Tropes vs Women in Videogames

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Madison in Heavy Rain is an interesting example. On one hand you have a shower scene with her and a sequence where she's running away from intruders. You also have the scene in the guy's basement. However she seems well and realistically written (especially the scenes in the nightclub) and she helps out Ethan more than he looks after her.

Does anyone have figures for how many women work in positions of power in video game companies, or in creative roles on video game projects?

I remember that lady was wheeled out for every single Assassin's Creed launch video.

[SeanDMan]

Am I the only one not bothered by sheLego?

I just think it's stupid. I think Lego was fine the way it was, there's no reason to have a hair salon and a milkshake cafe where your daughter's Lego people can get all the latest gossip about the dreamy Hollywood hunks they all fetishize about. It's pandering and insulting to develop something so gendered. I didn't think there was anything wrong with Lego as it was and thought it was perfectly androdygenous, but apparently Lego marketting people disagreed and decided they needed more pink blocks.

Does anyone have figures for how many women work in positions of power in video game companies, or in creative roles on video game projects?

It's pretty low. Generally the route to videogame development is computer sciences which is a notoriously unfriendly scholarary path for women.

Among independent and small market studios women do much better.

[Skummy]

Does anyone have figures for how many women work in positions of power in video game companies, or in creative roles on video game projects?

It's pretty low. Generally the route to videogame development is computer sciences which is a notoriously unfriendly scholarary path for women.

Among independent and small market studios women do much better.

And that's something I'd argue is at the root of the issue just as much as anything. It's a male-dominated industry, that historically has shown little to no understanding of women, either as characters or as consumers, for the most part.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the most compelling Lara Croft has ever been is in her new game, where she's been written by a talented female writer.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

This latest Lara Croft character has been written utterly compellingly.

[SeanDMan]

Does anyone have figures for how many women work in positions of power in video game companies, or in creative roles on video game projects?

It's pretty low. Generally the route to videogame development is computer sciences which is a notoriously unfriendly scholarary path for women.

Among independent and small market studios women do much better.

And that's something I'd argue is at the root of the issue just as much as anything. It's a male-dominated industry, that historically has shown little to no understanding of women, either as characters or as consumers, for the most part.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the most compelling Lara Croft has ever been is in her new game, where she's been written by a talented female writer.

Yes, video games are predominantly marketed at young males. But you could just as easily take those statistics to say "women aren't buying video games, and it's because they're marketed in this way". In reality, women over 18 are the fastest growing demographic in gaming. Whether you look at it from a social justice perspective, or from a free market perspective, things should change when taking that into account.

I'm pretty much on the same page with you on all of this. I said the issue was part of a complex cycle of trying to decide whether the market bore of the product or the product bore of the market, but essentially it doesn't matter because right now, it's simply alienation. There needs to be changes in the creative process to address this, and other, issues, in order to make games a more compelling medium with believable characters with depth and interesting development arcs.

[RPS]

I think that most video games do a horrible job, generally, of representing anybody who isn't a white alphamale. But I'm with Sean on one point - feminism doesn't make the world go round and make video game companies take notice, money does. And people who want better representation of women in video games should send a message with their wallets. Stop buying games that don't feature women or racial minorities and support games that do.

Edited March 8, 2013 by RockPaperScissors

[SeanDMan]

I think discussion is a good step, because right now, the money is too big that any small amount of protest doesn't do much. Having more women in gaming journalism, even people like Dodger on TheGamestation podcast, is a good thing because it holds companies slightly accountable. People put more stock in the opinion of peer-group journalism so there's nothing wrong with people (like Sarkeesian) talking about the issue, even if I disagree with her on some aspects of what she's saying, I support her right to say it.

[RPS]

I think a lot of publications - Kotaku and IGN are the two I read - do pay a lot of attention to the lack of diversity representation in gaming and it is getting a lot more focus recently in non-gaming publications. Discussion is a step in the right direction, but money can do wonders. I don't think COD is gonna go anywhere soon, but people buying games with more diverse representation and games that step outside of the box will make the big developers take notice. And supporting games like Borderlands 2, which has it's issues but has a very diverse and non-conventional cast of characters in a genre of games which is known for sticking true to cliches, is a good thing.

