It's a People Problem

"Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men." - Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)

Good old Lara Croft and her faithful sidekicks are back again. And by sidekicks, I mean her chest, her short-shorts, and the perennial argument about the portrayal of women in video games.

There seem to be two common approaches that get dragged out every time this comes up. There's the usual "this doesn't matter" and it's usually accompanied by some landscape appreciation for Lara. And on the other side I have a former colleague who is of the opinion that every female character should look like Velma from Scooby Doo and if they don't then it is a slam against women and anyone who even brings up any other viewpoint on this issue is just defending the status quo (and therefore should be burned at the stake).

I maintain neither one of them see the whole picture. The problem is not just sexism, but rather personification in all its forms and the disconnected way the issues are being handled in game design.

Personification?
You may not have heard the term before, or at least not in this context. In usability design terms, personification is the process of you, the user, attributing human qualities to your agent in the environment. In game terms, this is a holy grail that is fervently sought after. They want you to identify with your in-game avatar to give the game a feel of immersion. The more human-like it is, and the more you identify with it, the easier that state of belief is to gain and maintain.

Those breasts are definitely out there. There's no denying them. I'm not trying to invalidate that issue at all. The latest set of screencaps from the new Soul Caliber game coming out display girls with bra-sizes that would be measured in acres. And they're barely restrained by two shoe strings and two postage stamps. Trying to reach around that mass to fight would be purely impossible, if you could even see over them. Even Hugh Heffner has to be looking at those and thinking that's just a bit too much here.

But those discussions are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many ways game character designs damage the vital connection between the player and their character. Find a way to peek past the "tracts of land" and think about all the different characters in the games you play.

  • Exposed naughty bits everywhere isn't the only demeaning problem for women. Don't forget stupidity and incompetence. Like that ODST in Halo 2 that shows up in the level where you take out that first Prophet. Yay! We've got a female who isn't a pilot! Then she starts coming onto you like you were in a singles bar, and you're stuck with her like gum on your shoe. This woman is a Helljumper. That means she's a veteran professional soldier with enough cojones to free-fall from orbit in a metal coffin with no chance of recovery if something goes wrong. But confronted with the Master Chief she melts into a useless puddle of idiotic innuendos in a battle situation. Give me a BREAK! We have a handle on one of the three main bigwigs in the Covenant Alliance here! Flirt on your own time.
  • It's not just NPC's. For example, take Inphyy from Ninety-nine Nights. Move past her oh-shoot-me-here armor and her soft-pr0n game intro. Play her through the first few levels. Things go okay, but then you get to stare aghast as she starts throwing a babbling, weeping, cast-yourself-on-the-ground temper tantrum in front of a subordinate. And it's not even for a decent reason; it's because she had a spat with her brother. That's the head of the Knights of Light!? Puh-leeeze.
  • Unless you're a wise old martial arts master guy, you better not age. And when I say age, I mean at all. Remember Sir Auron from Final Fantasy X? Great character. Kicks butt all over the place, and even gives good story. All through the game he gets crap about being an old man. If you do the math from the facts in the game, he would be 33 years old (if he wasn't already dead but if you'll follow the immutable point). How does it feel to know that you're really old, guys? At least he's there. I tried to think of a female equivalent in age and story role, and got nowhere. I have come up with a theory about grown women. I think they morph into crates once they turn 26. They wrap themselves in a wooden chrysalis and change into their final form. The next day they emerge and shake out their skirts as 80-mumble year old NPC's and shuffle off to live in a random village in the nearest jRPG. It would explain why those things are all over the place and there's no grown women in sight, wouldn't it?
  • Muscles and ready weapons aren't the only problem you guys have. A lot of these guys are just plain nuts. The list of sociopaths and crazy-cases is as long and illustrious as the Mr. Universe wannabe's. The line forms behind Kratos. And the bishie guys can all huddle behind Cloud Strife to feel safer from the beefy guys.
  • If you're all willing to rumble we can pull up race stereotypes and ethnicity. Unless you're a white male between the ages of 18 and 24 you're a villain or nowhere.
  • Kids really get the shaft. Both genders are depicted as brats, as tragic cannon fodder to advance the heroes' story, or abused and neglected in ways that would get their parents arrested in the real world. Some are forced to fend for themselves as young as 10 or 12 (Pokemon, Zelda, heck just about any kid's license you can think of). Kids of all ages are just sent off to save the world and fight wars, with the full approval of the adults in their lives who stay home to mind the store. Might as well re-title half of the E and T rated games "Children's Crusade". And even if they do get to stay home until they're an older teen before they go off to be heroes, they are depicted in incredibly damaging ways. Many are shown as being thrown out into the world into traumatic and deadly dangerous situations, with little or no backup or support from responsible parties.

