Should Feminism and Gaming Mix?

[Rebel_Raven]

As much as Giana Sisters stand as a decent game where the female protagionists are done fairly well, I gotta ask, how well known is that game beyond intense gamers who pay attention to gaming? The women who're turned off by the way gaming's gone aren't hanging out at the windows waiting, they need their attention grabbed.

I know it's bad form to just take a snippet out of your comment but this kind of bugs me... and honestly I'm having a hard time putting into words why because it seems so obvious. You're saying it's the fault of the game makers that the customers aren't looking for the game they're selling? If the person isn't even paying attention to gaming then I have to ask, why do we care about what they think? If the person is too lazy to actually turn on their freaking computer, get on the internet and do a google search of "games with female protagonists" then that's their fault, not the person that made the product.

It's fine as long as you have the context, I guess. ^^

No, it's not their fault that people aren't looking for the games they're selling. But if their games are hard to know about then it's not really the consumer's fault either, is it?

Who says a person not looking doesn't care about gaming? You don't always know what you want exists. There might be women who want to game, maybe go a bit beyond casual, but they see games where women do things in bikinis first and foremost. They might delve into indie but see thousands of games with dudes for dudes and played by dudes, and not see Giana Sisters, or something similar. Their computer might not be powerful enough to run those games smoothly.
Why on earth would a person who doesn't feel they're being catered to keep their fingers on the pulse of an industry that continually have bad news?
I'm not gunna say "Giana sisters needs TV commercials" though it'd really help, I bet, but word needs to spread somehow.
It helped that the game got on PSN, though as I know the game from there.

Google turns up decent results, but damn it all, does it not say anything that they gotta GOOGLE it? Who's -trying- to get their attention? Maybe ther are women who don't know they're gamers until they see a game that's desireable? Maybe letting non-consumers know they're included might actually have an impact?!
You gotta look at all the variables and all the angles. You can't just draw the shortest line. Sometimes you gotta connect the dots.

Honestly, when I got fed up with the sea of dude protagonists, I did what you proposed and googled for games, and even trying to keep my eye out for games with women in them, minus indie games as I've said it a thousand times, my laptop's terrible and I prefer consoles, I'm not even remotely satisfied.
My S.O. followed suit and she's largely burned out on games due to the drought.
There's a frustratingly small window of console games that allow a woman to be a non-sexualized woman. Consoles are really simple to get into. It'd be a falsehood to say that a PC is always 100% reliable, or even as reliable as a console.

Ah, I see what you mean now. I've always seen you as one of the better debaters of the other side in this discussion (In all the threads I've seen on it, on this site at least) so I was baffled by what I originally interpreted your comment to be.

I'm glad the matter is clarified, and I accpept your praise highly. Thank you! :3

 

[Rebel_Raven]

--

What can I say, wouldn0t want to be in your position. Seems like you really just can't find someone who makes games just for your taste. That sucks, but other than that I can't really say anything. Gather people with same problem and try to get some attention. But, as I said before, publishers have really bad experience with listening to such pleads/demands.

Only thing I can say is that information are more readily available than ever before. One can't complain about lack of something if they didn't research it beforehand. But, as it stands now, largest demographic group in gaming is not interested enough to look up what would suit their tastes, they have enough games they like showed down their throats on facebook and all other sites they visit on regular basis.

The thing is, I -can- find people who make games to my taste, but there's not many, and there's barriers like rarity, obscurity, exclusivity, etc.
Honestly, maybe companies should get on facebook if they aren't, and spread the word that they make games that come in hardcopies that might appeal to women. Maybe gamers that like them will find them, like/friend them, spread the word, I dunno. Going after your market is frikking vital to business. Period.
Honestly, though, I hate facebook. I hate giving personal info, I hate people being bored with me (and I am boring! ), and frankly i'm just too much of an introvert. Plus Facebook can get hacked.

I'm going to have to get a 3DS, and a Vita to say the least. Then a stronger PC. Basically that's a -lot- of money to fully tap in to the games I see that I like. Then I got to actually find and buy the games, if not import them. It's a considerable load of madness to go through just to get the rare entries that are largely -not- on consoles or the somewhat abundant indie games that are generally pretty shallow. Fun but shallow.

I mean Dynasty Warriors as a series is always welcome coz it's pretty inclusive. Koei is a -wonderful- company, IMO. And with Tecmo aquiring them and adding DoA/Ninja Gaiden characters to the Warriors Orochi line? I think they might be stronger for it. Honestly, they're a great company, IMO. I love supporting them. Always have. They don't advertise a whole lot, but they do advertise. I just buy their games semi-religiously. <.<
Bioware, and Platinum are up there for Mass Effect, and Bayonetta, and Anarchy Reigns respectively.
I love Squenix though I can't seem to play a JRPG lately. They rekindled Tomb Raider which pleased me to no end!
Capcom may have detractors, but I love'em for taking up Remember Me, which ws by no means a perfect game, but they gave it a chance! And it wasn't long ago where I read an article where Capcom was in that "Conventional wisdom" that female leads don't sell from back in 2008-ish. They changed!
We'll have to wait and see what the future holds. Sadly they're a small slice of the major gaming industry, and the games are still rare.

 

[Norithics]

Henry Ford's efforts were more about reducing employee turnover than market creation. It worked out that way, but it also invalidates the comparison.

This is a matter of perspective based on who you asked. Far from invalidating the comparison, all it does is change the reasoning, which I would argue doesn't matter in the first place.

