Jimquisition: The Creepy Cull of Female Protagonists

[maninahat]

Tomb Raider has currently sold significantly less than MoH: Warfighter (A series which, may I remind you, is considered to have done so horrifically badly that it straight up killed the IP as well as receiving super awful scores from user and critic reviews alike)

I said it was a successful game, not the most successful game. Also, where are you getting this information from? MoH: Warfighter sold only 300,000 copies in its first week. Tomb Raider sold 1 million within 48 hours.

and Portal 2 doesn't count. How can it? Chell isn't a character. She's barely a plot device. You could stick a pair of tits to a tree branch and nobody could even tell the difference. Chell's not an example of a female character for the same reason that Gordon Freeman isn't an example of a male character.

By your definition, you've discounted most FPS protagonists. We know what Chell looks like, we have hints towards her past, we understand that she is notoriously tenacious, we know she has a grievous past relationship with the antagonist, GLaDOS. She is definitely a character, and so is Gordon Freeman...I don't see how they couldn't be. They may not be deep characters, but then neither is Mario.

Also, the point that people keep missing when I make these comparisons...DMC didn't have a fanbase when it was just DMC. How could it? It was a brand new IP, too. The difference is that it sold, and Bayonetta didn't (despite Bayonetta being the superior game, if only because it's about seven years newer than DMC is). And this is just my opinion talking, but I think Platinum makes much better action games than Capcom does as a whole.

Oh, you're talking about the original DMC, not the reboot. Sorry. Where are you getting your figures from? I'm having trouble finding figures to match (Bayonetta reports 1.35 million sales after its first year, the original DMC reports 2-3 million sales up to 2009).

 

[Technicka]

By your definition, you've discounted most FPS protagonists. We know what Chell looks like, we have hints towards her past, we understand that she is notoriously tenacious, we know she has a grievous past relationship with the antagonist, GLaDOS. She is definitely a character, and so is Gordon Freeman...I don't see how they couldn't be. They may not be deep characters, but then neither is Mario.

I'm gonna guess here, but I think the argument being made is that Chell being female was almost seen as an after thought. We get the big reveal a-la Metroid style at the end of the game, and even in the second one, the box cover, and most of the promotional material featured in-game footage (where you don't see her), or the robots in co-op.

I'd say that Gordon is more of a 'character' insomuch that he's featured on box art, and an effort is made in ads to show him as the lead.

But, with few exceptions, the FPS genre doesn't bother with characters so much as it does avatars (if you follow my reasoning). It's one of the reasons why an argument can be made that more playable female classes should happen, since the flimsy argument of romance subplots is nonexistent because, for the most part, you're just a floating gun, screaming about incoming grenades.

 

[Church185]

snip

You seem to have misrepresented what I said up there in an attempt to discredit me.

What @erttheking said about MLK is still valid. Yes there were people like Malcolm X that fought for civil rights, but he isn't celebrated like MLK or Rosa Parks (the polite dissenters), because he was hateful, calling white people "the devil" and preaching black supremacy. Things that more than likely drove more than a few level headed white people away from supporting the civil rights movement, and damaged the progress of the movement overall by giving ammo to the hateful opposition.

 

[Treblaine]

...snip...Just because people have a tendency to act irrationally doesn't mean such irrationality should be indulged...snip...

...snip...I don't give a damn if gaming is 100% +/-0.0000% males that's no reason to exclude depiction of women from video games, even from lead roles...snip...

Video games are entertainment. Businesses are interested in making money, so if they make more money with male leads, it is irrational to expect them to include female leads if the folks buying the games don't find them entertaining.

Publishers aren't interested in being the "starving artist" so they can remain true to some ideological vision. They make what they believe will make money. Trying to force publishers to make things because of ideologies is no different than the oppression that faiths are accused of when it comes to sexuality and/or sensuality. Censorship is censorship, and we either will accept it for any reason, or reject it for all reasons.

This same reason the faiths have lost their voice and influence on culture is the same reason that these folks are losing their voice and finding it harder to be taken seriously - they're focusing on the wrong problem but are being extremely vocal and polarizing about it regardless. Ideologies aren't sufficient by themselves to justify action where few issues are as simple as a single *ism.

