Jimquisition: Objectification And... Men?

[Yuuki]

What's funny is that study probably has the answers. It looks like they asked the right questions but we don't have access to their raw data. If we did, we could extrapolate far more valuable data than the crap they gave us.

Remember that statistics can be used to paint any picture that the statistician desires, and I believe ERSB guys most probably realized that shit would hit the fan if they revealed just how badly skewed gender proportions were when it came to a per-category/genre basis.

I mean thinking realistically, who the fuck is thick enough to group everything under "gamer" ranging from a baby who played Snake for 5 minutes to a bearded no-life (bless their soul) who has spent the last 20 years investing countless hours into countless epic titles across multiple platforms?

And who is even THICKER to take that statistic to heart and use it as the entire basis of pretty much all their arguments? As much as I hate to say it, it turns out Jim is one of those people.

I mean how can anyone imply with a straight face that 40-50% of the angry yelling twats encountered on XBox Live are apparently female?
Or the fact that despite 5 years of raiding in WoW with random guilds/PuGs I came across approximately ~1 female per 20 males in voice chat, they were rare as hell and the good female players were even rarer. In my time I knew a good ~10 female WoW players and most of them spent their entire time collecting achievements/pets/random shit and avoiding competitive PvP and endgame progression raiding (if I were to guess it was because those activities put the player under pressure and tested their skill).

Apparently the excuse in this case was "well they are shy and want to avoid sexist comments". Yeah, 4-5 million players out of 10 million are shy? Really? Why the fuck would 4-5 million players be shy when there are apparently so many of them out there in huge force? What would they have to be shy about when they were easily capable (apparently) of bombarding their male counterparts with sexist comments (with their apparently huge numbers) if they wanted? What absolute bullshit...

 

[Matthew Abbott]

THIS...

Please, stop being so critical of a medium because it is not serving to the demographic of your choice. Do you see men whining about the romantic novels only catering to female readers??

There's a significant difference. Romance novels are not a medium, they are a genre. Novels are a medium. Video games are a medium. We don't generally complain about romance novels because they are a small subset of a larger medium. If every novel had to be a romance (or, at the least, conform to the style of a romance), you'd better believe there would be complaints.

Ever wondered why the talk about sexism is only happening now, and not 10-15 years go??

In point of fact there was talk of it ten years ago, and the reason we're still talking about it is because it's still an issue. If it weren't an issue we wouldn't be talking about it.

Thats because women are only entering the industry now. Gaming was beneath them, or unavailable to them or, or they were not allowed to play games by patriarchal society, and only now they are being accepted as a hobby by females. They are new. And as much as you claim they are the 47% of the demographic, they are NOT.

Women have been consumers of video games for a long time now, and to say otherwise is to be ignorant. And according to the most in-depth study ever performed on the subject, women do indeed make up 47% of the gaming population.

Well, they are unless you start counting the occasional angry bird gamers or browser gamers. Come to think of it, my mom is a gamer too[since she plays spider solitaire]. I wonder if she'd want to play Assassins Creed 4 when it comes out.

Your patronization is charming. This smacks of the "girls aren't real nerds/gamers/whatever-traditionally-defined-male-passtime" canard.

 

[Yuuki]

Women have been consumers of video games for a long time now, and to say otherwise is to be ignorant. And according to the most in-depth study ever performed on the subject, women do indeed make up 47% of the gaming population.

Sorry but that has already been thrown aside as an extremely weak/shallow basis to form an an entire argument on, your beloved "in-depth study" just happens to lump together every single person who has come within 5 feet of a game along with people who have been playing them almost as a part-time job.

I don't know what is more retarded, the study itself or people who believe it and refuse to look any deeper (which is impossible thanks to ERSB conveniently hiding the raw data).

I said in an earlier post that statistics can easily be used to make people think pretty much anything.

Yes, there ARE female gamers across all categories/genres.

No, females DON'T make up 47% of every category/genre as the report supposedly implies (but never directly says, convenient isn't it?).

Since no valid report exists for a per-category breakdown, I can only use my subjective experience:

Spoiler

I mean how can anyone imply with a straight face that 40-50% of the angry yelling twats encountered on XBox Live are apparently female?
Or the fact that despite 5 years of raiding in WoW with random guilds/PuGs I came across approximately ~1 female per 20 males in voice chat, they were rare as hell and the good female players were even rarer, which only makes sense because it's the proportion of skilled:unskilled isn't going to change across genders.

Apparently the excuse in WoW and Call of Duty's case was "well they are shy and want to avoid sexist comments". Yeah, 47% of the players are shy? Really? Why the fuck would MILLIONS of females be shy when there are apparently so many of them out there in huge force? What would they have to be shy about when they were easily capable (apparently) of bombarding their male counterparts with sexist comments (with their apparently huge numbers) if they wanted? Why are they always made out as the poor lonely victims singled-out for their gender, how would "singling-out" even be possible if the made up half the bloody playerbase? What absolute bullshit...I don't even need statistics to tell me that 47% makes no sense on it's own, it NEEDS a breakdown by category (and possibly even per-game) to show the truth.

Yes, female gamers DO have the right to criticize and provide feedback/opinions on games (lest Moonlight swoops in and reminds me of her rights) and they can keep doing it as long as they feel necessary, go nuts. Go totally nuts, and let nobody stop you.

No, female gamers are NOT entitled to get anything of their desire (unless you're a game dev, in which case you're already making the game you want ). They can only give their opinion and criticism and vote with their wallets, that is the extent of their influence and that is the extent of their rights.

Market trends are in control of everything else, market trends determine which way consumers are swinging, market trends help publishers/developers decide what to try next. They're not blind and they don't make blind decisions.

