And this is why (as I said before) the problem is solved, this thread is filled with examples of nonsexualized characters, and this is just a victory lap now. Who is really producing games with non-sexualized female characters?
I don't think that wanting to continue to be employed or have your company survive (look at how publishers can crush a developer) is lazy or immoral.
Now let me make sure I've got this right.
You feel the gender culture war is already won, and that problem is solved, and it's just a matter of clean-up from here on out. Is that right?
I was being sarcastic.
Beautiful.
So it's just "We don't know what it will affect, so the change cannot be made"?
THat's an equally indefensible position which has been used to push down progressive change throughout history. "What about the CONSEQUENCES" has been used in opposition to the equal rights movement since the equal rights movement was even a thing, and it rings just as hollow here as it does or did or will anywhere else.
There are developers who are making non-sexualized characters. There are more every year. It's happening, because risks are worth enacting the changes you want to see in the world.
Wyborn on
+1
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Agreed. There will always be media that panders to people who want big cartoon tits. There is no reason for a game that isn't about big cartoon tits to make ridiculous caricatures out of female characters for no other reason then "greasy nerds like big boobs!". Samara in ME2 and 3 being a perfect example. Why did she need to look that way? Was she also a space hooker?
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
And this is why (as I said before) the problem is solved, this thread is filled with examples of nonsexualized characters, and this is just a victory lap now. Who is really producing games with non-sexualized female characters?
I don't think that wanting to continue to be employed or have your company survive (look at how publishers can crush a developer) is lazy or immoral.
Now let me make sure I've got this right.
You feel the gender culture war is already won, and that problem is solved, and it's just a matter of clean-up from here on out. Is that right?
I was being sarcastic.
Beautiful.
So it's just "We don't know what it will affect, so the change cannot be made"?
THat's an equally indefensible position which has been used to push down progressive change throughout history. "What about the CONSEQUENCES" has been used in opposition to the equal rights movement since the equal rights movement was even a thing, and it rings just as hollow here as it does or did or will anywhere else.
There are developers who are making non-sexualized characters. There are more every year. It's happening, because risks are worth enacting the changes you want to see in the world.
You are tasking people to put their careers at risk because of the field they chose. Would you do the same?
What games is it happening in now? No one seems to agree on who the good guys even are in this thread.
And this is why (as I said before) the problem is solved, this thread is filled with examples of nonsexualized characters, and this is just a victory lap now. Who is really producing games with non-sexualized female characters?
I don't think that wanting to continue to be employed or have your company survive (look at how publishers can crush a developer) is lazy or immoral.
Now let me make sure I've got this right.
You feel the gender culture war is already won, and that problem is solved, and it's just a matter of clean-up from here on out. Is that right?
I was being sarcastic.
Beautiful.
So it's just "We don't know what it will affect, so the change cannot be made"?
THat's an equally indefensible position which has been used to push down progressive change throughout history. "What about the CONSEQUENCES" has been used in opposition to the equal rights movement since the equal rights movement was even a thing, and it rings just as hollow here as it does or did or will anywhere else.
There are developers who are making non-sexualized characters. There are more every year. It's happening, because risks are worth enacting the changes you want to see in the world.
You are tasking people to put their careers at risk because of the field they chose. Would you do the same?
What games is it happening in now? No one seems to agree on who the good guys even are in this thread.
This is, again, a false dichotomy. THere is no indication that this puts people's careers at risk.
You know you bring up Obsidian, so I guess I could theoretically point to them as a group that's been steering away from gross objectification of women for the past ten years? THat'd be one of them, I guess.
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
And this is why (as I said before) the problem is solved, this thread is filled with examples of nonsexualized characters, and this is just a victory lap now. Who is really producing games with non-sexualized female characters?
I don't think that wanting to continue to be employed or have your company survive (look at how publishers can crush a developer) is lazy or immoral.
Now let me make sure I've got this right.
You feel the gender culture war is already won, and that problem is solved, and it's just a matter of clean-up from here on out. Is that right?
I was being sarcastic.
Beautiful.
So it's just "We don't know what it will affect, so the change cannot be made"?
THat's an equally indefensible position which has been used to push down progressive change throughout history. "What about the CONSEQUENCES" has been used in opposition to the equal rights movement since the equal rights movement was even a thing, and it rings just as hollow here as it does or did or will anywhere else.
There are developers who are making non-sexualized characters. There are more every year. It's happening, because risks are worth enacting the changes you want to see in the world.
You are tasking people to put their careers at risk because of the field they chose. Would you do the same?
What games is it happening in now? No one seems to agree on who the good guys even are in this thread.
This is, again, a false dichotomy. THere is no indication that this puts people's careers at risk.
You know you bring up Obsidian, so I guess I could theoretically point to them as a group that's been steering away from gross objectification of women for the past ten years? THat'd be one of them, I guess.
Changing from the set path without a clear indication that it will benefit you is the definition of a risk.
Obsidian has the best writers in the business, and so they can flesh out all their characters, but I don't thing their character designs are materially better than anyone else's on this front. Also, the DA2 gay panic thing probably would have sunk them.
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
Yes you probably would enthusiastically endorse making the world worse for people not like you so you could have something you wanted.