In response to the rest of your post, continually pandering to the same audience with bigger and bigger production values without an eye on diversifying what you offer is a sure way to divebomb your nest egg and everything you've ever worked for. It makes sense to me that you'd have this philosophy working in finance, but economics in general has far more to it than what is contained within the science of dollar metrics. Indeed, it is this scared and electric fear of slowing the gravy train that's brought so many aspects of our economy to its knees, and it's only through ingenuity that people like myself have even survived this long.

Perhaps there is merit to actively asking women to get more involved, but those casuals didn't ask, and yet they threw their money in the pot when the ideas came around. That means somebody took a risk and it paid off.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Oh, I know it's not a new thing. I've watched the rise and fall of female characters, the evenlope pushing of the sexualization grow and grow, and such.

Few games rely on sexualization? In the long run, sure, since few games have women. But even Tomb Raider's Lara Croft was based off a model, and she's a lil' noisy when breathing.
Remember Me? Just look at the cover.
I'm not saying that they can't exist but I figure they hold up as examples.

I gotta say it flat out, female NPCs likely don't mean anything to women who're interested in gaming.
Bayonetta is extremely polarizing between the sex positive and sex negative sorts, and it's not hard to see why.

CoD has very few female characters but once word spreads women are being included, they're in.

Women do play street fighter, and I've heard of some in SF tournaments on a more pro level.

As much as Giana Sisters stand as a decent game where the female protagionists are done fairly well, I gotta ask, how well known is that game beyond intense gamers who pay attention to gaming? The women who're turned off by the way gaming's gone aren't hanging out at the windows waiting, they need their attention grabbed.

So, your nationality is getting painted badly. Why not complain about it? You certainly are allowed to.
You can't say "Something like that's hapening to me, so stop complaining" and expect it to work. Having a thick skin only goes so far. Decades of trying to put up with my pet peeves have worn my skin away, and I'm really tolerant. Again, imagine the women who aren't as tolerant because it's the first impression?
As much as a nationality can get painted as the bad guy, I can't think of it being consistently, and heavily done for a long time. Sure, kinda often, but I don't think it in stacks up vs women getting sexualized. And it's way easier to pretend the soldier you're playing as comes from your nationality, imo, than pretending a guy is a woman.
That's not to say I don't have empathy for you, here. I'm not going to outright say "suck it up" so much as try and point out that where you stand isn't as close to where women stand as you think.
I can see where you're coming from, and I wouldn't mind it much at all if you elaborated.

Really, i'm not sure whether sexualisation is still that prevalent in recent games. You mentioned remember me, but that's more of a counter-example. yes, Nilin looks good, but she has a personality and importance to the plot. I never had the feeling she was being objectified or sexualised. is the fact that she is attractive enough to accuse remeber me of sexualisation? Likewise, Tomb Raider. i'll agree that for most of it's history Lara was sexualised, but the reboot portrayed her as a normal young woman, not a sex object.

obviously, games like Deadpool or Soul Calibur have very sexualised female characters, but that's part of what those games are. i'm not saying it's a good thing there, but you don't expect an action movie or a james bond movie to have a lot of deep, nonsexualised characters.

Niin during the game wasn't particularly sexualized. I've played it form start to finish. Still, she didn't get her heterosexual relationship as it was on the chopping block along with Nilin's gender.
Also, check the box art. (spoiler code for size concerns)

Spoiler

I mean they couldn't have tried/used:

Spoiler

I can agree that the new Tomb raider seems like a step in the right direction as far as a relatively normal woman's portrayal, Lara seemingly being modeled after a model, aside. Still she does breathe in a loud, somewhat moaney way. Watch some gameplay on youtube. I mean it's kinda natural, but I can see why people would be inclined to bring it up.
Heck, I usually have Lara in her Aviatrix outfit which has her in pants (IIRC), and a bomber jacket. Bomber Jackets are cool. Lara's getting a sequel in the works.
The Last of Us as you get to play as Ellie briefly kinda helps bridge the gap.
Then there's 2 souls that seems to be sane in their portrayal of women.
CoD, and X-com Enemy Unknown are pretty good about military women.
Upcoming Mirror's Edge 2 might be nice.
The upcoming game Transistor will seemigly have a sanely dressed woman.
While things are getting better a bit, how far, and how long it lasts is something I cannot be sure of at all.

Thing is, Dragon's Crown, the upcoming Bayonetta Sequel, and a lot of games still have women in sex object clothes more than anything despite the strength of character. There's nothing wrong with it to me, and it seems like there's some slow crawls towards equalibrium in representation, but it still feels like the norm same as before. Maybe things are going to change, and I'll at least have less, and less reason to populate these threads as the rarity of a female playable character will go away, and I can buy more than a handful of games per year, and be happy?

One side of me aknowledges Deadpool being pretty juvenille. The other side of me has been a Deadpool fan for years, so I don't care, and still want the game. <.< Wouldn't hurt if they got his alternate universe female self out there as DLC, but still, I respect Deadpool.

Fighting games, as I've stated before, seem to represent a decent goal towards representation of women. Women make up a good chunk of the cast, and they're pretty varied in style.

Yes, Soul Calibur gets flak for the gradual sexualization of Ivy, and Sophitia(sp?) and Taki, and her protoge, but some women are actually dressed decently, aren't they?

People like pointing out Mai Shiranui from King of Fighters as a "problem" but they overlook King, Leona, Yuri, Athena, Whip, Kula, and well, pretty much every other woman in the series that doesn't dress like Mai. And even considering that, Mai -owns- who she is. She dresses like that to screw with people, and go after Andy Bogard(sp?).
Street Fighter's a bit murkier. It seems like every last woman is dressed to to make guys drool, and some ladies if they're into that. <.<

Dead Or alive is pretty murky like Street Fighter, but there's alternate outfits. Problem is they don't really get screen time, so you can imagine it has a rep with sexualization.

