#1reasonwhy

There's a distinction to be made between designing a character to be physically attractive vs a sexual object - and I'll admit, it can be a tricky distinction, because I think everyone draws that line someplace slightly different. There's nothing wrong with designing a character, male or female, as an attractive one. Look at Elena Fisher or Rinoa - those are some damn pretty ladies, they are recognized by other characters in their game worlds as such, but the important thing to remember is that's not the purpose of their existence. The responses you see of people calling this or that woman a "hypocrite" and saying "so, what, you don't wear make-up, then? You don't like it when guys check you out?" are completely missing the point. Yes, people like to look attractive, both to themselves and others. But no one has that as their sole purpose for existing, and there is absolutely no reason why the game worlds can't reflect that.

I talked over Guild Wars with my daughter last night (she's 23 and will not tolerate being diminished because she's a woman, for frame of reference). Giving up GW (we are a guild of two) is a non-starter for her. She doesn't think the flimsy armor is a big deal because, while it's undeniably intended to make the character attractive, it's not hyper-sexualized. There's no emphasis on T&A. More importantly, it doesn't affect the character or how she's treated, which is with the same characteristics and capabilities as any male character. Compared once again to Lara Croft, where the whole point is that she's a hot woman who the game treats as hero but still victim.

So that's one perspective on one aspect of this problem. One tiny aspect.

I appreciate that you put yourself out there like that, Frogbeastegg . One of my reactions to that post is that I hope the women here will call us guys out loudly and firmly whenever we cross the lines. Of course, we should stand up and do it to each other, too. Being good is hard.

My 12 year old daughter plays Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 with us, amongst other video games. She tends to pick the less skimpy options for her characters because according to her "wearing a bikini isn't very sensible in a battle, and in certain zones it just looks too cold".

As a female gamer and the mother of a gamer the blatant sexism in the video industry sometimes sickens me to the stomach. I try to protect her from the worst of it, try to get her to play games where gender is a choice. There aren't many strong female lead characters out there for 12 year olds, although she did enjoy Beyond good and Evil a lot.

Female gamers are still not accepted in her peer group. Her friends don't really play any video games beyond pet-games on the DS and social F2P rubbish like "MoviestarPlanet". The boys is her class that do game are baffled that she's more knowledgable about WoW-builds then they are, that she not only knows what Skyrim is but has played it for hours. That her mum (off all people) knows how to make a good character build in Skyrim and how to game the system so you get awesome gear by exploiting crafting.
My daughter is an oddity to both boys and girls her own age, and a mum that games is even weirder. It's forgiven that she's weird like that and they hang out with her anyway (the girls that is, boys are still icky). I hope that next year in secondary school she'll get a few more geeky friends, that she'll see she's not really that odd all things considered. that's she's not the only one.

The industry still has a long way to go before it's seen less as a "boy's club" and it isn't doing much itself that gets rid of that stigma. All the "Imagine next games for Wii" do nothing to endear gaming to girls, and they grow up thinking gaming is for (man)boys. It's sad that I see my daughter falling in exactly that same odd gap I fell into 25 years ago, and it really shouldn't have to be that way.

It's weird, because for a while, things weren't bad. I look back to some of the games I played in my formative years, and I think of Ultima 7, where you could play a female Avatar, and it was totally cool. There was even a same-sex romancing option with Frigidazzi! Many of the female characters in RPGs (like the older Ultimas as well) were totally fine, and even strong characters.

I think it was when Tomb Raider came out that it really started to become a thing and start being a problem, at least that I remember. Before that, I don't ever consciously being concerned about stuff in games at all.

RPGs aren't the worst, especially western ones. Of course they have their problems, but most of them let you play as a a female, be a hero, be as capable as any male character (and not always relegated to being the healer) and offer romance options even if it does mean putting up with Anomen, Carth and Casavir. There's probably a good reason right there why RPGs are my favorite genre.

So I take it Tomb Raider, even from the first one, is bad stuff? I really liked it. I think in my head I built a different image of Lara than some other people did, less about the tits and hot pants and more about the raiding of tombs. Since the Saturn graphics were so bad I had no problem with my mental image over the real one and if you leave aside for the moment her visual appearance and think about what she does in the game it's a straightforward power fantasy of an independent and capable actor exploring and overcoming a series of threatening environments. I remember getting very eye-roll-y over adverts with higher quality rendering showing off her marketing assets but I always thought "hah, those advertising executives just don't understand Lara. That's not her."

I worked selling games at the time, so yeah, the giant booby cardboard cutouts and all the promotional materials made a big negative impact on me, at least.

When Tomb Raider came out I would venture to say that most of my friends who were talking about it were talking about her breasts.

