Female characters - why they are how they are

[Blue Lemma]

(This was split from Auro-Cyanide's thread here since I think I hijacked it )

Blunt, semi-contrarian points ahead, but I like the discussion and am not against your thread or questions, Auro

The whole point of my topic is to ask everyone to think about purpose. Everything should come back to that. I basically want people to design their female character with depth and try and get in the characters head a little.

I think everything makes more sense when you step back one more layer and think about the creator's purpose. We're talking games, and somewhere along the way in game-land, things became so darn serious. Everything has or is assumed to imply some bigger meaning or view by the creators, when all that used to matter was having fun.

Prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto? The creators obviously hate women and condone violence against women. Mario rescuing the princess? Nintendo must think women are helpless and always need a man to save them. Elf women in bikini armor? RPG makers see females as nothing more than sex objects! I exaggerate a bit, but you get what I'm saying.

People who believe these things at all are using selective reasoning. I mean, would we also interpret that:
Grand Theft Auto creators advocate carjacking and murder?
Nintendo is in favor of cruelty to animals, given all the turtle-killing by its plumber mascot?
RPG creators are devil-worshipers, trying to spread acceptance of dark and magical arts?

Virtually no one would. So then why does the prostitute/princess/"armor" thing get inferred, when the other things don't? I think it's because those first things hit close to home with more people. When you are sensitive about something, you're more likely to find it in your life. It's like the kid who is convinced there are monsters under his bed, when there are only shadows. This isn't to say that there are no cases where there actually are "gaming monsters", but this kind of hyper-awareness can make monsters of the shadows. Don't we all remember some tale of religious extremists offended because Harry Potter encourages witchcraft, or something similar, and how we all groaned at them, saying it's just fiction? It's a little like that, but we just substitute a social issue for a religious one.

So let's get back to the purpose of the creator. It is very few mainstream creators' purpose to make some big meaningful statement or address some social issue. Much more frequently, it's their purpose to make something that sells or make something they personally enjoy. Someone who isn't in the world of advocating feminism really isn't going to care about the vapidness, bustiness, or modesty of female characters, as long as they serve one or both of those purposes. The same goes for the male characters, monster characters, etc. It's all about those two purposes.

The "purpose" of the female character only matters to the general game creator as a possible means to the greater creator purpose(s). Let's take ToL 1, for example. Alice is a busty blond girl. She didn't need to be, and it really serves no purpose other than I wanted her to look like a hot female college student. That leads to the "greater" purpose of making something I personally enjoy. As a guy who's into girls, I enjoy looking at busty young women, just like most other guys out there. It is "fun", and that's what I cared about. I'm not selling it, so players can take it or leave it, and I don't really care.

If we were going to get into realism, which is what I see a lot of people talking about in this thread, that's not what games are about, unless it's as a means to another purpose. How often do you see characters taking a bathroom break in games? There are a few rare instances, but not often. Why? Taking a dump isn't exactly "fun" in a video game. What are we going to have? "Press X to control the sphincter muscles!" And yet everyone has to do it in real life.

Rescuing a beautiful princess is fun. It gives the game a purpose and a reward. Though I'm not a personal fan, getting it on with hookers in your stolen car is fun. It's a harmless game fantasy of something wild that we will (hopefully!) never actually do. Watching sexy scantily-clad women is fun. Enough said.

On the other hand, if I were creating a game, rescuing some random dude isn't fun. There's your purpose, but it's not one that really grabs me as a straight guy, and I sure don't want any implied or imagined "reward". Obeying the law and treating women with respect isn't "fun" (even though it should be done.) I do that in real life, so why do I want to be forced to do it in a game? Seeing women in bulky armor plod around the screen isn't fun.

We won't all agree on a single definition of what is fun, but there are some things that are way more common than others, and it all comes down to the individual.

Games are about fantasy. If it's not helping the fantasy, there's no big reason to put it in there.

