I believe the majority of the problem traces back to the actual number of females who play video games compared to the number of gamers who are male. When you're a large company like Nintendo or Squaresoft, you have a certain demographic that they must appease lest they go out of business from lack of sales. As of right now, we're in a transitional period where the number of females and the number of males playing games is beginning to equalize, but until then, the demographic will be more focused towards what male gamers will want to play. Unfortunately this means that until more females begin to show their interest in video games those females are going to be stuck with what is being mentioned above. And it's not to say that companies aren't trying. There are several games that have created an equality-based way of game play. The Sims is an example. Give it a few years. I'm sure that once more females join gaming companies; more games will begin to take on a female shape. It's hard enough trying to understand females sometimes.. And I'm sure it's harder for a male game producer to try to get inside the head of a female protagonist character in order to get a feel of her actions to determine her next move in the storyline. Until females start bursting into the game creation scene, males are going to have a slight domination on what games will be like. The future will bring an explosion of equality.

I agree in many ways with all of this. As an artist, concept developer, and character developer, it is very important to develop uniqueness while not going overboard or delving into too many stereotypes. Having a player or reader develop a connection with a character has a lot do to with so many other aspects of the character besides looks. Beauty can be portrayed in a number of ways besides breast size, and often these characters are the ones that make you say, "wow, she's rad."
As far as Baldur's Gate: DA, I saw nothing but schlock in the game overall. Technically it had a lot going for it, but the elf girl's design made her look like someone who should be sitting on a Harley Davidson. That's just not elven. That's B movie actress and her fake tits with some rubber ears put on. I didn't identify a single bit with anything they tried to do with that game, so when the bust-tacular bartender showed up, I wasn't surprised in the least. The entire game, design especialy, when compared to the previous BG's was trite.

As brilliant as ever Jane. I need to email you a ROM hacked version of Super Mario Bros called Super Peach Sisters. It is Mario is kidnaped and Princess has to go rescue him. It is fun and subversive.

Excellent article!

I also found the Baldur's Gate tavernkeeper to be totally ridiculous and detracting from an otherwise outstanding game.

Bernard Cesarone wrote an article in which he talks about, among other things, gender roles. Most games in and around 1995 show women as the initiators of action or the victims of the games. A study in 1992 showed that only nine female characters where depicted on popular Nintendo video games covers, while 115 males were shown. Some studies have shown that males play video games more frequently than females, so manufactures of video games may create their video games aimed at males.

Sex Sells. You know how many male friends of mine have bought that DoA:Beach Volleyball game and have no interest in volleyball? If that game was mixed with guys and girls, would as many guys still buy it? There's something to think about.

--
Cesarone, Bernard. “Video Games and Children.” Emergency Librarian 22.3 (1995): 31-32

I'd like to know what you think of a game like Xenosaga. If you've never played it, it's an RPG in which fully half of your party is female (and two of the three male characters are skinny/prepubescent-types). The main character (or at least the one who gets the largest chunk of attention) is a young female engineer with glasses, who has a very shy would-be boyfriend following her around, trying his hardest to get her attention.

I'm kind of assuming you haven't played it yet, since it seems to me to be an ideal counterpoint to crap like tomb raider, but if you have, or if you do in the future, I'd be very interested in hearing what you thought about it.

Very good article. I agree with AnotherMike, however. Video gaming, despite being a relatively artistic, independent, "hippie" industry, is a business all the same. As wonderful as it is that video gaming is beginning to be taken seriously, even becoming "mainstream," it also means that market share and bottom line are ever more important. Women need to start playing a more active role in the creative process of game development if we're going to create the best possible games, for both boys and girls. The first step in that process is for women to start playing more games, and to actively make their opinions known to both the developers and the reviewers. The end result will be games with more realistic depictions of both male and female characters, and that benefits us all as gamers.

I agree that gaming and video-gaming are so far a much more male domimated industry and also with the assessment that change is in the air. I mean look at the television media it hasn't been all that long since women became "Empowered" there. Shows with female 'action heros' like 'la fem nikita' (which might not be the best or even the best example, but it gets my point across). I have recently started playing "Darkened Skyes" on the 'cube. Which probably should have been titled "An adventure of skittles".. Anyway it's somewhat refreshing in that while the main character is obviously female she doesn't appear to be excessively endowed. Baiscally I guess I'm just saying that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm just hoping it's not attached to a train.

This is a pretty good article, but I see one real problem with it: you're missing the big picture. The games that you criticize are Tomb Raider, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, and DOAXBV. There's a pattern there besides huge breasts, and it's called "suckage". DOAXBV sort of gets an exemption from this category for being pretty unique as far as games that get a US release go, but BG:DA and Tomb Raider are just more products of the "when you don't have anything else, use sex" business model that so frequently appears on TV and in movies. The tactics that they use are a way to make a quick buck, but the majority of them don't sell well and the companies that produce them just barely make a profit. Criticizing them as if they're evidence of some pervasive air of exploitation in gaming is like holding up some schlocky teen comedy movie as an example of why American movies are immature. It's taking the rare (and rarely popular) exception and calling it a rule. They're fun to mock, but they're not really evidence of a serious problem.

Another problem that's not mentioned is that plenty of games that are made almost solely for women in Japan aren't given European or North American releases. So even though there are games out there specifically targeted at women, such as "guy-get" dating sims with female or gay male main characters, tons of bemani games, and generally a lot more games that don't conform to the "male badass struts in and busts shit up" gaming convention, very few of us get to see them. They're never released over here and they don't even make good imports because many of them rely on a ton of Japanese text to play the game. So the really unfortunate situation as far as gender roles and gender marketing goes in video games is that there are hardly any companies that are willing to translate and release video games here that don't appeal to a thirteen year old male audience.

I was glad to find a link to an article about women in video games that isn't just ignorant vitriol, though. It's been awhile since I've seen an article like this that doesn't make outrageous complaints, like complaining about a scantily clad girl in a video game when one of the other playable characters is an impossibly muscular young man with an intense hatred of upper body clothing or complaining about the utterly massive number of current games with a "male hero must save the dainty princess" plot, such as Super Mario Bros. for the NES, the Castlevania arcade game from the mid1980s, Double Dragon for the NES, Final Fight, and other such "recent hits". It's also nice to hear that pinup games like DOAXVB aren't a sexist male conspiracy that will send planet Earth into a vicious spiral of rape, murder, and, somehow, also racism. The world, and especially this discussion, could use more people with an "it's not my bag, but it's okay if it's yours" attitude.

I agree fully with this article. It is well written and even though I'm a guy, and I love to see hot women, enough is enough as far as games go. I want an immersive, fun game - not something that is touted to sell b/c it features a scantily clad woman somwhere in the game or pointless, mindless violence (which wasn't touched on too much). Great article though! :)

First, I would like to say that I too felt that the mentioned aspects of the visual presentation of Baldur's Gate: DA completely dissociated me with the dark and moody gameplay experience I was looking for. The look of the characters, particularly the female characters, just didn't seem to fit the game.

Secondly, Xenosaga was brought up and I would also be very interested in your thoughts on Metroid Prime. You play as a female character who's strong, silent and deadly and the most you ever actually see of the character is her face. The game, to me, is a perfect counter-example to Tomb Raider in both quality and image of the female character you're playing as.

Metroid Prime is a good example of how a great game developer can incorporate a strong lead female character into a game without reducing her to mere eye candy with guns.

I'm somewhat tired of people complaining about Phalic objects. Yes a joystick looks like a penis, but would you rather have a controller shaped like a vagina?

go play with your dolls. and make me a sandwich!

While there's something to be said for gender equality in gaming (or any form of media) I really don't see a whole lot of developers saying to themselves, "I think my game should alienate women." You really can't take things too personally. If a company is marketing a game towards males it's sheerly to boost sales (because currently more males play video games), not because they dislike women.

Gender equality would be nice in many cases, though. I thoroughly enjoyed Xenosaga which I would consider to be an extremely gender-neutral game. It's honestly the best game I've played in years and I have little doubt that it is because its maturity in all departments (including gender) is far superior to other games on the market.

At the same time, you really can't let it be that important to you. Yes, gender-neutral games are more enjoyable to me, but that's not to say I can't enjoy a gender-biased game. Tomb Raider sucks because it has terrible gameplay, not because of the gender bias. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance has a thoroughly ridiculous plot all around, so why not just ignore the plot and enjoy the wonderful, extensive hack & slash gameplay?

Perhaps it's different for the opposite sex, but as a male I enjoy a game regardless of any gender-bias in either direction. I enjoy playing females just as much as males. I've enjoyed playing females at every opportunity (Dark Age of Camelot, Fallout 2, and I might have to give Arcanum a try!), but some games are just going to be better than others and gender maturity is a part of that. Just enjoy what's enjoyable in a game and ignore the rest.

The Soul Edge/Caliber series was very good for having strong female characters that weren't passive, shallow girls, but rather strong women. Sophitia is a great example - she's an easy to use character with potent moves, and her storyline accents both her strength and her femininity. Seung Mina was a rebellious daughter who'd grown up playing/fighting with the boys and thought she was just as good as anyone. Taki was also independent. I haven't played SC or SC2 yet, but they seem to continue the tradition.

Squaresoft's Parasite Eve series also gives us another heroine in the form of Aya Brea. While attractive, she's not unrealistic in overall design. (The anime-style eyes are another matter) The game allows her personality to show through every now and then with some humor. (in Parasite Eve 2, you walk through a trashed convenience store. One of the aisle's has junk food in it. She comments on it, then adds, "Nothing I'd ever eat, though..." as sort of a joke.) Yes, there is a shower scene in PE2, but it is tastefully done overall, and it doesn't just happen, the character has walked through a sewer and been walking around a desert town by the time this happens. A hot shower would not be an unreasonable want.

For the most part, games are steered towards guys. But there is hope. Even without being playable character, women along the lines of several of Metal Gear Solid's female characters make a game more interesting without going right for the sex factor. Hopefully more games will start including similarly strong women (who are still women, not "men" with boobs)

Just my two cents.

Overall, I have to say that, as someone who's read plenty of "All Video Games Are Sexist Because The Women In Them Are Attractive!" articles, this stood out as actually appreciating some games involving attractive women for their other values, instead of merely focusing on how women were portrayed. Many people like to complain about how women in video games are always busty, but they rarely compare the number of less-endowed women to the number of skinny nerdish guys, another commonly ignored stereotype for a hero.

I think, though, that the current tendency towards strong male characters and depthless female characters in video games has a strong root in the history of how these games came about. The fact is, boys have always been encouraged to focus more on math and science, and girls on literature and social studies. This is changing now, but during the 50's and 60's, this was still the case. The result here is that when computers started to become popular, and later arcade games, the people most interested in them ended up being the people most interested in technology, i.e. the boys raised on science. Take a look at Pong. The fact is, it wasn't all that fun of a game, when you think about it. Board games at the time were much more interesting, and yet, it was immensely popular. Why? Because people liked the technology. So boys really started the video game revolution not because video games were actually fun, but because it was so novel to be able to press a button, and have the screen respond.

Here's where the problem comes in. You have the boys, who were raised on science, playing pong non-stop, while the girls, who were raised on literature and social studies, have no idea why you'd want to play this game. So, as children naturally do, the girls ridiculed the boys. Of course, these same boys who were ridiculed by girls in their childhood for playing video games grow up to be the men that make the video games 20 years later, and what do they do? They make the video games for guys. They make the male characters complex and interesting, because that's how they remember their friends from the arcades, and they make the female characters 2-dimensional and pointless, because that's what they seemed like to them when they were young.

And the fact is, this problem is still going on today, only in a slightly different sense. Video games are not only pointless technology demos any more; they're incredibly complex ssytems that involve human interaction and years of training to master. And yet guys who play video games are often treated by girls as if they were heroin addicts, spending all their time and money on something completely worthless and even harmful to themselves. Nowadays, this is more often justified by claiming that the video games that guys play are too violent, or don't give them any social interaction. I have actually had girls tell me that games like Battlefield 1942 close people off from society, while at the same time expounding the virtues of Solitaire, which is possibly one of the most addictive and non-social games ever made.

So what would happen if I became a video game designer later in life, and used my experiences to decide on how females were portrayed in my games? I think that instead of complaining about game developers making games that portray women badly (by the way, saying that the player leads or guides a character in an RPG or adventure game is common terminology applied to both male and female characters in game reviews), we should work harder on (A) helping girls realize that video games aren't the root of all society's ills, and (B) encouraging them to make their own games.

Your opening comment about identifying too strongly with GTA3 hits close to home in Oakland. Those kids called themselves the Nut Cases.

This article is on top of things. I would really like to see more games that are not gender biased. Not only would this open the market more for females, but it would add greater gameplay dynamics. Even games in which you choose the attributes of the main character, you choose how NPC's respond to you. This is the way gameplay should be headed, it adds for a more personal and unique game.

Somewhere along the lines consumers seem to forget that markets are driven towards capital gain. Orienting video games more towards females (which is probably unfair to say, rather I should word it as changing the current orientation of the demographic AT ALL) would more than likely result in some loss of revenue. In any business market I can tell you that is simply unacceptable. As a 21 year-old male gamer, I recognize the facets of the industry same as you. Your article was well-written, but I think you fail to touch on the fact that developers do what makes money. If a large female target audience suddenly started buying videogames and became a voice to listen to the industry, you could expect change. However, as it stands, I wouldn't hold your breath.

It's a nice article, though I did see a bit of a problem with it... Here, you're treating videogames like books, or film-festival projects. As long as I've been playing videogames, the only times I've tried relating to the characters or identifying with them is when venturing into the world of fanfic. Yes, there are a few exceptions--and yes, I'm not the best judge of quality on this issue--but for the most part, I play videogames for the issue of fun. Yes, I can see your target audience point, but the average female isn't interested in videogames anyway, be they aimed at them or not. I may be a tomboy, but I'm still female; but I still think that if there were more games made and marketed for females, they probably would be marketed toward the stereotypical bimbo female, and would be mindless and boring.

As for game suggestions, maybe you should try something like Drakan(PS2 - it had a subtitle, but I forget what it was). I played it a while back, and didn't get far enough along to recognize a lot of character developement, but it was alot like Tomb Raider--only the main character didn't have basketballs for breasts. It was a medieval setting in which the main character, Rynn, is a sort of mercenary whose homeland was destroyed in a war, and...alright, so I can't remember what the story was, but I remember that you were supposed to go around and run errands for the townspeople and that sort of thing... (sorry if that wasn't very helpful)

I do agree with several of your points; certainly those about the whole Lara Croft fiasco. However, there are characters that break the mould - look at Ayane from Tenchu, or several characters from Final Fantasy games. It is my hope, as well as many other peoples, that female characters in videogames can grow to become more involved, and not merely ninjas and useless NPC's. That being said, I personally don't thin it will be long before this is the case.

i play the game that unites all types of gamers, Dance Dance Revolution!!!

Very nice, I don't think i've read anything this good about games in my entire time as a gamer, thanks :)

One great game for gender equality and realistic physical features was Tony Hawk 3. I have a friend who is, basically, short and round, but she could play with the player edit settings and make a character that looked pretty much just like her, and she was thrilled. Unfortunately, TH4 has lost the "extremes" of height and weight, and characters must be mostly middle of the road, ideal shapes. Pity.

An excellent article - as a male gamer I suppose I tend to be oblivious to the differences. Occasionally though, they do come out (for example playing Diablo II or PSO as a female).

One thing though - Joysticks. Laughably phallic? I admit they are phallic, but in this case you must examine intent - the stick was invented along with the first aircraft 100 years ago. Admittedly those designers were male, but they weren't video game designers, not to mention I doubt they intended it as a symbol of male superiority where aircraft are concerned. I mean, can you picture an effective way to control a biplane that's shaped like a breast or vagina? This one case is surely a coincidence.

i think many games are for women. for instance, extreme beach volleyball has naked guys in it. so there.

A very-well written article! As a girl gamer, I agree with you a lot.

However, I wished you had mentioned dating sims. As an experiment, I tried two different ones (the names will go unmentioned).

How were they?

Pure sexism. On BOTH sides.

You could only play as a male character. The final goal was to HAVE SEX WITH THE GIRL WITHIN 100 DAYS.

Ridiculous! Not all guys are itching to jump into bed with a girl, and not all girls will call you "creep" when you approach them! We're ALL victims here!

...not to mention that the stereotypical looks were applied as well. Tall, tanned, leggy blonde girls with wide-chested, well-endowed males.

Something needs to be done, and fast... ...because if this keeps up, what a sad society it will be.

YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL FOR PLAYING VIDEO GAMES. ALL OF YOU. DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR PATHETIC LITTLE LIVES!!

good point, xocet... i meant the "laughably phallic" to be more of a joke than a serious criticism. i think though that other people have written about certain alienating aspects of the interfaces in videogames (Poole mentions it briefly in Trigger Happy).

i think many games are for women. for instance, extreme beach volleyball has naked guys in it. so there.

Posted by: adam on April 17, 2003 02:25 PM

*I, as a woman, am straight, but I'm not interested in polygonal maked men. "Equal opportunity nudity" does NOT justify your statement.

So, whoopee, there's a naked guy in my video game. Is there any degrading talk about seeing penises bouncing as you "guide" the character to victory?

I don't think so.

Next time, think about what you're saying. I don't mind hearing other opinions, as long as they can back it up.

Score one point for equality. Adieu.

Let's say you have two choices...

Female choice: Average breasts, decent face, not skinny, not fat, completely normal. Very little make-up.

Male choice: Neck that can bend steel, huge biceps, thick brow, huge bulging crotch that bounces slightly while walking.

I'm assuming that's what alienation feels like.

I'm curious to know what your reaction to the Elder Scrolls game series is. Morrowind is a beautiful game, totally open-ended, and you have the choice of both the race and sex of your character. I've only played it as a male character, but have run into female wizards, fighters, thieves, priestesses, leaders, and gods. They run the gamut of personalities, and I was curious (if you've played) what you think.

This is a very interesting article. As a psychology and communication double major, and a girl gamer, i found it very accurate. I have been playing videogames for a long time, and there is a lot of alienation, genderbias and sexism. I dont understand y so many males are writing in and disagreeing... are you female? Well then...

stereotyping in games is harsh now a days. i just finished unlocking EVERYTHING in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Aliance, and much to my chargin i found that one of my favorite video game women had been digraded by a scantely clad swimsuit poster unlocked in the crypt. Sonya always seemed like the strong type to me but now i find that she is a lifegaurd when she is not on duty for the government. how convinient is that?

my favorite characters always tend to be the women. this is odd since i am a guy. it's not because of the pixilated breasts or unbelievably tiny outfits. it's the fact that in some story lines, the women have the best triumphic plot twists.

i remember playing Phantasy Star Online a few years ago. my first and most beloved character was a female warrior. i decided in creating her that i would test out a theory. i made her look as attractive as possible and decided that i would play her as a helpless damsel in distress type. sure, i got hit on alot. more often than not i would walk away from a night of gaming with about twenty phone numbers from all across the country. but the real gem is this. i would go into a game and say something like, "Some mean man just PK'd me and took my only weapon! i don't have any money! can someone help me out?" this would be followed by just about every male avatar rush to me with gifts of Lavis Cannons and God Arms. needless to say i soon had a 52 level hunter who hit with the power and ferocity of a 100 level. i kid you not, my bank was full of ultra rare weapons to the point that i was dealing the ones i couldn't use out for money which i would never EVER need. it was just the fact that i had become a sort of black market, in game, on the sole fact that i could pull off acting like a damsel in distress.

and you really shouldn't blame the people who make the games. it's mostly the fault of two groups. 1: the marketing geniouses who try and sell the games to as many people as possible, and 2: the sex deprived hardcore gamers that only know how to look at a strong female character as the best piece of ass they will ever get. and since they rule the majority of consumers in this market, supply and demand says, "Give them what they want."

hence DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball. Hence BMX XXX. Hence the pinup girls of Def Jam Vendetta. need i go on?

personally my choice goes like this... Men? Women? give me a collosal death robot any day! Go Robotech Battlecry! WOOHOO!

-th3k0w-

gods gift to gaming.

too long article, make it shorter then ill think about reading it...

Yes, it was a well written and thoughtful article. I appreciate the balanced views toward this subject and none of the "Raging Feminist" nonsense that usually seems to accompany articles of this type. All of the points were well thought through... except one.

"The attitude seems to be, 'Maybe some women play our games, but we don't really know, and frankly, we don't care.'"

That's exactly what their attitude is. The simple fact of the matter is that, for the most part, men ARE the only people who play video games. Obviously there are exceptions to this, as this article was written by a member of our fairer sex. But we of the male persuasion are game companies' key demographic. And as their key demographic, it is their obligation to pander to us. Let's face it people, sex sells. And no article, Internet or no, blaming these companies for their male-oriented sexist attitude is going to change that... ever.

I have to agree with some ofthe comments here, especially thie first comment, it really is all up to demographics. But again, that will change over time, and again it is right now. I haven't asked many female players, since it is hard to find very many..., but i find that some of the new games coming out have kind of a bi-gender feel to them, allowing both to play the game. One of these is Morrowind, although it doesnt really affect the game that much, or at least I have seen, it also doesnt have the bouncing breasts in it either. I find that there has been a great improvement over the earlier games, which were completely made for males. And I am waiting for more women to get into games as it would be great for thm to finally understand why we like playing them so much.

And with the opposite sex thing going on in the MMORPGs, I'm with Justin. It's fun playing as the ladies in the game (I know my name sounds like a 'chick' name, but get over it). Actually for one reason why is because I seem to get really madat everyone and impatient when i am male, but my female characters always remain calm. I kno, i take roleplaying maybe a lil too far. But, yes, I hold the same hopes as many of you dohere.

Two things that caught my attention:

1) The whole Lara Croft business. Yes, Eidos' marketing scheme was less than brilliant on that one. More to the point though, they didn't really HAVE a scheme. If one takes a look at the whole range of the appearances of Croft, one sees a preponderance of "Look, boobs!", but there are also many other instances of grimaces and firing .45's. Perhaps they are more exapected, and thus overlooked in comparison to the sexual nature. It is important to note though, that this was an important step in the concept of characters your could recognize (subconsciously) as a being capable of sexuality. It is no surprise they had no problem going with that. I think however that if you had played the game a bit (I never finished it, but played a good chunk of the way through) you would say that there was very little of a sexual content in the game (other than the rather large *ahem* polygons.)

Secondly, the bit about
"You don't see female dwarves or trolls in Tolkien," he says. "All the trolls are genderless, which is to say, they are male."
is just appalling in an article of otherwise intelligent and objective discourse. The context of Tolkein's works do not contain female dwarves, mostly due to the fact that all the dwarves encountered ever were warriors/kings(unless Tolkein was a giant misogynist and no one happened to mention it.) It is important to remember that when Tolkein came up with the idea for the LotR Trilogy, he was in the frame of mind of creating a mythology for anchient (pre Roman conquest if I recall) Celtic cultures. Feminism and fantasy RPGs aside (considering they all took everything from Tolkein in the first place)women were not warriors or monarchs. It just wasn't done then, with very rare exception. Sure, some people can name 2 or 3 cultures that had women leaders, or women soldiers, but the Amazons were mythic, and I can name perhaps a hundred cultures that were paternaly led.
As to the orcs etc., Tolkein hardly bothered to describe them at all, much less go into details about gender. Further, what would it matter if that 4th orc from the left Legolas cut down was a female? Saying Genderless = Male is just a terrible contradiction, and no rational person should make that statement.

In conclusion, if you are looking for games that are more gender pleasant, I would suggest "Tenchu," "Oni" (rent it though, it has no replay value), and the Dynasty Warriors Series. All feature strong women in charge, and many dead mean are the result.

actually, Negative, i disagree; one of the reasons gender in games is a hot topic now is that there are a lot more women who are interested in games than there were twenty years ago. and i've had a fair number of inquiries from game designers very interested in making games for women, girls, and other traditionally non-gaming demographics. it's pretty clear that if the industry is to continue to grow, it will have to appeal to a broader audience, and half of them are female.

i think a lot of game designers, male *and* female, are very excited to attract a greater market. the bulk of them realize that pandering is a pretty limited and short-term solution. all the bouncing breasts in the world - while very pretty - will become boring if the gameplay sucks.

Ok, very good article. One thing it didn't touch on however was that video games are entertainment. They are an escape from reality. They are supposed to be fun, exotic, engaging, and mesmerizing. If the makers of a game need to put big hooters on their game to sell it, that’s their prerogative. BG is a RPG, which is to say a certain type of game; DOAABVX (or whatever their calling it) is a hooters game. This kind of game is not new or terribly engaging, but it could be fun to the right group of people. Do you remember Lesuire suit Larry? Dear God. When that game came out it had some of the worst graphics, a worse plot, and a hooters game, but it was interesting. Back to the point > if you don't like the game, don't buy it, and please don't bitch, because someone else probably likes it.

For example: I personally don't care to much for Sports genre games, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start whining about how many dam NBA2XXX's there are. I just don't purchase or play them.

And to touch on the gender thing, our generation (I'm 23) is going to see some very hard but interesting times. As our society progress's gender differences will deteriorate and die off with all the old men in positions of power from 2 generations ago. You can see it in today’s courts. Women battling over maternity leave and such. As our generation grows up and starts holding offices of power, in which the stereotypes are lessened, things will get better for everyone. But, I think we have a long way to go.

(jane posted while i was typing this and pretty much took the words out of my mouth) If we keep talking about the market, the issue is that the female market hasnt had a chance to grow yet - the research hasnt been conducted to get the numbers regarding girl gamers - has it?
It's unfair to talk about demographics when they're assumed, i think. It's an untapped, unexamined market. To assume it's not there is a big mistake. You are now dealing with the generation who got their nintendo at age 8 and are now 23, who want good games, many have been turned off beacause of the violence, time consumed by games and price. (i did a little of my on fast survey of my friends). An interesting point from a girl i know was that more females probably enjoy the creative and less restrictive aspects of tycoon/sim games. "If there is a problem you can solve it, and it doesnt involve a structured storyline in which you either have to fight to the death or shoot a pron film (vice city).

