Is it really an issue of gender equality?

[Jenvas1306]

Gender "equality" is utter bullshit.SNIP

Im from germany and am female and I certainly dont want that women are simply seen as a whole, you know we are also individuals. there is no hivemind. cant help that a majority is stupid and doesnt get how sexism is very often also promoted by women.
I dont dress or act like a whore, because I dont want to get treated that way, its pretty simple. But how I dress might not keep me safe from some sicko who still thinks Im asking for it and thats something every woman and man should be safe from not matter how they dress.

I also want equality for men and find it quite disturbing that there is less of a fight there.
I dont think that a job that requires a good physical condition should have its requirements set lower for women, thats plain bs.
so dont you just throw all women into one category there and just because not every single individual gets it doesnt mean that gender equality is bullshit.

 

[bug_of_war]

Scarlet Blade comes to mind, they even offer DLC that allows you to play topless. It's an F2P MMO, though. No idea if it counts.

It's still a game so I'd say it counts. Though I was looking more for a triple A title, if anyone can shine some light for me.

 

[nuttshell]

tl;dr - It's not about sexism or gender equality...it's about the lack of a natural diversity of protagonists.

There are plenty of games that have boring narrative, old, stereotypical stories and protagonists and aggressive pandering in them. Most of them are bad, boring moneygrabs. However, there are plenty of games that are not. If you want a game with deep, interesting characters, stories smartly designed, don't look at the leading titles. You almost never will find them there. Sometimes, mindless, pandering fun is simply fun. If you want more, go look for indie games, crpg's, dungeon crawlers and strategy games. You wont find something that panders to your intellect in CoD.

 

[carnex]

And that's problematic in itself.
Let's ignore the difference in how the genders are represented for a moment.

And ask why would the sexiness of the character be that important? Sure, there's room for impractical hot fantasy babes and dudes, but why all of them?
The lack of diversity is an issue, and a big part of the problem is 3D and improving graphics.

You know what game I recently played had equal amount of male and female opponents, young, old, overweight, pretty, posh, poor, creepy etc?

Pokemon White.
And that's because they were 2D sprites.

In a big game like Skyrim where you'd need to do much more work to make different character-models in 3D, they just reuse them, leaving all the women (and men) with the same physique, hairstyles etc.

There is no deeper meaning behind their representation. It's just pleasing to the eyes. Nothing more.

And it's nothing new. Look at TV, movies and comics. Unless character is deformed there are no ugly people. Simply put, beautiful people sell, and ugly people don't sell. Beautiful people presented in desirable manner sell even better. It's just the bottom line.

What people seem to forget is that in current market companies have no other moral barometer other then their customers and law. If it sells and does not break the law, it's as moral as it can be as far as they are concerned.

 

[Zhukov]

I'm just fucking tired of those countless half-naked, chainmail bikini female characters. "Oh wow, fantasy setting, what do females wear? Chainmail bikinis or revealing clothes.

I come down firmly on the side that wants more female protagonists and less playboy bunnies wearing three links of chainmail.

I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but I would like to know what games recently have portrayed women like this. Please respond.

- TERA
- Dragon's Crown
- Batman: Arkham City
- Smite

First four games that came to mind.

Of course, the literal chainmail bikinis are only the extreme end of the scale.

There are many examples that aren't as extreme, but are still more than enough to irritate me:

Spoiler

I love this armour! Sure, it wouldn't so much as discourage a boy scout with a pocket knife, but it sure does accentuate my juicy thighs perfectly!

Spoiler

I'm a ruthless warrior-monk. You can tell by the cleavage friendly swimsuit and high heels that I wear into battle. The pauldrons protect the shit out of my shoulders!

Spoiler

I'm a Jone-of-Arc-esque warrior queen who united the... whoops, my armour seems to be missing a breastplate or cuirass! Well, at least I managed to scrounge up this metal corset of mysterious origin. Mmmm, gosh, it's awfully hot out here, mind if I unlace my doublet a bit?

 

[deadish]

I think this site just has too many "crusaders".

If it isn't about "women in gaming", they would find something else to crusade against.

I have a feeling these people just need some "cause" so they have direction in life, so they feel important.

That's my cynical 2c anyway.

 

[Zhukov]

In a jump'n'run the protargonist really isnt important and could be just a ball of goo (just dont call it gooboy or something), I doubt anyone would criticize the lack of a gender.

