Jimquisition: Vertigo

[Deadagent]

I don't remember saying I'm a male.

None of the guys in favor of patriarchal standards on The Escapist will admit to being male, I never really buy into that.

So all opposition you is not only men, but men who are lying about their gender?

You know what, I'll edit that part a bit to illustrate, just what this kind of mentality reminds me of.

None of the reptilians in favor of Illuminatis standards on The Escapist will admit to being reptilian, I never really buy into that.

 

[Rastrelly]

Just want to point out that when you're taking someone's challenge, you can't just ignore certain rules because you think they're bullshit. If you're going to play a game, you have to play them by the rules that have been defined.

Well, don't you think a good challenge should have adequate criteria? Problem of originality is global! Characters want revenge, or love, or revenge for love. If someone goes for "original", that someone usually wakes a character cynical and ideal-less. And that became unoriginal and boring long time ago. It's etremely hard to make a PROTAGONIST with unappealing motivation appealing. Protagonist is the one most important to relate with character. If protagonist is blank - player will just project himself on this character (see Freeman, Dragonborn, Corvo, Chosen One, Vault Dweller, Nasruddin, etc.). If protagonist HAS defined personality, but in his or hers actions controlled by player, player will relate to this person instead of projecting himself on. And if Jim is fascinated to play as total arsehole, I am not. I'd run for refund. And on this base I consider "originality" criteria irrelevant. Especially concerning this Vertigo being not that original as a character in the first place. Psychotic villainesses happened. This time it was a dinosaur. It's a stereotype placed into a stereotype. At first it LOOKS original, but when you think about it, you see, that within the IDEA of the game it's not. IMHO.

The point that Jim is making is that male characters have a far wider range of possible forms to take. Handsome, grizzled, messed up and scarred with a face only a mother could love...their looks can take on many different forms. So too can their motivations and personalities take on many different forms. Females, on the other hand, are mostly cast from the same(ish) mold. They're often attractive (which is the criteria that fails a number of your suggestions. Chun Li is by most people's accounts attractive, as are Chell and Faith...they don't need to be out-right sexified or sexy, they just need to be good looking), often motivated by love or some kind of past trauma, and often owe their success/strength to a man in some way. Also they're almost always "good guys" who aren't morally questionable, but that was just a technical criteria that Jim mentioned in the beginning of the episode and didn't officially put into his list so to be fair we can't count that as one of the actual criteria.

Well... Maybe, but I don't see much of a problem here. Just remember what mod was among the first ones to come out for original Dragon Age? And it was made for both male and female characters. It lies within our psychology. Rather deep. BOTH males and females are less concerned about male appearance. It's a mix of instinct and tradition. Very powerful stuff.

As for Chell, I have to especially disagree. She is not even pretty. She's just NORMAL. She is not supposed to be sexy or even attractive. She's a human with bleeding feet and bad haircut. Silently fighting a deadly yet charming AI. Who I didn't list just because she's NOT a protagonist (though from story perspective in second game she actually IS).

The conclusion IS crap. It's bases on false. Just go, make a game with fat ugly and evil female protagonist and try to sell it. You'd have to make a true masterpiece in all other areas to sell it. Because even females for some reason prefer to play pretty females. It's just is so. Change the audience, change the mind of audience, and the games will magically change! Until then, until females play mostly office puzzles, until they don't represent at leas 30-40% of AAA-class title audience, you cannot even hope to change anything. Thus this Jimquisition is a massive waste of time that could be spent on REAL problems of the industry, the ones that are possibly healable!

And there-in lies Jim's challenge to the game developers and writers: to make something featuring an unappealing female protagonist who has personal gain - as an example - as her motivation and is more than willing to do morally questionable things. You're right in that minds have to change, but how do you change minds? You have to give them examples of what you want them to change to. We'll never know if we'd like a game with such a character in it unless they give us a taste of it to begin with.

