Five Ways To Save Video Games

Games.net has an article up with the somewhat dramatic title of Five Ways to Save Video Games. The piece doesn't feel the need to pull any punches. From the article: "#1 Stop Treating Women Like Whores - Sexy is fine. Titillating can be fun. But when you show stupid jiggle-physics and scantily-clad girls cooing and moaning and wriggling, you show yourselves for what you really are: sex-crazed children. And don't think for a minute that the mainstream media doesn't pick up on this. If you can't stop demeaning women (with skimpy outfits and hyper-sexuality) and men (by glamorizing massive musculature and testosterone-dripping masculinity), then get the hell out of the industry."

Comments

Skimpy outfits?

[Jare]

It seems 90% of the world is a sex-crazed children, if advertisments are anything to go by. From cars to perfume to... yeah pretty much anything adheres to the "skimpy outfits + huge muscles" trend. Don't even get me started on movies.

1st point is totally exaggerated...

[Anonymous Coward]

"#1 Stop Treating Women Like Whores"

On the grounds of taste, I'd like to agree, but I don't think it matters overall to gaming's future successes. There are plenty of films and music videos that portray women as sex objects and do well out of it. Here's a great example:
http://www.internetdj.com/watch_video.php?op=watch &mediaid=15089&feature=1

More like...

[stupid_is]

The entire article is a bit disgruntled - bits seem cobbled together from that Games Manifesto and the rest is a rant saying "don't target game content at 14 year old males". Oh, wait. That's the main purchaser of games.

Maybe it would be nice if games could alsobe targetted at other markets, but I suspect the interest just isn't there. Just look at films - barring the odd Titanic / English Patient (eww), how many blockbuster chick-flicks are there? Granted they do exist, but the film market dynamics are different. Currently, the market says "geeky boys play games" - hence games focus their sights on geeky boys.

stop and think

[FidelCatsro]

I am a Man , I like seeing women in skimpy outfits .I do not view them as inferior or lessor beings because some women choose to wear something titillating . In fact I admire their courage and their bodies.
I like jiggling breasts .. It's natural for straight guys to like these types of things.
It is not Evil or wrong for Games to portray this .

They are not treating them as whores , they are treating them as beautiful examples of the female form.
I am not a sexist and believe women deserve equal rights in all things. The fact remains that men like to see scantily clad women and that is not going to change because a few prudes consider this demeaning .
We are not immature idiots , we know that most real women are not like this , but let us keep our fantasies please.(some women also enjoy scantily clad men , look at the success of male strippers )

The complaints about the story lines are silly , some games have better plots than others .. but the most important thing is the game-play . Sure a few stories are rather similar and have some plot holes .. but you would think that these people have never read works of literature .. I can tell you from experience that the same things happen even in the greatest of literary works .

After all these are just games and centre around the interactivity aspect of the story . Sure they do sometimes follow the Hero save damsel from villain plot but honestly it is a tried and true format that works well.

Special effects can be rather cool , So long as they are not over-used or inappropriately used (or lacking inappropriately ).

Cinematic experiences can be part of the games style , what is wrong with that . I don't have much to say on this part as it's really not worth commenting on

Re:stop and think

[emilymildew]

I just took great offence with the comment on that article that just because a female character is portrayed as sexy that we view them as something derogatory or lesser .

The problem is that when you teach a woman that unless she's 6 feet tall with a D cup, a 24 inch waist and a vacant look in her eyes that she doesn't belong in a video game, she IS being taught that she is lesser.

I don't argue that some men appreciate that aspect of the game. Or that some women might like male eye candy. I'm just trying to point out that he might have a valid point as far as how women see a game in which they are portrayed as moronic eye candy.

Re:stop and think

[FidelCatsro]

Perhaps , but then how many stumpy over/under-weight geek guys star in games ...
They are almost all Athletic , muscle bound , Heroic types .(well except Mario and Luigi , but they are still heroic )
There are also a fair few examples of strong female leads .. who admittedly are also Athletic fully formed heroic girls .