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
I am assuming nothing of the sort. Obviously there are sales-based advantages and disadvantages to featuring women as pieces of meat, thereby perpetuating that mode of depiction in the medium and keeping gaming a hostile environment for women both for players and for creators. Obviously there are benefits. After all, there are people who will buy a game based on tits.
But you know what? Doesn't matter.
There comes a point at which you have to say that the dignity of the people participatingi n your field has to be more important than the razor-thin advantages you might gain by marginalizing half of your potential customers and producers. Because it is. We will get better games with more perspectives going into the construction of them, and having more women producing games in an environment that is safe for them will be a net benefit for all of us.
Let me put this in bold where people casually scrolling by can see it:
If your game needs to treat women as meat to sell, then fuck your game. It is not good enough.
That's about it.
Wyborn on
+5
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
I am assuming nothing of the sort. Obviously there are sales-based advantages and disadvantages to featuring women as pieces of meat, thereby perpetuating that mode of depiction in the medium and keeping gaming a hostile environment for women both for players and for creators. Obviously there are benefits. After all, there are people who will buy a game based on tits.
But you know what? Doesn't matter.
There comes a point at which you have to say that the dignity of the people participatingi n your field has to be more important than the razor-thin advantages you might gain by marginalizing half of your potential customers and producers. Because it is. We will get better games with more perspectives going into the construction of them, and having more women producing games in an environment that is safe for them will be an et benefit for all of us.
Let me put this in bold where people casually scrolling by can see it:
If your game needs to treat women as meat to sell, then fuck your game. It is not good enough.
That's about it.
That isn't how businesses work. Like I have said multiple times now, you need data that supports the idea that changing depictions of women will increase sales. Then you will see a change. But no one is collecting that data, as far as I know.
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
I am assuming nothing of the sort. Obviously there are sales-based advantages and disadvantages to featuring women as pieces of meat, thereby perpetuating that mode of depiction in the medium and keeping gaming a hostile environment for women both for players and for creators. Obviously there are benefits. After all, there are people who will buy a game based on tits.
But you know what? Doesn't matter.
There comes a point at which you have to say that the dignity of the people participatingi n your field has to be more important than the razor-thin advantages you might gain by marginalizing half of your potential customers and producers. Because it is. We will get better games with more perspectives going into the construction of them, and having more women producing games in an environment that is safe for them will be an et benefit for all of us.
Let me put this in bold where people casually scrolling by can see it:
If your game needs to treat women as meat to sell, then fuck your game. It is not good enough.
That's about it.
That isn't how businesses work. Like I have said multiple times now, you need data that supports the idea that changing depictions of women will increase sales. Then you will see a change. But no one is collecting that data, as far as I know.
I don't think you're hearing me. We are seeing a change, slow-like, because women are making themselves heard in this space and a few - not enough, but some - powerful voices in the industry are responding.
You are looking at this from the wrong angle.
Your equation:
IF sales are not increased, DO NOT make a change.
The proper equation:
IF sales are not harmed, WHY NOT make a change.
Even allowing for the idea that business considerations are more important than the moral implications of the marginalization of half the population and the perpetuation of an insular boys-only cock club culture, which they're not, there are enough developers and producers right now who see larger potential benefits to catering to women then continuing to marginalize their consumers and themselves.
You say, "Well it might hurt sales!" but fuck that cowardice. You know which group is bigger, between gobs who buy games based on titty-tastic cover art and women who play games? Take a guess. Take a guess.
You keep going back to the "conservative course of action" but that serves no one except those who are already benefited by the status quo. That's not good enough. If this industry is dependent on marginalizing women and treating them as lesser creatures then it needs to fall over and die so it can be reborn as something better.
Of course, that's not truly relevant to the conversation because the industry is not dependent on the marginalization of women and the very idea that it is is born of the boy's-club mentality that put the whole affair into this sorry state in the first place.
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
I'm not sure what you're talking about - one of Obsidian's latest games (New Vegas) is chock full of gays and lesbians.
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
I am assuming nothing of the sort. Obviously there are sales-based advantages and disadvantages to featuring women as pieces of meat, thereby perpetuating that mode of depiction in the medium and keeping gaming a hostile environment for women both for players and for creators. Obviously there are benefits. After all, there are people who will buy a game based on tits.
But you know what? Doesn't matter.
There comes a point at which you have to say that the dignity of the people participatingi n your field has to be more important than the razor-thin advantages you might gain by marginalizing half of your potential customers and producers. Because it is. We will get better games with more perspectives going into the construction of them, and having more women producing games in an environment that is safe for them will be an et benefit for all of us.
Let me put this in bold where people casually scrolling by can see it:
If your game needs to treat women as meat to sell, then fuck your game. It is not good enough.
That's about it.
That isn't how businesses work. Like I have said multiple times now, you need data that supports the idea that changing depictions of women will increase sales. Then you will see a change. But no one is collecting that data, as far as I know.
I don't think you're hearing me. We are seeing a change, slow-like, because women are making themselves heard in this space and a few - not enough, but some - powerful voices in the industry are responding.
You are looking at this from the wrong angle.
Your equation:
IF sales are not increased, DO NOT make a change.
The proper equation:
IF sales are not harmed, WHY NOT make a change.
Even allowing for the idea that business considerations are more important than the moral implications of the marginalization of half the population and the perpetuation of an insular boys-only cock club culture, which they're not, there are enough developers and producers right now who see larger potential benefits to catering to women then continuing to marginalize their consumers and themselves.