And the results are in - the state of the game industry overall is at risk. The issues it faces include unethical business practices, unsustainable pricing models, inflating development costs and dwindling publisher/developer relationships. Wait, where does sexism fit into all that? Well it's a tiny, tiny part of the overarching issue and in my humble opinion nowhere near the top in terms of priority or importance.
Proof? Game devs themselves have either simply not given a shit about banner-waving feminists or held their stance and trudged on. A select few have issued out apologies (in forms of letters, lol) but that's the extent of that.

Vote with your wallet, provide feedback/criticism and move on. It's when people angrily stamp their feet, try desperately to draw attention, that's when it becomes clear that they over-value their opinion as being worth the opinion of a hundred others, their sense of entitlement is lopsided, they try to make something small seem of more importance than it deserves. They feel they should be listened to more than anyone else, they feel they can sway the market trends single-handedly by attempting to talk on behalf of millions of people.

You know what happens when people single-handedly (or in tiny numbers) try to force market trends by going against the market trends themselves? Anita Sarkeesian happens and the reaction to her happens. Retarded debates about videogame violence causing real-life violence happen. I don't know about you but that's not the kind of publicity I want coming out of the gaming community.

 

[Lightknight]

What's funny is that study probably has the answers. It looks like they asked the right questions but we don't have access to their raw data. If we did, we could extrapolate far more valuable data than the crap they gave us.

Remember that statistics can be used to paint any picture that the statistician desires, and I believe ERSB guys most probably realized that shit would hit the fan if they revealed just how badly skewed gender proportions were when it came to a per-category/genre basis.

People say that statistics can be used to paint any picture but that's actually a bit misleading. If the sample size is large enough and random enough then the interpretations doesn't matter as much as the data. The problem with their study is that they make a very broad definition of gamer, to the point that less than 50% of the respondants even plan to buy a game that year. If I had the raw data, I could filter out the respondants who don't even plan to buy a single game over the course of the year and then see what remains. The remaining "gamers" would then be the people who actually make up the gaming target market and our numbers could be more reliable there.

As is, this is the best source I've seen on gender disparities in console usage and it's 2 years old:

http://kotaku.com/5448703/video-game-statistics-at-a-glance

Why did those questions stop being asked or presented? In that year even though women made up 40% of the overall gaming market, they only comprised 18% of the PS3 and 360 primary console gamers combined (individually they made up 22% of the ps3 market and 16% of the 360 market, but the 360 market had a lot more owners so the 16% is more heavily weighed). The thing is, unless the trend has significantly changed, those proportions aren't necessarily any different. This means that AAA developers were designing huge games for a target marget for which more than 4/5ths were male. Only developers on the Wii had a significantly different distribution where women actually made up 57% of the primary console owners demographic. As such, the Wii was a lot more female friendly system where sexual exploitation is concerned. They also noted this themselves in 2009 as a mark of success in acquiring the female demographic.

If the developers had access to gender preferences by genre or gender software purchasing trends in general then the numbers could be even more specific to the title. Heck, we also have studies showing that male gamers play significantly longer per day than female gamers.

For the DOA beach volleyball example that Jim uses a lot (If I'm right about which game that is), it was only released for the 360. The male/female ratio would have actually been 16% female in just that market. Some of which would have still purchased that game.

Click the spoiler if you want to see my math on the numbers above:
Because all these numbers are derived from 2010 numbers, I had to use the 60%/40% split between genders and not the current 53%/47% to determine the last proportion we knew. Due to iOS adoption rates we actually don't know how much of the increase in females identifying as gamers has shifted the console markets at all and the fact that the last five years have seen a rapid iOs adoption gives credence to app gamers increasing significantly as we already know. This means the 7% market share given to females since then may be more due to phone gaming than any kind of change of trend in the traditional markets.

Given: Gender gaming ratio in 2010 was 60%/40%
Given: Male gamers identified their primary console as follows: 21% PS3, 38% 360, 41% Wii
Given: Female gamers identified their primary console as follows: 9% PS3, 11% 360, 80% Wii (this is already statistically significant)
Given: Most multi-platform AAA games in the current console generation were developed for the ps3 and 360 but not for the Wii due to a significant disparity in processing power.

Work: Now, since we do have all the ratios but no actual number, that doesn't matter. Any number used as the overall gaming population of both genders combined would still produce the same ratios at the end. For that reason, I am picking 100 as the number to make the math simple, but again, if you picked a hundred million you would still arrive at the same numbers so whatever the actual numbers are don't impact the results.

This means for the sake of the discussion, we can do our math based on there being 60 males in the total market and 40 females in the total market. We know that 59% of males use the 360 or PS3 as their primary console by adding the two together. 59% of 60 is 35.4 (which is 35.4 percent of the TOTAL market). 20% of women use the 360 or PS3 as their primary console. 20% of 40 is 8 (which is 8 percent of the TOTAL market). 35.4 + 8 = 43.4 to show the total percentage of primary console market shared both consoles have (the actual overall console market share of those two was 51.28%, the difference accounted for by people owning multiple consoles. I arrived at 51.28% by looking at the sales numbers at that time, ps3: 31.59 million, 360: 32.14 million, Wii: 65.32 million. Total market is all those combined to equal 134.05 and then you just divide any of those numbers by the total to get their respective percentage of the market share and then it's just a matter of adding the 360 (27.71%) to the PS3 (23.57%)). Anyways, now that we know that 43.4% is the total market of primary console owners with the ps3 or 360 as well as the relative market share by gender, the rest is simple:

Conclusion:
Male primary console ownership of the ps3/360 comprises 82% (35.4/43.4 = .8156 = 82%)
Female primary console ownership of the ps3/360 market is 18% (8/43.4 = .1843 = 18%)

Conclusion per machine for machine exclusives (just use the same equations without adding the ps3/360 values together):

360: 16% Female/ 84% Male
Ps3: 22% Female/ 78% Male
Wii: 57% Female/ 43% Male

It actually surprised me that the ps3 would have a closer male/female ratio than the 360. I think with the Kinect and games like Just Dance that we'd see a difference in that market today if anyone was brave enough to run the survey or just release raw data for public use.