Guys get the impression that unless they are toned to perfection , can do a 4 minute mile and bench-press a small car that they are inadequate .. or do they

Yeah games have stereotypes , perhaps more games should fix this .. but do you really want to play a game staring your Systems admin .

  I will agree that occasionally the female leads in some games are a little lacking in the intellect department and are sometimes rather sterio-typical adult movie stars ,that should be addressed .. but then what about the 183CM tall, D cup and intellectually challenged blondes who will start to feel unwanted .

Games are not out there to teach , that's the parents job and the schools job ..

Re:stop and think

[WidescreenFreak]

I'm probably going to regret replying to this, but here goes.

Ditto here.

you are showing women that their role is to be pretty scenery, unimportant to the plot or action.

Emily, please stop jumping on the defensive and speaking in absolutes. No one here makes the assumptions that you always make. (Anyone who does either has not yet finished puberty or is not representative of the "normal" male.)

I agree that there would be no harm in making games with strong, female characters, or al least designing the game so that such a character is strong. However, there is no basis for making the blanket assumption that showing an attractive woman automatically equates to being irrelevant eye candy. But even if it did, the male target audience for these games are males aged 18-37. You have to expect that. Numerous studies (assuming that they're valid) have shown that most female game players are more into strategy, puzzle solving, or other more intellectual games. That market is changing, of course. You see more and more girls/women playing action/fantasy/FPS games than ever before, and a hell of a lot of them can whip their male opponents' collective asses. But they're still not the largest audience.

You also need to keep in mind that most designers are male. As such, they have a tendency to think in those terms. (There are exceptions, of course. Games like the No One Lives Forever series come to mind. Eidos admits to a backlash from the gaming audience for making the latest Laura Croft more top-heavy at the expense of gameplay/story of previous versions.) I remember John Cleese and Terry Jones saying how the Monty Python troupe apologized to Carole Cleveland on multiple occasions because, as they said, "We just didn't know how to write parts for women." Just because you see it as being easy to write strong women into storylines doesn't make it so.

I'm not excusing the game companies from their lack-of-female-character games, but you take these issues far, far too seriously. For example, T2X, an absolutely superb Thief 2 add-on, portrays the lead as one who wants vengeance for the murder of her cousin, of whom she was very fond. Based on your reaction in your post, the T2X team is showing all women to become vindictive, murderous kleptomaniacs when they suffer a personal loss. No one here believes that to be true.

I guess it would be too obvious to state, "Then go and form your own game company - by women, for women." It's also easier said than done, of course.

But the question has to be asked. Have you even bothered to start a grass-roots campaign to both major and independent game companies? I'm sure that question alone is going to garner "troll" or "flamebait" by incompetent mods; but the reality is that complaining on Slashdot isn't going to get these game companies to change their ways, nor is being a single voice who implies that she speaks for a larger segment, nor is putting up your own personal boycott when there are far, far more men who will make up for your single non-sale.

And as for your last question of "And what woman wants to play a game like that?" I know several gaming women just who play exactly the kinds of games that you describe. They look at the gameplay and whether or not the game is an overall enjoyable experience. They don't let comparably minute issues like "women as pretty scenery" bother them because they don't look at the whole issue in absolutes and they don't expect instances in a video game to be the same in the real world. That's why it's called a "game".

*sigh* Well, here come the mods. Who needs karma anyway?

Re:stop and think

[realityfighter]

Let me see how delicately I can put this...

I am a woman. I disagree. Games like Rumble Roses and Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball make me feel pretty shitty. The kind of "appreciation" you're expressing makes me feel pretty shitty, because for most men that appreciation comes before all others. It's demeaning to those of us who actually work to do something of value and meaning with our lives, to have our accomplishments swept aside by that natural titty lust. And somehow you expect a woman to like it simply because you're complimenting her body. What you don't understand is that most of the time what we want is appreciation for what we have done, not for the incidental shape of our tits. (And for those guys who say, "Gee, I wish people treated me like a sex object, hur hur hur!" - No, you don't. Trust me.)

