...have the best defensive equipment of them all, allowing them to completely shut down most offense against them in most versions.
Wait, are you implying that a software bug has a social motive?
Even now they are the easiest two characters to get max evade and m. evade on!
Plus it's really their equipment that stands out. Minerva Armor, Atma Weapon, Illumina/Ragnarok. Hell even in the Advance version with new equipment in the optional dungeon to make everyone better they get the hands down best stuff with Save the Queen and Apocalypse!
FFVI has always been an interesting case: Not only does the plot revolve around the two female leads (Terra in part one and Celes in part two) but they are also hands down the best characters gameplay wise, and in an interesting twist have the best defensive equipment of them all, allowing them to completely shut down most offense against them in most versions.
Now while they seem on the surface to be your typical FF frail back row magic casting bosomy magesticks they end up being two of the better sword and board classes as well with the best selection hands down of offensive equips and having most of the best defensive equips!
In the endgame, maybe. At the beginning, edgar and sabin do way more damage with their special moves, so terra and celes's main use is to cast cure magic.
Also, Terra's special morph ability shows that women periodically change into a raging monster that instantly kills everyone they encounter. :P
Also I want to take issue with calling female characters who are basically male characters as a problem: computer games don't deal with peoples homelives, they don't deal with their day-to-day social interactions. They tend to deal with problems that will destroy universes, end lives, and require killing other people.
There aren't masculine and feminine characteristics we want people to have in these situations, there's just one set of characteristics we want whoever's solving this problem to have.
But on top of all that, what baffles my mind is this: other then people having different genitals, most of the time there doesn't seem to be a compelling argument that any given character should act differently, at least in a fantasy setting, other then as delineated by their character.
...have the best defensive equipment of them all, allowing them to completely shut down most offense against them in most versions.
Wait, are you implying that a software bug has a social motive?
Even now they are the easiest two characters to get max evade and m. evade on!
Plus it's really their equipment that stands out. Minerva Armor, Atma Weapon, Illumina/Ragnarok. Hell even in the Advance version with new equipment in the optional dungeon to make everyone better they get the hands down best stuff with Save the Queen and Apocalypse!
So I just started playing Mass Effect and now I want to know why it is that the only female character so far wears pink, where every other character wears blue. Official space marine uniforms are apparently colour-coded.
So I just started playing Mass Effect and now I want to know why it is that the only female character so far wears pink, where every other character wears blue. Official space marine uniforms are apparently colour-coded.
That's just Space Hitler's starting armor. You get better stuff pretty for her quick.
So I just started playing Mass Effect and now I want to know why it is that the only female character so far wears pink, where every other character wears blue. Official space marine uniforms are apparently colour-coded.
That's just Space Hitler's starting armor. You get better stuff pretty for her quick.
It's also equipable by males
:winky:
There's also a heavy armor version of it which my Sheperd wore for a substantial time on the Citadel.
Though I will say, that did stand out a little like a sore thumb for me when it first came up. Conversely, if you look at the video of all the marines fighting, they're wearing everything from red to blue to green, so it occurs to me that being essentially a backwater detachment they may have just been experiencing the joy of wearing stuff really intended for civilians.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
So I just started playing Mass Effect and now I want to know why it is that the only female character so far wears pink, where every other character wears blue. Official space marine uniforms are apparently colour-coded.
That's just Space Hitler's starting armor. You get better stuff pretty for her quick.
There is a ton of time to tell an actual good story with good dialogue in a video game. And yet it is almost never done.
There is a ton of time and resources and space to create characters with more depth than paper, and yet it is almost never done.
Video games' characters and stories are generally just shorthand for a story you already know. Brave princes and damsels and hard-ass mercenaries and terrorists and all of that. In terms of narrative and storytelling, the medium is still in its infancy. It is little surprise that when it cribs from every other well-travelled trope, they end up with the same ethnic and gender stereotypes in the same boring characters in the same boring story.
On the occasions where the game works a little harder on its characters and stories, the characters start to diverge a little from the gender stereotypes. Morrigan from DA:O is certainly a strong-willed female character (if something of The Shrew). Elika from Prince of Persia has her own distinct personality. Jade from BG&E, of course, is a fantastic character. Faith from Mirror's Edge is maybe not the deepest character but is certainly atypical and likable.
Basically, I think that the medium as a whole is going in a relatively good direction where story and plot are being considered at all. Where the medium is just genre twaddle and fanboy service, we should expect it to continue to be roughly as progressive as porn, romance novels and Tom Clancy books.
