I kind of like that most men are all googly-eyed over dumb women with big breasts and 'phat' asses; that leaves all the intelligent petite women for me O:)

Seriously though - you’re right that the gaming industries have focused too much and too long on young boys with raging hormones...

Thankfully as the tools for developing quality titles become more readily available (affordable) and the ability to publish games is more accessible I think (hope) that the gaming industry will have its equivalent to indie films.

I'd be interested to learn about which publishing companies have women in the high level game design roles.

Could the lack of a strong female voice in gaming be due to the lack of women who are interested in developing games (as a career)?

It would make sense that you need women to accurately develop games designed for women - right?

Posted by: -Christopher on May 25, 2005 10:37 AM

Well, it's not like the game industry is doing a very good job of portraying men either. And as long as people measure the 'maturity' of a game by the amount of blood and nudity, I don't see this changing :/.
Some games seem to be doing a better job than most, though – the Silent Hill series in particular springs to mind.

To Christopher:
Actually, the tools for developing quality titles seem to be getting more expensive! In the old days, a single person could create a complete (commercial) game from scratch. Today you'll need a pretty big team if you want to be noticed.

There's still some hope this trend will turn, as graphics reach a point where photo-realism no longer is the ultimate goal and middleware takes over more of the grunt work. What Nintendo had to say about the Revolution at E3 was also pretty interesting and potentially promising for indie game development.

Posted by: paranoid koala on May 25, 2005 11:03 AM

I agree with paranoid koala concerning the maturity and tone of a majority of games at the moement.

What I'm curious about is the aversion reaction jane had concerning the representations of women. I understand that they are gross stereotypes . . . and this is hard to explain without sounding like an idiot.

I just know that I have no difficulty no matter what type of character I am playing -- I'm not disgusted that games are filled with musclebound ogres that lug around tons of weapons and have the personality of logs. Or stereotypical drooling, sexless geeks. Or, um, well, that's a majority of male characters.

What I want to know is: What is it about the stereotypical representations of women that specifically bothers you? That is, what stereotypes immediately turn you off of a character?

What would you consider a valid representation of a woman in a videogame?

Do you find that this bothers you in videogames mostly, and not so much other media? That is, are you averse to movies that posit women in secondary, shallow roles, or songs that objectify women? Do you think that, because of the interactivity, games have to be more aware of their portrayal of the sexes?

Would it not be so glaring if there were more of a breadth of female characters? That is, would you be less turned away by by the big-breasted sex objects if women were otherwise varied and abundant, with interesting roles?

Would you willingly accept a seeming-stereotype as a valid character if it was 1) integrated into a game in an atypical role and 2) given depth and true characterization?

Should we start protesting outside game companies, chanting "Bigger IQs and Roles, Not Bigger Breasts!" Cause, y'know, that actually sounds like fun.

Posted by: Johnny Pi on May 25, 2005 03:00 PM

No, you don't sound like an idiot at all Johnny Pi.

I'd also like to know why many women gamers get their knickers in a knot over the depiction of women in games, and not other media. Have these women not watched TV or movies?

Look at the way young girls dress - am I the only man to get an odd, sickening feeling when a 10 year old girl walks past with more cleavage than Ms Croft!? And I can tell you she ain't being driven to look like that by playing Playstation!

If you want to see bad representation of women, look at pop videos! It's far, far worse objectification of the feminine form.

Sure, game designers MAY have a role to play in helping women get better representation in games, but when there are mothers and fathers who think it's good to pay $1000s for their spoilt 14 year olds to get breast implants and tummy tucks when they're too lazy to eat the right food and excercise, I think there's only so much a 'Lisa Lionheart' of the game world will achieve.

Posted by: Funky J on May 25, 2005 11:36 PM

I don't think it's at all wrong for you to be complaining about his article, although it sounds to me like it was just the spark needed to light the dynamite of frustration inside you, Jane. But some of the comments made so far pique my interest in the subject further.