If your body, which is something you have simply by virtue of existing, is the sole reason that people pay attention to you, what worth are your mind, soul, personality, opinions - in essence, the things that make up your sense of self? There's not much value in being "appreciated" like this all the time. Now think about how you would feel if you were ignored for a CGI image of a better body than yours - and probably "better" because you chose to spend your days, say, coding or writing instead of primping and dieting?

Again, this may not reflect how you feel or act, and I don't mean to say that this kind of portrayal is Eeevil in the moral sense. All I'm saying is that you might want to know what goes through my head when I, an actual woman, see a game like this, and why it makes me feel degraded.

I can feel a wave of moronic, misogynistic replies coming because of this post. I'm sorry, guys. If you don't want to understand things like this, it's not our fault that women seem mysterious to you.

Re:stop and think

[FidelCatsro]

Look at the men in those games ... seriously Do you think most of us guys have a single hope in hell of ever looking like that . The men's bodies are as much idealised as the women's.
Most men even if they sat and worked out constantly could never attain these looks couldn't .Well without major plastic surgery and steroid injections .. about the same thing women would have to do to look like those characters .The men are in the stereotypical roles that most of us would not want to fill in real life And the normal guy is ignored in favour of the Adonis type fable .

So why am I not offended by it .

I will tell you how at least one man feels.
I feel that I am secure in myself as a person .I don't need to feel inadequate just because I don't fit some idealised model of what some people think is normal .

You are perpetuating a stereotype of men as immature and driven by physical attraction , men who blindly lust after stereotypes . Some men do , just as some women do .
Men are not from mars , women are not from Venus .. bar a few extremely minor genetic alterations .. we are not that different .

This is how you feel as a specific woman and maybe a lot of other women feel like that .Honestly you shouldn't , there is no need to and the only person making you feel bad is you. Perhaps that some total immature prats .. and trust me there are women who are just the same and who make men feel bad about the way they look.

What it all boils down to is the separation between reality and fantasy
Do you really think I want to be some Adonis killing machine who has relationships with women who have the IQ of a watermelon . In real life ..not a hope in hell , but it makes for some great escapism . That's why it sells , People don't want games that reflect real life.

I have been married for a number of years to a wonderful intelligent woman who I think is the most beautiful thing in the world on all levels. She also does not fit in these stereotypes.

I apologise if this reply seems moronic or misogynist , It was not intended to .It was intended to be egalitarian and give you a little perspective into the male psyche and how I as one man view these things. I would hate to think I am the only man like this but i know for a fact I am not .

Great maths :(

[Doctor Ian]

Article: Instead of spending $20 million to make "THE NEXT HALO!!!,... why not spend $4 million to make five solid games with interesting themes? You might not sell 8 million copies, but with budgets like that, selling 300,000 units will make you serious bank.

5 * 300,000 = 1,500,000.
1 * 8,000,000 = 8,000,000.

8,000,000 > 1,500,000.

Re:Great maths :(

[Idolminds]

Your one game may bomb. You've put all your money into a single game and have it only sell 300,000 copies. By spreading the money out into 5 games, if each one sells only 300,000 then you're ahead. Or if 3 bomb and they other 2 take off you're still in better shape overall.

Dont put your eggs in one basket. Which I think is a better point to make.

Nothing wrong with video games

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Its just that the entertainment industry's creative muscle has atrophied and instead of offering new and innovative titles, we get the same formula based and derivative "sequels" and "clones" based on other successful franchises.

Most companies while earning billions of dollars don't want to waste millions developing a software title that may fail. The same is true in Television and Hollywood. The entertainment industry has resolved itself into only a few major companies that generate billions in revenue, but these companies make their billions by not taking risks.

