Video Games Need A Woman's Touch

hattan wrote to mention an AP article going around detailing one woman's frustration with the roles for women in games. From the article: "Tara Teich enjoys nothing more than slipping into the role of a female video game character. But the 26-year-old software programmer gets annoyed by the appearance of such digital alter egos as the busty tomb raider Lara Croft or the belly-baring Wu the Lotus Blossom of 'Jade Empire.' Don't even get her started on the thong-bikini babes that the male gunmen win as prizes in 'Grand Theft Auto,' which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers. "

Comments

If you want something more feminine, make it

[etymxris]

No one's creative work "needs" anything. If you don't like what someone has made, then make your own. There's plenty of media and games out there I have no interest in, or that even downright annoy me. Do I say everyone should be making the types of games I like? No, different people have different tastes. I stick to the games I like, and others can do likewise.

Re:If you want something more feminine, make it

[maddskillz]

I really don't see how it's a troll. They wouldn't make this stuff if it didn't sell. Make your games the way you want them, and let the market decide what we need more of.

Re:If you want something more feminine, make it

[jsimon12]

No one's creative work "needs" anything. If you don't like what someone has made, then make your own.

Thank You, I am glad the first post (or at least hightest rated first post) contains a element of sanity.

As for Tara's comment about her hating Tomb Raider or GTA that great for her, but plenty of other people like the games the way they are (heck woman even, my wife likes em both). Woman are portrayed in video games like that because it sells games because people would rather see an attractive woman then a mousey fat one.

Re:If you want something more feminine, make it

[Aeiri]

No one's creative work "needs" anything. If you don't like what someone has made, then make your own.

Not only that, but if the society the game is revolved around is sexist, then the game damn well better be sexist as well. I'm referring to the "bikini trophies" for the male gunmen... well, if (I have no idea, I'm posting on Slashdot after all) gang society has majority male gunmen and slutty women as hos, then the game SHOULD have it that way.

Re:If you want something more feminine, make it

[dtungsten]

Do I say everyone should be making the types of games I like?

Ah, but what if NO ONE made the types of games that you like, and you didn't have the ability (for whatever reason, e.g. lack of time, computing skill, money, etc.) to make your own? What then would be wrong with asking (not demanding) for someone to make games you like?

Now if this is what the author is suggesting, I think it is a good idea.

Re:If you want something more feminine, make it

[YomikoReadman]

The catch is that the author of this article isn't suggesting that. They're decrying games like GTA and Tomb Raider for having characters which are easily marketable towards young adult males, aged 18-24. Decrying anything because you're not the intended audience is, IMO, completely moronic and shows a lack of common sense.

While I agree that there are certainly a lack of games that aren't directly marketed toward the 18-24yo male demographic, that doesn't mean that there is a complete lack of them. However, what exactly do women want in games? I don't think that the demographic is clearly defined; nor do I think that it ever will be clearly defined. It's simply not large enough to be worth spending the time, money and effort to the larger publishing houses, such as EA, Blizzard, et al. This is where you count on the smaller, independent houses to step up and take a risk, which is what the GP poster is saying.

Re:If you want something more feminine, make it

[Gravedigger3]

I couldn't have said it better myself. Whenever i hear about this issue my answer is simple. MEN DONT COMPLAIN WHEN WE ARE OBJECTIFIED!

I dont have biceps the size of tree trunks and a face chizzled from marble but i love playing Final Fantasy games! I dont mind playing a character that is attractive so why do women.

Revealing clothing? When i Play GTA:SA my character runs around wearing less than the hookers on the street.

What about movies? Every big blockbuster in the past 3 decades have cast attractive women in the main roles. Singers, actors, celebrities. Why do games get the heat? We like looking at pretty people. I wouldn't play Tomb Raider if i played as a fat short chick and i wouldn't play FF7 if cloud was short, fat, and had a receding hairline.

These people need to wake the hell up.

Re:If you want something more feminine, make it

[Anonymous Coward]

Decrying anything because you're not the intended audience is, IMO, completely moronic and shows a lack of common sense.

You're wrong. I've been decrying Playtex for years. Why is it that only women get an 18 hour bra. I want mine, too. And why do they only advertise tampons to women. It's all wrong! They need to get men working on tampons so that they are more designed for men as well.

Why?

[dazedNconfuzed]

Why, she asks, must women in video games always look like Las Vegas show girls?

For the same reason the men look like action heros.

Re:Why?

[Vicissidude]

No shit. Most of the guys buying these games will never have the same muscles of the characters in the game.

It's a game, people. Someone's taking all this wayyy too seriously.

Re:Why?

[sgant]

Really, I'm offended whenever I sit down and play a video game and my character is always some macho, buff Alpha-male with sweaty, glistening pecks and hard hard washboard abs, tight leather pants and boots, tasteful tattoos and with a face that looks like he doesn't take shit from anyone and he'll make them pay...oh yes, he'll make them ALL pay! MWHAHAHAHAHA!!!...cough...you get what I mean.

Er...perhaps games are more fantasy than reality. Though in some games like Star Wars Galaxies you can modify your character to be a overweight housewife if you want. But lets face it, most video games are made for the young male.

Re:Why?

[Gogo Dodo]

Funny, the Jade Empire game mentioned in the article has a few more realistic looking characters like this one

Re:Why?

[Iriel]

Then again, male characters don't look like Captian Hero anymore. Guys have actually been toned down from muscle bound bruisers to more sleek assassin-like figures like Solid Snake and the main characters from Half-Life, Splinter Cell and others. Guys are less like actions heroes these days when you look at the scene. There's a few in which we're starting to look almost like pretty boys (Devil May Cry)

Women, however, still have a pretty unrealistic template to work with in most games. Even if the proportions aren't that bad, the outfits are right up there with the title of 'ho trash' in a lot of games. Guys are looking more like they came out of bootcamp in contrast with figures. The scales aren't even

Re:Why?

[downward dog]

Not sure about that.

1. Men are the target audience for both showgirl women and action hero men. Most (not all) men are attracted to the showgirl body, and most (not all) women don't particularly care if a guy is built like Duke Nukem.

2. Seeing an unrealistic buff action hero does not cause women to treat objects like men (to paraphrase the Dude).

I'm not being prudish here. Have your sex. Just don't ignore the ways in which the objectification of women in video games, magazines, etc. contributes to anorexia and depression, not to mention the vanity and consumerism that have taken over the capitalist world.

Re:Why?

[Irish_Samurai]

Just don't ignore the ways in which the objectification of women in video games, magazines, etc. contributes to anorexia and depression, not to mention the vanity and consumerism that have taken over the capitalist world.

Self Esteem trumps all that. It's called SELF esteem, you have got to fight off the objectification, subjagation, humiliation, assumption, and criticism thrown at you by your environment yourself. Then all this becomes bullshit.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the same reason the men look like action heros.

I'm a tall slender guy and I can't stand it when I have to play a videogame character that's a 7 ft wide guy with 400lbs of muscle that look like they have hormone problems. It's just... wrong. I wouldn't want to look like that if I could.

This is why I tend to choose female avatars in RPGs and online games. They only misrepresent my gender, rather than implying that I've got a body-image problem and steroid addiction.

Re:Why?

[jclast]

I guess it depends on what you play.

Alyx from HL2 - normal looking.
Female leaders in Civ III - normal looking.
Female dancers in DDR - no worse than the guys.
Elsa and the other females in Front Mission 4 - normal looking.
Samus Aran - covered in a giant metal suit.

It would seem the girls bitching in the article need to quit playing only racing games and figthers.

Re:Why?

[The NPS]

I tend to agree, men and women are equally stereotyped in video games, however to a lot of feminists find men are positively stereotyped (if such a thing exists), and women are negatively stereotyped. Personally, I'm dead sick of the tough-guy pretty boy stereotype. Back in the 80's, we had the tough-guy, these days, we've got the tough-pretty boy, and I hate it. I love games where the main characters are more "normal" people, like GTA3, regular guy, not huge of buff or badass, just a stoic. I loved it. Anyhow, I digress. Big-production video games are like big-production movies these days. They'll appeal to the broadest crowd for the safest investment. The broadest crowd of gamers (mostly young men) want buff men and overly sexualized women, and that's what we get a lot of. But, don't think there aren't any exceptions, they're just a bit more rare but they're out there, so happy searching. Also, if you're really sick of empty stereotyping, and mass appeal, there's always literature.

Re:Why?

