People who don't grow up with games where you simulate killing another person tend not to warm up to them very fast.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Look at the kinds of games women play, then reward that.
You talked about how there's not enough money in social/mobile and we need to get more women playing console games. Well, the most successful consoles among women at the moment is the Wii. A lot of gaming communities (including this one, to some extent) show a lot of derision towards the Wii and casual gaming, because they aren't for us and therefore they must not be real games. We need to change that.
I feel like a lot of what gets asked for in this thread are the very same games with different coats of paint. People seem to want us to take the violent shooters with generic macho male soldiers and replace them with violent shooters that have generic macho female soldiers. That might make some people feel better, but I don't think it does a lot to appeal to women as a demographic.
If we want to attract more women to gaming, we need to look at what the games that women play are like, and produce more games to meet that need. Are games that are popular with women less focused on challenge and more on social features? Then we need to do more of that. Ultimately, we need to be willing to make new kinds of games for women, not just the same games with new paint jobs.
I'm pretty sure women play the same sort of games guys do, as long as the game is "inviting them to play". If the game displays a view of women that basically tells them to fuck off they will not be playing that game. I would also like to interject that we need not "replace macho male soldiers with macho female soldiers". It's enough to add female soldiers as an option (Gears of War 3). This goes for all games. Add features and themes that make women feel included in the demographic the game is targeted at and they will play it. This obviously also defaults to "not adding features that make women feel unwelcome" which is far too often the problem. Girls like action too, as long as they can identify with the characters in the game or at the least don't feel left out. I play Call of Duty: World at War with a ten year old girl regularly, and that's of her accord. Just imagine if she could choose to play a female soldier.
EDIT: L.A NOIR sold 4.7 million copies if I'm not mistaken. The company then went bankrupt. According to hearsay they needed to sell about 6 or 7 million to break even.
EDIT2: I know several women who enjoy World of Tanks by the way.
Look at the kinds of games women play, then reward that.
You talked about how there's not enough money in social/mobile and we need to get more women playing console games. Well, the most successful consoles among women at the moment is the Wii. A lot of gaming communities (including this one, to some extent) show a lot of derision towards the Wii and casual gaming, because they aren't for us and therefore they must not be real games. We need to change that.
I feel like a lot of what gets asked for in this thread are the very same games with different coats of paint. People seem to want us to take the violent shooters with generic macho male soldiers and replace them with violent shooters that have generic macho female soldiers. That might make some people feel better, but I don't think it does a lot to appeal to women as a demographic.
If we want to attract more women to gaming, we need to look at what the games that women play are like, and produce more games to meet that need. Are games that are popular with women less focused on challenge and more on social features? Then we need to do more of that. Ultimately, we need to be willing to make new kinds of games for women, not just the same games with new paint jobs.
I'm pretty sure women play the same sort of games guys do, as long as the game is "inviting them to play". If the game displays a view of women that basically tells them to fuck off they will not be playing that game. I would also like to interject that we need not "replace macho male soldiers with macho female soldiers". It's enough to add female soldiers as an option (Gears of War 3). This goes for all games. Add features and themes that make women feel included in the demographic the game is targeted at and they will play it. This obviously also defaults to "not adding features that make women feel unwelcome" which is far too often the problem. Girls like action too, as long as they can identify with the characters in the game or at the least don't feel left out. I play Call of Duty: World at War with a ten year old girl regularly, and that's of her accord. Just imagine if she could choose to play a female soldier.
EDIT: L.A NOIR sold 4.7 million copies if I'm not mistaken. The company then went bankrupt. According to hearsay they needed to sell about 6 or 7 million to break even.
EDIT2: I know several women who enjoy World of Tanks by the way.
One could find female players of any popular game. Demographics aren't straitjackets, they're tendencies.
For example, you could use a female avatar in the Unreal Tournament games. Do you think the Unreal Tournament series is appealing to women? Do you think more games like Unreal Tournament would balance out the gender ratio of gamers?
Look at the kinds of games women play, then reward that.
You talked about how there's not enough money in social/mobile and we need to get more women playing console games. Well, the most successful consoles among women at the moment is the Wii. A lot of gaming communities (including this one, to some extent) show a lot of derision towards the Wii and casual gaming, because they aren't for us and therefore they must not be real games. We need to change that.
I feel like a lot of what gets asked for in this thread are the very same games with different coats of paint. People seem to want us to take the violent shooters with generic macho male soldiers and replace them with violent shooters that have generic macho female soldiers. That might make some people feel better, but I don't think it does a lot to appeal to women as a demographic.
If we want to attract more women to gaming, we need to look at what the games that women play are like, and produce more games to meet that need. Are games that are popular with women less focused on challenge and more on social features? Then we need to do more of that. Ultimately, we need to be willing to make new kinds of games for women, not just the same games with new paint jobs.