One important difference is that unlike TV or movies, you can have a financially successful videogame that's marketed to a female demographic, or just a wider demographic than the typical 18-35 year old male demographic, and not have to bother with narrative at all.
Long-form narrative TV series develop their characters because they have to in order to keep their audience. Videogames do not, and in fact games that try and ape the narrative forms of TV and movies can wind up alienating more players than they attract. Hello, Metal Gear Solids 2-4.
When games like The Sims and Wii Fit sell a metric fuckton to a much wider demographic than the typical videogame (not to mention Facebook games like Farmville), what's the incentive for developers to invest the time and energy to create characters and narrative to rival even the average daytime soap opera when they could just eschew narrative completely and focus on gameplay?
Absolutely none, because most people don't play games just to ingest a soap level story, they play it to play a game.
Even the genre full of writing at that level (RPGs) primary appeal for most people is the sense of progress and the enjoyment of felling a hard boss or exploring a brand new fantastical area, with the story as an afterthought.
There is a ton of time to tell an actual good story with good dialogue in a video game. And yet it is almost never done.
There is a ton of time and resources and space to create characters with more depth than paper, and yet it is almost never done.
Video games' characters and stories are generally just shorthand for a story you already know. Brave princes and damsels and hard-ass mercenaries and terrorists and all of that. In terms of narrative and storytelling, the medium is still in its infancy. It is little surprise that when it cribs from every other well-travelled trope, they end up with the same ethnic and gender stereotypes in the same boring characters in the same boring story.
On the occasions where the game works a little harder on its characters and stories, the characters start to diverge a little from the gender stereotypes. Morrigan from DA:O is certainly a strong-willed female character (if something of The Shrew). Elika from Prince of Persia has her own distinct personality. Jade from BG&E, of course, is a fantastic character. Faith from Mirror's Edge is maybe not the deepest character but is certainly atypical and likable.
Basically, I think that the medium as a whole is going in a relatively good direction where story and plot are being considered at all. Where the medium is just genre twaddle and fanboy service, we should expect it to continue to be roughly as progressive as porn, romance novels and Tom Clancy books.
One important difference is that unlike TV or movies, you can have a financially successful videogame that's marketed to a female demographic, or just a wider demographic than the typical 18-35 year old male demographic, and not have to bother with narrative at all.
Are there any? That's an honest question. I know that there are video games like Barbie's ranch, and whatnot, but i always assumed that those didn't make much money.
It's "casual" titles, mostly, ranging from things like Wii Sports/Play/Fit/Dance/Flail/Age/Pee/Celebrate Nintendomas and The Sims, to Bejeweled and other super-casual, high-score-chasing browser games.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
There's still a shitload of room, is my actual point O_o
There is a ton of time to tell an actual good story with good dialogue in a video game. And yet it is almost never done.
There is a ton of time and resources and space to create characters with more depth than paper, and yet it is almost never done.
Video games' characters and stories are generally just shorthand for a story you already know. Brave princes and damsels and hard-ass mercenaries and terrorists and all of that. In terms of narrative and storytelling, the medium is still in its infancy. It is little surprise that when it cribs from every other well-travelled trope, they end up with the same ethnic and gender stereotypes in the same boring characters in the same boring story.
On the occasions where the game works a little harder on its characters and stories, the characters start to diverge a little from the gender stereotypes. Morrigan from DA:O is certainly a strong-willed female character (if something of The Shrew). Elika from Prince of Persia has her own distinct personality. Jade from BG&E, of course, is a fantastic character. Faith from Mirror's Edge is maybe not the deepest character but is certainly atypical and likable.
Basically, I think that the medium as a whole is going in a relatively good direction where story and plot are being considered at all. Where the medium is just genre twaddle and fanboy service, we should expect it to continue to be roughly as progressive as porn, romance novels and Tom Clancy books.
And this is primarily because it is easier to tap into gender norms as a foundational selling point because we are so familiar with it than it is to rework and introduce a new conceptualization of masculinity or femininity.
You see this with advertising regularly. Gender norms are very easy to prey upon and several of the blockbusters do just that.
Let's not forget that it's very hard to write characterization without forcing the player outr, so it's generally easier to let the emotion come from the fact that the consumer has actually worked for the loss that the writer puts in, so it makes a much deeper impact.