I do like fighting to the death in certain cases, the Night Elves in Warcraft 3 were what sold me on the game. I loved Starcraft, and was really into the asthetic presented by Blizzard.

As well, perhaps the naked men in the volleyball game werent put there for women... ;)

You hit the nail on the head with your comments on Tomb Raider. I played the game, (main reason one, it reminded me of Indiana Jones), and played thru it as rapidly as I could as I whole-heartedly enjoyed it. I do however, wish that they would have marketed this game in a gender neutral way. I believe you were correct in saying that this game could have revolutionized the marketplace in terms of girl-gaming.

Unfortunately, the majority of gamers are boy/young men/men and for companies to make the money justifying there cost, they will market the games to the majority demographic. (I am a 35 y/o addicted gamer who has had the bug since Pong, and I also happen to be male.) The other unfortunate happenstance is the absolute insult to gaming that most supposed girl games manufacturers produce in order to entice girls to play. Barbie this, Nancy Drew that. These games are, sexist in and of themselves. They stick to the generic sex roles that society almost always wants to pin on young girls/women. These games (if you can call them such), in a word, suck. They are boring, non-challenging, pieces of programming fluff that these companies can point to and then complain that girl-games don't sell. These games insult the intelligence of their own demographic; thus justifying the need to make games in which they can sell using Sex/Sex Appeal.

Is there a simple fix? No. What can be done? Creating games that are just fun to play regardless of societal norms and/or expectations as it relates to the game avatar.

Thank you for your article, very well written and well thought out.

yay jane!

thanks for writing such a practical article! there are already so many righteous and indignant demands for particular treatments of women in games, and also so many righteous declarations that it is women's own fault that games are no fun for women to play since women don't buy games (uh, see this comment thread).

very nice to see a straight-forward explanation of which features totally waste potential female markets and which features could attract new buyers. hooray!

I think we're failing to remember one of the first and foremost female heroines in video gaming.

Samus Aran.

Samus Aran, first introduced in 1986 in the hit game "Metroid", became an icon to women who could kick butt and take names (in my opinion, and in the minds of all my friends). We could think of not a single male hero (again, at the time) who could compete with Samus.

Granted, at the onset of Metroid, it was thought that Samus was merely a robot, but with the introduction of the "Just in Bailey" code (A Bailey was a swimsuit, IIRC), we learned that Samus was realy a human, and a FEMALE at that!

Outside of that one point, this was an excellent article.

I'm just sort of curious on where Kate Archer of No One Lives Forever fits in with all this. To me, at least, she seems like a strong female lead. Any thoughts from you?

I am indeed pleased to read this article. I do believe that such a change is needed, and also that the actual tendency of creating a more cinematic ambient will help since the plot is more and more important these days. That might help by creating very interesting ambients that would only be more appropiate with a well thought female lead character.

On the other hand, you mention a point that I would love to see done: less goal oriented games. Both types of game could co-exist to give players the option of a well constructed, engaging and plot oriented game to a "just for fun" game that I can take for just some minutes, and I would love to see a ore varied scope of possibilities in the gender field.. without noticing it.

First I'll put my "Wow, what a great article" on top of the pile with everyone else's, then I'll say this:

I, personaly, think a juvenile attitude was to be expected in video game development simply because of it's relative youth. Compared to books, radio, board games, and even T.V., video games are a brand-new form of entertainment. More importantly, marketable entertainment. As so many have pointed out: Sex sells. And it sells primarily to men.

But here's the catch that some developers are realizing (and that some have known all along): Video games are not just for kids and adolecents.
At first, the marketing for video games was aimed almost exclusively at pre-teen to teenage boys. Maybe that was the only market at the time, I'm not old enough to know, but I know that those boys (theoreticly) grew up and if those designers wanted to keep their revenues flowing, their games had to grow up as well.

And that's where I think we are now. Software companies are coming to realize that there is a very large group of gamers out there who demand a mature product. And a hefty aspect of that mature product must be an elemination of the broad gender generalizations and stereotypes. DAOC is a perfect example in that regard. The only gender sterotypes that exist there are the ones that we bring with us. I'm optimistic that video games are now coming out of their juvenile growing pains and so will their content.

Companies put an enormous amount of money and effort into acquiring new customers. If you owned a company, which of the following would you like to hear from the head of your marketing department?

"Yeah, half of the potential customers don't buy our products. But we don't care, we don't need any more customers."

"OMG, half of the potential customers don't buy our products? We have to do something about that so we can make money from them too!"
Doubling your market is rarely a bad business decision.

Very good article. (Found it from Penny Arcade's link.) I'd like to add a good female to the list: American McGee's Alice .. I'll skip all the artistic value and authenticity-or-not to the books (which I do love) and just say the heroine, Alice, is a strong-willed, feminine, British 17-year-old girl with a revolutionary trait: she looks like a Victorian England 17-year-old girl! She's actually quite attractive but because the designers didn't try to force it -- pretty face (with anime eyes), slender figure (withOUT anime breasts), fully clothed (you read that right). The camera is even designed so you have to go to great lengths to close-up "examine her polygons." It's not just aesthetics (looks, voice, etc.), though; the ways she reacts to the NPCs in cutscenes of the game -- her friends, her enemies -- is utterly believable.

I don't just guide Alice, I am Alice.

...and now a response to Josh, who I believe is missing the whole point of these discussions:

"It's a nice article, though I did see a bit of a problem with it... Here, you're treating videogames like books, or film-festival projects. As long as I've been playing videogames, the only times I've tried relating to the characters or identifying with them is when venturing into the world of fanfic. Yes, there are a few exceptions--and yes, I'm not the best judge of quality on this issue--but for the most part, I play videogames for the issue of fun."

The primary reason for playing a videogame is the fun factor. It just so happens that what's "fun" is different for everybody. Some people could care less whether it has a quality plot like a good book or film, just as long as the button-mashing never wears thin. Some people are bored with button-mashing from the get-go, but fall immensely in love with the development of a game's story and characters, even if they the players have to flesh them out themselves. It all seems to depend on how one uses one's imagination. Note: maybe you wouldn't have to rely on fanfics for character development if the games themselves did it better.

"Yes, I can see your target audience point, but the average female isn't interested in videogames anyway, be they aimed at them or not."

Maybe the average female isn't all that interested in them because they're not aimed at them. My ex-girlfriend loves the Mario Kart series, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and a few others. Most (average) games seem to bore her, but if it's mindless fun with a good social element (Kart, Super Smash Bros.) or intriguing in character (BFD, Hangaroo), she loves it -- she also likes Tetris and SimCity3000 if that means anything. As long as it's not too difficult, she's willing to enjoy.

"I may be a tomboy, but I'm still female; but I still think that if there were more games made and marketed for females, they probably would be marketed toward the stereotypical bimbo female, and would be mindless and boring."

That's the whole point. If they're truly marketed for females (or even better, both genders,) they wouldn't be stereotypical unless the game called for it. BFD is full of stereotypes, but it's an M-rated British comedy, so it's inappropriateness is totally appropriate in context.

Alice, however, is a psychological thriller of sorts set in the time of Victorian England but the place of a young girl's own truamatized mind, so if anybody comes out in the game in a bikini, the entire game's value would be greatly deprecated. (I haven't finished the game yet, but I highly doubt any bimbos shall surface before it's finished.)

On that note, there's one obscure part in E-rated Banjo-Kazooie where a blonde in a red two-piece walks by on a beach. Well, it's on a beach, so it's kind of appropriate, but why? It has nothing else to do with the game! Every time I play to that point, I just shake my head and wonder how many middle-aged men with no signficant others work(ed) at Rareware, Ltd.

Think Cruis'n USA. It's a great concept -- take real roads from the US and turn them into a cross-country racetrack. So why the fully clothed men and bikini-clad women? And why so fake, too? (Play or watch it if you haven't already. The woman with plastic ..smiles.. popping out from under your hood and gyrating around when you finish the race is flabbergasting.)

It's a vicious cycle. Girls don't like games 'cause games don't cater to girls. Games don't cater to girls 'cause girls don't like games. If girls made games, girls might like games more; but more girls might make more games if more girls liked games more in the first place. Slowly but surely, these barriers are being broken down, but it'll take more articles like this (and their writers and like-minded gamers) to break down these barriers.

Wow, that was long. Sorry I wrote so much!

ParodyKnaveBob of the new upstart NOVA
New Order of Videogame Addicts/Advocates/longstory

While you present an interesting article, and I agree with most of the points. I have serious problems with the Lara Croft sidebar (and I am not even a big fan of the game)... In that little pink box you went from intelligent argument to winey militant feminest complainer. First you claim they are 4 seperate articles. This is clearly not the case as you cite the same quote "the chance to play a Lolita version of Lara, budding breasts and all." in 2 of them. You also say "you are always leading her, guiding her, while studying her form " You are putting words into thier mouth when you say 'while studying her form.' Second, as far as always alienating the player, and leading her.. 2 of the highlighted text items refer to putting you in her shorts, and having you play as her. And don't tell me that 'in her shorts', 'daisy dukes,' or whatever is sexist. It may be in presentation by the artists, but as far as a review stand point, that *is* what she is wearing. It is no different then a review of Splinter Cell 'putting you in the wet suit of Sam Fisher.' I could take those same quotes, highlite different parts and change the whole spin. I challange you to find ANY word to use in place of 'control' that would be appropriate description. Keep in mind these reviewers have to use a few different words. You can't even keep saying 'drive' in a racing game review. You have to mix it up a bit.
As for the Xbox controler, that isn't sexist design.. no one has hands big enough to hold that monster! ;)

[Quote]...to the peripherals (the laughably phallic joystick, the original Xbox controllers which are too big for my hands, the color scheme of the Xbox) are male-friendly[/Quote]

The controllers for Xbox originally were too big for a pro basketball player. I know you said you didn't expect to see pink boxes, but how could you judge what colors are male friendly opposed to say, feminine ones? That's like saying Pink is for girls, and blue is for boys in all aspects of life. I got told off at my work for making a comment to a customer about his/her choice in colors for a birthday party, and well I realize that favorable colors depend on the individual, not necessarily a depicted "norm" for men and women.

[tsn]Green

I tend to agree with Josh about the stance of corporations when it comes to developing and producing games geared towards women. Simply put, the overwhelming majority of gamers consists of males like myself. However, I have found that most of the girls I know love video games as well. Animal Crossing comes to mind immediately because it was geared towards a compromise bewtween the sexes. It's clearly not geared towards any gender specifically. I can honestly say its a fun game to play, and quite varied. I think if the video game industry began a gradual shift away from male-oriented games and towards games that appeal to all, they could incoprorate a new demographic into their sales. Hell, look at how well The Sims did. That game is ridiculously addictive to everyone. Also I pose this question: would the creation of female-oriented games be an exercise in futility or is there a possibility that creating the genre would draw out female gamers who feel like they are not represented in the video games of today?

2 things. I agree with your article, but about a phallus joy stick- do you have a more fitting shape? I don't think a crevice of some design would work better.... Heheh...

Also, I *am* a guy, and maybe that's why I can't tell, but most of the games I play aren't too sexually stereotypical. In any online RPG I've played I had at least 1 female character. (Diablo's sorceress and Amazon, and Several in Phantasy Star Online are a few).

Yea, I can see it in other games, though. Sophitia has one move that is quite interesting. It's called "Heaven to hell" where she jumps on top of the person's head, (their head now immersed in her crotch) and then she twists their neck and flips them down.

Maybe I just don't play enough "mature" games that have much sex... If I need porn there's an internet full of it. When I need a game I like surreal fantasy, and it doesn't need sex. (Hell, one of my favorite games is Super Monkey Ball...)

Bah, you're using PSO as an example? If I were a male character and asked for duped weapons, I wouldn't have been any more or less accepted than you were. If I played a Rogue in Diablo and asked for items, and I get them, it's simply because I'm playing a female character? Could you people be a little bit less shallow?

Not to mention the arcade stick remark. I'm sure everything looks like a penis to you people. I generally works better than a D-pad, especially being usable while gripping only the stick (arcade cabinets don't have pads). Could you think of some 'genderless' stick?

Plus, I cannot believe that you would actually not play games simply because some girls have breasts. The webmistress decided to show her underwear on this website, while she was masturbating (or faking it, whatever). You obviously seem to understand your gender. Yet breasts offend you? I suppose you're nothing more than the sensitive male "OMG OMG PENIS PENIS PENIS!!1!" type, yet female. I guess I don't understand females enough to know why it hurts their confidence to see someone with bigger breasts than them, but that's another discussion.

Also, I don't believe that insulting men is really going to get your point across. What's the point of making enemies out of people, especially those with similar interests? Why you so interested in 'genderless' gaming? Hell, I don't even know what you mean by that. Plus, it doesn't even seem to make sense, since you seem to like having the ability to be a female character that sleeps with male characters, which isn't exactly the most 'genderless' goal I can think up.

Also, it does not upset me to play as a female character in EQ, or Perfect Dark, or Sakura Kasugano from Rival Schools. If your ego is so bruised by playing as male characters (or female, for that matter), then so be it. But you haven't sold me at all. I am certainly not Duke Nukem, but I am not offended by him or his goals.

Good work, that was a very interesting and insightful article. I especially enjoyed your comments on MMORPGs and MUDs. I used to be horribly addicted to Phantasy Star Online (probably still am, I'm just on hiatus), and I noticed the same thing. One person I met online was an actual girl (differentiating her from the men who pretend to be females), and I noticed that she always got a ton of handouts from people without even asking. Its bizarre to see a pseudo-sexual relationship like that take place, and somewhat disheartening in a sense. I like to think of things like games that take place in an online space as free of gender roles since theres no visual reference to base your expectations on. However, both on IRC (Internet Relay Chat, for the uninformed) and in games, I see women constantly getting hit on in a fashion that wouldn't even come close to being socially acceptable in person. A great, and disturbing, example of this is The Sims Online. Since it opened, I've heard a number of reports of prostitution in the game world, and of men randomly kissing female characters. In a world where women are already overly objectified, the anonymity of the internet seems to make things worse, rather than better as I would've hoped.

Why do you people insist on writing responses longer then the article? It's ridiculous.

I thought it was a great article, maybe I'm a one off - a male gamer who notices things - but I was well aware of the stereotyping.

However, male stereotyping DOES take place, even in roleplay games that should allow a user to have full customisation.

Neverwinter nights being one good example of this, the girls in Neverwinter do get a wide range of customisation, but the phenotype option allows them to choose between "anorexic model" and "somewhat chubby" - but notice how all the male characters have wide chest/shoulders, fair muscles and are built like a tree trunk. The phenotypes allow for either "heavy built male", or "totally grossly overweight male". This limits male roleplay to warriors and other toughy-types, at least visually (It doesn't make much sense a scholarly mage with arms like Arnold Swartznegger).

Neverwinter makes a good step in the right direction though, if it allowed for greater physical customisation I think it'd just about break the mould and give male and female gamers an equal platform to work from - and maybe give a brighter future for the gaming world.

I'm only a minimal gamer, but this article really made me think about things that I hadn't considered before. I've played games like Drakkan, liked some of it, but never gave it a second thought in terms of gender roles. I was mostly interested in how far away I could be with a bow and pick off baddies without engaging in the kinds of hand-to-hand combat scenes that have been added to other games to promote "strong female characters".

However, I remember downloading demos of games sold as having "strong" female characters, and in my mind only mocking the definition of "strength" that was applied. So she can carry a rediculously large weapon with her Kate Moss arms, so what! So she can run, jump, and fight "like a man" without falling out of her costume, so what! If you look at real women in real combat, they wear just as much armor as the men do, and not just kevlar bikinis. But I'm a 23-year-old degreed mechanical engineer, so I'm thinking in terms of real-world physical constraints all the time.

I agree that there is an imbalance, but I think it is hard change only one part of the entertainment industry. As someone pointed out earlier, video games are made for entertainment and as such represent a growing part of the entertainment industry. I would like to add that pornography is an increasingly large portion of the entertainment industry. To change one mis-guided or exploitive aspect of the industry is to necessitate changing that aspect industry-wide if it is hoped that society might take gender roles seriously as a factor in determining how it is to be entertained.

Well, that was a really great article. I enjoyed it, and it brought up many wonderful points.

Now, I know some people are saying, "Well, what about Samus Aran?" Samus is a female. No big spoiler there. Not to mention, she kicks ass, and we never have any interactions with men to criticize.

What I think would be interesting to look at is the way Metroid Prime is structured, as a game. Unlike the other Metroid games, we're inside her visor. It really is the first game where you are Samus Aran. I think that this is great, especially since I, playing it, really felt like Samus (although it's so much fun to roll around... and around... and around... in third person view morph ball).

Now, I know people might point out Final Fantasies as a nice counterpoint. But really, most of those women, especially once we get onto the PlayStation platforms, aren't really good at being identified with. Rikku is very sexualized - remember her exit from her wetsuit? Lulu's practically falling out of her dress. Yuna's the only one with some kind of semblance to reality, and that'll disappear in X-2. We all remember the way Tifa was animated in FF7. Look to the Super Nintendo for strong women, specifically FF5 and FF6.

Outside of those choice examples, though, most games are, admittedly, pretty bad. I've ruminated on this many times. Especially outside of the RPG genre, where less and less attention is paid to plot.

th3k0w: you are gay.

Girls: go play with your barbies if you don't like soft pr0n in games :/

Am I the only one who thought that The Wind Waker was a breakthrough game in terms of female character development? We all know how much Zelda was a complete idiot in just about every other Zelda game.

****SPOILER****

Tetra was a breath of fresh air to me. It was great to see a Princess Zelda who actually had something to say about the story, who was engaged in the story to a higher level than just being kidnapped. I want to see more of this.

I think the people that keep harping on demographics are missing something fairly important. Gaming in North America has grown large enough to support experimentation and niche markets. There was no real market in North America for Ka (Mr. Mosquito), Disgaea, Zettai Zetsumei Toshi (Disaster Report), or Guilty Gear XX, but they were or will be released in the United States anyway. They do not have female characters with big breasts, they do not pander to a young male audience, and they do not come on the heels of a wildly successful game in the same genre. The market has grown large enough for companies to experiment like this, but no one has really bothered to experiment with games, Japanese or American, that are aimed toward women. There's no real reason for that when North American game companies are experimenting with even smaller markets and accepting the small returns that come with those markets. They've realized that you don't need to have the best-selling game in the entire country to make a very respectable profit anymore, but they haven't really exploited that beyond releasing a handful of quirky Japanese games.

Business isn't a simple matter of entering the market and doing the thing that has worked for the guys at the top. A lot of game companies in North America have recently realized that by doing something different than what Sony, Rockstar, and Sega are doing, they can carve out their own little niche in the market and make a modest amount of money. Unfortunately, it seems like almost all of them have decided to go for the exact same niche market and release quirky Japanese games that have gotten a lot of press in gaming magazines and on import sites. Eventually someone will realize that there's enough space for more than one niche market in North America and decide to do something else, like possibly appealing more to female gamers.

I am a male gammer, and I find this article to one of if not the best essay written on the subject of feminism in games. I think that is is important to note to all the post about games just being about money that this is also not universaly true. It seems to me games are gradualy becoming a true art form, or at least a form of media like movies and television. Game developers such as Myamoto are able to design games with the same freedom many well respected holywood directors have. This freedom allows these developers to create games that have more than economic value.

I think that there might also be another aspect of identification/alienation to consider, the nature of modern feminism. I think that it is easy to say that big-brested female charcters are uniformly intinded to be eye candy for male gammers. After all, I think most women and teenage girls would not play some similar game to tomb raider with a male protagonist sex-symbol. However, several girls I am friends with have a VERY high oppinion of Sepheroth from Final Fantasy VII. I think it speaks to a deeper poin about how girls relate to caracters of both sexes. The truth is most guys, if not all to at least some extent, are delusional about themselfs. I belive that all men and teen-age boys belive that they are, at least to some extent, the swave, atheletic, clever, or ortherwise gifted protagonist they play. Obviously the feminist ideal of the equality of women no matter their physical appearance does not carry over to the other side. In other words: while women want characters like how they ARE, men like caracters that are like what they WANT TO BE. th3c0w mentioned his preferance for the mech protagonist of Robotech: Battlecry; this is the same priciple, you don't identify with a giant warmachine, you want to be/pilot it. The conflict comes about because while society allegly has ideals that all women are supposed to stive to be, most women nowadays reject these notions. Thus, there are no general characteristics for a female character that most women can readly identify with.

So as I see it there is a different question to ask, not "What is wrong with female charcters in videogames?" but "What qualities should a good female character have?". I do think there are begining to be enough women in the game development and consumption community to answer this question. I am of course not qualifyed to star ansewring this question, due to my singular X chromosone. But I do know some of the questions that might help find the answer such as, "What female role models are there that many women DO wish to be or identify with?".

I do think there are some important female characters that have been overlooked in this, for example Cortana and the Pilot of the Dropship Fullhammer in Halo, your breifer in Mechassault, and the commander in Robotech: Battlecry. The similarity between these characters is fairly obvious, they tell you what you have to do, THEY ORDER YOU AROUND. In the context of feminism, this hardly seems like a minor point to me. If we operate under the assumption that the target audience for these games are male, then it would seem that for some reason the developers belive that being told what to do by a female character has some appeal to men. The motivation is not sexual because in all four instances I listed, the character is rarely seen. Admittedly the characters of Cortona and the Mechassalt breifer are very well proportioned when they are shown, however the pilot of the Fullhammer is never seen, and the face of the commander in Robotech is all that is seen. How do female gammers feel about these kind of charcters? I would like to hear their thoughts on this area.

You claim Eidos blew it with Lara Croft - from Eidos' standpoint, that simply isn't true. The Tomb Raider series has produced a ton of games, most of which have sold very well. You suggest they should have marketed it as "Hey, girls, an empowered woman to play in a game!" - yet you don't consider this sexist? Promoting a game as designed solely so girls can play as an empowered woman? From Eidos' stance, it's foolish. You could market the game on sex appeal, and sell to males, or market on empowerment of women, and sell to females. (Realistically, you'd have a tough time trying to get males to buy a game sold on the concept that they could play as an empowered woman.) Yet we already know the male gamer market is bigger than the female gamer market - so how did they blow it by choosing to sell to the larger audience?

You critise a selection of games on their female characters having exaggeratted breasts and attractiveness as their main character features. I don't disagree with this. In many games, the women are portrayed as overly attractive and ridiculously built. However, in the vast majority of these games, any men in them share the same characteristics. For the rippling 6 pack of abs, to being tall, dark, and handsome, to the blond haired and blue eyed all american male that appears in so many fighting games, DOA included, men are equally portrayed in a "perfect" body, making them as much sex objects as the women. Your article fails to cover this at all.

It is uneccessary for the women to appear as overly volumptous. It is equally unessecary for the men to appear as bronzed gods, with rippling muscles.

While your article is correct in many aspects, it falls into the same trap as so many other writings on gender - it is simply too one-sided. It speaks on how poorly women are portrayed in video games... yet it barely touches the surface of the same thing happening to men.

The color scheme of the X-Box is male-friendly? Wah? It's black and green. How's that appeal to men more than women? The only men I see 'black and green' appealing to are, I donno, members of the Green Lantern Corps? But there are female Green Lanterns, Writer! THERE ARE FEMALE GREEN LANTERNS AND THEY LOVE THE X-BOX FOR ITS GAMES, NOT ITS MALE-FRIENDLY COLORS!

A good read. I particularly got the 'archers and thieves' quip - so very very true, and so oddly wrong. There are few more 'strength' based weapons than the longbow, and yet it's perfectly acceptable to have a tiny waif of an elf shoot a 3 foot arrow from a bow as tall as she is. Meanwhile, even the biggest, broadest female fighters seem to be restricted to shield and (short) sword. For whatever reason, females with big bows are somehow more believable to game designers than cute axes*. And I guess, conversely, while it's quite believeable for male characters to wield swords and axes that at first glance seem to weigh as much as they do, it's just WRONG putting all that muscle behind a wussy, cowardly weapon like a bow.

I blame Blizzard. And Gary Gygax, for giving piercing weapons such low damage, thus colouring the thoughts of generations of game designers to come. Ah well.

As for Tomb Raider - I really enjoyed the first one, and as a game, too:D. Lara's form was an amusing sideline, but I wouldn't have spent nearly 5 days of holidays playing through from start to finish if that was all there was. The last level, which just seemed to go up and up and up forever, was a blast and one of my favourite bits of any game. It DID end up being sold more as softcore than feminism, for sure, but then like all modern foul ups, you can blame marketing for that:D. Tomb raider was, for it's time, a really fun, interesting 3D platformer, and the best of its type since Prince of Persia.

Meanwhile, DoA volleyball hasn't had a single good review because the volleyball game itself is pretty poor.

I suspect there's a notion in some circles that you can put a pair of big, well formed breasts on anything and it will sell. This might work for Maxim, but for a $50 game there had better be something else to justify the cost.

I guess in short, while I agree with the gist of the article, I take issue with the actual games involved. The original Tomb Raider was great, even if the marketing was a little tragic. And DoA Volleyball isn't acceptable at all - it's just another example of good graphics, bad game. Ala, guys don't stop being gamers just because there are breasts involved.

As a sideline, it would be interesting to compare female depictions in games with those in magazines, movies, and in general. If it's difficult to get Blizzard to admit that a woman can use a sword, imagine trying to convince Cosmopolitan that a woman should even have muscles. Overall, while you can say that the game industry is perhaps guilty of not taking a leadership role in the promotion of female toughness, it is FAR from being the only offender. Perhaps game designers are only victims of 'monkey see - monkey do' instead of any active, intentional discrimination.

* I didn't mean this sentence to sound that funny. On rereading, it just gets better and better though:D.

I find your opinion of Baulders Gate to be heavily exhagerated concerning the importance you gave to the barmaid's clevage. Espeically considering you neglected to mention the central antaganist of the game was a tragic hero turned villin who happened to be a woman. It's somewhat one sided to devote an entire paragraph to how BA objectifys woman with fake titties then turn around and ignore when they give females depth and quality beyond whats in their bra. Not to mention after about 30 min into the game you hardly visit the pub which she tends anyway.