Read through that, and tell me how many of them are being addressed by looking at this from a solely feminist viewpoint? By my read, just one and that one not even completely or intelligently. That's not enough. Yes, I am a woman. I also fit into several of those other categories, and feel just as uncomfortable when they are misrepresented. Why are the contents of my t-shirt more important than it's size, or the gray in my hair, or my relationship with my children?

Does it Matter?
Serious disconnects in personification affect the way games are played. If I'm stuck in a rear-view camera and I have an option between a scantily clad female and reasonably clothed guy, I'll have the guys out front unless actively forced by gameplay to change. This can be the kiss of death in an RPG. Unless I catch myself I will have huge gaps in levels and skills between my characters based on how they are dressed. It nearly killed my first time through FFXII. I had a 15+ level gap between Balthier (my lowest level male character) and Ashe (my highest level female character). They were effectively split into a girls team and a guy's team. The disparity got so bad as the game progressed I couldn't shuffle the girls into a combat at all otherwise they'd just die when the monster breathed their general direction. I had to go back and force myself to power-level them before I took them into the last bits of the game.

Guys, let me put the issue to you in a different way. This may not make sense because you've never been forceably faced with a real equivalent to what the girls are getting. Being stuck staring at Tidus' cute little leather clad butt for all the traveling in Final Fantasy X is annoying, but at least it's covered. Put him in a g-string equivalent to Fran's from Final Fantasy XIIand how do you think it would feel? Seriously, it's a good butt. Any guy would be proud to have it. But how would you like to stare at the dimples on it for a hundred hours and be forced to try to identify with it to play the game?

Give me Gears of War with the guys dressed like Chippendale's Dancers, and then let's see how you do. I grant you there's a realism problem there, but it's only fair. Us girls have been coping with similar disconnects for years. They're in battle so they should be wearing armor. Yeah. Well, Lulu's traveling from one end of her world to the other beating up bad guys with a stuffed animal. She'd have sun poisoning and skin like a lizard on her décolletage after a week stomping around Spira in that dress. Not to mention the rash she'd have from having to wear that much personal adhesive to keep her cleavage inside her bodice during that nice low bow. At least most RPG's give me some option. Most other games don't. If I play Gears, I have to play it as a hulking brute. I've made an uneasy peace with it. If you're a female gamer, you'd have had to.

Game developers aren't totally at fault here. There is a lack of symbiology for this in general, and popular media is just as bad or worse. To demonstrate using visual cues that a guy is strong and brave and etc, you show him with big muscles and a compensatory weapon (since you really can't show him with his kilt tilted here). It's a tradition going back centuries. Strong, lantern-jawed types or unwashed mancubs going off and save the world and the damsel are all over the place. But that set of visual shortcuts don't mean the same thing when applied to a woman.

What should they do? Well, we as a society don't really don't have a visual shortcut for demonstrating power in a woman that isn't also tied into her secondary gender characteristics. You simply can't handle it directly unless she's so old her sexuality is out of the equation. Dame Judy Dench as "M" in the recent James Bond flicks, for an iconic example. With no visuals, you have to build it into the story like Beyond Good and Evil or give her rank and have people demonstrate they respect her like Miranda Keyes in Halo 2. But both of those techniques effectively remove a female character from the front lines in the twitch realms. You don't have the story room to really carry it along, or since most player characters are grunts of some sort you can't have a lot of rank. Angel from Wingcommander really couldn't work as a player character, for example.

We need to take a long look at how we manage the whole problem, not just what's jiggling. It ends up as a smokescreen to hide all sorts of other issues that should be addressed. The game companies and other media types don't want to have to change the way they do things so they downplay the problem as just a "feminist" thing, and people who shout about women's issues are not covering the whole problem and often alienate the very people they need to work with to solve it.