[Skummy]

I'd be interested to know the stats on women buying video games in an earlier era, though the time period I'm thinking of would be more arcade-centric, so potentially harder to get accurate demographic figures from, but looking at "classic" video games; Space Invaders, Frogger, Asteroids, Tetris, even Pac-Man really, despite the male gender pro-noun, were effectively genderless, and it would be interesting to know to what extent that affected the balance of male and female players.

From a purely anecdotal point of view, the only games my Mother has ever played are Tetris, Columns and Puzzle Bobble - all basically genderless, with the exception of the fairly ambiguous characters in Puzzle Bobble - while my girlfriend, despite being a much more avid "gamer" than I am, still tends to lean, consciously or otherwise, to games where you have an option as to who you play as.

Pokémon is a big one, that makes the incredibly obvious step of allowing you to choose a gendered character at the beginning of the game, and it having utterly no impact on the narrative. Obviously there are other games that do this, and many games where it wouldn't be practical to do so, but it seems an obvious example to follow.

Personally, while most people are looking to the narrative as the issue, and saying that games essentially need to be better written to succeed in this regard, I'd almost argue an extreme opposite. Video games are never going to be movies, and to truly show the genre at its best should stop aiming to be "interactive movies" - similarly to how TV improved when it stopped just trying to be radio with pictures - and embrace the interactivity over the movie element. "Retro" games, and many independent games, forego the story as anything more than an introductory scrawl, and focus entirely on gameplay. The story to Pac-Man is utterly irrelevant, but it's one of the most universally appealing video games ever made.

You can probably disregard a lot of that last paragraph as rambling, ill-formed thoughts, but I think it bears consideration why games from twenty or more years ago are still better known and more beloved than games of today.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Game stories are usually flawed when it comes to customization anyway, either you have a linear character with an immerse story or you have a heavily customized character with a very generic story because a male viking exists in the same universe as a cis-gendered half princess furry half dragon mage.

The problem isn't feminism, the problem is that video game genres were largely written in stone in the 80s-mid 90s and as a result of which, publishers are too scared to take a risk on something. It doesn't mean that female protagonists don't exist, they're just hard to find and VERY risky, and for every Bayonetta there's a WET.

[Colly]

Am I the only one not bothered by sheLego?

I just think it's stupid. I think Lego was fine the way it was, there's no reason to have a hair salon and a milkshake cafe where your daughter's Lego people can get all the latest gossip about the dreamy Hollywood hunks they all fetishize about. It's pandering and insulting to develop something so gendered. I didn't think there was anything wrong with Lego as it was and thought it was perfectly androdygenous, but apparently Lego marketting people disagreed and decided they needed more pink blocks.

Is Lego perfectly androgenous (sic?) though? Standard City stuff maybe, but all the film and comic tie ins, ninjas etc? Seems to be targetted at the 'boys toys' market as far as I can tell. I think there's this odd perception these days that girls will only ever play with pink things because their male overlords have told them they must, whereas in actual fact if pink hair salon Lego will get my daughter interested in construction I'll be perfectly happy. If she however prefers the Batman stuff, yay for me! Edited March 8, 2013 by Colly

[Skummy]

There was a point I read a while back that basically pointed to flawed case studies; they'd say "what do women want in video games", come up with "pink and horses and hairdressing" or whatever, create an invariably awful game including those elements, and then when it sold poorly, use it as an example that "girls don't play games", rather than blaming it on the fact that it was a terribly made game.

Also, there are survey results that have shown that a big part of the problem is the familiarity with how games work. The vast majority assume knowledge of basic gameplay mechanics that are second nature to someone who's been playing games their whole life, but quite daunting to someone who never has - and, as games have been traditionally marketed at men, a lot of girls would never have played them, and continue to be put off by that. One of the biggest things in winning over female gamers has been non-conventional controls; the Wii, the DS' stylus, Kinect and so on, or even just the inclusion of simple tutorials.