You say, "Well it might hurt sales!" but fuck that cowardice. You know which group is bigger, between gobs who buy games based on titty-tastic cover art and women who play games? Take a guess. Take a guess.
You keep going back to the "conservative course of action" but that serves no one except those who are already benefited by the status quo. That's not good enough. If this industry is dependent on marginalizing women and treating them as lesser creatures then it needs to fall over and die so it can be reborn as something better.
Of course, that's not truly relevant to the conversation because the industry is not dependent on the marginalization of women and the very idea that it is is born of the boy's-club mentality that put the whole affair into this sorry state in the first place.
You keep on repeating the same thing. It doesn't change that fact that you are conjecturing and saying "why shouldn't the multi-million dollar publishers change course from something that is working because I, a person on the Internet, think it can't hurt?" Market research is what you need, and is what isn't being done, at least as far as I can tell. That is the correct next step, not just doing what Internet quarterbacks think is a good idea.
You know how we change things, Space? We have conversations like this one. Over and over. Slowly gaining more people who think this is important. We encourage developers and game journalists to be vocal about the sexist practices in the industry. We make well reasoned arguments. We spread awareness. Basically, we just keep doing what we're doing. If we do, the numbers will come and the data will come.
You seem to think this is just a bunch of people talking on the PA forum and that's it. This is a slow and deliberate movement in the game community as a whole. We're talking about the community just as much as the business end of this. And while it's nice that you already have what you want so once again you don't understand why anyone else is complaining, this isn't something that's a simple as "oh but it sells fine now so game companies will just stay the course!". That's how safe businesses work. Market leaders do take great risks in order to expand their marketshare. And I'd say this is one of those risks needed to be taken in order to expand the market as a whole.
More non-objectified female characters = more female gamers. More female gamers = more female game designers. More female game designers = more non-objectified female characters/female centric games.
Cutting out half of the available market just to whip the other half into a frenzy is pointless to do as an industry. Individual companies? Fine. The entire industry? Bullshit.
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
I am assuming nothing of the sort. Obviously there are sales-based advantages and disadvantages to featuring women as pieces of meat, thereby perpetuating that mode of depiction in the medium and keeping gaming a hostile environment for women both for players and for creators. Obviously there are benefits. After all, there are people who will buy a game based on tits.
But you know what? Doesn't matter.
There comes a point at which you have to say that the dignity of the people participatingi n your field has to be more important than the razor-thin advantages you might gain by marginalizing half of your potential customers and producers. Because it is. We will get better games with more perspectives going into the construction of them, and having more women producing games in an environment that is safe for them will be an et benefit for all of us.
Let me put this in bold where people casually scrolling by can see it:
If your game needs to treat women as meat to sell, then fuck your game. It is not good enough.
That's about it.
That isn't how businesses work. Like I have said multiple times now, you need data that supports the idea that changing depictions of women will increase sales. Then you will see a change. But no one is collecting that data, as far as I know.
I don't think you're hearing me. We are seeing a change, slow-like, because women are making themselves heard in this space and a few - not enough, but some - powerful voices in the industry are responding.
You are looking at this from the wrong angle.
Your equation:
IF sales are not increased, DO NOT make a change.
The proper equation:
IF sales are not harmed, WHY NOT make a change.
Even allowing for the idea that business considerations are more important than the moral implications of the marginalization of half the population and the perpetuation of an insular boys-only cock club culture, which they're not, there are enough developers and producers right now who see larger potential benefits to catering to women then continuing to marginalize their consumers and themselves.
You say, "Well it might hurt sales!" but fuck that cowardice. You know which group is bigger, between gobs who buy games based on titty-tastic cover art and women who play games? Take a guess. Take a guess.
You keep going back to the "conservative course of action" but that serves no one except those who are already benefited by the status quo. That's not good enough. If this industry is dependent on marginalizing women and treating them as lesser creatures then it needs to fall over and die so it can be reborn as something better.
Of course, that's not truly relevant to the conversation because the industry is not dependent on the marginalization of women and the very idea that it is is born of the boy's-club mentality that put the whole affair into this sorry state in the first place.
You keep on repeating the same thing. It doesn't change that fact that you are conjecturing and saying "why shouldn't the multi-million dollar publishers change course from something that is working because I, a person on the Internet, think it can't hurt?" Market research is what you need, and is what isn't being done, at least as far as I can tell. That is the correct next step, not just doing what Internet quarterbacks think is a good idea.
And you keep insisting that
But the change is already happening, and your defense of the status quo using the shield of "well we just don't know enough" isn't stopping it
i do not think you are going to lose a single sale by having less objectifying female characters in games
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
I am assuming nothing of the sort. Obviously there are sales-based advantages and disadvantages to featuring women as pieces of meat, thereby perpetuating that mode of depiction in the medium and keeping gaming a hostile environment for women both for players and for creators. Obviously there are benefits. After all, there are people who will buy a game based on tits.
But you know what? Doesn't matter.
There comes a point at which you have to say that the dignity of the people participatingi n your field has to be more important than the razor-thin advantages you might gain by marginalizing half of your potential customers and producers. Because it is. We will get better games with more perspectives going into the construction of them, and having more women producing games in an environment that is safe for them will be an et benefit for all of us.