I'm pretty sure women play the same sort of games guys do, as long as the game is "inviting them to play". If the game displays a view of women that basically tells them to fuck off they will not be playing that game. I would also like to interject that we need not "replace macho male soldiers with macho female soldiers". It's enough to add female soldiers as an option (Gears of War 3). This goes for all games. Add features and themes that make women feel included in the demographic the game is targeted at and they will play it. This obviously also defaults to "not adding features that make women feel unwelcome" which is far too often the problem. Girls like action too, as long as they can identify with the characters in the game or at the least don't feel left out. I play Call of Duty: World at War with a ten year old girl regularly, and that's of her accord. Just imagine if she could choose to play a female soldier.
EDIT: L.A NOIR sold 4.7 million copies if I'm not mistaken. The company then went bankrupt. According to hearsay they needed to sell about 6 or 7 million to break even.
EDIT2: I know several women who enjoy World of Tanks by the way.
One could find female players of any popular game. Demographics aren't straitjackets, they're tendencies.
For example, you could use a female avatar in the Unreal Tournament games. Do you think the Unreal Tournament series is appealing to women? Do you think more games like Unreal Tournament would balance out the gender ratio of gamers?
Absolutely (assuming the avatar is reasonable. I can't recall what the UT one was like right now). Platforms, puzzle, rpgs, shooters.. Likes is not about gender. It's about people.
On the topic of male and female bodies and their depiction in video games: even if we assume that men and women are under the same level of pressure to conform to a given ideal, it's worth remembering the implications of each ideal.
On one side we've got the gorilla muscled, commander-in-beef man, whose body practically screams "I am the hero and I will get shit done." If you had to boil Nathan Drake, Marcus Pheonix, or Street Fighter's Ryu down to one word based on their appearance, "powerful," "strong," or some similarly positive quality would have to be it.
Now I could cite a ton of female game protagonists, but I'm feeling kind of lazy. Suffice it to say that the ideal they're based on is a much less empowered version of sexiness - between the twig limbs, jiggling chest-flesh, and scant fabric, female characters in games look more like a prizes to be won than heroines to be winning 'em. In essence: girl-sexy is weak, man-sexy is strong, and there are problems with perpetuating that particular perspective.
Yeah I can definitely see that. There is definitely a difference between your nathan drakes and your marcus fenixes, though. I think drake vs the remember me protag is a pretty good analog, for qualities that are generally considered to be attractive without being unreasonable/unhealthy.
Not for the point he's making. While one is Arnie and the other is Willis, both scream "power".
Yes, absolutely. Power is almost universally something that we think all male and female characters should have. What I was saying with my other posts is that the look that accompanies that power does not have a clean cut line for what is acceptable, and has a lot of room for interpretation on what's realistic and reasonable for a body type. A female protagonist can, at least in my opinion, have a lean attractive athletic build, and it not be considered demeaning to women in the same way that the brad pitt looking video game action heroes are not demeaning to men.
Hideo Kojima once talked about how he received some fan mail from young women stating that they didn't want to play as an old man. He was so dismayed at this that he created:
who eventually became
in order to appeal to female fans. There was a lot of backlash in the US (but not Japan) for this move, but it didn't hurt opening week sales at all, the general sales of the game, or the sales of the sequels.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Hideo Kojima once talked about how he received some fan mail from young women stating that they didn't want to play as an old man. He was so dismayed at this that he created:
who eventually became
in order to appeal to female fans. There was a lot of backlash in the US (but not Japan) for this move, but it didn't hurt opening week sales at all, the general sales of the game, or the sales of the sequels.
This reminds me of something from the "Sexy Superheroines" article Cambiata linked:
If you really want to support Starfire's "liberated sexuality" like she's somehow a person with real agency, what people should really be campaigning for is more half-clothed dudes in suggestive poses to get drawn around her, since I'm sure that's what she'd like to see. But people don't really want that, do they?
If things like that and the dude you posted are really examples of what women would enjoy (and not just what men think women would enjoy) then I personally do want to see more of this and think anyone who would be opposed can just get over it (because they're probably both homophobic and sexist).
For example, you could use a female avatar in the Unreal Tournament games. Do you think the Unreal Tournament series is appealing to women? Do you think more games like Unreal Tournament would balance out the gender ratio of gamers?
Probably not, but that has less to do with 'what women want' and more to do with the entrenchment of not only male participants, but hilariously misogynistic (and racist, but that's another discussion) male participants. The environment firmly rejected the idea that women could come and play (or, at least, that they could come and play with equal respect) - and that has nothing to do with what women might prefer or not.
A good shooter is a good shooter; solid mechanics are gender neutral. Unfortunately, arena shooters - especially at the competitive level - are flooded with the Boy's Club attitude, so the perception of any given arena shooter is that it's a male activity.