I find it interesting that my original question was "why can't video games be more like TV", and that all the responses were an exercise in reaching for reasons why change is just not possible - and a lot of the reasons are, I'm sorry, bullshit excuses for laziness. No-one's really stood up and said 'there's no good reasons why game developers shouldn't be trying harder', even though that should be clearly evident.
How about stuff like Super Mario Brothers, Mario Kart, Mario Party, and the like? Not super casual, marketed to everyone.
Or Professor Layton, or a bunch of other stuff.
Heck part of the reason the HD consoles aren't doing as well these days is I can't really find any games they have that fit the same mold...Scene It I guess? Rockband and Guitar Hero, but those are on the Wii too.
That's another interesting point; The Wii ads are extraordinarily gender neutral for video game ads. Every once in awhile MS will try and crib that approach, but the 360 in itself gives off a very young adult male vibe.
I find it interesting that my original question was "why can't video games be more like TV", and that all the responses were an exercise in reaching for reasons why change is just not possible - and a lot of the reasons are, I'm sorry, bullshit excuses for laziness. No-one's really stood up and said 'there's no good reasons why game developers shouldn't be trying harder', even though that should be clearly evident.
Why can't movies be more like TV?
As for why game developers don't try harder? Many of them do not feel that there is an incentive. This may be due to true or false assumptions about their audience, how much it will effect income, their own abilities, or so forth.
Should they try harder? Sure. But there is still Phoenix Games.
I find it interesting that my original question was "why can't video games be more like TV", and that all the responses were an exercise in reaching for reasons why change is just not possible - and a lot of the reasons are, I'm sorry, bullshit excuses for laziness. No-one's really stood up and said 'there's no good reasons why game developers shouldn't be trying harder', even though that should be clearly evident.
Why can't movies be more like TV?
Sure, that too.
As for why game developers don't try harder? Many of them do not feel that there is an incentive. This may be due to true or false assumptions about their audience, how much it will effect income, their own abilities, or so forth.
Should they try harder? Sure. But there is still Phoenix Games.
I find it interesting that my original question was "why can't video games be more like TV", and that all the responses were an exercise in reaching for reasons why change is just not possible - and a lot of the reasons are, I'm sorry, bullshit excuses for laziness. No-one's really stood up and said 'there's no good reasons why game developers shouldn't be trying harder', even though that should be clearly evident.
That's like asking portraits to be more like plays or movies to be more like music. Video games (usually) are a different, interactive form of entertainment. Some games have put an emphasis on writing or good acting, sure but that's not the focus. Immersion and having fun are more important to this art form at the moment. Besides a very few adventure games and a very limited number of RPGs I don't think I've ever come off from a game and said "I'd enjoy this just as much or more if it were a book or movie."
It can be done sure, but right now it's not the focus.
I find it interesting that my original question was "why can't video games be more like TV", and that all the responses were an exercise in reaching for reasons why change is just not possible - and a lot of the reasons are, I'm sorry, bullshit excuses for laziness. No-one's really stood up and said 'there's no good reasons why game developers shouldn't be trying harder', even though that should be clearly evident.
Why can't movies be more like TV?
Sure, that too.
As for why game developers don't try harder? Many of them do not feel that there is an incentive. This may be due to true or false assumptions about their audience, how much it will effect income, their own abilities, or so forth.
Should they try harder? Sure. But there is still Phoenix Games.
I find it interesting that my original question was "why can't video games be more like TV", and that all the responses were an exercise in reaching for reasons why change is just not possible - and a lot of the reasons are, I'm sorry, bullshit excuses for laziness. No-one's really stood up and said 'there's no good reasons why game developers shouldn't be trying harder', even though that should be clearly evident.
To be fair, it's not as though there's really a massive outcry for them to "try harder."
It's art and entertainment, so people vote with their wallets.
If people want them to make games with non-banal stories, they need to demand games with non-banal stories and to stop buying games with banal stories.
Absolutely none, because most people don't play games just to ingest a soap level story, they play it to play a game.
Even the genre full of writing at that level (RPGs) primary appeal for most people is the sense of progress and the enjoyment of felling a hard boss or exploring a brand new fantastical area, with the story as an afterthought.
That's partly because fantasy novels are primarily about exploring Moria and fighting the trolls, but they need a much more involving plot to make you feel the hero's accomplishments. In games, it's you busting your ass protecting Aeris and developing a relationship with her, which makes Sephiroth all the more of an asshole. This is actually why an English professor said he wouldn't want to play a Mice and Men game I proposed, as it would be really fucking depressing.