[Matt]

Could it not just be the case that the pastime is not one that appeals to women on the whole in the same way that (for example) shopping doesn't appeal to a lot of men. I'm sure you could go out of your way to make shopping more appealing to men, by insisting that all stores have more men's fashion and advertising it more but at the end of the day, why bother? It's just something that men don't have a great interest in, generally. It's not as though women are feeling isolated from games, they just aren't overly interested.

[Colly]

I like shopping. :/

[RPS]

Also, women make up a sizeable chunk of those playing video games. The wikipedia page had somewhere between 30-40% of those playing video games being women. I think it is largely a myth that women don't play video games. Just a question of what games are they playing. I think it's likely that they play far more "social games" as the gaming community calls them and far less "hardcore games".

[Skummy]

Could it not just be the case that the pastime is not one that appeals to women on the whole in the same way that (for example) shopping doesn't appeal to a lot of men. I'm sure you could go out of your way to make shopping more appealing to men, by insisting that all stores have more men's fashion and advertising it more but at the end of the day, why bother? It's just something that men don't have a great interest in, generally. It's not as though women are feeling isolated from games, they just aren't overly interested.

47% of the people who play video games are female, and it's one of, if not the fastest growing demographic in the industry.

Edited to remove bitchiness.

[Matt]

I like shopping. :/

And I know girls who play video games. It doesn't stop one being a male centric pastime and one being a female centric pastime. I just don't see why that's a problem, it's not as if one gender is being excluded from either it's just that, generally, they tend to like one more than the other.

Could it not just be the case that the pastime is not one that appeals to women on the whole in the same way that (for example) shopping doesn't appeal to a lot of men. I'm sure you could go out of your way to make shopping more appealing to men, by insisting that all stores have more men's fashion and advertising it more but at the end of the day, why bother? It's just something that men don't have a great interest in, generally. It's not as though women are feeling isolated from games, they just aren't overly interested.

47% of the people who play video games are female, and it's one of, if not the fastest growing demographic in the industry.

Edited to remove bitchiness.

Ok so what's the problem?

[RPS]

Well I think what Skummy is getting at is that your assertion that video games as a past time don't appeal to women is wrong. Women do play video games. It really is a matter of what games are they playing and why aren't they playing other types of games. For example, do women not play first person shooters because, by nature, they don't appeal to women or is it because are presented in a way that doesn't appeal to women (aka, very little representation of women in these games and when they are represented in a very shallow and one dimensional way).

[Your Mom]

Well I think what Skummy is getting at is that your assertion that video games as a past time don't appeal to women is wrong. Women do play video games. It really is a matter of what games are they playing and why aren't they playing other types of games. For example, do women not play first person shooters because, by nature, they don't appeal to women or is it because are presented in a way that doesn't appeal to women (aka, very little representation of women in these games and when they are represented in a very shallow and one dimensional way).

I think this is incredibly true of FPS games. They are very brotastic and dont really appeal to me even though the type of game is kinda fun.

[Matt]

Well I think what Skummy is getting at is that your assertion that video games as a past time don't appeal to women is wrong. Women do play video games. It really is a matter of what games are they playing and why aren't they playing other types of games. For example, do women not play first person shooters because, by nature, they don't appeal to women or is it because are presented in a way that doesn't appeal to women (aka, very little representation of women in these games and when they are represented in a very shallow and one dimensional way).

Okay fair enough on the women don't play thing, I misunderstood the argument that was being had. Id still say it is the same thing about the genres of games though, it's just not something that appeals to women on the whole. Presumably there must be some other games that men don't play, but there isn't a clamouring to make them more marketable to men. Show me some non-anecdotal evidence that shows that women don't play certain types of games because of the way women are portrayed and I'll gladly join the cause, until then I'm of the belief that these games are male orientated because the majority of the audience is male and not the other way around. I don't believe for a second that there would be a significant increase in female gta iv players had the star been Nicky Bellic.