"straight white dude shoots things 2014"
While I agree with you for the most part AlleeCat the thing that always kind of makes me laugh a bit when reading that is the old "Assumed straight" and "Assumed White" and "Assumed Male" aspect with characters where these aren't explicitly known simply because it is our perceived norm.
I only say this because I am wondering how many shooters actually outright state gender preferences.
Still you are right AlleeCat. There is a HUGE difference between Cortez from Mass Effect and lets say Zevran from Dragon age......
I am sad that we aren't past either the: "Ohhhh! We are PC!" and ESPECIALLY the "He's gay... GET IT!!! ha ha ha ha!" (Though we are... staaarting to).
In the OHHHH! We are PC!: I remember this discussion I seen in a video about LBTG (Dang it I know I got that wrong) where they were talking about books and how while there were TONS upon TONS of books about kids dealing with the consequences of being LBTG, there weren't enough books that simply involved them where their sexual nature was considered tertiary.
In "He's Gay get it!": I remember watching an anime (yeah not a videogame... and I shouldn't count it given... uhhh... Japan isn't exactly.... progressive) but I remember one Harem anime actually had a joke gay harem member... and all I could say to myself was how much better he was then the female leads. Or to say, I honestly feel like they shouldn't have played up him being gay as a joke (Him being oblivious that the main character doesn't like him that way and takes what he says too seriously? SURE). I mean I guess I can understand the humor of unwanted advances, but why do people continuously use "gay" as the punchline?
Not that Female characters don't have the same issues, but videogames have REALLY avoided it... mostly because Videogames actually have better track records than movies when it comes to action...
With women I think the two things you generally see in their story that need to be done a LOT less are: "See, women are just as good as men" and "But, she was a woman afterall"
The "See, Women are just as good as men": Is pretty rare in videogames... but generally speaking it is when something tries to call attention to a woman's success by bringing attention to her gender OR when a woman is set up to "prove her gender's worth"... This is actually pretty dang rare in videogames and the last videogame I've seen that did this was "Other M" but honestly that is the most SEXIST game probably of the last decade. This is the one that FLAT OUT needs to almost die out.
The "But, she was a woman afterall": Though is the opposite so to speak. It is where they have to show that a strong woman actually is weak and has vulnerabilities deep down. Now this is usually handled badly... but I cannot out it on concept alone because, honestly, a strong character having vulnerabilities is actually a good character driven storytelling. The issue is that these narratives often play off that their weaknesses stem from them being a woman... This of course tends to occur in movies FAR more then videogames, so the last time I seen this was... OTHER M the most sexist game in the last decade.
Yeah Other M sucks.
Here is something to discuss. What would be your way of creating equality in videogames? We all want equality here and we have established that pretty well. What would you do to solve the problem, if you were a game developer? And what is stopping game developers from solving the problem right now?
First things first? Toss Anita's videos way! *Joke*
What honestly to me is stopping developers from solving the problem is really two fold in my eyes
1) Demographics: As much as people might say they want more variety in race, gender, orientation... As a whole they don't walk the walk. People talk but that is all it is talk.
2) Developers: MOST developers I would wager are Straight, White, Men who have little experience with lots of women, or other races, or homosexuals... and people write what they know about and basically do it from a secure position.
To me I honestly think that we are actually doing what we need to be doing RIGHT NOW! we are talking about what we like, what we don't, and are asking developers to change to suit our needs. While Developers are hiring different kinds of writers, artists, and developers to grasp this expanding need.
I don't think we need to do anything... more... Lets just keep doing what we are doing.