[papillon]

Everything has or is assumed to imply some bigger meaning or view by the creators, when all that used to matter was having fun.

There's a difference between "The creators did this on purpose because they wanted to promote this viewpoint" and "The creators did this without thinking about it, which demonstrates some of their basic viewpoints".

There are not a lot of developers out there who are actively trying to push some sort of woman-hating agenda. (I wouldn't say none. This is the internet. There's always SOMEBODY.) That doesn't mean that it's not valuable to examine what developers do, and what is suggested by those actions.

Grab a handful of simple arcadey knockoff free flash games someone made in a few days for fun, with the barest threads of excuse plots. You're going to find a lot of "Your girlfriend interest has been kidnapped! You must rescue her!" And you're probably not going to find a single case of "Your boyfriend has been kidnapped!" unless you look VERY hard with the specific intention of finding one.

Is it because the creators of these games hate women and actively want to enforce a woman-passive man-active worldview? No. But there IS a reason they're doing it, and doing it in games that had no need of a plot at all . It's not simply happening at random.

Now, in a game like a dating sim where Perfect Girlfriend Fantasy is the *point*? Go for it.

However, if your argument on video games in general having damsel-in-distress plots and women in skimpy clothing is going to be "Well, I'm a straight guy so I want it this way" then you're sort of proving that the angry feminists have a point when they say that the designers are being intentionally exclusionary.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Blunt, semi-contrarian points ahead, but I like the discussion and am not against your thread or questions, Auro

No problem That is what discussion is for.

I do agree that the game makers purpose is important, which is why I wrote what women want from female characters, not what everyone wants. If your game is for yourself, does it matter what everyone else thinks really? No. If your main target audience is amle, does it really matter that women won't like your female characters? Not a bit.

The time when you want to start worry about what women think is when you are trying to make something they like, or create characters they can connect to. Otherwise it's kind of a moot point.
This isn't about pushing a feminist or anything. I get there are things males are into that females aren't, and that's okay. I don't expect all BxG to suddenly be girl friendly, because that may be not what the creator or audience are into. But if you are going to try and make things that females enjoy, then there is a good chance you are going to have to put a certain perspective on the females. Otherwise, instead of engaging the audience, you will just turn them off or annoy them.

[Blue Lemma]

I knew you'd be the first to reply to me, papillon. I'd expect no less from my pot-stirring

There's a difference between "The creators did this on purpose because they wanted to promote this viewpoint" and "The creators did this without thinking about it, which demonstrates some of their basic viewpoints".

I propose a third alternative: "The creators did this on purpose because they are creating a fantasy." How can a player presume to know what the creator intends or thinks about social issues? These are whimsical works of fiction. To do such is like presuming the creators of Kana are advocates of incest, or any of the other things I mentioned. Social issues are one thing, and we shouldn't assume. Creating a fantasy, on the other hand, is the general purpose of a game, and can reasonably always be assumed.

You're going to find a lot of "Your girlfriend interest has been kidnapped! You must rescue her!" And you're probably not going to find a single case of "Your boyfriend has been kidnapped!" unless you look VERY hard with the specific intention of finding one.

Is it because the creators of these games hate women and actively want to enforce a woman-passive man-active worldview? No. But there IS a reason they're doing it, and doing it in games that had no need of a plot at all . It's not simply happening at random.

I completely agree, it's not random. It's because males are generally the ones making the games, and most of them find the "rescue the hot girlfriend" scenario appealing. "Rescue your hot boyfriend?" In most cases, not. I'm sure there's also an element of Mario-ism there and just sticking with a cliche to get that pesky "story" thing out of the way

However, if your argument on video games in general having damsel-in-distress plots and women in skimpy clothing is going to be "Well, I'm a straight guy so I want it this way" then you're sort of proving that the angry feminists have a point when they say that the designers are being intentionally exclusionary.