Also, Tomb Raider is a shitty series of shitty games and always has been. When I pitch Uncharted to people, I describe it as "Tomb Raider, except fun."

I actually felt like Uncharted did a good job in avoiding the T&A problem as well -- Elena is not a helpless waif, not dressed skimpily, thinks you're kind of an idiot, doesn't need protecting, feels like a person. Is that a common opinion, or have my standards just been lowered?

I feel like Chloe (Uncharted 2) was designed somewhat more with sex appeal in mind, although I think what sticks out more to me is her look-out-for-number-one mindset.

I've never owned a Tomb Raider game, other than the Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light spinoff. But I've always had the impression that it was more the marketing that was sexist than the games themselves.

I didn't see it either at the time. I was just happy to be able to play a female character for change, I didn't even really notice the boobs. Only later did I understand why people spoke so negatively about her, and I agree. But at the time I thought it was nice to see a female who could handle herself in a fight and do stuff that normally only male characters do.
I supposed I was already brainwashed at that point.... don't forget most action movies I watched while growing up only had male heroes, strong female characters like Princess Leia and Ellen Ripley were few and far between.

Well, and it's not like Leia and Ripley got to keep their clothes on either.

It coincided with me starting my second job in the industry. I don't recall any salacious comments from my peer group at the time. Maybe one of the company seniors might have said something? It would have been a cynical comment about their marketing though. I was mainly fascinated and excited by the game play, the character being a girl was, I thought at the time, in keeping with a move to have more female avatars in games - so I wasn't that excited about it. Quake II was around that time with female models available. I figured it was just another faltering step towards videogame equality.

Nostradamus, eat your heart out.

I don't really know if GW2 is much of an offender here. They've set things up such that most of the armor sets I've seen for both male and female models seem pretty armor-like, and any of the heavy and most medium armors are pretty heavily covered. There are a few skimpy light armor sets, but they also provide a very simple way to copy the stats you want on gear and combine them with whatever look you want to be seen wearing. It may be sort of a barbie dress-up, but it puts the player in control of how they'd like to look and gives them a range of options.

Since it was brought up, I'm curious if I'm off-base and even this approach in an RPG is seen as problematic. I'm usually more taken back when it's a case of the game forcing the issue or providing no options or punishing the player for taking the options because they're objectively worse gamewise (IE the "best" armor in the game is a bikini, but no one's *forcing* you to wear it, just gimping you for standing on principle).

The one thing I know is that there is definitely a group of female players who actually like dressing their characters as sexy as possible. Also, I was very active in the Morrowind modding community and a lot of skimpy armor mods were actually made by female modders. Things like that muddy the water even further.

I think before that we didn't have the graphics in games to make it worth fussing over. There was plenty of cheesecake in gaming before Tomb Raider. The famous Justin Bailey code, the Golden Axe lady (the Golden Axe man also wore a speedo, but we're not allowed to point that out apparently), I'm sure there are other examples I'm forgetting. Tomb Raider showed that you could sell a game based entirely on giant rendered boobs. It worked on me when I was a youngster. It worked on a lot of guys. Then the free market took over!

It isn't video games but some gaming companies like Paizo are making efforts to address these portrayals:
http://gamingaswomen.com/posts/2012/11/paizo-publishing-and-pathfinder-on-art/
Paizo's main iconic is a female paladin, and she's totally awesome. So, good for them.

I think the tabletop gaming community is just as guilty of everything discussed in this thread, so it's relevant. :P

I never liked Lara. The design was not appealing, and the marketing focus was always heavily on her appearance. The breasts got larger with each game. When I did try a demo for one of them, she was a complete personality void and the gameplay didn't grab me. Never ventured any further. When I first heard about the new Tomb Raider game I quite liked the idea; I hoped that they would manage to pull it off, but doubted whether it would be possible in a game. I'm withholding judgement until it can be judged as a completed work.

For two films I'd been all "Leia is awesome! There's an actual female character I can like and respect!" It lasted for two days, one to watch New Hope and one to watch Empire. On the third day I watched Jedi. Gold bikinis, trashy romance, and naff wounds. Also Ewoks. [shivers] Then came the expanded universe novels and there she is, mother and wife and general stereotype of a Bad Woman because she's working and neglecting her family to Terrible Results doing Men's Work. I did the only thing possible: I pretended most of that didn't exist, and Leia was still the most awesome. I used her as my character in Super Return of the Jedi all the time, and was annoyed that I couldn't play as her in the other games.

Elena Fisher is the greatest female character in the history of video games. Because she's a person, not a prize.

