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[Neonivek]

I am going to wait for the first sexist comment... I am also going to be somewhat fair since I could comment on how they are splitting them based on gender.

1 minute 22 seconds... Admittingly not from the commentators (but a quote they are bringing up)

THOUGH to admit it could be that she is just a lousy player so MAYBE that STILL isn't a sexist response MAYBE the stars aligned and it is not gender related... so lets get the first definitive sexist response.

Edit: I accidently closed it... My above response was trying to prove without a doubt that the commentators are being sexist.

[penguinofhonor]

The one guy keeps saying that the male player is going to lose or make bad plays to either be "chivalrous" or to have sex with her later.

[Max White]

Eh, you are mostly waiting for the 'cleanup commentary' when the game is pretty much won and there isn't much else to talk about. About 19:30 things start to get interesting, by 24:10 hope is lost.

[Neonivek]

The one guy keeps saying that the male player is going to lose or make bad plays to either be "chivalrous" or to have sex with her later.

That will do it... 

I know I am rather dismissive of the roles women take in videogames because I feel like all roles are important and equally valid.

Where I draw the line, where I REALLY get mad is the "Because she is a woman" line of thinking. Where "She is a damsel BECAUSE she is a woman" is when I want to punch someone.

While I praise Tekken for having a somewhat varied female cast without going into outright flagrant fanservice... The fact that they utterly refuse not to allow any woman reach middle age is insulting.

[Rolan7]

That video... sums up the problem pretty well.
And that's just what official commentators were willing to say on the air!  Imagine how things are behind the scenes.

[LordBucket]

I've been lurking off in on in this thread for a while. Haven't read more than a quarter of the posts at most, been wanting to join in...but I just have a difficult time being very emotionally involved with it.

As someone who chooses an avatar who is female, ancient, powerful and important in her role, and has no visible boobs...maybe I'm not the best candidate for commenting on this sort of thing. But trying to compel equality seems like it would be generally counterproductive to me. If there are media that favor men, that's ok. There's nothing wrong with men, and it's silly to try to force female characters/roles/views into an environment or genre that is predominantly male or masculine or appreciated mostly by men just for the sake of having equal representation. Gaming happens to be an environment that is mostly produced by, and for, men. And as a result it tends to favor a male perspective. That's ok. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't see anyone suggesting that we should have more explosions and half naked girls on daytime soap operas in order to make those more "fair" for a hypothetical male audience.

As for unattainable standards of beauty...again, I don't see a problem. For example, I enjoyed the movie Conan the Barbarian. It is very unlikely that I will ever look as good in a loincloth as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Nevertheless, I'm pleased that he was given that role rather than Jack Black in order to keep men from feeling bad. If games and media in general favor portraying attractive people, I'm ok with that. Turning it into a gender equality issue seems like it's missing the point.

As for the prevalence of female characters in games...are we seriously even bothering with that issue? Personally the vast majority of all games I play allow the player to choose the gender of our character. I'm playing Eve right now and I have a female character. What's the problem? And it's not like this anything new. Even in the 80s and 90s we had Chun Li, Samus Aran, Princess Peach, Alis Landale...there's never been any shortage of female protagonists in games.

Are people unhappy that some of these characters are sexualized? Really? Are you really unhappy about that? Because me...I'm a guy, and if I'm going play a female character...I damn well want to play a pretty one. Does anyone really believe that women gamers don't? I don't believe that. Give players a choice between playing a sexy young girl with big boobs or a flat-chested ugly old crone and I'm pretty sure that most people will choose to play the pretty one regardless of gender.

So what exactly is it that people are unhappy about?

[Vector]

Gaming is an industry that is now 47% women and still being produced chiefly for men.  Furthermore, your scope is too small.  You shouldn't look at daytime soap operas.  You have to look at all television, period, where you're told that women are just the chief audience so tough cookies.

The fact is that ugly men can get good roles and women who are not conventionally beautiful cannot.  Women older than 30 basically don't get roles written for them.  You can be the hot piece of ass, the mommy, or the old lady.  That's just what your primary role is going to be, because your value is seen through the lens of your sexuality--above all other things.  This is not right.

And yes, we should be bothering with the prevalence of female characters in games.  You may like playing games where you get to choose your character's gender.  I prefer games where the characters aren't just blank slates.  The fact that you can list four female characters in the 80s and 90s is by no means equivalent to the notion that "there's no shortage."

And as for your example?  Yeah.  I want the opportunity to play an old character.  I want the opportunity to play one who is short or tall, pretty or ugly, busty or flat-chested.  I want the opportunity to play as someone who looks even vaguely like myself, and as someone who looks nothing like myself.  Because hell, I'm a short, scrawny, flat-chested woman who would be more appropriately called "handsome" than pretty, and I want media to stop pretending that people like me are unworthy of stories just because we aren't adequately sexy.

[Neonivek]

Are people unhappy that some of these characters are sexualized? Really? Are you really unhappy about that? Because me...I'm a guy, and if I'm going play a female character...I damn well want to play a pretty one. Does anyone really believe that women gamers don't? I don't believe that.