This means that if you are a AAA cross platform developer designing a game, 82% of your target console market is male as of the last study regarding primary console ownership by gender.

What's more is that it is all forced to assume that female gamers follow the same rate of console ownership, which I also believe to be in question. If the 60% of all gamers that are male are more likely to own consoles than the 40% of all gamers that are female are likely to then the disparity would be even greater. Without that data we can only assume the same distribution even though I suspect male gamers are more likely to own a console than female gamers. The end result could honestly be less than 10% for all we know.

Even if we said that women/men were 50/50 in the overall market and blindly assumed that they played all the same games and whatnot. Women would still have only made up 25% of the ps3/360 market. That's the maximum value you can arrive at with this value. 3 of every 4 gamers being male is significant. Far moreso than half.

I mean thinking realistically, who the fuck is thick enough to group everything under "gamer" ranging from a baby who played Snake for 5 minutes to a bearded no-life (bless their soul) who has spent the last 20 years investing countless hours into countless epic titles across multiple platforms?

Exactly. The presented information is basically non-information. It's a veritable "who likes angry birds or has ever played solitaire on a computer?" survey and little else.

And who is even THICKER to take that statistic to heart and use it as the entire basis of pretty much all their arguments? As much as I hate to say it, it turns out Jim is one of those people.

He's generally really good at evaluating criticisms directed at his work. I'd say this was just a mistep that he'll hopefully correct soon if this particular complaint reaches his ears.

Apparently the excuse in this case was "well they are shy and want to avoid sexist comments". Yeah, 4-5 million players out of 10 million are shy? Really? Why the fuck would 4-5 million players be shy when there are apparently so many of them out there in huge force? What would they have to be shy about when they were easily capable (apparently) of bombarding their male counterparts with sexist comments (with their apparently huge numbers) if they wanted? What absolute bullshit...

It's important to understand that not all gaming is the same. Even if it were honestly split 50/50 regarding gender distribution we would not necessarily see 50/50 in every genre. Girls may gravitate more towards certain game types than males do. Ignoring differences between the sexes is expressing an amazing degree of naivete towards biological and socialogical differences the sexes face.

 

[Lightknight]

Well, they are unless you start counting the occasional angry bird gamers or browser gamers. Come to think of it, my mom is a gamer too[since she plays spider solitaire]. I wonder if she'd want to play Assassins Creed 4 when it comes out.

Your patronization is charming. This smacks of the "girls aren't real nerds/gamers/whatever-traditionally-defined-male-passtime" canard.

It's saying that the occasional angry bird gamers (regardless of gender) aren't the target market for the traditional gaming market. If the numbers are to be trusted, there is a significant disparity between gaming preferences/practices of men and women for whatever reasons (biological, social, etc).

This isn't saying "girls aren't real x". That would be a strawman of Yuuki's position. It's merely questioning the real number of girls that we would consider part of the hardcore AAA gaming audience. Any girl that plays AAA games and such absolutely is in that category without any qualifier as to whether or not they're "authentic" or some such nonsense. But we're looking at aggregates here. What's the overall trend, you know? The result is that it's no where close to 50/50 like the misleading 53%/47% would seem to indicate.

Again, LESS than 50% of those respondents who called themselves gamers had purchased or were even planning to purchase even 1 game during the year of that 2012 survey. These are NOT the target markets for AAA game developers. These are questionably even what we'd call gamers in the traditional sense.

So the question here is entirely valid. I believe that the iOS market has significantly skewed results along with the questionable definition of gamer used in this study.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

You know what happens when people single-handedly (or in tiny numbers) try to force market trends by going against the market trends themselves? Anita Sarkeesian happens and the reaction to her happens. Retarded debates about videogame violence causing real-life violence happen. I don't know about you but that's not the kind of publicity I want coming out of the gaming community.

Yeah, right, Anita was responsible for the ESRB being created due to Mortal Kombat that came out in the 90's.
Like she was responsible for GTA's publicity. No, no one like Anita was responsible. It's largely the news media looking for dirt for ratings. They jumped the gun on Mass Effect, they jumped on Bulletstorm. Lets not be blind to this, aye?

People were going to pin Violence on videogames with our without her, and HAVE. Before Videogames it was TV, then comicbooks. People in general are always looking for scapegoats ignoring the fact that people are genuinely messed up, and games didn't really have anything to do with it.
It has nothing to do with going against market trends, it's people trying to put bad publicity on the nearest thing that looks like can take the blame in the name of ratings.
News makes a living out of scaring the public, and delivering bad news.

Onwards, and in general, and not directed at anyone in specefic:

Enough with this "market trends" fallacy. It's bupkis if one thought about it at all. It comes up time, and time again and has zero impact in threads like these.

Market trends will never change so long as game producers don't want it to, since what they put on the market is the market trend! And they're too stubborn to try it for the largest part, so these "trends" will not likely change any time soon.
FURTHER, some genres have little to no competition, I.E. CoD, and battlefield, and GTA, sports, etc.
This means they don't have to change, so they likely won't because they're resting on their laurels.

Lemme ask, have you seen a commercial for "Remember me?" At all? Have you even HEARD OF IT? I've seen a heartbreaking amount of people who haven't. It comes out next month on the 4th. I've pre-ordered it for release date delivery (not free 2-3 day shipping) for the special street fighter moves. It looks like a SPECTACULAR GAME from Capcom.

Have you seen many commercials for Tomb Raider? I could swear there were some attached to gamestop, but I haven't seen many.

How many games with a female lead, or even the option for them have gotten commercials compared to the rest, nevermind marketing? I mean sure, Skyrim got some commercials. I'm hazy on any Mass effect ones, but beyond that?

How the HELL is the trend ever going to have hope for change if, well... Ya know what? Just watch: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7044-The-Creepy-Cull-of-Female-Protagonists
It'll save me some typing.