We may disagree on this point, but not intentionally including someone is different from intentionally excluding them. I think it's more of an indifference. When I make a freeware game, I'm not generally doing it to include or exclude. I'm doing it because I want to make what I want to make. It's a creative exercise. Males, females... everyone else is irrelevant.

On the other hand, if someone's doing it for the money, that person is going to go with what he/she thinks will sell to the target audience. If the audience is mostly female, that person will care a whole lot about specifically including females, males be damned. If it's mostly male, the opposite will be true.

@Auro: Understood. Just trying to shed some light on why things are the way they are, and why they are unlikely to change until more women make games and/or shell out the big bucks. It might just be me, though, but practically innate to any thread with this topic is an element of "oh you sexist ridiculous males." No one's said that explicitly, but that sort of "why can't you get this right?!" seeps out in the posts. Those are my theories why. (Sorry if I'm "gamesplaining" )

[papillon]

I knew you'd be the first to reply to me, papillon. I'd expect no less from my pot-stirring

There's a difference between "The creators did this on purpose because they wanted to promote this viewpoint" and "The creators did this without thinking about it, which demonstrates some of their basic viewpoints".

I propose a third alternative: "The creators did this on purpose because they are creating a fantasy." How can a player presume to know what the creator intends or thinks about social issues? These are whimsical works of fiction. To do such is like presuming the creators of Kana are advocates of incest, or any of the other things I mentioned. Social issues are one thing, and we shouldn't assume. Creating a fantasy, on the other hand, is the general purpose of a game, and can reasonably always be assumed.

Someone who's making a really simple pixel platformer with no text and slaps on a 'rescue your girlfriend' plot isn't really creating a fantasy though.

You can NEVER be entirely sure what a creator was thinking - and the creators themselves generally aren't sure what they're thinking either! All sorts of influences come to bear on anyone who does creative writing. What you think is good, what you think is bad, and what you think is normal are all going to shape your ideas.

I completely agree, it's not random. It's because males are generally the ones making the games, and most of them find the "rescue the hot girlfriend" scenario appealing. "Rescue your hot boyfriend?" In most cases, not.

Such a simple statement, but there's an awful lot more that could be gone into from there! (Please note - I don't expect you to respond invidivually to all of these options, I'm trying to toss them out as stuff to think about, NOT a wave of debate that 'proves' I'm right or anything.)

How many female game creators make "rescue your hot boyfriend" games? Not so many. Why not? What's the difference?

There are a lot of cultural tropes about women being delicate flowers and men being strong protectors, more so in some cultures and time periods than others - in some stories, even a warrior woman is expected to be mastered by a stronger man or be, at some point, rendered helpless and swoony, or otherwise the romance is considered incomplete by all the readers/viewers/whatever - and at the same time you get a lot of people complaining that a hero is permanently emasculated, damaged, a bad romantic lead, if he is EVER rendered helpless and rescued by a woman.

Or another angle - Why is "rescue" so important? Sex and power are very basic motivations, it's not surprising to have sex dangled as a reward in an excuse plot. However, there are a lot of other possible ways to have the promise of sex/love at the end of a game.The protagonist could be lost and trying to find his way home to his love interest. The protagonist could be trying to accomplish tasks to impress a love interest, or to gain the right to marry the love interest. The protagonist and love interest could be partners working together and falling in love through the course of their endeavors. All of these DO appear as game plots occasionally, but they're not nearly as popular as Excuse Plots as "rescue your girlfriend" is. (They are, however, more popular plots when dealing with female protagonists!)

There are plenty of other things to think about - and none of these things mean that people picking these plots are bad evil misogynists.

However, if your argument on video games in general having damsel-in-distress plots and women in skimpy clothing is going to be "Well, I'm a straight guy so I want it this way" then you're sort of proving that the angry feminists have a point when they say that the designers are being intentionally exclusionary.

