Machine Man 1992 said:
Rebel_Raven said:
VanQ said:
I really don't want to risk posting in this thread seeing as there has been a wave of random bannings but... Lately I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I started following MovieBob's stuff, it's things like this that remind me he wasn't always the social justice warrior digging for page views that he is now.
Anita has brought out the very worst in all of us... what have we become? Remember when we used to talk about games guys? A time before we were more hung up about what utensils a character has between its legs?
Snip
Or maybe the reason we remember female heroes like Samus and Lara and Jade (pulled that one right out of my butt, I tell you what), isn't because they're chicks, it's because the games were
good.
the 90's were still a time of experimentation, when we didn't see concepts hammered into the ground to the degree they are today (or maybe my glasses are rosy indeed?)
Nilin from Remember Me could have been listed alongside the greats if the game was worth playing.
Lara Croft required a system reset and that hasn't made her any less divisive.
Samus has to walk off Other M.
And Jade won't be seen for at least another half-decade at this rate.
My point is, It doesn't matter what gender the protagonist is. The quality of the product is what matters.
It seems lie every time a game with a lady lead bobombs, pundits focus on the gender of protagonist as the sole cause and what pigs gamers are and blah-dee-stinkin'-blah. They never focus on things like lackluster marketing, or executive meddling, or poor quality. They also never use this line of logic when a game with a male lead does a similar performance at market.
I've got my rose tinted lenses on for the 90's, too.
I'm sorry, but representation's still really important.
I, and people I know wouldn't be as irritated with the industry because I'd have female protagonists to help in immersion. I could get into the role a lot better. A lot of people like me would be able to enjoy gaming more.
You just pointed out some of the bad representation women have in gaming. They've been in crappy, misinterpreted, and/or forgettable games lately. It's nothing new, really. It's definitely part of the problem.
Yeah, Remember Me was average at best in terms of gameplay, but it felt like everything else was so much better. I appreciated the world, the characters, the ideas that went into it. It just didn't get the execution it deserved.
Tomb Raider's reboot was probably decisive coz of Lara's constant audible breathing, and the fact that the game was more third person shooter than puzzle game. The "rape" infamy didn't help much either. The scene was pretty jarring even when I played the game, and overblown by people, but I'm not going to lose my mind over it.
I could see a lot of the criticisms leveled at Lara in the reboot, but I pretty much have to take what I can get if I want a professionally made game, and she did seem a step up from her competition.
Considering Ubisoft sees Beyond Good and Evil as a mistake, I doubt we'll ever see Jade again in a new game, but the next gen will tell. I read an article, I think in Game Informer, that the developer wanted BG&E2 on a more powerful system. Then again the latter doesn't mean crap coz the higher ups have the say.
Samus may never walk off Other M, I fear. I mean, it wouldn't take much more than a game to help fix her reputation, IMO. Or two. Geez, if she got games more often that was more in line with the Samus we expect than Other M it'd help a lot, I'm sure. Metroid isn't known for being a complicated game, so where are the attempts to fix her rep? It's been 3 years.
We need women in gaming, and we do need them in good games, and we need them often so we have women to talk about in a positive light instead of bertating what few we get because they're not in great games, and are portrayed in largely sexualized ways.
The more subjects on the matter of female protagonists we have, the more opinions we can have. With luck as many, or more of those opinions can be positive than negative.
It's hard to have a positive opinion when what few we get are flawed, obscure, and/or in less than stellar games, especially when we know the Industry is capable of so much better.
Good games are being made all the time. They just don't include playable women as the star, by and large. Why? It seems like gender is the only answer. If it's as simple as making a great game, and putting a female in the lead, then why hasn't it been done?
It's not a matter of guys being incapable of writing women. Lots of guys write women credibly. We've a lot of nice NPCs out there that were written for by guys. We have comic books, books, movies, and TV where guys write for women credibly.
Even then, her writing isn't the end all, and be all. A lot of games with guys in the lead have gotten high praise when the guys were pretty underwritten.
Even if it was a matter of guys writing women, then how hard can it be to hire a woman? They gotta hire a writer anyhow, right?
It'd help to have some nice writing, though, believe me. Women's representation in games needs all the help they can get.
If gender doesn't matter, then what the community says shouldn't matter. Just make a great game, and they won't care.
Believe me, I fully understand a lack of worthwhile marketing, executive meddling, and game quality have played a role in things, but I don't understand why those themes are so common in games starring women. The only commonality I can see is the gender of the protagonist.
If we're supposed to see beyond gender, and gender isn't supposed to matter, then why does pretty much everything the industry does (largely halfassed) for female characters seem to hinge on the gender?