Not very inviting to female protagonists, nevermind important females in games, is it? Is Cortana ever on the cover of Halo, anyhow? I dun recal. She's pretty damned important, isn't she?

Lets not forget that the latest God of War didn't have any playable women because they didn't know how to "design" them. Yeah. They designed some nice voluptuos female enemies, and topless women well enough, though that was in a separate article/video where it was brought up.

Looking through my recent issue of Game informer, there's a few quotes from the "Overheard at GDC" about the BS game companies are doing.

"The industry has been male-dominated for so long, but we're currently witnessing an early process of changing."
-Media critic Anita Sarkeesian.

"The people who tell you to fight back won't get your death threats for you. They won't get your hate mail. The problem is that... not everyone wants to get gored."
-Storm8 game designer Elisabeth Sampat on standing up to misogyny in gamer culture.

Heck the entire 2 pages are basically dedicated to that, and the need to change as a medium as the audience is changing!

You can plug your ears to the problem, and keep shoveling the whole "market trends" and "making money" excuses, but they're falling on deaf ears, and I'd hope/thought that'd be clear by now. You're not going to convert people. You're simply not.

Honestly, a lot of us don't want any damned excuses to begin with, nor do we care about them. We want change!
Safe bet more than a few people in this thread care about your arguments about as much you care about what the people are complaining about... Unless it's those people who're getting overly defensive on this subject in favor of the status quo. All they really care about is maintaining the status quo. Those people care about the topic way more than some would care about their excuses coz they don't want the status quo changing.

You can despise, and loathe the topic all you want, people. You can disagree for the next million years, if you want, but it's not going to go away so long as examples of the crap in video I linked in this thread keep happening. Infact it's likely to get more, and more common, and there's little to nil you can do to stop it until the complaints are remedied.

If you're arguing just to be contrary, well, it's fun doing that isn't it? It should definitely keep going on. <.<

 

[Yuuki]

It's important to understand that not all gaming is the same. Even if it were honestly split 50/50 regarding gender distribution we would not necessarily see 50/50 in every genre. Girls may gravitate more towards certain game types than males do. Ignoring differences between the sexes is expressing an amazing degree of naivete towards biological and socialogical differences the sexes face.

I know females gravitate more towards certain games, that 47% has to be correct to some extent (it can't be a total lie ).
That's why I insisted a breakdown by genre/category (or even per game) is necessary here, it's the most important thing because then developers/publishers can explore the possibility of drawing females where they're lacking and boosting sales/profit margins for themselves.

But all this raises a very obvious question - devs/publishers already KNOW who is buying what games. A person like you or me cannot hope to find out sales statistics better than publishers/studios themselves. These are well-hidden numbers which are never revealed to the public/press unless the company believes it will help them in any way.

So far the indications seem as follows: either nobody at the higher levels gives a shit because only when you're at the top of the building and looking down can you appreciate the true size/impact of every issue in the grand scheme of things, and that's when you need to prioritize. OR - as some people in this thread (not you) seem to be implying, developers/publishers are simply stupid and don't know what to make of their stats, don't know what to do with their money, etc.

Well, at least we can rely on free speech and the right of every gamer to voice their opinions and criticism in a hope to sway the market trends and make the higher-ups try something new.

Good analysis btw, makes at least some sense

You can plug your ears to the problem, and keep shoveling the whole "market trends" and "making money" excuses, but they're falling on deaf ears, and I'd hope/thought that'd be clear by now. You're not going to convert people. You're simply not.

Convert them to what? Where have I said that? I said the complete OPPOSITE if you read my damn post, I said people are free to criticize and give feedback and vote with their wallets. That's the whole point, that's the entire idea. It's a constant exchange of trying out new things, getting feedback from that (i.e. profits, and then deciding whether to press-on with those things or turn around and try something else.

Honestly, a lot of us don't want any damned excuses to begin with, nor do we care about them. We want change!
Safe bet more than a few people in this thread care about your arguments about as much you care about what the people are complaining about... Unless it's those people who're getting overly defensive because on this subject in favor of the status quo. All they really care about is maintaining the status quo. Those people care about the topic way more than some would care about their excuses coz they don't want the status quo changing.

You can despise, and loathe the topic all you want, people. You can disagree for the next million years, if you want, but it's not going to go away so long as examples of the crap in video I linked in this thread keep happening. Infact it's likely to get more, and more common, and there's little to nil you can do to stop it until the complaints are remedied.

If you're arguing just to be contrary, well, it's fun doing that isn't it? It should definitely keep going on. <.<

You want change? GOOD, then keep fighting for it - I've said this time and again. Keep fighting and let nothing stop you.

I have an appreciation for things at the grander scale (which apparently a lot of people here don't, they just "want their problems gone away dammit!" etc) and I hold a different opinion to what takes priority and what needs to change - trust me, I'm *sort of* on your side because I pretty much agree that sexism in gaming is something we need to see less of. There, I said it.
But the IMPORTANCE people feel the issue needs to be given is something I disagree with. I've always believed in mankind operating as a community, many parts working together to make a whole - that whole cannot come together without the sum of it's parts, and it won't come together no matter how desperately a specific part (e.g. a tiny minority) wants change.

Firstly the issue needs to exist on a far bigger scale, take higher priority in the grand scheme, make developers/publishers actually WANT to care about it - and in those aspects I believe this topic trips over the very first hurdle.
But by no means let that stop you, people need to continue voicing their opinions and voting with their wallets if we are to see progress. But will that progress conform to your specific wants? I don't really know and I can't really be sure.

 

[MrsBloo]

True: but to be fair, they also started in the 1930's (with comics being the natural evolution of the pulps)... The expected role of men in that time period was to lay down your life and liberty to protect women & children. An arse backwards concept its true, in any world that speaks of gender equality.

******good thing i never stated the year they were created. I meant it in a generalize way that the comics started as men being the savior and protector, i used female in distress because ppl used that as being the sexist part. (whether my words are the best choice or not.)


