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Men Incapable Of Portraying Videogame Women Fairly?
Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing whether men can be trusted to portray women fairly in videogames. The author references Metroid ("I don't appreciate that Samus being a woman is a punch line"), and Ico ("Yorda... [is] this supposedly sympathetic female character in a video game that can do absolutely nothing for herself and is constantly in danger of being kidnapped"), and ends by leveling the charge: "I think men are inherently incapable of doing an adequate job of properly presenting female characters in games."
Samus being a woman is not a joke, it's a realization that a woman CAN do powerful things and CAN be a hero. It's not an insult, it's something that makes you think.
...two things that are inherently "Male-Centric". Get over it or write your own video game. The world is driven by sex & greed. People (males) buy games that are sexy.
Women are inherently incapable of driving cars
Men are inherently incapable of getting in touch with their feeling
Women are inherently incapable of logical thought
Yeah, let's polarize and call each other names.
As a kid I spent quite a while playing this game, had come to know and like this character, and when I found out the hero was female I thought, "Cool, that's unique. I don't see why the ass kicking protagonist /can't/ be a woman." Ever since then, any instance of female action heros has never struck me as being out of the ordinary. I think if anything, it in some way helped break down the gender wall. At least for some of us.
stereotypical, heterosexual, boobs-obsessed guys.
Just look at 'Serious Sam', where are all the 'sensitive' guys? ;)
Seriously though, my female NWN character is a cultured sophisticated intelligent career-oriented 'femme fatale'.
Face it... girls just don't like certain types of games, and the sterotyping in these games just have no decent limits. This is marketing 101 people! It isn't fair!
- Cigar chomping muscle-brains
- Weasley little pick-pocket wimps
- Corpse-obsessed psychopaths
- Spineless cannon-fodder clones
- Sex-obsessed jocks
- Coke-bottle glasses nerds that love computers
Etc, etc, etc. It isn't a sexism thing, it's a "the story writers are stupider than the game's AI" thing.I don't necessarily think it's bad, or wrong, it's just not everyone's thing. As much as we're told by society and the media exactly what is supposed to get us hot and bothered, it's not always the case. It's like living in Alaska and being shown air conditioner ads all day. It gets old after a while. That being said, the market does dictate content (at least I hope it does more often than the other way around).
Its that Men are drawn to particular types of women and so game designers put those kinds of women in games.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Goddammit. Next thing we'll have articles about women complaining that it is so cliché to have periods, and that it's only to seem interesting they do it.
I miss stupidpeopledie.com
People want to see stuff they can recognize. Everyone expects 'dog bites man' and other clichés. If peoples see 'man bites dog' and honest politicians, they're so confused they don't know how to react. (Usually this is seen after their vote has been cast in the latter case, when it is clear he/she's lost)
A study in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that fully 64.3% of all persons born female, show markedly below average, or even undetectable, senses of humor. Their hyper-emotional nature and comparitively large hormonal fluctuations appear to impede the detection of the logical discontinuity necessary for humor.
The worst thing about today's games is that they're developed almost exclusively by men. "Theory" is actually much too strong of a word, as it's really nothing more than a hunch. I didn't know it was some big secret. I'm too lazy to look up actual figures on this. But its hard enough to find female gamers, or female programmers, let alone someone who decides to combine those two. Personally, I'd love to see more females in the art. Perhaps games would be able to produce a more emotional impact w/ the player. But alas, this is something that does not appear to be happening. But don't complain about it, there is nothing stopping females from entering the industry. Kent
Kent Simon Multitheft Auto
Women are constantly raped, captured, beaten, crying, doing stupid things, acting crazy & naive...
And if they don't they are pure evil without feelings.
It can't get any worse than that!
For example, Beyond Good and Evil, or even Tomb Raider, as Lara Croft is nobody to trifle with, even if she is shaped like no human woman who ever lived.
Or Neverwinter Nights, for that matter... More importantly, the only constructive part of his criticism is that his poorly-defined problem will probably go away on its own. It's all well and good to point out the problems with something, but it generally helps to offer a real solution, too. Otherwise, you're just generating noise, and Cthulu knows there's a surfeit of noise out there already.
...and a feminist he wants to lay.
Because oh so many people rush through Metroid to see Samus in a swimsuit..... that's what internet porn is for.
When it comes to video games, I am not looking for female characters that I can take home to mom.
I want big titties on a tough as nails ass kicking chick like Lara Croft or B. Orchid, or big titties on a soft helpless babes like the babe in Final Fight or the hookers in GTA:3 and VC.
Video games are like porno, the target market is mostly male. As a result the contents are going to be geared towards male fantasies.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Seriously, not only should it be rather obvious that the majority of game developers lack any and all ability to portray real women AT ALL, but the author of this article choose some really poor choices of women in games to prove his point.
Why not attack the games laced with idiot-centric content like women with oversized breasts who are always the victims.
Samus is the one, true video-game heroin that hasn't, (yet), fallen to the same traps as nearly every other female in most other games. She is strong, silent, confident, and not a sex symbol. (Some may argue that the removing of her suit at the end of a quickly completed game is leaning in this direction, and I could understand that, but I still respect Nintendo for at least throwing her in a modest single piece bathing suite when most other developers would have her sporting a scant bikini or a lace nightie).
Yorda from Ico could be seen as a weak female in a game, but she is still infinitely more interesting and unique as a supporting character than most of the aforementioned bad examples. Her character is successfully timid without becoming a weak, victim-ish sex-symbol.
I can't wait to see more *real* women in games, but this will most likely come with the arrival of more mature developers.
I remain unconvinced of this alleged fact. Perhaps you can encourage his wife to produce the contents of her purse so that we may judge for ourselves.
Or does he work in an office with a female of the hot persuasion who purse he'd like to consider holding for a few hours on end while she looked at shoes. We've all walked through Norstrom's and seen "that" guy. That's no life.