[drsmithy]

I'm not being prudish here. Have your sex. Just don't ignore the ways in which the objectification of women in video games, magazines, etc. contributes to anorexia and depression, not to mention the vanity and consumerism that have taken over the capitalist world.

I think you'll find the never-ending barrage of "Read about $CELEBRITY's amazing new diet", "Look just like $CELEBRITY", "How $CELEBRITY has her pre-baby body back", etc, etc in /female-oriented media/ has a hell of a lot more to do with it than any "objectification of women" in the general (and even male-oriented) media.

Every now and then I pick up one of these magazines while I'm waiting in a checkout line - it really is quite amazing (and depressing) how every issue, targeting every age group, has relentless pressure to get skinnier and hence be more attractive.

Women are vastly more fussy than men when it comes to deeming people "attractive" (or, in the Australian vernacular, "rootable"). Presumably they think men are the same, producing the never-ending pressure to live up to some unattainable benchmark of feminine beauty.

At least, that's the only way I've ever been able to make sense of how women behave when it comes to what they look like...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't ignore the ways in which the objectification of women in video games, magazines, etc. contributes to anorexia and depression

I know you don't want to hear it, but which side needs more help to prevent loss of life in the US: convincing people to eat less, or convincing people to eat more?

Anorexia is a serious issue, but the pendulum is still way on the side of obesity and even merely overweight as public health risks. Until we find a way to address the overweight without encouraging the too thin, we're better off with thinner role models than larger ones.

Re:Why?

[Vicissidude]

I tend to agree, men and women are equally stereotyped in video games, however to a lot of feminists find men are positively stereotyped (if such a thing exists), and women are negatively stereotyped.

I don't see that. Both sexes are displayed as the sexual ideal. If feminists see a female character with big boobs, a tight ass, and the perfect figure as a negative stereotype, while simultaneously seeing a male character with a muscular chest and bulging biceps as a positive stereotype, then feminists have other issues than merely image.

Re:Why?

[Vicissidude]

From what I can see, women first objectify themselves long before men come into the picture. Girls are now fighting to wear makeup and skimpy outfits in elementary school, long before their parents or the boys take notice. It's all in competition with the other girls to outdo each other. Over time, that competition with the other girls, and eventually women, evolves to an advanced level where things like anorexia come into play.

Historically, skinny wasn't a "look" until the common people had enough food to become fat. Even now, poor societies picture overweight women as more attractive than thin girls who can't afford enough to eat. As soon as everyone in our "rich" society was fat, the rich celebrities all became skinny to look different. Now thin is in and people are literally dying to become skinny.

As far as I'm concerned, women can blame themselves just as much as men for their own problems. It's their own vanity to appear like the wealthy celebrities that are doing them in. Take some frickin' responsibility for your own life, please.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, she asks, must women in video games always look like Las Vegas show girls?

They don't "always" look that way. Q3A, IIRC, had a fairly stocky female character (think "East German Swim Team" (archaic refernce, I know)), along with the standard top-heavy tarts.

Re:Why?

[wheany]

Actually, my sisters like Tekken because it has good looking guys in it.

Re:Why?

[Murasaki Skies]

I think the real problem is that many women very much dislike seeing any female that's more than slightly more attractive than them.

Re:Why?

[Iriel]

I agree to a large extent, but I've also noticed a trend. Beyond games like The Sims, the next most popular genre of game that I see women play is RPGs. The problem is that there are still plenty of studios that believe that RPGs are only played by 14 year old boys. Some RPGs are getting better at keeping the 'ho trash' meter in the green, but it's taking a while.

Re:Why?

[The NPS]

There's definitely some truth to that.

I remember I discovered that when my girlfriend worries that she looks nice and asks me if she looks good in something, it's really almost as harmful in the long to say yes as it is to say no.

Saying "yes, you look great" only temporarily reafirms her fears of being unattractive. In the long run, you can't reasure a person he's insecure about their looks.

Beauty eventually fades, and if you ever really want to help them deal with that you've got to help them understand that their attractiveness isn't the same thing as their self-worth. I know a lot of girls who can't seperate their worth as a person from their beauty as a woman. Drives 'em nuts, all day. That's basically why women worry so much about makeup, and hair, and nails, and bullshit, and why feminists get so pissed off about hot girls in the media.

Typically, when I'm asked, I just go, "Yeah, you look like shit." It doesn't really help much, but it'll help reduce the amount of times you hear the question.

Re:Why?

[obeythefist]

That's great advice but it takes a lot of maturity to understand that you are responsible for your own life (and the outcomes of the decisions you make!)

Children (won't someone please think about them?) (and immature adults for that matter) are quite impressionable, and they tend to like the steaming material that the mass media shovels at them.

So the real question, I think, is "How much responsibility does each of us have to ensure that the whole of society does not continue to perpetrate these values?". And of course, developing, playing and advocating computer games with barbie-doll figured girls and action-hero styled guys is an example of perpetrating the aforementioned values.

Re:Why?

[arhar]

Only on Slashdot can something like this get rated 'Insightful'.

Re:Why?

[Alphabet Pal]

Only on Slashdot can something like this get rated 'Insightful'.

No kidding. Isn't it a breath of fresh air to see people actually tell the truth and (for the most part) not be penalized for it?

Re:Why?

[Vicissidude]

You miss the point completely. Girls objectify themselves at a young age for their own vanity. In fact, they do it so universally across so many cultures that one wonders whether this is only due to nurture and not also nature. You can try teaching girls not to be vain, but then you're likely to be subverting their very desire, which brings more problems.

As for "perpetuating values", a game is going to perpetuate some value. There's no way to get around it - even Pac Man perpetuated a value or two. The problem lies with doing this while still being realistic to the majority of the people. In our society not many people would buy the idea of the hero performing all these feats to save a fat, ugly, pimply, old princess. Nor would they accept the idea of the hero going out of her way to save a skinny, ugly, balding, short prince. However, it is very realistic to see someone going out of their way for an attractive member of the opposite sex.

So then, I'm left with "perpetuating values" about what makes an attractive member of the opposite sex. That is why I brought up history. At some point, heavier women were considered the most attractive. Marilyn Monroe, for example, was supposedly size 14. At another point, milky white skin was most attractive because it meant you had enough money that you didn't have to do hard work outside. Once a lot of people spent time inside, having a tan year-round became attractive since that meant you had money and time to go somewhere warm and sunny during winter. These preferences change, and they change rapidly. That makes the real question what do you would prefer to perpetuate?

I have no problem with game makers perpetuating the slim, fit, athletic bodies for both male and female. Why? These are the most healthy of the bodies around. Being fat or overweight is unhealthy. Being skinny while also not working out is also unhealthy. Frankly, I would have a problem with a game promoting heavy models as the ideal since that is the most unhealthy to promote.

Re:Why?

[arhar]

Sure, from a desperate anti-social loser's point of view, it's the truth. But I know plenty of women that can honestly admire other women's beauty without any ill feelings.

Re:Why?

[sykjoke]

Being skinny in the west shows that: 1: You don't have a plebian office job. 2: You have enough free time to exercise properly, and enough money to afford a personal trainer. 3: You can afford fresh fruit and vege and don't eat cheep junk food like burgers, and white bread. 4: You have enough money to buy the drugs that keep you thin. Just look at pictures from the seventies compaired with today, the main difference is that everyone in the seventies is skinny!

Re:Why?

[Murasaki Skies]

Too bad for you I said many, not all. There are also many women that don't care much about the state of female characters in video games, or even about video games in general.

Re:Why?

[log0n]

Good god I wish I had mod points. +5 insightful all the way.

Hooray...

[ooPo]

Yet another article on women in the games industry that contains no more information than a few rambling paragraphs about a random game player, who happens to be female, not enjoying what the industry has to offer.

If you don't like the games, stop buying them. Vote with your dollars, people.

How is this even news? Is it because she's female? Is that supposed to matter? Guys dislike crappy games, too.

Re:Hooray...

[Pulse_Instance]

You know what phrase I wish would die?

Vote with your dollars.
I hear it here all the time, in this case it doesn't even make sense, the dollars lost from her not buying a game aren't even worth the industry looking into. In fact the likely hood of the games industry even noticing the loss of the few women gamers who care about this is pretty slim. If they did notice it they probably wouldn't realize what caused the problem.

Re:Hooray...

[VendingMenace]

IF they don't notice the loss, then who cares?

