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Genderplay in Videogames
thenovacrisis writes "Game Girl Advance has an interesting article about the various female characters in videogames. She talks about the important balance between alienation and identification, the Aesthetics of Sexy Girls, and various MMORPGs. An interesting read for all." A lot of games are compared, and issues raised. Good food for thought for character design.
Metriod. Samus is both a complete badass and sexy to boot.
Yeah I'm all for gender play. Remember when Tomb Raider first came out and you tried to get her backed into a corner so the camera would focus in on her wonderful coneshaped cleavage?
:)
Yeah, we need more gender play.
Come on, Tinkler, Tink!!
In RPG's, MMORPGS and Sims Online (I am the person you heard about that actually enjoys it :) Don't worry, I start medication next week) I almost exclusively play as a female character.
And yes I am male.
The number 1 reason I do this is because I would rather be staring at a sexy gal while I waste my life on these games then a male character.
Besides isn't the point of RPG's to pretend to be something you are not?
The best equality computer game was Leisure Suit Larry. Plenty of chicks in that game!
Thats about as close as a gamer will ever get to a good-looking woman.
Hm, Game Girl Advance....I know! They put out this little gem.
You zap the moderators with a wand of humor! The moderators resist!
That site obviously promotes sexuality since it covers all kinds of bikini girls and none of Syberia, The Longest Journey, and other women, I said WOMEN of computer gaming.
Let the women stand up, don't degrade them as sexual tools.
Has anyone else noticed that everyone in videogames is idealized? Men are all super muscular or pretty boys, girls are all tall and big breated. Videogames are meant to be an escape, not a acurate depiction of life, that is boring.
The real question is when are we going to see quality X rated games. With engines like those running UT and NWN, not to mention the great artwork, one would expect more that cyber equivalents to paperdolls. >
Looking through this article, I find myself wondering exactly what is going on that this is the first major posting such as this that I've seen. (Or maybe I'm not looking in the right places.)
Of course, games are generally a reflection of what the public demands, but have they also conditioned the public to expect sexy vixen heroines?
Another thing I find interesting is the inclusion of playing crossgender. I tend to do this simply because it helps me learn interaction skills on the other end and thereby get a better play experience all around.
The suggestion towards the end "Set up some rules and let the players play with both the gamespace and the genderspace, however they wish. Don't push girls away from games like Tomb Raider just because you're afraid boys won't like to identify with Lara. Don't insert gratuitous sex - or for that matter, violence. Make it *mean* something. Don't bind gender with too many built-in characteristics, but let girls be girls in your game. Allow a lot of different types of female characters, not just thin, pretty, busty ones." is a great one, and something I think might be incorporated into future RPGs and MMORPGs.
Getting things politically correct is all nice and good, but games are meant to be fantasy. For the average person it is a fantasy to be a huge muscle bound superhero or a sexy woman that can domainate.
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Now there really are a large majority of right-handed persons on earth, but the gender balance is 50-50. So when you are designing games that appeal to young males, but seem odd and obviously sexist to young femails, you turn off (or just marginalize) potentially half of your paying audience.
Wait, you say! Games are geared toward males because that is overwhelmingly who play games. Could that be a chicken-and-egg thing, even if true? If so many popular games weren't so obviously geared toward male sensibility and away from female sensibility, perhaps that breakdown of gamer gender demographics wouldn't be so pronounced.
How do tools get built for lefties? Either because left-handed people demand it, or by empathy on the part of right-handed tool builders. 'If I were left-handed, how would this tool work for me? Hmm..not very well. I'd better make an adjustment.' So too with game designers. If you want to capture the other 50% of the market, can you empathize with that other half? Can you think about how they view those images and gameplay strategies?
Interesting article from that perspective. It's good to remember how others think.
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Ba.
Okay. First, I've read both articles and found both to be quite good reads. The Rez Vibrator article was great. The thing has no real obvious applicable shape other than what she did with it. It's like the company said: 'don't waste time on design, their stoners. They'll figure some crazy way to use it.' I don't think the article was any more than a that: an article. It wasn't exploiting the authors sexuality for hits or money.
Second, the genderspace article is NOT screaming in a neo-feminist way for 'equality'. It's simply making what I see as a very good statement about the assumptions and generalizations withing the industries character design. She is not shying away from T&A games, she is simply saying 'hey, girls play games now to, why not some good girl characters that alienate us less?'. She even likes the idea of DOA, it just doesn't appeal to her.
But, you could have RTFA.
Instead you chose to feel emasculated. I think that says WAY more about you than the issue of 'equality'.