It's art and entertainment, so people vote with their wallets.
If people want them to make games with non-banal stories, they need to demand games with non-banal stories and to stop buying games with banal stories.
Though to be fair, those games with banal story lines tend to have lots and lots of pretty special effects to make up for plots no deeper than the puddles in my driveway.
It's art and entertainment, so people vote with their wallets.
If people want them to make games with non-banal stories, they need to demand games with non-banal stories and to stop buying games with banal stories.
Though to be fair, those games with banal story lines tend to have lots and lots of pretty special effects to make up for plots no deeper than the puddles in my driveway.
Well that is part of why people still buy games with banal stories.
Ultimately, commercial art and entertainment is a negotiation between what the artist desires to produce and what the patrons want to purchase.
You have to convince either or both the artist and the patrons to change their desires.
Its a different medium so sexist portrayals of characters are totally okay and even a necessity? WTF? Are you losing track of the conversation?
Long quote tree did confuse the hell out of me, let's see if I can salvage the thought.
Stories are secondary in gaming because it is a different medium with different goals. People play games to have fun. Most of the games that put a focus on storytelling don't have neolithic world views of women and men and their relationships, but these games are terribly few in number, though not for the reason of progressive gender depictions but because video games have terrible writing. The practice of hiring on professional writers to do the scripting on games is a very recent trend, with only a few late 80's early 90's adventure games to break the mold (namely Douglas Adam's excellent adventure games)
These games exist, but because video gaming is still relatively new compared to television and movies most of the high profile content is still targeted at their bread and butter core audience. Look at early cinema and TV portrayals of women. Now you might argue that since gaming started in the late 70's that it should be a more progressive medium to begin with and heck maybe it has been. Now that the game developers are starting to wise up on the ever growing ever hungry female demographic for gaming this will change, and it has already started to some extent, though with games that, shockingly enough, focus on gameplay over story. Crazy I know.
I could give you a list of 50-100 decently characterized, fairly decent portrayals of women in video gaming if I sat down and thought of it. No vapid damsel's in distress need apply. That's not the disconnect. The real issue is the lack of genuinely good storytelling keeping it from reaching that television level of gender equity.
Sales wise gender neutral gaming is starting to completely dominate the field.
Its a different medium so sexist portrayals of characters are totally okay and even a necessity? WTF? Are you losing track of the conversation?
Long quote tree did confuse the hell out of me, let's see if I can salvage the thought.
Stories are secondary in gaming because it is a different medium with different goals. People play games to have fun. Most of the games that put a focus on storytelling don't have neolithic world views of women and men and their relationships, but these games are terribly few in number, though not for the reason of progressive gender depictions but because video games have terrible writing. The practice of hiring on professional writers to do the scripting on games is a very recent trend, with only a few late 80's early 90's adventure games to break the mold (namely Douglas Adam's excellent adventure games)
These games exist, but because video gaming is still relatively new compared to television and movies most of the high profile content is still targeted at their bread and butter core audience. Look at early cinema and TV portrayals of women. Now you might argue that since gaming started in the late 70's that it should be a more progressive medium to begin with and heck maybe it has been. Now that the game developers are starting to wise up on the ever growing ever hungry female demographic for gaming this will change, and it has already started to some extent, though with games that, shockingly enough, focus on gameplay over story. Crazy I know.
I could give you a list of 50-100 decently characterized, fairly decent portrayals of women in video gaming if I sat down and thought of it. No vapid damsel's in distress need apply. That's not the disconnect. The real issue is the lack of genuinely good storytelling keeping it from reaching that television level of gender equity.
Sales wise gender neutral gaming is starting to completely dominate the field.
That I can roll with.
Is it perhaps time to move on from looking at the games themselves to the cultures around them - the player cultures, the developer cultures, etc? We seem to keep skipping away from those.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
It's art and entertainment, so people vote with their wallets.
If people want them to make games with non-banal stories, they need to demand games with non-banal stories and to stop buying games with banal stories.
Though to be fair, those games with banal story lines tend to have lots and lots of pretty special effects to make up for plots no deeper than the puddles in my driveway.
Well that is part of why people still buy games with banal stories.
Ultimately, commercial art and entertainment is a negotiation between what the artist desires to produce and what the patrons want to purchase.
You have to convince either or both the artist and the patrons to change their desires.
Or try to go for both. Though in my experience, doing that is an extremely tall order and often times a noticeable exception to the rule. See: Dragon Age.