Seriously, the point of the gaming industry is to make money through entertaining people. It is not their job to make sure they present realistic images or to give everyone warm fuzzy happy feelings. If it is not a big enough deal to make a large impact in their sales, then oh well.

Re:Hooray...

[DAldredge]

Judging from women's magazines most women either don't care or enjoy looking at attractive women.

It hasn't hurt cosmo's numbers.

Re:Hooray...

[Iriel]

There's a reason the phrase doesn't make sense. It was created by the industry, for the industry. The companies and organizations that usually use it are the people who are snickering back stage because they know that they've already got the majority. They tell you to vote with your dollars because the people that will vote against them make no difference.

That's just my two cents.

Re:Hooray...

[Yocto Yotta]

Regarding what ooPo said, "people are voting with their dollar" and "Guys dislike crappy games, too" are referecing the fact that these games that this woman is complaining about are good games in their own right, and that we are technically voting with our dollar.

Some shitty games make hundreds of millions in revenue, but with the popularity of review sites these days (and perhaps aided by some people's gullibility), as well as the increased complexity of the Big Three's hardware revisions, I think that there will be a decrease in subpar games coming out.

The talented developers at the tiny studios which can't float themselves through the next console generation are going to be aborbed by the big studios pushing out licensed games. Where you had b-rate people working on these types of games in the past, you know have a multitude of top rate, innovative developers coming at you from all over the place. Just a thought.

Re:Hooray...

[badasscat]

Judging from women's magazines most women either don't care or enjoy looking at attractive women.

This is actually a really good point. I actually think articles like this are completely off - I do agree in general that there is a very male slant to most video games in the gameplay department but the portrayal of women is not the real problem. It's a red herring. Most guys don't want to play as fat slobs and I doubt most girls would want to play as your average overweight soccer mom either. "Unrealistic" portrayals of characters in games are what people want, whether male or female. Games are a chance to escape from reality, to take on an alter-ego that you could never be in real life and to see other non-playing characters that you wish you could see in real life. Nobody wants a game filled with a bunch of realistic ugly people.

If the particular fashions on display are the issue, well, maybe game developers just need to hire a bunch of fashion consultants. Seriously though, there are games that I've played where my wife has actually said "wow, she's beautiful". Some developers are just better at this than others, like some developers are better at every other facet of game design than others. (Some examples of games my wife has complimented the character designs in include Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2 and Soul Calibur 2, but there are others I'm forgetting.) It's simply a measure of quality whether or not a developer gets the character designs right, just like it's a measure of quality whether they get the level designs or the monster designs or the weapons or the sounds right. Why are we treating it as if there's some sort of discrimination going on?

Every game is different, though, and every game has different goals for what it's trying to achieve. There is no one "right" character design style - what works in FFX is not going to work in GTA. I think the real argument is about creating more games with gameplay that appeals to women, and the character design will naturally follow from that.

(btw, I've always found fighting games to be great cross-gender fun - the focus on cool-looking moves that almost make a sort of dance out of every fight, combined with simple one-on-one gameplay seems to appeal to women despite the violence.)

Re:Hooray...

[ooPo]

Its not that your vote isn't counting - its just that you're being outvoted. Stop whining because you didn't win... at least you still have your dollars. :)

Re:Hooray...

[westlake]

If you don't like the games, stop buying them. Vote with your dollars, people

Women are voting with their dollars. But their dollars aren't being spent on Grand Theft Auto. They are going to politicians who would rein in developers like Rockstar.

and she would rather...

[fool36]

see a fat woman with big hair and lots of tatoos?

Re:and she would rather...

[grub]

"Trailer Park Girl" Only for XBOX!

Re:and she would rather...

[Nasarius]

A touch of realism would be nice. I'm getting tired of the enormous adolescent-fantasy boobs everywhere.

Re:and she would rather...

[ciroknight]

Thank goodness everyone knows that people who own Xboxes only play Halo... I'd hate to see that one start popping up in dorm rooms.

Re:and she would rather...

[KDR_11k]

UT2003, female juggernauts?

Re:and she would rather...

[patternjuggler]

A touch of realism would be nice. I'm getting tired of the enormous adolescent-fantasy boobs everywhere.

The unrealistic proportions I think are so far a function of the how primitive the graphics are- you had to make Lara exaggerated because you only had a handful of polygons to do it with on the PS1.

Or even going back further to low-res 2d graphics, you'd have to do something like this to show a female:

=
==
=
=

And that's way unrealistic. Now, we can have thousands of polygons along with realistic skin tones, hair and clothing physics, eye movement, and everything else that makes a real person attractive to look at- they don't need to hit you over the head with caricatures.

Re:and she would rather...

[linguae]

Disclaimer: I'm a male

and would she rather see a fat woman with big hair and lots of tatoos?

Just because the writer of the article disapproves of Lara Croft and Wu doesn't mean that she wants to see them replaced with a 500-pound woman with big hair and lots of tattoos. That would be the complete opposite end of the spectrum. She just want them replaced with realistic looking women. You know, the ones that we see in everyday life. They don't have to have a watermelon-sized chest like Lara does. And there is more to beauty and attractiveness than cup sizes and skin. They can make an attractive character without having to make them look like Vegas show girls. They just need to look realistic and be a game character that kicks butt in the game. That's what the author seem to want.

Re:and she would rather...

[Alphabet Pal]

doesn't mean that she wants to see them replaced with a 500-pound woman with big hair and lots of tattoos. She just want them replaced with realistic looking women.

Clearly you've never been shopping at Wal-mart.

Breaking news!

[line-bundle]

Daytime TV shows need a man's touch.

Re:Breaking news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Next on Oprah, "All Out of Gum!"

Mmmm...

[eviljolly]

She kicks high.

Of course Wu the Lotus Blossom is half-naked

[saltydog0302]

She walks 15 hours a day and spends the other 3 fighting. She's wearing her world's equivalent of a sportbra. That's normal. Move on.

Women in video games

[imr]

show that it's gamers who need a woman's touch.

Re:Women in video games

[xtracto]

hooray man! you really made me laugh! hahaha no shit... thanks for the nice moment...

darn... or should I cry? *ALT+TABs to Solier of Fortune 2*

Metroid

[hattan]

Maybe females in games should all be as covered up as Samus Aran

Re:Metroid

[shoptroll]

Except for the fact that when you get the "best" endings, you're pretty much treated to a fan service image of Samus sans the armor. I could see there being a slight issue with that.

97% of Slashdot readers are men

[EnronHaliburton2004]

OSTG user statistics (Including Slashdot).
- 97% of OSTG readers are men
- average age is 29

Arguing about women in games on Slashdot is like a vegan arging about animal rights in a sausage factory.

Re:97% of Slashdot readers are men

[saltydog0302]

As both a vegan and a woman I'd like to mention that I thought my campaign at Jimmy Dean worked out pretty well. I didn't stop any deaths but I got a lovely fridge magnet.

Re:97% of Slashdot readers are men

[RealErmine]

Arguing about women in games on Slashdot is like a vegan arging about animal rights in a sausage factory.

97% of OSTG readers are men

So in one respect we're arguing about women in games in a sausage factory.

this just ties in with society

[zxnos]

...i find it intersting that since the very late nineties to present day that softcore porn and the general glamourization of porn has really become mainstream in teenage society in the u.s. there is going to be an social revolution just opposite of the sixties in about 15 years. wait for it.

Re:this just ties in with society

[Nasarius]

there is going to be an social revolution just opposite of the sixties in about 15 years. wait for it.

I think you have it backwards. The porn fetish is because of the taboo. Compare with western Europe. Most of the countries are much more sexually liberal, with sex education starting at an early age. The result? Fewer teenage pregnancies, no association of simple nudity with sex, and fewer problems with sex in general.

In short, it would be difficult for America to go even further backwards unless they want to reenter the Dark Ages.

Re:this just ties in with society

[Shimdaddy]

No it doesn't. First off, learn to capitalize and punctuate. English rules were made for clear, concise communication, and your post really is hard to read.

Assuming I got it right you're claiming that the US will drastically remoralize in 15 years? Not a chance. Point out one time in history that America (or any society) has remoralized significantly... the only ones I can think of were the Puritan and other religous movements, but no one could honestly claim to expect a resurgence in organized religion.

Re:this just ties in with society

[zxnos]

who said anything a religion?

Re:this just ties in with society

[zxnos]

how is it going backwards to respect women instead trating them as objects and sex slaves? i agree that if we had better sex education things would be better. there is a difference between healthy sexuality and pornography.

last time i was in europe i didnt see any 12 year old girls wearing 'porn *' shirts.

