(lines you all up and kicks each of you square in the genitals)
Oh,just realized there's a FUCKLOAD of women in video games,did ya'? Just figured out that maybe we should consider games AS A WHOLE rather than what's the big name AAA garbage pile of the week,huh? YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!!!
This,right here,is why Anita Sarkeesian gets away with conning people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I hate you all.
Until this video, I didn't even knew of the existence of hidden objects game genre.
Likewise. From the sounds of it a lot of them are touchscreen-based, which makes sense given how they work; since I only have a flip phone and no iPad or similar device, I'm guessing that's why I never knew about them.
However, having a lot of female characters in this niche does not significantly change the point that there should be a wider variety of female characters across all genres. Yes, I understand that Call of Duty is a military shooter with an overwhelmingly male player base, and I'm not going to argue that it makes sense for there to be an equal number of female soldiers as male ones in the campaign mode. But why can't there be any? Ignoring recent changes to American military policy that allow women to take frontline combat roles, since that would not have affected past games, what would the problem have been with making one of the playable characters a female medic thrust into combat after an IED takes out half her squad? At the bare minimum, why not have a couple of female NPC support troops running around in non-special ops missions (ie. when Russia invades, I forget which CoD that was in)? And if you do that, then it's logical to allow a player to choose a female soldier in multiplayer, since in that context it's purely an aesthetic matter (don't argue against it because women can't do all the things men can do unless you're also going to argue the perk system shouldn't exist).
I bought King's Bounty on a recent Steam sale, and it absolutely blows my mind the way women are treated as literally objects to be traded, with no interests other than having your babies. That's the type of game which is more likely to draw in newer gamers- less action, more thinking- and since women on average are less likely to be experienced gamers than men, it's a perfect example of what could draw more women into games. But I have friends who would almost certainly shut that shit off the instant they saw the way female characters are treated, and even though I gave the game some rope, I didn't finish and that's part of the reason why.
So, yes, I think the fact these games and these characters are so largely designed for female gamers is something to consider, but to say that means the issue of female characters in games overall is dead or severely diminished is to say it's ok for all those female characters to be lumped mainly into a genre that runs parallel to the mainstream. It's not enough, and it shouldn't be accepted as enough.
@themissinglint (I couldn't figure out how to quote people with this quick-post interface)
Well... Interactive fiction are not games, they're literature.
More specifically, they're "ergodic literature", which means any literature "that requires non-trivial effort to traverse the text". Or in plain English, anything that requires more effort to read than just moving your eyes and occasionally turning the page or just clicking a link to move to the next part of the text.
Which actually includes old text-based games and even MUD/MUSH/MU-whatever because they are text only and thus, technically, ergodic literature and not games. Same goes for most of the "Visual Novel" genre. The ones that have "game elements" in them are more of a gray zone that I'm not sure how they're defined.
But I always just call all of it "games" anyway because it's easier than to explain what ergodic literature is, every time the subject comes up. :P
And on the subject of misuse of Lovecraft in games. Dear gods, I have a game that I used to be able to rant about endlessly about how much it just took everything Lovecraft, carefully lined it up, made sure everything was consistent with the original works... And then flipped the table and made everything just... Wrong.
It's a Japanese Visual Novel. That basically says all you need to know about how and why it's wrong.
I'll just leave it nameless for now, otherwise James will probably explode if he looks it up.
aka: "There is no way females can play games, no way. Even though third of xbox gamers are female, a console that houses mostly hardcore games, they are all probably playing that 3% of top selling games that are casual. Yes, I know that if half of the entire gaming population all bout the same casual games that they would be the best selling games and that the percentage of them would be much, much higher than 3. If I haven't seen all thousands of them, heard them on voice chat so that I can then ridicule them, call them fake, and then be sexist then they do not exist. Also, you are only a gamer if you play extremely violent games. Anything less and you do not count."
Oh really? Did you read your own stats?
According to the ESA infographic, the top 20 most bought PC games of 2012 included The Sims 3 and 8 of its expansion packs, as well as The Amazing Hidden Objects Pack. In the top 20 most bought video games (in which none of the PC top 20 get a look in, so either PC games are not video games, or reported console purchases outstrip reported PC purchases) Just Dance 4 comes in number 5, with Just Dance 3 also making the list, along with Lego Batman, Skylanders and Mario Kart. These are all what I'd consider non-core games, and I'd suggest that the people buying these games are not the same people buying core games.
The latter list was far more populated with core games, with CoDs, Halo, BL2 and various sports games all placing highly. So if anything, the console gamer demographic is likely to be less fragmented because so many core games are doing so well. But without accurate stats, I'm unwilling to assume anything, and I'm unwilling to conclude anything on an infographic alone.
Also, my selective experience playing TF2 suggests that if women are playing videogames then they are playing different games to me, with there being about a 10:1 outnumbering of men to women in the organised TF2 matches I've played, as sampled through the necessary voicechat required between all members of the game. I'd expect this to translate to other FPSes as well, but, without proper testing, I can't be sure.