I think it varies depending on the culture. For instance, in Silent Hill 3, Heather was apparently supposed to be wearing jeans, but the female team members thought that a skirt would be better.
If you actually play MGS2, it has all sorts of weird chauvinist and feminist things going around in it, sometimes at the same time, so it's really hard to tell what the game developers are thinking. Then came MGS3 with the same kind of mix in even stronger extremes, followed by MGS4 which continued the trend. It's interesting, and I'd love to find data on any sort of gender market data or surveys or any real female response to the feminist-positive (and feminist-negative) aspects of MGS 2-5.
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
For example, you could use a female avatar in the Unreal Tournament games. Do you think the Unreal Tournament series is appealing to women? Do you think more games like Unreal Tournament would balance out the gender ratio of gamers?
Probably not, but that has less to do with 'what women want' and more to do with the entrenchment of not only male participants, but hilariously misogynistic (and racist, but that's another discussion) male participants. The environment firmly rejected the idea that women could come and play (or, at least, that they could come and play with equal respect) - and that has nothing to do with what women might prefer or not.
A good shooter is a good shooter; solid mechanics are gender neutral. Unfortunately, arena shooters - especially at the competitive level - are flooded with the Boy's Club attitude, so the perception of any given arena shooter is that it's a male activity.
I agree with this, which is part of why I think that pressuring companies to solve the harassment issue is such a big deal. Even though it's only tangentially related to sexism/misogyny, in-game harassment is a huge problem that keeps a lot of women from playing online games.
Playing games online isn't just a boys-club attitude, it's just a generally horrible attitude. And that's something that can be changed.
For example, you could use a female avatar in the Unreal Tournament games. Do you think the Unreal Tournament series is appealing to women? Do you think more games like Unreal Tournament would balance out the gender ratio of gamers?
Probably not, but that has less to do with 'what women want' and more to do with the entrenchment of not only male participants, but hilariously misogynistic (and racist, but that's another discussion) male participants. The environment firmly rejected the idea that women could come and play (or, at least, that they could come and play with equal respect) - and that has nothing to do with what women might prefer or not.
A good shooter is a good shooter; solid mechanics are gender neutral. Unfortunately, arena shooters - especially at the competitive level - are flooded with the Boy's Club attitude, so the perception of any given arena shooter is that it's a male activity.
I agree with this, which is part of why I think that pressuring companies to solve the harassment issue is such a big deal. Even though it's only tangentially related to sexism/misogyny, in-game harassment is a huge problem that keeps a lot of women from playing online games.
Playing games online isn't just a boys-club attitude, it's just a generally horrible attitude. And that's something that can be changed.
I 100% agree with this. My girlfriend flat out refuses to talk on vent with strangers because of the jokes and harassment she gets for being female.
Also, I started a human female character in WoW once (that I guess had a feminine name?) and started getting creepy whispers and random people handing me stuff. That was seriously creepy. I deleted the character immediately.
I think there's a "boys will be boys" attitude in regards to companies policing that kind of behavior in their games and it really needs to stop.
Ingame harassment is a bigger problem than sexist character designs or story tropes, if you ask me, because one is a broad societal trend with a huge variety of reasons behind it and one is one person deliberately degrading another person
There really shouldn't be any discussion, companies should just crack down on sexism, racism, or any kind of harassment that goes above and beyond standard trash talking in their games
Letting the kind of people who do that shit in online games know their attitude is flat out not welcome in the medium probably would help fix the other problems over a long enough time too
They latch on to anything that they think will give them power over others. I get lots of hate messages and worse because one of my tags is a middle eastern sounding name, which is a bit funny cause I'm not middle eastern, but the goal is definitely to try to harm others through the internet in any way that works. There is nothing sacred.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Playing games online isn't just a boys-club attitude, it's just a generally horrible attitude. And that's something that can be changed.
It's not 'just' misogynistic attitudes that are problems, but misogyny is really over-represented in terms of negative behavior in online games. And I don't think it's tangential at all - it's a core element of online gaming harassment.
I have a number of alts in WoW that are female. I have never once been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
A huge chunk of my guild is composed of girls, who play with female avatars. They too have never been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
I'm not saying this kind of behavior doesn't exist. But it's not as massively pervasive as you think.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
I have a number of alts in WoW that are female. I have never once been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
A huge chunk of my guild is composed of girls, who play with female avatars. They too have never been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
I'm not saying this kind of behavior doesn't exist. But it's not as massively pervasive as you think.
Tell that to the ladies I know or knew who never voice chatted or will ever give any inkling that they, indeed, do not have a penis in any online game they play. WoW may be special in that regard, I do not know, but I'm not really buying that it isn't a god damned problem.