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
After spending more time in UO than anyone should, over 5 years and 10+ accounts, I've done everything from Player Killing, House Decays and Sales to being Mayor of Oberon Pass a small player run town from way back when. And so I shall dispense words from on high as to how gender works in UO.
Only idiots allow the fact that an avatar is female to sway their behavior. With a signal to noise ratio inherent in a MMORPG, there are alot of idiots doing it and I've had idiots act differently towards my female chars. You can actually bring in quite a bit of loot bank crawling with a female in distress, I've known many who've gotten away with outright scams this way.
Everyone else pretty much ignores female/male, since they know it doesn't matter what the avatar looks like it's the personality and skills behind it. This is probably most of the UO population, especially since there is very little "suspension of disbelief" or "game immersion" when playing within UO except on certain rare occasions.
The Role Players are a subset of the above, they however make a point to play RP in appropriate situations to the gender of the avatar. So even though they may be acting like their judgement or actions is swayed by gender, in reality they are going to roleplay such events as they see fit, and not be coerced into giving away valuable items as the idiots are likely to do.
Jonah Hex aka DogMeat of Oberon Pass [MoO]
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
GameGirlAdvance has been in the spotlight once before, because of her review of the Rez Trance Vibrator. Go ahead and give it a read, it might get you a bit how under the collar, so to speak.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
The original Metroid, released in 1987, was among the first major video games to feature a female protagonist. This was soon followed by Dokidoki Panic, released in the USA as Super Mario 2, which allowed you to play the role of Princess Toadstool.
Since then, Nintendo has continued to be a trailblazer for featuring females in prominent roles in games, and that is something I am quite proud of.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
Who wonders how those game chicks with 40DDD bazooms and the 20 inch waists can do flips and the like without falling on their faces?
Yeah, I thought I was. Carry on.
Jeez. I thought the /. crowd was supposed to be a bit intellectual, but most of the posts I've read about this thus far are mostly knee-jerk, anti-PC, mysogony.
The article isn't claiming that she feels victimized or 'whining' about the portrayal of the female body. It's actually quite good, IF you're capable of turning off your 'the world hates me for being a white, middle-class, male' alarms. Show some dignity and don't have a hissy-fit over a woman commenting on gender in games.
Getting to her final comments I think she has some well formed points, and I agree whole-heartedly:
"I don't want to see a shelf of pink boxes of "girl games". I just want to see better games in general - games which are more thoughtful, more provocative, more interesting, with better character design.
Something you hear over and over again in the research around what girls want out of games are themes like "open-ended" and "less-goal oriented" and "co-operative play". These are also the themes which most adult gamers seem to want, too. Talking with my friends who are game developers and designers, they don't want to see bouncy boobs, necessarily (although there's a place for that, sure); they want evolved gameplay, emergent gameplay - with great characters. Set up some rules and let the players play with both the gamespace and the genderspace, however they wish. Don't push girls away from games like Tomb Raider just because you're afraid boys won't like to identify with Lara. Don't insert gratuitous sex - or for that matter, violence. Make it *mean* something. Don't bind gender with too many built-in characteristics, but let girls be girls in your game. Allow a lot of different types of female characters, not just thin, pretty, busty ones.
The end result isn't just going to appeal to women, it'll appeal to a lot of people across the board who want smart, fun, engaging games."
Anyone who likes games can relate. This isn't femi-nazi rhetoric, so allow yourself to ponder it a bit before being a reactionary.
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
Indeed this was a solid piece of work, but it raises far deeper issues with the direction games journalism, and the general perception of the medium, is now taking.
I have followed GGA for quite a while and whilst I appreciate Jane's enthusiasm, I do feel that her take on games journalism is particularly exploitative.
Moreover she has the annoying habit of selling her work off to the reader as an academic piece. If she wants that type of prestige, that an academic career offers, then she should follow that (she is eminently capable of this). The halfway house she occupies at present only acts to accentuate her apparent insidious vapidity.
I am all for constructive academic discussion on the medium of videogames, but I will not advocate frustrated games journalists who feel slighted by their chosen career path.
Do not get me wrong, I agreed with everything that article puts forward. It is just the execution that I contest to being overtly manipulative.
Cacophanus
http://cacophanus.net/
I like women in my games to have big tits and small waists.
Girls just flock to you don't they?
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
the laughably phallic joystick
Yes, just like the laughably phallic handle on my frying pan, the laughably phallic handle on a tennis racket, or the laughably phallic bannana I had for breakfast today.
