Genderplay: Successes and Failures in Character Designs for Videogames

(This essay is based on a talk I gave on April 15th to Katherine Isbister's CS class at Stanford. Thanks to Justin for help with constructing the argument, refining my thought, and for sharing his experiences of gaming in drag.)

As a woman who plays video games, I've had to think about gender in videogames, because it's so obvious that I'm playing in a boys' world.

The late Dr. Anita Borg taught that technology isn't neutral; tools are shaped by the values and desires of the creators. Often the creators tend to be clueless to the values encoded in their tools, because to them, the tools are transparent - they reflect pure utilitarianism. But to those who are excluded, the tools are highly charged.

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

So what are the tools of character design in videogames? Let me take you through some of the values I've noticed encoded in character designs, and how that relates to gameplay in my experience.

Alienation vs. Identification: Necessary Tension

When designing characters, it's important to keep in mind the tension between identification and alienation, because the player is both actor and spectator. This is a good tension, it drives a lot of gameplay and innovation. Without identification, you create a game which has little emotional impact, little drama. That's okay in a characterless game like Tetris, but in games with characters, the characters should probably function as vehicles for something greater. Similarily, you need to allow some players some room for a certain amount of alienation. You want to preserve player identity. How many boys would have played Tomb Raider if they really felt that they were somehow taking on a feminine role? Or what if a kid identified too strongly with the protagonist in GTA3? Maintaining distance is a way of being able to play characters who are not you, and being able to inhabit that genderspace comfortably, without the risk of a split personality.

The issue of alienation/identification intensifies, I would argue, in an online multiplayer setting, because while in a single-player game you are free to experiment with multiple characters in private, in a multiplayer environment, the way others react to you is through your avatar. Therefore some people either take great pains to distance themselves from the avatar, or conversely, create avatars with which they identify very closely. I think these behaviors lead to some very interesting gender play in online environments.

Four aspects which define "genderspace"

I'm using the somewhat clumsy term "genderspace" because "gender" connotes an either-or, black and white proposition, and I think that we often see in games a more fluid range of gender construction, within prescribed limits. The way gender is prgrammed, incorporated, and manipulated describes a "gender space" - it defines a range for gendered experiences in four ways:

1. The environment around the character outside of the game: the marketing, the merchandising, the advertising. The image of the character, and how that character is described. The iconic legacy of that character, apart from the actual character as a function of gameplay.

2. The aesthetics of the character in the game. The character's appearance, movements, actions, voice, characteristics.

3. The programmatic aspects of the character in the game. The character's choices, other character's reactions, the encoded abilities and biases.

4. Character as avatar in a multiplayer environment - a special category: how other characters played by other people react to your character, and how you choose to interact with others.

Tomb Raider: Critical Failure of Character Environment

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.

I never played this game. It looked fun, and I was excited about having a female protagonist. Outside of fighting games there hadn't been a whole lot of games starring strong women. But frankly, the way this game was marketed and talked about totally turned me off. It was immediately clear to me that I wasn't supposed to identify with her. In fact it seemed to go out of its way to assure young teenage boys that they shouldn't identify with her, they should just ogle her. It's not the fault of the packaging. Okay, so her breasts are lethal weapons, sure. But I like the cover art. It shows that she's strong, she's tough, she's an adventurer, she's solo - she doesn't need a man! She *owns* those guns, and she knows how to use them. What's not to like? But the hype surrounding Lara Croft was gross. The hype undercut her image as strong smart archeologist. The hype made her into a sex kitten. Where are her guns now? This image was the cover art of a NextGen issue on how games are growing up. I rather think it demonstrates how immature gaming culture still was then, and is now. (Link may be unsafe for work.) The reviews and previews obsessively focused on the male gaze traversing her body more than the gameplay. That turned me off immediately. She's just a toy, to be played with, manipulated in an environement, not an avatar to identify with, a personality to inhabit. The message wasn't, "Hey, girls, an empowered woman to play in a game!" but rather, "Hey, boys, check out this chick's boobs while you lead her around a dungeon!"

Quotes from four different reviews on Gamers.com: 1. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation puts you back into the Daisy Dukes of Lara Croft, archaeologist and adventurer ... Lara fans may rejoice as Last Revelation also offers ... the chance to play a Lolita version of Lara, budding breasts and all. 2. Nevertheless, the opportunity to guide the buxom, if not slightly deformed, Lara is reason enough for many to traipse through Egyptian catacombs and battle supernatural entities. 3. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation puts you back into the hip-hugging cargo shorts of Lara Croft, archaeologist and adventurer, as she takes on evil in Egypt. TLR also offers ... the chance to play a lolita version of Lara, budding breasts and all. 4. This landmark title set the realm of gaming ablaze with its stunning protagonist, the buxom Lara Croft. A marketing person's dream, Lara combines the no-nonsense spelunking fun of Indiana Jones with the brazen sensuality of a pinup queen. Gameplay consists of you leading the heroine through various tombs and catacombs in search of artifacts and treasure. Note the language of alienation - you are always leading her, guiding her, while studying her form - you are not taking on her role. Related essays: Does Lara Croft Ware Fake Polygons? by Anne-Marie Schleiner Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? by Helen W. Kennedy

I consider this the great wasted potential of Lara Croft: she could have transformed the videogame cultural landscape. Eidos, you really blew it - you alienated all the girls who would have *loved* this game.