We may disagree on this point, but not intentionally including someone is different from intentionally excluding them. I think it's more of an indifference. When I make a freeware game, I'm not generally doing it to include or exclude. I'm doing it because I want to make what I want to make. It's a creative exercise. Males, females... everyone else is irrelevant.

If you're thinking about it in terms of "I will add this because this is what straight guys like. I will not add that because that is not what straight guys like." then yeah, you are excluding people who aren't straight guys. THAT IS NOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING. There is nothing wrong with writing for a target audience, especially when that targeting is central to the concept.

If you, for instance, are making a game all about hot half-naked gay guys rubbing up against each other and that is really the whole point of the game, it is pretty ridiculous to add a bunch of options to allow squicked-out non-gay players to avoid it all. Don't like, don't play, right?

My issue is not that you should never make games intended for straight men, but that you should be aware that you are making games intended for straight men, and understand why some people may feel left out and ask for things to change.

I mean, we've been seeing a lot of the other effect around here in the past year, where some male players are feeling dwarfed and isolated by the number of games aimed at female players.

On the other hand, if someone's doing it for the money, that person is going to go with what he/she thinks will sell to the target audience. If the audience is mostly female, that person will care a whole lot about specifically including females, males be damned. If it's mostly male, the opposite will be true.

While there are games intentionally targeted by gender, there are a lot more that are trying to sell to gamers regardless of gender and yet still tend to default to a straight-male perspective, and look really confused when asked why.

(For that matter, I've seen Prince Rescues Damsel In Distress plots slapped onto casual puzzle games that absolutely were being sold to a mostly female target market. Usually by Russian developers. I've heard gender roles are much more firm in modern Russia than they are in modern America but that could be a totally wrong stereotype, I don't know.)

[Auro-Cyanide]

But does that mean a female character that appeals to a male can't appeal to a female as well?

[Fawn]

I agree with the "creating a character for fantasy purposes" notion. What, it's not like otome/bl game makers don't make their perfect man, or perfect gay men to oggle over. I myself create cute girls I wish existed, because there's honestly not many girls that are like that in the real world. (Men in my eyes are fine as they are, haha... I relate to men more honestly...) Like others I also have a monstergirl/guy and robot girl/guy fetish... they too don't exactly exist in the real world so I create them for the purpose that they are cool. Anyways...

Why can't the excuse "Because I like it and it's cool" be enough? Why can't men be angry at all the flowery portrayals of males in otome games and bl games (what women want), but women can be angry about sexy innocent women (what men, and sometimes women like me, want). I'm honestly angry at super-flowery same-faced fancy girly-haired men everywhere, where's the REAL men that don't care so much about their appearance and act like... well, men? But no one protests against that because they are logical enough to know that they can't stop girls from liking unrealistic men.

Basically the argument seems to be over people creating fantasies for their own enjoyment. You may not enjoy them, but someone will. For example I do not understand violent fetishes like vore and guro, and think there should be less of it, but, there are plenty of people who enjoy it immensely and I completely accept that.

TL;DR, There is no reason to go on a crusade against generic characters/generic ideas base on basic instincts because there will ALWAYS be people who enjoy them. You're wasting your time. (edit: I realize Lemma said this as well but, I wanted to show extra support- see my speel above on fantasies I detest but accept)

I think most men (and women) have enough sense to realize sexy characters are fantasies and won't apply them to real people. That's why we have fantasies. (though I have seen cases where girl didn't want a guy because he wasn't perfect like in the movies just as much as I've seen a guy that didn't want a girl because they weren't a blonde bimbo. but those people are known as shallow idiots and I doubt any sane lemmasoftoforumian would want to hang out with those kinds of people )

[Blue Lemma]

No worries, I'm not reading into it. It's a good thing for there to be a "safe" place for honest discussion on topics like this, and I don't think we're assuming bad evil enemy things about each other (Other people reading? Who knows, haters gonna hate.)