Let me put this in bold where people casually scrolling by can see it:
If your game needs to treat women as meat to sell, then fuck your game. It is not good enough.
That's about it.
That isn't how businesses work. Like I have said multiple times now, you need data that supports the idea that changing depictions of women will increase sales. Then you will see a change. But no one is collecting that data, as far as I know.
I don't think you're hearing me. We are seeing a change, slow-like, because women are making themselves heard in this space and a few - not enough, but some - powerful voices in the industry are responding.
You are looking at this from the wrong angle.
Your equation:
IF sales are not increased, DO NOT make a change.
The proper equation:
IF sales are not harmed, WHY NOT make a change.
Even allowing for the idea that business considerations are more important than the moral implications of the marginalization of half the population and the perpetuation of an insular boys-only cock club culture, which they're not, there are enough developers and producers right now who see larger potential benefits to catering to women then continuing to marginalize their consumers and themselves.
You say, "Well it might hurt sales!" but fuck that cowardice. You know which group is bigger, between gobs who buy games based on titty-tastic cover art and women who play games? Take a guess. Take a guess.
You keep going back to the "conservative course of action" but that serves no one except those who are already benefited by the status quo. That's not good enough. If this industry is dependent on marginalizing women and treating them as lesser creatures then it needs to fall over and die so it can be reborn as something better.
Of course, that's not truly relevant to the conversation because the industry is not dependent on the marginalization of women and the very idea that it is is born of the boy's-club mentality that put the whole affair into this sorry state in the first place.
You keep on repeating the same thing. It doesn't change that fact that you are conjecturing and saying "why shouldn't the multi-million dollar publishers change course from something that is working because I, a person on the Internet, think it can't hurt?" Market research is what you need, and is what isn't being done, at least as far as I can tell. That is the correct next step, not just doing what Internet quarterbacks think is a good idea.
Does people speaking out about content they find objectionable not constitute reasonable market factors that may affect game sales?
That is always my favorite part of this, from an industry standpoint.
Anita Sarkeesian got a bit of flack for her first Tropes against Women basically being "Feminism 101", and beating a dead horse, but I think those critiques are unfounded.
There are the links going around about Remember Me, where apparently several producers wouldn't pick the game up because "a female protagonist won't sell to men," to boil their complaints down.
In essence, they (and SFKM) are making the claim that women aren't enough of a market in video games to actively court.
Which is, I think, (as do others) that this is a self-reinforcing loop.
To go back to Anita- her video shows that, basically from the get-go, women have had a "lower" role in video games. As far back as Mario and Zelda, the only role a female had in a game was to be kidnapped over and over again.
Through the 80s and 90s it became even worse, as it became entrenched as a marketing tool.
The point I am making, and I think the real take away from that video, is that from their onset, video games never had subject matter that attracted women. Many people who are presumably male, even in this thread, talk about how they don't like to play female characters in games. Shit, I generally don't, because for me games are escapist fantasies, and I don't generally fantasize about being a woman. (I do wish there were more gay male options though...)
The point I am making here, and to tie all this together- from the beginning, video games had nothing that appealed to women, and instead of deciding to actively court that demographic in the west, publishers decided to double down and squeeze every last drop of water from that stone. Now, when they have a vocal demographic that is complaining about their poor representation of women, and how they would prefer if there were more games with female protagonists, the response is always "but it would hurt sales!"
Yes, it may hurt sales to some male consumers. But at the same time, there are a large amount of male consumers who have expressed a desire for something more substantial that "default titillation"....and of course the entirety of the female gender. How many women are there in America? How many of those women have money? Or, more importantly, how many of those women are young and you can get them hooked for life on a brand that features a character they can identify with and care about to create life-long consumers of your product and associated tie-ins?
People keep bringing up Twilight. Twilight was a fucking genius business strategy, even if the content was fucking knackered.
There is one thing that always astounds me about the video game industry- it is that they consistently seem to make the worst goddam business decisions I have ever seen. The depressing part is that they are rewarded enough for these mistakes that they never change.
Which is why in 20-fucking-13 you have women being shouldered out of the industry, and publishers refusing to back a game with a female protagonist who doesn't explicitly pander to the male gaze.
| Zinnar on most things | Avatar by Blameless Cleric
+2
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
So we all agree that there is a chance to be taken by gambling on women, yes? Do we really expect the publishers of Madden 58 or COD 19 to take that chance? We can't get these studios to make a single turn based RPG, and the huge market if simcity fans went untapped for the better part of a decade because those were viewed as too risky. . .
Also, who is to say that women gamers will want to play Halo 18 with a female Spartan and a clothed AI? Women are gaming in huge numbers right now, but its things like FarmVille and word games. We need market research to figure these questions out.
And to clear up a misunderstanding, we don't need these games to already exist to do that research. When you are thinking about opening a restaurant, you don't open the restaurant first to figure out if people will eat there. . .
Right, I don't understand why alienating sexist neckbeards is considered more detrimental than alienating a large percentage of women in some publishers' eyes. (We can, of course, have the banal argument over what percentage of sales will be lost by alienating the aforementioned sexist jerks and what percentage of sales will be gained by not being misogynist and gross, and I'm sure we will in the next five, (ten?) minutes...)