Of course it's a problem. Don't ever play SS13 public.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I have a number of alts in WoW that are female. I have never once been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
A huge chunk of my guild is composed of girls, who play with female avatars. They too have never been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
I'm not saying this kind of behavior doesn't exist. But it's not as massively pervasive as you think.
Tell that to the ladies I know or knew who never voice chatted or will ever give any inkling that they, indeed, do not have a penis in any online game they play. WoW may be special in that regard, I do not know, but I'm not really buying that it isn't a god damned problem.
But neither is this absurd notion that the second you spawn into the game with a female avatar, you're surrounded by creeps all digitally fapping to your model.
None of my guildies hide the fact that they're girls. They don't openly ANNOUNCE it either, but neither do any of the men either. I mean the majority of communication is text based, nobody anywhere has any reason to announce their gender at the start of every sentence they type.
We also don't vent with strangers. Again not as a form of gender avoidance, but because they're fucking strangers. Who the hell wants to voice chat with idiot strangers?
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
This story about Dragons of Dredmor got me to buy the game, even though I don't like roguelikes. So I'll gladly throw my money at game developers that make anti harassment policies the norm. The question is where do I find such developers.
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I have a number of alts in WoW that are female. I have never once been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
A huge chunk of my guild is composed of girls, who play with female avatars. They too have never been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
I'm not saying this kind of behavior doesn't exist. But it's not as massively pervasive as you think.
I originally had a male avatar in WoW, but all of my alts were female, and I switched mains with every expansion. When it became possible to switch my character's gender, I switched my original main to be a female avatar. In nearly seven years on the game, I personally got creepy whispers once. One of those times was when I was flying and picking herbs on my Rogue, and someone started sending "Hey sweetie" whispers. Anecdote is anecdote, but having played through about 7 years of WoW with female avatars for the majority of that time (using names that aren't particularly male, like Hopefire, Shadowhope, Silverbow, Darkhope, Frosthope, etc) I'm always a little surprised when other people have had a such a dramatically different experience.
I imagine that when it comes to guilds and groups and a woman starts speaking, it might be significantly different. Let me rephrase that: I have no doubt that in quite a few guilds and groups, it's a serious problem. But the avatar itself doesn't mean a whole lot. A fairly substantial proportion of the men in my guild played with female avatars.
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited May 2013
There is a dude who has a Youtube channel dedicated to harassing girls (warning, Kotaku). But to be certain he's got a real girl and isn't harassing some poor innocent dude instead, he looks up women with Youtube channels first. I have no idea if there is any kind of trend here or if this is one lone asshole, but his channel does have subscribers.
Cambiata on
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I have a number of alts in WoW that are female. I have never once been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
A huge chunk of my guild is composed of girls, who play with female avatars. They too have never been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
I'm not saying this kind of behavior doesn't exist. But it's not as massively pervasive as you think.
I originally had a male avatar in WoW, but all of my alts were female, and I switched mains with every expansion. When it became possible to switch my character's gender, I switched my original main to be a female avatar. In nearly seven years on the game, I personally got creepy whispers once. One of those times was when I was flying and picking herbs on my Rogue, and someone started sending "Hey sweetie" whispers. Anecdote is anecdote, but having played through about 7 years of WoW with female avatars for the majority of that time (using names that aren't particularly male, like Hopefire, Shadowhope, Silverbow, Darkhope, Frosthope, etc) I'm always a little surprised when other people have had a such a dramatically different experience.
I imagine that when it comes to guilds and groups and a woman starts speaking, it might be significantly different. Let me rephrase that: I have no doubt that in quite a few guilds and groups, it's a serious problem. But the avatar itself doesn't mean a whole lot. A fairly substantial proportion of the men in my guild played with female avatars.
The game & community in question is also a relevant factor. MMORPGs, for a variety of reasons, do not have the same magnitude of harassment problems that XBL has, or that arena shooter events have, or that fighting game communities have (a big reason is the the anti-harassment infrastructure in MMORPGs has grown & developed for years, as part of that genre's nature).
With Love and Courage
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I'm kind of amazed at the restraint we're showing as a society re: that guy not being headbutted into a coma.
Yet.
People.. tend to ignore and look the other way. Butting into other's lives is something best left to the government, at least with my generation. I think that's why I don't know any of my neighbors.
The internet's kind of become like that. We all just ignore the spheres we don't want to be a part of. It's why raising awareness is so important - to show that we don't stand for this.
There is a dude who has a Youtube channel dedicated to harassing girls (warning, Kotaku). But to be certain he's got a real girl and isn't harassing some poor innocent dude instead, he looks up women with Youtube channels first. I have no idea if there is any kind of trend here or if this is one lone asshole, but his channel does have subscribers.
That sounds like a joke channel. I mean if you listen to his videos some lines just come across that way.
"Why would a girl want to play games when they could play mini-games for example?"