Why not get a female perspective? Some oversight in all things female... I think if there were female producers looking for jobs in Gaming they would be hired. Give it a try girls... it's a good job and pays reasonably well, I here 60k and up is normal for a game producer.. if you're experienced it goes to 6 digits.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
To assemble a thoughtful, introspective article? Come on, this is just flame bait on a larger scale. Granted it's not NYT calibur flame bait, but a real flamer it is.
All Kasavin has is an insipid remark about Samus. Apparently it's not possible to look good and save the universe at the same time.
The only other real complaint is an admision that he sucks at ICO which is twisted into blaming Yorda.
The rest of the article is a list of exceptions and apologies.
It's a subject worth exploring, but this article is doing more harm than good.
"I think men are inherently incapable of doing an adequate job of properly presenting female characters in games." Perhaps you could make that case if they were TRYING to properly represent a female in thier game. But they were not. They typically make games geared towards males. As for Metroid, Samus being female was a small tiny part of the game MOST people didn't know about for the first five years the game was out. I remember hearing Samus was female 3 years after I first played it.
What of Alys Brangwin from the 4th installment of the series? The article cites Alis Landale as a strong female protagonist, but then goes on to say that her gender was largely a non-issue. Alys was proud to be a woman, and knew damn well that she could kick the asses of anybody who got in her way, regardless of their chromosomes. Furthermore, she had a lean, athletic figure and dressed very modestly-below her neck, no skin showed at all.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
I'm the parent poster, and I have to say I made a mistake. I didn't see the screen of (what I assume is) one of the latest Metroid games on that article. I guess Samus is heading in the way of scantily clad bimbo-whore. That really bums me out because the current state of females in games is really irritating to me. How sad...
My friends and I didnt not take it as a joke when we found out, after playing the original metroid for years that Samus was a female.
At least in the academic institutions.
I've friend who attends Copenhagen University's Institute of Datalogy (sp?), and he say's the percentage of women attending the institute has passed 20 - and some of them are actually hot...
Yorda was a pathetic character, useless in every possible way. Just when you start getting up to a good jog, she slows you down by jerking on your arm. I swore if she did that again I'd find a way to yank hers out of its socket and club her to death with it.
I mean, male game developers get crucified for portraying a female character as helpless, feminine, whatever.
Then, they go and make a gung-ho asskicker--university educated, genius, speaks multiple Asian languages fluently, is a straight shot, knows several martial arts, drives cars like Fangio, jumps off bridges, climbs buildings, and generally unleashes whupass.
And lo and behold, pandemonium breaks loose among the PC crowd, just because she's clad in a tiny thong and miniskirt and has enormous bazoombas? I mean geez, make up your minds....
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
An example (note: I live in DK):
In the neighbourhood I grew up in, there are a lot of immigrants, and since 1997 (long story) these have mainly been from Somalia.
From what I understand, Somalia is not a nice place to be, for anyone. People die from famine.
So of course, people emigrate to another country.
They come to Denmark and become as complacent and decadent as us. They watch TV with their kids. (80% of the TV shows in DK are from the US) Their kids see black people acting a certain way. They think it's cool.
Suddenly, they're walking around with bandanas and FUBUs and shit I've never wanted to know about, trying to even sound like the actors on TV. Hell, it's even more pitiful to see than when I was in Greenland and saw Greenlandish Niggers*.
Talk about your off-topic-I-haven't-slept-all-night rant.
* Note: I've been to Greenland 13 times. Never saw a black person there.
Lev Thermin ended up in a Gulag camp. The only one of his significant others who didn't divorce him commited suicide before she even married him.
Happy days for the man who invented the first electronic instrument.
(I was once caught in a theremin concert, and I was afraid that I'd go deaf. To be fair, the blindingly painful parts were actually quite well, and I blame the technician)
Warning: Some moderate (possibly heavy) Ico spoilers will ensue after the quote.
I never finished ICO. Not only did I get stuck at a certain point about halfway through, but more to the point, I grew sick and tired of the girl, Yorda, and her uselessness. This character was so pathetic, it almost made me angry. I admit that this is not the effect the game was intended to have on me or on anyone; however, here's this supposedly sympathetic female character in a video game that can do absolutely nothing for herself and is constantly in danger of being kidnapped. Who better than a man--or in this case, just a boy--to come to her rescue.
If Greg had played Ico all the way through, he would've realized that Yorda was only pathetic because she had been repeatedly injured and abused. The real Yorda was quite a bit more capable, just as the injured, abused Ico was just as pathetic (if not more so) than she was when she was injured.
This is what happens when someone starts their analysis of a game with the words, "I never finished..." That's like watching the first two minutes of the Spider-Man movie, turning your DVD player off, and then devoting two paragraphs to asking why someone would want to watch Peter Parker act like a geeky loser for two hours. If you're going to review or analyze something, you should at least have the maturity to take in the whole thing before gracing us with your ignorant opinion.
That's pathetic. It really is. Why does he feel the way he does? What kind of horrible psychology has warped his mind into this sad state?
He feels guilty that Samus is a woman? And that Samus *can* be seen in a bathing suit? Oh dear lord! Someone call the thought-police, he might start forming an attraction to the opposite sex! How horrible! -- Though the true horror is that he feels this way. That, every time he views an in game portrayal of a woman even REMOTELY attractive, it is somehow a violation of "womens rights".
Let me tell you something guys. Not as a woman, because i'm not. But because i'm a MAN, and I no longer tolerate this "acceptable society" bullshit. Women in games? Thats great. SEXY women in games? Thats even fucking BETTER! Now before the "facist-femme militia of well-whipped men" decends on me, i'd like to point out one interesting fact: Women LIKE sexy portrayals of women. Women LIKE to feel sexy. They LIKE to feel attractive, they fucking ENJOY the power to reduce a man to a quivering puddle of goo with their bodies. Come on men, don't you too? All
I know, I know... a lot of you probably don't believe me. Well look right here. Its a page all about female characters in video games. Browse through the ratings, go ahead. Check out some good examples and some bad. Notice anything? Notice any attractive females with high ratings? Women are not offended by their own genders display of sexuality and power. They love that shit just as much as guys do. What's offensive is unrealistic images and blatant focuses on sexuality. Guys, a woman is a mind and a soul as well as a body, and if they're going to play games then thats the kind of avatars they expect.