Funny you should say that.

Meet Gish from Gish.

Spoiler

Although he's actually a specifically male ball of goo on a quest to rescue his girlfriend.

Oh well.

 

[Lieju]

And that's problematic in itself.
Let's ignore the difference in how the genders are represented for a moment.

And ask why would the sexiness of the character be that important? Sure, there's room for impractical hot fantasy babes and dudes, but why all of them?
The lack of diversity is an issue, and a big part of the problem is 3D and improving graphics.

You know what game I recently played had equal amount of male and female opponents, young, old, overweight, pretty, posh, poor, creepy etc?

Pokemon White.
And that's because they were 2D sprites.

In a big game like Skyrim where you'd need to do much more work to make different character-models in 3D, they just reuse them, leaving all the women (and men) with the same physique, hairstyles etc.

There is no deeper meaning behind their representation. It's just pleasing to the eyes. Nothing more.

And it's nothing new. Look at TV, movies and comics. Unless character is deformed there are no ugly people. Simply put, beautiful people sell, and ugly people don't sell. Beautiful people presented in desirable manner sell even better. It's just the bottom line.

What people seem to forget is that in current market companies have no other moral barometer other then their customers and law. If it sells and does not break the law, it's as moral as it can be as far as they are concerned.

Pokemon obviously sells and all characters are not hot.

There is more to 'eye-pleasing' character design than giving them all identical body-types. An art-style can look good, even if all the characters don't look sexy.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

I think this site just has too many "crusaders".

If it isn't about "women in gaming", they would find something else to crusade against.

I have a feeling these people just need some "cause" so they have direction in life, so they feel important.

That's my cynical 2c anyway.

I think this forum - and the internet in general - is full of people who have been convinced that being hipster is too mainstream. By which I mean, people think that not being "political correct" or "feminist" is edgy and counter-cultural instead of, you know, the norm.

snip

I have no intelligent response, so I'm just going to accuse you of being a Nazi or something because you're German idk.

 

[deadish]

I think this site just has too many "crusaders".

If it isn't about "women in gaming", they would find something else to crusade against.

I have a feeling these people just need some "cause" so they have direction in life, so they feel important.

That's my cynical 2c anyway.

I think this forum - and the internet in general - is full of people who have been convinced that being hipster is too mainstream. By which I mean, people think that not being "political correct" or "feminist" is edgy and counter-cultural instead of, you know, the norm.

snip

I have no intelligent response, so I'm just going to accuse you of being a Nazi or something because you're German idk.

It's entertainment ... Do we really need to debate this?

Entertainment is escapism, it's fantasy. Different people like different things in their fantasy - de gustibus non est disputandum. So the mainstream doesn't agree with you, well that just too bad. Don't really see what's there to debate about that we need 2-3 new topics on it every week.

Nutters With A Cause are unfortunately everywhere. From the whale activist to the vegan militants.

Can't we just enjoy the stupid games?

 

[bug_of_war]

- TERA
- Dragon's Crown
- Batman: Arkham City
- Smite

First four games that came to mind.

Of course, the literal chainmail bikinis are only the extreme end of the scale.

There are many examples that aren't as extreme, but are still more than enough to irritate me:

Spoiler

I love this armour! Sure, it wouldn't so much as discourage a boy scout with a pocket knife, but it sure does accentuate my juicy thighs perfectly!

Spoiler

I'm a ruthless warrior-monk. You can tell by the cleavage friendly swimsuit and high heels that I wear into battle. The pauldrons protect the shit out of my shoulders!

Spoiler

I'm a Jone-of-Arc-esque warrior queen who united the... whoops, my armour seems to be missing a breastplate or cuirass! Well, at least I managed to scrounge up this metal corset of mysterious origin. Mmmm, gosh, it's awfully hot out here, mind if I unlace my doublet a bit?

Cool, thanks for showing. It never really came to mind Samara from ME3, just cause I figured they used biotic shields, but yeah I can see how that's not exactly what someone closing in on the age of 1000 whom is a cold blooded killer would wear.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

I think this site just has too many "crusaders".

If it isn't about "women in gaming", they would find something else to crusade against.

I have a feeling these people just need some "cause" so they have direction in life, so they feel important.

That's my cynical 2c anyway.