Aesthetics of Sexy Girls: DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball vs. Baldur's Gate : Dark Alliance

Highly sexualized characters are not immediately a turnoff for females, though. It depends entirely on the context. For example, the notorious DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball rather shocked me when I heard the sounds of it at the Tokyo Game Show last year. I thought, "What the hell is this game?" I admit, it was jaw-droppingly mind-numbing to be confronted by a ten-foot image of girls feeding each other strawberries in extreme close-up. It was Maxim, magnified. (If you like, download the hypnotic movie clip of volleyball action extreme.)

But you know, it's an absolutely gorgeous game. It does a marvelous job of articulating characters. Their movements are fluid and beautiful, their voices well-acted. Each of them has a (albeit none-too-deep) personality, which comes out in their gestures - they stamp or cross their arms when they get frustrated, they jump up and down when they get excited, or laugh triumphantly in gleeful victory.

And it's totally transparent! It's a pin-up game - you can't argue with that. And as a pin-up game, it's an outstanding success. I haven't played it much yet, and I don't think it's very interesting to women, but it's an honest game and I don't feel offended by it. It's silly, it's like a beach-bunny movie, a "men's magazine". The domain is explicitly for men, and that's okay. Nothing's wrong with it, even if there's nothing compelling to a female audience, either.

By contrast, take Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. This game has an example of a hyper-sexualized non-player character which is so over the top it jarred me out of an immersive experience. It happens at the beginning of the game, which is always a critical moment for setting the mood, tone, and boundaries of the gamespace (Will Wright has said that a player can "sniff out the gamespace" of a game in the first five minutes).

The previous cutscene has been dark and forboding - you've been knocked on the head and all your posessions stolen. It's dark in the great city of Baldur's Gate. You walk into a nearby tavern, seeking shelter and help, only to be confronted by a soft-core porn extra in a nearly transparent top jiggling her boobs at you. You can see her nipples! WTF? She sidles around, swinging her hips, while she tells you anxiously about the rats in her basement - the scene is beyond ridiculous. Justin and I burst out laughing out loud, we just couldn't believe it.

"I've got rats in my basement - can you help me?"

It would be different if BG: DA had been packaged as a sexy silly game, because then I would have expected it, and enjoyed it (the artists did a great job with her jiggling boobs). But in this case the totally out-of-context, out-of-character sex-kitten image of the tavern keeper mars the beginning of the game - it's so pandering, it's so obvious, it's so immature, and above all, it's so completely unneccessary. Justin and I have often considered writing to the artists to ask them, "What were you thinking?"

Arcanum: Programmed Feminine Wiles

One of my favorite PC Role-playing games is Arcanum. What I like about it is that the gender you choose for your character affects the paths open to you as you play. When you first choose your character, choosing male adds one point to your strength and takes one point away from your constitution (the baseline is 6 points in each category). If you choose female, you get one point deducted from your strength but a one point bonus to your constitution. The biological basis of this might be questionable, but the scheme adds to the variety of character-creation.

One of the quests in the game involves gaining entrance into a gentleman's club. In this steam-punk Industrial Revolution world, attitudes are still very sexist. The doorman at the gentleman's club won't let my female elf in. But I have a special letter from the owner. At that point the unhappy doorman allows the lowly female into the club, although he cautions me to make my business quick.

I got that letter, incidentally, by sleeping with the slimy and lascivious owner of the club. I had the choice to beat him up for it, but my character was too weak to take him on, so I chose the sexual way out. Brilliant!

I like it when the game "knows" that I'm female, in deeper ways than the programmed "barks" (that is, when the soldiers at the gate shout "Get her!" or "Get him!"). The range of difference in gameplay would of course depend on the context of the game. In the Star Trek universe, for example, we are supposed to believe that the future of humankind has eliminated sexism (and racism, and all other -isms) so it would make sense for non-player characters to be fairly indifferent to your sex. But this could be contrasted with times when your character has to deal with the ultra-chauvanist Ferengi.

One word of caution: don't design characters whose attributes are tied too closely to gender. There's a danger of stereotyping, for one - why are females always archers, elves, and thieves? Part of the fun of a game, as I'll talk about in the next section, is being able to play with gender stereotypes. Give the player as much choice as you can while keeping the play balanced. When I used to play tabletop RPGs, I loved playing the huge, dumb, but beautiful, female barbarian. I wanted to be female, because I feel attached to that gender emotionally; but I love playing fighters, 'cause they get to do a lot of the most fun stuff in the early game, and it's easier if you're not very experienced. Keep in mind that the majority of women are not hardcore gamers - yet - so they might appreciate a few more heavy-hitting Sophitia of Soul Calibur types to play. Starting out as a magic-user, as the only female character in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance has you do, is very tough for beginners.