Re:this just ties in with society

[radish]

last time i was in europe i didnt see any 12 year old girls wearing 'porn *' shirts.

Exactly. Because there's less taboo, it's less desirable. Kids (particularly teenagers) love to do things that shock adults, it's what lets them figure out the boundaries of what's acceptable. No taboo, not interested.

My mother played some serious mind games on me as a kid - she'd offer to sign me off sick from school whenever I wanted. So of course I rebelled by studying hard...hmm...easily manipulable ;)

Re:this just ties in with society

[Eternal Cynic]

Point out one time in history that America (or any society) has remoralized significantly...

Not that I agree with the OP, but I have one example : Prohibition. Of course, that led to the rise of bootlegging and organized crime. Let's hope we don't have to go through another "remoralization" of the US any time soon....

Re:this just ties in with society

[Anonymous Coward]

ind it intersting that since the very late nineties to present day that softcore porn and the general glamourization of porn has really become mainstream in teenage society in the u.s. there is going to be an social revolution just opposite of the sixties in about 15 years. wait for it.

You already see a little bit of it today, I'm a bit old (29) but the religious teenagers I see today are much more devout than the ones I knew in my day...I wouldn't be suprised if some teens are attracted to it just because it's 'counter culture'

Then again, maybe I just hung out with deliquents.

This again?

[Otter]

Geez, we almost got through a week without a "The game industry needs to ______ to attract more female gamers!" article, but Zonk steps in at the last minute with another one...

It's a shame that none of the people who know exactly how to attract female gamers bother to actually, y'know, make games. (With the one exception of Brenda Laurel, who mostly succeeded in issuing lots of press releases about how smart she is before blowing through all her investors' money.)

I must've missed this minigame

[JimmehAH]

Don't even get her started on the thong-bikini babes that the male gunmen win as prizes in 'Grand Theft Auto'

You'd think they could find enough sexism in games without making stuff up.

Re:I must've missed this minigame

[superpulpsicle]

That is hidden content to be released 2 years from now when sales have slowed down.

Please, no.

[mcgroarty]

Let's hope that putting video games on ritalin and sending them through sensitivity training isn't half as destructive to gaming as it's been to Hollywood.

For a good rant

[linuxwrangler]

Don't even get her started on the thong-bikini babes that the male gunmen win as prizes in 'Grand Theft Auto,' which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers.

There is a funny rant about this in today's sfgate.com (There's Sex In My Violence! What's this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent "Grand Theft Auto"? I am outraged!).

Re:For a good rant

[despisethesun]

Mark Morford is boring and pretentious. Even when he makes a good point it manages to get lost in his meandering neo-liberal-yuppy rambling.

Re:For a good rant

[gangien]

here's another one Maddox does his take

hrmmm... doesn't it bother her?

[PHanT0]

"which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers"

and we all KNOW absolutely ALL porgrammers are... ya know, male.

Hot Coffee demeans women? Ridiculous

[J23SE]

Wow... And just as we thought Hot Coffee was dead.

This 'feminist' attitude in particular annoys the hell out of me. How is it that consentual sex with a *girlfriend* in a game is automatically considered demeaning to women?

Does 'feminism' imply that all mention of sex should be eradicated? Because somehow males only use it for their pleasure or to demean women? Sorry to break it to these 'feminists', but women enjoy sex too.

And on top of that, the amount of time and effort it takes to get with any of the women in GTA for 'hot coffee' is significantly higher than what it takes to learn to fly, defeat a drug ring, and take over half a city. Real life women are usually far easier.

Skewed attitudes about sex do exist in videogames, but the article seems to be grabbing at popularity here. Maybe instead of getting on the bandwagon and producing a knee jerk response to the 'awful sex' in GTA the author should actually think about what he or she is implying.

End rant.. that just pissed me off.

Re:Hot Coffee demeans women? Ridiculous

[TopShelf]

And besides, in the Hot Coffee clip, there's an onscreen message saying "nice guys finish last". See, the developers care about the women, too!

Re:Hot Coffee demeans women? Ridiculous

[Makarakalax]

Yeah well said.

I fail to see how sex instantly means women are being demeaned. Especially since the sex mini-game's purpose is to make the woman come. So doesn't that mean we are being trained to be more considerate lovers by this horrendous thing.

Re:Hot Coffee demeans women? Ridiculous

[patternjuggler]

How is it that consentual sex with a *girlfriend* in a game is automatically considered demeaning to women?

Actually in this case it is even more annoying because the female interviewees in the article don't mention the GTA sex mini-game, it's just insinuated that if they did know about it they would be opposed. Reread this portion of bang-up objective journalism from the AP:

Don't even get her started on the thong-bikini babes that the male gunmen win as prizes in "Grand Theft Auto," which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers.

There ARE!

[soniCron88]

What the industry seems to ignore is that the downloadable and web-game market (Bejeweled, Diner Dash, etc.) are wildly popular with women. The hardcore gaming market will always cater to men, because there will never be a big market for women. Why? Because women, generally, don't like competition. They don't like harsh challenges. They like to "play", not struggle to win. When you were a kid and out tackling other kids or hitting baseballs through the neighbor's window, what was your kid sister doing? Playing with dolls! That should tell you something! This kind of play is embodied in games like Bejeweled, Diner Dash, The Sims, etc. Stop looking for problems where they don't exist. You don't hear me complaining that women don't watch enough porn.

Re:There ARE!

[Kelson]

Yep. My wife is practically addicted to Puzzle Pirates, loves Bejeweled and once spent an entire Saturday afternoon playing Diner Dash. If she's on the computer, and she's not playing one of those games, she's probably on PopCap trying out something new.

The games are there, if you know to look for them. They just aren't on the retail shelves (for the most part).

Re:There ARE!

[TaraTeich]

Hmm. The GAME industry certainly isn't ignoring the fact that web/downloadable games are wildly popular with women. It's the MEDIA that ignores it. I brought up the fact that this is one of the fastest growing categories of games in my interview. But. That's not a hot button topic like GTA, so it didn't get mentioned.

As to women not liking competition, I don't know if you've met any. Women that is. Most of the women I know are fiercely competitive. I know I am. I know I'm not the exception either. There's all sorts of competitiveness in women, it just comes out in different ways.

Does playing with dolls really tell us something? Ever play with dolls yourself? You sure? What about action figures, or GI Joes? I'm not really so sure what playing with dolls means. Women like competition and challenges. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't met a woman. What are all those women playing Bejeweled doing? Trying to get a top score. Trying to beat their friends score. Trying to break a record. That's competition.

Re:There ARE!

[radish]

When you were a kid and out tackling other kids or hitting baseballs through the neighbor's window, what was your kid sister doing? Playing with dolls! That should tell you something!

I'm sorry, that's sexist crap. I'm a guy and as a kid I hated being outside. I never played sports, I much preferred staying at home and playing with my He Man and Transformers figures. You know, dolls for boys. Later I progressed to computers, and we all know where it went from there. On the flip side, my girlfriend was the opposite. From what I hear she was quite the tomboy, always getting in trouble, playing every outdoor game she could (t ball, lacrosse, whatever) and ending up as a cheerleader. These days I like GTA, she likes Paper Mario, and we both like Lego Star Wars.

Re:There ARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, most people I know playing the Bejewelled games barely notice the score, they're kinda zoned out by the OOH PRETTY SHINY EFFECTS.

But what the hell do I know, I'm just a female game designer who sells games predominantly to females. NOBODY EVER WANTS TO TALK TO ME. :)

Re:There ARE!

[wodeh]

Tara, would you be interested in doing an interview with a small time web-based gaming publication (GamingHeadlines.co.uk) which will not misquote the bejesus out of you?

Re:There ARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

When you were a kid and out tackling other kids or hitting baseballs through the neighbor's window, what was your kid sister doing? Playing with dolls! That should tell you something!

This is nurture more than nature....you see a lot more little girls playing sports now than say 20 years ago. The same will happen with video games. I'd say the women in their mid 20's to 30's will be the last ones that were raised as seeing video games and computer as a "geek/loser only" thing

I don't think that women don't like competition, they just traditionally compete in different ways. Usually it was to see who could look the best, or reel in the best husband.

Nowadys they are in competition in the job market, which is about as cut throat as it can get. You also see more females who are into sports etc.