I think this forum - and the internet in general - is full of people who have been convinced that being hipster is too mainstream. By which I mean, people think that not being "political correct" or "feminist" is edgy and counter-cultural instead of, you know, the norm.

snip

I have no intelligent response, so I'm just going to accuse you of being a Nazi or something because you're German idk.

It's entertainment ... Do we really need to debate this?

Entertainment is escapism, it's fantasy. Different people like different things in their fantasy - de gustibus non est disputandum. So the mainstream doesn't agree with you, well that just too bad. Don't really see what's there to debate about that we need 2-3 new topics on it every week.

Nutters With A Cause are unfortunately everywhere. From the whale activist to the vegan militants.

Can't we just enjoy the stupid games?

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

There are so many things wrong with this post that if even one of them is true I should probably just commit suicide now, because my intended career choice is clearly meaningless.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

This issue is just like any others that we've encountered before.

"Why don't they have more [insert race/gender/sexual orientation] characters in [insert entertainment medium]?"

I'll answer it like I've answered all my other posts dealing with this familiar line: because they didn't want to.

No one expects to create their own IP with the mind of the consumers in terms of meeting their standards and ensuring that "everyone is happy." No form or media, no matter how undeniably good it is, will ever make everyone happy; it's just the truth.

Plus, no one wants to create/work with ideas that they are not themselves enthusiastic to work with and shoehorning these additions to satisfy a/some demographic(s) will only give you a bigger headache.

"Why didn't the [insert race/gender/sexual orientation] character(s) have a more significant role int that [insert entertainment medium]?"

So seriously, no one is excluding anyone on purpose. They just didn't think of it or found it necessary in their own IP.

 

[Miss G.]

This issue is just like any others that we've encountered before.

"Why don't they have more [insert race/gender/sexual orientation] characters in [insert entertainment medium]?"

I'll answer it like I've answered all my other posts dealing with this familiar line: because they didn't want to.

I felt this way a lot when showing some of my art books to people (who soon decide to become self-appointed creative directors of my works). Yes, sometimes (most of the time, in my case) the answer is simply because X didn't want to. If there was a statement to make or an agenda to be depicted, it was because it was an assignment and more than likely something I wouldn't have made otherwise.
e.g
- "These are excellent, but what's with all these white people? Why aren't there any black people in here?" I , along with the majority in my country, am black and to them it doesn't make sense that there are little to none shown in my drawings, as though I cared about that while trying out the styles of my favorite manga artists.

- "You should make this a girl", says a girl who sees my sketch of what is an anatomically correct stallion and, with pencil in hand, ruins it with hard, cartoonish girly lashes that I have to carefully erase to save the colors and worn paper underneath. According to her and other non-art students who couldn't draw to save their lives, my being female meant I should only draw/paint females in my works. At least when amongst my fellow artists, these people's actions are seen as stupid at best and just plain wrong and unwarranted at worst.

 

[Bocaj2000]

"I'm not a feminist nor do I want gender equality. I just want proper female representation."

 

[Robert Marrs]

Honestly I don't think its got anything to do with gender equality. One really important thing to remember is that equal opportunity does not (and should never) mean equal outcomes. Just because you have the opportunity to do something does not mean you will get the same outcome as someone else doing it. That is called life, not sexism or whatever. When a game developer makes a game they choose who they want in that game, how those characters will be represented, what they will look like etc. Its a catch 22 with the people complaining about this stuff. If you exclude a female character or choose not to use a female protagonist they complain and cry sexism. If you do include them its complaining about how they are represented or what situations they are put in regardless. The tomb raider uproar is a perfect example of this. Worst of all if you put in a female character just for the sake of being politically correct not only will the game likely suffer for it but you are really the worst type of person at that point. Doing something just to avoid backlash even when its not what you want to do is just plain cowardly. Best just to ignore the people complaining about this stuff because they will always find something else to complain about.

 

[Sofus]

I know it sucks, but giving the player a choice as to what gender they want to play costs money. More programming, more voice acting, more writing.

Most females don't exactly look like men, and if you have a female protagonist then you also gotta have female npc's.

There is no way that anyone is getting away with having mute characters if you want to point out that there is a gender difference... so yeah, we just doubled the amount of voice actors needed for the game.

More writing? well the story was originally about some military jarhead called Joe-Moe OhWhoCares who at the end of the game is going to get beheaded. Just imagine if the protagonist had been female, i'm not entirely sure that anyone is ready for things like that.