Resources:
Here's a couple articles and such to give you some launch points for investigation:

The Doll Technique and Racial Attitudes, Penelope J. Greene, The Pacific Sociological Review, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Oct., 1980), pp. 474-490
Assembles some seminal work going all the way back to 1930 about gender/racial identification with kids and their toys.

Agents with Faces:The Effects of Personification of Agents, Tomoko Koda / Pattie Maes
Gives an overview of a small study done at MIT about how realistic in-game avatars affect the player's experience, and also a good source of terms for farther study.

Comments

BlackSheep wrote:

Good article Momgamer.

Funny though, I generally play female characters in MMORPGs because they tend to look better than the guy model.

I second that, and have no problems with immersion/identification.

momgamer wrote:

And what do think your daughters would feel when you demonstrate to them every day they are only as good as their cup size and how good a stupid act they can put on around boys? Girls are born with brains and breasts too.

I think it's likely that the "stupid act" comes from deep-seeded human laziness. It play into the male need to be "in charge"; these lasses get positive reinforcement from boys for acting stupid. There's a reason only the "prettier" girls pull this off. It's a leap to label this and externally learned behavior; the initial seed may be external, but it's learned and refined over time. Plenty of "flirty" boys do this too...

Hear hear, down with the damsel in distress stereotype. Thank you Princess Peach, but our Mario is in another castle.

Finally, I have time to read and respond! Sorry, with my job I only have time to read snippets while doing 4 other things at the same time. I can see now this isn't a sexism-thing, maybe the opening quote set me off.

momgamer wrote:

what do think your daughters would feel when you demonstrate to them every day they are only as good as their cup size and how good a stupid act they can put on around boys?

That's a valid point. And I wouldn't do that to my daughters. However, they don't have to consume a single movie, TV show, video game, or comic book to get that feeling - all they need to do is attend junior high. Puberty will take care of the rest.

Why does anyone who doesn't fit into a very narrow band have to make do with a second rate game experience just because we don't fit that group? It's not like I can go find something else.

Another excellent observation. All games should be open to player modification, a la Forza 2. Don't like the characters? Add your favorite! Off the top of my head, though, I can think of a number of FPS with great female models - UT series, Quake 3, GRAW 2 (which you can't even tell breast size behind the body armor), Rainbow Six.

Japanese games don't count. You'll go crazy trying to become the people in those games. With every Final Fantasy I play, I question my femininity a little more. I wanna be a beautiful women like all the other japanese men!

momgamer, it's worth pointing out that they DO make games that treat women well. Two I'm thinking of offhand, both very good titles, were The Longest Journey and Beyond Good and Evil. They both had great female protagonists sans cleavage (at least I think it was sans cleavage, all I remember of the BG&E lady is her green lipstick ), good stories (in the Longest Journey's case, a world-class story), and treated all their characters multidimensionally. And Planescape:Torment was pretty good here, too.

All of these games also sold like sh*t. For titles like this to make money, gamers have to buy them. So far, they mostly don't.

It's so bad, in fact, that making a game like what you're asking for has proven to be pretty much inevitable financial suicide. You're gonna have to change a LOT of minds if you want to see many more of this type.

I disagree, also. My disc didn't ship with female ODST's. Only three drop with you: Orlando Jones, Aussie, and Drawl.

Bazarov wrote:

I think it's likely that the "stupid act" comes from deep-seeded human laziness. It play into the male need to be "in charge"; these lasses get positive reinforcement from boys for acting stupid. There's a reason only the "prettier" girls pull this off. It's a leap to label this and externally learned behavior; the initial seed may be external, but it's learned and refined over time. Plenty of "flirty" boys do this too...

Laziness is an interesting word for the phenomenon, but I think that the word is oversimplification of the interaction going on there, though I do totally agree with you that there really does seem to be a repression by many girls (mostly) once they enter middle school and firmly cemented by high school to rely on their physical appearance to manipulate the environment around them instead of their mental capacities.

SexyBeast wrote:

So you're saying every gamer in the world thinks GTA 3 is a fun game worth playing?

No, did i say that? I know that everyone does not like GTA 3 - i don't like it overly much as i get bored in the game (and its sequels). GTA 3 - if you read my post - an example of what innovation is likely to happen and why.