Publishers are at best a lagging indicator of the market as a whole. They don't care about what might do well tomorrow, they want to do what worked well yesterday to minimize risks today. We accuse them of this regularly when they recycle the same crap and throw a new number on it, or homogenize the experience to market to a wider audience. Why then is it reasonable to expect people who are stuck looking at yesterday to make tomorrow better?

The permanent solution is to change what people want, because we aren't the ones enslaved to profits. We're the ones in control of what we spend our money on. It's easy to blame someone else for a problem, and much harder to own the fact that we're the issue. Businesses just want to make money and don't care about ideologies. Add to that with how much information we have on people's spending habits, we should be less and less skeptical of the statistics they trot out explaining how our mouths and our wallets aren't sending the same message.

There was a time when horse whips were a much bigger industry, but it wasn't the horse whip makers that ushered in the new era of automobiles. If anything, industry has shown that given the choice, it would rather not innovate and just keep making the same product and sell it for the same price forever, or even better to sell it for more each time around. Business just want to make money, and a lot of folks are intentionally failing Hanlon's Razor because they're embarrassed that their fellow humans can be so easily exploited.

This will hurt the industry when it finds itself subject to the censors.

If making such a tiny amount more money in the short term from a minority of egotistical sexists... if that is all that matters above artistic integrity then that so devalues video games as expressive form of art that they are liable to lose the protection they have end up restricted like hardcore pornography. Don't think it could happen? Look at Germany's censorship laws on video games.

And don't exaggerate that they will become starving artists, we are talking about the smallest effect on maximum sales by pandering to a small proportion of a majority who egotistically refuse to have anything other than a straight white male in the lead role. And you don't see the result of such staleness can have in the long term.

Trying to make games just for the money and you end up where EA is!

Censorship is censorship, and we either will accept it for any reason, or reject it for all reasons.

The problem is you seem to ignorantly assume that a female lead - alone - will, regardless of all else, so cripple a game's possibility of success that it will bankrupt everyone involved.

You seriously think that Bioshock Infinite would have tanked like Duke Nukem if it had a "Becky DeWitt" as the lead role rather than a dude?!?

Publishers are at best a lagging indicator of the market as a whole.

No. At best they are failed hedge-fund fiddlers, who mostly know nothing about creating games and are only in it to make money. They don't know the risks as they have no idea what they are dealing with.

The permanent solution is to change what people want

How about people stop claiming to speak for everyone else. There are no grounds to say that a female lead alone will destroy a game's chance at success.

See if a game with a macho male protagonist fails, it's for any reason other than his gender.

But if a series with a female protagonist after years of success fails, then suddenly it's the fault of the lead role being a women. This does not make sense.

Games don't need female roles for a minority of female gamers, they deserve female roles for all gamers.

This isn't about ideologies, this is because female characters could and would make good leads for games, including action games.

Depiction of women has not gone the way of the buggywhip, how incredibly out of touch are you!?!?!

 

[Treblaine]

Being a man and preferring to play as one doesn't necessarily bill you as a xenophobe

We aren't talking about preference, we are talking about extreme exclusion... that it doesn't matter how good or amazing a game is, the idea is that a female lead is worse than "not preferable" but "actively avoided". To the point where publishers decree developers categorically cannot have a female lead.

THAT is the problem. The idea that a game like Bioshock Infinite would be irrevocably doomed by having a "Becky DeWitt" rather than "Booker DeWitt" as the lead role.

That's the lie the industry is indulging with.

Games aren't being decided on their inherent artistic merit, and yes, being entertaining is that. It's being decided by out of touch publishers who are trying to design games by numbers. Not scientific numbers, voodoo statistics of BS correlations and blatant uncritical bias.

Be honest, a great game like Bioshock Infinite... would a female lead really have ruined that game?

 

[karamazovnew]

Oh boy, sex in games again...

- Box Art? The more females the better. No skimpy outfits please, least you insult our intelligence with your boob-bait.

- Female protagonists? The more the better. I will always rather see a woman for a few gaming hours than stare at some
douche. Must be my old Tombraider memories...

- Kissing and sex with males for said women? Not so much... I don't identify with the characters, so it's not as if I'm suddenly gay. No, I'm as straight AND JEALOUS as OJ Simpson and I will not be able to care about my main character if she goes ass flailing in the game. Sorry miss Shepard, no sex for you... It's actually sickening trying to play that game without seeing sexual freaks in every dialogue line to which you need to reply as a BIATCH! I ended up having all females in my crew, just to keep them hormones off my ass.