I'm just saying, you look at the women of fighting games, and you look at the women of gaming in general, and it seems to me like that there's the best variety in videogames, and there has been for years.
The plots are wafer thin, sure, but still, there's a lot of variety in fighting games.

Captcha: I have fallen
And I can't get up!... well, more like I dun wanna get up. <.< *Gets lazy.*

 

[carnex]

--

On PC you'll have no problem finding games. Digital distribution is main outlet on PC platform so it's always 1 click away. And all the indie stuff is on the PC anyway. Most of those games would run on potato with some electronics stuck in it

Don't worry about the future. Whole industry is running headless right now. In recent years this industry was hit by more changes in short amount of time than any other entertainment medium in history. New markets (casual and middle age females), new type of platforms (smartphone and tablets), new monetization systems with resurrection of old ones (free2play, piecemeal content, shareware, episodic), new distribution systems (well, over the net is new for some, piracy paved the way for that ages ago) and new development kits which make game making much less of a pain giving raise to indie and return to spirit of old 8 and 16 bit computers. No wonder bigwigs are smashing in every obstacle in the way. Foundations on which they created their empires crumbled right underneath them.

But good thing about all that is that new ideas are pouring in through the cracks as publishers try to save their lives. We are already witnessing equivalent of Hollywood?s late seventies. Let's hope they don?t turn cynical like Hollywood did just a decade later.

And you can't really blame indie developers for not aggressively advertising on popular sites. That space costs prety penny and unless you can project reasonably good increase of income it's just plain burning money. F2P MMOs benefit the most due to the nature of their monetization for they tend to advertise the most. From OGAME to Settlers Online and Travian they are the one who will benefit. They have no barrier of entry and once they hook you, they will milk you for every last coin they can. As Robert Kotick (CEO of Activision) put it (not actual wording but same analogy he made) "When you are on the bring of victory in intense multiplayer match you won't think twice to drop a dollar to reload your gun". But this is offtopic now.

 

[runic knight]

-Snip-

I suppose I didn't give it enough thought there. You make really good points and certainly have the data to support them. I was mainly just thinking of the trends in the Triple A arena I see more often, but you make a point in that I shouldn't assume that is universal to those companies themselves and even if true for the largest money making core of the companies, they seem to be putting effort at other titles.

I still do see the problems I raised as affecting things in the way I mentioned though. Large, bloated budgets and games so big they have to succeed or else, I just can't help but see how that would not make matters worse. You made your point well though about other game types, so I suppose I would be best leaving that complaint just in its own scope rather then trying to apply it to a larger field. Hard to argue the budgeting habits that are probably dangerous for the company anyways are specifically affecting their appeal to women. Especially so when it is hard to fairly determine actual demand for that genre of game devoid of any sort of cultural or community aspects that may affect demand, though admittedly probably not extensively so.

Please make no mistake about my arguments in relation to feminism itself though. I am of no mind that women should be tricked into playing games they don't want or that the market should be forced to bend to that direction just because. Hell, spend far too much time making posts arguing the contrary. Still, I think these factors can all interrelate. Still, a good read and lots of data to dig through there still. So many links.

 

[GryffinDarkBreed]

Know what I think?

What mixes with gaming:
-Free speech in line with the terms of service of the service provider

-Allowing for a fair and balanced playing field regardless of social standing, and is indeed the ultimate goal of most developers.

-Suitable and effective difficulty curves and player aids that help guide new players into the rules and mechanics.


What does not mix with gaming
-Politics.

-Religion outside of exploration as part of a narrative and/or world.

-Propaganda

-Intentionally making one group look inferior, disposable, and ultimately worthless without strong narrative reason [Don't see many women getting such treatment...]

-Needless censorship and restrictions on designer's visions based on overblown 'social issues', claiming portrayal of certain groups in the media causes the viewer to have that view [Doesn't work for people arguing that games make murderers either.]


Is patriarchy a problem? Yes. In South-east Asia, Africa, The Middle East, China and some of Japan's older culture.
In the US patriarchy has been dead for AGES. The reason Third-Wave Feminism sees so much hate and vitriol aimed at them from huge tank-sized bores out of the gaming community? Because the gaming community is too smart to listen to their bullshit without calling them on it.

I'm for everyone having equal rights under the law, in every regard, every court. I am for people having equal opportunities based on their skills, ability, ambition and drive. I am NOT for the censorship of free speech, enslavement of men to battle-ax divorcees, destruction of families, estrangement of men from their children, and the systemic violence against men broguth forth by Third Wave Feminism, in the form of rape-claim denials, protesting of calm, professional discussions of men's issues, and in general just being obnoxious, holier-than-thou bitches.

When I would rather hang with militant VEGANS, than a group like 3WF, it kind of says something.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

--

On PC you'll have no problem finding games. Digital distribution is main outlet on PC platform so it's always 1 click away. And all the indie stuff is on the PC anyway. Most of those games would run on potato with some electronics stuck in it

Don't worry about the future. Whole industry is running headless right now. In recent years this industry was hit by more changes in short amount of time than any other entertainment medium in history. New markets (casual and middle age females), new type of platforms (smartphone and tablets), new monetization systems with resurrection of old ones (free2play, piecemeal content, shareware, episodic), new distribution systems (well, over the net is new for some, piracy paved the way for that ages ago) and new development kits which make game making much less of a pain giving raise to indie and return to spirit of old 8 and 16 bit computers. No wonder bigwigs are smashing in every obstacle in the way. Foundations on which they created their empires crumbled right underneath them.