Once again there is a large difference between an attractive and sexual character... and an unsexual competent one who has been made sexual.

A Sexy character who acts sexy because their personality is sexy? that is one thing. A Otherwise competent character wearing chainmail bikinis because "Otherwise she wouldn't be sexy, and that is all men care about" is the other.

As I've said the majority of fanservice in videogames is done by or to otherwise unsexual characters.

Women older than 30 basically don't get roles written for them

Tekken is the king of that. They froze their female characters, had their children take over their roles, and otherwise did everything they could to ensure that no woman would be above the age of 30... when the majority of the male cast did not have that happen (Some were de-aged and had new people take over their role... but otherwise yeah the males were allowed to age, even the hot ones).

we had Chun Li

Actually this is a VERY important example because it shows exactly why there is an issue with women in videogames. Chun-Li by all means is the female protagonist of Street Fighter, if ANY woman can claim "main character" it would be her.

Yet because "Ryu has to be the savior" she constantly fails her goals and needs to get a man to do it for her, even Ken is treated better.

In fact she often just stands aside and lets Ryu do all the work for her.

[Graknorke]

Sure is a lot of resentment in this thread.
PTW.

[Max White]

Sure is a lot of resentment in this thread.
PTW.

Towards whom, and is it justified?

[Graknorke]

Sure is a lot of resentment in this thread.
PTW.

Towards whom, and is it justified?

It's just sort of scattered throughout most posts. At the games industry, at Anita, between posters. I'm not going to pass any opinions though because I usually end up offending someone.

[Cheeetar]

Sure is a lot of resentment in this thread.
PTW.

Towards whom, and is it justified?

It's just sort of scattered throughout most posts. At the games industry, at Anita, between posters. I'm not going to pass any opinions though because I usually end up offending someone.

If you didn't want to bring it up, you shouldn't have brought it up.

[Graknorke]

Sure is a lot of resentment in this thread.
PTW.

Towards whom, and is it justified?

It's just sort of scattered throughout most posts. At the games industry, at Anita, between posters. I'm not going to pass any opinions though because I usually end up offending someone.

If you didn't want to bring it up, you shouldn't have brought it up.

I didn't bring anything up.

[palsch]

Regarding body image and cultural ideals, two studies that may be of interest;

A Content Analysis of Female Body Imagery in Video Games

Virtual muscularity: A content analysis of male video game characters

Lots of things there I found interesting, but want to see what other people pick up on.

[LordBucket]

The fact that you can list four female characters in the 80s and 90s is by no means equivalent to the notion that "there's no shortage."

Do we really need to go there? You can use google as well as I can.


 * Alis Landale from Phantasy Star
 * Princess Peach from Super Mario Brothers 2
 * Xanthia from Legend of Kyrandia 2
 * Juliet from Chainsaw Lollipop
 * There's the entire Tomb Raider Series where you play Lara Croft
 * There's the Metroid series where you play Samus Aran
 * The Street Fighter Series has Chun Li and Sammy
 * The Mortal Kombat series has: Sonya Blade, Kitana, Mileena, Jade, Sindel, Sheeva, Tanya, Li Mei and Skarlet
 * The Samurai Shodown has Nakoruru, Charlotte and Cham Cham
 * The Tekken series has Kunimitsu, Michelle, Nina, Angel, Julia, Xiaoyu, Miharu, Lili, Leo and Zafina
 * Resident Evil has Jill Valentine
 * Borderlands has Lilith and Maya
 * All playable characters in Scarlet Blade are female
 * Every class in Star Wars: The Old Republic has a fully voiced female option with unique story and multiple romance arcs
 * The Princess Maker series is kind of fuzzy on who exactly the "player" is, but is clearly about exclusively female protagonists
 * The main character of the Portal series is Chell
 * The main charcter of Beyond Good and Evil is Jade
 * The main character of The Longest Journey is April Ryan
 * The rogue, amazon and sorceress, assassin in the Diablo series were exclusively female classes


...oh, look. Others have already done this:

Here's a list of 26 PAGES of games with female protagonists

If you really think there's a "shortage" of female protagonists in games, you're not looking very hard.

Actually this is a VERY important example because it shows exactly why there is an issue with women in videogames. Chun-Li by all means is the female protagonist of Street Fighter, if ANY woman can claim "main character" it would be her.

Plenty of the games in the above list feature women definitely in the role of main character. Lara Croft and Samus Aran being especially well known examples who each have an entire series of games about them...but even as far back as 1987 we had characters like Alis Landale who was a sole female protagonist who picked up a guy, a cat and a person of uncertain gender to play sidekick for her while she went off to save the solar system.

I remember playing these games as a kid. Doesn't anyone else?

This whole thing seems like a Dead Unicorn Trope to me. There have been games with exclusively female protagonists pretty much since games originally evolved to the point of having defined characters in the first place. How far back do you want to go? Pac-man? There was a Ms. Pac-man too. That was in 1982.

You cannot claim that there's ever been any kind of shortage of primary main-character female protagonists in games and maintain any kind of credibility.