If this is a good thing or not for society at large is a whole different topic I wont get into. On a final note I will say it's disturbing that you were modded "Troll" when you stated your opinion and I'm sure it's ones that others share. So for the mods, try to remember Troll != Disagree with.

To everyone who says there is this huge female gaming market being ignored, GO MAKE A GAME FOR THEM. Grand Theft Auto started out really small, maybe you can become the "Lifetime gaming company!". Or maybe you can go down in flames trying to prove your point.

Re:There ARE!

[TaraTeich]

Can I email you directly?

Why these endless stories?

[Evro]

What's with this onslaught of "there's not enough female programmers" or "I don't like the portrayal of women in video games" stories? Why is it "important" that we have more women programmers? I have no problem with it either way, as people should be judged based on performance, but if programming doesn't interest women, why is that being portrayed as some sort of failure by the industry? I've said it before and I'll say it again: men and women are different, they have different abilities, inclinations, emotions, brains and bodies.

I find it hard to believe that many (or probably any) women decided against a career in programming because of scantily clad or anatomically-exaggerated female characters in games. People who program tend to do so because they like to program. There are hudreds, if not thousands, of programming roles that have no interaction with large-breasted female pixel-models. Even within a given game, there's so much to do besides render the models that this entire line of reasoning is just asinine. If you don't like the products your company makes, work somewhere else.

As for nudity in games: every information medium ever created was promptly appropriated for pornography. Considering sex is among the most important issues for people everywhere, since about... forever, I don't see why this is surprising or shocking.

A game like GTA:SA is targeted at a specific demographic: men over the age of 18. If the game sells well in its target market then it's a success. If people outside the target demo don't like it, it doesn't really matter. The games industry has introduced games targeted at females of several age groups and by and large, they're flops. The reason behind this is pretty simple; see my first paragraph.

Re:Why these endless stories?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Damn right.

Although, just to play devil's advocate, let's pretend that it's a big problem that there aren't many women programmers. You know what other field there's not enough women in? Garbagemen^H^H^Hpeople. For every female programmer, I want a woman picking up my trash.

Re:Why these endless stories?

[despisethesun]

There's good money in picking up garbage, too. Where I live, the starting wage for garbagemen is over $18/h, plus a ton of benefits. It's a tough job to get, though, because as with any gov't job, you usually have to know someone to get in.

Why don't people complain this much about TV

[hattan]

Many of the shows on TV contain scenes that contain sexual situations, even if they don't show much skin its still suggestive. Also women on TV are often dressed in skimpy outfits, why is it 100 times worse if its in a game?

Re:Why don't people complain this much about TV

[chewties]

When Desperate Housewives: The Game comes out maybe they'll change their tune. The women on that show are sexual predators, and as men we should all find it completely offensive... if it weren't so completely uninteresting.

I'll complain

[J23SE]

The world would be a much more enjoyable place if women watched at least an hour of balanced porn a day.

Where are legislators when we need them?

Re:I'll complain

[ThePlague]

Fox announces a new cable channel: Fair and Balanced Porn.

I'll leave it to the reader as to what that...entails.

Samus gets no love

[XenoRyet]

I just have one thing to say: If Lara Croft gets used as the first and typical example of a female video game heroine, I'm gonna start slapping people. If you have a discusion about this and don't mention that Samus Aran was in fact the first, and exemplifies everything that's right with a video game heroine, you need to give up your gamer licence immediatly.

Re:Samus gets no love

[snuf23]

Yeah go Samus! Armor wearing alien blasting chick who strips down to her skivvies when you win the game!

Re:Samus gets no love

[Anonymous Coward]

Your have to realize: It gets hot in that suit after running through blasting lots of enemies and runnning through LAVA and ACID. She has to take it off sometime. What I don't get is how she can go for 10 hours or more without having to go to the bathroom.

Spelling mistake on the article's title

[krelian]

Should be "Video Gamers Need A Woman's Touch".

Women ARE objects in games

[LinuxPoultergist]

Woman lucy = new Woman();

Re:Women ARE objects in games

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that have a * in there somewhere... like Woman *lucy = new Woman();

Re:Women ARE objects in games

[rupert0]

Shouldn't that have a * in there somewhere... like Woman *lucy = new Woman(); No * if you are coding in Java. lucy.setUgly(true);

Re:Women ARE objects in games

[Anonymous Coward]

How many games have you bought that were written in Java? 1?

Re:Women ARE objects in games

[rupert0]

ermm cellphone games ??

I was misquoted

[TaraTeich]

In the midst of a long conversation with a reporter about being a woman programmer and a woman gamer, he posed the question, how do you feel about the representation of women in games? I responded that I don't know why woman have to be so scantily clad, but it doesn't stop me from playing the games.

I had lots of good things to say about games. I am a gamer, I love games, including Jade Empire, and I never made a single comment about the portrayal of women in GTA. Note he says, "Don't get her started on..." He didn't get me started. It never came up. I thought the interesting part of the article was going to be about the challenges of breaking into a difficult industry, and the challenges of broadening the appeal of the industry beyond the hardcore gamer.

I didn't just use The Sims as an example of accessible, non "male oriented" games. I cited several examples to show that there's a public misconception that there are no other types of games out there. Look at Amplitude, Pikmin, Karaoke Revolution, look at the growing online gaming sector. My hope was to show that the game industry is NOT in need of a woman's touch. It's in need of better publicity. This article just reinforces the stereotypes.

Don't believe everything you read.

Re:I was misquoted

[Saige]

OMG! You mean a journalist misquoted someone and twisted things to create a more interesting story then there actually was? Wow!

Ok, sarcasm aside, it sucks that they'd do that, even if it is typical. It's rather unfair to you, and makes you sound like you're spitting out the same stuff we've been hearing over and over again. I don't get why a journalist would essentially just re-write a new version of the same articles we've been reading forever. Yeah, we've heard women play The Sims, we know that people are upset with the portrayl of women as sex object in most games, etc, etc. DON'T JUST TELL US AGAIN, people! Sounds like anything new and interesting that you said, they just tossed in the trash.

Thanks for updating on here on what you actually said... :)

Re:I was misquoted

[kaptron]

That is a shame... reminds me of the article that was linked a while back, where John Davison described an experience going on a TV show where they were supposed to give him time to talk about the future of games, and instead the show was centered entirely on violence, and the role of video games in violent behavior, etc... and he ended up walking off the set.

And like he said in the article, about his reason why he didn't want to talk about violence and video games: "that's been done to death, it's boring." Same goes for the completely stale "female gamers appalled at scantily clad women, violence in games" retread.

Oh well... seeing this come from the mainstream media (ABC 6 *Action* News!! Dunn dunn DUNNN!) is nothing new, really.

Re:I was misquoted

[doc modulo]

Mod parent up, hint: look at the name of the poster. And it's not "insightful", it's "informative".

I was going to post about what Tara said in her interview like this:

She should realize that beatiful bodies are great assets to women. It's a great thing to have if you want to influence people the way you want them to be influenced.

If she's isn't that hot and is jealous of the virtual women then I disagree with her.

If she's disagreeing with the stereotypes because she's morally against men being manipulated then I agree with her although I personally think men shouldn't be so easy to manipulate in the first place.

(and then some stuff about how it's good to be in the group that's not easily manipulated and how great it is that you can talk the other group into things when it's needed).

Message to you Tara, EDGE has my respect and is the only print magazine I read at the moment. I don't know about the other magazines but I think they're just in it for the bribe money/ad revenues/"exclusive previews" the games makers give them.

Re:I was misquoted

[GaryPatterson]

"She should realize that beatiful bodies are great assets to women. It's a great thing to have if you want to influence people the way you want them to be influenced.

If she's isn't that hot and is jealous of the virtual women then I disagree with her."

You're kidding, right? The last time I saw this sort of attitude was in an old 70s documentary. I thought people had moved on in the western world.

Re:I was misquoted

[doc modulo]

What do you mean exactly?

Just to elaborate on what my opinion is on this matter: If a woman is attractive I'd say good for her, you'll probably go far in this world. Statistics prove me right.

The part where I said: "If she's isn't that hot and is jealous of the virtual women then I disagree with her."

Was not really thought out well, a more accurate text version of what I wanted to say would be:
Realize that hot looks are big weapons in the hands of women. You should celebrate the fact that women have this power. Women with hot bodies in games is only visual proof that women still have this influence.

Remember, the "disagree with her" is about her railing against stripper types in games which she didn't, she was misquoted. That part of my post WOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IF SHE WAS NOT MISQUOTED. Read my original post.

