Games don't have problems creating good female characters...

[Austin Manning]

...they have problems creating good characters in general. I won't deny that the games industry has some weird issues with women (that dead island statue left a really bad taste in my mouth) but characters are not the issue.

The two most common complaints I see are that A "female characters are simply titillation for men" and B "that's not a woman it's a man with boobs". Let's dissect theses two points shall we?

A: There is actually some validity to this point as, let's face it, most if not all female character models are designed to look good. This isn't an inherently bad thing though, as one of the first (and continuing) strands of feminism was based around allowing women to be as open and upfront with their sexuality as their male counterparts. Furthermore, this isn't something restricted to only females in games. The fact is, we like to see attractive, good looking people in our media. That's why when a so-so movie is being made the advertising will consist almost entirely of Brad Pitt's face, as people will buy tickets just to look at him. In the same way that most female character models are slim, curvacious, and busty, with luscious hair and pretty faces, most male character models are tall, with slim hips and broad shoulders, with torsos that look like they were carved from marble. It's rare for any male character in a game to look like anything other than ruggedly handsome (the only example that comes to mind is Honda from Street Fighter), not counting characters that the player can make fat like CJ.

Some will no doubt say that "Yes, but men are supposed to project themselves onto their models and oggle the females". Yes, that can happen, but projection isn't limited by gender, which is one of the reasons why Crystal Dynamics caused such a fuss when they said that the player would want to protect Laura Croft from rapists. Also, one merely needs to look at the Final Fantasy VII fan base to see that women are just as capable of oggling characters as men are.

B: It could just be that I'm an equalist, but I find this point to be rather laughable. In essence, I feel that the only difference between men and women is in their physical anatomy, both can equally capable at almost any task (exceptions being things like child birthing). I actually feel there's some latent mysandry in this argument as it implies that a proper man/character is one who runs around, screaming and breaking things (or being completely silent and breaking things at the behest of others); while women are a much more thoughtful, capable breed that would use non-violent methods alien to their neanderthalic counterparts.

Ultimately I feel that it isn't gender that defines a character, rather their thoughts, doubts, goals, and struggles. A good character will remain a good character regardless of the proportions of their model. There's a cop out in the games industry that we sadly see applied in many games from Half-Life to Mario. It's the idea that you can't project onto a character with personality and so, none is given to the characters or world. With the focus of the mainstream on things like mechanics and graphics, characters in general have suffered.

This is the real issue behind gaming's problem with characters. It's not that people are sexist or that games are aimed exclusively at men, it's that creating characters(much less interesting ones) are rarely a priority for development teams.

 

[Vault101]

yeah sure

they just have probems making them the main charachters

 

[krazykidd]

No the main problem is gamers are whiny twats that jump on the first bandwagon to complain. This is how the devs envisoned their game , this is how they made it . Deal with it.

 

[Full]

I mean, I guess games could use some more high quality writing in general. Edit: As people below me just wrote, everything that can be said, has been said. Glad you got your feelings out, though!

However, video game characters can be learned about through interaction, however minor that interaction may be. That, and how long games are, help me get more connected to a character, even if they are cliche or unlikable. Edit: This is from personal experience, anyway.

 

[Rawne1980]

(that dead island statue left a really bad taste in my mouth)

Hate to be the one to break it to you buddy but you weren't supposed to eat it.

No matter how tasty those statues may look, smothering them in salt and vinegar won't make them taste any better.

On Topic....

This is a topic that really has been done to death. So far we've still heard nothing new in regards to an argument.

On the one hand you have folks that want everything equal in video games regarding gender.

On the other hand you have people that like things the way they are.

In the middle you have the rest of us that don't give a toss either way.

 

[Luca72]

This topic was a pleasant surprise! I didn't think about it that way, but I totally agree with OP. Games are of course kind of tricky to characterize, since player input can completely fuck with a developers' intended vision for a game. But now that there are so many AAA games that are basically just interactive movies (with character development handled in static cutscenes) that excuse is getting pretty weak.

I propose a gradual destruction of story cliches. We'll start with the ancient prophecies, then remove all the chosen ones. Then we'll move onto the grizzled antiheroes. If someone wants to burn down the protagonists' village, he's out. Spunky hyperactive ninja girl sidekick? Gone. Stoic friend who is for SURE going to betray you down the line? To the Gulags!

 

[Terminal Blue]

This isn't an inherently bad thing though, as one of the first (and continuing) strands of feminism was based around allowing women to be as open and upfront with their sexuality as their male counterparts.

Almost.

The aim was (and still is) to accord women sexual agency. The idea that any sexual expression at all on the part of women is inherently "empowering" is a creation of "post-feminist" consumer culture, and would have been absolutely laughable to those early feminists.

