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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!
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.
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.
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
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.
I stopped at the above quote. So much for objectivity. I think the author needs to get laid.
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.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.