This gives me sufficient cause to believe that the non-core games in the top 20 are populated to a large extent by the female playerbase, as I don't see my demographic buying these games and someone must be pushing them into the top 20.
And the latter half of your post is just baseless slander and does not merit a response.
@discrider
Societal trends ensure that even if all of the characters were female, male players would never be "put out like female players are now". It's ridiculous to make that connection. Female gamers are put out by more than just the lack of female protagonists and adding more isn't going to change that, but it will make it a bit better.
Basically, even if the characters were all female, the industry and player-base would still be male dominated. So it'd be crying crocodile tears for a group that's still in power.
And I'm not even much into hidden object games. I just love the cyberpunk genre and I can see some really impressive things done with augmented reality hidden objects in a cyberpunk genre. Something like, "IR imaging required to locate these items" maybe.
Can I just chime in to say that most male gamers don't give a shit about female characters in games, and over sexualized female characters is almost never why men buy games, that's just something the industry stupidly assumes because they focus group fratboys in front of their friends and confuse correlation with causation.
I mean, I buy games that have sexualized female characters in them sometimes but I don't buy games BECAUSE they have sexualized female characters in them, I buy games because they're supposed to be good games. If I really wanted a sexy game, there are lots of free pornographic games out there anyway, why would I spend $60 for soft core jiggle boobs in a fighting game? Screw that, people buy games like that because they want a fighting game and there are limited options on the market.
Basically what I'm saying is that outside of MRA hate circles and Frat Boy focus groups (who can't be trusted) no one really cares if a main character is a non-sexualized female, we all played Portal and loved it didn't we? Come on!
Oh really? Did you read your own stats?
According to the ESA infographic, the top 20 most bought PC games of 2012 included The Sims 3 and 8 of its expansion packs, as well as The Amazing Hidden Objects Pack. In the top 20 most bought video games (in which none of the PC top 20 get a look in, so either PC games are not video games, or reported console purchases outstrip reported PC purchases) Just Dance 4 comes in number 5, with Just Dance 3 also making the list, along with Lego Batman, Skylanders and Mario Kart. These are all what I'd consider non-core games, and I'd suggest that the people buying these games are not the same people buying core games.
The latter list was far more populated with core games, with CoDs, Halo, BL2 and various sports games all placing highly. So if anything, the console gamer demographic is likely to be less fragmented because so many core games are doing so well. But without accurate stats, I'm unwilling to assume anything, and I'm unwilling to conclude anything on an infographic alone.
Also, my selective experience playing TF2 suggests that if women are playing videogames then they are playing different games to me, with there being about a 10:1 outnumbering of men to women in the organised TF2 matches I've played, as sampled through the necessary voicechat required between all members of the game. I'd expect this to translate to other FPSes as well, but, without proper testing, I can't be sure.
This gives me sufficient cause to believe that the non-core games in the top 20 are populated to a large extent by the female playerbase, as I don't see my demographic buying these games and someone must be pushing them into the top 20.
And the latter half of your post is just baseless slander and does not merit a response.
You really need statistical prof that females can like the same stuff as you? Really? Are you that sexist?
1. Lego Batman and Skylanders are mostly kids games
2. Why do you need to play "core games" to be considered a gamer?
3. By non core games, what you actually mean is games that you don't consider violent enough to fit you list. Who says it has to have fighting to fit as a "core game." What the hell does "core game" mean anyway. You know what, I am very much a "core gamer," yet I also like to play "non-core" games as well, and I seriously doubt I am the only one. I play sims 3, visual novels, dating games, and phone games in addition to my red orchestra 2, men of war, company of heroes 2, mass effect, and fallout. I would also play dance games as well if I could get the kinect to work. Just because you do not like it, doesn't mean it is not a game.
4. FIFTY PERCENT OF GAMERS ARE FEMALE. THEY CAN NOT ALL BE PLAYING THE FEW CASUAL GAMES THAT COME OUT! The idea that they are is ridiculous and absurd. It also has no weight behind it. You are just assuming they are playing those games because you want them to, but you have no basis to make such a claim. It would be just as valid of me to say that males are the ones playing the casual games, and women are the ones who mostly play hardcore games.
5. Why are you so against females liking the same stuff as you? What's the deal?
6. PC doesn't make the list because Valve does not report sales figures, which is stupid, in my opinion.
7. Sorry for not giving you sufficient statistics in a medium where very few companies actually preform meaningful studies.
Great. You played a different genre of games... and? No questions here, no lessons, just, 'this genre exists'. Okay. Thank you. Next time I'd prefer to see what you learned from the genre, not just to be told that you learned something from the genre!
Great. You played a different genre of games... and? No questions here, no lessons, just, 'this genre exists'. Okay. Thank you. Next time I'd prefer to see what you learned from the genre, not just to be told that you learned something from the genre!
You have a point. While this video did get me interested in these games, I had no idea they went so far, it is a bit disappointing that we got a video that didn't really teach or analyze anything.
Wow, James' expressions in this episode were amazing!!! Leelee's doing great work there. Can I humbly request a shirt with animated James' shocked face?