And, for those who are making the argument that "women should just make games," they do... They really, really do. But, a lot of times when they do, there's a subset of game consumers that do everything they can to make their lives a living hell. I can't find the relevant link at the moment, but there was a talk that Christine Love gave at one point about harassment she has suffered online, and she showed a screenshot of a message board wherein someone claimed they wanted to pay her a visit... Her parents' address was posted in the next post. I keep seeing that idiotic comment one of the Penny Arcade guys made about how the answer is always more art, not less, getting repeated throughout this thread, but I wanted to point out that shit like this is routine, and it's one of the reasons that the "more art" argument is naive at best and disingenuous and dangerous at worst.
Anita Sarkeesian got a bit of flack for her first Tropes against Women basically being "Feminism 101", and beating a dead horse, but I think those critiques are unfounded.
I am not at all disagreeing with you or anything of the sort (I want to make that clear since this is often a heated topic) but I do think "Anita Sarkeesian got a bit of flack" wins Understatement of the Year.
Anita Sarkeesian got a bit of flack for her first Tropes against Women basically being "Feminism 101", and beating a dead horse, but I think those critiques are unfounded.
I am not at all disagreeing with you or anything of the sort (I want to make that clear since this is often a heated topic) but I do think "Anita Sarkeesian got a bit of flack" wins Understatement of the Year.
Bahahaha (laughing to keep from crying)
I was specifically talking more about the flack she got from within-community and from her backers.
skfm in a nutshell: "If you can't guarantee that I can make boatloads of money, risk free, by switching from morally reprehensible actions to morally appropriate actions, then I have no reason to switch. Just because I'm perpetuating the very stereotypes that provide the 'evidence' that games without these hurtful stereotypes aren't viable and just because the society I help create when I perpetuate these stereotypes is horrible doesn't mean I should stop as long as I can keep making enough money to barely stay afloat while continually laying off dev teams at the end of each development cycle."
Also, who is to say that women gamers will want to play Halo 18 with a female Spartan and a clothed AI? Women are gaming in huge numbers right now, but its things like FarmVille and word games. We need market research to figure these questions out.
Oy, what market research are you using for that statement there, I wonder? You know ladies play games on the consoles and PC too, yeah? There is a surprising number of ladies who enjoy BioWare games, as an isolated example, and they are very enthusiastic about it - the majority of fan works for Mass Effect or Dragon Age are produced by women
Here's the thing... typically people like things they feel don't insult them. They may like certain types of things as individuals, but if something feels insulting to them, even if it's part of the subset of things they do like, they're less likely to enjoy/consume it.
McDonalds doesn't advertise their burgers with sexy ladies pole dancing on a giant bigmac, they don't try to sexualize their product needlessly, because just like everything else both sexes buy their product.
Make games that are less insulting to women by having less sexualized female characters and more well rounded female characters. Make female characters that aren't sexy. Make female characters that are, but only when it actually makes sense. Make female characters that are characters and not just objects for the audience to oogle. Do that, and you'll attract more girls to gaming.
For the very simple reason that they won't feel insulted by their representation in the medium.
And what do you lose by doing that? How does that hurt your market share? Do you think guys are going to look at a game and go "man, the girls in this game just aren't insulting enough... guess I better stop playing games made by company X". No, that's fucking stupid. If done correctly they won't even really notice the shift besides seeing more realistic representation of women in their games. Gamers love seeing variety in games, why exactly would they dislike seeing a variety of women in their games? You can still make attractive girls in games without sexualizing or objectifying them.
Edit: Also, it's not exactly like Publishers have figured out a magic money making formula for their games. Studios and publishers are failing all the time, all by playing it safe. Experimenting and shaking things up in general would be very good for the industry as it currently stands.
McDonalds doesn't advertise their burgers with sexy ladies pole dancing on a giant bigmac, they don't try to sexualize their product needlessly, because just like everything else both sexes buy their product.
This actually leaves me wondering if a creative mind exists that could market the next Saint's Row title without pin-ups and strippers. Sometimes the IP in question has dug itself into a pretty big whole.
Also, who is to say that women gamers will want to play Halo 18 with a female Spartan and a clothed AI?
Hey maybe women never will. Maybe tomorrow all women everywhere will stop playing video games forever and become scions of the great old ones who ride forth to bring news of the great doom. (Jerks)
And it would still have absolutely nothing to do with putting out disgustingly sexist products and ideals that harm women. That entirely on its own is a Bad Thing. Yes, even worse than not squeezing out one extra penny of profit.
Also, who is to say that women gamers will want to play Halo 18 with a female Spartan and a clothed AI? Women are gaming in huge numbers right now, but its things like FarmVille and word games. We need market research to figure these questions out.
Oy, what market research are you using for that statement there, I wonder? You know ladies play games on the consoles and PC too, yeah? There is a surprising number of ladies who enjoy BioWare games, as an isolated example, and they are very enthusiastic about it - the majority of fan works for Mass Effect or Dragon Age are produced by women
I'd like to think I'm wrong, but I wonder if that isn't a reflection of the fact that the creative internet community for these games (and others) is populated more by young women than young men, and exists alongside, but is still fairly distinct from, the actual wallet-in-hand population. Say 3 million of a ME game are sold--a tiny faction of that (1/1000th) could account for fan artwork, if not even smaller.
On the bright side though, this means they can steer the fan community in a different direction to account for an inequitable distribution of fans.