Think of it this way. Women have been "allowed" to be the passive objects of male desire for centuries, and yet it has never translated into genuine sexual agency or control over their own lives and sexual behaviour. That control, that ability to actively seek pleasure and fulfilment for yourself on your own terms through interaction with other human beings as an equal as opposed to simply being relegated to a mere receptacle for other people's desires and fantasies is something which still eludes women (both real and fictional) far more often than men.

Yes, that can happen, but projection isn't limited by gender, which is one of the reasons why Crystal Dynamics caused such a fuss when they said that the player would want to protect Laura Croft from rapists.

I think you've missed the point.

The issue with what Ron Rosenberg said was that he was suggesting that there's a particular kind of relationship between male gamers and his female protagonist which many saw as markedly offensive, not that she wasn't sufficiently realistic.

He clearly felt that gamers (whom he automatically presumed to be entirely male) could not possibly be relating to Lara Croft on any level other than that of a protector whose job is to look after the poor helpless girlie and ensure she doesn't get raped by nasty men. That she's not a character who you're going to feel any identification with or admiration for but a pair of boobs who you want to look after.

It struck a lot of nerves for several reasons. Firstly, Lara Croft was actually quite groundbreaking. Yeah, she was always clearly intended to be little more than a giant pair of polygons, but at the same time she jumped around and shot guns and did all these things which women weren't really doing in games or indeed in other media. Most female gamers I know are really quite nostalgic about the early Tomb Raider games because Lara was often the most "realistic" female protagonist they'd played. Thus, being told that the game experience wasn't for them kind of stung.

Secondly, he's voicing attitudes which unconsciously saturate contemporary media, particular games. This idea that a female protagonist should not be someone you'll identify with or admire or whose struggle you'll emphasize with but someone whose boobs you'd like to protect is actually kind of endemic, and it is a problem.

Also, one merely needs to look at the Final Fantasy VII fan base to see that women are just as capable of oggling characters as men are.

Final Fantasy 7 is actually kind of interesting in that it's one of very few games actually designed to have characters which are attractive to women, but it does so in a very different way to most games.

These kinds of games are not going for sexual attraction, but for a much of holistic kind of attraction which encompasses things like "types" and personalities. Final Fantasy 7 is actually a pretty good example (its sequels even more so). I mean, look at the girls, you have your "sassy" (by Japanese standards) girl with the tits, you have your sweet and innocent girl, and you have your paedophilic jailbait hyperactive pixie (again, Japan).

The same goes for the guys. You have your damaged protagonist who needs to be "fixed" and made into a man, and you have your "sexy but dangerous" character who you'll never be able to change. This shit is clichéd and still kind of offensive on a level, but at least I am talking about characters whose attractiveness stems from them, from their role and their persona, not just from their body proportions and lack of clothing.

See, I don't understand how anyone can believe that the generic ruggedly handsome square jawed protagonist characters are like that to encourage women to play the games in order to check out some man booty. If that's the intent, it's clearly not working very well. The character is like that in order to encourage male identification. He's not the character we want to fuck, but he's the character we want to be or who we admire. He doesn't need a deep or complex personality because we project a personality onto him based on what appeals to us, just like female tomb raider players and the early tomb raider games. That's not objectification, it's identification.

What Rosenberg was describing with Lara Croft was really not identification.

Ultimately I feel that it isn't gender that defines a character, rather their thoughts, doubts, goals, and struggles. A good character will remain a good character regardless of the proportions of their model.

However. Gender defines real people hugely.

I mean, I don't agree with the "men with boobs" argument either, although I don't really know if anyone is making it. Look at Femshep, literally a man with boobs since all her character movements and almost all of her dialogue are simply carbon copies of her male counterpart, and yet she was generally accepted as a strong female character. I guess a big part of this is that her male counterpart wasn't an awful stereotype, but hey.. could write an essay on this..

The issue arises when those strong female characters turn into "tough chicks", because "tough chicks" are really just another kind of vacuous male fantasy. Tough chicks are definately not men with boobs, they are written as women and could not ever have been written as anything but. It's like sticking Pamela Anderson in a proposterous leather stripper outfit in Barb Wire and imagining this makes her a strong female character because, you know, she doesn't like being called "babe" and stuff..

Unfortunately, "tough chicks" are seriously overrepresented in gaming too.

 

[Pulse]

Some people just want a subject for their oh so insightful essays.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Games need better writing. It's not that the writing now is so deplorable or anything, but there is better craftsmanship to be had and we know it from other media that has come before. A large issue here is attracting talent with skill. Lots of people who love games are obviously attracted to the industry, but they might not have the skills that say a trained writer might get in y'know college and all of that. Colleges do not, by and large, push their writers towards the video game industry - this is due in large part to the image video games have had as toys and the lack of acknowledgement they receive from the academic community as a worthy pursuit. Working to fix that is a major goal in my future career as a professor (if I ever get through the tunnel of education to get there!)