Out of curiosity, what besides the superficial is the problem with women in games? I mean, if we just took any arbitrarily male lead, and gave it a new skin, would that satisfy people? Or is there something else that you're looking for? Maybe respect for how women are different from men? Or is that sexist, because they aren't actually different, not even going into the whole cis/trans debacle? It's just kind of interesting to me that if it's just a skin issue, developers aren't just issuing mod kits to change the art on all their characters to whoever you damn well please. Since that seems like it'd be a really easy solution.
Out of curiosity, what besides the superficial is the problem with women in games? I mean, if we just took any arbitrarily male lead, and gave it a new skin, would that satisfy people? Or is there something else that you're looking for? Maybe respect for how women are different from men? Or is that sexist, because they aren't actually different, not even going into the whole cis/trans debacle? It's just kind of interesting to me that if it's just a skin issue, developers aren't just issuing mod kits to change the art on all their characters to whoever you damn well please. Since that seems like it'd be a really easy solution.
I've written stories with female protagonists- I prefer them, really- and the truth is, even when you put a woman in the precise same role as a man, the story changes. The book I'm writing now, if I put a man in either of the main two roles, it would be completely different. That's not to say it would be bad or unworkable, but it would completely change the nature of the plot. Even if you're very pro-female characters, unless you're very naive, it comes from the perspective of wanting to tell the story of a woman in such-and-such a role, not to just place a female skin on a character that could go either way. Even Chell, with no dialogue and no personal impact on the Portal series except when you see her in a mirror, makes those games feel different than they would if she was Chet.
Basically, no matter what your view on male vs. female characters, no one denies the biological differences. Because so many heroes in video games are required to be highly athletic, that factor does come into play. Some people think that means female protagonists should rarely, if ever, exist. Some, like myself, think that if you're talking about a single remarkable individual, a woman could certainly find herself in that position to be the hero. But if you have a woman as the hero, the fact a woman is less likely to have the physical attributes necessary to achieve whatever goals are required means that a female protagonist is even more special than a male one. Thus we end up viewing female heroes differently, even if, like Chell, their ability to succeed depends upon technology either gender can use. It's more or less an automatic response, and those of us old enough to even be on this forum haven't seen enough badass women growing up to view them as no different than badass men. Hopefully the next generation can have a different experience.
You really need statistical prof that females can like the same stuff as you? Really? Are you that sexist?
1. Lego Batman and Skylanders are mostly kids games
2. Why do you need to play "core games" to be considered a gamer?
3. By non core games, what you actually mean is games that you don't consider violent enough to fit you list. Who says it has to have fighting to fit as a "core game." What the hell does "core game" mean anyway. You know what, I am very much a "core gamer," yet I also like to play "non-core" games as well, and I seriously doubt I am the only one. I play sims 3, visual novels, dating games, and phone games in addition to my red orchestra 2, men of war, company of heroes 2, mass effect, and fallout. I would also play dance games as well if I could get the kinect to work. Just because you do not like it, doesn't mean it is not a game.
4. FIFTY PERCENT OF GAMERS ARE FEMALE. THEY CAN NOT ALL BE PLAYING THE FEW CASUAL GAMES THAT COME OUT! The idea that they are is ridiculous and absurd. It also has no weight behind it. You are just assuming they are playing those games because you want them to, but you have no basis to make such a claim. It would be just as valid of me to say that males are the ones playing the casual games, and women are the ones who mostly play hardcore games.
5. Why are you so against females liking the same stuff as you? What's the deal?
6. PC doesn't make the list because Valve does not report sales figures, which is stupid, in my opinion.
7. Sorry for not giving you sufficient statistics in a medium where very few companies actually preform meaningful studies.
Okay, first off, no, I do not need statistical proof that females like the same stuff as me. But before we start bending genres one way or the other we should get to know the target audience first so that we don't waste time and money making games that no-one wants. For example, a Sniper Adventure object-finding game, where the player has to identify hidden military personnel and installations, may well be fruitless. The current target audience would likely not prefer the stories shift away from wherever they are now, and FPS fans, who would be the target of such a paradigm shift, may well not take up the game due to the mechanics.
Now:
1. I am not making any assumptions here aside from the fact that I don't buy these games so other people must do. These people are likely to fit into a different demographic and could very well be kids.
2. When have I ever said this. Games is games.
3. By core games, I am looking at games that seem to take up much of the space in the media. These are your sports games, your FPSes or FPRPGs and racing games. These are the games that get iterated every year and don't seem to ever need refreshing and yet still make money.
Maybe I am not representative of the "core gamer" market, and lots of core gamers play (or bought) The Amazing Hidden Objects Pack. But considering that my opinion is mirrored wherever I look in terms of game preference, for example in this episode where they wonder what Hidden Object games are about, either I've built a rather extensive house of mirrors or I'm fairly representative.
4. First, where did you pull 50% from. Your sources say 45%. And, if math is to be believed, for people 17 and under 42% of gamers are female (of 33% of the total population), with gamers 18 and older being 46% female.