Well, minds can change. Through long extended propaganda. As they did through all the history. Not sure it's good though. As for unattractive female protagonist... Dunno. I double I'd go for this game. Maybe some people would. Maybe such game will come out sooner or later. Maybe it would work for some sort of adventure game. Or fighting.

Captcha: be mine. Oh, Captcha, I'll stick with my soul for now.

 

[jackpipsam]

I am curious, Jim did you get inspired by the latest episode of The Co-Optional Podcast?

Because they talked about this very issue on length and came to the same conclusion of Vertigo.

 

[MoeMints]

The main problem is that what IS traditionally attractive?
I've seen people argue that Recette from Recettear, and to extension, the developer's other titles, and Alice from McGee's series don't count.
They're small, thin, lack typical signs of well development, and I can definitely say would be ignored given real life equivalents.

People put Ellie off the list because she'll be traditionally attractive 9 times out of 10 later, but that's honestly kinda worrying that you take the fact she'll be attractive over that she's an average child.

The 2nd one is.....how many males fit those requirements as well?
People are implying Kratos if he had a normal pigment and dressed up wouldn't be at least a 7 out of 10.
Even Old Snake and Trevor aren't UGLY. Shave the latter's head and remove the permanent grimace off his brow and he'd be an average looking older male. While Snake is pretty good looking for being extremely ill without medication.

Before you even list down five or so examples, consider the fact you ONLY named five despite the far larger population of male protagonists.
I can even give you ones like Justin from Grandia and Laharl from Disgaea but compare them to their own series.

 

[Darmani]

"Traditionally attractive".
---
She isn't but her motive is generic heroism and coaxed in avenging victimization. Albeit as a benevolent goddess or wandering dogooder. She's super dooper heroic and doesn't get direct praise.

Its rare just to find female protagonists who are mothers or older than 30 (or look it)

I'm certain though SOME of the Fire Emblem characters, even if not anti-heroic or villainous, qualify but they are all conventionally attractive and rarely battle-scarred.
Hell female characters who are fat. I don't be grotesque, I mean.. Ya know not model skinny and so on.

At least as meaty as women were allowed to look in the 80s

 

[Kuth]

I thought he was honestly going to mention Big Mama from Shock Troopers 1 on the Neo Geo Arcade platform. Big Mama is a huge, black, Canadian Woman. Overall in the game she is slower but can hit much harder than most other characters, and hell her main motivation is pretty much money. I wonder if she was even considered.

 

[MaximumTheHormone]

Joanna dark is unquestionably in the attractive end of the spectrum.

I think attractive is the wrong word, because lets face it, nerds have fought for many a decade over the subjective term 'attractive' when describing characters and this debate is not only wasteful but has always ultimately obfiscated from the actual discussion.
Instead of attractive I propose the descriptor 'sexualized'. Not only being of acceptable appearance but exploiting this to any degree.

He also seem to be missing the more obvious point that men are portrayed as extremely masculine, where women are portrayed as extremely feminine. The industry is no more ripe with butch, macho female-protagonists, than it is with dandy, feminine-male protagonists.

As far a you point on women are portrayed as 'feminine', I don't think were going off the same definition of feminine here. Although women are often designed to be sexy the actions most female protagonists take is decidedly masculine. In particular the oft explored 'power fantasy' style game, where players will violently decimate enemies we see a masculine style release through testosteronal violence, but varyingly gendered protagonists (eg. fighting games, the tomb raider series ect.) . But you're right, when considering the proportionate nature of releases, the industry has been no more proficient in producing off-center males characters then off-center female ones.

 

[Jan Smejkal]

Did i miss something or did Jim just didn't look that closely?

Playable. I don't think sidekicks are considered playable in here.

 

[Eve Charm]

Brittany from Pikmin 3, one of the 3 main protagonists. She's the smartest of the 3, Can't call her sexy since she wears the same space suit as the other two and you never see anything below the neck and her face well is normal average age i guess, can't really say. While it is kinda survival that's more just for the gameplay style. The story part is she's one of the 3 brave astronauts risking their lives to go to an uncharted planet to find sources of food to bring back to their dying planet, Heroic. The game came out 2 months ago.