Someone who's making a really simple pixel platformer with no text and slaps on a 'rescue your girlfriend' plot isn't really creating a fantasy though.

I disagree. Even the barest, most cliche of stories goes a long way in establishing a fantasy. Not a very deep or thought-provoking fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. Say Mario just appeared out of nowhere and started stomping mushrooms and turtles. It would still be fun, but the immersion is enhanced by a simple plot: "All right, so I'm this plumber who went to this magical world where I need to rescue the princess and save the kingdom!" It provides a context, purpose, and reward, and these enhance the experience. The player gets to be the hero instead of a random mushroom-murderer and turtle-torturer.

How many female game creators make "rescue your hot boyfriend" games? Not so many. Why not? What's the difference?

I agree with your points. A simple swapping of genders doesn't work since there are a ton of cultural (and dare I say possibly some biological) factors in play.

There are plenty of other things to think about - and none of these things mean that people picking these plots are bad evil misogynists.

While I'm glad you feel that way, I've come across far too many communities that don't. Everyone's looking for the monsters in the shadows, looking for the evidence they can use to peg creators as sexist pigs. And if a female is responsible for the story? Well, she was just doing it because her boss is a male and made her, or she's internalized the sexism, or because males will only buy sexist stuff. All these presumptions irritate me to no end.

If you're thinking about it in terms of "I will add this because this is what straight guys like. I will not add that because that is not what straight guys like." then yeah, you are excluding people who aren't straight guys. THAT IS NOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING. There is nothing wrong with writing for a target audience, especially when that targeting is central to the concept.

A couple things on this one:
If you're thinking in terms of adding things because it's what [insert group] likes, you're probably not creating for yourself. You're probably creating for money or other external reasons. In that case, if you're targeting [insert said group], some level of intentional exclusion (a sort of specialization) can make monetary sense.
In no instance can a creator be expected to include everyone. If someone made the "Super-Sensitive Politically Correct It's For Everyone Happy Fun Game", it'd probably end up being a joke like Barney. Look for a game that has a story, doesn't have some stereotype somewhere, and includes every group around, and you'll be looking a long time.

My issue is not that you should never make games intended for straight men, but that you should be aware that you are making games intended for straight men, and understand why some people may feel left out and ask for things to change.

Of course I'm just trying to provide another side of the equation and theorize why they won't see things change - Not until these people do something to light a candle and make games and/or spend more money on games instead of cursing the darkness.

I mean, we've been seeing a lot of the other effect around here in the past year, where some male players are feeling dwarfed and isolated by the number of games aimed at female players.

A minority on my own forum! (jk) The cool thing is that it's not a zero-sum game When it comes to freeware, needing to make money from your creation and having to consider the desires of the audience aren't factors. Anyone can make anything he/she wants to, and it will do more to encourage everyone else to create than discourage, like commercial development can. In the commercial world, everyone's fighting for a piece of the pie, and only so many developers can be sustained.

While there are games intentionally targeted by gender, there are a lot more that are trying to sell to gamers regardless of gender and yet still tend to default to a straight-male perspective, and look really confused when asked why.

Most games are created by straight males more than any other group (I assume), and so they'll often have a straight male perspective. As far as money, though, "straight male" is a pretty lucrative perspective to have. Gay male perspective can run into "mainstream" problems if you want to get into a major retailer, and is socially volatile (not saying it should be, but the simple reality is that it is.) Female perspective, unless it's a cute/sexy female probably isn't going to appeal to straight male gamers as much, and they're probably the most profitable target audience.

But does that mean a female character that appeals to a male can't appeal to a female as well?

I don't think there's a reason you can't have a character that appeals to (mostly) everyone. The issue is that you likely trade the specialization. Sort of a "Jack of all trades being the master of none" thing.

[Samu-kun]

I think where Super Mario and GTA are concerned, those aren't exactly the best examples in the world. The original Super Mario games were obviously about sharp platforming action and clever game play. Nobody really played for the story. It's crude and basic because it didn't have to be.