Second, I don't know why you keep throwing this casual term out there. Casual games imply, to me at least, that significant time investment is not spent on the game itself. I do not see why you could not spend hours and hours designing houses and managing Sims, and likewise in Hidden Object games, or even in Dance games (albeit until fatigue sets in). Casual vs "Hardcore" (not a terribly good descriptor) gaming is merely a difference in gameplay style, and has a large amount to do with the player. Some games emphasise one playstyle over the other by increasing the amount of short-term and long-term reward mechanisms, but ultimately it's just down to how much time people choose to devote to the game. I don't see how this has any relevance to the discussion at hand however.
Third, the basis I have for making the claim that women must play more of these games is that I don't see them playing the games I play. So if they are playing games, as the 45% suggests, they must be playing elsewhere. As this is purely personal experience, this is merely hypothesis rather than fact, but it's still enough to drive an investigation that would determine it one way or the other.
5. Why are you so against females not liking the same stuff as you? They don't have to be your clone.
6-7. No worries. It's not your fault that in depth studies haven't been publicly released, or maybe even researched, and you've been forced to rely on an informational brochure of cherry-picked results by the ESA without any method or demonstration of the validity of the testing.
But that's just my point, that we don't have the knowledge to know who wants to play what games, and where it would be economical to try and affect change.
I still like the previous comments though (like @Valendale ) which point out "Who wants jiggle physics anyway?". I mean, 19% of gamers (assuming these are all teenage boys and not younger, which some will not be), is still a big share of the market, but it doesn't justify most core games creating weak female characters just to play into that demographic's fantasies.
I don't think there's any particularly large demographic that wants 'weak' female characters. However, I think a pretty large portion of the game-playing demographic just doesn't give a shit about the story in games, or they just don't expect to care about the characters. In that environment, most characters of both genders end up as stereotypes, and a lot of the stereotypes for women are "sexy <thing>."
Most triple-A games that actually put a focus on telling story also don't have a lot of tit-jiggling in them. The MGS series is the only one that comes to mind as having both, and it's also a pretty ridiculous and explicitly stylized world.
Once again - we would like to thank Extra Credits crew for this great episode!
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Okay, first off, no, I do not need statistical proof that females like the same stuff as me. But before we start bending genres one way or the other we should get to know the target audience first so that we don't waste time and money making games that no-one wants. For example, a Sniper Adventure object-finding game, where the player has to identify hidden military personnel and installations, may well be fruitless. The current target audience would likely not prefer the stories shift away from wherever they are now, and FPS fans, who would be the target of such a paradigm shift, may well not take up the game due to the mechanics.
Now:
1. I am not making any assumptions here aside from the fact that I don't buy these games so other people must do. These people are likely to fit into a different demographic and could very well be kids.
2. When have I ever said this. Games is games.
3. By core games, I am looking at games that seem to take up much of the space in the media. These are your sports games, your FPSes or FPRPGs and racing games. These are the games that get iterated every year and don't seem to ever need refreshing and yet still make money.
Maybe I am not representative of the "core gamer" market, and lots of core gamers play (or bought) The Amazing Hidden Objects Pack. But considering that my opinion is mirrored wherever I look in terms of game preference, for example in this episode where they wonder what Hidden Object games are about, either I've built a rather extensive house of mirrors or I'm fairly representative.
4. First, where did you pull 50% from. Your sources say 45%. And, if math is to be believed, for people 17 and under 42% of gamers are female (of 33% of the total population), with gamers 18 and older being 46% female.
Second, I don't know why you keep throwing this casual term out there. Casual games imply, to me at least, that significant time investment is not spent on the game itself. I do not see why you could not spend hours and hours designing houses and managing Sims, and likewise in Hidden Object games, or even in Dance games (albeit until fatigue sets in). Casual vs "Hardcore" (not a terribly good descriptor) gaming is merely a difference in gameplay style, and has a large amount to do with the player. Some games emphasise one playstyle over the other by increasing the amount of short-term and long-term reward mechanisms, but ultimately it's just down to how much time people choose to devote to the game. I don't see how this has any relevance to the discussion at hand however.
Third, the basis I have for making the claim that women must play more of these games is that I don't see them playing the games I play. So if they are playing games, as the 45% suggests, they must be playing elsewhere. As this is purely personal experience, this is merely hypothesis rather than fact, but it's still enough to drive an investigation that would determine it one way or the other.
5. Why are you so against females not liking the same stuff as you? They don't have to be your clone.
6-7. No worries. It's not your fault that in depth studies haven't been publicly released, or maybe even researched, and you've been forced to rely on an informational brochure of cherry-picked results by the ESA without any method or demonstration of the validity of the testing.
But that's just my point, that we don't have the knowledge to know who wants to play what games, and where it would be economical to try and affect change.
I still like the previous comments though (like @Valendale ) which point out "Who wants jiggle physics anyway?". I mean, 19% of gamers (assuming these are all teenage boys and not younger, which some will not be), is still a big share of the market, but it doesn't justify most core games creating weak female characters just to play into that demographic's fantasies.
Okay, I see what you are saying.
Either way, I say we make games with strong female characters whether or not females play core games. I would like to play as, or play with, such a character, and I would like to see the stories that come out of it.
