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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.
If having a slew of "buxom virtual ladies" is wrong then I don't want to be right.
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...
1: "Box" isn't used as a slang term in the USA
or
2: Slashdot is even geekier than I thought...or perhaps less geeky...I'm not sure now...
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Zoe Flower sounds more like a porn name, to me at least.
Why is focusing on a woman's body objectification? And not focusing on her mind or her personality? Clearly I don't look at women's bodies as "objects" but as "women's bodies". Oh well. I just treat that as one of those words like "empowerment" that doesn't really mean anything except to indicate how much self-censorship you have to impose around the person who said it.
For the record I don't like Lara Croft or booth babes or fake tits, but I'm not ashamed to find a woman attractive based on her looks alone.
A girl who calls herself "Zoe Flower" is going to lecture us on feminism in video gaming.
I'll go back to playing nethack now.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
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!!!!
Oh, Girl... Something we know nothing about. :)
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.
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
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:
One thing that I'm really liking about Nintendo is that they seem adamant about acquiring new markets for their products... the DS in particular - many women have taken to the device, loving games like Feel The Magic and the Mario 64 DS minigames... The new method of input is a lot easier for newbie gamers to grasp than, say, an Xbox controller with god knows how many different buttons on it. Instead of relying on the tried and true 12-25 male market, I'm really glad Nintendo has been wanting to branch out more.
:)
Most people seem to think that just because girls don't want to play these violent FPSes and GTA clones that are rampant at the moment, they will never be interested in games. But I know quite a few girls who are into games, including my girlfriend... but the kind of games they play - The Sims, (thing) Tycoon, puzzlers, and many Japanese RPGs, is pretty different from what's currently popular with your typical casual male gamer.
I think the best way to get more girl gamers is to have more girls producing games... Feel The Magic is a hit with the ladies, and it was headed up by 2 women. Plus, The Greatest Game Series Ever was headed up by a woman
http://zoeflower.1up.com/
Cute.
After reading the title i thought the article would actually be useful to us (the stereotypical /. reader). Turns out its about selling video games to girls, laaaaaame.
Oh, God, yet another ponderous article on "Women In Video Games." Doesn't anyone find the use of words like "empowering" and "disenfranchises" the least bit ironic? Doesn't this kind of overanalysis take the fun out of video games? And doesn't ascribing this sort of importance to them lend credence to the arguments of those want to restrict/ban certain titles?
What's more, the article is embarassing to read. This is little more than a female journalist injecting gender politics into everything she sees. It reeks of self-importance and psych 101. I don't disagree with many of the statements and conclusions throughout the article, but they are largely redundant and do not bear repeating.
The only thing that needs to be stated here is that if/when females constitute enough of a demographic for the industry to address, they will help determine the industry's direction when it comes to content and subject matter. Sometimes, they already do. This isn't rocket science.
Everywhere I've read, the average age of video game buyers is 36.
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.
I'd like to remind Ms Flowers that the women's mag industry values wealth over character in potential husbands, and places a premium on physique on playmates for the female's sexual-awakening-years.
It's the way of biology and thousand's of years of evolution, and a few years' liberation.Do booth babes sell product? I can recall only two sets of booth babes at a LWCE. The first was the BSD Daemon Babe, Cerwin Ercen. She remains popular to this day. But her popularity has more to do with her geekiness, ordinariness, and her obvious play on the booth babe stereotype. Cerwin as a booth babe is clever hack. It's screaming to an unlistening world that you don't have to be a lobotomized and plasticized supermodel from the pages of Playboy to look sexy.
But at that same expo there was another set of booth babes (and a couple of booth studs for "balance"). They were the epitome of the stereotype. What booth was this? Frankly, I can't remember. These people were so out of place at the convention that even the models looked embarassed.
They didn't show up at the next show.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Then... Don't be a nice guy. I don't mean be a jerk or an a-hole, just don't go out of your way to be nice to a woman. Don't put her up on a pedestal. Don't be anxious to call back (hint: if they really like you a lot, they'll wonder what's going on and call you). I've read a lot of material on what women like and what they don't like - looks help, but true self-confidence is the true attractant. Fellas, I'm no prize in the looks dept, but when I was a 16 yr old pimply virgin, if I went back in time and showed pix of some of the women I've dated/slept with, I wouldn't have believed it. It was just a matter of knowing myself better and becoming more confident. There's someone for everyone, guys. It's a numbers game - don't settle.
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. =====
You know, they say masturbation doesn't really make you go blind, but the lack of decent spelling, punctuation, and perspective in your comment has to make me wonder.
Lay off the wacking for a few hours, junior.
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?
I'm stunned. Stunned that there were enough women at E3 to form a line for the women's room...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
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.
> 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
Be serious. Why would I want to play a "short bald dude" character? It would be a really boring game since he'd probably have a str of 3 or 4 and a measly 15 hp, giving me hours upon hours of "level grind" until I can get his sorry lazy ass sufficiently trained to take on anything bigger than a rat.
This is an example of political correctness stifling scientific understanding. Over the years people have been taught to despise and shoot down any stereotype, even if that stereotype has a basis in truth. Remember, not ALL stereotypes are bad or offensive.
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What the original poster said is true. The brains of men and women are specialized for different functions. It has been proven numerous times that men are more optimized at visual spatial skills while women have inherent advantages in verbal and organizational skills.
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?
And as far as black people having more fast twitch musle fibers, that's not entirely accurate but there is some truth behind the story. It's not all black people, but specifically people who evolved in the Western Africa region do have a higher percentage of quick twitch muscle fibers and a higher testosterone level than those elsewhere in the world. They have a distinct advantage in anaerobic performance such as sprinting, and the records over the years spell it out clearly. Don't confuse this with "all" black people, because those who evolved in Eastern Africa, notably the high altitude region between Kenya and Ethiopia have almost the complete opposite evolutionary specialization. Not surprisingly, from evolving in a high altitude region, they have a larger lung capacity and better cardiovascular system (more red blood cells) than those who evolved at lower altitudes. They excel at aerobic activities such as long distance running.
http://www.africana.com/articles/daily/index_20
In the examples I gave above, look at the records. You have a huge pool of competitors from all over the globe yet people from a small area seem to win a *huge* proportion of events that *far* exceeds the percentage that a random group of people should win. I mean just take a look at the Boston Marathon. Kenya is not exactly the most populous country on Earth, but look at the results from the last 20 years when they started competing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_of
This is not a racist or sexist discussion, this is a discussion of the realities of evolution and the differences that we live with. It's not a reason to hate, it's a reason to understand.
I am not racist or sexist, I'm just not an ultra left-wing PC Nazi or an ultra right-wing Bible thumper. I'm just a regular guy who would like to throw the racism and sexism out the window and find out the *real* underlying causes, even if they are taboo to talk about. I'm firm believer in evolution and I believe that many of the differences you see in races/the sexes is due to evolving in different areas or doing different tasks.
I have a real life. I don't spend $3,000 on hardware and hundreds on games to interact with average people in normal costume. That I get for free. I spend that much on games because I _want_ to escape real life for a while and enjoy a fantasy world where I have the biggest gun and all the women are clones of Jeri Ryan.
That's my target product. Myst you can keep for yourself. Thanks.
Help stamp out iliturcy.