All that is needed to save video games is to start breaking the mold and offering us something new. We don't need GTA or Quake knockoffs, just something new.

Gratuitous sex and violence isn't needed in video games, its a cheap gimmick to drive sales without investing much in innovation. But sex does sell, and as long as any movie, tv show, or game can make millions with it, it will continue to happen.

For the most part, many game formats are old time favourites, we will always love a fast paced FPS or thought provoking RPG or RTS, but rather then 90% of the market being clones of only a handful of original games, just take a risk and offer us something new!

REAL Best Way to Save Video Games

[tommertron]

I thought this article was about saving your current game in games, which is a problem that really bugs me.

To me, the best way to save video games is to be able to save whenever the hell you want, not run around the building/city/world/universe trying to find a save point.

The Attack of the Straw Men

[tolendante]

"Ok, so here's a big one. Why is it that half the games on the market begin with your character as the sole survivor of some mysterious holocaust?"

Hey, I've got an answer for him...they don't. Using hyperbole like this to establish an argument when there are actual real issues that could be discussed is simply bad writing. There are many ways to see that this is a straw man argument. An examination of the past year's releases and the upcoming year's releases shows how lame this argument is. Of the Top 10 releases of 2004, none involve a character who is the "sole survivor of some holocaust." Actually, none are close, though we almost got a holocaust in Halo 2 and we likely will in Halo 3:

• 1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) - 5.1 million
• 2. Halo 2 (Xbox) - 4.2 million
• 3. Madden NFL 2005 (PS2) - 3.2 million
• 4. ESPN NFL 2K5 (PS2) - 1.5 million
• 5. Need for Speed Underground 2 (PS2) - 1.4 million
• 6. Pokémon FireRed (with adapter) (GBA) - 1.2 million
• 7. NBA Live 2005 (PS2) - 1.2 million
• 8. Spider-Man 2 (PS2) - 1.1 million
• 9. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox) - 1.1 million
• 10. ESPN NFL 2K5 (Xbox)- 1.0 million

(Note: I'm not interested in his other points at the moment, but it doesn't look like jiggly boobs and a cinematic experience hurt GTA sales all that much and I'm not sure that any of the other titles included T&A. Heck, less than half of them featured a "hero" as the main character. GTA, and arguably the Halo games, feature an anti-hero. The sports games don't focus on a single character, nor do the racing games. So, only Halo, Halo 2, Spiderman, and Pokemon have the player playing as a hero. Only GTA features T&A. Only GTA, Spider-man, and the Halo games feature cinematic cut scenes. Of those, only the Halo games commit his sin of being, God forbid, Epic. I'm not aware that any of the games have you getting captured half-way through the game and having to recover your weapons. I've played lots of games that had you do that back in the 90's. I don't think I've played a single one on the current consoles, but I might be forgetting something.)

Additionally, here is a list of the upcoming releases on the PS2 as previewed by one of the major video game sites. I have marked the ones that don't feature a solo hero in a post-holocaust setting.

• Jak X: Combat Racing****
• Ratchet: Deadlocked****
• World Poker Tour 2K6****
• Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks****
• The Sims 2****
• The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer****
• Tak: The Great Juju Challenge****
• Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood****
• Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers****
• True Crime: New York City****
• Driver: Parallel Lines****
• X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse****
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire****
• Heroes of the Pacific****
• Ultimate Spider-Man****
• World Racing 2****
• Gene Troopers
• DT Racer****
• S.L.A.I. -Steel Lancer Arena International-****
• Knights of the Temple 2****
• Radiata Stories****
• Conflict: Global Terror****
• One Piece Grand Battle!****
• EyeToy: Kinetic****
• Ponkotsu Roman Daikatsugeki Bumpy Trot****
• Evil Dead Regeneration
• Pac-Man World 3****
• World Series of Poker****
• Ryu Ga Gotoku****
• Shining Force Neo****
• Guitar Hero****
• NASCAR 06: Total Team Control****
• StarCraft: Ghost
• Black
• 24: The Game****
• James Bond 007: From Russia With Love****
• Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves****
• Aeon Flux
• Fatal Frame III: The Tormented****
• Trapt****
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe****
• Call of Duty 2: Big Red One****
• Crash Tag Team Racing****
• Total Overdose: A Gunslinger's Tale in Mexico****
• Pri