Argh...Girls gotta stop being so sensitive. Sure. Lara Croft has huge breasts. Deal with it. This isn't a blow to your ego. This is just people making games. As a game developer, I can tell you that most people begin with a story and end with a game.

We're not thinking 'Hey ! I got this idea. If I make a game with a girl heroine and I give her ridiculously huge knockers, everyone will buy it and I'll be rich!'

They're most likely thinking something along the lines of 'a girl who can take care of herself - goes on adventures to recover treasures, but the story develops into something even more as the player progresses ! This game can really turn into something!'

You need to stop being so sensitive. When Ryu takes his shirt off, I don't see you complaining, and I don't see any males complaining about being depicted as sex objects.

You totally fail to keep things together in this article. To me, all I see is another 'angry oversensitive girl' article. Sorry.

Argh...Girls gotta stop being so sensitive. Sure. Lara Croft has huge breasts. Deal with it. This isn't a blow to your ego. This is just people making games. As a game developer, I can tell you that most people begin with a story and end with a game.

We're not thinking 'Hey ! I got this idea. If I make a game with a girl heroine and I give her ridiculously huge knockers, everyone will buy it and I'll be rich!'

They're most likely thinking something along the lines of 'a girl who can take care of herself - goes on adventures to recover treasures, but the story develops into something even more as the player progresses ! This game can really turn into something!'

You need to stop being so sensitive. When Ryu takes his shirt off, I don't see you complaining, and I don't see any males complaining about being depicted as sex objects.

You totally fail to keep things together in this article. To me, all I see is another 'angry oversensitive girl' article. Sorry.

Joe -
i am "dealing with it", and i have been dealing with it for twenty years. my article is meant to highlight some features of gendering in games i've noticed, as a female gamer, which might be of interest to character designers, depending on what effects they want to achieve, and what market they want to attract.

i believe i said i have nothing against bouncing boobs. i *like* them. they're fun, they're pretty. they should be in proper context. i *want* to play extreme beach volleyball. it looks fun. it's a new-ish style of game (social interaction, collecting presents, etc). it intrigues me. i *like* Lara Croft, i just don't like the way she was initially treated in reviews and previews.

not enough people think about the importance of good character design in games. gender theory is one way to approach it. there are many others.

i don't get those of you who thought i was a man-hater??? where do get that? what i hate is laziness in game design, short-sightedness in game marketing.

i should make a rule to have everyone read the whole article before feeling compelling to post a comment!

Oh my god. If Joe is indicative of the typical game developer, then god help us.

I think one of the major issues you need to deal with in discussing the "fluidity" of gender possible in the virtual world is this: people have a hard time wrapping their mind around the difference between a person's sex and their gender. Male and female are sex. Gender does not biologically exist. Gender is a word used in linguistics to talk about types of words. It has been appropriated by cultural discourse to indicate the sociological implications of various attitudes about what males and female should or should not do.

Gender is totally and completely constructed. This would lead one to think, rashly, that gender should always be fluid then. The problem is that the psychology of humans makes us very good at learning certain basic "facts" about the world from our parents. (Read Alice Miller's _Drama of the Gifted Child_ for a full description of how humans pass neuroses from one generation to the next.) We grow up in an environment designed to ingrain certain ideas about what boys and girls are supposed to do.

Videogames, as cultural phenomena, like you say, are, therefore, likely to be a part of this paradigm. Altering the attitudes prevalent about women and their roles, and about the taboo nature of gender-bending, will require as much effort as adjusting our culture to move away from the inherent violence against those who do not fit into what some sociologists call the "homosocial order".

I appreciate that a frank discussion about the "genderedness" of videogames is written during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. All manner of examples of the pervading patriachal attitudes about proper behavior and the implied violence against those who resist said behaviors need to be addressed and discussed.

I have just read your article and i really couldn't agree more with your statements. I am not generally outspoken in my opinions on gender issues in gaming (usually because it is to a room full of guys with BIIIG fists. That is not a stereotype, its a fact). I do question your statement that the X-Box colours are designed to be male friendly. I personally think it was designed to look sleek and futuristic, and that the black and green motif was quite suitable. But that's just my opinion. I also have a theory as to why most games are aimed at a male market. It was really a progressive thing:
Back in the 1950s when computers were being built and designed and most importantly; programmed, it was all done by men. This was because in the 1950s women were generally housewives (please don't kill me, its a fact, not an opinion). Women of the 50's were there to bring up children. Anyway, as we move on, and as the computer industry moves on, it was started by men, and was continued mostly by men. Male engineers and so on. So naturally, during the 70's when games started to hit the arcades, they were all built by men, and their target audience was obviously for men, because that was all they knew how to program for (granted, they were more unisex, but that was because of the technical abilities at the time. Just look at pong). It started aimed at men, and since it was successful, they continued to concentrate on that market. If they HAD chosen to make female orientated games, how would they do it? All the engineers were men, and lets face it, geeky men (not a stereotype, i use the term "geek" as a descriptive word, because it sums it up the best) with very little experience with women (you know its true). So they continued with this trend into the eighties and ninties. By then, making games for men was mainstream, and many women who would like to have played computer games couldn't because there was nothing for them, or they had to put up with what was there for the guys.

Lets shift a bit into the late ninties when character designs started to become important. It was still all done by men, for men. Thus Lara Croft's ludicrously large breasts. Even now you won't see many women in a game development building (at least women working on the game itself. Let's not forget the managers, businesspeople, the finance department etc etc which is more gender neutral)

I personally have grown tired of staring at (impossibly sized) pixellated bosoms. I have never bought a Tomb Raider game, and never will. This is not just because i think it is brutally sexist, but as a game; it sucks ass.

NEWSFLASH! MEN DON'T NECESSARILY JUST WANT TO STARE AT WOMEN ALL DAY! (no i am not gay)
This assumption is also sexism.

We now have female characters in games, but you are right, they aren't given the same respect as the male ones.

An interesting point i realised as i was reading this; there are almost NO female characters or female appearances to choose from in first person shooter games. (The programmers don't want to associate women with violence perhaps?)
Some fps do have female characters to choose from: Raven Shield comes to mind, but they don't LOOK any different (the voices are different; and accurate in my opinion) to their male counterparts (due to being covered in gas masks and camo gear and whatever). One exception i have found is in a little known game; Tactical Ops. It is a mod for UT (the original, not 2k3) or standalone, depending on whether you want to pay for it or not.

TO (site here) has many (noticably ie. you can tell from a distance a female character is coming into your crosshairs) female appearances to choose from, and i think that is great. If you can't find a strong women in gaming you like: make your own. Play as a female and be real badass at it.

Cheers

Bah, GGXX wasn't released here, atleast in arcades; which is what matters.

Anyway, I've been looking around and noticed an article with you claiming to basically masturbate to a game. So, are you claiming gaming should be MORE or LESS sexual? Perhaps only sexual enough where jokes can be easily created, but not enough where it's so obvious even my mom will understand? Should I assume you want less sexuality because this article is newer?

Oh, and is Lizardman less of a man because he's a Sophitia clone? What's wrong with a short sword? Not manly enough for some people?

Other people are right about males being sold as objects, too. I can't wait until you post an article objecting male sexuality, in order to repress us all, while simultaneously posting nude pictures of yourself masturbating to confuse me more than you already have. I can tell you that I'm quite open with my sexuality. I talk about sex every day, I tell people when I'm masturbating, I've modded hentai/pr0n forums before, etc. But that doesn't mean that I can't see something being 'shallow', too.

(Some of this may seem a bit weird, because it's replying to a locked article also, which basically implies that she has the opposite stance she has here)

Argh...Game designers gotta stop being so sensitive. Sure. Game Girl made a few good points about the puerile attitude of some video games. Deal with it. This isn't a blow to your coding or story-telling skills. This is just people saying they are tired of 10-year-old attitudes about women coming from people that should know better. As a game player, I can tell you that most people think big tits have nothing to do with being capable.

Sorry Joe, I'm not really picking on you, and I think you are telling the truth when you say that game designers aren't trying to be one-dimensional in their attitude towards the presentation of women in video games, but that's why it's important to bring this fact to game developers' attention, because if Tomb Raider (and the other games mentioned) really WERE trying to portray women in a great light, they failed miserably.

Great article, in my opinion.

Game designers sensitive? Well, game storywriting doesn't take much programming, artistry, and whatnot skills (although they all help), and I think it would be much better if more women because these writers. It's that simple. Hell, I'm quite confused about how anime can be targeted towards one gender or another. I've been asking for awhile, and the best answer I've gotten is 'female ninjas are for guys, females running are for girls, and running female ninjas are for everyone'. So, I suppose I'm just not good for telling a story that women might like, and instead might target men unintentionally (or Hell, how's about myself?). Would that be my fault?

BTW, this is definitely not the worst case of feminism I've seen. Hell, I think you're quite workable. =) If I have your real AIM account jane, I would love to speak to you about this.

Good article, on the whole. Especially true about playing females online - people *are* friendlier to you even though they'll never gain anything from it. I guess people have the 'don't hit girls' rule ingrained in them so strongly they can't help themselves... I certainly am more friendly to females (if i'm male), but I can't rationally tell you why.

Oh and... about the tavern mistress in BG:DA - have you never walked into a bar and bought a drink and been shocked by the barmaid's dress and flirting (well maybe you only get the flirting if you're a bloke) in real life? Lots of people are saying you're being oversensitive... I haven't played BG:DA but it really sounds like it in this instance.

By the way, have you ever seen an RPG that lets you play a lesbian? That's one I want to try... I could identify I think...

"justin" sounds gay

"if Tomb Raider (and the other games mentioned) really WERE trying to portray women in a great light, they failed miserably."

But... they aren't. These are video games. They aren't designed as a social commentary. They aren't made to be deep and meaningful insights. They aren't designed to portray women in a great light. If they serve any of these purposes, it's strictly secondary.

Like most industry's, the main purpose of a video game is to sell it and make money. The game makers aren't going to care too much about how it potrays people, how it affects society, or even whether it's a quality game - if it sells, none of that is particularly relevant.

"I don't want to see a shelf of pink boxes of 'girl games'. I just want to see better games in general - games which are more thoughtful, more provocative, more interesting, with better character design. "

You pretty much sum up the state of the industry, as of today.

The idea that there need to be "girl games" is not out of the question, but it should be noted that these games would be no less tacky than the "guy games".

Really, video games are still starting out as an entertainment medium. You can call quite a few (even popular) movies "art". While movies are still not too high on the intellectual scale, they are in general better than a lot of games we get these days. If game designers would just allow for more serious plots, characters and backstory things would work out a lot better. For the most part, mass destruction doesn't seem to be a very feminine thing. I'm sure there are exceptions, but if you want to make a violent game that more women (or people) would still find interesting, I think it helps to have a reason, and not some silly "aliens are attacking" reason.

When more of the really innovative, creative people get into making games (like how about some writers?), things will get better. There is kind of a creative vacuum forming, and games like Deus Ex (which is excellent) are filling it in with stories you can actually care about. Really the only way things will get better for both males&females is if the games themselves get better. It's almsot embarrasing that the males who make games blame the current artistic status on the lack of females - are they saying men can't make good games? It's basically self-expressed incompetence.

I agree with the article on almost all points. The gaming industry is male dominated, and money driven. Granted. The interesting question for me is, what is the population of gamers driven by? I don't know if you have played with Neverwinter Nights much, but it was designed with a tremendous capacity for content creation, in terms of everything from new storylines to new haircuts, and a host of things for which there was never any planned support built into the engine. Having looked at some of the fan content, there is a large portion which I would say is probably designed by 13 year old males. Needless to say, most of it isn't worth the space it takes up on the servers. However, there is also a fair amount of truly good content out there, and not all of it is sexist. I have played through several modules which were more immersive than any other CRPG I have played in years, and which allowed the player to be any gender and any alignment (ie. good or evil). What kind of character you chose affected the story in interesting ways, and there were things you could only do as one gender/class/alignment. Now, I have not done anything more than play, but it would be interesting to do a more systemetic study on the kind of things that are being created. It might give an interesting picture of what one particular gaming comunity is like in terms of gender biases.

good artickle

Neverwinter Nights actually had a female lead with breasts that jiggled. Still, there were many things to like about it.

There's an interesting article on genders in "Game Design Perspectives" unforunately, I don't have it to hand :(

One key thing that was shown (and discussed in the book) was that women in general don't seem to be that adverse to violent games, which has always been somewhat of an assumption. What's needed to entice women into them is generally a storyline that explains why the character needs to resort to violence.
Additionally, depending on what statistics you look at, women make up bigger or smaller numbers. It is however fairly clear that the number of women playing games is rising, and that unless you're making a game tailored specifically to an audience of drooling men, there's no reason to alienate female players through your marketing or design.

Oh, yes.

To the lovely examples (some posted more to amuse than insult, which I except from my comments) of male bigotry, do grow up. The article was a decently balanced article that wasn't about getting rid of all scantily clad women in games.

There was an equally interesting view that males shouldn't have a voice in gender stereotyping involving females. Bravo: Replace idiotic sexism with riteous idiotic sexism, I'm sure the world will seem much better to you till it bites you in the ass again.

as for the eternal debate about phalicism... it gets bandied around so much nowadays that anything cylindrical appears get labelled phalic. Frankly, if there's anything that could convince me someone suffers a severe case of dirty mind syndrome or penis envy, it's going around getting more than a little tenuous with calling things phalic. (article excepted given that it was in jest)

I'm really reaching for the colour scheme of the Xbox though. It's green. Did I miss something that says that green is a male colour? Other than the statistic of what... 12% male red-green colourblindness? What about the PS2? that's black and blue. Just think, blue is the colour more commonly asribed to male babies.

Samus is a pretty cool female rolemodel. As for buttkickings, you'd have to go carefully around Solid Snake. Which brings me to mention that I enjoyed both Olga and Sniper Wolf from MGS2 and MGS respectively as reasonably proportioned strong female characters. Of course, you currently have to consider if the star of Starcraft: Ghost has the advantage, but she uses big weapons like nukes, which lowers her rating in my eyes compared to Snake.

Oh the randomness of that post. joy.

"It's almsot embarrasing that the males who make games blame the current artistic status on the lack of females - are they saying men can't make good games? It's basically self-expressed incompetence."

Not sure who you're replying to, or if I should be using this column like a forum, but all the same...

Is it really hard to understand that MEN makes games that THEY want to play? Would it be so far-fetched to assume that WOMEN make games that THEY want to play? I don't even care about speaking about the 'state of gaming', because generally these people are insane extremists that simply can't look at the issue objectively. Perhaps the 'state of gaming' is bad because it's advertised far more than before. I'm not so sure about how to say it's worse, but that's not my problem. If these intelligent people with thoroughly researched arguements wish to speak up, I welcome them. But otherwise, I think these people are just being nostalgic.

As a male player who feels infinitely more comfortable while playing female parts, I have to agree with the article. It's a shame that so few games really take the time to 'flesh out' female characters--in the mental, not physical, way. Female characters are rarely displayed as anything more than something to move the story along... or else someone you have to use your ultra-cool bad-ass male star to save. And then, females who take more active roles always seem to be nothing but an extension of a male character. It almost makes me pine for the make-it-yourself characters of RPGs like Neverwinter Nights. The character has no kind of story, save what you make for yourself. It lets you make your female character a PERSON rather than an object. Admittedly, I have seen a few games where females take a more active role in their own right. Septerra Core had a stand-alone female lead, that while she is attractive, it didn't take away from her strength in other areas... well, maybe she was a tad on the generic hero side, but at least that applied to pretty much everyone in the game.

Re: Tomb Raider
"I never played this game. It looked fun, and I was excited about having a female protagonist.... But frankly, the way this game was marketed and talked about totally turned me off."

Sorry, but that is your own fault. Yes, the marketing was assinine. But the game itself was groundbreaking, and you may have found it enjoyable. Any reasonably intelligent adult knows that you have to shut out the moronic marketing voices and form your own opinion.

I have no idea why I am posting, but i believe that the article is right on the mark. I have no idea whatelse to say mainly because:
I'm a stupid male, and I admit it, I walk into walls a lot being just me
I can't spell, I had to scroll up just to read the word "Article"

Thats about it, lets see your reaction

Wow, it's amazing how many guys get up in arms about one woman simply stating she wants more varied female characters in games. She never said she didn't enjoy playing breastful characters (if fact, didn't she say just the opposite?), or that the male characters were horribly chauvinistic or wrong in any way - she simply wrote an article critiquing the current state of female characters. This is the unfortunate TRUTH about said characters, and it's amazing how many guys seem to be threatened by someone saying "I don't feel like this represents me, and I would like something that does". It's not about wanting "equality" either...are you guys totally looking past the point? Many woman don't want characters who are simply the same as the male characters, but with boos, they just want something they can identify with and that represents them. She's not harping on a feminist manifesto. Calm down about the one phallus joke and get over it.

Moving on about the genderless or variant gender characters, I would have to agree that such characters would be very welcome. Being a genderqueer person diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria (also known as Gender Identity Disorder), choosing a character at the beginning of the game is much like staring at that "GENDER: Male Female" slot at the beginning of a survey - for those of us who don't feel like we fit into a nice little engendered mold, it's almost torturous. If we can't escape the harsh reality of ourselves and our own bodies in games - where can we?

I like to play characters where I feel there is a reflection of myself - what you define in your article as the sense of identification. I could go with a female character, who is often weaker, has less abilities, and often rather feminine, and be true to my genetic nature, or I could go with a male character, with which I feel more comfortable, but somehow feel I am lying, since I myself am not male and don't like fitting into the typical trasngendered super-macho FtM stereotype. Niether feels CORRECT, essentially. I identify as third gender - fitting in a variance between male and female. To understand this, one has to understand the difference between "gender" and "sex" - "gender" is the societal respresentation of oneself, the expectation of behaviors and actions BASED ON your sex. Essentially, my sex is female but my GENDER is rather male, as I tend to fit more into these roles. As mentioned above, besides fighting games where certain female characters are portrayed as very butch, very few gender variants exist.

The problem is that every "male" and "female" character in games lives in a carefree world of perfectly comfortable sexual persuation and gender orientation - no one questions themselves and they are all secure in the luxury of feeling at ease with these things, never veering very far from the beaten path. Even characters such as "King" from KoF (essentially a knock-off of Haruka from Sailor Moon) are secure in their gender, perfectly happy as female, but merely being protrayed as extremely butch. At least they somewhat enter into a more masculine sphere. I am not demanding that there be a type of character just to cater to the inevitably small population of trans-gendered and trans-sexed gamers - far from it. I don't want to be "catered" to - I am merely agreeing with and expanding upon your investigation of perhaps creating a third gender within games to play with, a gender ambiguity. Many people enjoy venturing away from their gender while not toally stepping over the boundaries, and such types of characters would be good ways to experiment.

The only argument against it could be that in any society the very first way you orient how you will treat someone is based form their gender. If people cannot pin down the gender of a character, or person, they often get very disturbed. Many people have trouble functioning in such an environment. It makes one realize how much of society and behavior is based off of our perceptions of gender.

Perhaps, since it is in my nature to be more inquisitive about gender presentations, I think too hard about these things, but it is something to be pondered.

Reverse Figure 4, I agree that the point of a game may be to make money, however it can acheive that (sex, advertising, sometimes actual gameplay, whatever). And I agree that games may not be DESIGNED as social commentary, but that doesn't mean that they don't have one, nevertheless. That was exactly the point I was trying to make (maybe badly, I admit), in response to the comment written by Joe, the developer, who said that designers don't go out of their way to create unappealing women characters. The fact that they may not know that they are alienating at least half their potential market (and more, since many men don't seem too happy with boring/stereotypical thirteen-year-old-boy views of women either) is why they should care about this article.

I loved your article and I totally agree with every point you made. What's more, I'm really happy to have found a woman who writes about videogames--not that men are incompetent (we're not, at least not when it comes to VGs) but it's great to get another well thought out perspective. The most intoxicating woman I know is a hardcore gamer (Halo junkie to boot), and she's so attractive that people often don't believe she's likes videogames--she literally shares vital measurements with Leifang in DOAX--and ironically people don't believe she's into videogames. I think its funny how people aren't willing to believe that good looking woman would be into gaming. Coincidentally, she got a kick out of watching my friends and I play DOAX because we'd sit around trying to color coordinate a woman's beach outfit, "No you fool, you can give her green shoes with a red bathing suit!", or "Stripes....STRIPES!!! HAVE YOU GONE MAD, MAN?!?" and the ever classic "Does this make her look fat? Be honest, I won't get mad". On another note, there are plenty of strong female characters that shouldn't turn girls off to gaming coming out in the near future. Final Fantasy X-2 is going to feature the first ever female main character in a Final Fantasy game..and she's a hardcore pistol weilder as well. There's also Starcraft Ghost...this woman couldn't be more covered up in her Ghost suit and she still kicks people's asses Sam Fischer style--so I think the industry is catching on. In the end what I think would actually improve games in general is if there were a bit more gender diversification among the people who make the games. But that's just one man's opinion.

The article - which I found through a link from Penny Arcade - was very interesting indeed, though hardly breaking ground. From what I can see, it is the re-application of feminist views of the female role in business, sports, and social masking to the emerging mainstream gaming community.

Though I don't consider myself sexist, I am a realist. The reality is, as a few have stated already, that games will be made to sell. A developer is responsible to his CEO, who is, in turn, responsible to the shareholders of the company. Sex does indeed sell; selling increases shareholder value.

I am peripherally involved in the gaming industry, renting games often at a video retailer. I can say, with utter certainty, that the vast majority (I'd safely say 95%) of those who come in to rent games are males between 15-21. Now that may be subject to the demographic of the area, but it is telling.

Marketing is based on many principles; one is identification. When you identify with something you feel a bond, and you buy it. More simply, it's image marketing. This is, by nature, exclusionary. There is no "Sovereign Identification" - that is, something that everyone identifies with (and I know someone who hasn't taken upper-level psyche THINKS they know one). THus, if boys/men are the main demographic, and sex creates the identification, then why not pander to sexism?

Having said that, fair gender representation is essential to balanced gameplay. There is, undoubtedly, a skewed perception in current game design. But that is merely a reflection of aggregate societal perception. Instead of changing the effect, perhaps effort should be put into identifying and ameoliorating the causes?

I won't dwell on those here. I am, after all, a young male. I don't pretend my understanding is that deep.

Thanks for hearing me out. I invite any comments or questions to me email address.

PS: And to the guy who said most movies coming out are better than most games: I disagree. Both seem to be degrading rapidly. Anyone up for some Buffy on the Xbox, followed by "Truth About Charlie" on DVD?

I have to say this is the GREATEST article I have ever read. Being a male, an avide videogamer, and a salesman at the local videogames store (EB Games), I see the struggle it is to be the girl gamer. In a world with games that gloat about big breast lines and tight outfits it is not hard to tell the general audience of the game makers...
Now don't get me wrong, being a straight heterosexual male and talking to a world wide audience there are somethings that obviously interest me, but the way games 'over due' the breast line, shrink the stomache and tighten the close is getting a little old. Great games are not sold mainly on sex or the perfound curves of one of the figures on the box art, nost gamers want more content than 'boobs and butts.' Take BMX XXX, never played it personally, yet as working at and Electronics Boutique, people enquire about the game, so my boss called for a group meeting. He had played the game before, and being a reasonable man of stature and pretty good at judging games; he explained every downfall towards the game. The main point that everyone askes is 'how is the porn?' And his responce, 'for 10 bucks a month you can get the internet.' Now not saying that he is endorcing porn or the looking up of such; he is mearly stating that instead of wasting your time with playing one of the worst games (poor controls, graphics, language, etc.), you could get a different game for the same price.
Also with the BA;DA, that game did have a humorous 'soft core porn star' as one of the characters that really didn't need to be an intricate part of the game, yet there she was. Many games do this to please the 'lower' end of gamers. The ones that buy the games strictly to see some action.
Overall, I give major props to Gamer Girl (Jane) for letting us have the opportunity to respond to such an elligant essay and hope she does well in her class.

Interesting article.

I think there are a few examples of games that do something to combat the stereotypical perception of females in video games.

Eternal Darkness is one. The lead character Alex is a university student who takes it upon herself to investigate her grandfather's murder and ultimately ends up being the savior of humankind. As much as I hate to use the word, as it is so overused, especially when describing female video game characters, she is empowered.

The whole Metroid series is another one that comes to mind. From the start Samus Aran has been a strong female lead. I was impressed that Metroid Prime never lowers itself to the level of some other games, and the most you ever see of her is her face, even when earlier games in the Metroid series showed her in a bathing suit at the end (though I think that may have had to do more with limited colors and pixles than playing the sex card, well perhaps not so much in Metroid Fusion..).

Now of course, I am aware that it should not be assumed necessarily that a female character has more value or is better simply because she displays dominant, territorial attitudes - that is, attributes that are generally associated with males.

But a minor victory is still a victory, and I think these games are a step in the right direction.

I agree that we need to see more diverse charters in video games, but I shutter to think what female characters I will be stuck behind. It seems that in games, television, and movies empowered female=sassy female. I don’t want to play a sassy character, mainly because sassy more than usually comes across as bitchy. Not to mention that most games that were geared toward female gamers, just resulted in pink frilly messes, apparently developers think all girl gamers are 5 years old.

Anyway, I love DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball, I finally know why women love shopping for clothes ( I think the Venus swimsuit counts as clothes) and a great pair of shoes to pull the whole thing together.

Wow, there are games where you're PENALIZED for picking a female gender? I've never heard of one, but perhaps you can name one.

As for King and Haruka, Haruka has no personality. Besides, King tries to break some gender bounds, sorta.

