What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

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Ionait
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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#16 Post by Ionait »

It's not what I personally prefer or believe in, just what I have seen thus far from a great majority of story-tellers in games, which I find sad, but also as a sign that story-telling can get much much better in games.

Not all story-tellers have done this, but many have. I can name great female and male protagonists and antagonists in games whose character and traits blew me away, but I can also name tons of cookie cutters.

Sorry about my weird wording. When I said, give a female a "male" personality, I meant that some story tellers purposefully find traits commonly associated with females, and, purposefully, throw them out of the character. They then find stereotypical male traits, and throw those on the character. Like.. let's take away this character's sensitivity and add lots of burping.

There are so many female main characters that are loud, obnoxious, constantly fighting their stereotypically "female" feelings of love, sensitivity, and kindness, and instead displaying rudeness, bruntness, an inability to feel or empathize with other characters. This type of female character is annoyingly common.

And again, this is not what I believe. And when I mention traits of females and males, I try to make sure to add "stereotypically", because I know very well that no trait in the real world is gendered, and the best people are a mix of so many thoughts and feelings.

It's just, in the game world, things are still pretty stereotyped.

Edited to add:
It's totally fine making a female character strong and independent, but sometimes developers take it so far that she becomes unbearable and annoying. It makes me think, why would they make such an unlikeable character? Oh, they were trying to make her a boy.

Edited again to add..

And I'm really sorry, I have to say, because I think I offended people without trying to. ;_; So, this'll be my last post about my thoughts on this, haha! It's not really a debate that I am invested in, rather it is something about stories in games that I dislike, so I won't spread it around anymore, haha!

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#17 Post by DaFool »

Ionait wrote:There is gender to an overall story's theme, no matter the gender of the main character. And that's what really makes a boy's game or a girl's game, stereotypically.

For example, there are tons of female protagonists thrown into a "male" story. And because of that, the main character (female) is given an overly tough, tomboyish, personality. She is female, to cater to girls, but her personality is extremely male, to make guys feel at home in the game too. There are instances where the girl shows her softer, more feminine, side, but they are usually pretty rare and fleeting. Tons of games and stories follow this format. If a girl is thrown into an action packed story, she's a tomboy. Pretty consistently.

Now, on the other hand, if a guy is the main character of a love story, they usually make him soft spoken, or nervous, or confused, something to show weakness--"girliness", make him approachable. He's formatted to make female viewers/players like him.

There are games and stories that break this tradition, but not nearly enough at this time.
I think it's simply a matter of what types of characters fit a story. If the whole world is collapsing and aliens are invading and billions dying, I think it might be appropriate to have characters who don't care anymore about how they look or being overly sensitive. Especially when the goal is to minimize further bodycount.

Conversely, if the story is about fitting into high society and trying to find your place in the social hierarchy, little things such as the way the characters dress and who is friends with who will be very important.

I actually like gendered themes. You can even say on the whole that American media is more masculine (e.g. Jerry Bruckheimer movies) and Japanese culture is more feminine (the obsession with cuteness). I think it's okay for terms such as "masculine" or "feminine" fit the theme of the story or game, regardless of whether the characters themselves fit gender roles or not.

For example, this is what I think is an extremely "feminine" game:
http://www.nisamerica.com/games/atelier-totori/
yet it's made by men and bought mostly by men, on a premium hardcore videogame console the PS3 (if it were targeted to girls it would be on the DS and have background splashed in pink or light colors, not black)

The reason why I prefer the more feminine approach to video game storytelling is because it's easy to have the masculine approach: for years games have been about explosions and monsters and aliens and zombies and blood and gore. But it's ridiculously hard to have subtle acting and little nuances, little things which are more appropriate to the human condition (as opposed to reptilian instincts) and that's where artists are trying to tackle to prove that games are art.

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#18 Post by PinkMawile »

Personally, I think it is bad to simply throw out the idea that non-mundane settings can't be artistic.

Simply having a fantasy setting for example, does not necessitate fighting and magic explosions and such. Perhaps it could be about an Elven Aristocracy trying to figure out what to do with the fledgling human Empires?

Or many you could take a more mythological/religious approach, what if God and the Devil died and suddenly all the demons and angels and what not were forced to decide what to do with their new found freedom amongst the human world?

In essence, setting is just a setting, the artistic merits come more from the character and plot which is laid out on the setting, then the setting itself.

And I find that associating blood and zombies and explosions to Masculine nature a bit insulting ;-;. It always thought of Xenophobia, Hatred, and desctructive behavior as a human condition, not a masculine one.