Just as an aside in case any of the makers read the comments:
Make an episode on the misuse of Lovecraft. It would be genuinely interesting because most referencing to Lovecraft seems to be done without any actual knowledge of the source material.
I'm confused. Why do games need to be hidden object games to have good female characters? Is it a result of them being aimed at females? Also, why is the fact that almost all of them are with female protagonists touted as a positive? Isn't it exactly the same issue with the more core genres but just mirrored? Is it not ok only if there are more male protagonists?
I am also kinda confused with hidden objects being like adventure games. You have to use some kind of logic and apply a thing to another thing in adventure games. Merely locating something and then having the game do the actual action for you doesn't sound very interesting. I'm pretty sure you had to locate things in Monkey Island too and while the locating was easier (I presume) compared to the one in these games, it still was there. I just don't see the logic in attatch narrative to something like that. It'd be like latching story onto a pinball game or something.
I'm so glad you mentioned hidden object puzzle games! I would call myself a pretty well rounded gamer so when I discovered hidden object games I wasn't expecting to be as hooked as I was. I agreed with your points about female characters and how the main stream game industry could take notes from how these games do their characterizations. If you have not heard of this series of games I would recommend The Dark Parable series by Blue Tea Games. It is like the show Once Upon a Time taking fairy tales, giving them a twist, and loosely interconnecting the characters across games. Also the games main character, a detective, is not gender specified. Cut scenes are done through first person and you only see the main characters gloved hand. I highly recommend this game series. I look forward to any future videos you do on this subject. Also thank you for the Papers Please recommendation. I'm hooked lol
@PerkulatorBenny: I don't know much about "ergodic literature", but I do not understand why it would be mutually exclusive with "game". Also, interactive fiction definitely is not limited to text, frequently employing complicated typography, images, and audio. I bring it up because I am just becoming aware of IF, and, like hidden object games, IF seems to do a lot of things they talk about here. Depression Quest is a great example of what EC talked about in their "Beyond Fun" episode.
In addition to my previous comment, I have a possible idea for a future topic that, while by no means a crucial aspect of games, is something we all notice and form an opinion about at some point: Radios in games.
I hope this topic piques James' interest, for I would truly love to hear your opinions on the subject!
@Dreiko "You have to use some kind of logic and apply a thing to another thing in adventure games."
That's the thing, in modern hidden object games you DO go find the thing and use it on the other thing, it is just you do a hidden item hunt to receive the mcguffen to solve the puzzle.
A list of hidden object games could be pretty hard to put together, given that one of their main producers prides itself on releasing new games every day.
@Incenjucar Just compile a random list of all possible three-word combinations of english words and proper nouns. Finding the titles of all hidden object games is now a hidden object game. :P
And on the subject of misuse of Lovecraft in games. Dear gods, I have a game that I used to be able to rant about endlessly about how much it just took everything Lovecraft, carefully lined it up, made sure everything was consistent with the original works... And then flipped the table and made everything just... Wrong.
It's a Japanese Visual Novel. That basically says all you need to know about how and why it's wrong.
I'll just leave it nameless for now, otherwise James will probably explode if he looks it up.
Demonbane, right?
Even if I'm guessing right, I would like to disagree with "It's a Japanese Visual Novel. That basically says all you need to know about how and why it's wrong." Saya no Uta is a Japanese visual novel, is lovecraft themed, reinterprets some of the mythos concepts, and is probably the single most horrifying story I've ever read, seen, or played.
The problem I have with the hidden object genre is the pretense of fantasy.
This is kinda a solely personal perspective as a fantasy geek/practicing neopagan/amateur esotericist, but I enjoy reading, watching and playing works of fantasy and deconstructing their fundamental magical systems, finding out what works and what doesn't, why each thing would or wouldn't work when applied to real magickal theory and so on.
But some works [mostly games, but literature is also guilty (looking at you Mortal Instruments)] take advantage of the suspension of disbelief inherent to the genre to do things that just don't make any logical sense. Example: ever played the final Ar Tonelico game? I can kinda get behind the "stripping makes our Reyvateils more powerful in combat" thing, but when they extend that into the whole Dive physics and team management, that's when I have to throw my hands up and say "Vladimir, what the shit?" This is what I call the pretense of fantasy, the illusion that something actually works within a given magickal system, but that pretty much everything we know about real magickal theory either contradicts that or makes it highly unlikely.
Hidden object games are rife with these abuses. A lot of them play out like obvious Dan Brown knock-offs and only pretend to have an element of the preternatural, or worse, go back to our whole willingly misinforming our audience thing and throw in obviously not real information (there are more hidden object games out there where the player is searching for Excalibur than you'd expect, and probably more than is reasonable).
You see, it's hilarious because we overlooked a hidden object. Game.
Now that I think about it I've seen tons of Hidden Object games, they sit beside the mainstream high-budget games in every Walmart and Target I've ever been in. My sister was into them for a while, but they were always too frustrating for me in that "perseverance over problem solving" style that drove me away from Point-and-Click Adventure games.
