn't look like an amalgamtion of every other woman on the planet

 

[Spineyguy]

I must admit, I am tired of the 'Blond Bimbo with a 3" waist and boobs bigger than her head' girl that developers often shoehorn into their games. But the fact of the matter is, it's fan service. Sadly, we still live in a largely male dominated world, that's not something I personally condone mind you, but that's the way it is at the moment.

The only way we'd get proper equality in games (And no I don't mean giving female characters high positions in games. See militarty commanders in the likes of 'Gears of War 2' and 'Halo 3') But games where vertually no attention is paid to the gender of a character at all.

Before you call me a sexist bastard for saying that, let me explain.

When writers put a character who is black into a TV show or film, they are made to make it absolutely clear that the black characters are completely equal to, if not better than, all the white characters, which is wrong. Black people are not better than white people, white people are not better that black people, they're just different. It's the same with female characters, that's why every female character in a hollywood film these days is an Uber-intelligent, Uber-indepentand man-hater. And that's spread to gaming.

What I'm saying is that proper equality in all media will only come when writers and character designers can completely overlook the fact that a character is male/female, black/white and focus on what they're like as a person. With the road we're going down at the moment, sooner or later we'll end up with men being the downtrodden underclass and white people being disallowed from voting and things. And that will be just as bad as the racism and sexism we know from the past. Fortunately, with current rising ideals in the mind of the general public, that is unlikely to happen.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Many female characters are fundamentally unappealing to females.

Which means nothing. Many female characters don't appeal to males either. If 10% of video game characters are physically attractive to me does that make me an outlier in the male ideal bell curve? and if our ideals are so fundamentally then what entitles you to be pandered too? If Male ideals are defined as being incompattable with female ideals and vice versa, game designers might as well leave the people who they aren't marketing to feeling "presented without dignity." I might as well be happy that it's you on losing side.

Not that I really buy what you said. I suppose I only see your view as petty and bigoted because my lack of female ideals. If you could provide even one example of a male character who would make me feel "undignified;" I would probably find your complaints a little less stupid.