I was personally offended by the gender-bias of the trance vibrator, but the picture of you 'using' it made it worthwhile. You played off the phallic joystick comment, but in the last two weeks I have heard feminists claim that the Washington Monument and missiles were also symbols of male dominance. The only actual gaming comment in this reply is that you totally neglected my own favorite genre of Real Time Strategy. I still play Starcraft all the time, and it has a very even balance of male and female character voices. You should write an essay analyzing the tendency in the online community to totally abandon anything resembling correct grammar and punctuation.

n1c3, v3ry l33t.
Well anyway, a very well-informed essay is hard to come by and I thank you for lettin me be able (?) to read such an article.

If you want a game which has very well based atributes play EverQuest, much better graphics then DAOC and has a lot more players, but the thing is, racism, sexism and other ism's exist in this world, just as they would have many many years ago (mainly because there's just dorks that play and don't realize it's a game) and it's things such as these that make it fun, and the atributes are based as class instead of sex, eg. a female barbarian warrior has the same stats as a male barbarian warrior. Another good example of strong, cunning female characters is, of course, Samus Aran from the best series ever, Metriod. Samus is ONE BUFF GAL' you don't see a guy chasing a 20 foot tall biomechanical dragon around just to seek revenge, frankly, I would be scared to do it myself, she takes down stuff, it's not so much as a male based game as it is an all gender based game, it's rather fun, I own all the Metriod games on the market to date, and they're all good ole' reliable Samus with her arm cannon busting down space pirates, it's quite exhilirating to play and to KNOW that Samus isn't a man, but a WOman, she gets my vote for the number one bad ass gal' this side of Zebes!

A few things strike me about this article(though I agree with most of it). First as a sort of caveat I'd like to point out the fact that it's somewhat hard for designers to properly implement female characters, partially because they usually aren't female themselves, but mostly because it's much safer to make gender a merely aesthetic choice(ex pretty much every other BG besides Dark Alliance), if they make too many differences between men and women, people get offended, so it's easier to just not develop that aspect of the character at all. I'm also curious as to what color scheme you would have liked for the x-box, I think it certainly beats the standard electronics gray, the controllers were also uncomfortable for pretty much everyone.

To continue, lest everyone think that I'm some sort of pig merely because I'm attempting to defend members of my gender, I agree with your concept of creating better games and better marketing of games. I think we need better games in general. There are a few good games out there, but most of what you see is garbage regardless of gender, and as much as I must confess to liking a few portions of the female anatomy, I am somewhat offended at times by the prevailing idea that if you show me pixelated versions of them I'll buy anything.

On a side note, check out The Longest Journey, it's an adventure game(god I miss those), but the female lead character is one of the most interesting an in depth avatars I've played in any game in a long time, the dialouge options are very well written and there's an opportunity to put a reasonable amount of yourself into the way she acts(though of course limited by the fact that the game is extremely linear).

I got three titles for you. "The Longest Journey". "Syberia". "Duke Nukem". The first two games are great games with leading female charaters -- emphasis on "great games" first and "woman power" a distant second. "Duke Nukem" is the male version of "Tomb Raider", stereotype-wise.

You may point out that games like "TLJ" and "Syberia" are exceedingly rare in today's market. Guess what ? So are good movies. Last time I checked, most modern movies feature explosions and sex, or emotional whining (depending on the intended audience). So what ? These movies are made to generate money, not to make some sort of an artistic statement. So are most games.

Funny thing, though -- most people I know find Duke Nukem funny, not offensive. Does it mean that men are less full of themselves than women ? We are able to laugh at ourselves without starting a "help, I am being oppressed !" movement...

W00t ! I am not the only one who loved TLJ. High five, Eskarel my man (or woman) !

"To continue, lest everyone think that I'm some sort of pig merely because I'm attempting to defend members of my gender"

Man, you really shouldn't let these people push you around and make you feel like you're acting bad for defending yourself for being attacked based on something you weren't even able to control (your gender)! Hell, I think many of you need to understand that you need to be more confident; you can't just assume that you're wrong, or that you owe anything.

...Especially from someone I accuse to be a hypocrite. =)

Oh well, I promise this is my last post unless I get a response.

How about, if you want someone to take your essays seriously, you not use phrases such as "WTF?" in your argument.

On a positive note...

Good article, well written and well thought! I do disagree with a few points, especially the ones raised after reference to Dr. Anita Borg.

Forgive me, I just don't have the mental capacity to believe that the xbox's joystick being phallic is in any way a problem as much as every tall building is phallic or even a can of soda. I just don't quite understand any sort of oppressing values or male oriented appeal to the periphs. (Nexus said this well too)

As far as the size of the xbox controller itself, it was practically too big for everyone, thus the redesign.

(However I myself, and a close girl gamer friend, both appreciate the large size controller, as it not so much offers a good fit as a comfy one.)

I would rather argue that the marketing and asthetics of the system itself are definately geared towards a male audience. I think nintendo really plays this area well, as it offers a ton of colors and styles of it's gamecube casing and controllers. I'd like to say that they also have a better gender-neutral or female friendly game set with Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Metroid, and for some reason the Legend of Zelda series seems to always be a hit with the women.

I'd like to agree with another commenter above me, DarkZero, when he pointed out many of the series referrenced were of the last ditch "let's-use-sex-to-sell-this-one" style. Tomb Raider and BG:DA definately follow this style. However, the reason I feel that DOA:XBV doesn't fall under this catagory totally, as it provides a game that not only portrays women realistically visually (that is, more realistic than they were before, not their breast sizes), but also in a non-standard game type.

On the subject of MMORPGs, I've never realized how you could use gender roles to advance yourself so well! I think from now on the rest of my characters may be females. ;)

But seriously, that's a cool part of the game, that goes along with the older style MUDs. Roleplaying the other gender can be a good learning experience, if not just to feel the 'life in someone else's shoes' deal.

A third option possibly exists in some games, I'm not sure if anarchy online had the option to -play- as a robot (however I do recall some genderless hulking cloned worker thing), but phantasy star online definately did. However I think that if you remove the distinguishing male/female features of a humanoid robot (that are present in PSO), you'd still get a character that comes off as male. I think sometimes with different races in different games you get a twist on it, such as in EverQuest where male and female lizards look really close, but if I recall correctly the females have a generally more colorful pattern on their heads. What I'm trying to get is chances are providing a third gender probably wouldn't be as effective as some people think it is.

Otherwise on a completely different topic, I think best female co-star is definately Cortana from Halo.

Three words here - "know your market". Most classic console RPGs feature boys or young men in the lead role -- Chrono, Cloud, Justin, Ryu, Link. Even Sora wears the trendy hoodie, baggy shorts, big trainers and wallet chain that the kids are wearing these days. When your main market is immature boys, you can imagine what steps you must take to court them.

Something you need to remember. Because the industry is dominated by males a lot of the best seeling genres (excluding certain PC games) are marketed towards men. That said you can see how games like Tomb Raider take the spot light.

But what about all those games out there that DO have strong female characters that dont have "killer boobs"? Well since it IS a male dominated industry those games dont sell as well and therefore dont get as much of the spotlight. Just because the POPULAR games fall into this problem doesnt mean its rampant for the whole industry.

Back in the silver age of RPGs, if you played Ultima ][ by Richard Garriott, you could choose for your character to be male or female. A male character would gain +1 in strength and be of course stronger in battle, while a female character would gain +1 in charisma and be better at bartering.

I think that's slightly more logical than strength/constitution, even though that can be debated.

One of my favorite games, and a classic RPG is the original Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System. It was released in 1987 and was way ahead of it's time in gender equality.

The lead character of the game was a woman named Alis. Later a cat name Myau joins your party as well as a somewhat androgenous character named Noah (it is never explained whether Noah is male or female).

Reading it like that you'd think the game was a rather sugar coated girly game, but it's not. It's a serious RPG. And it's excecuted so well that any notion that this is somehow "less" of a game because it stars a woman is just not there because of how strong of a character Alis is. There was no sexism in the game, no larger than life boobs, no skimpy clothes, none if it. Alis was taken seriously in the game, and the designers allowed the player to take her seriously as well w/ the way they portrayed her.

In a time, especially in the 80's, when female leads were not even heard of, let alone designed w/ dignity, this was one game that really got it right. I was very surprised when, even today, there are very few games that take women lead roles seriously, as something more than just sex objects, floozies, etc. Indeed, Phantasy Star was well ahead of its time in that sense.

It's not to say that gaming companies aren't trying to make games for females. It's just what games you are looking at. Many great games female-role based games have slipped through the cracks or were never created at all because of company pull-outs or bad sales because girls wern't buying them. Although, it is unfair to say that there are absolutely no games out there for girls. It's all how you interperet a game. If you look at a game like DOA: We Need Money, sure, it's built for males. And I believe that was a bad game making choice. I didn't buy it because it's not a game. If I wanted to see girls play volleyball wearing little to nothing, I would go watch ESPN: Xtreme Beach Volleyball for free. It's like when Atari tried to make sex-based video games that no one played. Just because a game has a sexual theme doesn't mean people are going to buy it. I can safely say that I've never purchased a game because it said 'omg omg, u r goin 2 find soem hott chics w/ big boobs hear!!' because that is a severely moronic and mind-bogglingly bad selling strategy. I've managed to stray again from what I'm trying to say. If you look at certain video games it's going to seem a lot like they're male-biased, but there are also a lot of games that aren't. I can think of 7 off the top of my head right now. And I know there are more. In all actuality, I don't know what a female game would be like. I know what games are neutral and what games are being made for males, but where is the meduim. Does it really matter who the main character is as long as you get inside his or her head and follow the story line as that person. The role of video games are to give you a chance to be someone and do things you can't do in normal life nestled inside the boundary of a controlled environment. I wouldn't want to play a game about a 16 year old who spends too much time on the internet because that's what I already do. Game creators are not only portraying females as busty, skinny, blondes, but they're also giving the male stereotypicalization of males. I don't know many tall, dark, and handsome gamers, but, then again most hero characters aren't gamers. Not to make a bland biased comment, but if hero characters were over-weight, glasses-wearing nerds who played D&D with their friends in their parents basement the game wouldn't sell. I wouldn't play a game that depicts my life. Male hero characters will be buff, spikey-haired guys and female hero characters will be skinny, large-breasted blondes. It's going to be like that until a) someone finds a cure for dorkiness or b) everyone starts having cravings for games that depict their lives. Pardon me if the writing seems choppy, I kept getting interrupted by a disgruntled coffee maker that proceeded to explode, sending boiling coffee-water at my face at a high velocity.

Mike

Allow me to put in my own two cents. I agree with much of what was in your article (for some reasons not actually stated in your arguments... more on that later)... and also with much of what has been said in reply to it. As a (24 yr old) male gamer, I have had the privilage of the gaming industry's full marketing attention and allow me to say once and for all... Lara Croft (except in Angelina Jolie form) is not hot, nor was she when I was 14 or whenever the first one came out. In fact me and my buddies play the game IN SPITE of her appearance which we find unappealing (and to my physiology-major friend, unnatural).

However, Video Games, like any other form of media, be it TV, Movies, Books or whatever have a tendancy to play to the lowest common denominator. Unfortunately this happens to be the 15 year old ball of hormones spending his mommy's money. And here we get into one of the points that your article didn't make but maybe should have: It is those 15 yr old balls of hormones who are recieving this stereotyped image of women. They get this same image from TV and Movies that beauty is 36D-24-36 blonde hair blue eyes with flawless skin. And, though it is beautiful, it portrays to an impressionable mind that this is the standard for beauty... which it is not. Often gamers are themselves stereotyped as shut-ins, socially awkward, nerds and such. Stereotypes exist for a reason whether we like it or not. Many gamers are indeed all of the above. Some would rather game than shower (I worked in a gaming/comic book store in Ann Arbor, Mi... I know, trust me) and let me tell ya that doesn't really help with meeting flesh and blood of the opposite sex. So often these idealized (or even stylized, as in the case of Lara Croft) images of women are all these folk have... and it is this that I think might be most damaging to women's... equality (I hate to say it that way, but I can think of no other) in media. The same image is transmitted to young girls from their first Barbie to their first Britney album to the YM magazines to the movies. They don't have as much influence from games but the media image says that "this" is beautiful and all else is... less. Not that males don't see the same kind of stereotyping, but let's be realistic, guys. We have "The Man Show" so we know it ain't all Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor or whoever happens to get the girls all googly-eyed.

And as for femal characters in games that break the mold, I think Samus is a wonderful example as is Xenosaga where the "hot chick" is an emotionless killing machine... literally. I do, however think the Final Fantasy Games are not a good example, with a few exceptions. In VII Tifa and Yuffie both were very strong personalities who held their own in their own ways, In VIII Quistis, who was supposed to be the strong one basically faded almost instantly into the background one the entire party was together. And I HATED Yuna in X. Her strength in finishing her doomed quest was noble, but her manner was so deferential to the men in the party (Auron, Tidus, Kimahri) that she came off sounding weak and whiny. I thought Rikku was a much better example of a strong female lead as with her youth and inexperience she basically goes undercover in enemy territory in order to try and find a way for the Al Bhed and others to live peacefully. And all with a perky attitude to boot. Granted Lulu was a bit over-buxom but her own inner strength becomes obvious throughout the game. We also have to realize, many of the games are made in Japan, where the social context is a bit different than here. They still have a more rigid sense of gender roles and gender propriety than we do and it shows in their media. This doesn't excuse the stereotyping, but it does explain some of it.

A Game I thought I would mention for its strong female characters is a little-known game for Playstation called Valkyrie Profile. It is probably one of the greatest games ever made, and has one of the singularly strongest female leads I have ever seen. The game's depth and emotion are unparalleled in console RPG's... this game almost made me cry, I $#!^ you not. But it never made the splash I thought it should. If there are female (hell, any) gamers out there who have not played this game... pick it up. Trust me, it's worth it.

In the end, women themselves will be ultimately responsible for getting their own voice heard in video games. If you don't like the stereotypes... make games that don't have them. Because for now the big companies have their demographics down and aren't about to risk losing some male gamers in order to maybe get some female gamers... that sort of risk makes their bean-counters' eyes melt... and when that happens the stink alone will clear the building and it's just too big a hassle in the end with all the firetrucks n' stuff.

;-)

I would second Nedlum's question on if the author had played the No One Lives Forever Series. I know my former girlfriend loved this game. I love it myself. I haven't completed the game yet, but I don't recall any blatant sexism or stereotype pigeon-holing. Of course the main character is kind of a female Austin Powers that is smart.. and I'm a guy so I could be blind to the things that might alienate...but I'd like to think I'm not :)

Anywho, if the author (or anyone else who is reading this) hasn't played and likes the first person shooter games... NOLF2 is definiately an awesome game. I usually don't find FPS games interesting unless I play online...but NOLF2 has a very strong single player experience.

The first game my sister bought (rented first BTW) was Final Fantasy III(us SNES version.) The characters consisted of...

The first playable character is female
the second playable character is male
you eventally get to play at least 3 females(terra,celes,relm), 6 males(locke,edgar,sabin,shadow,setzer,strago) a saskwatch, a moogle, and a genderless mime

Also in FF5, the party consists of three females and one male at a certain point in time, of which one female character isn't revealed to be female till part way through the game(spoiled by the PSX version CG.)

The games I preferred to play were always of some kind of "role play", RPG or adventure game. I have to give credit to Sierra Online Quest games, and Origin's Ultima Series. With the exceptions of the last few games from their series, they were really more attractive and took gender into less stereotyped account. (Female leads in Kings Quest 7(SIERRA), Laura Bow series (SIERRA), Ultima 6 and 7 (ORIGIN), and Ultima UnderWorld(ORIGIN))

I didn't care for games that presumed the player was male and lost interest in the games usually before I came near to finishing them. I liked to play FF3us(6j/psx rerelease) more than FF7/8/9 because the latter games always forced a male character to be the lead. I liked to play them still, but I never held my attention on the latter games as I did on FF3e/6j for the SNES.

Hi mom!!! U all SUCK!

games like those dont decenticize them. they just show them how women should look like in real life!

If you pretend morons don't exist, they go away like billboards and commercials. Trust me.

how about an article about some games that portray women correctly, or at least better?

Look above. Many games like that have been named in the comments.

i'll just add my emphatic agreement with Vitaflo. Phantasy Star 1 is one of my personal favorites, and i got to snag most of my stepmom's maps for the dungeon crawling... she evidently enjoyed the game.
(it was a phenomenal game for the time. a definite underdog, in my opinion.)

as one of those gamers who typically ignores the more flagrant pandering, i still find myself usually playing male characters when given the choice, just because there are (typically) more play-options available. it's far easier to cross-play in a PnP RPG setting.

pity that Tomb Raider was oriented towards combat and ogling; it caused me to stop playing after the T-Rex. i mistakenly thought the game was about exploration and puzzle solving. :/

and folks, demographics is a tool for granfaloons!

I didn't like Tomb Raider of the volleyball game. The two games that made me appreciate female leads were Metroid and Primal. Strong women in cool environments and not to mention awesome games as well. Great article tho, and an engaging insight to the gender roles in gaming.

I think it would be an interesting exercise as a game designer to randomly re-assign (arbitrary outside influence/dice) all the genders after designing all the characters, or even invert them unexpectedly. Then see how the game plays through.

Would the inkeeper mentioned in Balders Gate be any less inappropriate as a man? Falunting his pectorals and flirting with the player? That could lead to some interesting rethinking as to how each character is designed and interacts with the player.

Maybe the game wouldn't be as interesting though, since it might make it difficult to use gender as a foil... (why are there ladies in the gentlemen's club when the female door keeper had difficulty letting me in?)

I came across this link at Penny Arcade as well.
Like has been said many times over, not all men want video games giant breasted women in it.

I'm a teenage male, the typical market to video games, and I have yet to submit to the 'sex sells' trend. I cannot say the same for many of my friends though.
A friend of mine rented DOAXBV while I was over at his house. I am guilty of oggling the amazing graphics and the impossibly small outfits. Then he started playing the game. It only took 5 minutes for it to get old.

Surely a game which seems like "barbie shopping" and "Baywatch" combined cannot be what sells best to the demographic I am in? But alas it is.

As for stong female characters, I'm all for it. I don't play many online games, so I have never had the chance to roleplay online as a female. However, I am a writer - and throughly enjoy writing a scene or entire story through the eyes of a female. I have many great chick-friends who freely despence their experiences to me, so the portayal of my character is more realistic. That is, more realistic to the types of descimination women face every day.

Also, the gender bias goes both way. You have the typical, large-chested, leggy, blond bimbo who seems to serve no other purpose other than eye candy. But then again, you have the giant, ripped and unbelieveably hansome men of these games. Women characters cannot wield heavy weapons in these games, much as a Man character cannot use a lowly 'bow and arrow'.. why not?

A game, marketed as a FPS and possibly one of the most popular video games ever created - Half Life.
The hero, Gordon Freeman wasn't a muscley, wonderful guy. He was a GEEK! A simple scientist thrust into a complex situation.

As a geek (self-proclamed), it was rather empowering to play as Gordon. You became him in the game... much as you 'become' Samus Aran in Metroid Prime.
Frankly, I'm tired of games that are derogratory to women. Parasite Eve 1 and 2. Aya was a woman, but could wield a machine gun just as well as Gordon, which was very refresing.

Again, as was already mentioned, if your going to pay 50 bucks for a game, you need something other than large polygones to justify that price.

To the dating sim issue, "your main goal is to have sex with a girl in 100" days..
Please explain how you would market a dating sim to a teenage girl? "Your main goal is to make a guy fall madly in love with you in 100 days"?
That wouldn't sell, it would give off the sterotypical impression that all girls are obessed with romance.

We haven't seen the end of gender stereotypes in games, and until man and woman are TRULY equal, we won't.

I've long had an interest in gender roles in character development in fantasy environments, especially since I normally take the role of a female in MUDs. I've been MUDding for nearly the entire time (back on BBSs before the "inter"net existed), and people automatically assumed (for the most part) that I was a female regardless of what gender my character was.

Perhaps it's just the way I came off (I was not goal-oriented at all in very goal-oriented environments such as Circle and DIKU codebased systems), or my speech patterns which involved more verbose and quite grammatically correct sentences.

I'll have to second the idea that people are nicer to female characters though. I've been powerlevelled by entire armies of adolescent cave dwellers just because my whotype had an F instead of an N or M. I don't doubt it's because a large majority of us in the goal-oriented environments are male, and act like hermits.

One interesting thing is I also have been running a MUD for many years, and one of the two main characters and co-bosses (both played by me for security reasons) is female. Authority is easily commanded by the more jovial and carefree (and rather inept) male character, but the hardlined authoritative female character is constantly having to shake a big stick and raising her voice to get respect. I chose the roles and characters originally due to story reasons, but it's frustrating to be getting respect as an authority figure on the hand that doesn't want it just because he's a "he", and lacking it on the hand that should be having it.

I think things are getting a lot better. What needs to be done is have larger stakes in "cross-over" games, which blend the qualities most casual female gamers desire (storylining, relationship building, social interaction) and the qualities most casual male gamers desire (goal oriented). All that's mostly why I think The Sims is the messiah of expanding into the female market and shattering the "barrier". It can sell incredibly well to "males" based on goal-oriented reward based play while it retains an incredible design and socio-emotional aesthetic that appeals to "females". Getting the foot in the door is always the first step to expanding the market beyond terrible Barbie and "Mary Kate and Ashley" franchise games.

Not that I'm trying to pigeonhole anyone here. I'm sure there's a gignormous wealth of XX chromosome humans that have collected more pokemon, unlocked more features in Tony Hawk and could beat me down in Tekken series games (or even MvC2, though I'm actually more than adept there). It's simply the names for the demographics currently.

Austerity

I would like to start off by giving my compliments concerning the article. The article was very well written, and does bring up an interesting point concerning the gaming industry these days. But I feel it is a bit pretentious to write off a physically well-endowed and attractive character of EITHER sex as a ploy to use sex as a selling point. After all, since the beginning of human society, and, consequently, the beginning of art as well, physical fitness and beauty have generally been used as signifiers of fitness to lead and think. The obvious outcome of this, albeit not very logical, is that physical prowess and beauty are generally associated with power and good. In modern children's books and fairy tales, the hero or heroine is depicted as being physically attractive and strong, while the villains are depicted as being horribly disfigured or ugly. One immediate example I can think of is Hansel and Gretel, in which the witch is horribly ugly, and the woodcutter is strong and hansom. Obviously this use of physical "looks" is the basest use of physical charisma to influence the viewer's opinion of who is right and who is wrong. Therefore, though this is directed more towards the authors of the comments than Jane, the move to give characters perfect bodies is more of an instinctual thing on the artist's part, based on the concept that they are a physical embodiment of their ideals, and they want them to be charismatic, well liked characters. I think the role sexuality plays is overblown, and the sensuality of a character is more inadvertant then on purpose.

To me, there has always been a trend toward enhancing the role of women in games since the conception of the industry. In Final Fantasy 1, you could make an equal oppurtunity party. This tradition of female recognition has always been present in everything that has come out of SquareSoft. For instance, if you wish to cite the early days, Marle of Crono Trigger comes to mind, as well as Terra from FF6. Samus Aran played a major role in the early platformers, and, to my knowledge, she has more fanboys than Lara Croft could ever hope to gather. Today, the female trend is relatively powerful, as we see the main girl of No One Lives Forever, Primal, a new female character for Devil May Cry 2, Oni, ANY Final Fantasy, Xenosaga, Starcraft Ghost, Summoner 2, and many more. Also, the Baldurs Gate series and Icewind Dale series for the PC have always been sexually fair. For me crap like Tomb Raider and the antics of Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance (a game which I am not that fond of), are more of a marketing anomaly brought on by too many study groups of young male mallrats, rather than an overall trend in the video game industry. Since the beginning, games like BMX XXX and DOAXBV have been popping in and out of the limelight. I simply consider Tomb Raider to be part of that trend of "Here is some game with your sex". To me, most SERIOUS games like Xenosaga, Metroid, and Zelda are more central to the mainstream than you give them credit for. More women are playing video games, it's true. But I really don't forsee any need to actively market to so called "mainstream women". Strong women are already a trademark of video games, and just because there are a few bad apples like Tomb Raider doesn't mean it needs to ruin the bunch.

Sorry for posting so long, and I would like to note that it was Penny Arcade that directed me here, so my thanks to them. I would also like to note that these comments are some of the most civil and well articulated I have seen on a website, as is the article that they orbit. Real, in depth discussions concerning video games as a form of media are hard to come by.

I am looking at starting my own lan gaming room. 30 PCs networked together for gaming.

Part of my research was visiting other, similiar establishments, seeing which ones worked, and which ones didn't.

In every case I was shocked by one thing: not that most the players were guys, but their age. The staff was all a little older, but most the players weren't even high-school. They were, with a few exceptions, grade school kids in the two or three places I vissited.

The few women I ever saw in these places were generally hangining out with boyfriends who worked there - checking e-mail, websurfing, or chatting with their boyfriends, owners who didn't really play games but knew computers and business, or rare people passing through specifically for e-mail.

I did see a few teenagers, and a few twenty year olds. I even saw one or two guys who were older, but I don't believe I saw a single woman who PLAYED the games.

Now this may not represent the male to femaale ratio of gameplay. I'd imagine the prospect of being the only female playing in a room full of pre-pubescent boys may not be really attractive. But I believe the numbers of gamers, even today, are heavily in favor of young, immature males, and the game companies know it.

I wouldn't necessarily look to major game companies to change their patterns any time soon. Sort of a recursive loop. Only young boys play games, so we'll design games that appeal to young boys, and probably nobody else, but who cares, they're our market anyway....and so only young boys play games.

What I would look for is smaller game shops producing more specialized games. Better, more open game play, but maybe without the polished graphics of today's games. Maybe a title is released with the Q2 engine because they can't afford the incredible cost of the new, not yet released DoomIII engine...

Or even a well designed two d game.

Or maybe I'm dreaming....

For the love of God, can't you just play the game and have fun?