Lilnoobs on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Well yeah, it's a joke channel which gets it's humor from harassing ladies. I don't think the fact that he thinks he's a comedian makes it better somehow. I could link to his fake apology to Kotaku, where he says that because of Kotaku he's going to harass even more girls so Kotaku just better shut up about him, but I'd rather not drive more views to his videos.
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
It's kind of interesting how the "maternal instinct" is treated in games
I just finished The Walking Dead, (FUCK) which had better leveraging of a paternal figure than any other piece of media I've seen since Mother 3, or McCarthy's The Road. Lee isn't strictly paternal - women can identify with how he wants to protect Clementine, too. It's universal, almost.
So
It makes me wonder why whenever the same feelings are (attempted to be) evoked in a female character, it's treated like this weird radiation reaching up from the uterus, something to be studied under a microscope
Is that how developers see motherhood? Is it all Samus standing around talking about her womb feelings?
WoW is actually very good, it seems, when it comes to gender harrasment. Since a lot of guys have female avatars, it's rather hard to tell if someone is a chick. I myself, have only been harrased because of my gender a handful of times. Besides, the WoW community has so many groups that they can harass instead. (PvP vs PvE, Horde vs Alliance, Blood Elves vs. The rest of the Horde, DK's and Hunters vs the competent classes.)
Scientific studies have shown oxytocin, which is secreted mainly right after childbirth, generates feelings of trust as a neurologic hormone effect. So it biologically is a weird radiation reaching up from the uterus (actually from the pituitary but whatever).
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
WoW is actually very good, it seems, when it comes to gender harrasment. Since a lot of guys have female avatars, it's rather hard to tell if someone is a chick. I myself, have only been harrased because of my gender a handful of times. Besides, the WoW community has so many groups that they can harass instead. (PvP vs PvE, Horde vs Alliance, Blood Elves vs. The rest of the Horde, DK's and Hunters vs the competent classes.)
Scientific studies have shown oxytocin, which is secreted mainly right after childbirth, generates feelings of trust as a neurologic hormone effect. So it biologically is a weird radiation reaching up from the uterus (actually from the pituitary but whatever).
Scientific studies have shown oxytocin, which is secreted mainly right after childbirth, generates feelings of trust as a neurologic hormone effect. So it biologically is a weird radiation reaching up from the uterus (actually from the pituitary but whatever).
Is this really a thing you're going to do
There are medically distinct but minute differences between the sexes that people confabulate into social concepts of gender. People did the same thing with race.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Scientific studies have shown oxytocin, which is secreted mainly right after childbirth, generates feelings of trust as a neurologic hormone effect. So it biologically is a weird radiation reaching up from the uterus (actually from the pituitary but whatever).
Is this really a thing you're going to do
There are medically distinct but minute differences between the sexes that people confabulate into social concepts of gender. People did the same thing with race.
Okay I guess this is a thing you're going to do.
Maternity and Paternity - parenthood - are more than the birth process.
The protection instinct is incredibly powerful and experienced almost universally in some capacity, by everyone, even if a kid has not dropped out of their vagina.
Scientific studies have shown oxytocin, which is secreted mainly right after childbirth, generates feelings of trust as a neurologic hormone effect. So it biologically is a weird radiation reaching up from the uterus (actually from the pituitary but whatever).
Is this really a thing you're going to do
There are medically distinct but minute differences between the sexes that people confabulate into social concepts of gender. People did the same thing with race.
Okay I guess this is a thing you're going to do.
Maternity and Paternity - parenthood - are more than the birth process.
The protection instinct is incredibly powerful and experienced almost universally in some capacity, by everyone, even if a kid has not dropped out of their vagina.
Oxytocin really does make people in general act nicer and more generously towards each other, including (but not exclusively by any means) mothers towards their children. I don't think Paladin's trying to say that women are slaves to their hormones while men are completely rational, and if he is then that's incredibly wrong.
This is probably a discussion best left for another thread, but it's always been annoying to me that any mention of the underlying biological reasons for human behavior on these forums is usually met with scorn and presumptions that the person is really just trying to justify problematic behavior.
Scientific studies have shown oxytocin, which is secreted mainly right after childbirth, generates feelings of trust as a neurologic hormone effect. So it biologically is a weird radiation reaching up from the uterus (actually from the pituitary but whatever).
Is this really a thing you're going to do
There are medically distinct but minute differences between the sexes that people confabulate into social concepts of gender. People did the same thing with race.
Okay I guess this is a thing you're going to do.
Maternity and Paternity - parenthood - are more than the birth process.
The protection instinct is incredibly powerful and experienced almost universally in some capacity, by everyone, even if a kid has not dropped out of their vagina.
