Video Games Need A Woman's Touch 177
hattan wrote to mention an AP article going around detailing one woman's frustration with the roles for women in games. From the article: "Tara Teich enjoys nothing more than slipping into the role of a female video game character. But the 26-year-old software programmer gets annoyed by the appearance of such digital alter egos as the busty tomb raider Lara Croft or the belly-baring Wu the Lotus Blossom of 'Jade Empire.' Don't even get her started on the thong-bikini babes that the male gunmen win as prizes in 'Grand Theft Auto,' which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers. "
If you want something more feminine, make it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If you want something more feminine, make it (Score:2)
Re:If you want something more feminine, make it (Score:2)
Thank You, I am glad the first post (or at least hightest rated first post) contains a element of sanity.
As for Tara's comment about her hating Tomb Raider or GTA that great for her, but plenty of other people like the games the way they are (heck woman even, my wife likes em both). Woman are portrayed in video games like that because it sells games because people would rather see an attractive woman the
Re: (Score:2)
Typical... (Score:2)
Why does your answer remind me of those elitist uber-geek linux zealots? Anyway.
There are consultants for lots of things. Why not have female consultants on game design?
After all, the women don't have to program thousands of lines of code, they just can review the storyboard for certain scene and say: "Add this and that".
What's the matter, big boy? Afraid a woman won't like how you're dressed?
Re:Typical... (Score:2)
Duh. You missed the point. If a game company wants to make a game more palatable to women, they should hire someone who knows how; if a game company wants it more palatable to young men, they should also hire someone appropriate. Get the idea yet? Target demographic is the key.
Most game companies don't hire Muslim consultants, taxi driver consultants or redheaded consultants.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
For the same reason the men look like action heros.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a game, people. Someone's taking all this wayyy too seriously.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Er...perhaps games are more fantasy than reality. Though in some games like Star Wars Galaxies you can modify your c
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see that. Both sexes are displayed as the sexual ideal. If feminists see a female character with big boobs, a tight ass, and the perfect figure as a negative stereotype, while simultaneously seeing a male character with a muscular chest and bulging biceps as a positive stereotype, then feminists have other issues than merely image.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Women, however, still have a pretty unrealistic template to work with in most games. Even if the proportio
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Not sure about that.
1. Men are the target audience for both showgirl women and action hero men. Most (not all) men are attracted to the showgirl body, and most (not all) women don't particularly care if a guy is built like Duke Nukem.
2. Seeing an unrealistic buff action hero does not cause women to treat objects like men (to paraphrase the Dude).
I'm not being prudish here. Have your sex. Just don't ignore the ways in which the objectification of women in video games, magazines, etc. contributes to ano
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Self Esteem trumps all that. It's called SELF esteem, you have got to fight off the objectification, subjagation, humiliation, assumption, and criticism thrown at you by your environment yourself. Then all this becomes bullshit.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you'll find the never-ending barrage of "Read about $CELEBRITY's amazing new diet", "Look just like $CELEBRITY", "How $CELEBRITY has her pre-baby body back", etc, etc in /female-oriented media/ has a hell of a lot more to do with it than a
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Historically, skinny wasn't a "look" until the common people had enough food to become fat. Even now, poor societies picture overweight women as more attractive than thin girls who can't afford enough to eat. As soon as everyone in our "rich" society was fat, the rich celebrities all became skinny to look different. Now thin is in and people are literally dying to become skinny.
As far as I'm concerned, women can blame themselves just as much as men for their own problems. It's their own vanity to appear like the wealthy celebrities that are doing them in. Take some frickin' responsibility for your own life, please.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Children (won't someone please think about them?) (and immature adults for that matter) are quite impressionable, and they tend to like the steaming material that the mass media shovels at them.
So the real question, I think, is "How much responsibility does each of us have to ensure that the whole of society does not continue to perpetrate these values?".