I think it was John Lovitz in an interview that told a story about the time he went to see "Crimson Tide" with a girlfriend. When he asked her what she tought of the movie she answered something along the lines of "It was a phallic movie. Subs were phallic shaped, torpedoes were phallic shaped, etc". His reply was "Thanks god it wasn't vagina shaped or it would fill with water and sink."
My point is, those who see penises everywhere are just plain obsessed. Even Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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I stopped at the above quote. So much for objectivity. I think the author needs to get laid.
A lot of people don't know about games like The Longest Journey.
And personally, I've never heard of Syberia.
The bikini-girl games are the ones that get a lot of press. TLJ, I never would have heard of if a guy at work hadn't had it and offered to let me borrow it.
Here's a novel idea, though.
Women are not sexual tools. They are, however, sexual. Every portrayal of a woman doesn't have to deliberately throw that away in order to be 'serious'. Which seems to have been part of the upshot of the article--it's not inherently evil that these things happen. There just needs to be an awareness that women are people. That even incredibly model-gorgeous women are people.
Okay, granted, I'm not one of them myself. I wear glasses and a size 15. I have hips. I even kinda like my hips. And what the gaming companies may eventually get is that there are women *like* me out there who'd pay through the nose for a character who was strong, deep, and not in the least bit asexual.
The thing about being a woman is that a woman is not somehow gendered but sexless. Trying to insist that we *should* be is no better than saying we should be sexy but mindless.
First, it's been brought up that Duke Nukem, with it's tight-shirted muscle man didn't offend guys the way Tomb Raider offended some women. However, Tomb Raider didn't present the option of paying male strippers. For that matter, you spend all of Tomb Raider starring at Lara read end, while you spend Duke Nukem starring at Duke's boot.
Next, on the whole issue of out-of-place sexuality in games, just think how many gamers were pissed by the Hot tub scene at the Honey Bee in Midgar in Final Fantasy VII. If it had been hot chicks in skimpy swim wear we probably wouldn't have heard as many complaints, but the instant male gamers are forced to deal with a hyper-sexed male game character, they freak.
On the whole issue that people go to games for fantasy, and expect fantasy style characters, I find mostly plausible. However, it breaks my suspension of disbelief when my knight's armor offers as much protection as my female assasin's bikini. Also, when you read classic (aka. good) fantasy and mythology, you don't find hot chicks, you get beautiful women. Helen of Troy didn't have the 'Ass that Launched a Thousand Ships'. Odysseus' Penelope kept well clothed. Tolkein's Arwen could sleep on her stomach. You can still have attractive female character, just try and follow the rules of human anatomy.
Finally, the comments that 'Teenage Males are the video game market' is absolute heresy, considering how many anime fans Slashdot has. You know how the cycle works:
- American Business declares that American's don't like Anime, so they put out a lousy translations with bad voice actors.
- People get pissed by the bad translation and voice acting and don't buy the video.
- Sales come in slow and American Business declares that American's don't like Anime.
Teenage males buy the games because the games are oriented towards teenage males.Metal Gear Solid from the playstation has a "vibration test" option in the menus that you can hold down continuously... more fun than the game itself!
I'm a girl too! See naked chicks in my journal!
Fundamentally, it's not a problem of the majority of gamers being geeky teenage boys. You could have a majority of gamers being well balanced, thoughtful sorts who are tired of misogyny and brainlessness in games, and we'd be in the same situation. Why? Because well-adjusted people have something other than games to balance their life, and so they'll buy a fraction as many games as hardcore nerds with no other life.
Hmm. That's somewhat opaque. What I mean is that it's selling to a market of sales figures, not a market of players. You only need a small fraction of "hardcore" gamers who thrive on blood, guts, and T&A to be buying 75% of the games, which will drive out a HUGE fraction of the buying public.
And let's be honest--it's easier to throw some jiggly cleavage and 'real life blood splatters' into a game than it is to come up with a convincing and immersive world. Easy, guaranteed sales vs. difficult, small sales and a rewarding game. Not many publishing houses are going to support the latter.
As an aside, there are two EXCELLENT games which have important female characters, although not the main character. One is System Shock 2! Blood and guts, first person shooter, with a few women scattered throughout, and...Shodan.
The other is Grim Fandango. Just about as wonderful (and funny!) as an adventure can get, and several women are pivotal to the whole game.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
What I found somewhat interesting, is that in Japan, the original Tomb Raider actually received the kind of marketing (at least in its TV spots) that the author of this article wished it had in the states. The TV spots featured an average Japanese girl (i.e. not some ultra-cute girl used to attract a male audience) running around, emulating some of the actions of Lara from the game. The ad basically did what Jane was hoping--it presented Lara as a strong avatar for a female audience to identify with.