Why is it that this situation in games annoys you so much, but you do not talk about other genres? (Unless its simply because of your connection to the game industry, but still, I want to make my point! :p ) I agree with Funky J that other media are of greater influence on the women in general (due to the fact that games are not thrust into your face non-stop unlike music and, to a lesser extent, TV), and given the behaviour of most younger ladies these days I'm not so sure many of them would share your concerns.

The thing is, no game will ever appeal to everybody. And whilst it is true that sex sells, it will only sell to certain people. I think that it should be fine to have sex selling some titles to certain audiences, whilst also having games that appeal to other audiences in different ways. TV, film and music manage this - Jane can have her (random, non-stereotypical example) Star Wars, whilst (the article's) Scott can have his Busty Blondes Play Strip Poker. True, there are always a few goodie-goodies who crusade against porn videos and the like, but for most people it'd be more a case of 'out of site, out of mind'. Obviously this (and more general stuff like songs that objectify women) is less effective when such titles are broadcast on TV or radio, where you can stumble across them at any time, but it's still true that there are different titles aimed at different people, using different means.

Unfortunately, in the gaming industry, this is far from the case. It seems like most developers segment their audiences by genre alone. 'This game is for FPS fans. This one for RTS fans.' What we need is 'This game is for lusty males. This one for people who want to get away from busty women.'

And after that, it would be nice if they could segment the market up further, in other ways. Unfortunately, the current industry almost always caters only to the perceived main target audience. It's the same old complaint, I know :(

A quick comment on the 'bigger boobs' thing, though: Whilst a lot of men (young and old) enjoy having a bit of titilation in their games, we don't all want big breasts. To say that they do is yet another stereotype. Myself, I would rather have an OCCASIONAL skimpy (okay, VERY skimpy) top. An OCCASIONAL visibly erect nipple. Figures that occur regularly - and at the same kind of frequency - in real life. Hell, give me a muffin top! (Not as rude as it sounds! It's the nickname used in the UK for a girl's belly that hangs over the top of her trousers/skirt when she's wearing a top that doesn't cover her abdomen.) Emphasis here is on OCCASIONAL - when every corner leads to a busty, lusty woman, they lose their appeal. And how about a bit of sexual dialogue? One of Jane's recent posts linked to a manifesto for games, and it mentioned immersion a lot. If I'm supposed to be immersed in an atmosphere, give me some of the things I expect to hear - often that'll be inuendo. If I'm a squaddie patrolling with some of the lads in my regiment, they should talk like soldiers talk!

But above all, give me these things in the right amounts. Sometimes (i.e. Magna Cum Lauda) this will be constantly. Others (generic FPS, RPGs) this will be infrequently. Sometimes (probably a lot of the time), this should be never.

So much more I want to say, but I think this is too long already...

Posted by: Zild on May 26, 2005 04:24 AM

At least Katamari's King of All Cosmos has given gaming a male character with an exageratingly large package :-)

Posted by: kpallist on May 26, 2005 08:27 AM

Sorry, just to clarify - my main points above were that, whilst I do not think women should be objectified in all games (the occasional game aimed more clearly at adults, fine, as long as they objectify men too!) I think that it is also insulting to men to make and express the assumption that all we want is T&A - or rather, big T&A. I'm also trying to emphasise that many (I pray most) of us are perhaps happier with realistic representations of women (some fat, some thin, some pretty, some ugly, and only a small number of whom (relative to the setting) that offer anything even remotely sexual at all.

Sexy doesn't have to be T&A. It doesn't have to be romping and blowjobs. To be honest, Jane's recent post about Rez (which is when I first heard about her blog, though thankfully articles since then have proven her worth listening to) piqued my interest at least a dozen times more than Lara Croft ever managed to. Though I do hope Jane's sentiments there were genuine, not merely the result of a commercially-driven urge to sex up the blog!