Great article!

on the subject of Samus Aran in the Metroid series:

while i can't deny that Samus is a great, seminal example of strong female characters, allow me to play the devil's advocate. the article mentions identification with the character through the way that character is presented to the player, and in this respect Samus' femininity is extremely detatched from the player's experience. since the games have minimal plot and almost no dialogue or exposition (the earlier ones, anyway), the identity of the main character is left fairly ambiguous - as somebody mentioned above, people thought she was a robot after the first Metroid game. when i bought Prime, several of my friends who had played the earlier games were suprisied to find out that Samus was a woman. Prime does go a lot further than the previous games in showing Samus as a woman - her face through the visor, references to her as the Huntress in pirate computer data, etc. - but even so, there is little significance attached to her gender.

given that there are pretty much no other characters in the Metroid games, player/character identification falls by default solely on Samus; it's interesting that so little emphasis is placed on gender with respect to such a strongly identified female role. i can't help but wonder if the series would be as popular (given the oft-mentioned male demographic) had Samus' feniminity been given greater significance to the plot, gameplay, and overall structure of the character throughout the series.

all that being said, i love the fact that a strong, capable, stoic, athletic, ass-whooping woman has been the lead in such a successful series of games. now that Prime (by far one of the best gaming experiences of my life) has brought her femininity closer to the forefront of the games, it will be interesting to see how her character develops in further sequels.

Damn, this article just summed up everything I, as an aspiring 3D game artist, have grown to loath about the gaming world. Its just friggin wrong the way that this stuff goes on.

Example, my friend Kevin and I are standing in blockbuster having a full economics based discussion on the marketing tactics of certain game companies. This guy is standing there listening as if very interested. We pause, introduce ourselves and are in turn treated to this response " You should check out that game, they gots lotsa tities in it." Just wonderfully intelectual isn't it, and this was a guy in his late 20s early 30s. Its just sick, I want gameplay not jubbly boobs.

On the note of female characters in MMORPGs, in Phantasy Star Online I play a FOnewearl (Female Newman Force), for all intents and purposes an elf girl mage. You'd be suprised how many guys want to hit on you if you play that class. Not even asking if the player is male or female, just assuming that the only reason to choose that character is to match gender and appearance, not to take advantage of the highest magic power in the game.

Wierd shit.

Good article. Very good. Arcanum is well deserving of its mention; I've played it through as both genders and the differences are soooo massive, it is almost unbelievable; the game is set in Victorian times, and people react according to the social norms that would have applied.
There's a few other games, of course, that do it effectively. Metroid is one that I notice less, actually, simply because Samus seems for the most part a robot (I've never seen the Just In Bailey shot, so still sexless, effectively).
Games to have a look at? Well, as a rule, RPGs tend to deal with the issue more effectively, purely because they're based on a decent storyline. And a lot of them have twists inbuilt based upon genders you choose (BG2's romances would be a good example). Xenosaga, I've yet to play; certainly Xenogears you might like (comes before it, more difficult to get hold of) due to the female co-star in that. Adds a massive muchness to the story and keeps the genders obvious without being intrusive (i.e. not Lara's pure image, but with what some might call a "feminine touch" at times on Elly and her historical counterpart.)
Other games... FF3 has been mentioned already, Phantasy Star 4 might also be a pointer... perhaps PS2 or is it 3) might be interesting since it spans generations... although I haven't played it too much, so not too much info there.
There's quite a few more, I'm sure, but most tend to be RPGs/Adventures. They're the places where there's room for characterisation. Its the ones where there isn't that there needs to be the "third gender".

Great Article.

In a recent issue of a free, commercial console gaming magazine, the last page featured a commercial spot for the new Gameboy Advance SP. It had the most obvious gender label in a console commercial ever, the text "for men" written at the bottom.

By the way, I think the magazine was called "Game Reactor".

From memory the reason the GBA-SP was called "for men" is because there's actually a "for women" version of the console. To my knowledge the only difference is that one of them is pink (guess which :) ) but nonetheless. On the other hand it could simply have been flagrant sexism on the part of the magazine. But I don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong.

as somoene that is transgendered i play everquest as my escape... to be me... for once in my life im treated as a female and its nice for me to exprence and let my hair down. i dont know why im posting this but it just seemed really relevant. Wobblet 51st wizzard of the Karana server

Very interesting article about what I consider to be an important issue. I would like to add the example of the Parasite Eve games, particularly the second as good examples of a female protagonist who is not unatractive, but does not conform to the Lara Croft bimbo model either. She is a real, intelligent, strong person. I found this very refreshing.

Anyone else notice an interesting pattern emerging here? The US-made games tend (not exclusively, but generally) to be less good gender-wise, the Japanese games (and, of course, the ones made exclusively for girls that aren't available in the West on account of not being translated) tend to be far better at portraying a realistic - or at least, unoffensive and appropriate - female role.

In regards to "DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball vs. Baldur's Gate : Dark Alliance" - I find it odd that you mentioned the barmaid at the begining of the game. I have been playing through this game for hours everyday the past two weeks, and I have never once noticed her "jiggling boobs". I have however noticed that the sorceress is wearing a thong bikini underneath her armor. This never bothered me, considering that the Human Archer-with-a-six-pack and a large bulge in the pants seemed to be tit for tat (pun not intended). On the other hand, I have stayed away from DOA: BV *because* of it's shallowness of a plot. At least Baldur's Gate has an interesting storyline that a person can get involved in. Strange how when you start to think about things, they start to pop up everywhere. Sort of like a confirmation bias.

The article brought up a lot of good points. As a male gamer I can see how most of the games out there are tailored for guys. I see it like this, though. The gaming industry is trying to evolve itself into a medium similar movies. When you watch a movie, most movies have both male and female characters. There are some of course, that have only male, and some that have only female. Some of the movies anyone can identify with. Some only males, or only females (usually) will identify with. If games are to truely ever reach the same state as movies, the development houses need to take pointers from movies, and make the roles in their games not tailored specifically for any group, or eventually there will come a time where they'll alienate themselves from the majority of gamers. There are very few games I can think of that are broadly accessible by everyone, of any gender or age. There are some ga mes that have already reached the point where I would consider them to be broadly accesible. A great game, that sadly wasn't mentioned in the article that features a woman as the main character, is The Longest Journey. This is a game on-par in storyline with movies. The characters are great and easy to identify with.. the lead character being female doesn't make it any less accesible to any type of player, man or woman. In closing, if more games took their cues from movies in some cases... things would be much more interesting. At this point, most games are equivilant to 'teen flicks', which most people deride... yet still manage to be more visible in some cases, than good movies.

On Final Fantasy: While Final Fantasy VII is about a male character (as usual) it does have one playing with gender moment in it; You have the option at one point to go on a date with the character you pay the most attention to. This means that you can end up going out with barret, a big black man with a gun affixed to one arm.

Geez, what a load.

First off, the X-Box controller is designed for male gamers? Wrong; I'm very, very male, and I have huge problems with the oversized X-Box controller. In fact, between this, and the Intellimouse Optical, I have come to the conclusion that Microsoft's chief peripheral designer is none other than Andre the Giant, since only his monstrously oversized hands would be able to use this crap effectively.

Second, as has been pointed out multiple times already, men suffer the same treatment at the hands of game designers as women. Case in point, one of Lara Croft's contemporaries, Duke Nukem, who seems to have the body of a greek god and the mind of an oversexed teenager. But nobody calls the industry (or anybody else) for stereotyping males, or making unrealistic standards for males to live up to. Hell, that's just par for the course.

Third, how you could get through this article and not once mention Samus Aran, the original "empowered" female video game hero, is beyond me. Samus was not at all sold on her sex appeal--hell, you really didn't even know she was female unless you beat the game! Samus simply was, and is, a kick-butt heroine. While we're at it, why don't we cite a more recent example, Joanna Dark? There's a strong female heroine sans the ridiculous "sex selling" that tainted Lara Croft. Even female supporting characters in "male-dominated" video games have grown up, no longer made to be simpering baby dolls in the clutches of some horrible villain (the Zelda series is a perfect example of this, with Ocarina of Time's Zelda/Shiek and The Wind Waker's Tetra standing in strong supporting roles, a contrast to the previous Zeldas). And what of the Street Fighter series? The strong, vengeful Interpol agent Chun Li, the military-trained asskicking machine Cammy, the mysterious, powerful Rose, all these women serve as strong female role models without the ridiculous cheesecake (well... ok, Cammy's leotard is a bit cheesecake-y).

True, there are less strong heroine figures than strong hero figures, but that's only because there are less female GAMERS than male gamers. Game companies pitch their products at people who buy games, and most of the people who buy games are male. Still, the strong female characters are out there (and in some cases, always have been). You just need to know where to look.

"the laughably phallic joystick".

Indeed. A controller shaped like a vigina, or possibly with a gender-neurtral shape would be sooooooooooo much more PC.

I highly agree with the concept of playing with gender itself... A game is a game and sex is still sex despite gender. What if it was a multi-dimensional gender game? I don't really want to think about the physics (who can sleep with who) alone, but rather I think it would be great to explorer various genderless or bi-gendered ideas of the human mind. Personally I'm a little either way on a whole miriad of views... I think gender roles often confuse and make us blindly accept, say, the ultimate carnage of Vice City as blatant masculinity, and hello kitty as a failed attempt at feminity... But never let us explore, say, the variety of a character who despite gender may like soccer, horticulture, clothing, punk music, neclaces, and promiscuous sex. Is that male or female?

You know, I agree with many arguments made in the story, but the bit thrown in about the joystick being "phallic" is ridiculous.

What only one person has mentioned the lovely Cate Archer from No One Lives Forever? The greatest female lead of all time....Smart, Sexy and Deadly...

One interesting point in a game where gender makes a difference is in Bethsada's Morrowind where you have to get a female sorcerer to sponsor you. The twist is that she hates men so if you're a male character you have to grovel and snivel in front of her to get her to help you but if you're a female character she is more than happy to help out. There are a couple of other interesting gender points in this game as well. One of the bright lights in recent gaming for a number of reasons :)

DOA:XBV is actually a gender subversive game. It appears wholly shallow and intended to appeal only to men, but a majority of the replay value in the game comes from an encouraged identification with the girls in the game. At first, of course, the hook is pure sexual fantasy--I ogle the boobs, watch the various 'gravira' movies, buy the skimpiest swimsuits--but after a few hours there's not much skin left to see.
The real attractiveness of the game stems from the buying of the swimsuits(and hundreds of matching accessories) which look the 'best' on each particular girl. It becomes, in effect, a glorified game of dress up. On top of that, however, is a complex relationship system wherein you can give other girls in the game gifts. This leads to a deeper identification with the girl you 'control' by investing emotional attributes to her and the girls you give gifts to. Alot of the depth in the gift-giving comes from figuring out what gifts each girl 'prefers' and which swimsuits they will deign to wear, if gifted with one.
I've clocked almost 20 hours on the game. Although I am male, I think there's alot of room here for girls to play too. It's a very non-threatening space--there's no males (except in the introduction) and no conflict, except for a little friendly beach volleyball.

Hmm. A note from a slightly different female perspective.

People assume in general that female gamers want storyline, romance, fashion, and non-violent options. I don't particularly. I powerhunt. I am not alone there. Other female gamers I know joke with me about how often we are accused of being gay males. As for the depiction of female characters, I tend to avoid games which I feel ridiculously oversexualize either sex unless it's in the context of spoof. In borderline cases, if I am in an online game and my female character would be so disproportionate or scantily clad that I feel it would open me up to harrassment, I am perfectly comfortable playing a male character. Am I guiding/controlling him? I don't think it ever occured to me.

Anarchy Online is a game that anyone interested in this topic should check out. Character creation includes many physical types for both male and female characters. In addition there is a 3rd sex which looks very male but we are assured is a neuter breed. You can choose to have big breasts, but if you do, you get big hips and a rounder stomach. You can choose a thin, medium or zaftig build for any of the 3 sexes, and various races as well (a whole other equally important issue). I have only felt a need to comment one time on any issue there from a female perspective. They added a car to the game that has a paintjob of an extremely voluptuous woman with the unfortunate design choice of putting the vehicle gun where her crotch is. An er...odd looking car. After reading comments the design team rather than changing or eliminating the car, added an equally ridiculous male/neuter car. Would be nice if he/it? was a bit more attractive, but after some thought, I liked this solution. It doesn't say cheesecake is wrong, it says "oops, we excluded some people." At first I was concerned with some of the female clothing in the game...until I saw male characters in fishnet armor and thongs. I'd say the European designers have a healthy humorous attitude. I'd also like to mention that despite very overt sexuality/sensuality in the game design, I have almost never encountered the kind of sexual harrassment I found in games like Everquest.

For designers: Just don't send us a message that the treehouse is "BOYZ ONLY NO GIRLZ ALLOWED!" Also note: when designing bodies, keep in mind that a woman's breasts start around armpit level, not clavicle level and are never larger than her head. ;) Oh...and what's this about black and green being male colors? I love those colors.

Good comments on Baldur's Gate. I wanted to enjoy this game, God knows I spent enough on it (new) but the creators might have saved me the trouble by emblazoning the words "women need not apply" on the box.

The most sexist portrayal of a Woman in recent times was in Unreal 2, sadly because Unreal 1 had both women and male avatars, and they weren't sexist in their portrayal. Bad game all round though.

I don't think DOABV has helped the image of women in video games and the video game market for women, or even the image of general gamers, at all, the only part of your review that I disagree with.

I like the idea of game developers including characters that are not of a specific gender. moment?

My silly comments:

It is truly unfortunate that there aren't more games that are more female-oriented in the US or other places, the video game market isn't just for boys and their toys, but that's what sells.

Games like Tokimeki Memorial: Girls Side, while nice, are just the reverse of the situation, however. This article, as well written as it is, is about the male fixation on females being sex objects... while games like Tokimemo Girls Side are kinda just the opposite side of the coin. Albeit, the whole Tokimemo series is a very well done, non-H social simulation game, with very diverse play and character development. The game that Jessi B mentioned sounds like a hentai game. In that case, a game with the point of getting in bed with a girl in 100 days sounds about right for the genre. I wonder if there are female-oriented H games.

I was happy to hear the mention of Samus Aran, and the whole Metroid series in general. A comment on the Justin Bailey code, however: It's not really a super-l33t-secret code to get Samus into a swimsuit... that's what happens when you beat the game and play again. The Justin Bailey 'code' is just one of a myriad number of codes that can be input into Metroid's password system that work.

And yes, Metroid is a great example of how a woman can be a strong, solitary character and not scantily-clad (unless you beat the game in under 3 hours *chuckle*) It strikes me that that was a very daring move on Nintendo's part, back in the 80s when video games were all about men.

What annoys me the most about the video game culture, is RPGs and the typical casting of females in support roles, such as mages... why are there no RPGs with female main characters (other than Arcanum but it doesn't count cause you're allowed to pick)? And why are they almost always left underdeveloped?

I for one, would love to see games where women sit as equal, where they're just as full of character and developed as their male counterparts, where they play important roles that aren't necessarily stereotypical, and that would appeal to both genders equally. But I just can't see it appealing to one major class of people: Marketers.

I'm a newbie to this site, but over the last several months I have heard the same thing. Women are portrayed badly in Video games, comic books, movies, television ad, Etc. But one thing people never ever seem to notice is that Male heroes are portrayed in exactly the same retro spec. Most male Video game heroes are buff to the point of human perfection. Most of the heroes especially that we look up to(Link, Superman, Batman, hell even spider-man got buff after he got bit by the radioactive spider) look great, feel great, and accmplish things that we all want to be able to accomplish. Lots of women complain that most video game, comic book women have big boobs and barbe doll figure. This is true, but last time I checked I don't think superman put socks in his trousers everytime and wore some kind of muscle suit everytime he changed his costume. How do you think most men feel who play video games, or get picked on at school cause they feel feeble and weak and want to look lik ethere hero or be like the guy who is picking on them. SO how about instead of just looking at it like WOmen are always getting the burden of being treated like objects or not being able to live up to whats drawn or seen on TV, Look at it from every angle. ok.

Peace

The best female characters usually slip past without catching your attention because that's what a good female character should do. If one wants to create a good female character, the aim should be to make the player say "Wow, that's a great character", never "Wow, this is a good female role model". It would be easy (and stupid) of accusing this article of contributing to the problem, but it proves my point. When you think about female characters, you think Lara Croft, someone that the designers have gone out of their way to make you think of as female. When I try to think of good female characters, games like the Final Fantasy series always slip past my mind, because I don't think of those characters as females, I think of them as people. Metroid is also an interesting example, and I think it represents the solution to the gender problem. It's not a matter of raising women up, defining their own course and role in games, it's a matter of leveling the playing field, taking away the roles.

So in conclusion, I do say that female characters need to lose their gender to succeed as characters, simply because that's what any good character should do.

http://www.sega.com/community/gamerspot/post_gamerspot.jhtml?article=spotlight_girlpoll_results

I like this article on sega.com, I like to think that Sega are ahead of most companies where gender equality is concerned.

Games like jet set radio, phantasy star online and shenmue show strong realistic female characters that can appeal to to both male and female.

Dante: this is the first time I saw anyone who isn't me describe the trouble I have with theses nasty checkboxes. It's either humiliating or feels like lying. Ahwell. Regarding your comment, bravo again.

What a lot of people seem to ignore is that gender stereotypes don't neccessarily make a character sexy. Though... apparently they do. *Sigh*... how boring. See, I don't exactly mind looking at, or stepping into the shoes of, a _sexy_ character, I just find personality, uniqueness, expressiveness and such sexier than the gloss and glamour.

Flipping the clichés around doesn't do much for me either--I don't care much about photorealistically portrayed guns and gore and dreary military installations, why should making them 'female' help? (Let's all demand games about men doing the dishes and reset the balance through mindnumbing stupidity at either extreme!)

Then again I don't have to play the stuff, and indeed don't. After all, not everything is "like that". (Admittedly I lost track of the mainstream gaming scene over 10 years ago and have probably missed out on a number of interesting titles. I like to think games got stupider as their potential for a detail-rich graphically represented environment grew but maybe that's just because I now can't imagine characters the way I'd like them as easily as before when that handful of pixels could be anything regardless of the designer's intentions; not to mention text adventures/interactive fiction where prose potentially allowed for all the depth of a short novel).

Methinks 'we' 'need' games that either focus on content rather than (demo)graphics, or that cater to intelligent, sensitive _people_ rather than the mythical average Joe/Jane (they can both be pretty dull, no?). (Good) books, comics, movies, plays and so on aren't that divided either, are they? (I honestly don't know since I don't care to align my interests with what's 'appropriate' for me.)

I'm rather confused to see an article about gender bias in the gaming industry written by the same woman that posted an article featuring a certain Rez Trance Vibrator on a certain vagina. By posting pictures of your special time with Rez you're pandering to the same demographic video game companies make games for. Don't tell me that you didn't get more hits from that article than you normally do in a day. Hell, Penny Arcade linked you for it; I think a couple of major news sites did as well. You sold your site with sex, the same thing game companies are doing, and it worked like a charm, didn't it? Don't get me wrong, this was a well written article, but your previous stories deflate your credibility a bit.

Nice, the article made me think about things a little more. I just tended to accept things for what they are. Anyone notice the fact that most protagonist characters are caucasian as well?

Oh yeah, you forgot to mention one of the first female game characters... the valkyrie from Gauntlet. She was my favorite character since she was so well blanced between fighting and magic use and had speed.

Regarding Alienation and Identification: This is not only a gender-problem, it applies also to players with characters of the same sex.

I'm one small beautiful guy, and I can't identify with gross barbarians with the stature of a body-builder (hairy giants from porn-movies )).

And no, I'm not the wizard/engineer-type of guy, but a fighter, and I really like armor (full plate -- yes I even own a real one myself and I wear it. It's not actually a problem, those things tend to be looked at as heavier and clumsier in games than they are in reality. But I digress).

If you can choose your character, having those barbarians is ok, I might even enjoy playing Arno the Barbarian for once (though I most probably end up with elves), but sometimes you can't and are stuck with that bulldozer, and sometimes (Like in Quake3) all the male characters look like bullies, so I end up playing a female character, just because the character has more my size/stature.

And speaking of female characters, I think its stupid to let them wear that extra-female (wheatever) clothes and armor. You know, the ones which do not cover the belly. Armor for females has to look like this gothic half-plate a female friend of mine wears here. It's the same as armor for males. Its big enough for very big breasts, by the way. And you don't get your belly slit.

But it seems that (especially in fantasy-settings) some screwy male dream of hairy big brutes and half-naked big-breasted women is prevalent. How am I supposed to identify with somesuch?

bitch, bitch, bitch josh.
This article got a PA link too didn't it?
People who spend they're time just 'waiting' for a chance to point their finger and shout "HYPOCRITE!" are sad individuals indeed.

"hairy giants from porn-movies" -- After all, if you're hairy or tall, you've _got_ to be a porn barbarian with a purely testosterone-controlled mind, mmh? Isn't that just as near-sighted as assuming every blond or busty woman is dumb or a "slut"? Oh, I'm sure you didn't mean it that way and I'm merely flying off the handle again...

Really interesting article here. I'm glad I checked it out. Good points.

A lot of the demographics comments here have struck me as apologistic. "There's a market out there so that's the MAIN reason why female characters of a strong stripe are in the minority. Guys like this sort of thing." I think that's doing men a great diservice. I hang around a few gaming forums where the majority of the members are male. Whenever you bring up the subject of favorite games people rave about System Shock 2, a critically aclaimed game that seems like it's beloved by every gamer who's ever touched it. Aside from being a stellar game you would have to dig fairly deeply to find examples of sexism in it. It has a gender-balanced cast, your character is male but that's only ever brought up in a few cut-scenes both men AND women are fully developed character-wise. The passion some people feel for this game is *incredible*. Most of the people I've seen comenting on it have been male. Samus is another beloved character that ranks high on "favorite characters of all time" discussions. Boys are just as capable of appreciating well-crafted female characters as girls, characters who aren't pushed because they're sexy but because they're *cool* or *deep*. I'm sure the predominantly male market is responsible is responsible for some of the sex-sells approach certainly but reducing the problem to ONLY that is a cop-out.

Secondly, while pointing out admirable/strong female characters Jane missed is a good way to find some great new games, it ignores the fact that these female characters are in the vast minority. It's part of the alienation she commented on. Why people we ignore these games and just play the ones they like? Well...Because there aren't enough of them around or enough being advertised. The "Ignore-what-you-dislike-and-stop-complaining" approach smacks of laziness. If we don't critic ALL aspects of videogames the industry will never mature as a whole.

I agree with the consensus that the best solution is to have women have to become more active in the gaming industry as both developers and players. Pulling more people into our hobby can only make it better.

I think article makes some good points, but there has been some huge change in game development. In the last 2 years alone the number of women playing games has at least doubled, this is partially in part do to "The Sims" which was one of the highest selling games ever and also has a 50/50 ratio of men and women playing (on the sims online there are actually more women playing than men).

There are also alot more female developers than there used to be. In the last few years at my university we have gone from about 5% women in CS (Computer Science) now we are at about 10%. Which still isn't great since women make up almost 2/3rds of the university population are women. But in the faculty all the lab instructors are female (and have been for a couple years) and there are a few female profs as well.

A joystick is NOT a penis.

Very good article indeed, which has lead to some very interesting comments.
As you might have noticed reading through the various comments, most of the positive examples mentioned are games with an relatively open story line, most of the time role playing games or even MMORPGs. There is I think a good reason for this: What we really want (and need) is a customizable game experience. There are people that can and cannot identify with, say, Samus or can or cannot appreciate the bouncing boobs of DOAXBV, but once you can decide what kind of character you play, what he/she/it looks like and what actions he/she/it takes, there is only one problem left - the game has to be able to react/reflect your decisions.
And that's the reason why we have to live with these standard hero characters: Game designers most of the time take the easy road and go for a linear story. Since they have to sell their game to as many people as possible, the story line and thus the characters in it have to appeal to as many people in the target audience as possible (just like in the movies) - and the largest target audience of game developers still is - at least it seems to be in the eyes of most game developers - male and about 15 years old. Having a game telling a linear story AND react realistically to customized characters (male/female, straight/homosexual, young/old, wise/dumb etc.) still seems to be too hard - or too risky - for most game developers.
For example, Freelancer, despite of its name, has a linear story line. The story (i.e. the cut scenes) features a female side kick for the hero, Juni. Now there could have been a game that let's you decide what kind of character you are (male/female; mercenary/merchant...); then the designers would have to provide different cut scenes for each kind of character. Or they decide, as they actually did, that they give you one character - which happens to be a shallow standard male hero type - so they have a truly straight (pun intended ;) story. Now, I personally can live with the linear gameplay, but I cannot relate to the main character. (To be honest, I can't stand this dumb idiot, and the game doesn't even give me a chance to customize his appearance!)
So I think the future of games will more look like Morrowind: Morrowind gives you the option(!) to follow a story line, but you can ignore it, and it gives you the freedom to do it as any character you want. (It even gives you the freedom to play the game just for looking at the (nude) main character, since you can include all kinds of add-ons - and many provide you with sexier body parts/armor or nude skins. And BTW, for Neverwinter exists a male pelvis mod.)
With many games telling their stories with the ingame engine instead of using prerendered cut-scenes, at least a custumizable look (sex) of the main characters should be possible without much of additional development costs. (Imagine you could have switched the roles of Dalton and Aida in Unreal 2 - it would have been so easy to do this at least.) The next step would be to allow for different characteristics and let the game react to these.
But at the moment game developers still cling to the relatively safe story telling concepts of the movie industry. I hope they can overcome their fear of players acting freely and provide us with real artificial freedom.

Silv:

Almost, but not quite. The ignore what you dislike method is actually the most effective if you do it right. Video game corporations are just that: corporations who want to make money. It's fairly pathetic to buy a game in this day and age and not have a fairly good idea of what it's going to be about. Considering that, you vote with your dollar. If a game that's intellectual, portrays females in good ways, etc, sells less than the latest goonsquad game, then of course they are going to make more goonsquad games and less intelligent ones. It's not evil or sexist at all! They want to make money. I find it highly amusing that this article danced around the concept but never really admitted that the reason these games keep getting made ISN'T because they aren't critiqued. It isn't because there aren't games that do females well or males well. It is because they've been proven money makers. They sell well to the lowest common denominator.