- Kissing and sex in games in general? Whyyyyy?! Why do we need anything more than what we have in Half Life 2, Dishonored or Bioshock? You want porn, go watch porn... I really hate romance being forced as the "optional" side quest in games like Mass Effect or Witcher. Most games are over in less than 24 real hours and usually represent no more than 2-3 weeks of virtual world time. Having romance while also saving the Planet in such a short time seems just forced, unnecessary, an insulting "Hey, you wanker! Look: BOOBS!" marketing tactic. I don't recall imagining nasty parties in Left4Dead, just because there was a female in the middle of that 3-guy-sandwich (with a redneck AND a black guy... if you get my drift).

So that's your answer Jim, leave sex and romance out of games, for both males and females. There are just a few games that DO have this problem and it's because of them that you can't put a female on a box anymore lest virgin wankers suddenly feel the taste of Le Vieux Coq!

 

[Technicka]

snip

You seem to have misrepresented what I said up there in an attempt to discredit me.

What @erttheking said about MLK is still valid. Yes there were people like Malcolm X that fought for civil rights, but he isn't celebrated like MLK or Rosa Parks (the polite dissenters), because he was hateful, calling white people "the devil" and preaching black supremacy. Things that more than likely drove more than a few level headed white people away from supporting the civil rights movement, and damaged the progress of the movement overall by giving ammo to the hateful opposition.

Because a predominantly white controlled media would so totally teach kids (and young minorities at that) about a man that argued a refusal to be passive in the face of hate. Malcom X abdicated that black people be willing, and able, to protect themselves from racism. He respected MLK Jr. And MLK Jr, returned that respect. MLK Jr acknowledge that their philosophies often would clash, but he saw what Malcolm was doing was equally as important.

The two of them were Good Cop Bad Cop on a massive scale. MLK Jr, coaxed some people to the side of equality with soft words and open arms. Malcom X chose to just tell them to their faces that they were dirtbags.


Like I said. The people who are going to stop confronting inequality in the world because a marginalized person insulted them and the system that has kept a boot on their throat, then they aren't really about equality. They just want their guilt pacified. And why in the hell would I want someone like that fighting for my rights?

 

[Church185]

snip

You seem to have misrepresented what I said up there in an attempt to discredit me.

What @erttheking said about MLK is still valid. Yes there were people like Malcolm X that fought for civil rights, but he isn't celebrated like MLK or Rosa Parks (the polite dissenters), because he was hateful, calling white people "the devil" and preaching black supremacy. Things that more than likely drove more than a few level headed white people away from supporting the civil rights movement, and damaged the progress of the movement overall by giving ammo to the hateful opposition.

Because a predominantly white controlled media would so totally teach kids (and young minorities at that) about a man that abdicated a refusal to be passive. Malcom X abdicated that black people be willing, and able, to protect themselves from racism. He respected MLK Jr. And MLK Jr, returned that respect. MLK Jr acknowledge that their philosophies often would clash, but he saw what Malcolm was doing was equally as important.

The two of them were Good Cop Bad Cop on a massive scale. MLK Jr, coaxed some people to the side of equality with soft words and open arms. Malcom X chose to just tell them to their faces that they were dirtbags.


Like I said. The people who are going to stop confronting inequality in the world because a marginalized person insulted them and the system that has kept a boot on their throat, then they aren't really about equality. They just want their guilt pacified. And why in the hell would a want someone like that fighting for my rights?

Because in this particular instance it isn't about anyone's rights. The businesses building these games have a right to be able to target certain demographics to make money. They will only look at how much money that they can return on an investment, and in that case numbers matter for a lot. Women trying to fight this and get better representation are a very small portion of their audience at this point. If we want to make real progress towards excellent video game storytelling, it is going to need to be a joint effort, and you're going to need as many allies as you can win over. Disenfranchised groups rallying may work for the government, who will eventually bend to morality, but companies aren't bound to that. They don't have a responsibility to make everything right. They just want to keep milking the guys who don't understand there is a problem.