I strongly encourage poeple to read this article if you haven't already. And check out some of the quotes too. This one was on the infamous Lara Croft (sp. the box art):
Whoa whoa whoa - back that up there. She LIKES the cover art? Lara Croft? What the hell? Look at her breasts! They're huge! And those shorts are TINY! How could any woman *LIKE* Lara Croft's signature pose? Its so blatantly sexual! By definition, all women should hate it, right?! WRONG. Like I said again and again: Women do not mind attractive females in games. They enjoy their sexuality too, because its *part* of how they define themselves as a woman. They IDENTIFY with a woman's sexual power. So what do they hate? Read on:
And BINGO! It was the marketing! The focus! Here, a female gamer was impressed not only with the attractiveness of Lara, but with her strength and confidence as well. For a b
That's like saying that male authors are inherently incapable of doing an adequate job of properly presenting female characters in books. It may be true for many male authors, but I can't believe that's true for all of them.
Just because the article author believes (rightly or wrongly) that it hasn't been done yet, doesn't mean that men are inherently incapable of doing it.
From the parent post: "Vote NOT Bush"
What! A vote for Bush is a vote for violence. I thought gamers loooved violence.
Invading Iraq is just a rich person's video game. Except you pay for your games. They are different. You pay for theirs, too.
And, of course, they kill real people.
Gosh I thought that was the next page of the article. Something about cocks and how we never see any female orcs or something.
The whole article was really sad, not something I thought I would see linked to from Slashdot. I almost thought I was reading something from Game Girls until I followed the link and realized they had already done the same article....better.
Why do so many men think like militant lesbians? I don't hear woman gamers complaining about how they're portrayed in games, when I hear one with a legitimate complaint, I'll take it seriously. Until then, this is just a bunch of pathetic men complaining about a demographic they likely have about as much contact with as any other part of the outside world. So far, I've seen documentary after article after essay written by nerdy men by the truckload, and not one word from an actual woman on the subject. Isn't that STRANGE? WIERD even? Perhaps they don't care. Perhaps they won't say anything until the pussy whipped men shut up. Perhaps they know better than to moan and complain about their portrayal in a game meant to be FUN. I don't know. All I DO know is that these articles are masturbatory at best, and frankly, the sort of thing only a game nerd could ever get away with getting paid to write.
It's been a long time.
The problem isn't that attractive female characters are shown, it's rather the very narrow definition of attractiveness that plauges all media. Most attractive women seem to be come from the same mold. I personally find the girl-next-door geeky girl infinitely more attractive, but then again, I'm a geek myself.
Objectification is another problem. I completely agree with the criticism against Lara Croft and how a strong, capable kick ass woman is reduced to drool material by stupid marketing. It's perfectly fine with me to drool over her body, but when that's all there is to her, something's wrong.
As for Yorda in Ico, I agree that not playing the full game is unfair, but she's also a product of a society (Japan) that still is very inequal. I believe her passiveness and inability is as much a game device as it is a reflection of the view of girls in Japan. Compared to other kinds of oppression, Ico is a harmless fantasy for boys in the end. I mean, who hasn't dreamed of being a hero and saving the girl?
The author of this article is obviously gay! I don't hear him complaining about having to look at male character's perfectly chiseled features and gleaming chest muscles as he carries a 6 foot long double-barreled gun of justice.
Not every female character in a game is weak and stupid. Take Jaheira from Baldur's Gate 2. Now that was a good game. There was pretty much every kind of character in it. If you want a more stereotyped girl, there was Aerie. Of course Jaheira didn't like her at all.
There are some fun characters in other games too. For example, in Kabuki Klash (NeoGeo game) there's Tsunade. There's something funny about repeatedly beating up somebody with a 9 year old girl that uses a big battle axe.
The video game developers probably grew up with Marvel Comics... Yowzers!
Melville fails to portray women fairly. Hemingway fails to portray women fairly. Tolkien was so masochist.
I'll tell you what, men and women vary across the spectrum. Either make them stand out or make them bland cardboard. Why don't we suck the life out of all characters and make them mindless automatons of society that take their brain drugs and all wear the same flat black suits with matching pants? And we'll all talk the same and we'll have the same IQ after some quick scalpel work. We all work the same hours and go to bed at the same time. Get the same money for each paycheck and spend it on the same things and save the same percent for retirement. We all eat the same every day, too.
Asking for some "idealized" woman character is like asking to abstract away all that makes her a human being. We've all got issues, is it anyone's fault other than your own that your head is too far up your ass looking for some "ideal triangle" to see that?
Note to women: buy more games. That producers will start to care. Well, care more, at least.
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
I think men are inherently incapable of doing an adequate job of properly presenting female characters in games.
Personally, I think game developers don't want to. Fantasy is just alot more attractive than reality.
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
It's not flamebait, it's actually on topic.
If you aren't in the group what you think or say or do does not matter since your opinion is somehow tainted.
Hold on a moment, since it gets worse as far as women's studies go. (I took a class...more below.)
Right or wrong, supported by evidence or not, the mere support by evidence or the rightness or wrongness comes from your perspective. In the case of women's studies, statements -- right/wrong/evidence/... -- are even 'male constructions'.
If you are a woman you can't give the male perspective completely...if you are a man, your whole 'male dominiated thought process that ignores shades of grey' works against you being able to comment effectively.
You might agree or disagree...it doesn't matter. You agree, that's nice. You disagree, you obviously don't understand you poor schmuck.
(The class on women's issues: Entering the class, I was sympathetic and thought I understood. Yet, as 1 of 2 men in the class I was constantly told any opinion I had -- including having an opinion at all -- was wrong since I should not comment since I'm not a woman. I left with a whole lot less sympathy for women after that.)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Wow, nice rant! Thank you for the links, BTW.
"The author references Metroid ("I don't appreciate that Samus being a woman is a punch line")"
Yeah, that Metroid game, nothin' but a barrel of laughs...