But good thing about all that is that new ideas are pouring in through the cracks as publishers try to save their lives. We are already witnessing equivalent of Hollywood?s late seventies. Let's hope they don?t turn cynical like Hollywood did just a decade later.

I can't argue that there's going to be a hell of an easier time finding games on PC, but this is where consoles shine.
Will the PC games even -work-? I've done some PC gaming. Lately I hit up GoG. Got some free games. Some wouldn't work. I got torchlight for free, but since my laptop is heavily geared towards socialization with my small circle of friends, I tried to run it in windows. I set it to run in windows... and the game went minimized, and I had to google to find out what the problem was.
It's just a personal thing for me, but my laptop has a touchpad. Touchpad+keyboard isn't quite as good as mouse+keyboard, and even then I still preferr a controller. Unfortunately a lot of games don't necessarily support a controller.
And of course a decent PC that can run games solidly will cost money. Arguably more than a console. Believe me, I've had PCs custom built before so I know how cheap they can be. I could possibly build one myself, but there in lies 2 things in favor to consoles, IMO. Cost, and "no assembly required." Well largely no assemnly required aside from plugging things in.

Honestly, I ran my laptop through 2 different sites that will tell you if you can run games like Team Fortress 2, and Blacklight Retribution, and Scribblenauts, and, well, it might as well have linked me to a youtube vid of Joker laughing. <.<
Doesn't help that my laptop is occupied on websites, and messengers at all times.

I -am- worried about the future. Girl Power 90's had quite the selection of games out there with female protagonists. Then it almost entirely dried up. It seemed so sudden, too. When will this good time for female protagonists dry up? I'm practically sure it will, and I'll be more jaded for it. <.< Still, I have a glimmer of hope that things are changing. Maybe in 5 years, we'll see something substantial.

Indie games are nice, and all, but honestly, they're shallow, but fun. I like meat to my games. Many gamers do.

I have my hopes for the industry. I hope there will be a change, and I hope my predictions that "if you build it, they will come" (well, more like if the game industry builds games that appeal to women respectfully as gamers they will come) happens, and both sides of this debate can be happy, and I'll be too busy having a wonderful selection of female protagonists from the extra trashy to the sort you'd take home to mom (so to speak. Some moms might like their daughters extra trashy, I dunno. <.<)) to have an opinion that they're too rare.
And when that day comes, I feel like others will be in the same boat.
That'd be my optimism, there, but I'd rather be pessimistic, and wrong than optimistic and wrong.

 

[carnex]

--

I'm kind of bised towards PCs. I build and maintain them and computer networks for my livelihood...

As for girl power games, they are here. But mostly in non-action genres. They went where gamers went unfortunately. Hope that Mirror's Edge 2 doesn't flop like first one or I see another drought of female action heroes in games.

But I wish women would stop talking and start working on this problem. Game creating process has no sex bias. Some of most celebrated game designers of all times were women.

And don't underestimate indie games. I'm not sure what you meant by "meat", but they are just as fun and, more often than not, even more thought provoking and intelligent that AAA titles.

 

[Loonyyy]

--

One of the reason for that bias is insecurity. You never know when female employee is going to get pregnant and leave for 18-24 months. She might never do that, but fear is based on realistic problem. So unless woman out qualifies a man, he is usually seen as more reliable choice. Nature screwed women over on this one.

You never know when a male employee is going to get cancer and have to stop work during treatment for 6-12 months, or longer, and if he will relapse. You never know when a male employee is going to have a nervous breakdown and end up in the psych ward for several months. You never know when a male employee is going to be hit by a car crossing the street.

All employees can end up with a health condition. Female employees potentially getting pregnant is missing the forest for the trees, and is still sexist.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I like to thank everyone who have responded so far. I haven't had a chance to read all of it. I'm guessing it's a mix of responses from sincere to trolling.

Couple of points I want to make from the responses I've read so far.

Anything online should be taken with a grain of salt. So, no I don't have documentation about this incident beyond the blog. The reason I didn't put more details about the incident. Some people would try to dismiss this issue by distractingly complain about the game or the blogger. Did I have any legitimate reason to fear that would happen? Yes. Someone tried to distract and dismiss my post by criticizing my avi.

No, I am not asking whether there should be a game about feminism or not. If someone comes up with an interesting game about feminism I would play that game.

Feminist critique about art does have a place. However, videogames are a very much a copycat industry. Trying to glean a social message out of the numerous war games, sequels, and the same Mario game that gets released year after year is pretty fruitless.

The issues I have is with faux rage. It's taking a pet peeve and try to make it about social injustice. If you can convince people that what you are complaining is social injustice. Then there is no way people can come back and say it's just your preference.

Another problem with faux ragers is that they debate the issue dishonestly. Instead of looking at all sides of the issue and concede common sense points. They would take things out of context, dismiss points out of hand (like you're a man and this is different), ask you to prove in detail why you disagree with them without them doing the same thing likewise, etc.

I thought of an analogy that hopefully puts this in perspective. Imagine a woman getting served a wrong meal at a restaurant. She makes a big deal about it. Claiming that restaurants are sexist. When told that men get served the wrong meal as well. It's not the same, she replies, because men can eat anything and they aren't judged by their looks like women do. After a while, someone needs to say, "Hey, let's try to have some perspective about this."