 

[Cormyre]

I guess I've never given it much thought, because in games with pre-defined protagonists, I really couldn't care less what their gender is. But when I'm given a creator for my character I always try to make "me". So *gets the fire suit on* if I had played Mass Effect (hey,hey, cool down, it's on my list to play before I retire my 360..) I would have had a male Shep. Only time I think I create female chars in games is if I'm on a second playthrough and it doesn't matter (though really does gender matter at all in Elder Scroll titles? ), or I'm creating characters in say Soul Calibur (/Blade/Edge) and you're damn skippy I'll plan on kicking your ass with the little goth made with tatas as big as her sword (and in Seigfrieds style!).

 

[Treblaine]

People had valid claims against Bayonetta because she fell into the trope of the oversexed vixen.

It's a trope. Creative works are made of tropes like buildings are made of building material. They are put together in different ways to make different things, but you can't complain any are used at all.

There are far too few depiction of women at all in gaming for any trope to even get to the level of being a cliché... probably because tropes are being treated like they are as bad as clichés.

And there is nothing sexist about depiction of a sexy and sexual woman, it doesn't propagate stereotypes any more than it tricks people into believing they can drive a motorcycle straight up a collapsing clocktower. It's a completely unreal game.

I remember seeing a bit of news from Bioware saying that 85% of ME and ME2 players choseto play a male character, based on their own datamining. Sounds like it might be an argument that folks want male characters by wide majority, right? But the info didn't take into account two things. One, the default character choice was male in both cases. More importantly, all of the promotional material, box art, and screenshots showed a male Shepard. So you have to wonder: maybe there was a wide preference for male Shepard because the audience that would have selected a female character took a quick look at the marketing material and written the game off as another SPESS MAHREEEN brofest.

Even if that was the preference, the issue is not preference.

The issue is exclusion of the alternative.

Just because a certain percentage prefer one thing doesn't mean they despise and will deprive themselves of good things to avoid the alternative. Like refuse to play a really good game unless the lead role is male.

So far it seems like a baseless myth that male gamers actively avoid games with female leads to the point of critically sabotaging their sales to such an extent that categorically games CANNOT have female leads. It wouldn't be the first time publishers and their ignorant paint-by-numbers approach as backfired monumentally.

 

[itsthesheppy]

Yet another gender-problems video.

Yet another 16-page thread.

I wonder if the video game industry and community have a problem with gender.

 

[Drauger]

Let's look at a more likely reason. In games such as Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Skyrim the player is free to choose the gender of their character, which has no influence on the story. Nevertheless over 80% of their players choose male characters.

Huh??? where do you get your numbers, your personal preferences doesn't make the 80% of the payer base, heck i havent played once with a male shep o a male gray warden and i freaking played both games a lot......

This is ridiculuous, I really really reaallly reaaaaaaallt want to hope we the gamers aren't thinking this way and that the whole thing is a missconception from the developers/publishers/whatever in the industry, i want to believe that most gamers will buy a game cause it's good, not because the main character is male or female.

 

[Yuuki]

Huh??? where do you get your numbers, your personal preferences doesn't make the 80% of the payer base, heck i havent played once with a male shep o a male gray warden and i freaking played both games a lot.....

18% of Mass Effect players chose to play as female. [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/07/19/bioware-says-18-percent-of-mass-effect-players-choose-female-shepard.aspx]
And the ratio hasn't changed in Mass Effect 3 [http://beefjack.com/news/mass-effect-3-infographic-reveals-only-18-played-as-femshep-and-nobody-likes-kaidan/], despite all the promotional stuff done with female Sheperd, throwing her in many adverts/posters and even fully rendering her for the CG trailer. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYDmq1TeDFs]

Make what you want out of that.

Yet another gender-problems video.

Yet another 16-page thread.

I wonder if the video game industry and community have a problem with gender.

It's the hot topic of recent times, ripe for the media spotlight due to all the "controversy", juicy for massive forum rave-fests because it's such a touchy topic for so many people...really, what else was expected?