The more story based versions of the Mario games were much more clever. For example, Princess Peach getting sarcastic about how many darned times she's gotten kidnapped in Paper Mario was quite sublime. ("Just take me already, darnit! I know what's going to happen!") I also believe that many female characters have gotten more active roles in the RPG incarnations of the Super Mario games.

Pretty much everything about GTA is satire, so your mileage will vary. All politicians are liars, the police is corrupt, women are all sluts, the right wing is fascist, and the left wing is hippy. The whole thing is supposed to be a radicalized version of American society, so it was pretty much the creator's intent all along to make everything as offensive as possible. I wouldn't exactly call it the best storytelling in the world, but it was what they meant to do. To Rock Star's credit though, the prostitution in the game has gotten too much attention compared to the other elements of the game. It's really quite a minor mini-feature and it's easy to go through the game without ever seeing it once. Most of the main female cast is as sophisticated as their male counter parts - although this is usually to satirize or parody some aspect of American culture. Pretty much nobody in that game escapes (except maybe the PC) without being vilified to one degree or another.

As for freeware games, people make that with varying levels of creativity. Some might have very sophisticated storytelling, others might just parrot the creator's popular social atmosphere. The amount of people who make freeware games has now gotten pretty large, so it's pretty much inevitable that people will make games with less than stellar plots.

Well, basically, you can pretty much criticize some games for being sexist this and shallow that, but it's because the creators just chose to leave it that way. The nature and composition of social culture is always based on your own perspective, so it's almost impossible to arrive at any hard truths. In fact, because culture is socially constructed, there might be no hard truth to find at all, only subjective opinions. (What is the role of woman? What is the role of man? There is no objective answer to either question - only various subjective opinions that are all equally likely to be wrong based on pure reason.) That's supposed to be the role of a writer - to make subjective opinions of what the world is like and should be. Nothing we ever put into a plot is the real truth. They're just our subjective opinions.

And now I've wasted time by being post modernist
tl;dr
Just write what the hell you want to write

[Fawn]

More TL;DR: Don't demonize us for not all being politically correct feminists We'll have fun our way, and until you have proof that our fun has made someone be discriminatory against you, you'll have to deal with it like we have to deal with things we don't like (that you or others may like).


If you really want to make a difference, do it by making a game with your values, actions may speak louder than words...

[Blue Lemma]

In case someone gets the wrong idea, I don't think that's what was going on ^_^;

But it happens >_<

[papillon]

How many female game creators make "rescue your hot boyfriend" games? Not so many. Why not? What's the difference?

I agree with your points. A simple swapping of genders doesn't work since there are a ton of cultural (and dare I say possibly some biological) factors in play.

*wince* yeah, um, that 'biological' suggestion would be one of the Unfortunate Implications of the demonstrated imbalance... (Well, depending on what you meant, obviously, and I don't know entirely what you meant.)

There are plenty of other things to think about - and none of these things mean that people picking these plots are bad evil misogynists.

While I'm glad you feel that way, I've come across far too many communities that don't. Everyone's looking for the monsters in the shadows, looking for the evidence they can use to peg creators as sexist pigs. And if a female is responsible for the story? Well, she was just doing it because her boss is a male and made her, or she's internalized the sexism, or because males will only buy sexist stuff. All these presumptions irritate me to no end.

Internalised sexism is a problem - even for feminists (many feminist collectives despise housewives or traditional 'feminine' behaviors, for example, proving that they're Completely Missing The Point) - and there are instances where people are told they have to make their games/movies/whatever because audiences will only buy the sexist stuff, or where creators self-censor because they THINK their audiences will only buy the sexist stuff. These are possible factors in how things turn out. They're just not the only factors.

A lot of people have trouble separating subconscious sexism from OMGIHATEWOMEN, though, and assume you're accusing them of the latter when actually you want to talk about the former.