"Your point stands, but i wouldn't use Wonder Woman. She has not aged well.

I've always thought that had it not been for icon protection, Wonder Woman would have been cancelled at some point in her history (as were many golden age characters), to be relaunched in the silver age as a much better, substantive comic book (as many silver age characters were, such as the Flash & Green Lantern).

Alas it was not to be: Instead she was in a perpetual cycle of hopeless reinvention & regression... One writer would try a new direction & then immediately the next writer would undo it & go straight back to her roots. An unfortunately her roots didn't age well... Because really there is only so much people can do to pretend that a xenophobic island of ex-rape/domestic violence victims, functioning under an immortal theocratic dictator-for-life, with no industry, stagnated culture & forced military service taught under a dogma of "one day mans world will attack us" is a good positive role model.

To be honest, there was an infinite amount of uncreated characters who could have been DC's female trinity member & none of them should have been Wonder Woman."

*****Well as I can see We see eye to eye on the situation, our standards are a little different. I love wonder woman is she the best? no but i do love her lol her story and background. and i love her personality as a character. though, i dont dig shes into superman but i need to catch up on that stuff. Anyway, there are alot of DC female character i like, i just didnt go into detail on them. I can respect your view of wonder woman. But i dont have to agree lol

" Because really there is only so much people can do to pretend that a xenophobic island of ex-rape/domestic violence victims, functioning under an immortal theocratic dictator-for-life, with no industry, stagnated culture & forced military service taught under a dogma of "one day mans world will attack us" is a good positive role model."

*****I am very into Greek mythology and though it is not to a T like the AMAZONS i know of, I do like some of the traits they kept. I'm not saying Wonder woman is the BEST icon, but I think she is a better icon than that of a real Amazonian. She is nothing like them, she does not murder men on sight like they would have, instead she believes woman should also be were men are. Which is sexual equality. She even shows compassion with kids male and female. This was the reason i brought her up. Whether some want her to be or not she is a female icon in comics.

&though i dont technically agree with their revamp of 1987 to have all amazons be reincarnated souls of women slain throughout pre-history by men. You can see it as Women who had a wrongful death are are given peace and a chance to live a happy life like one it meant to.I mean the story they added really helps see light in the little dark that is there. I really like the interpretation of history put into it.

~~**"They are tasked to teach the merits of virtue, love, and equality to the men of ?Patriarch?s World". They found the city-state of Themyscira in ancient Turkey, which is ruled by sisters Hippolyta and Antiope. Ares, the God of War and a chief opponent of the Amazons, manipulates his half brother Heracles to gather forces and attack Themyscira. Heracles subdues and ravages Hippolyta, and his forces succeed in ransacking Themyscira and making the Amazons their slaves. Hippolyta pleads with the goddesses for help. Athena agrees to aid the Amazons, but only if they do not go against their purpose of creation by seeking revenge. When they agree to her terms, Athena frees the Amazons from their chains. Once freed, however, the Amazons proceed to slaughter most of their captors. Antiope leads a force of Amazons off into Greece, seeking vengeance on Heracles. As decreed by the goddesses, Hippolyta leads the remaining Amazons to a remote island where, as penance for their failures as teachers, they become guardians of Doom?s Doorway, preventing the escape of the monsters beneath" "Occasionally, the Nereides bring to the shores of Themyscira young infants who would have otherwise drowned in accidents. Called "sending forth," these infants would be tutored spiritually in Amazonian ideals, and then sent back mystically to the place of their disappearance. Julia Kapatelis, Diana?s first friend in Patriarch?s World, is one such infant."


"You know what, you'd probably love the decoder ring theatre's free "oldtime radio play" style podcast, called "The Red Panda." You should check it out: Its well worth the listen to, has an interesting female character, filled with moxy & spunk, an is set in the 1930's of Toronto.

http://www.decoderringtheatre.com/shows/red-panda-adventures/

*****I looked it up and I really like the art of the title. I am actually listening to it as i type. Thank you ^_^

 

[Rebel_Raven]

You can plug your ears to the problem, and keep shoveling the whole "market trends" and "making money" excuses, but they're falling on deaf ears, and I'd hope/thought that'd be clear by now. You're not going to convert people. You're simply not.

Convert them to what? Where have I said that? I said the complete OPPOSITE if you read my damn post, I said people are free to criticize and give feedback and vote with their wallets. That's the whole point, that's the entire idea. It's a constant exchange of trying out new things, getting feedback from that (i.e. profits, and then deciding whether to press-on with those things or turn around and try something else.

Honestly, a lot of us don't want any damned excuses to begin with, nor do we care about them. We want change!
Safe bet more than a few people in this thread care about your arguments about as much you care about what the people are complaining about... Unless it's those people who're getting overly defensive because on this subject in favor of the status quo. All they really care about is maintaining the status quo. Those people care about the topic way more than some would care about their excuses coz they don't want the status quo changing.

You can despise, and loathe the topic all you want, people. You can disagree for the next million years, if you want, but it's not going to go away so long as examples of the crap in video I linked in this thread keep happening. Infact it's likely to get more, and more common, and there's little to nil you can do to stop it until the complaints are remedied.

If you're arguing just to be contrary, well, it's fun doing that isn't it? It should definitely keep going on. <.<

You want change? GOOD, then keep fighting for it - I've said this time and again. Keep fighting and let nothing stop you.

I have an appreciation for things at the grander scale (which apparently a lot of people here don't, they just "want their problems gone away dammit!" etc) and I hold a different opinion to what takes priority and what needs to change - trust me, I'm *sort of* on your side because I pretty much agree that sexism in gaming is something we need to see less of. There, I said it.
But the IMPORTANCE people feel the issue needs to be given is something I disagree with. I've always believed in mankind operating as a community, many parts working together to make a whole - that whole cannot come together without the sum of it's parts, and it won't come together no matter how desperately a specific part (e.g. a tiny minority) wants change.