This gets back to what I said earlier, no game is going to perfectly appeal to everyone. Getting hung up on cosmetic things or irrelevant things and not liking a game that would otherwise be fun, is silly. I'd play Barbie Dream House Adventure if I found it fun. I don't care how pink the box is.

Gah.... you are the kind of person who "accepts things because they are the way they are". You're obviously not going to see it from another perspective.

As momgamer said - there is no choice. Want to play an FPS? You either play a large-breasted figurine or a steroid-enhanced muscleman. Gordon freeman doesn't count because we never see him... he is nothing - supposedly us, he's not a character we play.
Just because there's no choice doesn't mean there shouldn't be - which is basically your argument. Telling people who complain about it to "shut up and accept it" because not every game will appeal to everyone is nothing short of idiocy.

Imagine if the only adventure films available were hollywood explosion-filled blockbusters. Or the only books available in romance were those pulp ones that were mentioned earlier in the thread - Mills and Boon anyone?

As this is my first post I'd like to say hi to all.

It's an interesting article and discussion, and while I can appreciate momgamer's argument I'm not sure I entirely agree with it. When discussing stereotypes and sensibilities in games you have to acknowledge that games, just like art, literature, film and philosophies are all indelibly products of the culture and time in which they are made. Plato's Republic could no more be created in a contemporary Western society than Doki Doki Majo Saiban. Japanese game developers are working in a culture that has different social mores and different views of gender roles and sexual politics as well as a different aesthetic. Perhaps more importantly, they are making their products predominantly for their home audience using their cultural stereotypes (e.g. the emo bishie) and suited to their sensibilities and tastes (e.g. the acceptance of the "hots for big brother" complex that pops up from time to time). If these game designers often produce female pcs and npcs that a mature minded Western woman (or a similarly minded Japanese woman for that matter) can't happily identify with it is disappointing but hardly surprising.

As for watching Fenix & Co. ala the Chippendales - Sam Fisher was clad in a skin tight stealth suit does that count? Of course Marcus wouldn't need such a big gun then would he? Mind you, Sam is no spring chicken. Neither is Fenix, the Master Chief or Snake to name but four main characters from four major game franchises. I guess their designers weren't ageist. I also don't see too much evidence of demeaning gender stereotypes or objectification of women in games made by Bioware, Valve, Obsidian or Bethesda. If anything their female character models sport relatively realistic proportions and physics, and fairly modest wardrobes... mores the pity.

Lastly, the lack of strong female grunt characters playing the lead role in games is matched in film and literature but less so on TV. Is it a case of creators playing to their target demographic? Do they think that the audience wont accept a strong female character in such roles? I honestly don't know - I certainly don't have a problem such characters. If anything, given that the gender of the lead character in so many shooters and action games plays no role and is never referenced in the story - effectively rendering them sexless - why not let the player choose who they want to play? Dr Gwendolyn Freeman? Marcia Fenix? Mistress Chief? Lachlan Croft? Where do I sign up?

Duoae wrote:
SexyBeast wrote:

So you're saying every gamer in the world thinks GTA 3 is a fun game worth playing?

No, did i say that? I know that everyone does not like GTA 3 - i don't like it overly much as i get bored in the game (and its sequels). GTA 3 - if you read my post - an example of what innovation is likely to happen and why.

This gets back to what I said earlier, no game is going to perfectly appeal to everyone. Getting hung up on cosmetic things or irrelevant things and not liking a game that would otherwise be fun, is silly. I'd play Barbie Dream House Adventure if I found it fun. I don't care how pink the box is.

Gah.... you are the kind of person who "accepts things because they are the way they are". You're obviously not going to see it from another perspective.

As momgamer said - there is no choice. Want to play an FPS? You either play a large-breasted figurine or a steroid-enhanced muscleman. Gordon freeman doesn't count because we never see him... he is nothing - supposedly us, he's not a character we play.
Just because there's no choice doesn't mean there shouldn't be - which is basically your argument. Telling people who complain about it to "shut up and accept it" because not every game will appeal to everyone is nothing short of idiocy.

Imagine if the only adventure films available were hollywood explosion-filled blockbusters. Or the only books available in romance were those pulp ones that were mentioned earlier in the thread - Mills and Boon anyone?