That's all I'm asking for. Let's have some perspective about this issue. Can the videogame industry do a better job about how they characterize women? Yes. Also, they can do a better job with male characters as well. I just finish with Bioshock Infinite. Booker Dewitt is a horribly, written character. Half the game, his motivation is "Get the girl. Clear the debt." Whoa, that's barely one dimensional! At least, Elizabeth was a positive, well-written character. I guess that's progress.

 

[Darks63]

This question came up couple weeks ago in a blog. It detailed one guy's experience playing an online multiplayer game. He performed a violent action against a male avatar that he has done hundreds of times before. A female voice, who was playing that particular male avatar, accused him of being sexist for doing that to her. If that wasn't enough of a buzzkill, half an hour later, she tracked him down in the game and continue to berate him.

Not really sure what this story really has to do with sexism or feminism myself. It seems more like the case of someone dieing in a pvp match and screaming at the person who beat them. If the said female has screamed that he won though hacking instead of sexism you wouldn't even be able to use this story as a lead in.

No.
Obnoxious political groups shouldn't mix with anything.
Which is pretty much all of them.

pretty much what the summery of this thread should be least i think so.

 

[Amir Kondori]

You example is the biggest strawman I've yet seen on an Internet forum. I think I might mean that literally.

Anyway, yes, obviously sexism being an issue that affects society at all levels yes, it mixes in with gaming.

That does not mean that I am going to be thinking about it all the time when I am playing games or that I would let anyone, woman or man, berate me for killing them during normal course of game. Although I wonder if there is more to your little story than you let on.

Anyone who doubts that sexism and gaming mix should go read Fat, Ugly, or Slutty:
http://fatuglyorslutty.com/

 

[carnex]

--

One of the reason for that bias is insecurity. You never know when female employee is going to get pregnant and leave for 18-24 months. She might never do that, but fear is based on realistic problem. So unless woman out qualifies a man, he is usually seen as more reliable choice. Nature screwed women over on this one.

You never know when a male employee is going to get cancer and have to stop work during treatment for 6-12 months, or longer, and if he will relapse. You never know when a male employee is going to have a nervous breakdown and end up in the psych ward for several months. You never know when a male employee is going to be hit by a car crossing the street.

All employees can end up with a health condition. Female employees potentially getting pregnant is missing the forest for the trees, and is still sexist.

Now, what you said is squarely from one, highly subjective perspective. Both sexes have roughly the same chance of catching the disabling disease or injury (chace of later can be influenced by behavior of individual and with high-value personnel is often addressed in contract). Also, diseases like cancer and similarly disabling diseases are unpredictable enough not to be factored in anything but the harshest of contracts. If a person had a history of psychotic disorders in family or some crippling genetic dissease, employer would factor it in the moment he spoted it. But medical records are off limits, protected by the law.

Now, you can count with a decent amount of certainty that woman will, sooner or later, want to have children. Majority of women do, and it's something they strive for. Also, to add to that, in my experience about a third of all pregnancies are unplanned, something my aunt and sister who work at maternity ward say is stupid opinion since that rate is even higher. It's a real, predictable factor of risk for employer. Not only that employer will have to hire new, inexperienced employee who yet has to fit into existing team, but also have increased expenses since he pays for maternity leave too. Ofcourse adressing that risk in contract is unacceptable. Some have tried over here and paid for it.

You may say that it's sexist or not, I won't argue that here. It's not the time or place. All I wanted to point out is how invalid your comparison is.

Anyone who doubts that sexism and gaming mix should go read Fat, Ugly, or Slutty:
http://fatuglyorslutty.com/

Have you ever hear about the saying "If you lie down with children, you wake up wet"? Yea, anonimity gives people freedom to vent their frustrations on everyone. You are female? Here, have some indecent proposals and some slut shaming while you are at it. You are black? Hey, get away fro my TV you damn ******. For every group there is something specilized and frustrated person is going to lash out if he/she feels secure in anonimity. All you can do is report them and hope that whoever administrates that place fixes them one way or another.

 

[Saxnot]

Niin during the game wasn't particularly sexualized. I've played it form start to finish. Still, she didn't get her heterosexual relationship as it was on the chopping block along with Nilin's gender.
Also, check the box art. (spoiler code for size concerns)

Spoiler

I mean they couldn't have tried/used:

Spoiler

I can agree that the new Tomb raider seems like a step in the right direction as far as a relatively normal woman's portrayal, Lara seemingly being modeled after a model, aside. Still she does breathe in a loud, somewhat moaney way. Watch some gameplay on youtube. I mean it's kinda natural, but I can see why people would be inclined to bring it up.
Heck, I usually have Lara in her Aviatrix outfit which has her in pants (IIRC), and a bomber jacket. Bomber Jackets are cool. Lara's getting a sequel in the works.
The Last of Us as you get to play as Ellie briefly kinda helps bridge the gap.
Then there's 2 souls that seems to be sane in their portrayal of women.
CoD, and X-com Enemy Unknown are pretty good about military women.
Upcoming Mirror's Edge 2 might be nice.
The upcoming game Transistor will seemigly have a sanely dressed woman.
While things are getting better a bit, how far, and how long it lasts is something I cannot be sure of at all.

Thing is, Dragon's Crown, the upcoming Bayonetta Sequel, and a lot of games still have women in sex object clothes more than anything despite the strength of character. There's nothing wrong with it to me, and it seems like there's some slow crawls towards equalibrium in representation, but it still feels like the norm same as before. Maybe things are going to change, and I'll at least have less, and less reason to populate these threads as the rarity of a female playable character will go away, and I can buy more than a handful of games per year, and be happy?