Elena Fisher makes me mad. Why is her presence in videogames so groundbreaking? Why do I play Uncharted and fall in love with her every single time I pick up the controller and watch how she and Nate play off each other? Why is something seemingly so simple -- Real Person Elena Fisher, not 38D Elena Fisher, Body Stocking Elena Fisher, Hips Don't Lie Elena Fisher, Damsel In Distress Elena Fisher, Increasingly Marginalized Elena Fisher -- why is that something that speaks to me as a gamer and makes me go THIS IS HOW THINGS SHOULD BE.

Why is she the only one? What was so hard about Elena Fisher, and why isn't everyone else copying that and running with it like they do chest-high walls, active reload, and Project Ten Dollar?

frogbeastegg : Thank you for writing that. I've encountered a lot of the same frustrations, even though I haven't been gaming for as long as you have. I'm hopeful, though, that all of this recent attention might actually change things for the better. I dunno, maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but all of this attention can only be a good thing, right?

Mirriam : You're basically describing me in elementary school. :P I had a subscription to Nintendo Power and all of the boys were incredulous (and jealous). I'm so glad I bought BG&E when it came out. It's one of my favourite games from my childhood. I finally had a female protagonist who could do awesome stuff while looking and acting like an actual person. I was also crushed when I finished the prologue of Star Fox Adventures and found out that Krystal was not, in fact, the protagonist.

Re: Tomb Raider. I didn't know about or play Tomb Raider until Legend came out, and I thought it was pretty good and not particularly sexist. I never came across videogame ads, so I didn't see the marketing and my first impression of Lara was that she was sort of a Batman Indiana Jones who had a butler and a pool and all kinds of cool gadgets. She also fought dinosaurs, which was awesome. It was only once I started looking for my game news on the internet that I learned about the whole male sex fantasy thing.

EDIT: Though I do remember thinking that those idle stretching animations were a bit suspect.

Huh, is that a mod or something? I remember that outfit having more... fabric.

I don't remember idle animations in the original, but it did have a hand-stand thing you could do. But that's made me make an interesting piece of self-realization: my identification with the character was very strong. I wasn't watching Lara doing a handstand, I thought of her as being completely alone in some ancient, lost ruin hundreds of miles from any hint of modern humanity. She wasn't posing for an audience (me), she/I/we was/were indulging in the sheer joy of athletics.

In my head.

No, it's from one of those RMT gambling addiction packs they've started selling. I hadn't noticed it was a modified consular outfit until you pointed that out.

Ahh, i see. I haven't played it in loooong time, that RMT thing sounds like something they've added after i left so had no clue.

Well, I'm glad to see it isn't just me that felt that way about Elena. That makes me feel pretty good.

I agree with the gist of your comments, but I still think it's worth praising Naughty Dog for their work. Just because other people haven't bothered to replicate it doesn't mean Naughty Dog didn't make the effort to write a real person precisely where others have not seen fit to do so. Just because Elena Fisher shouldn't be remarkable doesn't mean she isn't.

I said this in IRC the other day, but for me the defining moment of Uncharted was completely emergent and I don't know if many other people even experienced a moment like this. It was somewhere in a building I've long since forgotten the importance of, although I can easily picture several scenes from it including this one. I was pinned down around a corner from a guy with a rocket launcher and, apparently, an inexhaustible supply of rockets to launch from it. Elena was bunkered down behind some rubble in another part of the room. I tried everything to take this guy out safely and I just couldn't do it. I died several times trying and was pretty much out of plans.

Then Elena just fucking shot him.

I couldn't get to this guy, but my partner -- and she's an independent, fully capable partner, not a helpless little girl I have to protect like the traditional(ly terrible) escort quest, or a fawning sycophant whose primary purpose is to surrender to Drake's charms -- was able to accomplish what I couldn't.

It shouldn't be rare to have a strong, independent female co-lead in a video game. But it is, and that it wasn't like that is a big part of what made Uncharted such a great experience for me. I'm not especially sensitive to things like this -- I read R. Scott Bakker without ever noticing how poorly he portrays every single female character -- but even so, it stood out to me while I was playing it and stuck with me later.

Sorry - I haven't actually played Guild Wars 2. I was just going off OZ's description, and a quick google image search. I didn't mean to make much of a judgement on that game specifically - just making a point that you shouldn't just shrug it off and ignore it if you're put off by a game's treatment of women.

I think the women in the Left4Dead games are pretty straight-up, non-sexualized badasses.

Oh, yeah, I am not taking away anything from Elena. She's fantastic. She's one of my favorite characters in all of videogames.

EDIT TO ADD: I remember maneuvering around on the jetski in Uncharted, tucking and moving so Elena could take out snipers. It was great.

I could never get into Uncharted. I played the first and thought it was alright but unremarkable. Looked at some footage of the second and saw that it had two women fighting over Drake and decided not to bother.

