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Getting the Girl
1up.com has a great article up entitled Getting The Girl. Zoe Flower discusses female gaming stereotypes, the role of women in gaming, and the mythical "girl formula" for gaming success. From the article: "Lara Croft continues to personify an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification. It was while standing in my first-ever ladies' room line at E3 2004 as I pondered the Playboy bunnies, the return of Leisure Suit Larry, and the slew of buxom virtual ladies headlining each booth that I questioned whether the industry had evolved at all."
The biggest market for video games are males aged 12-25. Big breasted women helps sell games to this demographic. That is all.
Sometimes women will say to me "Look at those scantily clad women with their tits hanging out on the box! That's sexist!"
To which I have to say "Do you see any short bald dudes with a big pot belly on any of these boxes either? No, it's all he-man looking dudes busting at the seams with muscles".
These games aren't any different than music videos or movies. Do you see any ugly people in music videos or movies aimed at 18-25 audience? Of course not. No one attacks the music industry for using half-naked chicks and musclemen with abs-o-steele to get teenagers to watch their videos...
Give the feminazi shit a rest for awhile.
If Lara Croft was a fat bull-dyke noone would buy or play the game.
BTW, before you start crying "sexism", you might want to note that male characters are invariably the 6'4 rugged Dirty-Harry type.
I've never seen an FPS where you play a myopic, balding, fat kernel hacker.
Half Life was as non-stereotype a lead character as I've seen, and that's only because Gordon wears glasses.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Just because there's pornos doesn't mean someone else can't release chick flicks. Similarly, just because Leisure Suit Larry games exist doesn't mean female preferred games like the Sims series haven't been released and done very well.
Hopefully some publishers/designers will realise that they're excluding potential customers with such tactics like those who now release for Macs as well. But realistically, there will always be a probably large section of the industry [just like the movie industry] which will focus on their core target audience: horny, horny young men.
If you go to the magazine section and see all the silly men's magazines, they have pretty girls on them (occasionally men).
When you look at the women's trashy magazines, they have pretty girls on them (occasionally men). You know, the ones that tell you how to make your butt smaller, charge your cell phone, run a fortune 500 company, and get that cute guy, all before lunch?
You want the female gamer? Fine! Stop shoving corporate sellout Barbie lookalike clans like the FragDolls down their throat and give some real all-girl clans some press once in awhile. You know, the clans where the girls don't look like Playboy Bunnies.
I thought Alyx was a pretty well realized female character. Tough, feminine, sexy without being a slutty, smart as hell, and she even possessed a figure without Laura-Croftian... embellishments. I think it says positive things that the top game of the year has a female character that can stand up with the men in the game, and possibly has a future in her own game. I'd *love* to see an Alyx and DOG game, or just Alyx for that matter.
Sure, you can find stereotypes in trashy games like BloodRayne and various fighters, but there are plenty of male stereotypes to be found over there as well.
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What makes Ms. Flower's opinion about what characters in video games should look like, "more" valid than anyone else's?
Nothing. Unfortunately, there are many more video game customers who would like their female characters to have cartoonishly large breasts than there are video game customers who would like their female characters to have folds and beards.
The difference is that guys don't get their panties in a bunch because all of the male video game characters have cartoonishly large muscles.
Ms. Flower is trying to manufacture a double standard where none exists - male and female characters are treated the same; they're made to look perfect.
As for video game themes, Ms. Flower is simply outvoted. Our culture uses sex to sell. We sell stuff using attractive people, choosing gender based on audience. Complaining that video game conferences have booth babes is like complaining that there are no fat guys in soap operas.
paintball
I don't get it. Laura Croft is a stereo type and Duke Nukem isn't? C'mon people, almost all the male characters in games are steroid pumped jocks. What's worse most of them are blond haired blue eyed Aryan types. Unless you are playing an RPG and playing a barbarian or a dwarf you are playing a buffed character. If you are playing barbarian or dwarf the female is as un-buff as the male. Sounds like equal opportunity to me.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Everywhere I've read, the average age of video game buyers is 36.
Better yet www.zoeflower.com. Nice pics of the little hottie ;-).