One side of me aknowledges Deadpool being pretty juvenille. The other side of me has been a Deadpool fan for years, so I don't care, and still want the game. <.< Wouldn't hurt if they got his alternate universe female self out there as DLC, but still, I respect Deadpool.

Fighting games, as I've stated before, seem to represent a decent goal towards representation of women. Women make up a good chunk of the cast, and they're pretty varied in style.

Yes, Soul Calibur gets flak for the gradual sexualization of Ivy, and Sophitia(sp?) and Taki, and her protoge, but some women are actually dressed decently, aren't they?

People like pointing out Mai Shiranui from King of Fighters as a "problem" but they overlook King, Leona, Yuri, Athena, Whip, Kula, and well, pretty much every other woman in the series that doesn't dress like Mai. And even considering that, Mai -owns- who she is. She dresses like that to screw with people, and go after Andy Bogard(sp?).
Street Fighter's a bit murkier. It seems like every last woman is dressed to to make guys drool, and some ladies if they're into that. <.<

Dead Or alive is pretty murky like Street Fighter, but there's alternate outfits. Problem is they don't really get screen time, so you can imagine it has a rep with sexualization.

I'm just saying, you look at the women of fighting games, and you look at the women of gaming in general, and it seems to me like that there's the best variety in videogames, and there has been for years.
The plots are wafer thin, sure, but still, there's a lot of variety in fighting games.

Captcha: I have fallen
And I can't get up!... well, more like I dun wanna get up. <.< *Gets lazy.*

I'm not a huge fighting game fan, but there's examples on both sides, right? you mention street fighter, but i find Chun Li a lot less sexualised than Ivy from Soul Calibur.

I don't think the problem is sexualisation in itself. almost every form of media had sexualised/fanservicy characters and lowbrow content. the problem is variety. And in that sense there has been a movement towards more games with better plot, and better female characters. In fact, its remarkable how much of a stink there's been around Dragon's crown, and the Hitman trailer before that. It's a sign of change that there's been so much discussion about these things in recent times. Something like Dragons Crown or Bayonetta have their place like pulpy movies and books have, and that's a good thing. Occasionally we all want to see a stupid blockbuster or trashy tv series. That doesn't in itself change the value of a deeper, more meaningful work in the same medium.

 

[carnex]

Does anyone beside me thinks that highly sexualized female can be used as female empowerment tool in right context? Just wondering wince I seem alone on Bayonetta perspective.

captcha:
look before crossing

well I just crossed the line and hope i get answers and not flames

 

[Loonyyy]

Now, what you said is squarely from one, highly subjective perspective.

No it isn't. It's a perspective, everything is, but it's in no way subjective. You may want to look into using those words properly.

Both sexes have roughly the same chance of catching the disabling disease or injury

No, they don't. Many conditions have different rates according to gender. For instance, heart disease, which is a significant cause of death, is more common in men than women. So, if we decide to look at heart disease only, we should hire only women.

This is my main point: To focus on one condition, particularly one which is gendered, narrows the data to make a specific point which indicates nothing about the rates.

(chace of later can be influenced by behavior of individual and with high-value personnel is often addressed in contract).

And people frequently misprepresent themselves in those settings, but really, this is mostly an ass-pull.

Also, diseases like cancer and similarly disabling diseases are unpredictable enough not to be factored in anything but the harshest of contracts.

Sure. But they're also quite common, and can significantly effect a workforce. I'm not talking about contracts though: If your reason for not hiring someone is you worry they might need time off for pregnancy, you must also consider cancer, heart disease, and a variety of other significant causes of long-term leave or mortality. To do anything otherwise is to completely fail at basic reliability.

If a person had a history of psychotic disorders in family or some crippling genetic dissease, employer would factor it in the moment he spoted it.
But medical records are off limits, protected by the law.

No shit. Not even my point though. If you want to factor in pregnancy, you must factor in the other conditions, and evaluate a hazard rate for employees. If then you find that men have a significantly lower hazard rate, you're merited in making the decision. But this calculation is not being performed. It is being ASSERTED. Based on pregnancy. Which, unlike most other decisions, is one which the woman actually has a choice in. The assumption that they're going to leave you in the lurch says poor things about management skills, and the relation of employees to their workplace.

Now, you can count with a decent amount of certainty that woman will, sooner or later, want to have children.

Nope. Also, you could do the same with men, and some areas have paternity leave, so that a father can care for a child. Should we not hire them because their significant other we know nothing about, has a child and they take time off to care for it?

Majority of women do, and it's something they strive for.

Don't assume motives for a group. It's bad mind-reading. And someone will accuse you of mansplaining. Back it up or shut it up.

Also, to add to that, in my experience about a third of all pregnancies are unplanned, something my aunt and sister who work at maternity ward say is stupid opinion since that rate is even higher.

96% of statistics, including this one, are made up on the spot. I'm not going to take hearsay. And adding your little argument from authority to back up the assertion doesn't make it better. Have I beleaboured you with the fact that I'm currently doing the engineering course on failure rates, to buttress my argument? No, I've referenced the relevant content. Although, reading a little on statistics, or reliability, would be advisable. I'd recommend O'Connor, Patrick P., Practical Reliability Engineering, 5th Ed. The maths is pretty entry level, and it's a good read.