If Samus' sex is a "punch line," what was the joke?
I admit that the character art at the end of the two GBA games makes me roll my eyes (a little too "cheesecake" for my tastes), but here he's arguing that the entire premise is flawed, that her sex is a gimmick no matter what she may look like. This makes me wonder just what he thinks about women in general. He seems to be awfully sensitive to Samus' lack of a Y-chromosone and I wonder if this means that he finds the idea of a woman doing all those things to be unbelievable. After all, he's the only one I've seen who thinks her sex is a "punch line" to begin with.
"each game in the series encourages them to reach the finish line as quickly as possible to catch a glimpse of the woman beneath the suit."
Personally, I try to get the endings so I can catch a glimpse of the person beneath the suit. One of the series' cornerstone is the tantalizingly little information on just who she is and why she does what she does. I'm more interested in situations and facial expressions than her body (and on that note I'm happier with what Retro did with her than what Nintendo has done in the last two GBA installments). I chalk the cheesecake up as a failing by Nintendo to understand just what makes the games popular outside of Japan to begin with, the inability of a group of Japanese programmers to quite relate to gaijin gamers, not a failing of men in general.
Being as sensitive as he is to the pictures at the end, why exactly does the author himself play through the games? How many other gamers here are actually encouraged by the drawings of a scantilly-dressed woman at the end of the game?
Ah, wait a second...
"That's also not what I've been taught by my parents. My mother is a neurologist. Her mother is a physician, as well. The women have always worn the pants in my family, so to speak. Perhaps this helps you understand my perspective."
Now this is interesting. Here he implies that women must "wear the pants" in order to be worth something.
"Alis wears a pink hair band, lipstick, and a skirt, but she's still OK in my book."
I'm as sick of seeing women in pink as much as the next guy, but I didn't realize that actually liking pink is such a black mark against a woman. They can have any favorite color in the spectrum so long as it's not pink?
I think his problem is that he's equating strong female characters with characters acting more male, that men are inherently better and women must act more like men to be better themselves.
Personally, the more I think of what I've seen Samus do so far, I'm not sure if she could have been a man.
Wow, criticizing biased woman portrayal is bad thing, and citing Japan as non-civilized country is not biased and not bad?
The correct title should be: Men are iherently incapable of portraying women in video games the way that radical nazi lesbian feminists think they should be portrayed.
I think men are inherently incapable of doing an adequate job of properly presenting female characters in games."
!
If we're going to be sexist, how about we also field the equally-ignorant "women are inherently weaker and more in need of rescue than men."
Was Laura Croft, Tifa, or the women in Soulcalibur (or other fighting games) programmed by a woman? Are they somehow "adequate" depictions of women--in a way that the same depictions of men are adequate?
...because I can think of several "fair" portrayals of women in games.
First, let's look at the Final Fantasy series. I can only speak to the ones I've played, so here goes:
- Tina--strong woman, though she has some emotional baggage due to
being only half-human. Never portrayed as particularly "sexy," though she's
quite pretty in most official images of her (kind of hard to tell from her
sprite
;-) )
- Celes--definitely a strong woman! She was a general in the army, for
Mu's sake! Not only that, but she can use every bit as big a sword as any
guy in the game (same goes for Tina).
- Relm--she may only be 10 (or so; I forget her exact age), but she's
awesome. She takes the womanizing Edgar down a few notches with her wit, and
has more spirit in her than any roomful of "typical" videogame
characters.
Don't see much to fret over there.- Aeri(s|th)--She may not be physically strong, but she certainly has a
strong personality. Not to mention she sacrifices her life to save the
planet. A bit more stereotypically "weak needs-to-be-protected girl," but
hey, some girls really DO need to be protected.
- Tifa--OK, here we're getting into kind of shaky ground, not for her
character, which I think is fantastic, but for her looks, which are a little
over the top...take that how you will...especially in FMVs.
- Yuffie--heh, you've gotta love Yuffie. She's cute, tough, and funny;
what more do you want?
Again, no real indication that men are "incapable" of portraying women fairly.- Dagger/Garnet: She's beautiful, tough, strong, and still vulnerable at times. I can find no unfairness whatsoever in the portrayal of Garnet's character. Nor is she visually portrayed as anything stereotypical.
- Freya: Not particularly feminine (and not even human); however, she's also both strong and sensitive. Included because she's technically female
;-)
- Eiko: Cross Relm with Yuffie, and you've got Eiko. 'Nuf said.
Still not seeing much problem here.Well, that's all the Final Fantasies I've played through, and in all of that, there isn't a single example of the kind of "unfair" treatment the article was talking about. True, some of them are visually portrayed as "sexy" (though only Tifa, I think, is specifically made sexy without being especially pretty), but this is not at the expense of their character.
Maybe it just goes to show that in the type of action games he's talking about, no one bothers to make the story or characters believable. (I know that's not universally true, but I also know it is true in some cases) RPGs, I have found, tend to make more of an effort than other genres to make their stories and characters if not realistic, at least believable and human. This is probably because their primary purpose is to tell a story.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Video gaming is still a relatively new medium and it hasn't yet attracted a lot of writers who have the skill and/or desire to write outside of stereotypes for either sex.
Well-written characters, though, might always be few and far between. Take a look at television today and ask any demographic how often they are acurately represented on the screen.
Alex.
Someone has already discussed ICO. So here's some other games Greg apparently didn't play.
Beyond Good & Evil: Not only is the main character strong, forceful, and not sexualized, there are several other characters in the game that are as active in the resistance movement as she is. I guess Greg was one of those people who didn't buy it.
Prince of Persia: So you save the Princess. But once you do (and she kind of saves you, the male), she's forthwright, mostly capable, and witty. And exhibits a remarkable ability to slide through cracks. Still, it's quite obvious as you play the game that your character, male character, is an obnoxious idiot, and that the Princess has been right all along.