Which, by definition of actually surfing the net, you probably aren't. By definition of being able to write and discuss this at a meaningful level, no one here is.

To Jane:
I have to agree with a number of posters here. This is absolutely ridiculous. It's unfair to the industry at large and unfair to gamers in general. It's a shallow and self-serving view of the industry using a few highly hyped examples from the past decade. You should be able to compile a list of hundreds of games with ease if your article was the case. And not just noname one's either. You can't. When one looks at a number of games that don't service the lowest common denominator you find the situation is very different from what you've painted. Games like Xenosaga and Xenogears come to mind immediately. The last seven Dragon Quest series games right off the bat. Final Fantasy 4-6 had fairly deep female characters, and still does to a point, though to sell more games to the LCD individual, they started including more outrageous characters. Regardless, they sell. They not only sell but they sell quite well. So companies will continue to make them.

But there's the counterpart. There are other games that sell even better. And thus continue to be advanced and made. The metroid series brought up is a beautiful example. Oh wait, so because you didn't have feminity shoved in one's face the whole game it's not a good example? Bah humbah to that!

An article such as this that fails to really examine gaming history and current events as a whole is nothing more than an inflammatory swipe at how games are made. It ignores the huge percentage of games that are gender neutral. It ignores the hefty percentage of games that service neither side and just tell a great story amidst their game. It takes a couple extreme examples of both sides and just paints a negative image of the gaming industry in general for it. If one looked at Lara Croft when it first came out and expected anything else, then one was blind.

The bottom line is realy this:
As long as people buy into it, it will continue to be produced.

And that's it. If you buy games like that and find them contemptuous, well, you are part of the problem. I return very few games as I tend to do my homework before I buy one, but every one I found contemptuous got returned. Very simple, I don't support that which I don't support. Similarly, when games come out that are the reverse, and there are hundreds of them, you have to go out and support them. Write in saying you liked this or that.

You vote with your dollar. A free marketplace is a democracy. That's what it comes down to.

Why doesn't anyone ever mention Sarah Parker from Ground Control. Zero sexism in the portrayal of that character, and yet she's still one of (if not the) deepest and most interesting female protagonists to grace a computer game since their inception.

To present Lara Croft as an overtly sexually mature and confident person with (gasp!) breasts, is "gross" whereas to use sex in an insidious and manipulative manner (as a method of control - Arcanum) is "Brilliant!"? I see. I would imagine that the portrayal of Ms Croft in the film using her sexuality as a method of manipulating others' behaviour is also "brilliant". In reality nothing external can cause you angst, only that which is internal as therein resides your whole belief set and model of the world, not to mention your emotion-centres and personal life-record.

Re: joysticks - on this note I am henceforth boycotting my local kebab house as they sell meat products obviously designed to mimic an unsightly and festering vulva. I need not even mention the implications inherent in the act of "eating" such. I am preparing anti-Ali'sKebab flyers right now.

:-)

How in the hell do you sleep at night girl?

Let me put it this way, "girls" the sterotypical ones that you refer to in the videogames, are about 2/4's of the videogames population... I don't understand why you people won't celebrate the girls that arnt in the following cata.

Sluty, bitchy, DDDDDDDDDDDDDDBreasts, and brains that kinda seem to stop after thier born.

I don't understand it, I mean Yes most certainly there are girls just like this in gaming that males get a kick out of (and a few women ^_~ ). but then there are girls like.

#1. Jessica from the Lunar series (so what shes sexy, is that a fucking crime?), who stands on her own and can pretty much kick kyles ass any time she wants.

#2. Brea from the parasite eve games, shes cool, and she kicks major ass.

#3. The girl from D1-2, i've never played the games myself, but shes a pretty strong female at that.

#4. Sue from the grandia games, she was strong and a little girl at that.

#5. and finally that girl from space channel 5 ulala (or something).

You know, i'm sick of girls being all sexist just because a girl is hot in a videogame, come on, the males are just as... "hot" and weirdly they all have like 12 packs. wait, what does that mean? women arnt the only ones being treated oddly in video games? OH MY GOD NO!!!!!!!!!!

See thats how I whould act if I did care, the fact is most video game chars' are strong, vibrant, and mostly... urgh (i hate this word) "hot". but so what I got over it, because it's just a fucking videogame.

It's always gonna be like this.

Now when I see a dude with a beer gut saving the world... We'll talk.

if girls have a hard time either identifying with female characters, imagine being a gay man. There's no representation in RPG's for us gay men.

But God forbid that programmers came up with gay characters. I think they'd follow every stereotype in the book, and besides, the main difference between gay and straight men is choosing who to have sex with.

Therefore, a gay RPG character would probably end up being some one-dimensional flake chasing men all day while fighting evil in Prada Armor.

To me it's a lose-lose situation: either to forgo identifying with characters, or to watch certain negative stereotypes propogate themselves.

oh well.

p.s. you guys sure Extreme Beach Volleyball doesn't have any men hehe.

I felt this article had kind of a cop out feel to it... Towards the end it appears to be less about the failure of designing games to appeal to all genders and more about the idea that games need to be "better". But who is to decide which game is better than another? Sure, I joke at my work about so-called bad games all the time, but that doesn't make them bad because people like them. I am constantly confronted with girls coming in with their boyfriends who find games stupid and ridiculous, an utter waste of time. The fact is this: 95% of the girls who come in my store are not gamers, there is a reason that boys are catered to in this industry. I'm all for having games that girls can like as well as guys can like, but you can't say a game is bad based on the fact that it appeals only to guy gamers... I would have liked to see more support of the argument that character designs fail to rope in the ever elusive female populous, more direct information to show us why it is that a majority of girls find this hobby such a waste of time. I would have also liked it if the article would have stuck to it's guns. What do girls want in games? Why do they want these things? Do these things have enough potential to sell in the market place?
The other thing, about girls being shown as weaklings or big breasted women who only need the help of a strong hero... well, I will name a few games where this doesn't happen at all, in dungeon siege you play as a woman farmer out to save the world from evil, an immensely strong character whom you must identify with and you do, you forget she is male of female. In halo, your biggest ally is not your assault rifle but your A.I. construct cortana, also the main pilot of the Echo 4-19 dropship is a woman who risks life and limb to help master chief and in the end pays the ultimate price. In red faction two, both the female squad members are presented as just that, members of an elite fighting squad, neither of them taking on gender specific roles, one is a sharp shooter, the other a reconnaisance expert. In the upcoming brute force, the same thing applies, they are women, but tough women, women willing to lay down their lives for their comrades in arms and willing to kill for god and country (or commonwealth). In starcraft: ghost, you have to play as woman, a highly trained special operative. Princess zelda was traditionally a weakling, until the windwaker where she is the tough talking captain of a pirate ship. There are hundreds of other women characters in countless games who are strong and willing to fight... buxom appearance or no.
In my experience the girls who come in my store tend to gravitate towards games like animal crossing or harvest moon or the sims... things where you really get involved and have a lot to manage, I think (not to be stereotypical) that it plays to the sensibilities of organization. Most of the girls I've dated have been organized and enjoy doing that kind of thing... And a lot of girls I've talked to just don't like action games and don't really get roleplaying games. Why is this? Is it the inherent violence? Is it the length of the games? Or is it that girls in society are tend to be brought up as, more or less, girls? I think it's combination of factors myself, and I do believe the industry is growing up, I don't think it's as immature as it was a few years ago, but it's not the fault of the designers or artists that girls don't like their games... Most girls just don't like the types of games the designers are putting out. Girls don't like tomb raider and it's not because they don't identify with a strong woman lead, they just don't like those sorts of games... It's the same reason a lot of girls don't enjoy action movies, it's just not something they like.
I realize this posting is a jumble of thoughts for the most part, but I feel as though this article was just as much a jumble as it more or less failed to deliver on what the title promised. I was hoping for more of a psychological reasoning, a more in depth look at character design and why it fails or succeeds with different gender groups.. but then I suppose this isn't gamestudies and wasn't meant to be some sort of thesis on why things go the way they go in the industry.

It's always fascinating, to see the men rebel to such arguments.

I used to play Age of Mythology 24/7. I wasn't that great at it, but I loved the game. Always, always, always, I'd let the guys I was playing with know I was female. The screenname Rhimey is..neutral, I guess, in which you can't right-off-the-bat know that I'm male or female.
Anyway, the more experienced players would treat me with courtesy, and it would all go along fine. However, I'm not sure what to classify these men as, but they were of lower rank and of course, when we lost buildings or certain holding spots, it was blamed on me. The stupid girl who doesn't even know how to play..even though her rank is obviously higher than mine. The whole situation was ridiculous.
Therefore, I went on a popular AoM message board and stated my views on this whole sexist case. I'd say nearly half were with me, half weren't. The ones that were with me and girl-gamers made intelligent posts with excellent reasons of supporting, whilst the opposers typed in barely legible phrases and had the most...eh..interesting...causes. In the end, though, the board was closed. I'm not sure why, but I'm guessing a guy shut it down because it was invoking too much thought and the males couldn't handle it..heh..no, I believe it was because they didn't want to start up the old girls vs. boys situtation in gaming, even though it was stupid to close it :p
I think it's about time that females have risen up and taken what should have been ours from the beginning. The men who have taken over the gaming communities have always just assumed that girls aren't good from the start. Ah, but when you say you're a girl gamer and start on the topic with other men, "But it's just obvious that girls aren't good at video games. I don't know why..they're just not that great" It's always the same put off. They expect us to play the cartoonish games, the easy-to-beat ones, and I can't stand it anymore!
Oh, and one last comment..I find it highly amusing how all the videogames seemingly have the perfect bodies, the perfect breasts, the perfect abs..when they're appealing these games to people that would explode or burn to a crisp if they actually went outside once a year. Or they would just merely blind a few innocent bystanders from their..whiteness.
I think it's also funny how the person before me gave evidence against his own cause..heh..and has an extremely small vocabulary :/ (Ohh other people have posted before I got to post..I'm meaning the one by Nemo ^_^)

~Rhi

Great article - its only weak point is the slightly puerile opening paragraphs referring to technology bias. Joysticks phallic? Maybe, but they're also very utalitarian. Xbox controllers? A better point, but then everybody complained they were large. Xbox colour scheme?

Just that one paragraph has an air of the ridiculous, and element of hyperbole; the rest of the article stands very well by itself, and I feel would be strengthened without that para. Anything which provokes rolling eyes only detracts from your otherwise excellent arguments.

This article is clueless.

If videogame players were interested in socializing, they wouldn't be playing videogames. They would be outside, socializing. It is because certain people are denied the opportunity to socialize with others, that they seek solace and entertainment in videogames.

Similarly, men who are already successful in associating and sleeping with beautiful women, don't need to get their hot chick fix from videogames. Such men don't waste their time playing videogames anyways: Sex is more fun.

It is therefore the socially incompetent, physically unattractive men who buy and play videogames. This is the driving force of the videogame industry -- fulfilling the desire of such men to feel powerful, in control, and successful with beautiful women (which they are not in real life).

In another newsflash, it was discovered that real playboys do not purchase Playboy magazine. It is the socially incompetent, physically unattractive men who can't get laid, that purchase Playboy magazine. Who would have thunk it?

Yes! Thank you! Finally, someone notices the absolutely rediculous female character design of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. None of the reviews I've seen mentioned it with a word, and I was starting to think the world had gone insane. Or blind.

From talking to men (the only close friends I had in college), I've found that they don't take the renderings the same way. Most of them don't find computer-rendered females attractive- they're not real. I think they wouldn't care if there were comparable males in say, Diablo, where I have to stop playing in disgust in the Hell levels. Maybe it's the age group or the type of men I hang out with. I know I get angry and offended at the female characters in the game, to the point I don't want to play. Perhaps it's because body is tied up in how I perceive some one-as a whole being- not just a mind and not just a body.

Interesting article. You might want to have a look at this discussion (on a skinning/modelling forum, so it focuses on the physical appearance of characters), which in a way brings up some opposing points.

(milla, if you read this: sorry to eat your bandwidth like that :-)

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Another example of a great female lead in a game that I'm surprised nobody's mentioned is Mara Jade in Mysteries of the Sith, the addon pack for Jedi Knight. Mara was already an established character from some of the Star Wars books and graphic novels, so it would have just been silly if she got "game-stereotype-ized", and thankfully, she didn't (and ended up with some nicely scripted sarcastic remarks, too :-)

Admittedly Jedi Knight and Jedi Knight 2's female characters weren't as positive (like the sidekick/pilot who transports the hero around a couple of times, then gets kidnapped by the villain and needs rescuing. In both games. ::yawn::)

---

PS: just so you know, your stylesheet for the comments doesn't work in Konqueror (it shows white text on white), and it probably won't work in Safari either.

I think you're seriously missing the boat here. First of all, as a piece of advice, never comment on games you've never or rarely played. You have no leg to stand on.

But my specific point: you're ignoring the big picture to harp on all the little issues that should be secondary. Someone in these comments has already mentioned this but allow me to reiterate:

WOMEN ARE NOT THE MARKET

A fast majority of gamers are young men, ages 14-30, hyper sexed and ready to go. What are you going to pitch them? Barbara the Super Executive? Think about it. That's your problem. Why design things for the female perspective if that's not where the money is?

Worrying about things like the shape of joysticks (arguable) to the color of the XBox (Sorry, that was a completely ludicrous point to make on your part) to the LANGUAGE of game descriptions (You really have a problem with "....you leading the heroine through..."? You've got some serious issues.) completely misses the point and makes the rest of the article well-written yet unimportant.

I don't think those boys/men are as hyper-sexed as you think. I only date from the gamer pool. I'm starting to believe there's a conspiracy where they convince females that they want sex when really gamer males are only somewhat interested.

Hyper-sexed might be less fair to men beyond the teen years but I remember myself and my friends when we were in the middle of puberty. Every chance to see female fresh, real or digitized, was not to missed, to say the least.

"I'm starting to believe there's a conspiracy where they convince females that they want sex when really gamer males are only somewhat interested."

Why would the conspiracy seek to convince females that males want sex, if males do not in fact want sex so much? Who would be behind the conspiracy, and to what end is it being operated?

Could it be that there is no conspiracy, and that men really do love sex? Of course, when you think about it, so do women just as much as men, the difference being that women lie about how much they love sex so as to be able to monetize male sexual release, as the author proudly alludes to having done so in Arcanum.

I hate to say it, but you really have to keep in mind that the Japanese make a good percentage of the games out there and Women's Lib never really happened in that country. I can't see things changing too much as long as that keeps going.

The only action games I can think of that ever really got a lot of women to play were the Mario Bros games on the original Nintendo. That was the only time when I thought there might be some sort of equality on the horizon, but since then it seems to me that the sexism has become more rampant.

Well, pretty nice article, but i woudn't blame the industry about the extreme sexism. Women till now had a slight part oF the videogame market.

I am a CS student in Brazil, and i have soooooo few female colegues... THAT REALLY SUX!!! Besides the fact that the majority of the girls around here dont give much about computers and videogames (and guys with that profile :/)

Unfortunately, that's a reality and the developers think about that reality when developing games.

I believe things are changing, fortunately, but you can't blame much developers to the actual directionated products. The girls coud solve that problem by the root: getting interested in computer and videogames, BUYING more and even CREATING games.

If you don't get interested, things will continue the way is. I believe it depends more on you than us.

Only a few short comments.

1) I like your essay. I think it is well written, informative, and relevant. I also happen to agree with nearly everything you have to say.

2) I want to defend the early Tomb Raider games (specifically, Tomb Raider I and II). I played them and enjoyed the flawless control, excellent camera work (for that era), unique puzzles, and beautiful character animation. Laura was significantly less "deformed" in the early games, and marketed much more as an independant archeologist. I do dislike the way the Laura Croft character has been marketed in the last few years, but most of the truly offensive comments started about the time the movie was coming out, and a wider media audience got ahold of Laura's image.

3) The X-Box controller may be gender-biased, but there are several replacement controllers of a much more appropriate size. (Personally, I still much prefer the original, I find it fits my hand very well, second only to the PS2 controller). I can understand why Microsoft would design a controller for men's hands. Men (and boys) do make up most of the market. NOTE: Several earlier comments attacked this essay because it did not take into account the market pressures of a highly male audience. This is irrelevant. The sexism exists, regardless of the intended audience, or major market percentage. Yes, game developers are pandering to the visual desires of males Because They Make Up A Majority of Gamers. That dosen't change what they're doing, at best it gives a good answer as to Why they continue to do it.

I stopped reading the article at this point:

This is especially true I think of videogames, where everything from the environment (the marketing, the merchandising, the image of the industry) to the peripherals (the laughably phallic joystick, the original Xbox controllers which are too big for my hands, the color scheme of the Xbox) are male-friendly.

There really are some important things to say about gender, gender depiction, and gender discrimination in games and the gaming community. Until she can demo a working, vagina-shaped video game controller for me, I'm not going to hear them from this author.

OK,

- B

As someone who has done some game programming before and has some insight into the design process behind these games, I'd have to say that in the end, things come down to statistics and economic reasons.

Statistically, most of game players are male, so this is the target audience that you design your game for. If they had extra time, I'm sure many developers would like to add extra things that would make female gamers happy, but we're on a very tight schedule. Every feature we have to look at and evaluate how much extra time is this going to take to implement and then weigh that versus other features -- should I spend my time working on a better particle system which will have a big visual impact, or should we put more work into the scripts for female PCs when statistics show only 5-10% of our players are female? On the other hand, if you're designing a MMORPG or something like the Sims that you want to appeal to women, you spend more time(money) adding features that appeal to women.

Its really a matter of the chicken and egg. If there are more female game players, developers and designers will put in more content for them. Otherwise, we have tight schedules and budgets to meet, publishers to satisfy, target audiences to meet - in the end it comes down to simple economics.

There are two things that need to happen:

1) You can speak to developers and try to educate them about what kind of content you'd like to see in games for women. Your critical tone doesn't help much, and more constructive suggestions (than criticism) would be helpful.... Okay, we know what you do *not* like, now tell us what you like?

2) Women need to start playing games more so that it is economically viable to add content geared towards them. Some games like MMORPGs and Sims are reaching 25%-40% female populations now, and you'll notice that they're designing them a lot more content in mind for women.

Why do females not play computer games as much as men? Is it because of the male-oriented content or is it because women are more social creatures and games simply don't have same fascination as to males? Women do seem to be drawn towards social/interactives games like the Sims/MMORPGs while other games don't seem to interest them much.

I would like to say that I find it a strange practice to assemble an article that cites only one side of any arguement. True you mention DAoC, and Arcanum but really that's it. It's also important to cite what platforms these games are on and the kind of age brakets that follow those platforms. I also think it was a mistake to not cite games like Metroid that have been around for practicly two decades and that helped establish the gamming industry.
As for Baulder's Gate...this bothered me. game play aside, it's a game using fantasy and historical stereotypes to convay a story. Look to Cantaberry (sp) tales and you'll see the bar maid you hate so much. It's just a throw back to a time when Bar maids were comical and sexual symbols. To say that it's simply an immature and ill thought of choice by programmers sounds ignorant.
I think the article is fairly well put together but in any debate there needs to be a counter point and in an essay that covers such a massive area, perhaps you might fine tune and narrow down what it is you are trying to say. As is there are just too many loose ends and exceptions to what it is you are trying to say.

In reading that article, I couldn't help to feel a bit slighted. How come whenever someone wants to shout about how women are treated in video games do they always feel the need to throw in Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider as their primary representations. Why not Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, Syberia, or The Longest Journey where women play the lead roles? Why bring up the "male colors and fat game pads" of the XBox without mentioning the smaller controllers and gender-neutral colors of the GameCube? Why mention a phallic joystick when joysticks haven't been used primarily in game systems since the Nintendo Entertainment System in the eighties?

One last point, about Grand Theft Auto... you said "Or what if a kid identified too strongly with the protagonist in GTA3?" How is that the fault of the game designer? Really? If a parent lets his/her kid get a game that is clearly marked for ADULTS ONLY, it is NOT NOT NOT the game designer's fault. Its time for parents to stop blaming "the industry" on their carelessness.

Boy looking at this again, there are a lot of people falling into the logic trap being presented.

The article is off base from the get go. The issue isn't a male versus female one either, though the original author and several supporters attempt to make it one. Simply looking at the article in a fair light, it has no academic basis. The complete one-sidedness of the evidence presented combined with the lack of understanding of what was presented make that clear. If you doubt me just open a notepad file and go through these comments and jot down all the numerous names being raised as characters who break this paradigm she's attempting to place the gaming industry in. Then glance at the dates of creation for some of them. You'll notice some are nearly twenty years old. Others are as new as having just been released this year. If you look over the fanservice portion of the industry you'll find it's existed just as long.

Now, the existence of both of these over that time period totally invalidates the article's first two premises:
1)Video games are pitched solely to males.
2)The design of both hardware and software in games is clearly male biased.

The first one is irrelevant to the later arguments and just taken as an assumption. Most games are pitched to males because more males buy games. I get around thirty-fourty a year. How many females would I have to find to find someone who also fits that description. At the same time, just because the market has a male majority, does not mean anything regarding the portrayal of girls in video games. It's irrelevant to it. Some programmers/artists/writers/designers create stereotypical blah characters. Some don't. This has always been the case. This always will be the case. The presence of females in the industry will, and has had, zero effect on that fact. The percentage of females buying games increasing only increases the number of games designed to try and service to both gender roles or the female gender role. It hasn't 'increased' the number of games that ignore 'service' and genuinely create deep characters. Those actually have been shrinking of late I think, percentage wise. Though, I can't produce figures to back that, only observation.

The second premise is also flawed. Joysticks are efficient. Not phalliac(sp) or any other freudian description. Controllers are designed to be useful for playing games. I could point you to some really odd controller designs, specific to one game or another, that don't have any and in fact resemble a miniture airplane control panel. The x-box controller design was horrible. I say this as a male. It's irrelevant that it's too large for your hands or for my hands. It's simply poorly designed. It doesn't make it gender-biased, it makes it bad to use for almost everyone.

Stretching off these sort of assumptions, the author starts flinging out evidence to back her conclusion that the game industry is obviously against girl gamers. She does this by taking a few lowest common denominator games and utilizing them as an example of how the industry perverts females. A few examples does not a case make. The logic behind the rhetoric is flawed from the earlier assumptions and just extends to at least her first three aspects of 'genderspace'.

As a brief interlude, I have to say, I found those tomb raider reviews to be particularly amusing. I wonder if anyone else looked closely at them. Not only do they all come from the same source apparently. But they are all written in the exact same style. If you look at numbers 1 and 3, they are exactly identical excerpts excepting one set of adjectives. Just one. One would almost think these were plagiarized...or manufactured. Now we know you wouldn't conceivable do this. After all, it would ruin your credibility. THerefore, there must be two separate professional reviewers on Gamers.com that wrote virtually the exact same wording. After all, even you wouldn't be gutsy enough to take a single cut and paste article and use it for all your review examples! This I find particularly amusing for something that was lectured at a college level. So, being an interested sort, I wandered over to that page to gawk at these reviews that are so exactly similar. As those two indicated the specific game, I figured I'd have no problem finding an official review from that site with either one or both of those quotes in it. It also helps that "lolita" is a rare term found in writing, one that I've specifically never seen in any game review or preview ever written. Searching the site description of the game, I don't find either of those statements made. Checking the previews, same thing. No usage of the quotes at all or even the word "lolita". Notably, no user review would ever use that or be quoted in any source that wanted to be taken seriously. Even so, looking through the first ten user reviews, I ascertained that not only were the quotes not taken from there, but those aspects weren't even noticed by the users. Moving on to the official linked editorial reviews by different official sites, I glance over the quotes presented there. No appearance of "lolita", "breasts", etc. Isn't this odd. Well, just for effort, I'll check the first ten reviews out. See if they actually exist. After all, odds point to me hitting it if I view the top ten reviews and it exists. First link, doesn't exist. First two don't work at all actually. Must've been some of the even older reviews. The third is one that acknowledges openly that this obviously a sexually charged pinup game. Quote doesn't exist in it though and wonder of wonders it's "womangamers.com" that says it. Foruth link doesn't work. I'm thinking this site is obviously an excellent resource for good data now. Fifth doesn't work. Neither does the sixth. Or the seventh. Did you really use this site for research for this? When? A year or two ago? I'd be ashamed to publish an article in which my source was this bad. Okay, this is obviously ridiculous. There couldn't be that many articles with that tag at this barely functioning site. Off to google I go. No wonder I wasn't finding it. Apparently they must have fired the guy who did the first two reviews (not reviews but simply part of their description of the game done by the same person apparently) as the PC news and reviews are of an entirely different tone. I congratulate you for finding one reviewer who was not even creative enough to use different terminology in his two published 'descriptions' of the game to base your argument on. You think you could, I don't know, use a few sources instead of just one guy? Perhaps not play cut and paste with a single biased article? *Shakes head* Any case you make is now not only flawed on the logic, rhetoric, and usage of freudian philosophy by attributing traits to something that are entirely irrelevant (joysticks), but also on the fact you clearly didn't even use a variety of 'official' sources to provide your evidence. What? Was it too hard to open a few gaming magazines from back then and use those? You couldn't get as much of a sexual bias off having more than one source for it all?

anyhow, with the author's credibility noted for what it is...

The fourth is an interesting one, though not for the reasons she put forth in her article. What does it effectively boil down to? In a social environment female characters will be treated in the way that specific society deems fit? That in certain net societies there is machoism, chauvinism, etc. That in others there is an emphasis on chivilary? On others, sex is neither important nor a part of the society? Oh, wow. Certain societies have certain prejudices against females. How would we ever have figured that out in your article. Here's the point you don't make:
While the programmers can attempt to push towards a given societal makeup, what that will be is decided by the players. If the vast majority of players is little kids still going through the girls are icky stage (everquest?) or high schoolers with little social skills... it naturally will have those traits represented in the society.

That is reality. Look for a type of society you want when playing online multiplayer games and MMORPGs in general. I myself prefer small respectful communities, and, wonder of wonders, those are the types I choose to spend my time participating in.

