It's not just a matter of whether women are portrayed in games at all. There are and have been female characters for a long time. However, the problem is in
HOW these female characters are represented. We want this to be done in a way that lets gamers project themselves onto the stories of female characters in a heroic or positive capacity, like the majority of existing protagonists in games (which are almost always male).
As for gaming being a "Primarily Male Industry"
that's not true:
- Forty-seven percent of all players are women, and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry's fastest growing demographics.
- Today, adult women represent a greater portion of the game-playing population (30 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).
Women want to, and do, play games. I think part of the problem is that games have been marketed primarily for boys since the beginning, which means that they'll be bought primarily for and by boys, which skews the marketing data, which in turn skews the content that developers put into new games. However, as seen above, there are plenty of women who want to play games, despite the industry brushing them aside. And in return, when the industry decides to make female-oriented games, what they get is a slew of titles like Puppy Paradise Island, Best Friendz 4Ever: Shop-A-Thon, and Housewife 4: The Cooking Adventure. Pretty much consistently, and for decades.
Lets look at some old game ads for a moment, shall we? Feel free to skip around; some of these are long:
Exhibit A - Nintendo Entertainment System
Exhibit B - Sega Megadrive/Genesis
Exhibit C - Atari 2600
Exhibit BLURGHHD - Playstation 1
Synopsis: Nintendo markets to boys exclusively. Sega Genesis does the same. Atari did a few commercials where they show the system as appropriate for both genders; it's still skewed, but not 100%. Playstation 1 is just as Male-skewed as the other two.
If you'd like to do more reading, here's a great Wikipedia link:
The portrayal of women in video gamesEDIT - a funny thing I learned:
Exhibit 1: Search youtube for "Top 10 Video Games for Girls" and get mostly a mountain of boobs.
Exhibit 2: Search youtube for "Top 10 Video Games for Boys" and get mostly top-10 video game lists.