KOTOR: Not only can your main character be a female, but one of the primary NPCs is also a Princess-Leia-esque female. Sure, you save her, but she doesn't really need it. Same goes for another female member of your party. They're both quite capable. Well, as long as you level them up. So I guess Greg was focusing on the stereotypical macho Mandalorin?
Deus Ex: IW: Again, main character can be female or male. One of the supporting female characters is diplomat of one of the paths you can take, and is quite forceful.
There's many others, but I'm getting bored of listing them for someone who probably doesn't care. Immediately I'm thinking of Anachronox, Panzeer Dragoon Orta, and then there's a large portion of the old Sierra adventure games. The King's Quest series, the Gabriel Knight series, Phantasmagoria series, and the Quest for Glory series were all developed by women. If I thought a little harder than Greg did in his article, I think I could conjure up some more.
So Greg might have a point: in the games he plays, which doesn't seem like many save the original Metroid and the first 2 hours of ICO, women are probably under-represented. For the rest of us, you know, the people that play games, I think it's fair to say that while it's not an equal representation yet, it's far better than it was even 5 years ago. And oh yeah Greg, you make mention of it, but apparently not enough to convince yourself. There are quite a few women in leadership positions in the game industry, who are approving these "embarassing" "malecentric" games. For example, the president of Activision is a women . Hmm. Greg doesn't play games, and he doesn't know about the people that make them. Can I be executive editor too?
A few points about the article..
One of my theories is: The worst thing about today's games is that they're developed almost exclusively by men.
This alone is a sexist statement. If it were being made against women in any industry the writer of the article would be up to his ass in feminazi groups bitching about him. But to move on...
At any rate, I'm sure we all agree that today's games (notwithstanding casual games and a handful of other exceptions) are predominantly malecentric,
They should be, since most gamers are still men. I'd hate to break it to you but any medium has a target audience. You think women have poor portrayals in video games? Try watching how men are portrayed on the Lifetime network. Now that *is* sexism.
I don't appreciate that Samus being a woman is a punch line.
This is proof that the articles author has real issues. Samus was seen at the time as empowering to women because there weren't many women as main characters in video games. The fact that this guy takes it as an insult shows he is grasping at straws.
Sorry, no, that's not what I've been taught from living in the Bay Area for most of my life
That explains it!
The original Phantasy Star, a classic role-playing game for the old Sega Master System, incidentally has a female main character. It's a simple story of revenge, and Alis' gender never comes into play at any point.
Is that what this guy wants? Is that what gamers want? Stories devoid of any reference to gender? Give me a BREAK. There are few universal feelings that everyone can relate to. Lust and Love are two of them.
I really hate articles like this, I hate to be attacked for my manhood. Yes, like many men I find women attractive and like to see attractive women in games/movies/whatever. Women are the SAME way. Anyone who has issues with this has deeper issues with their own sexuality. And yes, I like to play games sometimes where I get to save the girl at the end. WHAT THE HELL IS SO WRONG WITH THAT? It's so funny, I hear women on TV all the time talking about "Where did all the real men go". They have all been scared away, because any amount of chilvery that did or does still exist is mistaken for sexism. So what you end up with is these metrosexual, confused, self-hating people like Greg Kasavin. Greg, go chop your penis off stop writing about games and actually make one. I'm sure it will be a hit.
PS- If you hate sexism in games so much, you might want to lay off UT2K4. I think the girls in there might be too sexy for you. If you want, I'll make you an Rosie O'Donald skin for when you play.
The summary of the article is entirely unfair and presents the original authors view in a light which HE did not intend. This should be obvious to anyone who reads the article. .. sometimes I wonder why I still read this site.
Male Nerds who make videogames for a living probably don't have that much contact with females aside from their mother. It's then clear to see why females are portrayed wrongly. We all know that every 'normal' woman is 6'5", can benchpress 230 pounds and doesn't shave.
This is an ancient philosophical quandary from the days of Heraclitus at least: can any one person truly know what it is like to be another? The question is complex; what does it mean to be? Could you conceive of any new thought or commit any new action given the precise circumstances experienced by another? If "you" had the exact experience of someone else, in the same spacetime, would "you" be "you" - or that other person? Can identity be reduced to spatial mathematics? Is that compatible with free will?
So, while it may be controversial to point out that a man is incapable of authentically recreating a woman in a virtual environment, this is truly an identity question. IOW... can a man even recreate a man in a virtual environment and do it authentically? What you have to determine before that can be answered is: to all men, what does it mean to be a man? But, is that determinable?
Personally, I don't believe the discrepancy comes from misperception, just differences in taste. e.g. what if you find a woman who did appreciate Samus Aran being unveiled as a woman in Metroid, and found it to be a feminist inspiration? Can the identity-based criticism survive even one woman who holds an opinion like, or similar to that? It doesn't appear so.
No I'm not a ST nerd but I think this is pretty hilarious:
"Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
This story proves it!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Please keep in mind that a man's second brain lies within his crotch and it is always barking subliminal commands to us from our nether regions whenever dealing with the fairer sex.
While completely capable of rationale thought amongst other men, our species tends to go retarded around women. This is highlighted by our fear of women in the workplace and in the military for so long.
Our retardedness even goes further so that even when imagining women, we can only imagine what we saw in our state of retardedness and boil women down only to what caught the 'second brains' attention.
But all is not lost. The new geek generation has found wonder within the modern geek girl making the brains and the strength behind the woman the new turnon. A woman who reads comic books, programs in C++ and will mace you in a hard beat becomes the new fetish for men of the 21st century.
So the retardedness of the second brain persists however it will shortly becomes focused upon the less superficial aspects of womanhood.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
What does he want? A butch dyke chewing on a cigar, wearing camo and a black tank top and with one combat boot-clad foot propped up on a dead Ridley's head?
The fellow's intentions are good, but he undercuts himself in most of his argument. By simply saying Samus, as presented, cannot be a tough bounty hunter is, in itself, discriminatory. Hypocrite.
This guy wouldn't have such a stick in his ass if he'd seen how women are portrayed in my forthcoming game, Sandwich Maker 3000. The dishwashing expansion pack is expected before Christmas.