For Christ's sake
It is very important that you stop thinking I am saying whatever you are thinking I am saying, because as far as I'm concerned you're responding to someone entirely different. You had wondered something earlier:
It makes me wonder why whenever the same feelings are (attempted to be) evoked in a female character, it's treated like this weird radiation reaching up from the uterus, something to be studied under a microscope
And I answered by saying that people noticed there was a small female hormone thing that people noticed and blew up into the whole mystical maternal instinct thing, which is elaborated in media. It was a direct answer to your query.
I may have a fundamental problem at communicating ideas which is disheartening. I am not sure that even this message will be clear. I expected it to be a neat little factoid that would be interesting, and it confounds me why people get upset over this. Was I doing something like implying that females are more suited to raise children? Why would I do that? And I thought that I had negated that possibility quite thoroughly in the second post. If it is something else, I'm drawing a blank here on what you're thinking I'm thinking. It makes me sad to think that people automatically assume the worst of anything I say.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Scientific studies have shown oxytocin, which is secreted mainly right after childbirth, generates feelings of trust as a neurologic hormone effect. So it biologically is a weird radiation reaching up from the uterus (actually from the pituitary but whatever).
Is this really a thing you're going to do
There are medically distinct but minute differences between the sexes that people confabulate into social concepts of gender. People did the same thing with race.
Okay I guess this is a thing you're going to do.
Maternity and Paternity - parenthood - are more than the birth process.
The protection instinct is incredibly powerful and experienced almost universally in some capacity, by everyone, even if a kid has not dropped out of their vagina.
For Christ's sake
It is very important that you stop thinking I am saying whatever you are thinking I am saying, because as far as I'm concerned you're responding to someone entirely different. You had wondered something earlier:
It makes me wonder why whenever the same feelings are (attempted to be) evoked in a female character, it's treated like this weird radiation reaching up from the uterus, something to be studied under a microscope
And I answered by saying that people noticed there was a small female hormone thing that people noticed and blew up into the whole mystical maternal instinct thing, which is elaborated in media. It was a direct answer to your query.
I may have a fundamental problem at communicating ideas which is disheartening. I am not sure that even this message will be clear. I expected it to be a neat little factoid that would be interesting, and it confounds me why people get upset over this. Was I doing something like implying that females are more suited to raise children? Why would I do that? And I thought that I had negated that possibility quite thoroughly in the second post. If it is something else, I'm drawing a blank here on what you're thinking I'm thinking. It makes me sad to think that people automatically assume the worst of anything I say.
No, you did not do anything explicitly wrong. I did not assume you meant what you actually meant, but there is a reason for that: I find it highly implausible, almost to the point of absurdity, that video game portrayals of women in parental roles being so stilted and weird compared to men in the same roles is caused by game developers thinking about the studies revolving around oxytocin.
Because that notion does not appear to conflate with reality. It kind of gestures at reality, in a sense, but it's more justification after the fact.
The Walking Dead is specifically a game about a sort of adoptive father and the little girl he takes care of. There are not any - or nearly as many - really good female characters portrayed in the same sort of relationships. Articles about oxycotin are not the reason for that disparity.
Hexmage I want you to go back and re-read my earliest post on this page, and see why that might be an off-base thing to point out
I'll concede that biological differences between the behavioral patterns of the sexes is too often used by people barely familiar with the subject as an excuse for sexist beliefs and that the impacts of those biological factors are usually wildly overstated while ignoring the influence of socialization, but as a causal determinist who believes that no one truly has free will I'm also annoyed with the constant demonization of such ideas.
I'll agree that bringing up such ideas might be counterproductive for this thread, but I'll also say that I'm not sure discussions about maternal and paternal behaviors really belong in this thread either. I personally can't recall any depictions of motherhood in games I've played, for one thing.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited May 2013
I think Paladin's point is that maternal instinct is a real, biological, chemical thing, but that in general, society's perception of the actual influence of that chemical is vastly overblown to the point where those who don't have intimate knowledge of the way the biological parts work are likely to exaggerate the function.
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Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm pretty sure women play the same sort of games guys do, as long as the game is "inviting them to play". If the game displays a view of women that basically tells them to fuck off they will not be playing that game. I would also like to interject that we need not "replace macho male soldiers with macho female soldiers". It's enough to add female soldiers as an option (Gears of War 3). This goes for all games. Add features and themes that make women feel included in the demographic the game is targeted at and they will play it. This obviously also defaults to "not adding features that make women feel unwelcome" which is far too often the problem. Girls like action too, as long as they can identify with the characters in the game or at the least don't feel left out. I play Call of Duty: World at War with a ten year old girl regularly, and that's of her accord. Just imagine if she could choose to play a female soldier.
EDIT: L.A NOIR sold 4.7 million copies if I'm not mistaken. The company then went bankrupt. According to hearsay they needed to sell about 6 or 7 million to break even.