Also faulty logic, Old snake doesn't mean men in gaming are allowed to be old, the guy aged, or viruses whatever they are trying to write it to at this point. That's like calling baby Mario an original baby character, no that's just Mario but younger. Same with looks with men, ya sure they are allowed to be grizzled, but downright ugly? As much as marcus fenix is the poster child, he isn't down right ugly.

 

[Lightknight]

Who are the noteable male uglies?

Aside from the ones Jim mentioned, or...?

Jim made a mistake here. Attractive is not just the clean shaved appearance. An attractive character is one that appeals to what we want to be like. Plenty of men want to look like powerful badasses, grizzled and capable. Those characters make them feel powerful.

Females typically place a lot of emphasis on traditional feminine beauty, to the point of developing a wide range of serious and unhealthy mental conditions evolving around trying to alter their appearance accordingly. Hell, there are entire areas of medicine devoted to taking advantage of their desires by giving them larger breasts, reconstructed noses and such (I personally find these medical practices to be ethically questionable). There are a few women who want to look powerful, but by and large the female culture is about beauty in contrast to male culture's focus on strength.

So I think Jim's insistance that the character not be traditionally pretty is a mistake in understanding the possible difference in what constitutes attractiveness of an avatar, particularly in the realm of male protagonists. I think the condition of wearing sexually objectifying or unrealistic clothing should be considered instead (chainmail bikini crosses both lines). Or, perhaps insanely unrealistic body proportions. Female bodies are the easiest to exaggerate where breasts, butts, and legs are desireable physical qualities. Males just have general facial features and then it's muscles, either toned or bulk.

4) Faith from Mirror's Edge, who can be considered attractive by some, but faaaar from being sexy doll

But, again, that wasn't the criteria.

His arbitrary criteria should not have dropped her. There is nothing strikingly beautiful about her. I consider her quite plain. Is his real criteria that she has to be actively ugly? At which point I think it's a silly criteria. Why ugly? Why not just plain?

http://www.ps4site.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/maxresdefault.jpg

7) And Chell from Portal? Again, she can be considered attractive at best and the only man in her life was Companion Cube.

so she can be considered attractive and therefore fails the test as defined.

You make it sound like a legitimate test when it is largely based on subjective opinions on what constitutes feminine beauty. However, I'd generally say that Chell is very pretty:

<spoiler=Picture of Chell: Click Here>http://www.cosplayisland.co.uk/files/costumes/855/41850/Chell_p2_thruportal.jpg

11) Thomas Was Alone? Square girls, anyone? LOTS of 'em!

Were they protagonists? What were their motivations?

To move forward. I think there was a growing relationship between one square and another but there were several female characters here. Nearly all of them being protagonists. This is a completely legitimate example of female protagonists. If you have a pc and haven't played this game, you should. It's very cheap and a quick game. Lovely in a lot of ways.

Other games I'd contribute would be titles from Double Fine's Tim Schafer and former employee Ron Gilbert.

Costume quest (fraternal twins, neither of which are attractive. The basic plot is that whichever twin you don't pick gets kidnapped. This puts either a boy or girl in the DiD motif)
The Cave (a female scientist is an option, she has a pear shape and is nerdy. There's also a female adventurer)

Even in games where the characters aren't ugly they're still oddly shaped in a way that a real person shaped that way would give you nightmares. Pyschonauts and the upcoming Broken Age are examples of that:

<spoiler=Broken Age Picture: Click Here>http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_medium/0/2840/2461951-1318854132-24593.jpg

Interestingly enough, the boy is classically handsome whereas the girl is oddly shaped and while not ugly, certainly isn't "classically attractive" as she isn't shaped like a human.