Oh and no, people generally haven't moved on that much. We're still more mammals than anything else, you can see it all around you if you look carefully. The higher level thinking that transcends our mammalian brain is in short supply and if it IS there we're constantly fooled by our lower level brains into doing their bidding. People's mammalian/emotional brains are easily manipulated which is great news for the smart ones, evil and good.

What do you mean with that 70s documentary attitude exactly? I need a more detailed description.

Re:I was misquoted

[Poeir]

I suspect you prefer Samus Aran (Metroid) to other video game heroines.

Oh yeah

[macshit]

So, is this the future?

Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters)

[grimharvest]

Must be nice!

Re:No wonder she's jealous

[Anonymous Coward]

i hope you are kidding, because if you seriously think that the chick in those films is fat, then you have truly been brainwashed by TV, sucker.

Make a different choice?

[Wylfing]

the 26-year-old software programmer gets annoyed by the appearance of such digital alter egos as...the belly-baring Wu the Lotus Blossom of 'Jade Empire.'

So play Scholar Ling. Duh.

Mod parent troll

[downward dog]

Man, I wish I had mod points right now...

Re:Mod parent troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna mod you suck up bitch, but I'll settle for overrated.

Re:No wonder she's jealous

[downward dog]

Exactly the point of this topic!

Sausage factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very subtle.

GTA

[Digital Vomit]

Don't even get her started on the thong-bikini babes that the male gunmen win as prizes in 'Grand Theft Auto,' which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers. "

I wonder if there wouldn't have been such an uproar over this game if the media hadn't been reporting on it every 15 freaking minutes. The mention of this seemed suspiciously superfluous to the content of the article (i.e. a "woman's touch" in video games).

Re:GTA

[TLLOTS]

Heh, your girlfriend sounds like my fiance. It's almost scary just how much fun she has mowing down people in cars, or beating old ladies to death with a baseball bat (yes, she actually targets old ladies specifically). I even mentioned the hot coffee mod to my fiance and told her about the contents of it (I've only seen a video of it as we don't yet have San-Andreas) and she just laughed and said she wanted to see it.

Actually, they don't look like action heros.

[LKM]

For the same reason the men look like action heros.

You mean like Mario, Captain Olimar, Smith from Killer7, the guys from FF:CC? Not to mention games with non-human male characters like Rayman or the Oddworld characters: Even in those games, females are slender and sexy, while males can be all kinds of things. Look at Sega Soccer Slam, for example. All girls have big tits and are cute, while the male characters are fat, small, big, slim...

That's the whole problem: There are all kinds of male characters, but there's only one kind of female characters.

Business

[kenp2002]

Hi, I don't give a fuck.

Women do not buy as many games as men.

The majority of games are bought by men.

Why the fuck do games need a woman's touch?

So I, the largest game buying demographic, cam buy a game made for someone else!?

That's fucking brilliant. Where do I sign up?

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Tara Teich (or, y'know, it certainly appears to be).

Re:No wonder she's jealous

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Is your aspect ratio set wrong? She looks like the fucking cryptkeeper...

Re:Tara Teich is a boot.

[kaptron]

really? it seems like the first billion hits I get on google images are from this site . I wasn't really interested enough to try image number 1,000,000,001.

Same as Movies

[darrint]

I'm a (not gay) guy and I find the same things offensive, but for the reason that my wife deserves better.

It's the same as movies and tv. They folks making the games suddeny have to clean up their act to attract a larger market. (simple economics rescues morality; go figure!) I, for one, am glad.

Re:Same as Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have been married a while or she has a really big whip, because you are about as brainwashed as they come.

Stereotypical images are only demeaning to various ppl such women if they let it go that way.

My fiance plays a variety of games and doesn't care one way or the other. If the gameplay is what she likes, that's all that matters. Her favorite game of all time is Tomb Raider 1. Now if that is a "demeaning" image to you and your wife then why does it not bother others like my fiance? Because she doesn't let it!

Re:Tara Teich is a boot.

[Anonymous Coward]

add "-garten" and you won't get it in your results.

GET OVER IT!

[Fr05t]

"...'Grand Theft Auto,' which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers. "

Get the FUCK over it! God anyone else tired of this yet!?! Everyday I'm half tempted to just stop reading "gaming" news. If I wanted drama I'd go by a ticket to a play!

The Five Foot Phallus Rule

[MiceHead]

If oversexualizing female characters has brought the industry more male gamers, the obvious solution to the problem of an underrepresented female gamer population is to oversexualize male characters.

Being an independent developer, we have an enormous amount of freedom in how we can portray our in-game characters. In our most recent action title, we made sure to portray male and female characters in a fairly realistic fasion. The result was that a major gaming magazine chided us for a female protagonist that wasn't busty enough. Apparently our undersexualized portrayal of women is a turn-off for males.

Similarly, we've noticed that for our puzzle games (where we portray no people), women make up roughly half of our customers. This drops way down for our action titles (where we do portray people). I must guess, then, that our undersexualized portrayal of men in these games has been a turn off for women. As such, starting with our next title, we will implement the Five Foot Phallus rule.

Let me explain.

• The Five Foot Phallus - All major male characters will possess a phallus at least five feet in length.
• Minor Characters may have phalli that are 3-4 feet long, which is closer to the human average, so nobody can complain about that.
• Gameplay - It should be noted that such a member is soley for aesthetic presentation, and will not affect gameplay. Players will not be able to walk up to enemies and beat them to death with their enormous genitalia. This only goes along with the industry trend, since in most video games, you can't use a female character's ridiculous bosom to suffocate opponents.
• Simulation - We're currently researching how we might most naturally present this, and are looking into licensing various engines for rigid-body physics.

I'm convinced that this move will bring the female demographic for our action games up in no time.

What do you think?

Re:The Five Foot Phallus Rule

[snuf23]

Well, you're on the right track. A couple points though:

1. Why just the phallus? We need great big balls to go along with old Godzilla.
2. Simulation will need to be updated to include the bouncing big balls.
3. Gameplay. This should be improved on both sides. Why not suffocate the baddie with your super breasts?
4. Five feet might just not be long enough. I'm sure Duke Nukem would come out with an eight footer at least.

Re:The Five Foot Phallus Rule

[Anonymous Coward]

The Five Foot Phallus - All major male characters will possess a phallus at least five feet in length.
So, what will your characters do with the 2.5 feet of the phallus that won't fit in their left trouser leg?

Minor Characters may have phalli that are 3-4 feet long, which is closer to the human average, so nobody can complain about that.
Actually i would even complain about a 1 foot phallus, but that's just me...

Re:The Five Foot Phallus Rule

[Murasaki Skies]

So, what will your characters do with the 2.5 feet of the phallus that won't fit in their left trouser leg?

You fold it back up and tie it off. Jeez!!!

Re:The Five Foot Phallus Rule

[Murasaki Skies]

Now that I think about it, you staple it off. That way you don't have to worry about it getting hard because of all the blood loss.

Re:Tara Teich is a boot.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.gametrailers.com/moses/moviesthumbs/498 0-t_empireearth2_dev5.jpg

Re:Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters

[radish]

You know what they say about averages - half earn more than that.

You have to wonder...

[Banner]

How many hollywood hunks she drools over when she goes to the movies.

Yeah men are often sexist, but women are too.

Re:You have to wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Four words: Beatles, Osmands, Michel Jackson

Re:Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters

[ikkonoishi]

No no no. That would be the median. THE MEDIAN!

Think about this sequence of numbers.

1 1 2 200 5000

Average = 1040.6
Median = 2

These women are too overly sensitive

[nakedsushi]

Before I get marked as a troll, I would like to say that I'm of the fairer sex and I love video games. In all honesty, I would much rather play a game featuring a slender female body with curves in just the right places than a game featuring a 40 year old obese woman in a muumuu. Sorry, I have nothing against people who wear muumuus, but in the same way I don't want to see them on the fashion runway, I don't want to see them in my video game.

I see nothing wrong with flesh-bearing outfits on video game women. They have beautiful, cartoonish bodies which were designed to be shown off. I think people who complain about video game women not looking "realistic" should listen to themselves. It's a video game; it's not real life.

I don't know how other people play games, but when I play a game, I pay more attention to the gameplay, the graphics, the storyline, and the music, than to the measurements of each female character to grace the screen. Sure, when I play DOA, I laugh because it's amusing and think, "Wow, she's so big, bouncy, and perky when she jumps" but that's about it. I don't feel any outrage just because 99.9% of the women in the world don't have Katsumi's figure.