Is it perhaps time to move on from looking at the games themselves to the cultures around them - the player cultures, the developer cultures, etc? We seem to keep skipping away from those.
I think JacobKosh had an excellent point when he pointed out that most videogame male characters are male power fantasies while most female characters are male desire fantasies, but I don't think this can all be blamed on catering to a specific audience.
Not only is the game development world still dominated by men, but it's essentially a cannibalistic field; they're mostly recreating the same ideas, the same experiences that they enjoyed before, but with one new technical advancement or one new gimmick. And the things that these men working on games mostly grew up to enjoy are... Yep, male power fantasties. The problem then is that we see Aliens-with-a-dude played out dozens of times before we see any Mirror's Edge.
It's art and entertainment, so people vote with their wallets.
If people want them to make games with non-banal stories, they need to demand games with non-banal stories and to stop buying games with banal stories.
As we all know. Being the peak of physical and sporting perfection isn't in any way a standard male fantasy eh Zet?
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
Games are always going to have an element of fantasy to them, as if they were things you were willing to do in real life you'd be doing them. Also the smilies on this forum aren't very good.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
It's art and entertainment, so people vote with their wallets.
If people want them to make games with non-banal stories, they need to demand games with non-banal stories and to stop buying games with banal stories.
I don't know why there's a responsibility to be an ethical consumer, but no responsibility to be an ethical producer.
As we all know. Being the peak of physical and sporting perfection isn't in any way a standard male fantasy eh Zet?
I never said it wasn't.
But 'the peak of physical and sporting perfection' as a standard male fantasy usually looks more like a quarterback than an ethnically-asian female free-runner.
As we all know. Being the peak of physical and sporting perfection isn't in any way a standard male fantasy eh Zet?
I never said it wasn't.
But 'the peak of physical and sporting perfection' as a standard male fantasy usually looks more like a quarterback than an ethnically-asian female free-runner.
Posts
Even now they are the easiest two characters to get max evade and m. evade on!
Plus it's really their equipment that stands out. Minerva Armor, Atma Weapon, Illumina/Ragnarok. Hell even in the Advance version with new equipment in the optional dungeon to make everyone better they get the hands down best stuff with Save the Queen and Apocalypse!
Also, Terra's special morph ability shows that women periodically change into a raging monster that instantly kills everyone they encounter. :P
There aren't masculine and feminine characteristics we want people to have in these situations, there's just one set of characteristics we want whoever's solving this problem to have.
But on top of all that, what baffles my mind is this: other then people having different genitals, most of the time there doesn't seem to be a compelling argument that any given character should act differently, at least in a fantasy setting, other then as delineated by their character.
Women and their accessories...
That's just Space Hitler's starting armor. You get better stuff pretty for her quick.
It's also equipable by males
:winky:
There's also a heavy armor version of it which my Sheperd wore for a substantial time on the Citadel.
Though I will say, that did stand out a little like a sore thumb for me when it first came up. Conversely, if you look at the video of all the marines fighting, they're wearing everything from red to blue to green, so it occurs to me that being essentially a backwater detachment they may have just been experiencing the joy of wearing stuff really intended for civilians.
One important difference is that unlike TV or movies, you can have a financially successful videogame that's marketed to a female demographic, or just a wider demographic than the typical 18-35 year old male demographic, and not have to bother with narrative at all.
Long-form narrative TV series develop their characters because they have to in order to keep their audience. Videogames do not, and in fact games that try and ape the narrative forms of TV and movies can wind up alienating more players than they attract. Hello, Metal Gear Solids 2-4.
When games like The Sims and Wii Fit sell a metric fuckton to a much wider demographic than the typical videogame (not to mention Facebook games like Farmville), what's the incentive for developers to invest the time and energy to create characters and narrative to rival even the average daytime soap opera when they could just eschew narrative completely and focus on gameplay?
Even the genre full of writing at that level (RPGs) primary appeal for most people is the sense of progress and the enjoyment of felling a hard boss or exploring a brand new fantastical area, with the story as an afterthought.
I find it interesting that my original question was "why can't video games be more like TV", and that all the responses were an exercise in reaching for reasons why change is just not possible - and a lot of the reasons are, I'm sorry, bullshit excuses for laziness. No-one's really stood up and said 'there's no good reasons why game developers shouldn't be trying harder', even though that should be clearly evident.
Or Professor Layton, or a bunch of other stuff.