I know you explicitly said no, but I would LOVE an episode about Lovecraft's influence on games for better and (as you mentioned James might rant about) worse. You may have to revisit topics you covered in old episodes about the horror genre but could also cover how the ideals of Lovecraftian monsters have also reached into other genres of games (Mass Effect's Reapers anyone ?)
Also, this weeks end credits music got the Sims 3 music stuck in my head
I was so excited when I heard you say the phrase 'hidden objects games.' I went through a phase a few months ago where I was completely obsessed with these and played like 10 of them in 2 months.
I also have played a couple (age appropriate) HO games with my 6 year old stepdaughter and it has been a good bonding activity for us.
I want to see this 'top 10' list that was casually referenced in the episode! I am always on the lookout for good new HO games to satisfy my point and click cravings!
Posts
Oh,just realized there's a FUCKLOAD of women in video games,did ya'? Just figured out that maybe we should consider games AS A WHOLE rather than what's the big name AAA garbage pile of the week,huh? YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!!!
This,right here,is why Anita Sarkeesian gets away with conning people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I hate you all.
Likewise. From the sounds of it a lot of them are touchscreen-based, which makes sense given how they work; since I only have a flip phone and no iPad or similar device, I'm guessing that's why I never knew about them.
However, having a lot of female characters in this niche does not significantly change the point that there should be a wider variety of female characters across all genres. Yes, I understand that Call of Duty is a military shooter with an overwhelmingly male player base, and I'm not going to argue that it makes sense for there to be an equal number of female soldiers as male ones in the campaign mode. But why can't there be any? Ignoring recent changes to American military policy that allow women to take frontline combat roles, since that would not have affected past games, what would the problem have been with making one of the playable characters a female medic thrust into combat after an IED takes out half her squad? At the bare minimum, why not have a couple of female NPC support troops running around in non-special ops missions (ie. when Russia invades, I forget which CoD that was in)? And if you do that, then it's logical to allow a player to choose a female soldier in multiplayer, since in that context it's purely an aesthetic matter (don't argue against it because women can't do all the things men can do unless you're also going to argue the perk system shouldn't exist).
I bought King's Bounty on a recent Steam sale, and it absolutely blows my mind the way women are treated as literally objects to be traded, with no interests other than having your babies. That's the type of game which is more likely to draw in newer gamers- less action, more thinking- and since women on average are less likely to be experienced gamers than men, it's a perfect example of what could draw more women into games. But I have friends who would almost certainly shut that shit off the instant they saw the way female characters are treated, and even though I gave the game some rope, I didn't finish and that's part of the reason why.
So, yes, I think the fact these games and these characters are so largely designed for female gamers is something to consider, but to say that means the issue of female characters in games overall is dead or severely diminished is to say it's ok for all those female characters to be lumped mainly into a genre that runs parallel to the mainstream. It's not enough, and it shouldn't be accepted as enough.
Well... Interactive fiction are not games, they're literature.
More specifically, they're "ergodic literature", which means any literature "that requires non-trivial effort to traverse the text". Or in plain English, anything that requires more effort to read than just moving your eyes and occasionally turning the page or just clicking a link to move to the next part of the text.
Which actually includes old text-based games and even MUD/MUSH/MU-whatever because they are text only and thus, technically, ergodic literature and not games. Same goes for most of the "Visual Novel" genre. The ones that have "game elements" in them are more of a gray zone that I'm not sure how they're defined.
But I always just call all of it "games" anyway because it's easier than to explain what ergodic literature is, every time the subject comes up. :P
And on the subject of misuse of Lovecraft in games. Dear gods, I have a game that I used to be able to rant about endlessly about how much it just took everything Lovecraft, carefully lined it up, made sure everything was consistent with the original works... And then flipped the table and made everything just... Wrong.
It's a Japanese Visual Novel. That basically says all you need to know about how and why it's wrong.
I'll just leave it nameless for now, otherwise James will probably explode if he looks it up.
Oh really? Did you read your own stats?
According to the ESA infographic, the top 20 most bought PC games of 2012 included The Sims 3 and 8 of its expansion packs, as well as The Amazing Hidden Objects Pack. In the top 20 most bought video games (in which none of the PC top 20 get a look in, so either PC games are not video games, or reported console purchases outstrip reported PC purchases) Just Dance 4 comes in number 5, with Just Dance 3 also making the list, along with Lego Batman, Skylanders and Mario Kart. These are all what I'd consider non-core games, and I'd suggest that the people buying these games are not the same people buying core games.
The latter list was far more populated with core games, with CoDs, Halo, BL2 and various sports games all placing highly. So if anything, the console gamer demographic is likely to be less fragmented because so many core games are doing so well. But without accurate stats, I'm unwilling to assume anything, and I'm unwilling to conclude anything on an infographic alone.
Also, my selective experience playing TF2 suggests that if women are playing videogames then they are playing different games to me, with there being about a 10:1 outnumbering of men to women in the organised TF2 matches I've played, as sampled through the necessary voicechat required between all members of the game. I'd expect this to translate to other FPSes as well, but, without proper testing, I can't be sure.
This gives me sufficient cause to believe that the non-core games in the top 20 are populated to a large extent by the female playerbase, as I don't see my demographic buying these games and someone must be pushing them into the top 20.