Firstly the issue needs to exist on a far bigger scale, take higher priority in the grand scheme, make developers/publishers actually WANT to care about it - and in those aspects I believe this topic trips over the very first hurdle.
But by no means let that stop you, people need to continue voicing their opinions and voting with their wallets if we are to see progress. But will that progress conform to your specific wants? I don't really know and I can't really be sure.

The stuff after "Onwards and in general" wasn't directed at you, personally. I should've made it clearer, I guess. ^^'
It's directed more at the plethora of people who try that excuse about marketing, and what not.

The way these topics appear, I'd say the minority is continually growing. Not just here, but in other forums where people voice their frustrations.

 

[MrsBloo]

For most women, the safest assumption is that you need to protect yourself from men, because they often want to sexually assault you. This is not something men generally have to fear.[/quote

Sure, in most cases it might simply be looking. But how would a woman know that it is not going to turn into something much worse?

Uhm... Your a girl? and you walk around everyday, every second of your life thinking the next guy that looks at you is probably going to rape you? punch you in the face? wow... you poor thing.

First i need to state, For every person, the safest assumption is that you need to protect yourself from danger. Women kill, rape and have violent behavior too. Not just men. Trust me, i laugh when i hear a women "raped" a man, but it doesnt mean it didnt happen or cant happen... There are some big girls out there, and not so big guys.

Might i say this is a fear you are living in to say men often want to sexually assault you. Did you know is it statistically proven men and women will both look or stare at what they simply think can be beautiful or an oddity. It could be your high cheek bones, your beautifully shaped eyes, or even their color. You could have the prettiest hair they've seen or a figure out of this world.

I have men staring at me all the time, and am i sitting here thinking "omg whose around this guy could rape me, or even just walk up and deck me for no reason, what should i do if it happens." No if i feel uncomfortable with a guy staring or looking I tell them WTF is up. Ive even had women stare at me when i dolled myself up. Should i think they were gonna rape me or punch me in the face because they were gawking like the guys do? no. simply smile and know Im beautiful and can make head turn. I do not have to live in fear that i will be violently assaulted on random occasion or raped at any moment. All i need to do as a person is prepare myself for that if one day it comes down to it, i will know how to defend myself and be my own hero.

 

[viranimus]

The idea is right in that it is not the same problem, However its completely wrong because of the determination of what the problem actually is. It is not about objectification vs idealism. Its about two completely different types of perception.

 

[Lightknight]

It's important to understand that not all gaming is the same. Even if it were honestly split 50/50 regarding gender distribution we would not necessarily see 50/50 in every genre. Girls may gravitate more towards certain game types than males do. Ignoring differences between the sexes is expressing an amazing degree of naivete towards biological and socialogical differences the sexes face.

I know females gravitate more towards certain games, that 47% has to be correct to some extent (it can't be a total lie ).

Just in case there was any confusion. I wasn't saying that you were being naive. I was just contributing to the discussion and mostly in agreement with you. So my comment was to say that it would be naive for anyone to ignore those differences. Hopefully you understood me correctly.

That's why I insisted a breakdown by genre/category (or even per game) is necessary here, it's the most important thing because then developers/publishers can explore the possibility of drawing females where they're lacking and boosting sales/profit margins for themselves.

But all this raises a very obvious question - devs/publishers already KNOW who is buying what games. A person like you or me cannot hope to find out sales statistics better than publishers/studios themselves. These are well-hidden numbers which are never revealed to the public/press unless the company believes it will help them in any way.

So far the indications seem as follows: either nobody at the higher levels gives a shit because only when you're at the top of the building and looking down can you appreciate the true size/impact of every issue in the grand scheme of things, and that's when you need to prioritize. OR - as some people in this thread (not you) seem to be implying, developers/publishers are simply stupid and don't know what to make of their stats, don't know what to do with their money, etc.

Well, at least we can rely on free speech and the right of every gamer to voice their opinions and criticism in a hope to sway the market trends and make the higher-ups try something new.

Well, there is a lot we can know. From that math, the demographic could not have been any larger than 25% maximum of female clientel for the ps3 and 360 markets combined, even if we assumed a 50/50 gendered market which is a factually incorrect benefit of the doubt even today. That's already a large enough disparity to show a vested interest in catering to males well before females. If we use the more realistic number of 18% (which also assumes that women are just as likely to own a console as men, which is another leap in their favor that is not likely true) then the gap gets even wider.

Dividing it up by genre would only benefit specific developers/publishers moreso than giving us beneficial information. If we did find a single genre that was 50/50 or higher for women then that would be interesting, but would not impact the commentary on the industry as a whole.

Good analysis btw, makes at least some sense

Thanks!

 

[DownTharr]

Snippity do da day

What's stopping you from making a game? Or better yet women in general, they don't need to get a job at EA or any other big name, many indies have proved this. Tomb Raider had that stupid commercial with a bunch of actors going "I am Lara Croft", yet the actual game and plot was very good, no DOA beach volleyball as women actually took part in creating her.
Market Trends are not solely created by the company, this is proven by all the failed products lining bargain bins or liquidation stores.

 

[ANTIcarrot]

Objectification of men does exist in games, it's just not of the physical variety. Speaking as someone who actually has a broken leg right now, serious injuries aren't fun. They are painful, damaging, potentially crippling or lethal, and if you're lucky to survive recovery is long, slow, also painful, sometimes humiliating, and often never complete. Men are EXPECTED to risk serious injury in dangerous situations. It is to an extent required of them by other men and by women. If they do not do so, they are not 'real men'.

(As an aside, consider how feminists approached military service, with or without conscription. Sure some want to serve in the military, and they should, but you don't see the kind of cohesive stampede from feminists that you got for other things that were until recently exclusively male.)

Now think of the last game you played with human antagonists. How many of the humans that you shot were men? How many women? How many men did you shoot without a second's thought? How many times did you throw the player character (human and male usually) into a dangerous situation? It's best said by the TV Trope: Men Are The Expendable Gender. Hitting them is okay. Killing them is okay. Putting them in danger is okay.