So we all agree that there is a chance to be taken by gambling on women, yes?
No, there isn't an inherent risk for New Game X to exclude highly sexualized designs.
Your arguments are extremely tenuous and couched on getting people to agree with your asserted assumptions all the way to the conclusion, but let's ignore that and instead pretend that you are exactly right and that there is a great peril to not porning up every game: no one will care, because their reasons for opposing these ideas aren't based on spreadsheets, they're based on principle. Would you trip over yourself offering excuses for blatantly racist creations behind the shield of market morality?
You'd think that wanting to tap into 47% of the market would be something people would want to do to make more money.
And no...Farmville and word games aren't the only thing female gamers play.
What's even funnier is that 47% is the number in the given circumstances where most AAA games have either shitty depictions of women or no depictions of women. That is, we're in an atmosphere where a vast portion of the gaming industry gives zero shits about women like or even about women, as a group. Imagine what the numbers would look like if the industry didn't churn out sexist drivel at a steady pace. Women would probably eclipse men as players if they're 47% already.
This argument is important for women. And our daughters. But also for our sons and the way they grow to view women. I don't want my now 2 year old growing to view women as a pair of boobs attached to a body. I surely will not raise him this way but I don't want popular media helping to perpetuate it.
McDonalds doesn't advertise their burgers with sexy ladies pole dancing on a giant bigmac, they don't try to sexualize their product needlessly, because just like everything else both sexes buy their product.
So we all agree that there is a chance to be taken by gambling on women, yes?
No, there isn't an inherent risk for New Game X to exclude highly sexualized designs.
Your arguments are extremely tenuous and couched on getting people to agree with your asserted assumptions all the way to the conclusion, but let's ignore that and instead pretend that you are exactly right and that there is a great peril to not porning up every game: no one will care, because their reasons for opposing these ideas aren't based on spreadsheets, they're based on principle. Would you trip over yourself offering excuses for blatantly racist creations behind the shield of market morality?
It could be even simpler too: why isn't there a calculable risk in creating a game that is embarrassing enough to turn off consumers as a whole?
Posts
Beautiful.
So it's just "We don't know what it will affect, so the change cannot be made"?
THat's an equally indefensible position which has been used to push down progressive change throughout history. "What about the CONSEQUENCES" has been used in opposition to the equal rights movement since the equal rights movement was even a thing, and it rings just as hollow here as it does or did or will anywhere else.
There are developers who are making non-sexualized characters. There are more every year. It's happening, because risks are worth enacting the changes you want to see in the world.
this isn't an issue where there are passionate proponents on each side - this is an issue where there are passionate critics on one side and the apathetic majority on the other.
Agreed. There will always be media that panders to people who want big cartoon tits. There is no reason for a game that isn't about big cartoon tits to make ridiculous caricatures out of female characters for no other reason then "greasy nerds like big boobs!". Samara in ME2 and 3 being a perfect example. Why did she need to look that way? Was she also a space hooker?
Conjecture is easy. Not good enough to convince developers/publishers though.
I think that Bioware is a neat case study. They became the champions of same sex romance because they included a highly controversial lesbian sex scene in a game (pretty clearly aimed at straight men). From this controversy, they saw the support of the gay community was strong, and so moved into full on equality mode (despite making some of their players very vocally upset). But they are Bioware, and ever since they lost their heart and started making action games with mass appeal, they became a sales juggernaut, so they could take a chance. But what if Obsidian had become the accidental defender of same sex romance after they included some lesbian cheesecake in a game? I strongly suspect that no publisher would touch them with a ten foot pole.
And if we have a choice of the biowares of the world making brave choices while the Obsidians follow in their footsteps and go under? I'll take another century of objectification over that. It would hurt games much less than only having the big studios making games.
You are tasking people to put their careers at risk because of the field they chose. Would you do the same?
What games is it happening in now? No one seems to agree on who the good guys even are in this thread.
This is, again, a false dichotomy. THere is no indication that this puts people's careers at risk.
You know you bring up Obsidian, so I guess I could theoretically point to them as a group that's been steering away from gross objectification of women for the past ten years? THat'd be one of them, I guess.
And for the record, this is a neat bit of misdirection that has nothing to do with the more specific point here.
THere's a difference between "being able ot smooch on dudes" versus "female characters who are more than a walking pair of tits and swiveling hips". Yes, they exist on the same spectrum, but one represents something approaching a real artistic risk while the other is not a quantifiable risk at all
Pretending that making female characters who are more than sexual dolls is a risk equivalent to getting your game's popular image subsumed by homosexual relationships is dishonest in the extreme. And it's not even a very good example, because Mass Effect is still radically guilty of pandering to the male gaze, while the last few Obsidian games haven't been.
Changing from the set path without a clear indication that it will benefit you is the definition of a risk.
Obsidian has the best writers in the business, and so they can flesh out all their characters, but I don't thing their character designs are materially better than anyone else's on this front. Also, the DA2 gay panic thing probably would have sunk them.
You are assuming away any possible benefit in having over sexualized female characters, but I don't think that's right. Remember, these character designs feature in print, TV and online ads, and on the box art. Unless we have some how disproven the old "sex sells" adage, having your character designs be attention grabbing is still a benefit.