I'm not telling anyone to shut up and accept it, I'm saying that refusing to enjoy a game because of the graphics is limiting yourself.

Awesome article! I have to say I completely agree with everything you said. I'm always fascinated by how... non human... a lot of women are depicted in videogames. By that I mean, completely not realistic. Armour that's more S&M gear than armour, boobs that would put a porn star to shame, and brains the size of peas, all seem to be the standard.

Is is possible to, yet again, draw a parallel between films and videogames here? How were women depicted in the films of the 30s and 40s? How long did it take for us to see strong female characters that were believable on the screen? Could non-realistic depictions of women in videogames be just growing pains in the gaming industry?

I only hope that the gaming industry goes through puberty fast. I'm just as tired of seeing the screen filling cleavage of the bartender in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance as I am the wispy emo boys of JRPGs. I want to see more Jade's and more Lucas Kane's!

This doesn't mean I don't want the stereotypes to completely disappear. I want my video game equivalents of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle just as much as I want the gaming equivalents of Run Lola Run. I just hope we'll see more of the latter than we currently do.

And I think it's already happening. The fact that we are seeing stronger, more realistic characters now shows that peoples attitudes are changing. Because we're having this discussion proves that there are people out there that crave more than just Russ Meyer movies in their consoles and portables. Once the market starts demanding it, someone will fill that demand eventually.

Sexybeast said early on:

SexyBeast wrote:

they're fantasy games. I think the only people with a problem with it are the ones looking for a problem. This is what sells, and it sells because people want it. Look at romance novels, you have the guy on the horse with the open at the chest bloussy shirt while his long blonde hair flows down his back. There are no guys like that in real life, but it sells books.

Which is a valid argument, but not all books are pulp romances. Books may have started off as pulp fodder (just check out some ancient greek plays for some early soap operas) but they evolved into so much more. We'll always have the Harlequin Romances, but we'll have our Atlas Shruggeds, our Naked Lunches, our Stranger in a Strange Lands too.

spankyboy wrote:

As this is my first post I'd like to say hi to all.

It's an interesting article and discussion, and while I can appreciate momgamer's argument I'm not sure I entirely agree with it.

Lord, your first post and you jump in on this one! Welcome to the forums.

SexyBeast wrote:

I'm not telling anyone to shut up and accept it, I'm saying that refusing to enjoy a game because of the graphics is limiting yourself.

What you ARE saying is that we have no right to complain or raise fair points that we cannot emotionally engage with the game as the designers are trying to achieve, and WHY we are having problems engaging.

If you enjoy (the example of) pulp romance novels, this is a great way to look at things, because you are (effectively) in heaven. You can stand at a point and declare which are good, which aren't, and decry anyone who wishes for, for instance, Ulysess or Lord of the Rings-esque storytelling that the genre shouldn't be a limiting factor in what you read.

It goes beyond "oh, it's just graphics", into the realms of connectivity and immersion. I don't read romance novels, I can't engage them. If they were all we had, would I be hearing that I just have to "suck it up and deal with it", because I want deeper fare that doesn't put forth insulting stereotypes?

BlackSheep wrote:
Bazarov wrote:

I think it's likely that the "stupid act" comes from deep-seeded human laziness.

Laziness is an interesting word for the phenomenon, but I think that the word is oversimplification of the interaction going on there,

True enough; what I meant was that humans (and most organisms for that matter) are always going to choose the path of least resistance. Acting stupid is often easier than a bevy of other options, and so it wins out.

Bazarov wrote:
BlackSheep wrote:
Bazarov wrote:

I think it's likely that the "stupid act" comes from deep-seeded human laziness.

Laziness is an interesting word for the phenomenon, but I think that the word is oversimplification of the interaction going on there,

True enough; what I meant was that humans (and most organisms for that matter) are always going to choose the path of least resistance. Acting stupid is often easier than a bevy of other options, and so it wins out.

A-men.

I've always heard of the path of least resistance, as if people's motivations were similar to the motivations of lightning from the sky, but as I get older, I'm not so sure that's the case anymore.

Of course my favorite thing used to be f*cking things up if I didn't necessarily want to do them so that whomever was supervising me would just get fed up and take over for me.