Re:Why? (Score:2)
As for "perpetuating values", a game is going to perpetuate some value. There's no way to get around it - even Pac Man perpetuated a value or two.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Actually, they don't look like action heros. (Score:2)
You mean like Mario, Captain Olimar, Smith from Killer7, the guys from FF:CC? Not to mention games with non-human male characters like Rayman or the Oddworld characters: Even in those games, females are slender and sexy, while males can be all kinds of things. Look at Sega Soccer Slam, for example. All girls have big tits and are cute, while the male characters are fat, small, big, slim...
That's the whole problem: There are all kinds of male character
You have to wonder... (Score:2, Troll)
Yeah men are often sexist, but women are too.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Hooray... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like the games, stop buying them. Vote with your dollars, people.
How is this even news? Is it because she's female? Is that supposed to matter? Guys dislike crappy games, too.
Re:Hooray... (Score:1)
Vote with your dollars.
I hear it here all the time, in this case it doesn't even make sense, the dollars lost from her not buying a game aren't even worth the industry looking into. In fact the likely hood of the games industry even noticing the loss of the few women gamers who care about this is pretty slim. If they did notice it they probably wouldn't realize what caused the problem.
Re:Hooray... (Score:2)
Seriously, the point of the gaming industry is to make money through entertaining people. It is not their job to make sure they present realistic images or to give everyone warm fuzzy happy feelings. If it is not a big enough deal to make a large impact in their sales, then oh well.
Re:Hooray... (Score:2, Insightful)
It hasn't hurt cosmo's numbers.
Re:Hooray... (Score:2)
This is actually a really good point. I actually think articles like this are completely off - I do agree in general that there is a very male slant to most video games in the gameplay department but the portrayal of women is not the real problem. It's a red herring. Most guys don't want to play as fat slobs and I doubt most girls would want to play as your average overweight soccer mom either. "Unrealist
Re:Hooray... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's just my two cents.
Re:Hooray... (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends on the genre (Score:2)
Re:Hooray... (Score:2)
Women are voting with their dollars. But their dollars aren't being spent on Grand Theft Auto. They are going to politicians who would rein in developers like Rockstar.
and she would rather... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and she would rather... (Score:3, Funny)
"Trailer Park Girl" Only for XBOX!
Re:and she would rather... (Score:2)
Re:and she would rather... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and she would rather... (Score:2)
The unrealistic proportions I think are so far a function of the how primitive the graphics are- you had to make Lara exaggerated because you only had a handful of polygons to do it with on the PS1.
Or even going back further to low-res 2d graphics, you'd have to do something like this to show a female:
=
==
=
=
And that's way unrealistic. Now, we can have thousands of polygons along with realistic skin t
Re:and she would rather... (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I'm a male
Just because the writer of the article disapproves of Lara Croft and Wu doesn't mean that she wants to see them replaced with a 500-pound woman with big hair and lots of tattoos. That would be the complete opposite end of the spectrum. She just want them replaced with realistic looking women. You know, the ones that we see in everyday life. They don't have to have a watermelon-sized chest like Lara does. A
Breaking news! (Score:5, Funny)
Mmmm... (Score:1)
Of course Wu the Lotus Blossom is half-naked (Score:2, Interesting)
Women in video games (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Women in video games (Score:2)
darn... or should I cry? *ALT+TABs to Solier of Fortune 2*
Metroid (Score:1)
Re:Metroid (Score:2)
97% of Slashdot readers are men (Score:5, Funny)
- 97% of OSTG readers are men
- average age is 29
Arguing about women in games on Slashdot is like a vegan arging about animal rights in a sausage factory.
Re:97% of Slashdot readers are men (Score:2, Funny)
Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters) (Score:1)
Re:Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters (Score:2)
Re:Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters (Score:2)
Think about this sequence of numbers.
1 1 2 200 5000
Average = 1040.6
Median = 2
Re:Average household income: $72,131 (Slashdotters (Score:2)
you're right, of course.
Re:97% of Slashdot readers are men (Score:2)
97% of OSTG readers are men
So in one respect we're arguing about women in games in a sausage factory.
this just ties in with society (Score:2)
Re:this just ties in with society (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you have it backwards. The porn fetish is because of the taboo. Compare with western Europe. Most of the countries are much more sexually liberal, with sex education starting at an early age. The result? Fewer teenage pregnancies, no association of simple nudity with sex, and fewer problems with sex in general.