Darklands is one of the best RPGs ever made in history. The characters are relatively crude sprites. Here is the box art:
If that woman's cleavedge made one more person pick the game up off the shelf, it was a net positive for microprose. And to be blunt, if taking her top off could have increased sales enough to get a sequel, I'd endorse it 100000% because I like playing great games.
Yes you probably would enthusiastically endorse making the world worse for people not like you so you could have something you wanted.
I am assuming nothing of the sort. Obviously there are sales-based advantages and disadvantages to featuring women as pieces of meat, thereby perpetuating that mode of depiction in the medium and keeping gaming a hostile environment for women both for players and for creators. Obviously there are benefits. After all, there are people who will buy a game based on tits.
But you know what? Doesn't matter.
There comes a point at which you have to say that the dignity of the people participatingi n your field has to be more important than the razor-thin advantages you might gain by marginalizing half of your potential customers and producers. Because it is. We will get better games with more perspectives going into the construction of them, and having more women producing games in an environment that is safe for them will be a net benefit for all of us.
Let me put this in bold where people casually scrolling by can see it:
If your game needs to treat women as meat to sell, then fuck your game. It is not good enough.
That's about it.
That isn't how businesses work. Like I have said multiple times now, you need data that supports the idea that changing depictions of women will increase sales. Then you will see a change. But no one is collecting that data, as far as I know.
edit: and why is virtually no one making games without heavily sexualized women? Well, I can think of at least #1ReasonWhy
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
I don't think you're hearing me. We are seeing a change, slow-like, because women are making themselves heard in this space and a few - not enough, but some - powerful voices in the industry are responding.
You are looking at this from the wrong angle.
Your equation:
IF sales are not increased, DO NOT make a change.
The proper equation:
IF sales are not harmed, WHY NOT make a change.
Even allowing for the idea that business considerations are more important than the moral implications of the marginalization of half the population and the perpetuation of an insular boys-only cock club culture, which they're not, there are enough developers and producers right now who see larger potential benefits to catering to women then continuing to marginalize their consumers and themselves.
You say, "Well it might hurt sales!" but fuck that cowardice. You know which group is bigger, between gobs who buy games based on titty-tastic cover art and women who play games? Take a guess. Take a guess.
You keep going back to the "conservative course of action" but that serves no one except those who are already benefited by the status quo. That's not good enough. If this industry is dependent on marginalizing women and treating them as lesser creatures then it needs to fall over and die so it can be reborn as something better.
Of course, that's not truly relevant to the conversation because the industry is not dependent on the marginalization of women and the very idea that it is is born of the boy's-club mentality that put the whole affair into this sorry state in the first place.
You keep on repeating the same thing. It doesn't change that fact that you are conjecturing and saying "why shouldn't the multi-million dollar publishers change course from something that is working because I, a person on the Internet, think it can't hurt?" Market research is what you need, and is what isn't being done, at least as far as I can tell. That is the correct next step, not just doing what Internet quarterbacks think is a good idea.
You seem to think this is just a bunch of people talking on the PA forum and that's it. This is a slow and deliberate movement in the game community as a whole. We're talking about the community just as much as the business end of this. And while it's nice that you already have what you want so once again you don't understand why anyone else is complaining, this isn't something that's a simple as "oh but it sells fine now so game companies will just stay the course!". That's how safe businesses work. Market leaders do take great risks in order to expand their marketshare. And I'd say this is one of those risks needed to be taken in order to expand the market as a whole.
More non-objectified female characters = more female gamers. More female gamers = more female game designers. More female game designers = more non-objectified female characters/female centric games.
Cutting out half of the available market just to whip the other half into a frenzy is pointless to do as an industry. Individual companies? Fine. The entire industry? Bullshit.
And you keep insisting that
But the change is already happening, and your defense of the status quo using the shield of "well we just don't know enough" isn't stopping it
Does people speaking out about content they find objectionable not constitute reasonable market factors that may affect game sales?
That is always my favorite part of this, from an industry standpoint.
Anita Sarkeesian got a bit of flack for her first Tropes against Women basically being "Feminism 101", and beating a dead horse, but I think those critiques are unfounded.
There are the links going around about Remember Me, where apparently several producers wouldn't pick the game up because "a female protagonist won't sell to men," to boil their complaints down.
In essence, they (and SFKM) are making the claim that women aren't enough of a market in video games to actively court.
Which is, I think, (as do others) that this is a self-reinforcing loop.
To go back to Anita- her video shows that, basically from the get-go, women have had a "lower" role in video games. As far back as Mario and Zelda, the only role a female had in a game was to be kidnapped over and over again.
Through the 80s and 90s it became even worse, as it became entrenched as a marketing tool.
The point I am making, and I think the real take away from that video, is that from their onset, video games never had subject matter that attracted women. Many people who are presumably male, even in this thread, talk about how they don't like to play female characters in games. Shit, I generally don't, because for me games are escapist fantasies, and I don't generally fantasize about being a woman. (I do wish there were more gay male options though...)
The point I am making here, and to tie all this together- from the beginning, video games had nothing that appealed to women, and instead of deciding to actively court that demographic in the west, publishers decided to double down and squeeze every last drop of water from that stone. Now, when they have a vocal demographic that is complaining about their poor representation of women, and how they would prefer if there were more games with female protagonists, the response is always "but it would hurt sales!"