They mean the boxes that "games for girls" come in don't have to be pink. And/or that "games for girls" is an inherently stupid concept.
I find that the actual interface for video games is more geared towards males. Most games involve a lot of hand eye coordination and spacial recognition. Tracking multiple objects at once and such. Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm no expert on the subject but I believe males are generaly more adapt in these area's. And from my experience intruducing females to games they tend to get frustrated quickly with the controls. Games that I have had success getting females involved in are games like karaoke revolution, and "The sims" seems to be extremely popular with the ladies. I think perhaps the way in which users interact with games is as big a proplem in attracting females as the actual content.
My belief is that there is a small set of games that appeal primarily to males, a large set of games that appeal to both males and females, and again another small set that appeals primarily to females. So far, the vast majority of games have used violent conflict as a central progression indicator. This includes everything from duck hunt to Doom 3. I believe this sort of game falls under the category of being primarily enjoyed by males. It is the auxiliary features that distinguish each game within this theme and make it interesting.
Lately I have started playing World of Warcraft, which, at its essence, is merely another way of slaying endless adversaries. The rewards are different, and the audio/visuals and networking are different, but it's still about killing things. Now I would be willing to bet (without knowing the actual player demographics) that the vast majority of WoW players are male.
Now, in my opinion again, not only does this concentration on one type of game lead to unbalanced player demographics, but it also leads to a severe draught of innovative and fun games. From the perspective of a male, female gamers most likely just want "fun" and "innovative" games. They don't care if the lead character (if there is one) is a strong female or how big her boobs are, and they don't want to only ever play the Sims. I think when developers find time to give up on striving for better graphics, better physics, and better gore simulation and instead try to make a game that is not a puzzle game that doesn't involve violence of any sort (not because it's offensive, but because it's been done ad nauseum) then female gamer numbers will just rise of their own accord. No need to be targetted by a marketing department. Male and females can even play the same games! Imagine that, just like they enjoy lots of the same movies!
Why does the game industry as a whole have this fixation on violent games? Well recently, I would imagine it's because companies don't like to take risks, and violent games are a proven formula. But why in the first place did everyone have this obsession? Well, my guess is that because games were always terribly constrained by the hardware on which they were running, some sacrifices needed to be made to the gameplay in order to have a complete game. Conflict is easy to simulate. There are two statuses I can think of: winner and loser. Alive and dead. How binary. But now we have machines capable of simulating much more and yet we don't. Anyway, that's my take on why we still do so many violent games.
If I want to play an overweight computer programmer, I'm not going to buy a game to do it.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Will Nina's low-cut shorts and thigh-high boots allow her to deliver a more powerful blow in Death by Degrees? The developer wants you to believe so.
Hmm, I haven't played "Death by Degrees", but I somehow doubt there's a blurb in it that amounts to sexy outfit = power fighter. What the heck is wrong with sexy outfit = sexy outfit?
Beyond Good & Evil's Jade bucked the trend of buxom and deadly heroines; the game was critically acclaimed, but sales proved disappointing
Riiight... Beyond Good and Evil's low sales was due soely the to fact that the lead girl wasn't hot enough. Why, I sure know that's why I didn't play it! How about the fact that it was a niche adventure game with decidedly average scores across all the genres? Nah, couldn't be that.
This ain't news, this is just someone on a rant. And for crying out loud, will the "grrlgamers" out there STOP using Lara Croft as an example? Nobody has cared less what Lara Croft does for ages now. Nobody cares less what Bloodrayne does either, it's a sub-par slasher barely worth bargin bin prices.
Maybe I should have been offended when playing through Prince of Persia, that game was obviously sexist! Why didn't the female lead lose clothes throughout the adventure as well?
Men/boys (your main game demographics historically) like to look at attractive women. There is nothing wrong with this, it is a natural response.
Men do not have to stop acting like men just because a few women (I say "few" because I most women I know are OK with guys looking at girls, as long as it's not overt and rude) take offense. I say, let 'em make games w/beefy guys as the characters, if the female market will bear it.
Suppressing biological drives is tough... attempting to suppress the most important drive is a futile exercise.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.