Duoae wrote:

As momgamer said - there is no choice. Want to play an FPS? You either play a large-breasted figurine or a steroid-enhanced muscleman. Gordon freeman doesn't count because we never see him... he is nothing - supposedly us, he's not a character we play.

So the choice is to play first-person games, then? Not bad.

Trach, I think that culturally, there was a much better and more active version of feminism in the '30s than there is now.

wordsmythe wrote:

Trach, I think that culturally, there was a much better and more active version of feminism in the '30s than there is now.

True, but how was this attitude reflected in cinema? Did we have a lot of strong female characters or did we have the atypical damsel in distress that does nothing more than shriek?

I'm at work so I haven't had a chance to google around to find an answer, but off the top of my head I'm thinking it was more the latter. Feminism may have had it's roots back in the 30s but my memories of the films of that era didn't showcase many strong, independent women.

Azure Chicken wrote:
SexyBeast wrote:

I'm not telling anyone to shut up and accept it, I'm saying that refusing to enjoy a game because of the graphics is limiting yourself.

What you ARE saying is that we have no right to complain or raise fair points that we cannot emotionally engage with the game as the designers are trying to achieve, and WHY we are having problems engaging.

If you enjoy (the example of) pulp romance novels, this is a great way to look at things, because you are (effectively) in heaven. You can stand at a point and declare which are good, which aren't, and decry anyone who wishes for, for instance, Ulysess or Lord of the Rings-esque storytelling that the genre shouldn't be a limiting factor in what you read.

It goes beyond "oh, it's just graphics", into the realms of connectivity and immersion. I don't read romance novels, I can't engage them. If they were all we had, would I be hearing that I just have to "suck it up and deal with it", because I want deeper fare that doesn't put forth insulting stereotypes?

You can complain about it all you want. You're being defensive about it.

Let me put it this way, if you keep butting your head into a wall and then complain about the pain, and I tell you to stop butting your head against the wall, I'm not telling you you can't complain, i'm giving you advice to avoid the pain.

Trachalio wrote:

Sexybeast said early on:

SexyBeast wrote:

they're fantasy games. I think the only people with a problem with it are the ones looking for a problem. This is what sells, and it sells because people want it. Look at romance novels, you have the guy on the horse with the open at the chest bloussy shirt while his long blonde hair flows down his back. There are no guys like that in real life, but it sells books.

Which is a valid argument, but not all books are pulp romances. Books may have started off as pulp fodder (just check out some ancient greek plays for some early soap operas) but they evolved into so much more. We'll always have the Harlequin Romances, but we'll have our Atlas Shruggeds, our Naked Lunches, our Stranger in a Strange Lands too.

I'm not saying all books should be romance novels though. I'm saying within the genre of romance novels this is what sells books. You can rail against it night and day if you want, but at the end of the day if you like reading romance novels you might as well read whats out there or just go without.

Going back to my DNF example, what advice would you give someone who said he wouldn't play DNF because it spent too long in development? Would you not say "Why have that attitude, if its a fun game why not play it?" Sure it's his right to complain, but its a forum, if you're gonna complain on a forum you have to expect people to tell you you're overreacting too. welcome to the internet

Ok, this is going in circles. This advice you keep offering is now well documented, you can probably move on from that point. What's really funny to me is that the article hasn't stated that these issues prevent her from playing, she'd just like them to change or at least offer some more options. You're essentially responding to a concept that the article didn't really put forward, which is not playing a game for a "stupid" reason.

The mantra of "If you don't like it, get over it or don't play it" if fine as a blunt answer, but it doesn't really bear repeating over and over again in a conversation seeking understanding and looking for answers.

SexyBeast wrote:

Let me put it this way, if you keep butting your head into a wall and then complain about the pain, and I tell you to stop butting your head against the wall, I'm not telling you you can't complain, i'm giving you advice to avoid the pain.

Heavy drinking also works.

Trachalio wrote:

I'm at work so I haven't had a chance to google around to find an answer, but off the top of my head I'm thinking it was more the latter. Feminism may have had it's roots back in the 30s but my memories of the films of that era didn't showcase many strong, independent women.

I'm also at work, but I know the women back then weren't all about big boobs and blonde hair.

wordsmythe wrote:

I'm also at work, but I know the women back then weren't all about big boobs and blonde hair.