The type of women who complain about video game women being too busty or bearing too much skin seem maybe a bit defensive or insecure about their own looks. I'm not 5' 8", weigh 100lbs, and wear a size 34D cup like the DOA girls, but I don't mind. Those girls are designed and put into the game to look good, and they serve their purpose.

Steriotypes.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Let's settle this, right here, once and for all.

How many women are reading this? Three? Four? Oh well, it'll have to be enough...

How many of you consider yourself beautiful? A perfect body?

Would you like a perfect body, if you don't have one?

Would you show it off if you had one?

Given the answers to those questions, I'd bet that most women would much rather play Lara Croft than a more "feminist" character. I mean, be honest, ladies -- wouldn't you rather be a hottie with a gun than an ugly, clumsy woman with a gun?

And when have the guys in games ever been "normal"? We never see Gordon Freeman, but judging by the hazard suit, what we can see of his arms, and all the cover art, he's got to be at least cute, and maybe even rugged and handsome. Certainly not a realistic MIT grad.

For that matter, have we ever had a male lead who's "ordinary" or "realistic"? Sure, real women would probably not really dress the way they do in games. But then, real men can't carry a small arsenal around with them, or fight for days without rest.

Extras don't really count, although I see pretty equitable representation there. From Half-Life 2, there's Gordon and Alyx, the perfect heroes, but there's also lots of ordinary people. Eli Vance has lost a leg and grown a greying beard, and Dr. Mossman is no runway model.

Or take the Halo games. In Halo 2, we have Master Chief, who's eight feet tall (or is it nine?), of pure muscle -- plus a reinforced skeleton, plus armor, plus an energy shield. He's fast enough to deflect a heat-seeking missile with his hands, and strong enough to bash an elite's head in -- through his armor, through his energy shield -- with one well-placed punch.

Or, if you want realism, look at the rest of the Marines. There's males and females, all in full uniform, all unique enough that they don't look like clones, but not unique enough that you notice overly that there have got to be less than 10 different Marine models that keep showing up again and again throughout the game. The only thing not particularly equal is that, after staring at one female Marine for about a minute straight (we were in an elevator), she said "I hope Cortana's not the jealous type."

Cortana is another example -- she's got an important role, she's got plenty of attitude, and it's most certainly not all about how many or how few clothes she's wearing, especially considering we only see her in a not-very-clear hologram.

In fact, in either of the Big Three games, I see no gender discrimination beyond these three facts:

1) The lead characters are all male
2) There's not a single woman in Doom 3. Well, ok, there's an email from a woman. But no female voices and no visible female characters. I don't think there was even a female computer voice.
3) The Combine are probably all male, if they are even human. The zombies are probably male, if you could even tell.

Other than that, Half-Life 2 had pretty ordinary people, aside from the fact that all of them were either being oppressed by an Orwellian society or were carrying a big gun. This even gets to the point where we see obvious male and female leaders, male and female medics, rocket-launcher-people, main characters...

Same can be said of Halo 2 -- Miranda Keys and Cortana don't get any more or less treatment than Master Chief or Sarge.

Considering that the FPS probably has the least amount of women playing of any game genre, by any measure, I'd say it's significant that the last FPS where I saw women unfairly treated (relative to society) was Duke Nukem 3D.

I do need to broaden my gaming horizons, but I see the same patterns everywhere. In the real world, hot guys throw on some jeans and a T-shirt, and a leather jacket if they're feeling fancy, and hot girls force themselves into the tightest thing they can wear, plus makeup, especially if they're going to watch a street race (NFSU) or if they are pimps/ho's (GTA).

Maybe the problem is

Re:Steriotypes.

[Minna Kirai]

But no female voices and no visible female characters.

Doom3 had at least one woman. The hero wanders into her office, she says a few lines, and then a new monster introduces itself by scattering her all over the keyboards. (The flaming flying skulls)

Re:Steriotypes.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Thought that was a child, not necessarily female. And I also thought the flaming skull came out of it, not through it...

Re:Steriotypes.

[Scuff]

that isn't a child, it's a scientist.

Gamefaqs tells me that right next to her there's a PDA with a woman's name listed as a Weapon Analyst. and a code for the plasma gun locker.

However...

[Kingrames]

In three days she will be completely over the issue. until the next month.

and the next.

and the next.

whyalways either/or?

[Bambi Dee]

Why is it that every time the topic comes up (i.e.: often), there're a couple comments that make it look like the only alternative to big-boobed, very-young-adult-looking dolls was another extreme, namely fat and mousey (and therefore ugly, it would seem)?

I suspect that if that's really how these people think, they're going to have a hard time outside where a lot of people actually manage to be attractive in their own ways (including some whose balance centres are not located in their breasts).

Is there really an outcry for "ugly" characters? I haven't exactly asked around, but I doubt it. Most people would rather look good, obviously. It's just that there're too few kinds of non-ugly and too few lovable characters, too few memorable faces. Wouldn't those, eh, benefit that supposed target demographic of hormone-crazed 16-year-old males as well? I don't really remember, but I don't think I was that unsophisticated at that age.

(Even the vaguely okay LOTR movies suffered from this problem by mistaking elves for dolls. Granted, Tolkien's originals don't exactly suggest "wild creature of the woods" but there might have been another way to make them look beautiful but not like fashion models. But maybe I'm weird just for thinking that there're other kinds of beauty. Give me some quirky wallflowers with frazzled hair or yes, somebody who's not actually tall and thin but has an interesting, expressive face.)

Well, I shouldn't care, I don't play these games/watch these movies/read these comic books anyway. If anything that's to my liking would be so off-putting to the rest, it probably doesn't matter what I want.

Typical...

[Spy der Mann]

Yeah sure. "Don't like this program? Program it yourself, noob!"

Why does your answer remind me of those elitist uber-geek linux zealots? Anyway.

There are consultants for lots of things. Why not have female consultants on game design?

After all, the women don't have to program thousands of lines of code, they just can review the storyboard for certain scene and say: "Add this and that".

What's the matter, big boy? Afraid a woman won't like how you're dressed?

Re:Typical...

[v01d]

There are consultants for lots of things. Why not have female consultants on game design?

Duh. You missed the point. If a game company wants to make a game more palatable to women, they should hire someone who knows how; if a game company wants it more palatable to young men, they should also hire someone appropriate. Get the idea yet? Target demographic is the key.

Most game companies don't hire Muslim consultants, taxi driver consultants or redheaded consultants.

Re:Typical...

[Anonymous Coward]

um why would they want to hire a woman consultant for a game geared towards young MALES.

you missed the point, you hire consultants for the target market you want, those games hit the target market quite well, why would they waste money on a woman consultant that will tell them nothing of use for their TARGET MARKET.

Re:Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters

[radish]

/me drops his head and goes back to school....

you're right, of course.

GTA

[BenjyD]

My girlfriend loves GTA3:Vice City. It's a bit disturbing watching her hunt down pedestrians with a baseball bat. Of course, she can't navigate at all and has to keep stopping to ask me for directions...

Re:No wonder she's jealous

[dadragon]

What? She looks like a typical female. Just because she doesn't look like a pr0n star doesn't mean she's a fat-ass who can't get any. It's really too bad when a desperate 13 year old punk kid who watches too much porn thinks that any women that he hasn't seen having sex is unatttractive.

Read the original article, damnit!

[RaggieRags]

If you guys would read the original article, youd see that its not about one womans pet peeves but the industrys inability to attract women to buy their games. "Voting with their wallets" is exactly the problem here. Many women dont like the way female characters are portrayed in games, and from the exposing art work they decide that games dont have anything to offer them. This will end up costing millions to the industry when half of the population is not interested in their products. And please dont give me the crap about male characters that look pumped up are the same thing as skimpily dressed women. They dont look that way to attract females, and women often dont find such male characters appealing. Male characters look that way because men and boys like such characters to represent themselves in games, simple as that. I am also a 26 year old female, and I also find oversexed characters tiring and many female characters simply degrading. Its so very easy for you to tell us not to buy. Lots of games that have things that I dont agree with are otherwise great games, and I want to play them too. How would you feel if youd be a role-playing gamer and youd have to miss games like Planescape: Torment and Jade Empire just to make a point to the industry? How would the game companies even know that a game doesnt sell as well as it could because of a character in bikini? Thats not the right way to make a change.