In short, it would be difficult for America to go even further backwards unless they
Re:this just ties in with society (Score:3, Insightful)
last time i was in europe i didnt see any 12 year old girls wearing 'porn *' shirts.
Re:this just ties in with society (Score:2)
Exactly. Because there's less taboo, it's less desirable. Kids (particularly teenagers) love to do things that shock adults, it's what lets them figure out the boundaries of what's acceptable. No taboo, not interested.
My mother played some serious mind games on me as a kid - she'd offer to sign me off sick from school whenever I wanted. So of course I rebelled by studying hard...hmm...easily manipulable
Re:this just ties in with society (Score:2)
This again? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a shame that none of the people who know exactly how to attract female gamers bother to actually, y'know, make games. (With the one exception of Brenda Laurel, who mostly succeeded in issuing lots of press releases about how smart she is before blowing through all her investors' money.)
I must've missed this minigame (Score:1)
You'd think they could find enough sexism in games without making stuff up.
Re:I must've missed this minigame (Score:3, Funny)
Please, no. (Score:2)
For a good rant (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a funny rant [sfgate.com] about this in today's sfgate.com (There's Sex In My Violence! What's this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent "Grand Theft Auto"? I am outraged!).
hrmmm... doesn't it bother her? (Score:1)
and we all KNOW absolutely ALL porgrammers are... ya know, male.
Hot Coffee demeans women? Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
This 'feminist' attitude in particular annoys the hell out of me. How is it that consentual sex with a *girlfriend* in a game is automatically considered demeaning to women?
Does 'feminism' imply that all mention of sex should be eradicated? Because somehow males only use it for their pleasure or to demean women? Sorry to break it to these 'feminists', but women enjoy sex too.
And on top of that, the amount of time and effort it takes to get with any of the women in GTA for 'hot coffee' is significantly higher than what it takes to learn to fly, defeat a drug ring, and take over half a city. Real life women are usually far easier.
Skewed attitudes about sex do exist in videogames, but the article seems to be grabbing at popularity here. Maybe instead of getting on the bandwagon and producing a knee jerk response to the 'awful sex' in GTA the author should actually think about what he or she is implying.
End rant.. that just pissed me off.
Re:Hot Coffee demeans women? Ridiculous (Score:2)
Re:Hot Coffee demeans women? Ridiculous (Score:2)
Actually in this case it is even more annoying because the female interviewees in the article don't mention the GTA sex mini-game, it's just insinuated that if they did know about it they would be opposed. Reread this portion of bang-up objective journalism from the AP:
Why these endless stories? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't people complain this much about TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why don't people complain this much about TV (Score:2, Funny)
Samus gets no love (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Samus gets no love (Score:2)
Spelling mistake on the article's title (Score:1)
Women ARE objects in games (Score:5, Funny)
I was misquoted (Score:5, Informative)
I had lots of good things to say about games. I am a gamer, I love games, including Jade Empire, and I never made a single comment about the portrayal of women in GTA. Note he says, "Don't get her started on..." He didn't get me started. It never came up. I thought the interesting part of the article was going to be about the challenges of breaking into a difficult industry, and the challenges of broadening the appeal of the industry beyond the hardcore gamer.
I didn't just use The Sims as an example of accessible, non "male oriented" games. I cited several examples to show that there's a public misconception that there are no other types of games out there. Look at Amplitude, Pikmin, Karaoke Revolution, look at the growing online gaming sector. My hope was to show that the game industry is NOT in need of a woman's touch. It's in need of better publicity. This article just reinforces the stereotypes.
Don't believe everything you read.
Re:I was misquoted (Score:2, Interesting)
And like he said in the article, about his reason why he didn't want to talk about violence and video games: "that's been done to death, it's bor
Re:I was misquoted (Score:2)
I was going to post about what Tara said in her interview like this:
She should realize that beatiful bodies are great assets to women. It's a great thing to have if you want to influence people the way you want them to be influenced.
If she's isn't that hot and is jealous of the virtual women then I disagree with her.