Oh, definitely not. I'm just referring to the movie representation of women at that time.

Like I said, I need to do some poking around to see if I'm right or wrong. If I'm wrong, then that blows my whole "video games are just going through their tight pants and acne phase" theory right out of the water

Certis wrote:

Ok, this is going in circles. This advice you keep offering is now well documented, you can probably move on from that point. What's really funny to me is that the article hasn't stated that these issues prevent her from playing, she'd just like them to change or at least offer some more options. You're essentially responding to a concept that the article didn't really put forward, which is not playing a game for a "stupid" reason.

The mantra of "If you don't like it, get over it or don't play it" if fine as a blunt answer, but it doesn't really bear repeating over and over again in a conversation seeking understanding and looking for answers.

actually she is. apparently the graphics caused her to play the game differently, at least in the case of final fantasy. If male characters were completely naked, it wouldn't affect how I play the game. Let me put it this way, if the best armor in the game was invisible, i'd wear the best armor in the game because I want the best armor in the game. For gamermom, based on her article, she'd wear something inferior just because she was hung up on the appearance of some pixels.

To me that is as silly as not playing a game because the development time was 8 years.

Trachalio wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

I'm also at work, but I know the women back then weren't all about big boobs and blonde hair.

Oh, definitely not. I'm just referring to the movie representation of women at that time.

Like I said, I need to do some poking around to see if I'm right or wrong. If I'm wrong, then that blows my whole "video games are just going through their tight pants and acne phase" theory right out of the water :P

Well, I meant that they weren't like that in movies. Back then, I hear women were expected to be witty. Sharp, even.

Edit: Sexy, I think a lot of us at this site are still wanting to hold games to a higher intellectual standard than that. Sure, pop lit and popcorn flicks can be fun, but man cannot live on popcorn alone.

wordsmythe wrote:

So the choice is to play first-person games, then? Not bad.

Yeah, FPS's are one of the worst genres for stereotypes but hopefully the choices offered will grow.

My final thought to Sexybeast is that although romance novels might be all well and fine as a genre. No current gaming genre is constrained in the same way by definition. FPS's are not just mindless corridor shooters. RTS's are not all micro-management clones based on historic conflicts.
The argument that romance novels (as they currently are) are fine does not hold water when you think of books as the genre. Games are the same as books in this analogy. Gaming genres do not preclude any type of expression in that genre, FPS's are not the equivalent of romance novels, RTS's the equivalent of history books.

Trachalio wrote:

True, but how was this attitude reflected in cinema? Did we have a lot of strong female characters or did we have the atypical damsel in distress that does nothing more than shriek?

I'm at work so I haven't had a chance to google around to find an answer, but off the top of my head I'm thinking it was more the latter. Feminism may have had it's roots back in the 30s but my memories of the films of that era didn't showcase many strong, independent women.

Yeah, i'd agree with this too. Up until the latter half of the 20th century big boobs and and volumptuously impossible curves were not in fashion and so weren't featured in films. However, the ever-present concept that women were inferior, more emotionally prone and excitable (as extolled in the victorian era) was clearly evident in films throughout the 20th century - more so the first half. Towards the year 2000 you see an increasing amount of films with strong female leads that had no "female defects" (they still exist). Games are currently 90% stuck in this old mentality. Not just for women but also for men. Characters in games are the 1930's two dimensional villains and heroes... damsels in distress and third rate extras.

Surprisingly (perhaps not so much considering its turnover rate) TV has shown the most advanced vision when it comes to plotlines and character development. But it is also guilty of the worst types of character assassination and story short-cuts ever seen in visual media.

In defence of momgamer:

actually she is. apparently the graphics caused her to play the game differently, at least in the case of final fantasy. If male characters were completely naked, it wouldn't affect how I play the game. Let me put it this way, if the best armor in the game was invisible, i'd wear the best armor in the game because I want the best armor in the game. For gamermom, based on her article, she'd wear something inferior just because she was hung up on the appearance of some pixels.

It's not just as clear cut as that. This isn't science. We are not just dealing with numbers here. There are feelings, sensibilities and ethics. The way you describe the above experience is the same as saying that a game about the holocaust is only about killing people. What's wrong with that?