EDIT2: I know several women who enjoy World of Tanks by the way.
One could find female players of any popular game. Demographics aren't straitjackets, they're tendencies.
For example, you could use a female avatar in the Unreal Tournament games. Do you think the Unreal Tournament series is appealing to women? Do you think more games like Unreal Tournament would balance out the gender ratio of gamers?
Absolutely (assuming the avatar is reasonable. I can't recall what the UT one was like right now). Platforms, puzzle, rpgs, shooters.. Likes is not about gender. It's about people.
Yes, absolutely. Power is almost universally something that we think all male and female characters should have. What I was saying with my other posts is that the look that accompanies that power does not have a clean cut line for what is acceptable, and has a lot of room for interpretation on what's realistic and reasonable for a body type. A female protagonist can, at least in my opinion, have a lean attractive athletic build, and it not be considered demeaning to women in the same way that the brad pitt looking video game action heroes are not demeaning to men.
who eventually became
in order to appeal to female fans. There was a lot of backlash in the US (but not Japan) for this move, but it didn't hurt opening week sales at all, the general sales of the game, or the sales of the sequels.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
This reminds me of something from the "Sexy Superheroines" article Cambiata linked:
If things like that and the dude you posted are really examples of what women would enjoy (and not just what men think women would enjoy) then I personally do want to see more of this and think anyone who would be opposed can just get over it (because they're probably both homophobic and sexist).
Probably not, but that has less to do with 'what women want' and more to do with the entrenchment of not only male participants, but hilariously misogynistic (and racist, but that's another discussion) male participants. The environment firmly rejected the idea that women could come and play (or, at least, that they could come and play with equal respect) - and that has nothing to do with what women might prefer or not.
A good shooter is a good shooter; solid mechanics are gender neutral. Unfortunately, arena shooters - especially at the competitive level - are flooded with the Boy's Club attitude, so the perception of any given arena shooter is that it's a male activity.
If you actually play MGS2, it has all sorts of weird chauvinist and feminist things going around in it, sometimes at the same time, so it's really hard to tell what the game developers are thinking. Then came MGS3 with the same kind of mix in even stronger extremes, followed by MGS4 which continued the trend. It's interesting, and I'd love to find data on any sort of gender market data or surveys or any real female response to the feminist-positive (and feminist-negative) aspects of MGS 2-5.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I agree with this, which is part of why I think that pressuring companies to solve the harassment issue is such a big deal. Even though it's only tangentially related to sexism/misogyny, in-game harassment is a huge problem that keeps a lot of women from playing online games.
Playing games online isn't just a boys-club attitude, it's just a generally horrible attitude. And that's something that can be changed.
I 100% agree with this. My girlfriend flat out refuses to talk on vent with strangers because of the jokes and harassment she gets for being female.
Also, I started a human female character in WoW once (that I guess had a feminine name?) and started getting creepy whispers and random people handing me stuff. That was seriously creepy. I deleted the character immediately.
I think there's a "boys will be boys" attitude in regards to companies policing that kind of behavior in their games and it really needs to stop.
There really shouldn't be any discussion, companies should just crack down on sexism, racism, or any kind of harassment that goes above and beyond standard trash talking in their games
Letting the kind of people who do that shit in online games know their attitude is flat out not welcome in the medium probably would help fix the other problems over a long enough time too
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's not 'just' misogynistic attitudes that are problems, but misogyny is really over-represented in terms of negative behavior in online games. And I don't think it's tangential at all - it's a core element of online gaming harassment.
A huge chunk of my guild is composed of girls, who play with female avatars. They too have never been on the receiving end of anything abusive or creepy in regards to gender.
I'm not saying this kind of behavior doesn't exist. But it's not as massively pervasive as you think.
Tell that to the ladies I know or knew who never voice chatted or will ever give any inkling that they, indeed, do not have a penis in any online game they play. WoW may be special in that regard, I do not know, but I'm not really buying that it isn't a god damned problem.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
But neither is this absurd notion that the second you spawn into the game with a female avatar, you're surrounded by creeps all digitally fapping to your model.
None of my guildies hide the fact that they're girls. They don't openly ANNOUNCE it either, but neither do any of the men either. I mean the majority of communication is text based, nobody anywhere has any reason to announce their gender at the start of every sentence they type.
We also don't vent with strangers. Again not as a form of gender avoidance, but because they're fucking strangers. Who the hell wants to voice chat with idiot strangers?
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I originally had a male avatar in WoW, but all of my alts were female, and I switched mains with every expansion. When it became possible to switch my character's gender, I switched my original main to be a female avatar. In nearly seven years on the game, I personally got creepy whispers once. One of those times was when I was flying and picking herbs on my Rogue, and someone started sending "Hey sweetie" whispers. Anecdote is anecdote, but having played through about 7 years of WoW with female avatars for the majority of that time (using names that aren't particularly male, like Hopefire, Shadowhope, Silverbow, Darkhope, Frosthope, etc) I'm always a little surprised when other people have had a such a dramatically different experience.