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Games need better writing.

That about sums it up, yeah. "Games" don't make characters good, female or otherwise. A bad character is a sign of a bad writer. The industry eventually came to the conclusion they needed to stop giving their voice acting roles to Bob from accounting. One figures the same will eventually occur with writing.

 

[Legion]

yeah sure

they just have probems making them the main charachters

That is not necessarily a "problem". Granted, more female characters would be nice, but to say that there "should" be more, or "it is a problem that there are not more" is not something I can get behind simply because games are, when it comes down to it, a product.

In an ideal world where a guy has a brilliant idea and is able to fund that idea without having to convince a bunch of suits, most whom have never played a game that it's profitable then yes, having a more equal amount of female characters is significantly more likely.

That's not how gaming works. It's not one guys vision and a bunch of people bringing it to life. It's board meetings, focus groups and market research. It's target demographics, advertising and press releases.

My point being that the reason male protagonists are still the majority is because it is perceived to be easier to sell and a higher level of demand. It's not down to a sexist idea that women cannot be lead roles. It's not that women are supposed to be passive and are incapable of being heroes. It's almost entirely down to money, really.

There is also the fact that game developers are under no obligation yo make a female character a lead, just because there aren't many of them. If they have an idea for a game, and a male lead makes the most sense to what they are trying to achieve then that's their business. They shouldn't have to change their idea just to please another crowd. It's their time, their money and their game.

I do not mean that to say that it's a good thing, I simply mean that while people have the right to complain about the lack of good female leads, developers are not doing anything "wrong" by choosing not to have them.

Then there is also the fact that game developers cannot win.

An attractive woman? "She must be eye candy."
An attractive woman who is a kick ass heroine? "A male character with a female body."
An unattractive woman? "Oh typical, female leads can't be attractive or the men will feel threatened."
An unattractive woman who is a kick ass heroine? "Oh, so a woman can't be taken seriously if she is good looking?"
An emotionally cold woman? "Stereotypical ice queen, can't be having women with feelings can we?"
An emotional woman? "Oh, so she has to be weak then, can't have tough women showing up the men."

The sad thing is, I have seen almost all of these used on many occasions.

Although as the OP said, the real issue is game writing in general. I can't honestly think of many decent male characters either. I can think of plenty of good games with male characters in them, but most of the characters are nothing special. Bioware is probably one of the few companies that (normally) is able to make decent ones. Even then, their best are the non-human characters.

 

[Savagezion]

No the main problem is gamers are whiny twats that jump on the first bandwagon to complain. This is how the devs envisoned their game , this is how they made it . Deal with it.

This. If I am handed 30 million dollars tomorrow and decide I WANT to make a game starring a white male with brown hair with that money, who is anyone to tell me I can't or shouldn't? Why does doing so supposedly make me a misogynist or make the industry a patriarch? This whole argument really boils down to a "wouldn't it be nice if" vantage point. However, it is argued as a "This is the way it should be" to those who are making games they are interested in making. If you are female and want to get into game production, there are actually grants available to you and not to men. There are things in place to get more women into game production to address this and instead of letting nature take it's course, people say that Rockstar NEEDS to make the next GTA player avatar female instead of whatever R* feels is best or simply is what they want to do right now.

 

[Zen Toombs]

[OTHER STUFF]
In essence, I feel that the only difference between men and women is in their physical anatomy, both can equally capable at almost any task (exceptions being things like child birthing). I actually feel there's some latent mysandry in this argument as it implies that a proper man/character is one who runs around, screaming and breaking things (or being completely silent and breaking things at the behest of others); while women are a much more thoughtful, capable breed that would use non-violent methods alien to their neanderthalic counterparts.
[MOAR SNIPPAGE]
This is the real issue behind gaming's problem with characters. It's not that people are sexist or that games are aimed exclusively at men, it's that creating characters(much less interesting ones) are rarely a priority for development teams.

I agree with your general point, but as [user]Vault101[/user] said, game developers "have problems making [women] the main characters". I believe that is a major point that you missed in your analysis.As for the part I quoted, I agree that it is sexist to say that proper men break stuff and women are diplomats. However, it is something of a straw man.[footnote]just a small one, but a straw man none the less[/footnote] I disagree that the ONLY difference between guys and gals is wether they have a tab or a slot - there are significant hormonal and experiential differences[footnote]clarification: this is in reference to differences in how culture interacts with people of different sexes/genders, as well as experiences caused by biological differences. E.G. a man can't have a period and as such it is harder for a man to fully understand all of what is involved[/footnote] that result in differences in worldview and perspective. That's part of why diversity is so important.

In addition, there are legitimate complaints about people creating characters that are "not a woman [but] a man with boobs". For example, [early Goblins comic to come].
EDIT: Okay, couldn't find it, off to other things!