"And therefore the creator is a sexist pig!" achieves nothing. "This part of your game is problematic and here's why" is trying to achieve something, but a lot of people get so defensive that they immediately ignore what the actual complaint was and invent some ludicrous faux complaint to rail at instead. (Giving more details would be going waaaaaay off topic.)

My issue is not that you should never make games intended for straight men, but that you should be aware that you are making games intended for straight men, and understand why some people may feel left out and ask for things to change.

Of course I'm just trying to provide another side of the equation and theorize why they won't see things change - Not until these people do something to light a candle and make games and/or spend more money on games instead of cursing the darkness.

Can't make change by spending more money on games if the games you want to buy don't exist. Making a huge stink about the existing games, calling out the problems you see in them, and asking for what you want DOES help make a difference. If people raise enough fuss about things, things get changed. Suffering in silence doesn't help.

Yes, making your own games is good too, but there are limits. You and I can't make a great new PS3 game with 25 hours of voice acting and movie-realistic graphics even if we want to. If I want there to be a game for me to play on the PS3 I'm going to have a lot more luck lobbying big companies to be more inclusive of my needs than trying to write it myself.

Of course, if my needs are too specific, I'm not going to get anywhere, because there's a million other competing demands out there.

While there are games intentionally targeted by gender, there are a lot more that are trying to sell to gamers regardless of gender and yet still tend to default to a straight-male perspective, and look really confused when asked why.

Most games are created by straight males more than any other group (I assume), and so they'll often have a straight male perspective. As far as money, though, "straight male" is a pretty lucrative perspective to have. Gay male perspective can run into "mainstream" problems if you want to get into a major retailer, and is socially volatile (not saying it should be, but the simple reality is that it is.) Female perspective, unless it's a cute/sexy female probably isn't going to appeal to straight male gamers as much, and they're probably the most profitable target audience.
[/quote]

But when you are *trying* to target *everyone* rather than males, which many companies openly are, it's silly to write a game that clearly focuses on a male perspective and then wave your hands and go "But the male experience is universal! The female experience only applies to women!" Which, yes, people say.

[Crocosquirrel]

I think most men (and women) have enough sense to realize sexy characters are fantasies and won't apply them to real people. That's why we have fantasies. (though I have seen cases where girl didn't want a guy because he wasn't perfect like in the movies just as much as I've seen a guy that didn't want a girl because they weren't a blonde bimbo. but those people are known as shallow idiots and I doubt any sane lemmasoftoforumian would want to hang out with those kinds of people )

I don't deal with the people described above, but that's mostly because I'm not one of the perfect people. They hate me, because I'm physically imperfect, and I like to think for myself, rather than let others tell me what my opinion is. I've written the bimbettes and bastards of this sort, but they're nearly always jerks.

That's the way I see them- sue me. On the other hand, if one of them wrote me, I would be the planet's biggest jackass(this has actually happened). Are either of these people wholly accurate? No. In my experience, such a thing is patently impossible. I can no more put myself completely in the head of a brainless bimbo as she could find her way into mine.

So, we're left with a biased interpretation. I generally write women the way I like them, and vast jiggling bewbs isn't it. Nor do I think that bikini-armor is particularly valid. Some people like that sort of thing, and that's all on them. I personally don't think that Bishies are particularly worthwhile. The one I do have for Academy Daze is a completely evil bastard with little or no redeemable traits. the MC, Alex, is a sort of semi-everyman with a face. The rest lie somewhere in between.

[Aleema]

While there are games intentionally targeted by gender, there are a lot more that are trying to sell to gamers regardless of gender and yet still tend to default to a straight-male perspective, and look really confused when asked why.