And the latter half of your post is just baseless slander and does not merit a response.
Societal trends ensure that even if all of the characters were female, male players would never be "put out like female players are now". It's ridiculous to make that connection. Female gamers are put out by more than just the lack of female protagonists and adding more isn't going to change that, but it will make it a bit better.
Basically, even if the characters were all female, the industry and player-base would still be male dominated. So it'd be crying crocodile tears for a group that's still in power.
And I'm not even much into hidden object games. I just love the cyberpunk genre and I can see some really impressive things done with augmented reality hidden objects in a cyberpunk genre. Something like, "IR imaging required to locate these items" maybe.
I mean, I buy games that have sexualized female characters in them sometimes but I don't buy games BECAUSE they have sexualized female characters in them, I buy games because they're supposed to be good games. If I really wanted a sexy game, there are lots of free pornographic games out there anyway, why would I spend $60 for soft core jiggle boobs in a fighting game? Screw that, people buy games like that because they want a fighting game and there are limited options on the market.
You really need statistical prof that females can like the same stuff as you? Really? Are you that sexist?
1. Lego Batman and Skylanders are mostly kids games
2. Why do you need to play "core games" to be considered a gamer?
3. By non core games, what you actually mean is games that you don't consider violent enough to fit you list. Who says it has to have fighting to fit as a "core game." What the hell does "core game" mean anyway. You know what, I am very much a "core gamer," yet I also like to play "non-core" games as well, and I seriously doubt I am the only one. I play sims 3, visual novels, dating games, and phone games in addition to my red orchestra 2, men of war, company of heroes 2, mass effect, and fallout. I would also play dance games as well if I could get the kinect to work. Just because you do not like it, doesn't mean it is not a game.
4. FIFTY PERCENT OF GAMERS ARE FEMALE. THEY CAN NOT ALL BE PLAYING THE FEW CASUAL GAMES THAT COME OUT! The idea that they are is ridiculous and absurd. It also has no weight behind it. You are just assuming they are playing those games because you want them to, but you have no basis to make such a claim. It would be just as valid of me to say that males are the ones playing the casual games, and women are the ones who mostly play hardcore games.
5. Why are you so against females liking the same stuff as you? What's the deal?
6. PC doesn't make the list because Valve does not report sales figures, which is stupid, in my opinion.
7. Sorry for not giving you sufficient statistics in a medium where very few companies actually preform meaningful studies.
You have a point. While this video did get me interested in these games, I had no idea they went so far, it is a bit disappointing that we got a video that didn't really teach or analyze anything.
To be fair, Chell isn't a character, just an avatar. It's not that she's an insufficiently deep character, it's that her depth is non-existent.
I've written stories with female protagonists- I prefer them, really- and the truth is, even when you put a woman in the precise same role as a man, the story changes. The book I'm writing now, if I put a man in either of the main two roles, it would be completely different. That's not to say it would be bad or unworkable, but it would completely change the nature of the plot. Even if you're very pro-female characters, unless you're very naive, it comes from the perspective of wanting to tell the story of a woman in such-and-such a role, not to just place a female skin on a character that could go either way. Even Chell, with no dialogue and no personal impact on the Portal series except when you see her in a mirror, makes those games feel different than they would if she was Chet.
Basically, no matter what your view on male vs. female characters, no one denies the biological differences. Because so many heroes in video games are required to be highly athletic, that factor does come into play. Some people think that means female protagonists should rarely, if ever, exist. Some, like myself, think that if you're talking about a single remarkable individual, a woman could certainly find herself in that position to be the hero. But if you have a woman as the hero, the fact a woman is less likely to have the physical attributes necessary to achieve whatever goals are required means that a female protagonist is even more special than a male one. Thus we end up viewing female heroes differently, even if, like Chell, their ability to succeed depends upon technology either gender can use. It's more or less an automatic response, and those of us old enough to even be on this forum haven't seen enough badass women growing up to view them as no different than badass men. Hopefully the next generation can have a different experience.
Okay, first off, no, I do not need statistical proof that females like the same stuff as me. But before we start bending genres one way or the other we should get to know the target audience first so that we don't waste time and money making games that no-one wants. For example, a Sniper Adventure object-finding game, where the player has to identify hidden military personnel and installations, may well be fruitless. The current target audience would likely not prefer the stories shift away from wherever they are now, and FPS fans, who would be the target of such a paradigm shift, may well not take up the game due to the mechanics.
Now:
1. I am not making any assumptions here aside from the fact that I don't buy these games so other people must do. These people are likely to fit into a different demographic and could very well be kids.
2. When have I ever said this. Games is games.
3. By core games, I am looking at games that seem to take up much of the space in the media. These are your sports games, your FPSes or FPRPGs and racing games. These are the games that get iterated every year and don't seem to ever need refreshing and yet still make money.
Maybe I am not representative of the "core gamer" market, and lots of core gamers play (or bought) The Amazing Hidden Objects Pack. But considering that my opinion is mirrored wherever I look in terms of game preference, for example in this episode where they wonder what Hidden Object games are about, either I've built a rather extensive house of mirrors or I'm fairly representative.