Duoae wrote:

It's not just as clear cut as that. This isn't science. We are not just dealing with numbers here. There are feelings, sensibilities and ethics. The way you describe the above experience is the same as saying that a game about the holocaust is only about killing people. What's wrong with that?

killing people in a video game is all the same. If you're ok with WWII games, killing Germans or Japanese. Simply playing from the bad guy stand point isn't any worse morally if you look at it objectively. You might consider a game about the holocust in bad taste, but i guarantee you, there are people in Germany or Japan that find all our games about killing them in WWII in bad taste as well.

If you do think its worse, than that is the slippery slope that says video game violence is bad. If there isn't a disconnect between video game violence and real violence, then Jack Thompson is right and they do have a negative effect on people.

Gah... like i said, you're looking at it in a very "black and white" way. I tried to explain it to you in several different ways but i don't seem to have made my point...

[edit] Last try: Would you try to sell a game about the holocaust (the actual killing of Jews from the Reich's perspective, not something tasteful like Schindler's List) to Jewish people?

SexyBeast wrote:

actually she is. apparently the graphics caused her to play the game differently, at least in the case of final fantasy. If male characters were completely naked, it wouldn't affect how I play the game. Let me put it this way, if the best armor in the game was invisible, i'd wear the best armor in the game because I want the best armor in the game. For gamermom, based on her article, she'd wear something inferior just because she was hung up on the appearance of some pixels.

That's not the entirety of her argument, only an aspect of it. If all black people were portrayed in games as thugs, if all Asians were depicted as clumsy nerds, if all homosexuals were portrayed as lispy queens, would you still argue that you should just shut up and enjoy the game?

The graphical depiction of women is only part of the issue here, not the entirety. It's how women's personalities are being depicted that is part of the problem too. She was bang on with the female Helljumper in Halo 2. There is no way a soldier of that caliber would act like that in that scene.

Trachalio wrote:

She was bang on with the female Helljumper in Halo 2. There is no way a soldier of that caliber would act like that in that scene.

Assuming there even is such a character.

Duoae wrote:

Gah... like i said, you're looking at it in a very "black and white" way. I tried to explain it to you in several different ways but i don't seem to have made my point...

[edit] Last try: Would you try to sell a game about the holocaust (the actual killing of Jews from the Reich's perspective, not something tasteful like Schindler's List) to Jewish people?

I'd be selling it as a game in general i wouldn't market it to jewish people, no more than Medal of Honor is marketed toward Germans. Germany won't even sell a game with any Nazi content in the game. Even if the Nazis are the bad guys. If a certain section of people don't want to buy the game cause it is offensive to them, that is their perogative, but you can't make a game that is universally liked.

I understand your point I just don't agree with it. I don't limit myself with hangups about games. I play for enjoyment, not for deep philosophical revelations about identifying with characters or how they make me feel about myself.

Let me put it this way, what kind of gamer would you rather be, one that can find enjoyment in 100% of the games you play or a gamer that only finds enjoyment in 50% of the games you play. In a perfect world every game is tailored exactly to your taste, but it's not a perfect world, and if we don't have some flexibility, we''ll just end up bitter and cynical cause no one will ever make the perfect game.

Trachalio wrote:
SexyBeast wrote:

actually she is. apparently the graphics caused her to play the game differently, at least in the case of final fantasy. If male characters were completely naked, it wouldn't affect how I play the game. Let me put it this way, if the best armor in the game was invisible, i'd wear the best armor in the game because I want the best armor in the game. For gamermom, based on her article, she'd wear something inferior just because she was hung up on the appearance of some pixels.

That's not the entirety of her argument, only an aspect of it. If all black people were portrayed in games as thugs, if all Asians were depicted as clumsy nerds, if all homosexuals were portrayed as lispy queens, would you still argue that you should just shut up and enjoy the game?

The graphical depiction of women is only part of the issue here, not the entirety. It's how women's personalities are being depicted that is part of the problem too. She was bang on with the female Helljumper in Halo 2. There is no way a soldier of that caliber would act like that in that scene.

If given no choice yes. If developers said "100% of games will be racially offensive, it'll never change, deal with it." I'll be like "ok" , if the game is fun i'll play it. However thats not the game market, if you can't find games that aren't Lara Croft or WoW you just aren't looking.