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I suppose this will only mean something to you if you really, really want to be a woman. If you are just playing in girl's clothes, drinking beer, burping and bellowing at footie games, perhaps not so much.
I do not know how many of you here play Video Games. Every time I have tried some "guy" just kills me and walks away. Grrrr
So I had not thought of it much anymore until I heard Anita Sarkeesian speak on YouTube about how sexist video games are. Listening to her speak wakened something in me that I can best describe perhaps as being "Pissed Off, spitting mad!
I still don't and probably won't try aggressive video games, but now that I am reading about it ...
Grrr, just Grrr. Now I am a feminist of the non male hating variety.
Gwen
Comments
Misandry games
And what about when women make fun of the parts of culture dealing with masculinity.
Such sexism seems to be accepted.
This is a faulty argument.
In truth, there are a LOT of sins that mainstream gaming culture commits in terms of sexual equality that are simply glossed over by women everywhere (otherwise you'd see far more backlash against things like Gainax Bounce in the Mortal Kombat and DOA series, or the implication that all women are presented in terms of masculine ideals proportion-wise.)
The big issue isn't about how GAMES treat women: games themselves are an abstract concept, not a cultural entity or mentality unto themselves. The problems come from how mass gaming culture has developed to treat the idea of women in the industry or women in games.
I might also point out that this is entirely the wrong site to try and start a discussion on gender politics or male/female inequality on if you're going to take a male-centric view. Not to say your view doesn't have merit -- when well-argued both sides of any disagreement always have some merit to those who can view the issues with an impartial eye -- but the majority of BC's visitor-ship are likely to jump on you for it :P
Melanie E.
Two points you are likely not aware of.
There are two points you are likely not aware of.
Currently, the largest group of gamers right now are middle-aged women. It is a good bet that some of them like playing the skimpy women in games as a form of roleplaying.
Second point, the gaming industry is slanted. But, not in the way you think. The current big gaming scandal is that top gaming journalists have a mailing list then belong to, where they have committed conspiracy, where by they pick which games to promote, and which to ignore, before they write any articles on such games.
I believe in a balanced approach, where by hypocrisy should be avoided. And given this website is about transgender people, that should tell you the issue of gender and gender views are not black and white. There is a lot of gray.
Condemning and industry, for the actions of a few is over generalization. And that leads to even worse problems.
Also, for a long time, gaming has a history of several strong female leads. Such, Samus, and Lara Croft. The roleplaying games also have a wide verity of strong women.
But, like all things, if you dig deep enough, in any industry, you will find what you are looking for. If you are looking for good. You will find good. If you are looking for bad. You are going to find horrible.
And to be honest, 90% of the american gaming industry has strong standards in treating female characters. It is the other ten percent that is the problem. But also, American gaming industry is tame in comparison to some of the stuff in other countries, that turn my stomach with the sexism. Like that japanese dating sims. Don't even get me started on those. And some of those sims are made for women.
As a gaming journalist who relies on a mailing list for news on
upcoming releases, it's not necessarily about "deciding what to promote," but about what you have TIME to promote. Many gaming sites are reliant on ad hit counts for most of their income (not unlike BC relies on it,) so choosing to talk about those games that will appeal to your target audience makes sense, and the bigger you are, the more that target audience is going to be less specialized and more AAA-focused in general. For MXDWN I primarily cover indie releases, kickstarter campaigns, and the like, because those are the groups that send us material, and they are the groups that our (fairly limited, admittedly) audience are interested in.
You're right about the middle aged women making up the largest portion of game-players at the moment, but the industry has yet to begin to adapt to that outside the casual and mobile audiences, where the majority of the industry feels that that audience sits. To a certain extent the industry is right in their targeting: much of the market nowadays -- male or female -- is more casual-focused, with simple puzzle games and social games being the bread and butter of the emerging mobile industry. My points have for the most part been that these audiences have always existed, they have simply passed under the radar because nobody even thought to ask about them most of the time. I would also argue that the "middle aged women" you mention might enjoy the games that feature the scantily-clad protagonists, but that the mass majority of them would enjoy it as much, if not more, if the character were wearing sensible leather armor or combat fatigues or, well, sensible clothes in general.
I'll debate you on the 90% have strong standards concerning female characters, by the way. I'd say that about 80% of the industry is relatively gender-neutral in their treatment of characters (such as much of the indie scene and smaller developers,) but many of the biggest names in the industry have significant issues with the way that they handle gender presentation in their games, and it's not always about sheer volume, but about visibility. Lara Croft is a mixed-bag gender presentation-wise, for instance, and even Samus has come under fire with Metroid Other M due to the way they changed her character to be more submissive and deferential toward a male "superior." Stronger examples would be characters like Ellie in The Last of Us, or any RPG that has ever dared represent a female dwarf who didn't look like she was ready for an aria in The Ring of Nibelgung (I probably spelled that wrong, but not looking it up right now.) Again, we're talking a difference between gender bias and sexism here: many of the industry teams that have a strong male bias also have a corresponding increase in sexist imagery and treatment of characters, though it can work in a myriad of different ways as well. The game industry is only the most visible at the moment due to all the attention the whole "Gamergate" fiasco is drawing, and for good reason if you pay attention to the attitudes of most of the really vocal individuals in it.