So, besides demonstrating your poor use of evidence, bad grasp of gaming trends, lack of ability to even provide more than one review source, constant freudian logic applications, and bashing Tolkien for his interpretation of a troll over fifty years ago....

Did you have anything worthwhile to say in your lecture?

How come whenever someone wants to shout about how women are treated in video games do they always feel the need to throw in Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider as their primary representations. Why not Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, Syberia, or The Longest Journey where women play the lead roles? Why bring up the "male colors and fat game pads" of the XBox without mentioning the smaller controllers and gender-neutral colors of the GameCube? Why mention a phallic joystick when joysticks haven't been used primarily in game systems since the Nintendo Entertainment System in the eighties?

One last point, about Grand Theft Auto... you said "Or what if a kid identified too strongly with the protagonist in GTA3?" How is that the fault of the game designer? Really? If a parent lets his/her kid get a game that is clearly marked for ADULTS ONLY, it is NOT NOT NOT the game designer's fault. Its time for parents to stop blaming "the industry" on their carelessness.

Girls don't buy games so developers shouldn't target them? How about girls don't buy games because they feel alienated by the gender representations in the games? I know lots of girls who loved Alice, for example, and other games where female characters are given a chance, but refuse to play other games. There is a huge market share waiting for developers who are willing to take a risk and start develop more girl-friendly games.

Good article. Nice to hear someone else taking up this topic! Some quick comments for the readers:

1. It's not the developers that are the problem. It's the publishers. There are many many developers that have tried again and again to present gender-inclusive designs to publishers, only to have them turned down in favor of another DOAXVB... again. So, place the blame for the continuation of the typcial titles where it belongs; on the publishers.

2. The answer to why we need games that appeal to females is much more mercenary than "girls want games too!!" The fact is, there are only so many males ages 13-25 in this country at any given time. The games industry is growing FASTER than that population is. We are already beginning to see signs of saturation of the market. Therefore the industry MUST seek out new markets if it wants to continue to be successful. Otherwise, it will strangle itself and die.

3. The reason many women are uncomfortable with the majority of female characters is the characters are hyper-sexualized. That is to mean they exhibit exaggerated signs of youth - overly large, high breasts, tiny waists, overly full round rumps. They also exhibit exaggerted signals of sexual receptivity - heavy lidded eyes, erect nipples, slightly-parted bright red lips. Plus they are often dressed to emphasize these traits.

Male characters, on the other hand may present exaggerated signs of virility and youth; overly big muscles, tiny waists and hips, etc., but they are NOT hyper-sexualized.

They DO NOT present any of the signals of sexual receptivity such as erect nipples, heavy lidded eyes, slightly-parted red lips, or a large erect phallus. And they are certainly not dressed to exhibit any of these traits either.

4. Yes, it would be better if we had more women making games. But if there aren't games women are comfortable playing, then women won't play games. If they won't play games, then they aren't going to consider entering the industry. If they aren't in the industry, then there won't be as many games that women are comfortable playing...and around we go.

It's a "chicken and the egg" problem that the Women in Game Development committee of the IGDA has been struggling with for several years now. We don't have a solution yet, but we are currently working on several initiatives we hope will begin to help address this issue.

Thanx again for a great article!

Good article. Nice to hear someone else taking up this topic! Some quick comments for the readers:

1. It's not the developers that are the problem. It's the publishers. There are many many developers that have tried again and again to present gender-inclusive designs to publishers, only to have them turned down in favor of another DOAXVB... again. So, place the blame for the continuation of the typcial titles where it belongs; on the publishers.

2. The answer to why we need games that appeal to females is much more mercenary than "girls want games too!!" The fact is, there are only so many males ages 13-25 in this country at any given time. The games industry is growing FASTER than that population is. We are already beginning to see signs of saturation of the market. Therefore the industry MUST seek out new markets if it wants to continue to be successful. Otherwise, it will strangle itself and die.

3. The reason many women are uncomfortable with the majority of female characters is the characters are hyper-sexualized. That is to mean they exhibit exaggerated signs of youth - overly large, high breasts, tiny waists, overly full round rumps. They also exhibit exaggerted signals of sexual receptivity - heavy lidded eyes, erect nipples, slightly-parted bright red lips. Plus they are often dressed to emphasize these traits.

Male characters, on the other hand may present exaggerated signs of virility and youth; overly big muscles, tiny waists and hips, etc., but they are NOT hyper-sexualized.

They DO NOT present any of the signals of sexual receptivity such as erect nipples, heavy lidded eyes, slightly-parted red lips, or a large erect phallus. And they are certainly not dressed to exhibit any of these traits either.

4. Yes, it would be better if we had more women making games. But if there aren't games women are comfortable playing, then women won't play games. If they won't play games, then they aren't going to consider entering the industry. If they aren't in the industry, then there won't be as many games that women are comfortable playing...and around we go.

It's a "chicken and the egg" problem that the Women in Game Development committee of the IGDA has been struggling with for several years now. We don't have a solution yet, but we are currently working on several initiatives we hope will begin to help address this issue.

Thanx again for a great article!

Real nice article Jane. You, and people like you, will change this industry for the better.

This article was an interesting read. :) Very well thought out. Thank you! Many of the things you've said here are things that my husband and I have commented on many times. I have been an avid online gamer since 1991 - Text MUDs, and eventually other games like EQ, DAoC and so on. I also play a wide variety of PC and console games as well.

I think if there was more female influence in the gaming industry, it would help quite a bit. (and no, i don't mean "fluffy" influence. I mean women who are taken as seriously as their male counterparts when it comes to coding ability, design, art, etc.) However, that's a ceiling that is consistantly difficult to break through in such a male-dominated profession, and for those that do, the pressures must be immense.

This article was spot-on! Thanks!

The funniest thing about the "Women are not the market!" argument is the assumption that a videogame that does not alienate female players will automatically turn off male players.

This completely ignores the fact that good games appeal to all genders.

And that games that are otherwise quite good, but throw in poor female character design through laziness or a belief that only highly-sexualized females will motivate shallow gamers (who don't care about quality, really) to buy, are simply chosing one demographic over another. Are there more (a) female gamers of all ages or (b) 13-17 yo male gamers?

I know the gut reaction is "that's easy -- there are only 3 female gamers in the world!" Which is bull$h1t.

In my circle of female friends, our favorite games are the two person fighters and first person shooters. Some of us like playing DOA:XBV for the graphics and the shopping -- to an extent, it's like playing Barbies when we were kids. I've dabbled in the Sims, command and conquer, age of empires, some RPGs...

Humans like to play. It's time for the game industry to accept it and move on.

OK, so the Xbox controllers were too small for all you midgets out there.

But could we please get Sony to come out with PS2 controllers that aren't so small that it hurts my hands to play games?

My wife and I often play Ghost Recon head to head. neither of us realize whether our character is male or female until we hear the voice barking out commands. We both have plenty of bloodlust.

Since software exists to sell the hardware (video cards, high-end rigs, game consoles), if women showed they would buy the hardware, the software would magically appear.

"A great example of failure in the marketing environment around a character occured for me during the promotion and release of the early Tomb Raider series - games which should have been breakthrough girl games."

This statement is laughable. The marketing around Tomb Raider was brilliant. Millions of dollars are the proof.

Z

I hate to admin it, but when a game company thinks of a game that stars beautiful women they're banking on hopes of a high return. They know the demographic is predominately men and they know it's a mid-teen to late 20 range. So they sell what they can get the customer's attention the best, sex.

What you're asking for is actual reseach and real input and thought process in a game's storyline and character and personality. All of which costs money and time. Most companies don't have the luxury of doing that, and if they did, it'd be for their front-line launch title.

I whole-heartily agree that some of the games I've seen are a bit rediculous, and it would be a nice change to put characters, regardless of their gender to be much more interesting.

If you feel really driven by this, to create a real female character driven game with a much better personality and body design. Go ahead and write up a detailed proposal, send it in to a company that's most probable to listen. Hell, writing a full detailed report is a lot of work. And it's probably done by a couple of hormone-driven guys at these companies.

A few comments.

First, the Baldur's Gate thing. If you take a look at the pseudo-medieval history that seems to be prolific in the Forgotten Realms (where BG takes place), the barmaids _would_ be that way. Not to mention that Forgotten Realms is High Fantasy, not Fantasy Horror, therefore meaning that you should be expecting lots of fighting against overwhelming odds etc, instead of expecting a dark, moody game.

Second, Tomb Raider. I don't remember Eidos' official position on that one. I _do_ however remember reading a pile of reviews. Some for primarily male-oriented audiences, some for gender-neutral audiences. If you look at the quotes pulled from the article, it appears that the game site they're pulled from is a primarily male-oriented site. Compare that to the PCGamer reviews, which, although I don't have on me right now, were perfectly gender neutral, examining the gameplay and storyline mostly.

Then, joysticks as phallic symbols. I think you lost me there. What's the best way to get every nuance for control? Yes, by grasping something. Given the shape of our hand, what shape would you grasp? Thought so.

Oh yeah, the Tolkien thing. This is dealt with pretty thouroughly ... read the Hobbit. The trolls are _not_ gender nutral ... not with names like "Bill" and so on. The female dwarves were dealt with in an app'x, which they turned into a bit of dialog for tTT movie. The next thing is that it's a story of isolation. One of the easiest ways to isolate someone out of society is to take away the things that make it worth identifying with - often the other gender plays a part in that (this is not a very good paraphrase of something from the Fellowship DVD feature set).

Lastly, I don't know how many female character designers there are out there, but, given the fact that guys often can't understand girls (at least, we think we don't, whether or not we do), it would help for having more unique female characters if they were designed by females in the first place.

That's the criticism I have - it was fairly well thought out and well written, but the points I outlined above seemed to me to be rather silly and detracting from the article as a whole. If you could find some points from the PCG article that showed how they _could_ have marketed Tomb Raider properly, get rid of that joystick thing, get rid of the Tolkien criticism that comes out of the blue and is just wrong, and possibly alter the thing about the Baldur's Gate criticism - it felt natural given what I know about that world for the barmaid to be like that. I know you felt it detracted from the game, but I felt that calling it "soft-core porn" is just unnecessary sensationalism.

All in all, it was worth reading, and is worth thinking about.

MIKE

Maybe a game research institute, a place funded by the game companies to help develop a better sense of what non-gamers want. Think of it as investment in growing the market for games. I think Jane's piece touches on that - ways that game research would pull in people who are turned off by some game content. Content in popular games.

Either way, Jane has obviously fueled some debate and some thought here, like she's running her own game research institute! Thanks one and all for joining in.

Interesting reading the different opinions and attitudes. In one online sim I play a male clergy healer .. who comes from a very martial race, so he's always fighting his own "instincts" and trying not to kill folks.

His flame is a big rough tough female fighter (who scares him a little despite his size), who won't give him the time of day.

And there's a female gladiator that hardly anyone notices is a female at all, because she's big and bad and stolid.

Another character of mine in the same game is a short fat bald joker, trying to learn to be a knife fighter. Highly unlikely, but he gets a lot of sympathy and support.

One of the other characters in the game that appeared for a while was a runaway female slave looking for a job as a servant.

Point being? It's all text, so everything's in your head. And that means role playing. You play who you want to be, and your physical description is fairly unimportant.

Too bad the images detract from that in the 3D games.

The few 3D games I've tried that let you build your own character's physical attributes all gave a pretty wide range of attributes, male or female. That's the way things should go, IMHO. Let the player be what he wants to be. And if he's playing against AI or drones, let him build them the way he wants them. "He" being the generic "that person" expression, of course [disclaimer to reduce sexist flame wars].

Toad

After reading your article I have one thing to say... get over yourself.

Images of sexy women are used to sell magazines, romance novels, perfume, clothes, dolls, shoes, purses as well as cars, beer, tools, etc. But since its "gaming" it must be a "boys" thing for you and somehow it is "wrong" and "immature".

Using sexy women to sell things has been around since the dawn of marketing... grow up and get used to it.

Why do you say "late" Anita Borg? From your own link she seems alive and well...

I think Lunkwill_Fook is missing the point - game makers and marketers are losing out on expanding their market by including women in their designs and marketing campaigns.

I think people need to remember few things here. Yes, there are a lot of very shallow, over the top female characters in video games. There are at least as many shallow over the top male characters in video games. Duke Nukem, any barbarian, or fighter in a fantasy game, or any male character in a fighting game. Its no more likely that through any amount of exercise that I will look like some hulking bundle of muscle than any female will ever look like one of the girls out of DOA3. The simple fact of the matter is that video games in general tend to have very, very poor characterization at best. With few exceptions, any writer worth their salt isn't writing plots for a game, if they can get a book or screenplay signed off. Furthermore, a game story is that much harder to write because it must be interactive, which means that the writers have to be even more creative in creating a character and story that the player can connect with, than in a movie or book, where the writer has full control over the viewer/reader's experience.

That being said, I think there is a slow trend towards more realistic depiction of characters in video games. Granted that you're still more likely to see a more realistic male character than female, but I think that the days of the barbie doll characters are numbered, outside of games which have little selling point outside of sex appeal (DOAXVB).

I appreciate the appeal to create more realistic, strong female characters, but I would say that first, look around at games today and ask yourself how realistic a female character would be in place of a male lead in most video games today. Lara Croft with smaller breasts is still... an 'archeologist' running around abondoned ruins shooting at everything... with smaller breasts. Game design is still evolving to the point where character interactions are deeper than killing each other, giving the game object to the character, or choosing the proper option off of a list of responses to that character. Females involved in game design will help. Better writers, male or female will help as well. A point where graphics are all 'good enough' and more time is spent on gameplay, than is spent on technical achievements will help too.

Unfortunately, this does nothing to fix the game players themselves. No matter how realistically proportioned the game characters are, if multiplayer games are the future, game players are still going to make gender-bias even more evident, rather than less, if user comments about MMORPG's give any indication. Perhaps when we see such games with a variety of users beyond a majority of socially inept males, it will get better, but I doubt it.

This article is great. I am a girl gamer who plays a multitude of games. Right now my favourite is Heroes of Might and Magic III. It has a great campaign called Battle of the Sexes. Its hilarious.
Those males who are going to make stupid comments about barbie dolls need to sit and think about what they're saying.
To the idiot who said Haruka has no personality, maybe you should watch Sailor Moon. She has alot of personalities. My favourite part is when she and Michiru pretend to ally themselves with Galaxia, than HAruka tries to take Galaxia's starseed in Eien Densetsu
Overall this article makes a ton of sense. Lara Croft is a terrible game. It sucks, but not because of the breast smut in it. However, the xbox controllers are not too big. I have very small hands, and my boyfriend has very large hands, and both of us are comfortable with the large original controller. I use a joystick when playing Dreamcast and ps2 fighting games, because my hand cramps from the size and design of the controller.
Overall I want to see better games. I don't mind playing a male if its a fun well designed game. If there's going to be sexuality it should have a meaning. I would also like to see more girl's games dubbed in America from Japan.
Speaking of girl's games, you should try N.U.D.E for Xbox, or Chobits for PS2 if they come out in the U.S. They are both about teaching a female robot how to be more human. Neither of them have huge bouncing tits. It would look stupid on Chii especially.
Sayonara
Asellus

Women's fashion magazines are far more sexist than even the most sexist computer games.

Try finding a single issue of Cosmo, Vogue, Seventeen, YM, etc., that DOESN'T feature picures of impossibly beautiful women that are hardly wearing anything, illustrating articles that talk about how to seduce and sexually please men.

Western society is hypersexualized. Magazines, movies, TV shows, music videos, and yes, even computer games, are hypersexualized. We all lust after beautiful people, especially when depicted in sexually arousing and sexually aroused states. This is the culture of the land, this is what we demand, this is what brings in the dollars. Men and women alike desire and consume hypersexualized entertainment. That's why it's produced in the first place.

Jane, you are a hypocrite. Stop going to the movies, buying DVDs, watching TV, paying for magazines, and otherwise funding media that leverages beautiful people, before you even start worrying about sexual imagery in computer games.

Reading over the responses here, I have noticed some people mentioning strong female roles in games. I'd just like to mention the Fallout Series of RPG's for the PC as an RPG where you can create various strong(or geeky) chars of either sex, with complete control of their abilities and skills. It was made by the same individuals who made Arcanum, which shares many of the same characteristics as the Fallouts. Perhaps these games would help with the gamer who was describing their wish for a less gender-specific option in their games, as there are no specific "roles" set for the characters, you are free to make you're own.

What is the point of the article? Have you seen anything in the media these days, tv, movies, commercials, or magazines where there are NOT "perfect" looking women or men? Games are a form of media, and media uses societies standard of what is a good body. Women just seem to be more offended at the fact that the popular look for them is busty and thin. Most men don't comment how their favorate hero has rippling arms and torso, and have a phyisque that is impossable to obtain. Men are portrained in an equal steriotype to women, I dont see the sexism case you are making.

Your evidence used to support some of your theoeries is also weak. I do not know how you played daoc at all. Your one experience does nothing to back up your claim about men not wanting to follow a female avatar. Firstly, we do not know who was in your group, where you were, and what you were doing. While maybe you thought the best spot to camp in the barrows was in the barb room, maybe the rest of the people wanted to go up to the echos. Maybe as a female character you were in an area you were not familiar with, or were with a group of people who knew eachother outside the group. In that situation I doubt they would listen to you. Each thing is case by case, and esp the leader of a group in an mmog. There is no offical one, its whoever is the one who feels like telling the group what to do and how they present those demands.

The baldurs gate example is rediculous. That game is full of cliches. The busty tavern wench is one. How come you didnt roll your eyes at the fact that you were going into the basement to slay rats? How many rpg games have you played where you had to go into the basment or an attic, to kill rats?

And also, the fact that you mention Tolkien as an example, is ludacris. That is a FANTSAY, read FANTASY world. A world that does not exist. Why do we have to look for parralles in our world with a fantsy work, which is in fact an escape from it?

Continuing my rambling, laura croft. Why was she marketed that way, sexy with big breasts, when that has absolutly NOTHING to do with the game? Well, why dont you ask yourself why you used her as a central theme in your argument? Contraversy. Tomb raider was a fantastic breakthrough game, inventing a whole new genere for the computer gaming field. But would it have been as popular if they made Laura into just another badass female? Probably not. I mean , did Samus from the original NES metriod become as popular as laura? I think that was one of the biggest shocks around when you beat the game and started it again and discovered she had her helmet off and... IT WAS A GIRL!!! Big boobs, a hard hitting attitude, contraversy, and a fantastic game, are what made laura into the girl she is today.

I appologize for rambling. I think my point I am trying to make is that, all heros and adventures are built as attractive people. In men's case they have a good physique and are decked out in sparkling armor, undenyably male. Women are the same, slender, busty, and clothing used to accentuate that. This is what our society pictures as a hero, and that is how game artists will reflect them as.

I also find it appalling you would not play tomb raider because of the marketing campaign, or that other reader who commented she stopped playind diablo because there were succubuses in it. (sorry for mauling the spelling on them). They are supposed to be a demonic sex object, how else are you supposed to make one? Should I have quit playing because the demons were portrayed as strong killing machiens? I hate how they have to degrade demons like that, its really offensive? Comments like that really let me know how much of a gamer you aren't. Gameplay > all in the true gamers mind.

Quick comment on another comment:

"Oh, and one last comment..I find it highly amusing how all the videogames seemingly have the perfect bodies, the perfect breasts, the perfect abs..when they're appealing these games to people that would explode or burn to a crisp if they actually went outside once a year. Or they would just merely blind a few innocent bystanders from their..whiteness."

Thank you for being a hypocrite, stereotyping me while denouncing video game characters for following a stereotype. Very nice.

Again, ask me why your opinion should matter to the developers of games that I love, when you sit there and call us all social outcats for doing the things we like. Why don't you buzz off and go watch tv, or even better, play popular with your fake friends, smoke some weed, get drunk, get pregnant, or whatever other meaningless activity you do that makes you better then me. Stay out of my world, you dont belong here.

My favourite thing about this article is the idea of 'gender space'. The idea that a girl will only identify with a girl character is silly and old fashioned. And this article gets past that false binary in a very productive way. There are many qualities to our stereotype of 'maleness' that can appeal to anyone, and should be available to everyone. Independence, vitality, strength, leadership, courage, physical prowess. Yes girl characters can be these things, but girl players can also identify with these things in male characters. That's the beauty of it all. My concern with the game world is not so much the steroe-typical characterisation, but continual re-iteration of the supposed 'fact' that girls don't play. WRONG. we play. and we love it. bring it on.

Hey, you dumb slut. You completely left out SAMUS ARAN, from METROID. How can you put Nintendo's GameBOY in the upper left-hand corner of your webpage, but leave out one of it's most important characters!? ARGH!!!!!!

Let me guess -- it's because you're a dumb slut that was trying to make a stupid (wrong) point about girls in video games, and Samus just didn't fit in.

This just goes to show that females should be SEEN and not HEARD.

I agree completely. Your detractors have obviously not even tried to understand the article. And for everyone who dissed the joystick comment, I'm sorry, it's a fact. A lot of things are phallic. My Psych 101 class taught me that. Most weapons are too if you think about it. It's just a symptom of the mindset that the videogame industry is in.

Having slightly more realistic depictions of women in games is not going to destroy the little gamer world you boys have created. Lay off. And this may destroy any cred I have, but yay for FFX-2. A dress-up battle system, a story(sort of), ass-kicking and karoke. It's a total girl game and I know loads of boys will buy it.

Fine commentary.

Joanna Dark in Perfect Dark is a woman character with a non-sexist personality/background (though they couldn't help inflating her breasts in the marketing collateral). And Meryl Silverburgh in Metal Gear Solid is a very interesting character, growing up in a military background and wanting to prove herself as a killing soldier, yet questioning the lifestyle. I would love to have played through the game as her.

At first I thought that this was one worst articles I have ever read in my entire life. Then I read over Dracos's reply. Jesus Christ. I've never seen anybody drone on this much in my life. Well, maybe not *never* but recently anyways. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate anybody coming in and pulling the ol' "I'm smarter and I'm here to tear your argument to shreds" routine as much as the next guy, but man... My eyes just glazed over and then melted from the sheer force of boringness emanating from my monitor when your comment was on the screen. I'd like to respectfully point you in the direction of the book 'The Elements of Style' from William Strunk Jr. Specifically, you ought to direct your attention to the 'omit needless words' section. While I know this is just a forum, since you decided to talk in middle school essay instead of conversation, it's an apt suggestion given what you're shooting for.

On to business. The article itself is ridiculous. Without rereading it and scrutinizing the details for errors, I think the main problems lie in three areas. First, there's the mistaken assumption that the video game industry owes you games that you feel like playing. No. The game industry actually owes you shit. It was started by people who made games that they feel like playing. Nobody whines at Lil Kim for failing to provide them with enough death metal. People either accept what entertainment is there, or they see a need and step forward to fill it. Or I guess there's the third option of whining at people to do it for you. Drop out of psychology or political science or whatever the fuck it is girls take when they're busy never taking computer science, and major in computer science. Throw in some 3d modelling and make a game about your girl character who saves the world without a man's help and without Duke Nukem being interested in holding her breasts and also befriends a puppy and an orphan on the way. If it does well, great. If not, well then the market decided what it likes. Me, I'd say it already did. You don't get to tell game companies how they should make (lose) money and you don't get to tell them to make you their target audience.

Then there's this whole associating yourself with a game character business. It never ceases to amaze me how many girls get jealous and whiney about fictional tv and game characters. Crap like, "They should include real sized women, not just skinny ones with big tits." Shit like this is why girls don't get as much input as to what goes into games. There's no little fat boy going around like "That Duke Nukem is so unrealistic with his huge muscles and money squandering ways. I wish he was more like me, fat and plain, so I could identify with him. A game where you sit around all day and then throw money at the ice cream man instead of strippers would be much more fun." More like he just blows the shit out of some monsters. Who wants to pretend they're some normal guy? You can do that in real life. No one wants to pretend to do shit that they can just go ahead and do for real except for girls. Thats why girls play with dollhouses and the Sims. And before you start in with that horseshit about society conditioning girls to play with girly things, researchers used advanced science and monkeys and already proved that genders lean a certain direction in their playtime activities. When a boy plays a game, he doesn't pick E. Honda because he identifies with him as a fattie. He picks E. Honda because a hundred hand slap will tear a motherfucker up.

Also, I'm tired of all these (small and weak) girls whining about the lack of strong female characters in games. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this is just a reflection of the lack of strong girls period. I know you or someone you know is a girl stronger than almost any guy you know, but I'm trying to talk about real life here. The scale of strong men to women in real life is astoundingly lopsided. I'm aware that there are a lot of weak men and a lot of strong women, but these are exceptions. It's also true to anybody who just looks around and doesn't have some distorted perception of reality that only allows them to see what they want. Moving on, I think it doesn't help that a lot of these games come from Japan. Over there it's pretty much accepted that women are weaker. If you don't believe me, go there and don't let an anime where a girl has guns trick you. So you'll have to take your issues up with the people in charge of Japanese culture. And after you finish bastardizing it with your western value oriented politically correct ideas, you have to take it up with the laws of nature because like it or not it's the fucking way it is. The amount of jars I've had to open and couches I've had to move for countless girls is enough proof for me. And don't start giving me ridiculous lies. What kind of ridiculous lies you ask? The kind about how women actually are supersmart and have a plan where they pretend to be weak and helpless to make men do their work for them. More like they just can't open the fucking jar because they have weak small feminine hands that can't hold a crappy xbox controller.

Someone earlier posted with regards to video games. I am hearing the same remarks made by male gamers over and over. That it is only entertainment, that it is meant to be fun, so please don't start analysing our world. The problem is that whether we like it or not video games do reflect things that are held dear to our culture such as sex and power, and although I myself as well as many others play videogames for fun ( although I have a few friends who work as testers) I don't think it is bad to sit and think and critically analyse what you are spending your time on. The same goes for any avenue of popular culture. Movies, the NEWS, etc. These are things that mirror back to us as a society what we hold to be important and valuable to us to the point that we will go and pay 50 bucks for a new game or 7 to watch a movie...

I have to ask Jane...why not the Sims?