If she's disagreeing with the stereotypes because she's morally against men being manipulat
Re:I was misquoted (Score:2)
If she's isn't that hot and is jealous of the virtual women then I disagree with her."
You're kidding, right? The last time I saw this sort of attitude was in an old 70s documentary. I thought people had moved on in the western world.
Re:I was misquoted (Score:2)
Just to elaborate on what my opinion is on this matter: If a woman is attractive I'd say good for her, you'll probably go far in this world. Statistics prove me right.
The part where I said: "If she's isn't that hot and is jealous of the virtual women then I disagree with her."
Was not really thought out well, a more accurate text version of what I wanted to say would be:
Realize that hot looks are big weapons in the hands of women. You should celebrate the fact that women have this
Oh yeah (Score:2)
Make a different choice? (Score:2)
So play Scholar Ling. Duh.
GTA (Score:2)
I wonder if there wouldn't have been such an uproar over this game if the media hadn't been reporting on it every 15 freaking minutes. The mention of this seemed suspiciously superfluous to the content of the article (i.e. a "woman's touch" in video games).
GET OVER IT! (Score:3)
Get the FUCK over it! God anyone else tired of this yet!?! Everyday I'm half tempted to just stop reading "gaming" news. If I wanted drama I'd go by a ticket to a play!
The Five Foot Phallus Rule (Score:4, Interesting)
Being an independent developer, we have an enormous amount of freedom in how we can portray our in-game characters. In our most recent action title, we made sure to portray male and female characters in a fairly realistic fasion. The result was that a major gaming magazine chided us for a female protagonist that wasn't busty enough. Apparently our undersexualized portrayal of women is a turn-off for males.
Similarly, we've noticed that for our puzzle games (where we portray no people), women make up roughly half of our customers. This drops way down for our action titles (where we do portray people). I must guess, then, that our undersexualized portrayal of men in these games has been a turn off for women. As such, starting with our next title, we will implement the Five Foot Phallus rule.
Let me explain.
What do you think?
Re:The Five Foot Phallus Rule (Score:2)
1. Why just the phallus? We need great big balls to go along with old Godzilla.
2. Simulation will need to be updated to include the bouncing big balls.
3. Gameplay. This should be improved on both sides. Why not suffocate the baddie with your super breasts?
4. Five feet might just not be long enough. I'm sure Duke Nukem would come out with an eight footer at least.
Re:The Five Foot Phallus Rule (Score:2, Funny)
You fold it back up and tie it off. Jeez!!!
Re:The Five Foot Phallus Rule (Score:2, Funny)
Steriotypes. (Score:2)
How many women are reading this? Three? Four? Oh well, it'll have to be enough...
How many of you consider yourself beautiful? A perfect body?
Would you like a perfect body, if you don't have one?
Would you show it off if you had one?
Given the answers to those questions, I'd bet that most women would much rather play Lara Croft than a more "feminist" character. I mean, be honest, ladies -- wouldn't you rather be a hottie with a gun than an ugly, clumsy
Re:Steriotypes. (Score:2)
whyalways either/or? (Score:2)
I suspect that if that's really how these people think, they're going to have a hard time outside where a lot of people actually manage to be attractive in their own ways (including some whose balance centres are not located in their breasts).
Is ther
GTA (Score:2)
Re:GTA (Score:2)
I'll complain (Score:1, Offtopic)
Where are legislators when we need them?
Re:There ARE! (Score:2)
The games are there, if you know to look for them. They just aren't on the retail shelves (for the most part).
Re:There ARE! (Score:3, Insightful)
As to women not liking competition, I don't know if you've met any. Women that is. Most of the women I know are fiercely competitive. I know I am. I know I'm not the exception either
Re:There ARE! (Score:2)
I'm sorry, that's sexist crap. I'm a guy and as a kid I hated being outside. I never played sports, I much preferred staying at home and playing with my He Man and Transformers figures. You know, dolls for boys. Later I progressed to computers, and we all know where it went from there. On the flip side, my girlfriend was the
Mod parent troll (Score:1)
Re:No wonder she's jealous (Score:2)