I basically tried to set up my roommates as friends who got along well and they started making out and sleeping in the same bed.
That game is shit, though, I got bored of it after a day.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
You did know that the ultra-girly characters of Sailor Moon were designed by a Manga house made up entirely of women artists, right?
To say nothing of what you see when you flip through the magazines that most women choose to read.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
"Killing time at the airport the other day, I got that whisper of a question in my head -- that whisper I'm sure we've all heard... the one that says:
Now, I'm talking about arcade games where the only possible protagonist was female (unlike games where you could choose a different character one of which was female Gauntlet, or games where you were female for just one particular part Return of the Jedi, or games where player one was female, but player two was male Aliens). I'm also not talking about games where the gender could have been either Space Invaders, Asteroids, PONG.
Searching my little mind I could come up with only the following:
I'm pretty sure this was a female spider because I think it had the "hourglass" mark (which I believe the male lacks).
Here are games that I have been /msg'ed about:
If you can get past the comment about "phallic joysticks" (patently ridiculous, supposedly a joke, but didn't apppear to be) you're doing better than i did at first. Saying things like that shows a heavy bent towards a priapic mindset or a staggering lack of understanding of both history (of flight control sticks and video games) and ergonomics.
.. because I don't know if they did.
It gets worse further on, though. The writer states about Tomb Raider: "I never played this game" and then goes on to say "Eidos, you really blew it - you alienated all the girls who would have *loved* this game." Excuse me, but how do you know? You never played it, remember? Maybe the gameplay wouldn't even have been of the sort that girls enjoy? I've never played Tomb Raider either, so I certainly won't bash Eidos for "blowing it" in any aspect of its gameplay
Following along she makes a good point about the DOA Volleyball game, but then blows it with a rant about a barmaid in Baldur's Gate. Okay, I don't know about you... but when I play some game with medieval feel I expect my barmaids (wenches) to be ditzy, busty, and generally exactly like the description she gives. It sounds like a perfect fit in that kind of game to me. Guess what, sluts and whores are real and they are a part of the collective group of women on this planet no matter how embarassed you might be about it.
Also, who the hell is "Justin"? I have a hard time taking an article seriously when the writer talks about random third parties without any introduction. (I do know who Justin is from reading other stories on the site, but I might as well not from the article. it's bad writing.)
Moving along I see another thing which frustrates me. She makes a comment about the genderless trolls of Tolkien's world and how they are "inherently male." Okay, fine, let's say I take that at face value (I don't, if something is genderless than it is genderless). Then she goes on to say that she "would like to see more experimentation with genderless or gender-ambivalent characters" Well, which is it? Pick one, please.
Okay, other than that she doesn't trip up. However, I have another major gripe with this article and another point which keeps me from taking it seriously. She never mentions the "male stereotype" that is just as easy to find in videogames. Main characters are always buff and bronzed, always fighting their way through situations. Very rarely if ever will you find a male protagonist in a videogame who is a scrawny 5'2" pasty-faced kid with glasses. Or a chubby awkward boy. The main characters as adults and children are idyllic, and anything that diverts from the stereotypical perfection is villainous or sinister (evil genius plotting destruction) or comic relief (fat person struggling to keep up, always wanting to eat).
She really blows it here. Instead of taking the issue of female stereotyping and the overall shallowness of most videogames (I agree with her) and using it as representative of the greater problems with the total lack of realism and sensibility she totally ignores every other slight to every other class of people because, in typical human fashion, she portrays the injustices as directed primarily at her chosen group of identification. It's a very human thing to do, but also extremely frustrating for someone trying to find some subjective analysis and critique where it is sorely needed.
At any rate, if she had just been up front about wanting some more intelligent, realistic, and more engaging games to go with the testosterone infused ones I think this article would have read much better. However she didn't, and the article (and her cred) suffers because she attempted to take a good point and emphasize it with good evidence (ample in the world of gaming) but instead beat it into the ground with some bad examples and a terribly shallow view. It's a definite shame.
you can take the road that takes you to the stars...