So a man writes an article about how men are inherently incapable of portraying women properly in a videogame.
He knows this because so far, no man has ever portrayed a woman properly in a video game.
He knows that women have never been properly portrayed because he has a good idea as to how they should be portrayed and none of the women in videogames has ever measured up.
He is a man so he inherently doesn't know how to portray women properly.
But he knows how they should be portrayed.
But he can't know how they should be portrayed.
But...BRAIN EXPLODY
Thank you GameSpotting. Your amazing Zen koan has caused me to reach enlightenment.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
The portrayal of women in media is not accurate, in general. While mediums such as books and music have reached a point where women are dealt with as honestly as men (which is often not very honest, mind you), games and films (to a lesser extent) have a long way to go towards balancing their portrayal of the sexes.
The issue here is not necessarily that women should portrayed in complete honesty, but that they should be subject to no more or no less exaggeration than men. Men in films are typically clever/intelligent, physically gifted, or a sort of underdog type loser. Films are certainly slanted toward the first two categories, but the last one shows up more frequently and I feel that it grounds the portrayal of men in films overall.
I feel that the film industry isn't as honest with women. In most films, it seems like they are still paraded as sexual beings that are passed around as love interests. Case in point Pirates of the Carribean, a thoroughly entertaining film with some slanted gender roles. While the men are not particularly heroic (clumsy, but witty and endearing), the female lead doesn't seem to make any significant decisions other than who to fall in love with.
Video games, because of a mostly male audience, can get away with more imbalanced depictions. Women in games, even if they are intelligent, brave, and strong-willed, are still almost always shown with ridiculously large breasts and buttocks and seem to wear outfits that emphasize these qualtities. While this is okay in small doses, the fact that nearly all women in games are shown this way disappoints me
The shining exception in my mind (as a guy who's played a lot of games) is Alice. The hero was a female whose dialogue and appearance were completely believable and admirable. Alice wasn't a "bimbo", but she wasn't a man in a dress either. Rather, she was an average-looking eighteen year-old with well-written dialogue that showed the character of this occasionally headstrong and feral young women tempered with strong feeling of guilt and depression, as is to be expected as a resident of an insane asylum in late Victorian England.
Okay, this post is long enough. That's the state of the art, as I see it. I think that women will be more fairly portrayed in games as the audience and developer base widens, just as with the film industry. It's a long way to go still, but it will happen someday.
njord
RTFA.
The problem isn't women being potrayed as sexy. The problem is women being potrayed as weak and over-emotional.
And there are times where the fact that a sexy woman is the protagonist in a video game can be used to negative affect. It's sort of like the way tomato soup isn't a problem in itself, but I don't like it quite so much after it's been spilled on my lap. Of course, the article didn't really get much into subtleties like that, so I guess it's a moot point.
Assuming you read the article, I really do feel sorry for you if you can't tell the difference between the way a woman is dressed and her personality.
If we stick with the Lara Crofts, we will still be relegated as "oh, stupid, mindless videogame players". We need smarter games.
Want to know why women play the Sims and Sim City? Because they are just good games (without stupid or ditzy or whorish women).
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
Sorry; I was using the Japanese names, since I'm more familiar with them for FF6 (though I renamed most of the characters to names I thought sounded better, the only FF I did that for).
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Perhaps women are protrayed as over-emotional because, as a group, they ARE? Hell, look at the movies that are targeted to women AS A GROUP!
My wife and I played through Max Payne 2 recently.
... with dark hair, an almost rational figure, and dressed in reasonable clothes for her character: jeans and a t-shirt, not some magically clinging, form fitting, stripper costume (as in games like Soul Calibur II, etc., etc., etc.).
Have to say that Mona as a character (both NPC and playable) was a relief from the more typical female portrayals in video games. She's strong, smart and sexy
I have no idea what the production team for Max Payne 2 was, however.
I think in all kinds of pop entertainment (video games, TV, movies) the creators are unintentionally creating an unwanted distancing effect by creating these too-good-to-be-true characters.
My wife and I find shows with more realistic, more approachable characters far more involving. Early X-Files, the recently cancelled Wonder Falls, and movies such as American Splendor, Ghost World, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind all use real looking people in real looking environments, often talking in a natural fashion.
The extended artifice of the Golden Age of movies gave rise to the ill-fated (and, I think, ill conceieved) neorealism movement of the '50s. I'd like to think that the growing community of game developers, and the possibly shrinking costs of entry, may make more folks with a unique voice and vision come forward with the same kinds of involving characters.
Yes. All games designed by men should contain only male characters, and all games designed by women should contain only female characters.
More seriously, the article is right. Can we have some non-awful female characters already?
May we never see th
I agree with you, but we would be remiss to leave out these other examples:
Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy VII)-- please, for the love of God, don't make me spell this one out.
Shion Uzuki (Xenosaga)-- She's not oversexualized, she's a smart and capable character, and through the entire game the only real reference to her gender is the address "Miss Vector".
Aribeth (Neverwinter Nights)-- a female rising to supreme commander of a military force, plus she has an actual backstory as opposed to being a one-dimensional "commanding officer" stereotype.
Cecilia Adlehyde, Lilka Eleniak, Virginia Maxwell (Wild ARMs series)-- strong female leads without overblown costumes or weak reasons for adventuring. On an off-note, Wild ARMs and Phantasy Star are two of the very few series that really get characterization dead-on.
There are others in games I haven't played (Valkyrie Profile, Suikoden III's Chris, etc.) but you get the idea. I suppose a better sweepingly false overgeneralization would be to say that "Game Designers Who Don't Make RPGs Don't Portray Women Realistically".
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
"the target market is mostly male"
Ask yourself this: Are games full of "big titties" because the market is mostly male, or is the market mostly male because the games are full of big titties and therefore are unappealing to women?
I think the biggest problem is the type of people who write and design these video games. Some are antisocial geeks who spent their high school and college years in their rooms snuggling up to Photoshop or Borland C++ instead of socializing and being around women. Much can be said and related to the people who read Slashdot who are into that computer nerd scene. Their views on women are unrealistic and superficial due to their lack of experience with women, and that shows in the games.