This is objectification. Not sexually, but militarily. If woman are required to be sex objects in games, men are required to be obedient unquestioning cannon fodder. They are people reduced to punching bags. The same thing? Better? Worse? Depends on your view.

Ask a circle of male and female friends how many times they've been hit or kicked or pushed in public, by someone who isn't a friend having a lark. Tell them not to omit anything. In most cases the men will have been subjected to a much higher frequency of violence than the women have; which includes the painful end of the bell curve. We can argue the statistics, and causes, but this is possibly a more valid argument than focusing purely on physical appearance.

Which Jim did, and which made that part of this video a poorly thought out straw man. His other points about the game industry treating female characters almost as badly as female gamers? Yes, that was correct..

 

[DownTharr]

The Anti-Carrot

The new Lara Croft is about the first time I've ever seen a women being physically and graphically hurt in a game.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Snippity do da day

What's stopping you from making a game? Or better yet women in general, they don't need to get a job at EA or any other big name, many indies have proved this. Tomb Raider had that stupid commercial with a bunch of actors going "I am Lara Croft", yet the actual game and plot was very good, no DOA beach volleyball as women actually took part in creating her.
Market Trends are not solely created by the company, this is proven by all the failed products lining bargain bins or liquidation stores.

I'd say the equipment at the very least, plus about 3 million dollars, a team of people to help, and a company that won't tell me I can't have a female protagonist? based loosely off doublefine's kickstarter I've been reading about. Even then that might not be sufficient money.

That's before advertising it to say the least.

See, if I had the money, I'd certainly want to seek out making a good game, and something of a AAA game, or at least close to it. A game that'd certainly help illustrate that a cool protagonist sells regardless of gender. Well written, and well put together mechanically, and well put together graphically.

It's gotta be a -good- game that gets word out. A bad game with a female protagonist will only reinforce the whole "It's the market!" argument.
Gamers won't play a crap game no matter who the protagonist is IMO unless it's got some absurd levels of high graphics, or it's adult only.

Indies haven't exactly crossed this whole problem with female protagonists either, at least not in a decent game.

And Tomb Raider was a great game for certain, but it got crap advertising. Lets face facts there. It certainly wasn't a Modern warfare commercial campaign with the star power. I think it was Modern warfare. Not sure since I don't give a damn about sausagefest shooters no matter how many women they put in the commercial.

The point I was making is that most game companies are FORCING male protagonists plus the lack of effort behind female protagonists. Basically the Vid I linked earlierin this thread.
Forced male protagonists = next to nil chances of female protagonists = less chances of marketing pointing towards their viability in sales=Forced male protagonists = next to nil chances of female protagonists = less chances of marketing pointing towards their viability in sales = Forced male protagonists = next to nil chances of female protagonists=less chances of marketing pointing towards their viability in sales- ad nauseum.
Get my point?

Until game producers get some courage, and put in effort towards games with female protagonists that are worth the investment, things won't change which is why the whole market thing is pretty much a fallacy.
All games hit the bargain bin eventually, too.

Hopefully we're starting to see the beginnings of thouse courageous first steps towards more female protagonists, but we're sorely nowhere near there yet.

 

[generals3]

I'd say the equipment at the very least, plus about 3 million dollars, a team of people to help, and a company that won't tell me I can't have a female protagonist? based loosely off doublefine's kickstarter I've been reading about. Even then that might not be sufficient money.

That's before advertising it to say the least.

See, if I had the money, I'd certainly want to seek out making a good game, and something of a AAA game, or at least close to it. A game that'd certainly help illustrate that a cool protagonist sells regardless of gender. Well written, and well put together mechanically, and well put together graphically.

It's gotta be a -good- game that gets word out. A bad game with a female protagonist will only reinforce the whole "It's the market!" argument.
Gamers won't play a crap game no matter who the protagonist is IMO unless it's got some absurd levels of high graphics, or it's adult only.

Indies haven't exactly crossed this whole problem with female protagonists either, at least not in a decent game.

And Tomb Raider was a great game for certain, but it got crap advertising. Lets face facts there. It certainly wasn't a Modern warfare commercial campaign with the star power. I think it was Modern warfare. Not sure since I don't give a damn about sausagefest shooters no matter how many women they put in the commercial.

The point I was making is that most game companies are FORCING male protagonists plus the lack of effort behind female protagonists. Basically the Vid I linked earlierin this thread.
Forced male protagonists = next to nil chances of female protagonists = less chances of marketing pointing towards their viability in sales=Forced male protagonists = next to nil chances of female protagonists = less chances of marketing pointing towards their viability in sales = Forced male protagonists = next to nil chances of female protagonists=less chances of marketing pointing towards their viability in sales- ad nauseum.
Get my point?

Until game producers get some courage, and put in effort towards games with female protagonists that are worth the investment, things won't change which is why the whole market thing is pretty much a fallacy.
All games hit the bargain bin eventually, too.

Hopefully we're starting to see the beginnings of thouse courageous first steps towards more female protagonists, but we're sorely nowhere near there yet.

Not having the money is a poor excuse if you ask me. The vast majority of entrepreneurs don't have the money they need either, they go seek for it. Make a good business plan with strong market studies to support the viability of your project, go to banks, business angels, VC's, crowd funding sources, the government for subsidies, your friends and family, etc. and ask them to fund you. That's how people do it. It's a lot of efforts for sure but if the market is like you think it is you will reap the benefits of those efforts.

And it's easy to say that game producers need get some courage when it's not your funds that may be wasted.

And if you think that having forced male protagonists somehow results in the marketing department not being able to point towards their viability you're underestimating marketing. It is very easy to "prove" they are viable without there being many female protagonists. I mean, how do you think innovative entrepreneurs convince their investors their products will be successful?