Most games are created by straight males more than any other group (I assume), and so they'll often have a straight male perspective. As far as money, though, "straight male" is a pretty lucrative perspective to have. Gay male perspective can run into "mainstream" problems if you want to get into a major retailer, and is socially volatile (not saying it should be, but the simple reality is that it is.) Female perspective, unless it's a cute/sexy female probably isn't going to appeal to straight male gamers as much, and they're probably the most profitable target audience.

This is the hot issue where I get feminist; when gender-neutral games are not. What's a gender-neutral game? Things like Bioware's RPGs. Play as a man or woman, romance a man or woman. For small/indie developers, it's an accident. The male team is more invested in their own experience. And with their own skin on the line, it's more understandable. That's okay, to an extent. I could list what would make it not okay, but that would be debatable as well.

As said in the podcast from the original thread, and something I am firmly aware of as being a member of the Bioware forum: even Bioware's games are not gender-neutral. When this fact is presented, we get a honking load of BS in return. There could be posts and posts of excuses and whatever, just like the many paragraphs in this thread, but it came down to: they didn't think it was a good investment. More men are going to play the game, so they need to make it more male. They can never show Femshep, because that will scare away all the men. And waiting for news for any Bioware game is almost cruel, until extremely recently (though, as the podcast points out, was turned into a objectifying beauty pageant with the result being picked by more men than women). For example, the female love interests were basically confirmed, plenty of coverage of them and the game from the male perspective, on the reverse side, we had to pull teeth to get absolutely any coverage of the female version of the game and pass it around secretly like it was illegal to even know. Marketing aside, the inequalities were numerous and sometimes just a slap in the face ("we're going to keep making DAO DLC! *stops after the female love interests were dealt with*"). But I believe all of this is more EA's decision than Bioware's. Still, it doesn't hurt less.

But this idea that, "video games are a man's world, baby," is what sends me into epileptic fits. Yes, it's going to continue to be a boy's club, because that's the sign on the door. I want to say it's a Catch-22. Developers make games for men, because men buy them. But there is a point for change, and it isn't making games for men that more demographics buy. It's making a game for more demographics. And you can't even use the excuse that most of the people creating the content were male. Bioware's writing staff is strikingly female. Women wrote the overly sexualized females and the manly men (and a man wrote the "girly anime guy" love interest), and women are increasingly having a strong hand in the development of more games, and not just girly ones.

Why say any of this? Because marginalization isn't fun for any demographic. "Hi, we know you play, but you don't matter in the long run." Pulling out statistics about profitability doesn't soothe that. That includes race and orientation, not just gender. But the matter at hand is women characters. An unrealistically beautiful woman with no character, or no purpose being overtly sexualized, is called objectifying, and has little place in a serious, realistic* game that's also for women (and let's assume that's most games). Because, let's be real, no one wants to play with a degrading caricature of themselves.

This is where I put up the "THE END" title card, and a big question mark comes up afterwards.

*I mean realistic, as art means it: it's not abstract or cartoonish. It's trying seriously to emulate human beings.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Maybe the question comes down to 'Is the female demographic important enough to consider when making a game in which they are a part of the audience?'

I kinda wanted to avoid the whole male vs female thing, but anyway. Personally I'm tired of being told by the mainstream market that I'm not important enough to consider, which is why I don't have a lot of games I like to play. It's slightly annoying to be told 'well, guys like them that way, so you don't really get a say.' All I really want are characters and stories I can get into. I don't think that is a great deal to ask and is important for games that are going for a general (and thus larger) market. Not all games are only going to either be targeted at girls or boys. Hell, this is one of the reasons I became a part of the indie game maker scene, because I wanted to be apart of making games that I would enjoy. I'm doing art for a BxG game and a BxB game, and I hope to do both GxB and GxG and middle ranging stuff in the future.

If you are not, never intend nor want, girls to activly play your games, then it's fine. But it seems silly to lose such a market just because you don't want to make a female character interesting and contextual :/

(I've re-written this post about 5 times know and I'm still not sure I said what I wanted to say -.-)