Oh, and to Reapy, "Again, ask me why your opinion should matter to the developers of games that I love, when you sit there and call us all social outcats for doing the things we like."

I don't get the feeling she was calling "us" social outcasts. Get pregnant? Please refrain from idiotic ad hominem arguments...

As a girl gamer, I don't think jane was bitching. Morrowind is a pretty good game when it comes to gender. You have alot of anger Reapy, go play medieval Total war..take over the world!!!(love that game)

well off to take a test in ancient greece. :(

sorry i.m back....

reapy says:"Who wants to pretend they're some normal guy? You can do that in real life. No one wants to pretend to do shit that they can just go ahead and do for real except for girls. Thats why girls play with dollhouses and the Sims."

look when i play sims I do not IDENTIFY with my charcters, who for the most part are NYMPHOMANIACS and stupendously rich. I am not a nympho nor rich...so your argument is bunk. And sims is only fun for a while. I love GTA3 and 1942 and playing online DOD...so why am i playing these games instead of with dollhouses? i sure as hell don't "identify" with a German soldier...but it is fun.

and then he brought up Tolkien and how Tokien should be taken as Fantasy...well, sorry to burst your bubble but when writers write they do so on knowledge of the world they have and then inject some of their unique creative juices into their work...much of Tolkien's work has historical references to it but I forgot...you think classes such as political science and soc are a waste, etc etc.

besides the fact that many games USE psychology to sell their shit. It is a business true, and they ( video game companies) will do their research to make sure their product has a high selling capacity.

bleh,, why respond to you?

For those of you who forgot the existence of common sense, I'll clarify my statement. Girls in general don't prefer to play war games. Just because you and your deviant circle of friends does something doesn't mean it's the way the world generally is. Anyone who panders to your group is only filling a niche market. Face it, Soldierette of Fortune won't sell well, that is unless they make it third person and expose your character's midriff. Because then at least more than a handful of people would buy the game, even if it was for retarded reasons.

Also, I'm not that reapy guy. You gave him my quote, which I'm pretty sure he wouldn't want.

Firstly, you are a goddess, Jane. I've had the article recommended by two friends (one male, one female) and, more importantly, it made Slashdot.

Secondly, the piece is well-written and hopefully will insight someone, somewhere to get this thought through to designers. I've often noticed the large gender gap in games, especially in MMORPG's, where people just socially engineer themselves to gain appeal and notice. Being best friends with a girl-gamer has perhaps enhanced this view and it makes me want to see the gaming world stop being just a boy's world. Things like GGA.com are an excellent start for that ideal girl-Utopia where little elf boys and large ogre girls can hold hands in happiness.

Good job and keep up the excellent work.

-Acebo

Hmm I dont entirely agree with your article. Women don't always play video games that are "feminine" or that empower women. I know plenty of girls who like to play Mortal Kombat just as much as The Sims, 'cause they think its fun. I think the thing you have to remember is that there are guys who like to play Sims too. Since video games have never really been anything but a male oriented industry can you really blame them for sticking to the tried and true. For if we go on this ride why are there no black or hispanic main characters in video games, or even for that matter homosexual lead characters. What sells it what will put into a game. Still I agree that a change needs to be made as this industries gamers are on average 28 years old. Good article through and through.

Hi there. Don't want to repeat some of the good points already brought up, so I'll try to introduce a new point. (Great article, by the way.)

PC gaming has brought a new trend to the forefront of gaming: the inclusion of construction sets with the original product for customization of gameplay. The ability to create mods, in my opinion, is a great way to involve your consumer base who may not necessarily like the linear/non-linear contrived plot of the storyline introduced with the game. Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights are examples of products that include these sets.

I'm certainly not suggesting that this should take the place of introducing better methods for character creation in pre-packaged storylines, but it is a start for having gaming companies reach out to smaller or niche markets.

These type of construction sets have also spawned a huge number of gaming projects created by consumers, whether original or re-made. (Check out the numerous re-makes of the Ultima sagas in production using the Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Dungeon Siege engines at Ultima: The Reconstruction as an example.) It's great to see this kind of involvement from the masses.

Granted, these construction sets are not perfect and will improve as this interactive trend of gaming (hopefully) continues. But these toolsets are a great complement to games that consumers may feel short-changed them.

I'm not quite sure what the answer might be for console gaming. But I think that, for possibly the first time in a long time (or ever), console gaming products may want to take a page from the PC world and create something that would allow for this type of complementary gaming toolset. I think it'd be a step in the right direction.

Just my few cents worth.

I think we could say that more developers have gone beyond the sexism barrier than we give credit for at times. Of course, even extremely well-done character designs tend to have g-strings attached. (Pardon the stupid pun.) Xenosaga, my most favorite game thus far, had excellent character designs and psychological profiling to go with them. However, it also had a penchant for panty shots. The Final Fantasy series could be thought to be a little less guilty for fanservicing. (If you disregard Tifa and the girls from X-2.) In fact, they were probably the first people to make a game with well-characterized female leads. (Celes and Terra could be considered to be the leads, although FF6 could be considered to have no leads at all.)

Metroid was mentioned earlier, and is a great example. (Even though players who finished quickly could view Samus in her two-piece pilot suit.) You might think, with all these examples of really great games containing fanservice, that we'll never be rid of the concept. However, I have a few examples of completely and utterly innocent titles which are still great games. First, Parasite Eve (I'm talking about the first one. Let's ignore the second one since it sucks.) is (surprisingly) utterly bereft of fanservice. Wild Arms 3 contains a female lead with dual pistols who is extremely well-characterized.

And, finally, Valkyrie Profile. This is probably the greatest example of a feminist game out there. Its extremely innovative and intuitive combat system is easy to learn and hard to master. You play one of the three Goddesses of Destiny. She uses either a sword or a bow and is dressed in full battle regalia. And by battle regalia, I do not mean "breasts"plate and chain bikini. (Again, pardon the stupid pun.) I also do not mean "swordsman with boobs." While half of the game is purifying undead and demons in the midst of dungeon-crawling, the other half details the recruiting of human souls after witnessing the poignant moments before and during their death. Then, you have the personal story of Lenneth Valkyrie, which is actually a secret story path you have to find on your own. All in all, it's a very emotionally-charged piece of art.

Of course, I don't want to cheapen the titles above. Just because a game with a female lead has fanservice doesn't mean it's a bad character design or a bad game. It just means the developers thought it was necessary and we as gamers will never be completely free of that way of thinking. As much as developers would like to drag the female populace into the gaming world, The Sims was probably not expected to have an effect like that, and developers are afraid that any game they direct towards a female audience will alienate the male audience and totally flop. The sad thing is, that's exactly what happens. I think, though, that if something like Valkyrie Profile were to generate noticable sales (a feat that would take the combined interest of male and potential female gamers), that we would send a good message to the developing community.

While I don't see the male/female preference with regards to the X-box (I'm a girl, and I love the color scheme), I would recommend that you give the Tomb Raider series another try.

Forget the absolutely stupid merchandicing. It pisses me off, too. But it's a great action/puzzle series. I own all five, I eagerly await the next in the series, and list Lara Croft as one of my all-time favorite heroines: tough, sensual, brave, and resourceful. Commentary on the games is highly dependent on which magazine you read ... there are magazines being done by professionals, and others being done by trolls.

And BG:DA sucked. The game-play was terrible from the get go, but I couldn't get over the elf barmaid. Sad, sad, sad. When will we see male characters with a bouncing wang? Then I won't complain. ;)

Has the author considered that some males play videogames for the exact purpose of experiencing a fantasy world? The purpose of many games is NOT to present a realistic world, or portrait of appropriate gender relations/depictions. Sexism can be a fantasy, and in some ways, it is presently limited to one with the ever-popular women's movement.

I find it comforting that I can stare at a woman's breasts all I want in a game with no repurcussions, especially since if I tried that in real life, I'd probably get smacked. In certain cases though, I agree that sexism should be better advertised, so thise 'visible nipples' and such do not shock people expecting a different graphical portayal.

Also, the joystick comment was obviously made out of blind anger, and I found it ignorant.

"A great example of failure in the marketing environment around a character occured for me during the promotion and release of the early Tomb Raider series"

WHAT?!!!?!?!?

Are you out of touch with just how SUCCESSFUL that game was. It was an example of a brilliantly executed marketing environment around a character!

I'm sorry, you are flat wrong on this.

Female trolls and dwarves not in Tolkien? True. Try reading Terry Pratchett, Jane. He has some interesting stuff in there boaut women's rights. He sort of mocks fantasy (while using it) tehre are female dwarves but the humans don't notice because they all dress like the men. And then a feminist movement starts with the dwarves because (well itsn ice to be able to act like a man, but its not fun if you Have too). Also Joysticks are Not phallic. They are mock ups of plane controllers (most better joysticks are built for plane sims, you can even buy USB Cessna dashboards and things for your computer). Planes were original controlled by wires, you pulled the wires and it'd warp the wings, no fancy moving peieces, you just warped the wood. The joystick shape is the only practical way to do that. Besides, its convenient to be able to hold it even today for games, more reflexive than gamepads (like the NES controllers had). And the Xbox has rather clever buttons under its short joysticks (I love that thing's controllers).

Just so you know my quote about going away and you dont belong in my world was directed at the comment that I quoted above that, not at the author of this article.

I see what she is saying. She isn't bitching. She basically says theres no need to throw in tawdy sexual characters in a game, it detracts from it rather then improves on it.

*shrug* Why is being sexual bad? Why dos that offend you? I'm not offended at overly masculin men? If their package jiggled? I'd laugh at it. Are those overly jiggling bosems unrealistic? No. I know a few women that natrually are that large. Common? No. Perhaps it didnt need to be there. But cmon, have you never heard of the busty tavern wench in the in cliche?

If socieity built up women as brainy and intelligent, i'm sure we'd see large chested attractive women having issues with all the smart characters in game. Its in our nature to complain I guess, oh well.

In any event that doll house quote wasnt mine, but no matter.

Oh, finally, if you see a penis every time you look at a cylindrical shapped object, you really really really really need to get laid. Here's my number... :) But seriously, if you can show me a submarine or a rocket ship or a joystick shaped like a vagina that would function properly, I would really like to see it.

If it offends you so much go spend some time with a physics book, I'm sure you will find in there somewhere why they are shaped as they are. It has nothing to do with our phallic symbols, thank you very much.

I loved your points. In many aspects I think the video game industry needs to mature and move past the argument that ‘girls don’t buy games’. It’s a false, over used justification for ignoring the wants of a target audience. The number of female gamers has grown rapidly over the years, I recently read a statistic that there are more female online gamers than males (taking into account the various flash mini game websites such as Neopets and yahoo games). Also technology, and gaming has become popular and trendy. If you flip on the TV you’ll see a Honeycombs commercial with a young girl playing a GBA, and the new Ultima Online commercial shows several young and hip friends calling each other to set up a game. It’s no longer ‘geeky’ to be a tech geek.
I think the worst case of sexism I’ve seen in this industry is at an E3 with the barely dressed young women who were handing out the daily info magazine. These women weren’t associated with any booth or game, so they had nothing to sell or represent except for the trade show. Their lack of attire made it feel like you were walking into a gentlemen’s club instead of a video game show.

Dave:

Then there's this whole associating yourself with a game character business.

So you don't like to identify with game characters. Don't assume nobody else does. Oh, and don't assume *really* similar characters are necessary for you to identify with them; I have no problem identifying with JC in Deus Ex, and I'm far from being a cyborg super-soldier :-)

More characters with a bit of depth though, that's something games could do with. (All due respect to Half-Life to great gameplay and having a geek for a hero, but he was really quite one-dimensional, since you never even heard him talk...)

No one ... except for girls.

Um, even if what you say is true, that's still quite a big "except".

researchers used advanced science and monkeys

What a great juxtaposition :-)

I take it this is the same "advanced" as in the phrase "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"?

Also, I'm tired of all these (small and weak) girls whining about the lack of strong female characters in games.

::cough:: Strong can mean things other than physical strength you know. Most complaints about games not having "strong female characters" are about the tendency of female characters in the plot of games to be defenceless and generally pathetic, and need rescuing by the Uber Tough Macho Dude (tm). (See: Princess Whatshername in Super Mario, Jan Ors in Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast, and so on; contrast, um, well, all the counter-examples Jane mentioned.)

Try thinking of it as a synonym for "independent" or "strong-willed" rather than "muscular"?

Dave:

Then there's this whole associating yourself with a game character business.

So you don't like to identify with game characters. Don't assume nobody else does. Oh, and don't assume *really* similar characters are necessary for you to identify with them; I have no problem identifying with JC in Deus Ex, and I'm far from being a cyborg super-soldier :-)

More characters with a bit of depth though, that's something games could do with. (All due respect to Half-Life to great gameplay and having a geek for a hero, but he was really quite one-dimensional, since you never even heard him talk...)

No one ... except for girls.

Um, even if what you say is true, that's still quite a big "except".

researchers used advanced science and monkeys

What a great juxtaposition :-)

I take it this is the same "advanced" as in the phrase "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"?

Also, I'm tired of all these (small and weak) girls whining about the lack of strong female characters in games.

::cough:: Strong can mean things other than physical strength you know. Most complaints about games not having "strong female characters" are about the tendency of female characters in the plot of games to be defenceless and generally pathetic, and need rescuing by the Uber Tough Macho Dude (tm). (See: Princess Whatshername in Super Mario, Jan Ors in Jedi Knight and Jedi Outcast, and so on; contrast, um, well, all the counter-examples Jane mentioned.)

Try thinking of it as a synonym for "independent" or "strong-willed" rather than "muscular"?

Oops, my apologies for the double post :-/

First of all, though I certainly don't agree with everything presented within it, I'd like to congratulate you, Jane, on an intelligent piece of work that's not afraid of expressing opinions, but is nevertheless not opinionated in any significant way. This clears the way for an open-ended discussion about gender in games, and I applaud that!

I like your ideas about alternative genders or gender neutrality, because that's really what it boils down to. Who we are inside is only superficially connected to our gender. That's why it's so easy to fool people into thinking you're of the opposite sex online, I think.
But I also believe in sticking to one's beliefs, and that's why I need to comment on some things:

1) The Tomb Raider issue :)
Being a male, I must admit that yes, I did try to rotate the camera to look at Lara's breasts when I tried the first Tomb Raider, even though I actually thought she was a bit too much. But the novelty of that soon wore off, and I never bought the game. I did get Tomb Raider II, however, and that has given me one of the best game experiences I ever had. I soon forgot about the ogling part, and just enjoyed playing as a competent athletic female who could do cool stuff like handstands on high ledges, insane dives and backflips while firing two guns. Yes, laugh if you must, but that's truly what I think.

2)The DOA:XBV issue
I really enjoyed DOA3 for the Xbox, and yes, partly because it has cute girls in it, but far more importantly because it's a very smooth fighting game that's just too damn fun for its own good. When playing a game like this, I always try to imagine it stripped down to the gameplay essentials (no pun intended), and yes, even if the characters in DOA3 had been genderless crash test dummies, it would still play smoothly to me.

But when I saw XBV in the news, I was appalled. This is odd, because like damn near any guy, I like to watch naked women jumping around, because hey, we're just men, and men like women (no offence to gay people here ;)). But it just seemed inappropriate in a game that pretended to be about beach volley, but really wasn't.

And then the most surprising thing happens. I find that I may have misjudged the game, in spite of everything. When the reviews come in, it seems like male reviewers start condemning the game for being too shallow, while trying in all sorts of awkward ways to say that the DOA girls look cute in bikinis, without sounding too sexistic about it (not true for everyone, granted). But here's the interesting part. Women seem to like the game for what it is - a simple volleyball game with some fun Japanese styled character-oriented minigames, because it works in context. There's a REASON why these girls are in bikinis. They're just enjoying their vacation. That, to me, is the funniest thing in the world, and it ought to make a couple of male reviewers rethink what they've written.
People should really be more open about what they feel, and not be so condemning. It's a cliché, but true nevertheless.

3) The Baldur's Gate issue
I must admit I was surprised here. I NEVER expected to find this game under attack for being sexist. Maybe it's just me, but I just found that barkeeper somewhat cheesy and over-the-top, but true to the AD&D universe, for better or for worse. In my eyes, she's no worse than Sophitia from Soul Calibur, and just as tongue-in-cheek. That being said, buxom blondes were never my cup of tea anyway...

So what my argument really boils down to after several self-contradictions, is that male game developers should listen to what females have to say, because frankly, sometimes we don't know when we're offending them (take my defense of BG above, for instance). But we should realize that it would not be wise to change everything that people find offensive, because if that happens, the end product could turn out bland. A game that neither girls nor guys like to play is pointless.

I think that games targeting specific genders have every right to exist, but what I'd really like to see is a game that I could play with my girlfriend, and which we could both enjoy on an equal basis. And I'm not trying to say what is expected of me here, I'd just like to share my passion for games with the one I love, instead of having that very same passion alienate us!

Game developers keep saying that they're responding to market demands, but the truth is that they're missing out on many things. They really need to open their eyes. They can even make money off of it, which seems to be the be-all and end-all of their marketing strategies these days. Take the Tomb Raider ad campaign, for instance. Not a lot of brain activity went into that one. Core Design were just desperate to sell their game as quickly as possible. How different things could have looked today if they had tackled it a little differently.

Thanks for a thought-provoking article, Jane. During my rant, I actually got a little wiser, I think :)

As a girl, I really enjoy playing Neverwinter Nights. I think that Bioware and Atari have outdone themselves on this one. You can play a girl, you can choose the type of voice your girl has, you can choose between chunky body and slim body, and the slim body doesn't have huge breasts!

There are no penalties for choosing a female character. Females can do everything males can.

The only beef I had, was that at the whorehouse in the first chapter, there were 3 female 'ladies' and only one man. You *have* to go with the guy if you're going to 'score'. I personally found him quite repulsive and the girls were very pretty. Yes my character scored, but not with who I wanted her to score with.

"As a woman who plays video games, I've had to think about gender in videogames"

This is where your argument fails.

As a guy who plays videogames, I haven't had to think about gender in videogames, but I have anyway. As a gal who plays videogames, you haven't had to think about gender in videogames either.

If you want to be a friggin critic, there's an endless amount of shit you can criticize. Almost every guy in videogames is either a badass gunslinger or a sweet master swordsman. I'm not one of those, but I don't complain when a videogame lets me be one for a couple of hours. Sure I want to be as awesome as a lot of game characters, but I'm not, and I don't want the game characters I play to be me either. So what if women in videogames are portrayed as fantasized versions of real women? So are men. So is everything.

I mean, lets look at your article. You criticize Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for having a buxom barmaid. Instead of being obnoxious and blasting it for its obviously "sexist" choice of having a sexy barmaid character, how about looking at it from an in-game perspective? A barmaid like that is going to bring back customers. It makes perfect sense for her to be there. On the other hand, there are no other female characters in the game with that type of sexual appeal. Was that sexism, or in-character? You assume the former without any knowledge whatsoever of the facts.

But I mean, yeah. Your review makes it sound like she's a main character, when you talk to her maybe like 5 times total before she never appears anyway. It has no impact on the game past the first 20 minutes, so why do you start your pointless whining? You complain the Sorceress character is weak and hard to use. Really? I beat the game with her, but couldn't with either of the others. The main villain in the game is a woman, and she surely gets as much attention as the barmaid.

Here's reality:
If you want to find something to complain about, you will.

Videogames are meant to be enjoyment. Why can't you learn how to stop shrewing and just enjoy them?
(Link goes to educational website: http://www.human.toyogakuen-u.ac.jp/~acmuller/contao/laotzu.htm)

I don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been said but I wanted to bring up one point.

Why is it that the picture of Lara Croft with her breast covered by Duke Nukem's hands is "juvenile" and this picture of Janet Jackson, the picture on which that Lara Croft picture is based, is considered a picture of a woman showing power in taking charge of her sexuality? Is it only because Lara Croft is not real? Is it only because the audience for Edge magazine is mostly boys and young men where as the audience for Rolling Stone is more varied? I don't have any answer but I find the difference in perception very curious.

Greggman: That's an interesting question and I wondered that myself. I think it might have something to do with the fact that on the Janet Jackson picture, there's not much attention drawn to the guy with the hands. He's just some faceless guy with hands and it's all about Janet--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty. In the Lara Croft picture, more attention was drawn to the guy. This is a big no no in feminist sexuality empowerment circles. Especially if that guy is Duke Nukem--a guy with a history of being in games that objectify women to some extent. I guess the idea of the most popular (at least at the time) strong female game character being in to such a chauvinist was an insult to women because no real life empowered girl with any self respect would go for a guy who thinks cute girls are hot.

My personal take of the picture didn't involve thinking Lara lost the battle for female advancement by doing what she wanted with her cartoon body and letting Duke grope her. It seemed to me that the idea behind it was "Let's put *the* woman of video games with *the* man!" And then I god sidetracked on some imagination tangent about how they could breed some sort of ultimate race of uber game characters. But see, that's me. It's entirely possible that a better picture would have been Lara kicking Duke in the nuts for coming on to her, symbolizing a victory for girls in games everywhere as well as illustrating perfectly how she doesn't need a man.

Greggman: That's an interesting question and I wondered that myself. I think it might have something to do with the fact that on the Janet Jackson picture, there's not much attention drawn to the guy with the hands. He's just some faceless guy with hands and it's all about Janet--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty. In the Lara Croft picture, more attention was drawn to the guy. This is a big no no in feminist sexuality empowerment circles. Especially if that guy is Duke Nukem--a guy with a history of being in games that objectify women to some extent. I guess the idea of the most popular (at least at the time) strong female game character being in to such a chauvinist was an insult to women because no real life empowered girl with any self respect would go for a guy who thinks cute girls are hot.

My personal take of the picture didn't involve thinking Lara lost the battle for female advancement by doing what she wanted with her cartoon body and letting Duke grope her. It seemed to me that the idea behind it was "Let's put *the* woman of video games with *the* man!" And then I god sidetracked on some imagination tangent about how they could breed some sort of ultimate race of uber game characters. But see, that's me. It's entirely possible that a better picture would have been Lara kicking Duke in the nuts for coming on to her, symbolizing a victory for girls in games everywhere as well as illustrating perfectly how she doesn't need a man.

Sorry for the double post.

Why doesnt Rei just say it...

"LETS RISE UP AND KILL ALL MEN FOR THEIR SINS AGAINST GIRLS!"

Meh, i'll tell you the truth. No girl here works for the gaming companies although most probley wish they chould (like the guys).

I have a qustion... How many girl whould work for a company designing games if you had a chance?

(counts five, six, seventy hands)

Alright then why dont you do something about the fact that you think your gender gets treated unfairly?

Stop whining and write a storyline about a female hero (how about metal gear 4?) and send it in to the company, they may not hire you. But maybe the'll read it over (raiden was like a girl anyway).

What im saying is, dont complain if you dont intend on doing anything about it.

Computer games are not a hobby market, and have need been for a number of years. Computer games are companies designed to make money. The overhead required to 'make a game' and sell it, in a store, has gone beyond the ability of a single person or a small group of people to make.

As with any entity considered with fiscal survivability selling your product to the widest possible market will allow your entity to surive longer.

Translation:

Majority rules. Teenage boys play games, adult men play games. Collectively they represent the vast majority of the computer game buying market. Computer games will be designed for the mass market.

Making a game friendly to minorities costs money, because employees get paid wages, and making a game do anything involves time. Should a company make minority issues part of their design statement, more power to them, applaud them. Making a game for a strata of the computer game playing market is to accept the lost of potential money - something an investor is not going to want, and something a company cannot someone afford to do.

I use the term minority because it applies, a female computer gamer is a minoirty. Is it a gender issue? Not anymore than any issue regarding a person who enjoys playing a game that is not considered a 'money-maker'. Turn-based strategy, simulators, builders, etc. are all minority gaming groups.

Are some games blatanly sexist? You bet, the majority buys them so they keep making them until their is no demand for them. Do all men like it? No, of course not, they are a minority.

All games are not going to be made equal, fair and sensitive to all minorities and some games simply should not be. If all games are made pro-everything, we might as well get rid of any game that deals with racism, slavery, genocide, etc.

If you cannot distinguish between the shovelware of a corporate entity designed for the lowest common denominator, a genre-based game set in a previous time with purposeful bias, thought-provoking 'new idea' games, and simple boxed crap your too sensitive to be playing them.

Gender equality in computer gaming is a matter fiscal expense, if its not part of design document or a consideration. Don't forget their are probably more than a few people annoyed that almost all cover-worthy art and characters are all caucasian (Japanese titles aside) before they are male or female.

Welcome to the niche market, take a number, its a lottery. Either you win and they address your pet peeve or they don't. You want more women better represented in games? Easy, get more women to play, or fill out as many of the flyers in gaming magazines, surveys and online registrations possible.

Gordon Freeman, complete with his geek-protector HEV suit, by which all things were possible - Hero of Half-life. A bright shining star in the "I'm a geek, let's see more geeks in postive rolemodels!" lottery of niche gaming. Half-life: That had a a black solider model with a cigar and black scientist, in a sea of white people, and ninja women in tight black PVC suits who were stacked like brickyards. No amputees, native americans, or visible minorities were present, nor was there any empire-building or turn-based strategy present. A possiblity of slow or "mentally challenged" security guards is debateable. There was no mention of women issues or any appreciable content about anything other than messing up and how the Lambda team could fix everything up, where a missing coffee cup might have went, and the ocassional "Oh my god! What are you doing?!?"

I believe their may have been mention of a hiding spot, and not moving until the situation gets drastically better. But, I get lightheaded and think of huge fans, small vents and headcrabs when I do so, therefore I am not positive.

Of course, Gordom Freeman was still under the thumb of the (g)MAN, no matter what he did, always one step ahead. I do not believe the G-Man was an intentional removal or reversal of power of geek over the minorty group of 'evil suited men with suitcases and hacking coughs' however the jury is still out on that one.

Poor geek, no winning.

The liberal use of scientists jabbing wounded scientists with needles, also goes unmentioned towards its position of youth and drugs.

Whoa. Another