Posted by: Zild on May 27, 2005 05:43 AM

Sure, there are comparably stereotyped depictions of women and men in other media, but it'd be fairly odd to read (say) a short article in Entertainment Weekly in which someone celebrated boobies in an Oscars ceremony.

I don't expect to see myself in a graphical game; almost nobody gets to. That's cool. I still find Steinberg's article irritating, though. He's entitled to his simplistic "boobs = good" stance, assuming it's his and not amplified for the sake of rhetoric. However, games and films and tv shows and other forms of entertainment media are directed at overlapping audiences. Why *is* it acceptable, then, to publish "boobs = good" (esp. coupled with the double-digit IQ bit) in a gaming mag? If anyone's seen gamer essays about how appealing intelligent chars of either sex are, give us pointers. (I figure it's implicit that some intelligent people are also physically attractive--just as some average and double-digit-IQ people are not.)

For those of you who protest that you like women other than the cartoons frequently seen in games: congratulations, you can distinguish between games and rl. I appreciate that. Not everyone can keep things distinct, though. I'm not sure Steinberg can, rhetorically speaking, if he claims not to know a single male whose "first love ran any deeper than an erect nipple on a chilly winter day"--or perhaps he's interested in trivializing men while he's at it.

Also, not all of the women who enjoy playing computer games can afford to / are interested in / have the skills and talents required to participate in game design. Dude. Not all men who play would be good at design, either, or at alpha-test feedback. Male fiction writers manage female POV, and female writers manage male POV; is it so startling to imagine that game designers could do the same?

Also, for Jane: is it specifically the mag / online zine context that causes the problem? Blogging has momentum, but I bet we wouldn't be discussing at such length Random Person's blog post about boobies.

Posted by: gthistle on May 27, 2005 02:00 PM

gimme a goddamned break. i'm so sick of having the stereotype of "what men want" shoved down my throat that i'm ready to throw down the technocolor yawn every time i even hear the word "MAXIM." the lowest-common-denominator bullshit that passes for sexual stimulation does about as much for me as Martha Stewart in a menage a trois with Larry Flynt and Ronald MacDonald. without the dick pump.

i'm tired of feeling like i have to single-handedly live down my entire gender just because of the ditto-heads who have let their sexuality become so consumerized that they actually believe and advocate for the same male-chauvanist crap that we all hate about "other" men. it's the same, puerile bile that spills out all over the show floor at E3 and it not only objectifies women, but it solidifies gaming as a man's world and those men in it as penises that have evolved the ability to talk.

i, for one, would like to be thought of as more than a giant cock and i would like to be able to talk to a woman in public without her thinking i'm only interested in her godly hallway--but i can't because of articles like Scott's and giant images of thrusting cleavage that presume to tell me what i want in a woman. fuck you games.net. way to join the rest of the think-last gaming journalism scene.

Posted by: minc on May 27, 2005 03:04 PM

Aren't there more useful things to talk about in gaming other than 't3h boobiez LOLOL'? We're on the dawn of a new generation of consoles, and the ramifications of that would make dozens of great articles to read for so many different reasons. This article doesn't make me think that highly of its author, or the site it's published at, actually. I've never even really experienced that many 'boobie' moments over at 1up, and they're really diggin' boobs over there. I don't find it demeaning or anything, just useless.

Posted by: Mametchi on May 27, 2005 05:09 PM

He might be a "happily married man (wed to a scientist, no less [sic]", but I'll bet he isn't raising two daughters like I am. While PSM magazine sinks into the abyss that is juvenile hormones, I have to be careful about leaving it around with the cover showing less I get some puzzle looks from my girls and laser beam eyes from my wife. I won't be renewing my charter subscription to it, as the graphic style is also offending with its MTV-ish splashes of color, never mind the "boobs".

Posted by: Hieronymus on June 2, 2005 06:53 AM

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Posted by: outsider on August 17, 2006 10:00 AM

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