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

[thejarofdirt882]

its no excuse, being over sensitive about thease things is just as harmful as being sexist in some cases, but the only way that will change is if somehow the creators grow some balls, put in a female character (where applicicle) and stick by their decision, as in having more female charachters people wont see it as such a huge deal

I agree it's no excuse. But you have to think... why take the risk of being decried for writing a certain kind of character when you could just have your general straight, white male and no one gives a flying fuck? Gaming needs to break out of this mould and have other kinds of characters as a lead, but there has to be an almost collective willingness to take that risk and it has to be taken in suitable/plausible situation.

[quote/]People just seem to read/see into things what they want to read/see in something, especially female characters. Feministic bull goes off the rails when the female character in a game is good looking. Well have they taken a look at the majority male characters in these games? Now I'm all for a bit of male eye candy for us ladies, but it's hypocritical. Games don't just have attractive females, they have attractive characters.

do I have to explain the difference between attractive charachters and objectification? or why skin tight suits and high heel are painfully fucking stupid?

let me put it this way...Marcus Pheonix is an ugly ************, Kratos is both an ugly ************ and a sociopath, Nathan Drake is your standard "guy" but his looks is not what I'm thinking about as he goes about doing his thing and he is such a fucking annoying little shit I wish he would he hugged by a head crab, Ezio....well ok thats more like it, but he's an assasin in a hood first a foremost, not "male model"
[/quote]

No you don't have to explain the difference, but I wasn't talking about objectification. I was talking about the hypocritical nature of some saying a game having an attractive female is sexist (sometimes even that's objectification depending how batshit the arguer is), but having an attractive male isn't. Admittedly I missed out the clarification that I meant sometimes and not all the time from in that sentence.

 

[Austin Manning]

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

While others prefer to make pseudo-intellectual comments to make themselves sound intelligent, rather than contribute in a meaningful way.

But hey, nobody's perfect .

 

[Erttheking]

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.

Oh that is bull! That's how they envisioned it therefore people have no right to criticize it? No, screw that!

 

[Lieju]

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?"

Sure, beauty is in the eye of beholder, but how many female leads that are designed not to be good-looking eye-candy can you name? Just curious.

Jade from Beyond Good and Evil is the first that pops to mind for me personally, but I am sure I could name off a few more if given more time to think.

Jade is a realistic female character.
But she isn't really something most people would call 'unattractive'.

It's in the eye of the beholder, true. For example, I find huge boobs and skimpy clothing unattractive.

But I can't see the writers facing horrible backlash such as Legion described for writing someone like Jade.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I agree it's no excuse. But you have to think... why take the risk of being decried for writing a certain kind of character when you could just have your general straight, white male and no one gives a flying fuck?

Because if you only put attractive straight (?) white males in a game, it'll come off a bit.. well..


So actually, you have to put female characters in games and almost all games do.

The issue is not that there aren't enough female characters. It's that so many female characters are simply there to provide some kind of wish-fulfilment sexual fantasy for a presumed male audience, and that does piss people off.

It's not just about the "depth" of writing and so forth, and if you reduce it simply to that of course you're not going to be able to see the difference between Brownhair McGrizzled and Skimpy McBoobson, but it's much more about how we're supposed to engage with and relate to these characters and what they provide to us as an audience.