1.) They may be. What demographics is this in though? Because while the overall rate for unplanned pregnancies may be 1/3, it only matters what the rate is for the person you're hiring. If I'm hiring a 50 year old woman, the odds of her becoming pregnant are astronomically low.
2.) Is she on birth control? Many women are. The odds of them getting pregnant by accident is low.
3.) Pregnancy by accident is a subset of pregnancy. You have to consider that 1/3 of the rate of pregnancy. What is the rate of pregnancy? It's not a 33% failure rate for female candidates. It's a 33% chance, if they fail due to pregnancy, that it was by accident, iff the rate for that group is 33%, which it isn't for most candidates.
4.) Does this risk, totalled with all other risks, contribute to a higher failure rate for women than men? Considering men have a shorter life expectancy, and higher risk of heart disease, death due to risky behaviour, and numerous other conditions, are they more likely to fail? We need to sum all of the most significant factors, and justify the basis for excluding others based on their probability.
5.) Now that we're doing this by gender, we should also consider other factors. More intelligent people tend to be inclined towards substance abuse and depression. People who come from poorer backgrounds tend to be more at risk of being convicted for a crime. We should account for these, shouldn't we? Or are we just trying to discriminate on the basis of sex? The Gender Line is an arbitrary line around which to base hiring decisions. Intellect, wealth, race, and many others, all carry different risks. If we decided that hiring a black person was risky, because statistically, he's more likely to be imprisoned, we'd be rightly condemned as racist. And again, we'd be using the wrong failure rate, because that we are considering his employment actually means he's at a lower risk. The point is, this analysis is a significant undertaking, and can be performed, but it's not being, instead, discriminatory cases are being made without relevance to any work.
6.) The employee is an individual. Considering only the large view misses the point. If you don't want your employees to become unavailable, you need to manage it. You also need to make the system prepared for unavailabilities.

It's a real, predictable factor of risk for employer.

So is heart disease or imprisonment. But we're not really doing a hazard analysis, are we? We're ass-pulling to justify an assumption based on a narrow focus. The real thing is: Pregnancy is something that only happens to women, so we can use pregnancy to discriminate against women. It's as simple as that. You want to play statistics, do it. Do it properly so that you can present a proper case that a female employee (Not just a random female), is more likely to fail than a male employee.

Not only that employer will have to hire new, inexperienced employee who yet has to fit into existing team,

No, they won't. What environment are we talking about firstly? Because if we're concerned with a job like fast food or retail, training is simple, and we would already have more than enough staff, because they're rostered in shifts.

If we're talking a more serious job, like an engineer, or a nurse, or a doctor, we're not going to be able to replace them as easily, and we're not going to have excess labor just hanging around, so this criticism stands, but, needs further consideration: The employee has completed requisite education without getting pregnant and gained a high-status, difficult to achieve job. The likelihood that they're going to sacrifice that shortly to become pregnant is MUCH lower. Professional women are much less likely to get pregnant younger.

but also have increased expenses since he pays for maternity leave too. Ofcourse adressing that risk in contract is unacceptable. Some have tried over here and paid for it.

You also would pay for many other forms of leave. But if it's a "professional" (For want of a better word) job, the odds of this happeneing are relatively low.

You may say that it's sexist or not, I won't argue that here.

It's entirely sexist, and demonstrates a complete inability to understand basic probability, reliability, or even just life. It's an attempt to define women exclusively by their sex to discriminate against them on the basis of a probability case which was never evaluated. It's entirely disingenuous.

It's not the time or place.

It is. It's misogynistic.

All I wanted to point out is how invalid your comparison is.

Except you didn't, because you didn't demonstrate that the hazard rate or failure rate for men is lower. So you're still sitting on an unproved point, and now crowing about it. Poor form.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

--

On PC you'll have no problem finding games. Digital distribution is main outlet on PC platform so it's always 1 click away. And all the indie stuff is on the PC anyway. Most of those games would run on potato with some electronics stuck in it

Don't worry about the future. Whole industry is running headless right now. In recent years this industry was hit by more changes in short amount of time than any other entertainment medium in history. New markets (casual and middle age females), new type of platforms (smartphone and tablets), new monetization systems with resurrection of old ones (free2play, piecemeal content, shareware, episodic), new distribution systems (well, over the net is new for some, piracy paved the way for that ages ago) and new development kits which make game making much less of a pain giving raise to indie and return to spirit of old 8 and 16 bit computers. No wonder bigwigs are smashing in every obstacle in the way. Foundations on which they created their empires crumbled right underneath them.

But good thing about all that is that new ideas are pouring in through the cracks as publishers try to save their lives. We are already witnessing equivalent of Hollywood?s late seventies. Let's hope they don?t turn cynical like Hollywood did just a decade later.

I can't argue that there's going to be a hell of an easier time finding games on PC, but this is where consoles shine.
Will the PC games even -work-? I've done some PC gaming. Lately I hit up GoG. Got some free games. Some wouldn't work. I got torchlight for free, but since my laptop is heavily geared towards socialization with my small circle of friends, I tried to run it in windows. I set it to run in windows... and the game went minimized, and I had to google to find out what the problem was.
It's just a personal thing for me, but my laptop has a touchpad. Touchpad+keyboard isn't quite as good as mouse+keyboard, and even then I still preferr a controller. Unfortunately a lot of games don't necessarily support a controller.
And of course a decent PC that can run games solidly will cost money. Arguably more than a console. Believe me, I've had PCs custom built before so I know how cheap they can be. I could possibly build one myself, but there in lies 2 things in favor to consoles, IMO. Cost, and "no assembly required." Well largely no assemnly required aside from plugging things in.