Re:Read the original article, damnit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but since females are only 1/1000 of the demograpic NOBODY cares what you think, they make games for the other 999/1000.

gameproducer exec1: "Lets ruin our business and make games that does not use every trick in the book to get more buyers."
gameproducer exec2: "Lets do something with good role models and family values."
gameproducer exec3: "Yeah, right!"
all three game producers: ROTFL!!!!!!!!!!1111 LAMO!!!1111

Its like ranting Jerry Bruckheimer blockbusters for lack of plot, there not supposed to have any, thye are supposed to lure as many viewers as possible to the cinema, thats the WHOLE point of the movie. Instead I have to watch low budget indy films if I want a good move, its ok for me becuase I know im quite alone.

Re:Read the original article, damnit!

[TaraTeich]

Um. Note the subject. Did you read the article? "... men account for 70 percent of the players of games written for consoles" I'm going to assume this means that the other 30% are console players are women. Which is slightly bigger than 1/1000.

It's not the lack of women's games...

[Dutch Gun]

...it's a lack of general creativity in the industry. The fact of the matter is that that violence is easy to do. Human interaction is hard. Plot development is hard. Drama is hard. I'm guessing that you'd attract a bigger female market share as well as more mature gamers in general by moving in these directions, but it's not a simple thing to do.

So, when a fiscally conservative publisher is looking for their next "safe bet", what sort of title do you think they're going to 'green light'? Sure, a few truly original games manage to slip by, but most of those sneaked through either because of the reputation of the designer, or because the game was disguised as something else during the pitch. My recollection is that Katamari Damacy was sold to the publisher as a racing game.

Honestly, I suspect it's not so much the sexism that drives women away from today's games. It's the mind-numbing wave of "violence as gameplay" that permeates 90% of all games you see on the shelf today.

Oh, btw, to answer the question of *why* everyone is interested in female gamers... it's not for some altruistic reason by any stretch of the imagination. It's simply that they're considered to be an untapped market. Nothing wrong with that, it's just pragmatic business.

Re:It's not the lack of women's games...

[Catnapster]

The fact of the matter is that that violence is easy to do. Human interaction is hard. Plot development is hard. Drama is hard. Do video games need human interaction, plot development, and drama? They're games, not books or movies. While some games, most notably RPGs, benefit tremendously from human interaction, plot development, and drama, it is not necessary and in many cases not desirable to include them in a game. The vast majority of games require only a setting and a backstory to be excellent games.

Plot development and drama are wasted on multiplayer games, whether FPS, RTS, MMORPG, or any other genre; the gameplay itself is almost always emphasized over any story. For most games, where there is a definite objective and winner, this is evident and accepted. MMORPGs, on the other hand, seem like they might be well-suited to a storyline - but the vast, sweeping majority of players are concerned solely with amassing loot and building up their character, and possibly their guild.

I suggest that the single-player modes of most games also require no plot development or drama. In RTS and FPS games, which commonly have story-based campaigns of some kind, the focus is on accomplishing objectives to progress onto the next level. The story is fixed and generally completely unaffected by the player's actions. For instance, what happens in WarCraft III when you fail a mission? You are informed that you failed the mission, and you try again until you complete the mission, at which point the story continues as though you completed the mission the first time. The stories here could just as effectively be told in a movie or in the manual as in the campaign, and serve mostly to give each mission slightly more background than if you just played a skirmish against the AI.

The stories aren't necessarily bad - they're just completely unnecessary to the game itself. The story of Diablo II is much more detailed and complex than the story of Super Mario Bros., but they have about the same effect on the gameplay: backstory. In Diablo II, you're (insert name), a hero or heroine out to kill the three Prime Evils and save the world; in Super Mario Bros. you're Mario, a hero out to kill Bowser and save the Princess. Your character's personality does not change, develop, or even really exist.

The reason why game storylines are as simplistic as they are is because it is a game, not a story. It is a participatory medium, and to have an actually participatory story, the in-game characters would have to be as human as the player. Pen-and-paper RPGs can achieve a participatory story because a good gamemaster can play the NPCs and make them behave like humans (or the GM's idea of what elves, orcs, aliens, or whatever fictional creature would behave like).

Games do not have creative stories because games are a participatory medium. If you cannot participate in the story, you might as well have watched a movie or read a book. The reason why violence is so much more common in games than drama is because violence makes for a more effective and participatory game than does drama. Violence is also common in video games because the most popular games tend to simulate competitions that are unfeasible or illegal to play in reality, such as warfare or gladiatorial combat. Conversely, human interaction is rare in games because you can quite easily participate in human interaction by interacting with actual people, and most people have done so much human interaction during their lives that it's completely mundane, on the level of eating and sleeping. There are some games - dating simulations - that involve human interaction, but not only are they clunky and inaccurate, the basic premise is utterly idiotic. Without the prospect of meeting people, what the hell is fun about dating?

You mention Katamari Damacy, which is considered to be a very creative game. I admit that the story is quite creative (creative as in, it makes me wonder if I'm not high on marijuana), but it's nothing more than a backdro

Re:It's not the lack of women's games...

[Catnapster]

The fact of the matter is that that violence is easy to do. Human interaction is hard. Plot development is hard. Drama is hard.

Apologies... for some reason the blockquote tags failed to work on the original post. (Yes, I used the Preview Button.)

Re:It's not the lack of women's games...

[Dutch Gun]

You make a very good point. I admit I was negligent in only mentioning human interaction, plot, and storyline as the means for advancing games.

So, yes, there are far more ways to create great games than by simply pressing ahead on these fronts. There are many, many examples of very creative games that don't involve story at all. My choice of words happened to show my bias for my favorite genre, RPGs.

But I think perhaps you're missing the main point of my post, which is that violence tends to be a far-too-oft-used crutch in many games today. Instead of thinking of something creative for the player to do, they give the player a bunch of weapons, a lot of stuff to kill, and simply assume that will be 'fun'. It would be nice to see more games that looks beyond a hack-and-slash, shoot-everything-that-moves experience.

Re:It's not the lack of women's games...

[Catnapster]

I fully agree that violence is overused. Eventually the industry will reach the limits of violent concepts; some might argue it already has, Either way, there need to be fresh ideas in games. I think the success of Katamari Damacy (which is the epitome of an off-the-wall idea) will encourage some more inventive creations, but there are still some hurdles to overcome.

It will take a while before we really see a wide variety of new ideas, partially because game companies (like all corporations) are reluctant to try something new, but also because the market will have to be built up to receive them. Games like The Sims and Nintendogs are laying the foundation, but it will be a while before a creative (in the sense of creating things), nonviolent game will be as sure a bet as Yet Another FPS(tm). Right now, the people most receptive to games are the main market, gamers who don't yet find violence stale, so most games will be targeted toward them. When more gamers are people who are more interested in nonviolent games, the industry will be happy to create more inventive games to sell to them. Only a matter of time, really.

MOD ARTICLE AS TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same fucking trolling every month. Dont they get it?
1. Games are made to earn money.
2. Games with larger sales potential gets larger budget.
3. Guys play games, girls usually dont.
4. Guess what, most games are made for guys.
5. Btw, there are games for girls, guys hate those, so they dont sell, and the publisher goes bancrupt, as do the developer. /end rant.

Is this some sort of joke?

[wodeh]

Yeah, I'm sure every woman wants to see "Mary the high powered business lawyer" as a video game character. How fun would that be!

I thought people played games to escape from their boring, mundane lives, not emulate them.

Depends on the genre

[phorm]

A lot of games are rather gender inspecific. My girlfriend is quite into racing games and simulations, as well as some of the standard fun ones like SuperTux, etc that everyone can enjoy (did you know that SuperTux is available for windows now).

Kero kero...

[wikthemighty]

Pluck your magic twanger, Weirdo Froggy!

Re:Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters

[sykjoke]

I used to earn $87,330, I lived with my brother $29692 and sister $20,959 and a lodger 38,425.2. that's a total of £176,406.. woopie Living in the UK I couldn't get a mortgage on anything other than a two bedroom hovel.

flexibility is needed

[fsuarez2005]

I like GTA:SA. Why? Because there is a lot to do. Many people love Half-Life, because once your are tired of it, just download a mod to create a new game. What games need is more input from users? First, create a Halo quality game. Then, add editor to the game. Game engine programmers do the hard stuff while users do the fun stuff.

Re:Tara Teich is a boot.

[MrCopilot]

Try -garten in your search. Newbs, will they never learn?

http://www.empireearth2.com/images/videos/tara.jpg