Heck part of the reason the HD consoles aren't doing as well these days is I can't really find any games they have that fit the same mold...Scene It I guess? Rockband and Guitar Hero, but those are on the Wii too.
That's another interesting point; The Wii ads are extraordinarily gender neutral for video game ads. Every once in awhile MS will try and crib that approach, but the 360 in itself gives off a very young adult male vibe.
Why can't movies be more like TV?
As for why game developers don't try harder? Many of them do not feel that there is an incentive. This may be due to true or false assumptions about their audience, how much it will effect income, their own abilities, or so forth.
Should they try harder? Sure. But there is still Phoenix Games.
you're doing it again
That's like asking portraits to be more like plays or movies to be more like music. Video games (usually) are a different, interactive form of entertainment. Some games have put an emphasis on writing or good acting, sure but that's not the focus. Immersion and having fun are more important to this art form at the moment. Besides a very few adventure games and a very limited number of RPGs I don't think I've ever come off from a game and said "I'd enjoy this just as much or more if it were a book or movie."
It can be done sure, but right now it's not the focus.
"being more like" in terms of characterisation does not mean switching into a different media. That's ridiculous.
You're ASKING WHY.
I'm EXPLAINING WHY.
You are not asking should.
They do not think there is money in it, or the money that it is worth is not enough for them to bother, so they do not.
Is it okay? Yes. It is legal and not visibly malicious or uniquely destructive.
Do I approve of it? No.
If people want them to make games with non-banal stories, they need to demand games with non-banal stories and to stop buying games with banal stories.
That's partly because fantasy novels are primarily about exploring Moria and fighting the trolls, but they need a much more involving plot to make you feel the hero's accomplishments. In games, it's you busting your ass protecting Aeris and developing a relationship with her, which makes Sephiroth all the more of an asshole. This is actually why an English professor said he wouldn't want to play a Mice and Men game I proposed, as it would be really fucking depressing.
Well that is part of why people still buy games with banal stories.
Ultimately, commercial art and entertainment is a negotiation between what the artist desires to produce and what the patrons want to purchase.
You have to convince either or both the artist and the patrons to change their desires.
Long quote tree did confuse the hell out of me, let's see if I can salvage the thought.
Stories are secondary in gaming because it is a different medium with different goals. People play games to have fun. Most of the games that put a focus on storytelling don't have neolithic world views of women and men and their relationships, but these games are terribly few in number, though not for the reason of progressive gender depictions but because video games have terrible writing. The practice of hiring on professional writers to do the scripting on games is a very recent trend, with only a few late 80's early 90's adventure games to break the mold (namely Douglas Adam's excellent adventure games)
These games exist, but because video gaming is still relatively new compared to television and movies most of the high profile content is still targeted at their bread and butter core audience. Look at early cinema and TV portrayals of women. Now you might argue that since gaming started in the late 70's that it should be a more progressive medium to begin with and heck maybe it has been. Now that the game developers are starting to wise up on the ever growing ever hungry female demographic for gaming this will change, and it has already started to some extent, though with games that, shockingly enough, focus on gameplay over story. Crazy I know.
I could give you a list of 50-100 decently characterized, fairly decent portrayals of women in video gaming if I sat down and thought of it. No vapid damsel's in distress need apply. That's not the disconnect. The real issue is the lack of genuinely good storytelling keeping it from reaching that television level of gender equity.
Sales wise gender neutral gaming is starting to completely dominate the field.
That I can roll with.
Is it perhaps time to move on from looking at the games themselves to the cultures around them - the player cultures, the developer cultures, etc? We seem to keep skipping away from those.
I think JacobKosh had an excellent point when he pointed out that most videogame male characters are male power fantasies while most female characters are male desire fantasies, but I don't think this can all be blamed on catering to a specific audience.
Not only is the game development world still dominated by men, but it's essentially a cannibalistic field; they're mostly recreating the same ideas, the same experiences that they enjoyed before, but with one new technical advancement or one new gimmick. And the things that these men working on games mostly grew up to enjoy are... Yep, male power fantasties. The problem then is that we see Aliens-with-a-dude played out dozens of times before we see any Mirror's Edge.
the problem is there's no other games to buy
vicious cycle++
I don't know why there's a responsibility to be an ethical consumer, but no responsibility to be an ethical producer.
I never said it wasn't.
But 'the peak of physical and sporting perfection' as a standard male fantasy usually looks more like a quarterback than an ethnically-asian female free-runner.
PSN: Corbius
Speak for yourself. :P