 

[G-Force]

Why are people saying that that "gender x is always misrepresented" or "ethnic group is never portrayed properly" when now we have tons of games that allow players to create their own character and customize their wardrobe?

The issue is no longer relevent when you have almost completely control on how your character looks, acts and controll what they wear.

 

[eljawa]

No the main problem is gamers are whiny twats that jump on the first bandwagon to complain. This is how the devs envisoned their game , this is how they made it . Deal with it.

and when it is one or two games, thats fine. When it is this prevalent, it is worrisome
I will agree, in general game writing sucks, but when the problem of bad female representation extends beyond games to all forms of media (except literature maybe?) then it is a problem, and not just people whining.

Media influences culture a lot more than you are giving it credit for, so it is not ok to tell people to just "deal with it".

 

[The White Hunter]

No the main problem is gamers are whiny twats that jump on the first bandwagon to complain. This is how the devs envisoned their game , this is how they made it . Deal with it.

I like the cut of your jib, although I have no idea what a jib is nor why you would cut it.

Pretty much this, gamers like to hop on bandwagons and get angry about everything and hate things irrationally.
Games can be sexist. Okay fine.

Know what? I just found out that the US military is only just now letting women shoot foreigners on the front line.

Homosexuals still can't get married and have equal rights to their heterosexual counterparts.

Bigger. Fish. To. Fry.

[sub]I'm gonna catch hell for this remark aren't I? I just know it. My only disclaimer is I've had enough of people being whiny over nothing this last week.[/sub]

-deep breath- The isms are there and present in games and we do need to deal with them and have open discussions on how to deal with them and move past them, however whilst you may think that the games industry doesn't write good characters I could also argue that in general the most seen movies also do characters terribly.

Example: I could not give less of a fuck about any character from Michael Bays Transformers movies. They're all fucking terrible one dimensional stereotypes.

This kind of issue is not limited to games, it's limited to a lot of media. Do we need to advance past it? yes. Is it just games and is it the developers fault? No. Society just seems to accept it so long as it's masked in enough explosions and 20-something white guys with brown hair and brown eyes being the hero.

The sad thing is that some of the best characters in any media are not necessarily overly complex ones. Some of the most compelling and sympathetic heroes actually have very simple characters, look at Luffy from One Piece. He likes his friends, he does what he wants, he beats people up when they deserve it, regardless of who they are. But he's a fantastic character and immensely compelling, the reader/viewer feels compelled to support him and cheer him.

I've watched a lot of One Piece and I empathise with his character, I can feel his pain and I can understand his anger. I've lost people who were like brothers to me, I understand that crushing despair.

A good character is not the same as a complex character, and I'd rather games offered a simple but well done character than a complex but convuluted, confusing character that I can;t empathise with.

Another example: Dr. Robotnik is a good character. Why?

He kidnaps small furry animals, turns them into robots, and wants to destroy all natural life. Why? He's prick, go kick his ass.

That's a good, simple character.

If you casn't do the tragic backstory and all that stuff well then just don't do it, I can totally get behind a villain just being a douche.

 

[orangeban]

Okay, let me take issue with your defence of both cases.

1) The problem isn't just that they're sexy, it's that their only character trait is that they're sexy. They aren't a great, deep and interesting character who is also sexy, it's that they're just sexy. This is why the comparison to Brad Pitt and male characters isn't valid, because those characters aren't merely eye-candy.

2) The issue with this is that developers seem to think that interesting characters can't be feminine or anything. No, if they want to make a deep character then they must be macho macho manly.

 

[ThisGuyLikesNoTacos]

No the main problem is gamers are whiny twats that jump on the first bandwagon to complain. This is how the devs envisoned their game , this is how they made it . Deal with it.

I don't think any dev has planned in their heads that their game is going to have shitty writing... maybe disregard it. Quite frankly, I've seen some games (with bad writing) having somewhat ambitious stories.

 

[xShredd]

2) The issue with this is that developers seem to think that interesting characters can't be feminine or anything. No, if they want to make a deep character then they must be macho macho manly.

I couldn't agree with you more on that point. Even while I was reading this the first character that came into my mind was Max Payne.

I really don't understand why there is such controversy about female characters, while there is almost none about the male ones. They also come in many different flavors which vary from being strong, weak, masculine or feminine, some fit the stereotypical badass hero, while some desperately need your protection, and I literally never see anyone questioning the qualities given to different male characters.

 

[Hagi]

You're not too good at logic are you OP?

Developers having problems creating good characters directly implies them also having problems creating good female characters.

I mean seriously? Where did this completely retarded idea that it's somehow okay to portray or treat one gender horribly as long as you do the same to the other gender?

A game with a female character based on horrible sexist stereotypes and a male character also based on horrible sexist stereotypes isn't somehow a game without sexism. It's a game with twice as much sexism compared to one including only a single of those characters.

Two wrongs don't make a right.