 

[MrsBloo]

If by "female friendly" you mean they make casual games, with little to no learning curve, then yes i woud agree. But i would also say that the few female gamer friends i have would punch you in the face for saying it. Because they don't consider people who play the WII to be real gamers either... with a few obvious exceptions.

*i agree i have a female friend who considers herself a pure hardcore gamer but only plays two games on the wii. Hell no!! When i mainly if not always play my PS3/vita for the more hardcore gaming experience. If anything id say Nintendo is more for kids or as stated below casual gamers or people who dont like to spend most their time on games, as to where the real gaming action is with the adult consoles like ps3 and xbox this is why most these games are rated for teens. Though i am starting to see more and more games for nintendo having adult themes.

Actually, I moreso meant that Nintendo products are typically less exploitative of female sexuality.

^^ i feel like this is only true because nintendo, personally, appeals to kids more than adults.

But women in aggregate(gathered together to form a total quantity), they do prefer the wii, or at least 80% of all female gamers did in 2009.

*may i add once the wii fit came out, majority of women who wanted the wii were of elder age to keep in shape not necessarily for gaming experience. :\ I knew atleast 5+ elder women who got it just for the wii fit. and have never touched it since...

"usage days for males and females are much closer for wii and ps3. On average, the least used console is the Wii."

It would likewise be folly to dismiss casual gaming. It is to hardcore gaming as television shows are to movies or magazines are to novels and is every bit as valid a source of entertainment. I'm not sure why game-class warfare is required here.

*I think the reason why the type of gamer is being considered here is because if someone who hardly plays games wants to put in an opinion fine, however they are not of the masses that attribute to the cause. Ya know? Im not sure my word usage is 100 % how i want it to be, but hopefully this makes sense.

example: Would you rather listen to your dr or nurse? naturally your doctor because they are that much more knowledgeable about the situations in the air of the profession.


Anyway-All arguments aside, Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! ^_^

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Not having the money is a poor excuse if you ask me. The vast majority of entrepreneurs don't have the money they need either, they go seek for it. Make a good business plan with strong market studies to support the viability of your project, go to banks, business angels, VC's, crowd funding sources, the government for subsidies, your friends and family, etc. and ask them to fund you. That's how people do it. It's a lot of efforts for sure but if the market is like you think it is you will reap the benefits of those efforts.

And it's easy to say that game producers need get some courage when it's not your funds that may be wasted.

And if you think that having forced male protagonists somehow results in the marketing department not being able to point towards their viability you're underestimating marketing. It is very easy to "prove" they are viable without there being many female protagonists. I mean, how do you think innovative entrepreneurs convince their investors their products will be successful?

Then why aren't you making games, then? Why isn't everyone? Not having the money is a valid excuse. Lets be realistic.

Honestly, it's not the way I think the market is, it's the way the sources of money think the market is. Plus having a head start of having a gaming company, game making equipment and/or a team is going to go a long way. And a solid plan. I'm just me. I just don't have these resources to give anyone faith in my ability to grant me money.
I don't know if I have what it takes, even. Hell, I'm doubtful of a lot of gaming companies ability to make a cool female protagonist.
All I have is knowing what it is I want.

As for them "wasting" their resources, you think it'd be a waste to make a female protagonist, huh? <.<

Frankly the professionals have a better chance, and better connections to make a viable game that has a female protagonist. It'd be far less of a gamble for, say Rockstar to make a GTA side story that features a female lead. Not saying they have to dive into a sequel to Oni (unless it's bungie that has the IP, I dunno.), but at least probing the market might be worthwhile.

 

[generals3]

Then why aren't you making games, then? Why isn't everyone? Not having the money is a valid excuse. Lets be realistic.

A: I'm a student and don't feel like dedicating time to launching my own business right now?
B: Even if I were wanting to launch my own business (which is one of my goals in the future, yay entrepreneurship) I would need to find a business idea that would yield profit first. You see, that's the main problem, many people don't have a business idea they feel would work. It's a mix of risk aversion and lack of ideas. The lack of financing is actually not a main reason why people don't start their own business (and thus in this case make their own game). If i were as certain that games which are "women friendly" is such a profitable idea as you i might actually consider it. Unfortunately I don't share your optimism.

And this is also why i think the market argument is fairly valid. In this capitalistic free market world when there is potential there is someone to grab the profits of it. It's not like the idea of a woman playing a game is so foreign no one would even think about it. Heck there are games aimed at women specifically, just not typical AAA games.

Honestly, it's not the way I think the market is, it's the way the sources of money think the market is. Plus having a head start of having a gaming company, game making equipment and/or a team is going to go a long way. And a solid plan. I'm just me. I just don't have these resources to give anyone faith in my ability to grant me money.
I don't know if I have what it takes, even. Hell, I'm doubtful of a lot of gaming companies ability to make a cool female protagonist.
All I have is knowing what it is I want.

Well see, that's the problem, you're making assertions based on your personal opinion, which is extremely biased. You can't just follow your hunch and say "well i like this so there is a big market potential for this". I love RTS's and Sandbox MMO's but those are obviously two niche markets, if I were to base my market analysis on my personal bias than I would have to conclude gaming companies are being retarded for not creating more of those games.

As for them "wasting" their resources, you think it'd be a waste to make a female protagonist, huh? <.<

No but making a gaming which is unprofitable is.

Frankly the professionals have a better chance, and better connections to make a viable game that has a female protagonist. It'd be far less of a gamble for, say Rockstar to make a GTA side story that features a female lead. Not saying they have to dive into a sequel to Oni (unless it's bungie that has the IP, I dunno.), but at least probing the market might be worthwhile.

Well it depends. Those big bucks companies usually make games with big budgets. So for them it's a lot of money which is at risk. And you don't need to forget about the shareholders which wouldn't be too happy for the company they invested in to make a game which flopped.

And while I can't know for sure if they do that but if their marketing teams are any competent they probably already probed it. Not by making the games but making market researches. You always probe the market BEFORE you make the product/service.