If game developers had the female experience of say... a hip hop artist or movie star, then the portrayal would be more real due to their experience.
First, regarding this statement:
"I say again: Women are NOT offended by sexy women in games!"
That's where you're wrong. The average well-adjusted "normal" woman isn't likely to be offended, but there are tons of fat, ugly, and otherwise insecure women out there who view this kind of material as offensive because it's *threatening* to them. They are fat, they are ugly, etc, and think no man will want them as a result of the men seeing "better" merchandise.
Yeah it's ridiculous, but it's the truth. Insecurity is what drives most women who find this stuff offensive.
Next thing I wanted to point out is that sometimes the "marketing" just goes too damn far. Go read a review of "Freaky Flyers". Its an airplane racing game. A game like that can and should appeal to both sexes right? But go check out the cover artwork. There you have a chick with big chrome nipples on her tits. Put yourself in the place of a woman... You see that, would you still be interested in the game? You might, but chances are you'd dismiss it as being geared for males.
Most men wish all women were inherently bisexual but the fact is, most women don't like to look at other women's "assets".
I think that Greg should seriously consider making an appointment with his mommy (the Neurologist). It seems that Greg as executive editor has obviously played way too many games and read too many articles about games. This has resulted in him scraping the walls of the inside of his skull for any idea that might be slightly original. Unfortunately this has resulted in him basically writing an article that most editors would never have let pass... of course since he's the executive editor he needn't worry about that. I don't believe for a second that "men" that write games are intentionally writing in female characters just to put them down. Some characters are simply poorly written as some games are. If it happens to be a female character instead of a male character it's coincidence. Once again I don't believe that anyone in the game industry is intentionally out to make women look bad. The idea is ludicrous and Greg needs to take a vacation and sort out his personal problems with his sexuality before attempting to write another column. Just my opinion, once again don't troll me too quickly ;)
Jay Dale "If you're not living on the edge then you're taking up too much space!"
> "I think men are inherently incapable of doing an
> adequate job of properly presenting female
> characters in games."
For some value of "proper", yes. The extant body
of work is sufficient evidence of this. However,
your notion of propriety may be little more than a
political power play.
But then, women are inherently incapable of doing
an adequate job of properly presenting a video
game, period, as can also be reasonably concluded
by looking at the names in the credits on all the
video games since Pong first brightened an
oscilloscope.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Jade was a strong woman, who went up against an army of (only) men and defeated them all, all without the aid of tomb raider sized breasts.
"A vote for Bush is a vote for violence" is as stupid a leftist quote as "A vote for Kerry is a vote of support for Terrorists" is for stupid right-wing quotes...
The problem isn't women being potrayed as sexy. The problem is women being potrayed as weak and over-emotional.
Ignoring the fact that most women are (physically) weak and over-emotional (just as most men are stubborn and ignore their emotions), if Kasavin wanted to make that point, then why did he point out Samus Aran? She hardly fits that stereotype.
Rob
I have yet to see a game that accuratly depicts going to a 9 to 5 job all week to make endsmeat to come home and live in depressing debt. There are levels of realisim that we want in our games and there are levels we don't. Men are not accuractly portrayed in videogames either. The only difference is we don't complain about it the way women do.
I think this is a good example of using a word ("men") to stand for an entire group of people. In a sense use of such words are stereotyping, but I don't think the negative connotation of "stereotype" is appropriate.
Here the author is using the word "men" to describe something that all of us readily understand. But try to come up with an example of a man. Perhaps like me, you can choose yourself. Regardless, is that man one of the "men" she's referring to? Probably not. The word "men" and "man" (or others: "women," "blacks," "Americans," "Asians") have little connection to reality. These words are an amalgam of different connotations and meanings from culture that could very well conflict.
Note that I'm not blaming the author on this one; we all do it. It's a natural thing to lump things into groups. It's just that with people it is very hard to come up with good groupings because everyone really is unique.
So remember, even if you're a guy, you're probably not a "man." It's impossible to be such a thing; it doesn't really exist anywhere except in the collective minds of people in a culture.
Comic fans debate how to get some respect for comics as a legitimate story telling medium. I've long held that so long as the average female character has breasts larger than her head, the medium is going to be regarded as purile.
The same issue confronts videogames. No, they are not all marketed solely at 13 year old males with power fantasies. But most are. And that's precisely why both comics and videogames are regarded as illegitimate mediums.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
well, at the risk of getting flamed...
;)
I thought the female Juggernauts in Unreal Tournament are a spot-on representation of some lesbian activists I've met in the past.
Who hasn't complained about how mindless movies are (any hollywood movie anyway)
....)
...etc (and the list could go on & on)
...etc
... Rocky, Rambo, Terminator 1(2nd is slighty better)
That doesn't stop them from making gazillion of dollars
and let's face it, gaming industry is becoming more and more like movies.
Gaming has its stars (Lara Croft, Jet Li, Tony Hawk
Gaming has budget
Gaming has popularity
Gaming has visibility
all like movies
Gaming for the masses means dumb shallow games
Gaming for the gamers means good deep games
very much like a movie
Good classic stereotypical shallow movie = Top Gun, Ghost (bleh), Collateral Damage, Minority Report
Good deep movie : Ex.: Schindler's List, Run Lola Run, Pi
If you like the movies like Lords of the Ring, Matrix, Star Wars
then you also gotta like games where women are incorrectly portrayed or any misrepresentation of reality.
because in the end, they're run by the same shop/consortium
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
is bloody ignorance. They're like Dupont & Dupond.
I don't like jacking off to Britney Spears because she's popular - hell no.
Being in a minority doesn't necessarily make the majority right.
Personally, I believe a woman should have a *little* (Venus-type) more body than the sluts we all find dirty pictures/movies of on K++ and whatnot, but that doesn't mean I find them unattractive. 10 gigs of porn would call me a liar.