4. First, where did you pull 50% from. Your sources say 45%. And, if math is to be believed, for people 17 and under 42% of gamers are female (of 33% of the total population), with gamers 18 and older being 46% female.
Second, I don't know why you keep throwing this casual term out there. Casual games imply, to me at least, that significant time investment is not spent on the game itself. I do not see why you could not spend hours and hours designing houses and managing Sims, and likewise in Hidden Object games, or even in Dance games (albeit until fatigue sets in). Casual vs "Hardcore" (not a terribly good descriptor) gaming is merely a difference in gameplay style, and has a large amount to do with the player. Some games emphasise one playstyle over the other by increasing the amount of short-term and long-term reward mechanisms, but ultimately it's just down to how much time people choose to devote to the game. I don't see how this has any relevance to the discussion at hand however.
Third, the basis I have for making the claim that women must play more of these games is that I don't see them playing the games I play. So if they are playing games, as the 45% suggests, they must be playing elsewhere. As this is purely personal experience, this is merely hypothesis rather than fact, but it's still enough to drive an investigation that would determine it one way or the other.
5. Why are you so against females not liking the same stuff as you? They don't have to be your clone.
6-7. No worries. It's not your fault that in depth studies haven't been publicly released, or maybe even researched, and you've been forced to rely on an informational brochure of cherry-picked results by the ESA without any method or demonstration of the validity of the testing.
But that's just my point, that we don't have the knowledge to know who wants to play what games, and where it would be economical to try and affect change.
I still like the previous comments though (like @Valendale ) which point out "Who wants jiggle physics anyway?". I mean, 19% of gamers (assuming these are all teenage boys and not younger, which some will not be), is still a big share of the market, but it doesn't justify most core games creating weak female characters just to play into that demographic's fantasies.
Most triple-A games that actually put a focus on telling story also don't have a lot of tit-jiggling in them. The MGS series is the only one that comes to mind as having both, and it's also a pretty ridiculous and explicitly stylized world.
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Okay, I see what you are saying.
Either way, I say we make games with strong female characters whether or not females play core games. I would like to play as, or play with, such a character, and I would like to see the stories that come out of it.
Make an episode on the misuse of Lovecraft. It would be genuinely interesting because most referencing to Lovecraft seems to be done without any actual knowledge of the source material.
I am also kinda confused with hidden objects being like adventure games. You have to use some kind of logic and apply a thing to another thing in adventure games. Merely locating something and then having the game do the actual action for you doesn't sound very interesting. I'm pretty sure you had to locate things in Monkey Island too and while the locating was easier (I presume) compared to the one in these games, it still was there. I just don't see the logic in attatch narrative to something like that. It'd be like latching story onto a pinball game or something.
I hope this topic piques James' interest, for I would truly love to hear your opinions on the subject!
That's the thing, in modern hidden object games you DO go find the thing and use it on the other thing, it is just you do a hidden item hunt to receive the mcguffen to solve the puzzle.
Demonbane, right?
Even if I'm guessing right, I would like to disagree with "It's a Japanese Visual Novel. That basically says all you need to know about how and why it's wrong." Saya no Uta is a Japanese visual novel, is lovecraft themed, reinterprets some of the mythos concepts, and is probably the single most horrifying story I've ever read, seen, or played.
This is kinda a solely personal perspective as a fantasy geek/practicing neopagan/amateur esotericist, but I enjoy reading, watching and playing works of fantasy and deconstructing their fundamental magical systems, finding out what works and what doesn't, why each thing would or wouldn't work when applied to real magickal theory and so on.
But some works [mostly games, but literature is also guilty (looking at you Mortal Instruments)] take advantage of the suspension of disbelief inherent to the genre to do things that just don't make any logical sense. Example: ever played the final Ar Tonelico game? I can kinda get behind the "stripping makes our Reyvateils more powerful in combat" thing, but when they extend that into the whole Dive physics and team management, that's when I have to throw my hands up and say "Vladimir, what the shit?" This is what I call the pretense of fantasy, the illusion that something actually works within a given magickal system, but that pretty much everything we know about real magickal theory either contradicts that or makes it highly unlikely.
Hidden object games are rife with these abuses. A lot of them play out like obvious Dan Brown knock-offs and only pretend to have an element of the preternatural, or worse, go back to our whole willingly misinforming our audience thing and throw in obviously not real information (there are more hidden object games out there where the player is searching for Excalibur than you'd expect, and probably more than is reasonable).
Now that I think about it I've seen tons of Hidden Object games, they sit beside the mainstream high-budget games in every Walmart and Target I've ever been in. My sister was into them for a while, but they were always too frustrating for me in that "perseverance over problem solving" style that drove me away from Point-and-Click Adventure games.
Also, this weeks end credits music got the Sims 3 music stuck in my head
I also have played a couple (age appropriate) HO games with my 6 year old stepdaughter and it has been a good bonding activity for us.
I want to see this 'top 10' list that was casually referenced in the episode! I am always on the lookout for good new HO games to satisfy my point and click cravings!