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#19 Post by Glasskitten »

PinkMawile wrote:And I find that associating blood and zombies and explosions to Masculine nature a bit insulting ;-;.
*glances all around, then steals blood/zombies/explosions in the name of femininity and runs off with them*
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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#20 Post by pondrthis »

I'm surprised we haven't had any of the usual "BxG have better stories" bunk in this thread... props to everyone.

Fact of the matter is, as has been said here by others, classifying a game as otome/GxB/BxG/YxZ/etc implies it's about romancing someone rather than any true plot. As such, the difference between true BxG and true GxB is nothing but the method used to stimulate the reader in a romantic and/or sexual way. They're both cheap thrills.

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#21 Post by Aleema »

pondrthis wrote:Fact of the matter is, as has been said here by others, classifying a game as otome/GxB/BxG/YxZ/etc implies it's about romancing someone rather than any true plot. As such, the difference between true BxG and true GxB is nothing but the method used to stimulate the reader in a romantic and/or sexual way. They're both cheap thrills.
I challenge you to a duel, sir.

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#22 Post by sake-bento »

Just remember to be civil, friends. bo_o

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#23 Post by smileforthespies »

Personally, I think they can both have deep meaning and heavy plot. In my opinion, the main difference is that in GxB games the romance is usually intertwined with the plot, whereas in BxG games romance is more of an option then a central part of the game. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule; especially in places such as this forum where it's mainly indie makers and people who make them just for fun, but as you get into the more mainstream companies where they worry about target demographic and all that, this is more common.

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#24 Post by Aleema »

sake-bento wrote:Just remember to be civil, friends. bo_o
Did I mention the duel was TO THE DEATH? :twisted:
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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#25 Post by pondrthis »

I wasn't classifying anyone's games as "true BxG" or "true GxB", I was just saying that if the best genre description you can come up with is "pick up or be picked up by a 2D character", then your game lacks plot. For example, I wouldn't call "RockRobin" GxB so much as I'd call it a music game or band sim... based on what I've seen, of course. If you advertise it as GxB then you're going to get the "pick up or be picked up by boys" crowd; by simply calling it a "music game" you change your target demographic. This is fundamentally true.

I started my post the way I did to show that I don't think games where a girl gets with guys are plotless. I think that games with nothing BUT that are plotless, or rather, that the plot can be summed up in a sentence. Same for the genderswapped edition.

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#26 Post by Aleema »

I think there a lot of dating sims that do have plots. They're just generally not in depth, I don't think. They're even prevalent in the 18+ games, which is kinda annoying. :lol: Also, romances are stories/plots in themselves. RomComs/romance novels are still being made for a reason.

I classify RockRobin as GxB (alongside being a Management Sim), because the story involves a female lead character that has the potential of pursing male characters, romantically. I don't classify it as "otome", because, to me, that would imply that that is a dating sim. The letters GxB, BxG, etc mean nothing to me but the gender of the protagonist and the potential for romance of the other specified gender. I leave assumptions about the plot out of it entirely.

This game of semantics is a bit weird, since the English community for this medium is relatively new. What I consider GxB, others may say otome. I wish there was a more concrete, accepted definition, but then we have to start classifying people's work as one label or another. For instance, back when there was (at most) 3 GxB games in the WIP forum, I called one of my games "otome". Now that I look back at it, it is no where near what I consider otome today. It's probably the farthest from otome I have going on right now. This is a new and strange territory for genres. :)

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#27 Post by papillon »

And I see some people online using 'otome' simply to mean 'visual novel or dating sim' because they weren't familiar with the genre but played some game and heard it called an otome game. :) And when I mentioned otome to the english side of DLsite, they didn't know what I meant. They have a "for women" category, but they use a Yaoi tag for it, even if it is completely GxB, not BxB at all.

Terminology is confusing. :)

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Re: What is the difference between GxB and BxG game?

#28 Post by Chu-3 »

I guess the meaning of otome is a bit different in japanese and english now?
Before, lot of my foreign friends thought that otome is game for girls, no matter what the genre is. Including those mini games.
In japan , people called otome for GXB visual novel, and it has no concern about the depth of the story, as long as the game has a path where the lead character can date or fall in love to the guys. Even if there's no happy ending on it.

But, in the official genre, they won't write it as otome. The official name is josei muke(for women) adventure game or josei muke simulation game (if it has raising stat system). That's why the term" for women" is used in many online store. And mostly the "for woman" section is monopolized by yaoi games.

Then, the issue happened since aboard,people won't recognize yaoi with the"for women" term.

I guess it is just because less game with deep story that released aboard...(again, as far as i know) and the wellknown gxb or bxg are mostly dating sims with the main purpose to date the opposite?

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