 

[Technicka]

Snippy Snip

Just because the main character is female doesn't automatically make her somehow unproblematic. And a person that finds parts of her character/the game torubling can still enjoy the game. You're playing the the argument that if it's female it's inherently a good thing, and should be exempt from criticism. And that's just a no good, very bad way, to approach it. The people that had issues with Bayonetta were thrilled to see a game with a female lead, they just had issue with how much it catered to the male gaze in an industry that already does enough of that. It reinforced the idea that a woman is only empowered if she's sexual. It's still limiting in offering a robust number of different character types outside of fap-bait. When the only way a woman can be seen as awesome is when she's DTF, how is that any different than a game like Duke Nukem where women are there simply to be groped? it still plays on that mentality. And is a valid criticism of the game. Bayonetta was a good attempt, but it still catered towards what men think is how a woman behaves when she's powerful (and that's ignoring the storyline which left a big question of whether the Bayonetta we played through as was how she truly was since, y'know, amnesia). And there was no contrast with the other female character sin the game. Even with goofball Dante you had the counterpoint of Virgil being painfully serious.

BUT! Because the game was so over the top, there were those that felt that it was part of the charm. Bright colours, a crazy soundtrack, ridiculous moveset, wtf boss battles. It was a crazy ride from start to finish.

So if a person doesn't find offense to the game because of that, they aren't wrong either. because, on it's own, bayonetta is relatively harmless. However, in an industry that already promotes women as sexual things, how was it really gorundbreaking? When we've got Laura Crofts and DoA girls, and Zero Suit Samus, and the ladies of MK...how was she really doing anything different for women being leads in games?





(Let me be clear: I have the game and love it. I think it's good phone, and I get great joy out of the crazy finishers done to the stylings of Fly Me to the Moon. But I'm not going to kid myself and think that I should be grateful for this crumb of an offering when it come to female protagonists)

 

[Treblaine]

Removed for space

They are based in reason because of precisely the example I gave, violent games in Germany ARE treated like pornography. Advertisement is forbidden, even displaying them on store shelves. You need a government issued ID to prove you are over 18 to even look at the games and even then they are subject to extreme levels of censorship.

No it's not easy to "buy" hardcore porn, it's easy to get it for free. The point is porn is so restricted there is no money in it. If games like Bioshock Infinite were treated like they are in Germany in America... then they simply wouldn't get made.

Yes they are, the publisher was explicit that under absolutely no circumstances could there be a female hero, he was sure it would always tank.

That's nonsense, people do NOT "mainly" judge games on their box art.

It's not a straw man because the objection was based on the presumption of a SIGNIFICANT loss in sales, to the point of it bombing, being unable to turn a profit.

"But if a series with a female protagonist after years of success fails, then suddenly it's the fault of the lead role being a women."

Examples being the reaction to Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness and how conspicuous failure like Duke Nukem Forever were not laid on the lead role being male.

There is a demand for female roles. Consider demands other than your own.

You cannot confer from a preference for male roles with an active exclusion of female roles.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

I don't think the Bioshock box art looks good, too simple and it would have definitely benefited from having the girl on the front.

I don't know about you guys, but when I'm playing a girl character she's usually a lesbian. I'm not sure if that means anything, I just think it means I'm not attracted to males and I'm not going as far enough to make my female characters straight.

I can't give a shit about anything besides quality in video games. I imagine the only people this sort of stuff applies to are the people who do no research and judge a book by its cover, AND rather badly apparently. Some dude stoically standing with a gun shows "run-of-the-mill" not "Game of the Year."

I don't know the numbers, but I hope that population is relatively low. And if so, publishers are doing a horrible job. its like they are against making money.

 

[springheeljack]

Okay, fuck it!
I always play as a male in character creation RPGs because I like projecting myself into a character.
Next time though, I'm gunna try playing as a woman. MY SENSE OF SELF CAN TAKE IT!

Jim, call me! <3

Whenever I used to play rpgs I would always choose a black male because I figured that not many people would think of playing that

I think there really should be more female protagonists I don't always enjoy playing a muscle bound character I mean I am fine with it but I want variety stagnation really just sucks after awhile

 

[Da Orky Man]

I think it'd be really interesting to play a female character written by a female writer (who isn't trying to exaggerate or highlight an issue). It's so hard to get the genuine female perspective on so many things.

I mean almost everyone will tell you they'd like to be the opposite gender for a day just out of curiosity. Surely a game would be the ideal way to do that?

Mirror's Edge has a female lead character, Faith, and the main writer was Rhianna Pratchett, whose father you probably know of. The game doesn't have a great story by any means, but it still fits your description.