Miranda mode?

I can see how you'd feel that way, but to me Elena vs. Chloe represented the dichotomy between Elena's conscious responsibility and Chloe's I-stick-my-neck-out-for-no-one self-interest: a battle for the player's soul, rather than two women fighting to fall into Drake's arms.

I also liked 1 more than 2, but as I learned in IRC, that is apparently a minority opinion. I've not played 3. I really should, I feel a little bad that I didn't buy it at launch when the first game was one of my picks for a best-of-generation shortlist.

I was actually shocked when I saw the first ass-cam shot. I thought it was an embarrassing mistake in the scene animation, a trigger hadn't worked and Miranda was in the wrong place. But there's one mid-game where literally the whole screen is a pair of Cerberus cheeks. I really thought (and generally think) better of Bioware.

Changed my avatar. I'll miss my froggy avatar but it feels fitting to don a dress.

I think the last year has been fantastic. Reading the various events has felt like the first tremor of an avalanche. Sexism, racism, homophobia, integrity, and the general bad attitude and bad reputation of gaming - all these topics have come up in the past, yet never so frequently, so loudly, and with such short breaks between occurrences. There have been more articles, more responses to those articles, and an increasing number of Random Joes posting "Yeah, maybe there's a point" in the comments on said articles. It's been harder for issues to slip back under the rug.

Games companies themselves have been making changes, and I think that's only going to continue. It's a very slow process and will continue to be so, aside from those occasional ground-breaking moments like when Bioware* made all of the romances in Dragon Age 2 apply to both genders of player character. Some of those changes will be missteps, some fuelled by good intentions but with poor results, some so minor that they will be barely recognised. But they will be there. There's a wider range of life experience working in the industry now, I think. Not that I know for sure - I've never had any involvement or known anyone in real life who has. From reading pieces in reaction to flares like #1reason, that's my impression. That's going to have an effect as well.

We are forever being told two things: gaming's audience is expanding, and the average gamer is growing older. That must have impact sooner or later. The idiot part of the gaming audience is a (sizeable) minority, a very loud and very vile minority. At the same time, there's a whole new generation of gamers growing up and their view of the world is likely slightly different from that of their parents'. 20 years ago I was told I was supposed to like girly things and was weird for liking history, books and games. Today's girls still have dolls, but there's also influences like the Powerpuff Girls**. In many Western countries it's no longer legally acceptable to discriminate against gay people. People have mentioned that they are fed up with knowing that the black guy will always die in horror films simply because he's the black guy.

In 10 years time things will probably be a bit better, same as things now are better than they were 10 years ago. Change is gradual. I see the market spreading out more. While there will always be games aimed directly at the teenage boy, the rest of the population should get more of a look-in. We've been hearing a lot about triple-A gaming being too expensive and risky to be viable for much longer. If budgets lower, we might see more risks taken, and more material aimed at specific sub-audiences. The PC has kind of being doing that for a while; steam and digital downloads shook the market up and made that possible. In 20, 30, 40 years I imagine the gaming landscape will all look very different. Not least because we will have holodecks ;p

Why do I think this? Because once upon a time people thought programs like Bewitched were edgy and forward-thinking. Before my time, that one, but I watched some re-runs as a child and it's really stuck with me.


*It's faintly irritating how often I've mentioned Bioware in these posts. There's a lot I dislike about their games. Equally, there's a reason I have played every single once since Baldur's Gate 1 excepting only the MMORPG.

** I hope Powerpuff Girls are a good example. I don't have children.

Talking about sexist camera angles, Guild Wars 1 did this something awful every time you spoke to Livia or Jora, up to the point that I can't stand neither NPC. On top of that there were plenty of eye candy female heroes to add to your party, but not a single attractive male.

We get the cute Gwen and the sultry Livia, you get the midriff-spread of Koss and Norgu.

Oh, come on. Olias is hotttt.

I don't think the person who created Miranda's Ass ever considered how terribly uncomfortable that'd be. Her ridiculous jumpsuit goes right up her butt. :/

Yeah, it's not just an isolated incident, and I was surprised at just how many times they gave you that shot.

Well, she is a Time Bitch. She can't come out here in performance fleece. (place that quote)

I was amused that one of the Asari enemies comments on her outfit during her loyalty mission.

I thought the very first Tomb Raider game was okay. Not great, not terrible. It reminded me a bit of the original Prince of Persia with its fussy jumping puzzles and insistence on standing in just the right spot. The games have gotten more sophisticated from a production standpoint, but also more blatant about turning Lara into a sex symbol. I haven't actually played any of them after the first. I assume the gameplay got better, but I got annoyed with the characterization and sort of gave up on the series.