>Men are inherently incapable of portraying women
Oh come on! They obviously didn't play this game!
I like having sex with women, so what then?
Women can be insanely jealous creatures. You don't hear complaints from those of them who HAVE large breasts, do you?
Funny thing you bring up there.
In the N64 incarnation of Perfect Dark, Johanna while female was not really portrayed as a sex object. She was skinny, but not really the classic image of male sexual fantasy. If you have seen some of the concept art from the sequel/prequel Perfect Dark Zero, you will notice that she now looks like a DOA character picking up a little work on the side. It's tempting to attribute this to Nintendo's clean image versus Microsoft's edgier one, but some of the concept art goes back to before Microsoft even bought them.
My point is: Rare seems to have decided that it would be able to sell more copies if only they make the heroine into a trollop. I am of course being facetious, Sex sells everything no matter what the product; I would just rather believe that only crappy games and second rate companies have to rely on such base marketing.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Interesting...
So did you have to buy a special controller that could be used in only one hand or is your prehensile tail enough?
+1, moderators are confused by the meaning of "average".
It is a little well worn perhaps, but hardly inappropriate.
What exactly is the problem here?
The fact of the matter is that women gamers are a very small minority when considered in terms of sales (of the games mentioned in the article). The fact that these games have portrayed women in this way is a simple matter of economy. It leads to higher sales because it appeals to the majority of the audience (the x million men that bought the games).
The opinion of the few women that already paid for the game before they decided that they didn't like it, really doesn't matter. They don't represent a significant piece of revenue for those games, why should the makers care?
Men don't go around saying "I'm really offended by the way that male character in that Jackie Collins novel was portrayed because he was too sensitive and gentle and didn't kick the crap out of the guy that screwed his wife", do they? That's because they don't buy them. If you don't like the way that a game portrays women, then don't buy it.
When 2 million or so women are prepared to go to EB and spend $50 on a game (or whatever) the industry will start to cater to them. Until then, unless you can think of a way to make this happen (presumably through a game or marketing concept) shut up and start buying things that you like!
Well, you got 1 out of 4 right.
We like virtual violence. Most of us get pretty queezy at the sight of real blood. I've seen the result of a Terran nuke taking out 400 zerglings in one blast without batting an eye, but I get dizzy eating rare steak.
Prince of Persia: So you save the Princess. But once you do (and she kind of saves you, the male), she's forthwright, mostly capable, and witty.
;-)
She's useless and keeps shooting you in the back with her stupid bow! I hate her.
Prince of Persia: So you save the Princess. But once you do (and she kind of saves you, the male), she's forthwright, mostly capable, and witty. And
There's a lesbian sex joke somewhere in there...
You can't take the sky from me...
Perhaps individual women don't like to be treated as members of a homogenous group?
I know I don't, and I'm not even a woman.
Stereotypes are sloppy thinking.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I think if all you look at is shitty-ass japanese naff-o-games like Metroid and junk, you're naturally going to see that all the women are as dreadfully faceless and dull as the men. Let's all play as the girl in that beat-em-up! She rocks because she's quick and has enormous breasts and weird coloured hair. Pitty she's piss-weak and hopeless.
Your cock-and-bull japanese filth games do not wash with me or anyone else with an iota of taste who'd rather play something with a plot and some decent dialogue.
If you want to see women in gaming done well why not look at the PC or Playstation scene where there's games like No One Lives Forever, Syberia, Broken Sword, and Prince of Persia: TSOT. All games that treat women with respect, don't give them whopping bosoms, stupid hair, enormous eyes or dumb squeaky voices that only ever say one word. Christ even since Wing Commander women have been portrayed brilliantly in gaming by western production companies. If you only analyze games from japan and china you're naturally going to see women treated as objects, now arent you?
Wo does really want to have a game character who grows insane once a month and the other time constantly cleans around the house and starts to nag and bitch at every pixel in the wrong position :-)
Not only are women innacurately portrayed, but so are MEN. I mean, really, how many real-life Duke Nukem's, Max Payne's, or Leisure Suit Larries do you know? If I want accurate portrayal, I'm not likely to turn to a medium whose chief attraction (for me, anyway) is escape from reality..
I am alone, yet I also surf the universal backwash of undifferentiated Being, which is LOVE.
And try,
American McGees Alice.
Teh game play was a let down,
but the story line wasnt,
the Female lead wasnt,
gearnly she was strong minded
and not whimped down being a girl.
IIRC she crys 3 tiems in the game,
but so did i at those times and a
few others so they didnt trun her into
a sapy weaping girl.
She has a wiseass mouth, big atatude and
isnt drawn with huge tits, yes she dose
have a small waist line, but those where
the days of corsets..
now lets try this stament on for fits..
"One of my theories is: The worst thing about today's tabliods is that they're developed almost exclusively by women"
or how about
"One of my theories is: The worst thing about today's fashion is that they're developed almost exclusively by women"
Women are as good at screwing them selfs over
as men are, but as is often pointed out, its better to do it to yoru self then have someone else do it to you.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
The main character in Adventure for the 2600 is quite obviously a female. In fact, I'd venture to say she might be gay since she is kind of butch-y looking.
SHODAN? I realise that it was an AI, but I don't think I would have enjoyed system shock 1 and 2 as much as I did had SHODAN had a male voice.
It's a fucking video game. They don't make anyone realistic. Until I get lasers that shoot out of my nose and missles that shoot out of my ass, I'm pretty sure the games don't depict males all that well either.
If a female (or male) character is portrayed in a game as being helpless, it's that way for a reason. A game without some form of conflict wouldn't be very interesting in my opinion. Its not just females that are portrayed as weak anyways. Off hand, Half-Life comes to mind; the scientists (male) are quite helpless. This of course could be in some respects contributed to AI, but never the less is still a good example that this happens on both ends. It was mentioned earlier, but women are portrayed as being quite strong in many a game. I can remember getting owned quite a bit by female characters in Diablo 2, etc.
28:06:42:12 - That is when the world will end...
It's sculpted with a torso like Superman.