I am very curious about Deus Ex 2: Invisible War, in which you will be able to choose to play either a male or female protagonist. Team captain Harvey Smith has long been a proponent of emergent gaming, and he's a feminist besides - the game should be rather interesting from the perspective of gender programming. He's also said that the game is designed in such a way that you can, if you choose, finish it without killing a single person. In theory, violent girls and pacifist boys can both enjoy this game!

Drag in Dark Age of Camelot: Gender in Interaction

Justin and I often play this game together, and although I almost always play female characters, so does Justin. The practical matter is that people in this particular game, especially on the role-playing servers we tend to visit, are nicer to girls. They are, in general, more courteous, more helpful, more generous, and more attentive to the problems of a newbie. Everyone who plays the game knows, at a basic intellectual level, that the person controlling the avatar may be male or female; but for convenience sake, it seems, we ignore the disconnect and choose to treat other characters as they present themselves. Thus Justin has run into his share of "You are so beautiful, Milady," flirting, which he usually just roleplays through. After all, that's the fun of this sort of game.

But on top of that, Justin says he likes to explore not just the game world, but another level - the gender world. Ever the rebel, he likes to subvert norms, play against type, radicalize expectations. On Midgard, a harsh, snowy landscape where I played a Viking warrioress, Justin adventured with me as a massive troll shamaness. "You don't see female dwarves or trolls in Tolkien," he says. "All the trolls are genderless, which is to say, they are male." His character may have a hulking frame, but she has a gentle healer's disposition.

In another server on the sunny plains of Albion, Justin has an enchanting enchantress who caught the eye of a young paladin. I asked him whether he responded to the paladin's tentative flirting. "Well, sure," he said. "I would say, 'Thank you for the necklace, milord' and 'Thank you for the necklace - again, milord" because that's part of the game." And who knows? The paladin could well be the avatar of a young woman halfway across the world.

I did find one thing, though. When I led parties as a female character, I found it more uncomfortable to maintain authority. I found myself incorporating more group consensus, as well as sometimes taking a firmer hand when certain party members grew insubordinate. But my one lone male character - although he was but a slender elf - had a much easier time maintaining authority. Leadership came more naturally, people expected it, even.

I would like to see more experimentation with genderless or gender-ambivalent characters in this area. In MUDs and MOOs, one can often create a third sex and invent a pronoun and refer to oneself always with that pronoun (and insist others do that same). In these science-fiction and fantasy-themed online worlds, it's perfectly plausible that ungendered, ambiguously gendered, or bi-gendered races could exist. That would add a new dimension to gender play, one which I'd really like to explore. Some women have said that they feel uncomfortable playing as female in certain virtual worlds - I haven't personally been insulted or offended as a female avatar, but I have certainly had some unwanted attention directed my way. And yet I feel not quite right playing as a male character, either. A third gender - or a third choice, whether gendered or not - might be an alternative, a way to explore sexual anonymity. I wonder if players would feel too uncomfortable? But the domain of games is unbounded by physical realities, including biology; why not take advantage of this?

Final thoughts

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.

Something you hear over and over again in the research around what girls want out of games are themes like "open-ended" and "less-goal oriented" and "co-operative play". These are also the themes which most adult gamers seem to want, too. Talking with my friends who are game developers and designers, they don't want to see bouncy boobs, necessarily (although there's a place for that, sure); they want evolved gameplay, emergent gameplay - with great characters. Set up some rules and let the players play with both the gamespace and the genderspace, however they wish. Don't push girls away from games like Tomb Raider just because you're afraid boys won't like to identify with Lara. Don't insert gratuitous sex - or for that matter, violence. Make it *mean* something. Don't bind gender with too many built-in characteristics, but let girls be girls in your game. Allow a lot of different types of female characters, not just thin, pretty, busty ones.

The end result isn't just going to appeal to women, it'll appeal to a lot of people across the board who want smart, fun, engaging games.

Comments

[Another Mike]

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.

[pointingdevice]

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.

[Jake of 8bitjoystick.com]

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.

[Josh]

Excellent article!

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

[Isaac Larrison]

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

[Chou Oishii]

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.

[T1nman33]

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.

[Ezben]

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.

[DarkZero]

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.

[Blackdog]

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! :)

[Ian Fleming]

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.

[Cal]

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?

[manly mcman]

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

[seorin]

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.

[Sean]

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.

[Daniel]

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.

[David]

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

[DeRusto]

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.

[Josh]

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.

[Ryo]

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)

[B C]

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.

[postulio]

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

[NiteMare]

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

[C W]

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.

[Xocet]

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.