Re:Riddle me this

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm... I hate to break this to you... but people are voting with their wallets. Just because people don't share your tastes does not make them stupid, uneducated or in need of your enlightenment. If you think it does, please graduate from junior school and then make another stab at holding an adult conversation when you think you're ready.

Let's look at the games you highlight here...

Gran Turismo: probably the most detailed driving simulator around (even if the single-player racing aspects leave a bit to be desired). The latest incarnation features the most detailed and extensive car and track list ever seen in the genre. I've thrown a car around on a race-course a few times and believe me, once you reach the kind of skill level where you're not crashing constantly, the Gran Turismo series give you pretty much the absolute best recreation of the experience that you can get on any platform. Forza, on the X-Box is close, but even that isn't yet quite "there". In short, Gran Turismo sells because it's an excellent electronic recreation of an activity that a lot of people consider fun and exciting. It's good. It sells. It deserves to.

Metal Gear Solid? It's hard to think of a franchise that's taken more risks over recent years than Metal Gear Solid. How easy would it have been for them to make a zero-though cash-cow out of MGS2 by making it a straightforward sequel to the original? Not hard. Instead, they go for a bold a risky move that, ultimately, seemed to upset more fans than it pleased. A wise business move? Maybe not. Shovelware for the masses? Hardly. Hell... look at Metal Gear Acid. If a tactical stealth card game isn't a novel use of the franchise, I don't know what is.

GTA? Believe me, a lot of people find this franchise irritating. If nothing else, it's annoying that, as Penny Arcade rightly stated, defending video games always seems to boil down to defending Rockstar. However, what people forget about GTA3 is that in terms of game design, it was an absolute revolution. It took a few old concepts from third person shooters and driving games, married them with open-ended concepts from games such as Elite and added an over-arching storyline to give the game a sense of purpose. Whatever their ethics, Rockstar deserved success for this degree of innovation. I'll admit that Vice City and San Andreas were evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but I see nothing wrong with the polishing of a concept, which, will revolutionary in GTA3, has always had a few rough edges.

In short: popular games are often popular because they are GOOD. Denial of this is nothing more than a symptom of rabid hard-core fanboydom and is deeply ugly.

Stop whining

[Gravedigger3]

Wow i've seen this same article written by 15 different people. Its ironic to see a writer complaining about originallity as he writes the same complaints that have been posted dozens of times on a number of different sites.

And for the record I LOVE having hot busty women and big testorone filled guys in my games. I dont want to play DOA with some 45 year old fat chick that looks like the lunchlady from my old high school. And i dont want the hero of Far Cry to be some gangly redneck with a beer belly.

We are playing games to escape into a fantasy world and I want to see fantasy characters. I love the hot chicks in revealing clothes and the tough guys with big muscles and so do most people i know personally. In fact I have never met anyone who complained that the chicks were "too revealing in DOA" or that the main character in Halo was "too tough"

If you want real life go walk around outside. If you want hero's and fantasy worlds and hot women with unrealistic proportions play games.

Save? from what?

[AzraelKans]

I dont know if you've heard, but right now the gaming industry is BEATING the movie industry. Right now people are a lot more hyped about getting their clutches on a "next gen" console and titles than in any movie coming this or next year.

And yes they are making halo 3, MGS4, GTA for PSP and DOA4 plan on banking several million bucks, apparently disregarding your "saving" extreme advices.