Yes, it may hurt sales to some male consumers. But at the same time, there are a large amount of male consumers who have expressed a desire for something more substantial that "default titillation"....and of course the entirety of the female gender. How many women are there in America? How many of those women have money? Or, more importantly, how many of those women are young and you can get them hooked for life on a brand that features a character they can identify with and care about to create life-long consumers of your product and associated tie-ins?
People keep bringing up Twilight. Twilight was a fucking genius business strategy, even if the content was fucking knackered.
There is one thing that always astounds me about the video game industry- it is that they consistently seem to make the worst goddam business decisions I have ever seen. The depressing part is that they are rewarded enough for these mistakes that they never change.
Which is why in 20-fucking-13 you have women being shouldered out of the industry, and publishers refusing to back a game with a female protagonist who doesn't explicitly pander to the male gaze.
Also, who is to say that women gamers will want to play Halo 18 with a female Spartan and a clothed AI? Women are gaming in huge numbers right now, but its things like FarmVille and word games. We need market research to figure these questions out.
And to clear up a misunderstanding, we don't need these games to already exist to do that research. When you are thinking about opening a restaurant, you don't open the restaurant first to figure out if people will eat there. . .
And, for those who are making the argument that "women should just make games," they do... They really, really do. But, a lot of times when they do, there's a subset of game consumers that do everything they can to make their lives a living hell. I can't find the relevant link at the moment, but there was a talk that Christine Love gave at one point about harassment she has suffered online, and she showed a screenshot of a message board wherein someone claimed they wanted to pay her a visit... Her parents' address was posted in the next post. I keep seeing that idiotic comment one of the Penny Arcade guys made about how the answer is always more art, not less, getting repeated throughout this thread, but I wanted to point out that shit like this is routine, and it's one of the reasons that the "more art" argument is naive at best and disingenuous and dangerous at worst.
I am not at all disagreeing with you or anything of the sort (I want to make that clear since this is often a heated topic) but I do think "Anita Sarkeesian got a bit of flack" wins Understatement of the Year.
3DS: 1607-3034-6970
That is basically the opposite of my post, so
no
Bahahaha (laughing to keep from crying)
I was specifically talking more about the flack she got from within-community and from her backers.
Not like
the death threats
Or, even shorter, "greed is good."
And no...Farmville and word games aren't the only thing female gamers play.
Oy, what market research are you using for that statement there, I wonder? You know ladies play games on the consoles and PC too, yeah? There is a surprising number of ladies who enjoy BioWare games, as an isolated example, and they are very enthusiastic about it - the majority of fan works for Mass Effect or Dragon Age are produced by women
McDonalds doesn't advertise their burgers with sexy ladies pole dancing on a giant bigmac, they don't try to sexualize their product needlessly, because just like everything else both sexes buy their product.
Make games that are less insulting to women by having less sexualized female characters and more well rounded female characters. Make female characters that aren't sexy. Make female characters that are, but only when it actually makes sense. Make female characters that are characters and not just objects for the audience to oogle. Do that, and you'll attract more girls to gaming.
For the very simple reason that they won't feel insulted by their representation in the medium.
And what do you lose by doing that? How does that hurt your market share? Do you think guys are going to look at a game and go "man, the girls in this game just aren't insulting enough... guess I better stop playing games made by company X". No, that's fucking stupid. If done correctly they won't even really notice the shift besides seeing more realistic representation of women in their games. Gamers love seeing variety in games, why exactly would they dislike seeing a variety of women in their games? You can still make attractive girls in games without sexualizing or objectifying them.
Edit: Also, it's not exactly like Publishers have figured out a magic money making formula for their games. Studios and publishers are failing all the time, all by playing it safe. Experimenting and shaking things up in general would be very good for the industry as it currently stands.
This actually leaves me wondering if a creative mind exists that could market the next Saint's Row title without pin-ups and strippers. Sometimes the IP in question has dug itself into a pretty big whole.
Hey maybe women never will. Maybe tomorrow all women everywhere will stop playing video games forever and become scions of the great old ones who ride forth to bring news of the great doom. (Jerks)
And it would still have absolutely nothing to do with putting out disgustingly sexist products and ideals that harm women. That entirely on its own is a Bad Thing. Yes, even worse than not squeezing out one extra penny of profit.
I'd like to think I'm wrong, but I wonder if that isn't a reflection of the fact that the creative internet community for these games (and others) is populated more by young women than young men, and exists alongside, but is still fairly distinct from, the actual wallet-in-hand population. Say 3 million of a ME game are sold--a tiny faction of that (1/1000th) could account for fan artwork, if not even smaller.
On the bright side though, this means they can steer the fan community in a different direction to account for an inequitable distribution of fans.
No, there isn't an inherent risk for New Game X to exclude highly sexualized designs.
Your arguments are extremely tenuous and couched on getting people to agree with your asserted assumptions all the way to the conclusion, but let's ignore that and instead pretend that you are exactly right and that there is a great peril to not porning up every game: no one will care, because their reasons for opposing these ideas aren't based on spreadsheets, they're based on principle. Would you trip over yourself offering excuses for blatantly racist creations behind the shield of market morality?
Burger King does, though!
It could be even simpler too: why isn't there a calculable risk in creating a game that is embarrassing enough to turn off consumers as a whole?
There are currently as of the 2012 census, more women in america than men
Presumably these women have money