Melanie E.
I am glad you see my point.
The problem is not the players. It is "marketing" Most marketing groups at stuck about two decades, and they over generalize a lot. They are the ones that think all girls play with barbies, and all boys play with GI Joe figures." This is why good TV shows get canned. Even if the TV show gets twice the number of views it planned, if "marketing" feels they are the wrong target audience (gender or age), "marketing" pulls the advitisers and the TV show get canned.
This is the same problems with book publishers. It can all be traced back to the backwards views of "marketing".
Yes. Dilbert got that one right.
Another problem with "marketing" and "advertising" is, in the U.S., a third to half of these two industries are based in and around New York City. As such, they hold the views of New Yorkers, and they tend to ignore the rest of the "flyover country".
To fix the problems in the entertainment industry as a whole. "Marketing" and "Advertising" needs to be abolished, or overhauled and reworked.
I can go along with that. Because either figure shows that the problem is a small minority that the majority of gaming companies should not be judged for.
Groan. I really have kept up with the last few games those two characters have been in. I picked them because they are some the oldest strong female characters in the gaming industry.
There is a fine line here. For example, I find one of the best examples of strong female characters is the anime/manga Black Lagoon. All the strong female leads are self made. They don't need a man to take care of them. They stand on their two feet, and even the strong men in that series know not to mess with those women.
That being said, some would call Black Lagoon sexist and exploitative towards women. In all honesty, the series is not. That series doesn't pull its punches for either gender. The series takes some very dark roads with the women in that series, but those women are shown to be strong, though damaged. But, they can still be able to stand on their feet.
Also, we cannot ignore real life. Some women are strong. Some are weak. I know women, personally, that have been through hell and back, and still remained strong and good nature to those around them. I also personally know women that are very weak willed, the type of women that are extremely co-dependent towards others. And I personally know a woman that is lying, deceitful, and whom will use anyone, of either gender, until they are no longer worth anything to that woman.
As I said before. A balanced approach is best in many things. Not showing that some women can be weak, is as bad as not showing some women can be strong. Either way, doing so does a disservice to women.
You are right about Marketing and Advertising
And I have been warring with them for years and years. The ones I war with are not necessarily in Video Games. I have issue with those who try to mold public opinion to one political side or the other. Those who try to sell me food loaded with things that harm us. Those who try to tell me that Fraking is the business. And the devils who keep grinding the crank of the war and hate machine in the name of making lots of money on oil. I can get much more radical than this but I'll bite my tongue. :)
There is nothing inherently misogynistic about video games
I actually JUST WROTE a 1500 word article about this for the gaming ezine I write for.
The problem comes from A) an ingrained idea that games are somehow a masculine pursuit due primarily to advertising and the greater ease in creating games that focus on competitive or violent elements that are typically deemed more masculine, and B) a large portion of the community who are tied to bigoted and narrow-minded views concerning the games industry, and feel entitled to it remaining what they want rather than growing and adapting as it takes a place alongside popular music, cinema, and literature as a staple of modern cultural expression.
The Gamergate issue is VERY volatile to get into if you don't actually understand the industry and the history of electronic gaming as a whole. Unfortunately, most people don't. A lot of people are focusing on the feminist angles present (whether for or against them,) and true, those are what have brought the issue to a head, but the underlying elements of everything that is happening in the industry are a conglomeration of many different changes and upheavals in the way games are handled and the way the public sees them.
In a way it's a great time to be a gamer, since we're literally seeing history made in terms of gaming's socio-political impact and cultural importance. In another way, though, it's a very trying time, and both the industry and gaming culture are dealing with a lot of stressful issues right now.
Here's the article I wrote for anyone interested. Please forgive the use of my male initial, I couldn't stand to actually use the whole name. For my part, I believe that in time gaming will grow to be much more diversified as far as cultural, gender, and sexual acceptance. We're just now getting to the point where adult content in games is no longer seen as such an awful or controversial thing. Culturally speaking gaming is where film was in the 30's, or, at best, 50's. Evolution takes time, and don't be so quick to judge the whole based on a few bad seeds. We all know how bad doing that can turn out for any sub-culture or proto-culture group.
Melanie E.