None of these titles center around the girl's motivation being about a guy. Which I also find to be a bad criteria as most male protagonist's goals center around girls.

Overall, I think his criteria dismisses a wide segment of games. He has filtered them so thoroughly as to make his point be a non-point. Ruling out characters like Jade and Chell and Faith is just silly. Even the latest Tomb Raider should have made but but apparently trying to survive as a plot warrants not being considered. Why?

Marcus Fenix, Kane and Lynch, Kratos, Geralt of Rivia, Tevor, the Bionic Commando from said game, Monkey from Enslaved, Grayson Hunt from Bulletstorm, Snake once MGS4 rolls around, John Marston has a certain rugged look to him, and Krieg from Borderlands 2.

I'm sorry, but guys seem to get to be more ugly than girls.

Rugged, incredibly strong, and tough are attractive features for males. Bulkiness and rough scarring is seen as a detractor in the female form.

But there's a reason why a romantic movie like Beastly [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152398/] is successful despite poor critical reviews. Women are attracted to the rough, dangerous, or wounded type. Usually with the opinion that they can tame or fix them. This is generally a fact of life. The general hope is that women eventually grow out of bad boys and find someone that can contributed to their lives rather than detracting.

As a side question, how did Grayson Hunt make your list? I understand that beauty is subjective but...
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2011/02/grayson.hunt.020811-530px.jpg

Yep, that's pretty much how I imagine I look when I close my eyes.

Want to put that to the test?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9/posts/611851

Those are possible designs for the Mighty No. 9 heroine. They are letting supporters vote on the design they use. I guarantee you will see very few votes for A or B (the more nerdy looking character). F or H will almost certainly win. I love to see the results based on gender of the contributor. I'll bet the percentages show women voting for the same things the men are.

Hmm, good point. But I wouldn't tie niche markets to overall trends. Still, anime titles do tend to lean on the side of attraction anyways. I wouldn't call any of those characters unattractive. I say this as a man who has a thing for librarian types. Yep, the day my wife got glasses was a good day.

But this is true, just as men want to play as handsome or rugged/powerful types, so do women want to play as attractive types. This would be a fantastic study. To give men and women a choice of avatars to play a game and see which ones pick which avatars. Thanks to research in the decoy effect we know that an ugly option can make attractive or even plain options all the more desireable.

 

[Amaror]

Did i miss something or did Jim just didn't look that closely?

Playable. I don't think sidekicks are considered playable in here.

Well she IS playable. But sure, if we find examples that disagree with Jim, let's just make his ruleset even more arbitrary than it already is.
As i already said: After his ruleset there simply are NO characters that fit the description, not only no female characters.

 

[Jan Smejkal]

But sure, if we find examples that disagree with Jim, let's just make his ruleset even more arbitrary than it already is.

Save this crap please. I'm just not sure if that counts because the central character is different. You also don't make story-wise meaningful decisions for Kreia so. Also party based. I am just no sure. Where is some female equivalent of GTA 4/5 characters? Or of the Courrier in F:NV? Or Kane and Lynch, the Witcher, the guy in Amnesia, in Gothic, the old guy from Left 4 Dead? Or the famous NAMELESS ONE from Planescape Torment? And this is just me stepping trhough my vast game library. It is not much (which is sad as well), but there are some original male chars. But no female. Really the most original one is probably the girl from Portal (and that is just a model you control).

What suprises me is the fact that there are some (but much less than male) such female NPCs in games but you don't get to *PLAY* as any of them.

Also note that I (and I bet Jim too) would be gladly proven wrong on some big scale.

 

[Spearmaster]

Wait, so now this mythical female protagonist has to be a deep, emotional, intelligent, never relies on a man ever, is never affected by a man, and now has to be conventionally ugly on top of that. Good luck selling that game.


Put out an APB for a 4'6" tall, 350# woman with severe burn scars all over her face and body and missing one leg and make a game about her...what.... oh that's right real people are boring and nobody gives a shit accept the PC hookers who have to appeal to their base by vilifying the very thing they make their living from...shameful.