"Pandering to sex drives" is a dominant theme in everything in western culture. Its perhaps done in a slightly 'classier' fashion than the game industry in most other cases, but only marginally so, and in fact the more I think about it, not at all. Just look around. Look at a typical magazine section in a store. Almost all of the womens' magazines (e.g. Cosmo, Femina etc) feature sexy, photoshopped women wearing almost nothing. And so do almost all of the (adult) mens magazines (FHM, GQ) etc. So do the magazines for teenage girls. So do the magazines for bikers. So do the porn mags (of course). So do the photography magazines. So do the frikkin comics! Look at television and movies - most of the shows are full of sexy women, and many of the shows don't even try to pretend that they're not just displaying sexy women to attract viewers. Yes, go into a video store and really take a look, you will find that MANY of the non-adult shows are flaunting beautiful women (and NOT just the obvious movies like Blue Crush). Look at the music industry, almost all our female stars are damn sexy. Look at their music videos, they all have to dance around wearing practically nothing, grabbing and touching their breasts and genitals and writhing sexily. Even trade shows in other industries (e.g. mining/defence) have their "booth babes" - some shows may do it slightly classier than others, but a booth babe is a booth babe. No matter how classy she is dressed, you know she is only there for one reason (and its not for her knowledge about the mining or defence industries).
Everybody does this, EVERYWHERE in society, and nobody sees it as out of the ordinary, having long discussions about it on sites like /. In fact, the field of computer games stands out as being quite singular in the fact that people do see it as something unusual (and in some cases see it "as a problem", like this website).
People still seem somehow awed by the idea of sexy women in computer games. Get over it, the whole of western culture is fascinated by boobies. To make a fuss over the fact that this would apply to computer games too just seems prudish (and thus a bit immature) to me. Think about this, does society consider mags like GQ "immature"? No? Then why are tits in computer games considered "immature"?
> GRAB PENIS
I don't know what that is.
Guess you're right!
I bought Baldur's Gate... There are a few "overly-sexy" characters in the game which seemingly are there for men's eyes only. The game itself is outstanding. I played it all the way through with my girlfriend [its cooperative action RPG ... great fun]. I could see she was visibly upset at the jiggling boobies in the game. It totally took away from her experience.
:)... but that's besides the point. I think the field is missing out on contributions of the female gender and until we stop buying this rubbish the publishers will give it to us cuz it sells. Welcome to Capitalism :{
My point is GOOD GAMES DON'T NEED to throw sex in our face to make us play. I mean really... who played Zork or Space Quest? Was there a ton of sex in those games? Did a lot of people play them? I *know* we can do better than this.
Video games were a gateway for me into computer science and programming as a child... by appealing only to men you add to the problem of pushing the feminine percentages down in this field.
I have to admit that this is because I find somewhat nerdy girls attractive
I suppose this has a bit to do with the difference between consequence and intent. In the case of the former, the new-style badass female hero, at least superficially ceases to portray the female gender as subordinate and prone to victimization. However, I feel that sometimes, perhaps even often, this is done the purpose of boosting the "sexiness" of the particular character. I think that one characteristic of the contemporary male worldview is that a certain aggressiveness in females is desirable and sexy. And not that making females sexier, by whatever means, is necessarily a bad thing or a form of discrimination. I think that the intent behind this, though, might be seen as a new way of emphasizing female characters' sexuality in a way that appears to be feminist.
Maybe to put it another way: can I ask the males out there if they think girls with guns is sexy? I used to joke around with my friends about making the ultimate sell-out movie and calling it "Breasts with Guns." It's not just that guys like guns, it's that women with guns is sexy idea. To guys.
And so what if it is? It's okay to be sexy. But seen from another point of view, I think there is a certain novelty factor to the supremely empowered female heroine, and sometimes this is done so deliberately and exaggeratedly as to emphasize their femininity. When I say sexiness, I mean both "sex appeal" in an obvious sense, and more importantly, I also mean the strengh of the sexual identity of the character. I guess what I'm proposing is that the empowered female character appears to the audience first and foremost as a powerful female and only secondarily as a powerful person.
As a comparison I might bring up the Chinese term "nu3 qianq2 ren2", or "strong women", which is used to describe the liberated modern female. You'll often find it used when people mention famous female politicians or busniesspersons. I've talked to some of these women (not really famous, but successful), and they've claimed they don't like the term. Of course, on the surface, it's a term of praise. It lauds courage and success. The problem is that it uses the term woman and emphasizes their gender. There's no corresponding "nan2 qiang2 ren2" ("strong man") term.
I'll admit this isn't a perfect comparison to buffed-out women characters, since there's no obviously stated emphasis of the gender of the character, but I get that feeling nonetheless when I see some of the female characters in videogames and movies and whatnot. It's really hard to pick and choose between examples...it's simply a sensation that I get. This feeling is also reinforced when I know that certain works are created by males for males. It's not fair to say men can't imagine women in a reasonabl sex-objective way, but I do think that this is frequently the case in pop-culture works.