PS: If your experience with games consists entirely of being "killed" by others, perhaps you are trying a type of game that is poorly suited to you. I personally despise most competitive focused games, preferring either cooperative games if I'm playing multiplayer or a single-player experience. The options for non-competitive, non-combat-based games in the market right now are HUGE: interactive romance novellas, puzzle games, exploration-based adventure games, even fashion design and business management games! A lot of the big AAA titles are action or violence-oriented, but that's much the same as it is in books or movies, where the blockbusters are typically special effects filled action-fests rather than poignant romances or comedies. All the different genres exist, you just have to know what you're looking for.
I play solitare, or puzzle
I play solitare, or puzzle/competition type games. You know, who can make the most money first - but without direct interaction with others. (Anyone remember Galactic Trader on VMS?)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
My uncle can tell you TALES about Galactic Trader
If you like puzzle games, check out a series called Hexcells. You can buy all three games for under 15 bucks, and the series is basically Minesweeper with hexagonal cells and clues so that every puzzle can be solved. The trick is to try and do it with no mistakes: the game allows them, but the puzzles are fun enough to make you want to re-play them until you pull them off perfectly anyhow :)
Melanie E.
Umm
Lollipop Chainsaw says hi! Bayonetta says hi! The Legend of Zelda says hi!
There are crap ton of misogynistic video games. I'm a gamer too sweetie, but I can recognize blatant sexism or even covert sexism when I see it. I've gotten better at it because of my training and education as a feminist. And trust me, there is a lot there. Some of it is pretty damn well hidden but still there.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
If you have to search that
If you have to search that hard for it, it's probably not worth making such a fuss over. I have a LOT better things to do with my time than go hunting for all the little things that might annoy me :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Umm...
Do you really want me to get a huge list of every game I ever played that was sexist? Because you will be reading here for ages.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
I never said there wasn't.
What I was saying was that the sexism and attacks on female devs/industry commentators/etc. are not the only issue in the games industry right now, but just a symptom of the overall cultural shift that is happening.
It's a pretty damn nasty symptom, to be sure, though.
Melanie E.
The attacks on my sisters
Trump whatever BS gaming has to deal with. Whether or not a game has "quality" is not and will not ever be more important than the war on females associated with the vile #gamergate.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Umm
Miss Gwen, I'm a little confused of the point you are making? You got owned on a game and you think that's sexism? Or are you saying the guy who defeated you was a misogynistic asshole? If it's the latter then yeah... welcome to gaming, where as a female you have to hide your gender or face endless sexual harassment and bullying.
I've been a gamer since I was 5 years old and looking then I realize all the ridiculous sexism in videogames. And how often the female main chars just take a back seat and talk about the "boys they like" rather than real topics. Don't even get me started on MMOs and how somehow a chain mail bikini has more armor than full plate >.>
Games have been sexist since their conception, from the first Mario Bros, to the more current Lollipop chainsaw and Bayonetta series (Do yourself a favor and DON"T look them up, it'll disgust you)
But if this is about you losing a pvp type game? Well there's just one obvious thing then. If you lose, you're bad. That's it, you're bad at the game for that current moment. Take that mentality of that you are bad and use it to improve. Try to figure out better ways to play, look up the current pros in the game or the ones who are the highest ranked on the ladder and try to emulate them. Once you learn the basics you can make your own style.
Myself, I'm not a fan of pvp games but if that's your thing go for it. There are tons of female pros and high tier gamers. You just have to research to find them.
Honestly not only the sexism in games but the racism really gets me too. A game i play that is pvp (It's the only pvp game I really like) is called League of Legends. And there are so little people of color in the game and not a single Latina/Latino champion... there's like one possibly two black champs but so many white champs like overflowing with them x.x
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
I have to disagree on Bayonetta (to a point.)
Is the game sexist? Sure, but it's sexist to such an incredible extreme that it becomes outright parody of itself. It also deals with concepts of bondage (which is something I've seen few other games ever tackle,) and honestly, it's a game where the female characters are the single strongest, most well-developed characters in the entire game, and every male personality takes a back seat to Bayonetta and her sometimes-friend sometimes-foe compatriot. It's a game that uses sexism to make a point, and is quite honestly one of my favorite games of the last generation. I'd agree about not looking it up, though, not unless you intend to play it: both the advertising and online videos emphasize the worst of the game, while skipping over all the parts that make it worthwhile.
I'll definitely give you Lollipop Chainsaw, though. I fail to see the point with Mario, however: Rescue the Princess is a textbook story that goes back to literature, not just games, so that doesn't really count in my book, and Princess Peach, when she has been playable, has often proven to be quite the capable character herself in the series. If your point stems on the overwhelming preference for male protagonists in games versus female, then that extends into a completely different area, that of gender bias versus sexism, which are both very different things (and, honestly, as big an issue in the industry as sexism is, if not moreso: the bias simply makes the sexism more apparent when it appears.)
