Well, I guess killing manly dudes is kind of standard now, but when it comes to killing woman, people still cringe at that. You know, in a CoD match, someone out there might feel uncomfortable about tossing a grenade at a woman who's reloading her gun. But obviously, this is not the developer's fault. We've seen women die and be killed by us many times before (Dragon Age comes to mind, I don't know why). It's more, like Jim said, about the public, and by that I mean men, being uncomfortable playing online with a bunch of chicks and getting their ass kicked, or more about wanting to protect the girl because she doesn't have a penis. We're getting past that little by little, though (See: All FPS games that have already dipped their toe in that pond).
But it would be an interesting idea to see a girl rescue a guy in a mission, or maybe have a new healer class that can be taken by both men and women, or maybe choose the gender of your "Ghost". Why not? It's not like their manliness or their genitalia affect the plot directly. I can see why most girls shy away from FPS, what with only guys playing those games for the most part and male-only characters and your random sexist prick here and there. And it is no surprise most girls prefer RPGs, what with the customizable character and quests that force you to play together and think before acting and the gender/race variety.
And yeah, I know. "But women are not sent to the battlefield in real life!". Yeah, well, we also don't have chainsaw guns or space marines in real life. So there's that.
Off topic: I was playing Left 4 Dead today and I realized every single player on the team was a girl. Random girls, not like they knew each other or something. They all had a headset and, yeah, they squealed when a Tank attacked us or a Witch showed up but for the most part, we played amazingly well. They communicated, they looked after each other, they worked as a team and they were nice in the sense that they weren't pricks or had the mouth of a 6 year old who just heard his big brother say a bad word. When I play with random guys, either they ditch me or they kill me for fun or they only look after themselves (Hey, I'm all up for that, but you can't really win that game on your own. It's not built that way). So hooray for being more open minded towards women and gaming.
But it would be an interesting idea to see a girl rescue a guy in a mission, or maybe have a new healer class that can be taken by both men and women, or maybe choose the gender of your "Ghost". Why not? It's not like their manliness or their genitalia affect the plot directly. I can see why most girls shy away from FPS, what with only guys playing those games for the most part and male-only characters and your random sexist prick here and there. And it is no surprise most girls prefer RPGs, what with the customizable character and quests that force you to play together and think before acting and the gender/race variety.
And yeah, I know. "But women are not sent to the battlefield in real life!". Yeah, well, we also don't have chainsaw guns or space marines in real life. So there's that.
Off topic: I was playing Left 4 Dead today and I realized every single player on the team was a girl. Random girls, not like they knew each other or something. They all had a headset and, yeah, they squealed when a Tank attacked us or a Witch showed up but for the most part, we played amazingly well. They communicated, they looked after each other, they worked as a team and they were nice in the sense that they weren't pricks or had the mouth of a 6 year old who just heard his big brother say a bad word. When I play with random guys, either they ditch me or they kill me for fun or they only look after themselves (Hey, I'm all up for that, but you can't really win that game on your own. It's not built that way). So hooray for being more open minded towards women and gaming.