I imagine that when it comes to guilds and groups and a woman starts speaking, it might be significantly different. Let me rephrase that: I have no doubt that in quite a few guilds and groups, it's a serious problem. But the avatar itself doesn't mean a whole lot. A fairly substantial proportion of the men in my guild played with female avatars.
On my sleeve, let the runway start
Yet.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The game & community in question is also a relevant factor. MMORPGs, for a variety of reasons, do not have the same magnitude of harassment problems that XBL has, or that arena shooter events have, or that fighting game communities have (a big reason is the the anti-harassment infrastructure in MMORPGs has grown & developed for years, as part of that genre's nature).
People.. tend to ignore and look the other way. Butting into other's lives is something best left to the government, at least with my generation. I think that's why I don't know any of my neighbors.
The internet's kind of become like that. We all just ignore the spheres we don't want to be a part of. It's why raising awareness is so important - to show that we don't stand for this.
That sounds like a joke channel. I mean if you listen to his videos some lines just come across that way.
"Why would a girl want to play games when they could play mini-games for example?"
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I just finished The Walking Dead, (FUCK) which had better leveraging of a paternal figure than any other piece of media I've seen since Mother 3, or McCarthy's The Road. Lee isn't strictly paternal - women can identify with how he wants to protect Clementine, too. It's universal, almost.
So
It makes me wonder why whenever the same feelings are (attempted to be) evoked in a female character, it's treated like this weird radiation reaching up from the uterus, something to be studied under a microscope
Is that how developers see motherhood? Is it all Samus standing around talking about her womb feelings?
You want a really bad MMO?
Spoilered due to sorta-NSFW
WoW
Dear Satan.....
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Oh dear. I see the ads for that thing on Mobafire all of the time.
Is this really a thing you're going to do
There are medically distinct but minute differences between the sexes that people confabulate into social concepts of gender. People did the same thing with race.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Okay I guess this is a thing you're going to do.
Maternity and Paternity - parenthood - are more than the birth process.
The protection instinct is incredibly powerful and experienced almost universally in some capacity, by everyone, even if a kid has not dropped out of their vagina.
For Christ's sake
10 Reasons Why Oxytocin is the Most Amazing Molecule in the World.
Oxytocin really does make people in general act nicer and more generously towards each other, including (but not exclusively by any means) mothers towards their children. I don't think Paladin's trying to say that women are slaves to their hormones while men are completely rational, and if he is then that's incredibly wrong.
This is probably a discussion best left for another thread, but it's always been annoying to me that any mention of the underlying biological reasons for human behavior on these forums is usually met with scorn and presumptions that the person is really just trying to justify problematic behavior.
It is very important that you stop thinking I am saying whatever you are thinking I am saying, because as far as I'm concerned you're responding to someone entirely different. You had wondered something earlier:
And I answered by saying that people noticed there was a small female hormone thing that people noticed and blew up into the whole mystical maternal instinct thing, which is elaborated in media. It was a direct answer to your query.
I may have a fundamental problem at communicating ideas which is disheartening. I am not sure that even this message will be clear. I expected it to be a neat little factoid that would be interesting, and it confounds me why people get upset over this. Was I doing something like implying that females are more suited to raise children? Why would I do that? And I thought that I had negated that possibility quite thoroughly in the second post. If it is something else, I'm drawing a blank here on what you're thinking I'm thinking. It makes me sad to think that people automatically assume the worst of anything I say.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
No, you did not do anything explicitly wrong. I did not assume you meant what you actually meant, but there is a reason for that: I find it highly implausible, almost to the point of absurdity, that video game portrayals of women in parental roles being so stilted and weird compared to men in the same roles is caused by game developers thinking about the studies revolving around oxytocin.
Because that notion does not appear to conflate with reality. It kind of gestures at reality, in a sense, but it's more justification after the fact.
The Walking Dead is specifically a game about a sort of adoptive father and the little girl he takes care of. There are not any - or nearly as many - really good female characters portrayed in the same sort of relationships. Articles about oxycotin are not the reason for that disparity.
I'll concede that biological differences between the behavioral patterns of the sexes is too often used by people barely familiar with the subject as an excuse for sexist beliefs and that the impacts of those biological factors are usually wildly overstated while ignoring the influence of socialization, but as a causal determinist who believes that no one truly has free will I'm also annoyed with the constant demonization of such ideas.
I'll agree that bringing up such ideas might be counterproductive for this thread, but I'll also say that I'm not sure discussions about maternal and paternal behaviors really belong in this thread either. I personally can't recall any depictions of motherhood in games I've played, for one thing.