For examples of truly sexist games, instead check out these classic releases:
--Time Gal
--Athena (the more damage she takes, the skimpier her clothes)
--Night Trap
--Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball
--Custer's Last Stand
Most early games were abstracted to the point that sexism in the industry was a moot point, with many arcade games featuring such gender-neutral avatars as space ships or smiley faces, robots, or animals. The entire concept of sexism in games didn't really become a thing until the early to mid-eighties, when console manufacturers began to heavily advertise their hardware and software toward an adolescent male audience. Prior to about 1983 or so the game industry as a whole was very gender-friendly, even if there weren't a ton of female developers, simply because there wasn't a way to MAKE gender an issue in most early releases (short of, again, Custer's Last Stand, or, perhaps, Beat 'Em And Eat 'Em.)
Colecovision makes a strong case for the beginnings of true sexism in games marketing, with their giveaway of a Cabbage Patch Kids with units in, I think it was '83? The associated commercial campaign concerned a young girl wanting to get her parents to buy her brother a Colecovision so she could have the doll, ignoring the possibility that the girl could want the console (or, conversely, the boy could want the doll: Cabbage Patch Kids were popular with both boys and girls at the time.) Nintendo and Sega fell into this trap as well: while both had semi-successful but aborted campaigns targeting both boys and girls, they began to shift their marketing almost exclusively toward male gamers, establishing a trend that would last from the 8-bit era through most of the 128-bit era (Xbox, GameCube, PS2,) and only began to really lose ground in the industry with the recent rise of more "casual" markets associated with the Wii and Kinect.
None of this means that girls and women ever lacked a presence, but the marketing strategies began to create a feedback loop that affected the audiences who would then show interest in their product, that then affected the games produced and the way they were marketed, that affected the industry even MORE... just a big fuster cluck all around. Female gamers have always deserved better representation in the medium than they have received, and advertising and cultural acceptance are only now beginning to re-gain ground that hasn't been seen since the heyday of the Atari 2600.
Sorry, I'm a bit of a games history buff, if you can't tell :P
Melanie E.
I noticed
You neglected to mention japan only releases. Why is that? My brother is a hard core Otaku and self proclaimed weaboo and proud. 90% of the games he plays involves sexism, especially the ones he gets from Japan. If you are going to sit here and tell me only those games are sexist, I really question your definition of sexism. You think just having a female character makes a game not sexist? And because the rescue the princess meme has been so popularized that it's okay? I suggest you get educated on feminism and you'll see just why we are so freaking upset about all this.
@bayonetta Also just because a game is ridiculously sexist doesn't suddenly make it not sexist. You say it's a parody but I couldn't sit through an hour of that game and I SERIOUSLY gave it a try. Her clothes are made out of her damn hair and when you attack she's completely naked because the hair that you use to fight with happens to be the hair that uses her clothes too. Not to mention the "cutscenes" and the blatant sexism they use there.
You also neglected to mention about MMOs. I wonder why.
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
I neglected Japan
simply because it only really became a driving force around the time that sexism and gender bias in video games became a thing, so it is inherently part of that entire section.
Where did I ever associate female protagonist with feminism? Never. Sexism: the misrepresentation or mistreatment of either gender based on stereotypes or biases the portrayer has concerning that gender. These biases can be intentional or unintentional, but regardless of the reasons...
You know what? Never mind. This has grown tiresome and pointless, and the entire Gamergate issue just annoys me enough that I keep this up I'm gonna tic somebody off.
The simple fact of the matter is that yes, the video game industry's treatment of gender/sexuality/etc. needs to change. You can't change that if you don't understand ALL the issues surrounding it: pinpointing only one part of the problem only exacerbates the issues by patching them and letting them fester rather than cutting out the infection at the source. YES, the issues that have caused everything to come to a head are HORRIBLE. They're a disgrace on not just the gaming community, but humanity itself, that people think it is okay to threaten another with violence or rape just because of their gender.
The only thing I've disagreed with you on at all is Bayonetta, Princess Chelsea. I'm not a rampant feminist, though I do believe that gender equality is a very necessary and worthwhile cause to work for, and this is a situation where it is sorely needed.
Melanie E.
Object of the game?
Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems you attempted to play a game where the object was for one player to "kill" the other? Nothing inherently sexist about that, other than in general more men enjoy such games than women.
I suggest you try a game with a less "player versus player" focus, a single player game such as "Dragon age, Origins" or Dragon age 2". I enjoy both very much, they both have some very well developed female characters, and engrossing stories. also, the next game in the series is coming out soon, really looking forward to it.
Sorry but
That's a myth. There are tons of females that absolutely love shooting other people on games or beating other people into the ground. There is a huge demographic for competitive gaming females. My online sister is one for one. I know of a bunch of other.(Yes cisgendered ones too)
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
numbers?
I didn't say that Women never play shooters, but I suspect the numbers support my assertion that the majority prefer not too. would be interesting to see some actual surveys on this