Honestly, I ran my laptop through 2 different sites that will tell you if you can run games like Team Fortress 2, and Blacklight Retribution, and Scribblenauts, and, well, it might as well have linked me to a youtube vid of Joker laughing. <.<
Doesn't help that my laptop is occupied on websites, and messengers at all times.

I -am- worried about the future. Girl Power 90's had quite the selection of games out there with female protagonists. Then it almost entirely dried up. It seemed so sudden, too. When will this good time for female protagonists dry up? I'm practically sure it will, and I'll be more jaded for it. <.< Still, I have a glimmer of hope that things are changing. Maybe in 5 years, we'll see something substantial.

Indie games are nice, and all, but honestly, they're shallow, but fun. I like meat to my games. Many gamers do.

I have my hopes for the industry. I hope there will be a change, and I hope my predictions that "if you build it, they will come" (well, more like if the game industry builds games that appeal to women respectfully as gamers they will come) happens, and both sides of this debate can be happy, and I'll be too busy having a wonderful selection of female protagonists from the extra trashy to the sort you'd take home to mom (so to speak. Some moms might like their daughters extra trashy, I dunno. <.<)) to have an opinion that they're too rare.
And when that day comes, I feel like others will be in the same boat.
That'd be my optimism, there, but I'd rather be pessimistic, and wrong than optimistic and wrong.

Hhm. Well in terms of games that won't crash your PC, I guess I can give you some that I have, though I've probably repeated some of these in other threads.

There's... Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery. Although it's not easy to tell, the character you control is in fact a woman. There's Aquaria. This one might be somewhat resource intensive but I don't have a PC optimized for gaming and it's run fine for me so take that as you will. Saira is a nice puzzle/platformer game with really good ambiance. Rosenkreuzstilette. It's basically a Megaman game but set in a fantasy setting and with an all female cast. Recettear An Item Shop's Tale. I still unfortunately haven't found time to get back to this one but I've heard good things about it and from what I've played it's a good game. To the Moon. Not much for gameplay but it's a good story and as a plus to my particular demographic, it involves aspies. Bunny Must Die. A metroidvania game that can be really hard and is full of jokes. Eryi's Action. A game that somewhat takes a page from I Wanna Be The Guy but isn't a jerk about it. The deaths are treated more like puzzles you need to figure out and they're more often done to elicit a laugh from you than to make you frustrated. It's also not NEARLY as hard as I Wanna Be The Guy. Ib. A game about a girl that ends up in another world inside an art museum and tries to escape. A very good game with multiple endings. Engage To Jabberwock. Not sure how to classify this one in terms of gameplay... it's a top down game but it involves shooting and danmakku a lot of times. Mad Father. A very good horror title which has you playing as a young girl as the dead come back to life to kill her father for the experiments he performed on them. The Witch's House. Holy crap... I won't say anything about this other than it's one of the more heart wrenching and horrifying games I've played in a long time. Knytt Stories. Another kind of metroidvania game but it's more focused on just soaking in the world and the ambiance than the actual gameplay, but the gameplay isn't bad. Iji. Still don't really like this game, it just didn't click with me due to the nature of how you get certain endings. But people really like it so... Ah, and it's a sidescroller/platformer/shooter. The White Chamber. A horror adventure game with some very good visuals, I just recommend you turn off the voices. Misao. Another horror game, and I believe it's made by the same person that made Mad Father. It's rather hard to recomend it as the main part of the game is just kind of okay but once you get to the epilogue part of the game it all suddenly gets waaaaay better. Juniper's Knot. Not really a game but I'm adding it anyway because it's a great Visual Novel and it deserves more recognition. It's a very nice story about a boy and a fiend. Blackwell series. Still haven't gotten around to this but it's an adventure game series staring a female protagonist and I hear good things about it. Yume Nikki. Haven't been able to play this one because my computer doesn't like it but I've watched Let's Plays and it's really good food for thought about dreams and the meanings of them.

And I guess that's all of them. None of these games are super resource intensive, usually when I've had trouble it was just because I'm not an expert on everything required to download certain file types. Hope you find something you can enjoy in them.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

--

One of the reason for that bias is insecurity. You never know when female employee is going to get pregnant and leave for 18-24 months. She might never do that, but fear is based on realistic problem. So unless woman out qualifies a man, he is usually seen as more reliable choice. Nature screwed women over on this one.

You never know when a male employee is going to get cancer and have to stop work during treatment for 6-12 months, or longer, and if he will relapse. You never know when a male employee is going to have a nervous breakdown and end up in the psych ward for several months. You never know when a male employee is going to be hit by a car crossing the street.

All employees can end up with a health condition. Female employees potentially getting pregnant is missing the forest for the trees, and is still sexist.

All those things you mentioned could happen to a woman though. -_- Pregnancy, as much as some yaoi fangirls may want it not to be, is something that can happen to a woman only.

snip

I don't agree with your evidence or the conclusions drawn from it. I am going to continue to call out sexism, objectification, and damsel tropes when I see them. I am going to support the right of other people to do so. I don't believe in the "tyranny" of social pressure, because if you bow to it when you don't believe that you should, it just means you are too weak to stand on your own.

Games have a right to be sexist and journalism has a right to be sensationalist and people have a right to talk about it. You may not like what is being said, but that is part of the price of freedom. Maybe you should have a go at not being sexist and enjoying freedom, my friend.

Have a nice day.

"All that evidence you just gave me? Whatever, I'll ignore it."

Seriously dude, at least go through all of it and refute them instead of using this hand waveall of it as if none of it had anything to say. Responding like you just did just makes you look like someone that's decided to take their ball and go home.