It's like every argument just gets more and more reasonable and logical.

Need a corn cob pipe for that strawman?

Almost as reasonable and logical as the feminist test for a strong female game character, I feel like the ideal female game lead has all the features that would make for a horrible game that most people would not want to play.

Also, I'm still waiting to see the game with a strong male lead

 

[Vegosiux]

I've argued for quite a while that we should simply go for stick figures or enchanted motorcycles. Or stick figure styled enchanted motorcycles.

Still, this episode did make me giggle for some reason.

So did this:

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

I thought he was honestly going to mention Big Mama from Shock Troopers 1 on the Neo Geo Arcade platform. Big Mama is a huge, black, Canadian Woman. Overall in the game she is slower but can hit much harder than most other characters, and hell her main motivation is pretty much money. I wonder if she was even considered.

I knew my post was going to get overlooked. Oh well, at least Big Mama gets a bit more exposure.

I also wonder if Jill from Might Jill Off counts?

 

[G-Force]

You know, seeing how half of people here give examples of women in games, and the other half dismiss them as not meeting the criteria, I now have to say the criteria are actually quite arbitrary.

I want a game where I can play as an underwater dog marine, a space octopus, an alien bacteria or an up-side-down helicopter. But I can't find any games like this! You fail, game industry!

Thank You! I'm not the only one who thought the criteria Jim had was overly specific. I mentioned this before. One theory why videogames don't have very many female protagonists. Vocal game critics have ridiculous uber-specific demands on what the female looks like, story, hero/villain, etc. There is no way game developers can please them. (Unless, you make the female character a purple dinosaur.) You don't hear that kind of demand about male characters in videogames. Most of them wouldn't be able to meet Jim's criteria about female characters.

Most male characters WOULD be able to meet Jim's criteria and that's the major issue. With male's we can have playable protagonists who are ugly by conventional standards, act like a horrible person and have motivations that stem beyond trying to please the opposite sex. Why don't we see more games where you play as a woman horribly scarred physically, someone incredibly old or someone overweight or even slightly chubby? We have a wide variety of male characters out there and it would be refreshing to see that same level of variety with female protagonists.

 

[Pat Hulse]

Peacock - Her motivations center around being used as a test subject, which Jim would justifiably qualify as "power from trauma".

Wait that was one of his conditions? Ok so it's no longer about "there's not a lot of variety in women" and now it's "I can't find my perfect version of a not-attractive female protagonist except for Vertgo".

If we exclude power from trauma we'd have to exclude Kratos, and Niko Bellic and most of anyone else out for revenge.

It's true that we'd have to exclude Kratos and Niko, but there are still plenty of male characters that are strong simply because they wanted to be or because of an intellectual or idyllic pursuit of some kind. The point isn't that characters who get power from trauma aren't interesting, just that when that's overwhelmingly the most common origin story for strong women, it implies that women are only believably strong when something traumatic has happened to them, or to put it another way, because something is "wrong" with them. This was actually one of the most common complaints about the rebooted Lara Croft. While the old Lara Croft was certainly sexualized and not very deep or interesting, it seemed clear that she was a gun-toting grave-robbing badass because she wanted to be and she seemed to enjoy it. A lot of women liked that about her. The new Lara started her adventure because she wanted to, but she honed her survival and combat skills because she had to, and that rubbed some people the wrong way. I personally don't mind it in her case, but I get why someone might be bugged by that and why it's a problem that there are few heroic women in games that simply aspired to heroism because they wanted to. Even if it's for selfish reasons like honor or glory, it's still at least acknowledges that a woman might want to be strong for reasons other than trauma.

 

[Aikayai]

If non-humanoid is excluded then this is pretty much a dead end. I think it goes as far to say that Jim is not only right about this, but he has evidence which can be used as proof that video games are sexist. Never again can it be denied.