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[Vattic]

Anyone here notice that Rape Horror is practically its own genre in videogames?

I hadn't noticed, but I've not played many horror games: original Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness, FEAR, Amnesia, and a handful of really short indie ones. I'm sure I've forgotten something.

[Hiiri]

Anyone here notice that Rape Horror is practically its own genre in videogames?

What is rape horror?

Edit: I mean, at the moment I can't think of any game of your description. If you just mean physical violation in general, then yeah, entire human race is a rape horror flick.

[Leafsnail]

There are a lot of scenes that are actually shot like rape scenes (looking at the fight between Liquid and Old Snake in MGS4, Act 3 in particular)

What?

[DJ]

Anyhow, did you guys know that only 9% of hunters in USA are women? So yeah, efforts to bring more women into gaming for sake of equality would be far better spent getting them into shooting Bambi.

[GlyphGryph]

You just have this ongoing conversation with yourself that the rest of us aren't privy to, don't you?

[Descan]

It's not the quantity of women, that's a red herring, it's the quality of women, and the changing of good female protagonists to, yes, equally good male protagonists, not to help the story but only because they think it'll sell better. And they only think it'll sell better because games with female protagonists haven't sold well in the past, despite the fact that they have much lower marketing budgets on average. That lower budget being because apparently female-protagonist games sell badly. If they still sold poorly, all else being equal (quality of game, marketing budget, that kind of thing) then they would have a reason. As it is, that's just prejudice and/or poor/lazy reasoning.

It wouldn't really MATTER if there were only 30, 20, 10% of games had female protagonists, as long as they were actually people, the same way male protagonists tend to be. Instead, we got the two stereotypes of the Bimbo-Who-Is-Inappropriately-Sexualized or the Tough-Independant-Woman-Who-Don't-Need-No-Man tropes, with like one or two exceptions for every 10 or more stereotypes.

That's another thing. Except in physics, in which case they're from a faulty equation, exceptions exist. It's why we deal in statistics, because it's the TREND that matters. If a hundred studies on evolution are true, then it doesn't matter if there was one fraud a hundred years ago, that one fraud doesn't topple the whole thing. Same here, if there are hundred stereotypes in games, it doesn't matter if there's one Alyx Vance or a Samus Aran here or there, it doesn't topple the trend.


That's all I want to say for myself on the matter. :3

*Numbers pulled out of ass, if you focus on them then you're an idiot.

[DJ]

But I've been saying the whole time that male protagonists aren't actual people either. In vast majority of games they're all muscle and no personality. Sturgeon's Law is extra strong in gaming.

[Descan]

I'll grant you that much. I don't really know the answer there.

[palsch]

But I've been saying the whole time that male protagonists aren't actual people either. In vast majority of games they're all muscle and no personality. Sturgeon's Law is extra strong in gaming.

Two issues here;

1) If 90% of everything is crap but 90% of all protagonists are male, you still have the number of good male characters vastly outnumbering the number of good female characters. That's before getting into that female characters are less likely than male characters to be well written because of the lack of female input at the writing/development level.

2) The use of tired tropes about women and constant sexualisation of female characters further reduces the attractiveness of those characters to women. A poorly written male character can still fit male escapist fantasies quite well. Female characters are less likely to do the same for women.

[DJ]

The invisible hand doesn't treat you as a man or a woman, black or white, young or old. To it we are all just wallets. If there was money to be made in making games for women, the niche wouldn't go unfilled for long. Hell, if you think it's just a matter of nobody thinking of it before, you should sell all your worldly possession and invest in it, investors who get into untapped markets first tend to reap 100-fold profits.

On the other hand, it just might be that overall, women are just not into gaming, just like they're not into hunting. It's why nobody is investing millions into romantic comedies that have men as the main target audience.

[Descan]

Marketing budgets make it a self-fulfilling prophecy in regards to them buying/not buying (how can you buy something that you don't know exists?), and overall average female gamers is 47%, with unisex/female-marketed niches being more even or even female-majority, and male-marketed (consoles?) having lower percentages, though they DO exist (1 out of 4 is a pretty good number, relative to the stereotype)

[DJ]

How the hell do any new products and services make it onto the market? You're severely underestimating the power of entrepreneurial spirit.

Of course, I wouldn't expect a giant like EA to take chances. It's something startups do, and if it's successful which it ought to be if there really is such a huge untapped market it'll grow into a giant. It's basically how every huge corporation was born.

[Rolan7]

But I've been saying the whole time that male protagonists aren't actual people either. In vast majority of games they're all muscle and no personality. Sturgeon's Law is extra strong in gaming.

Two issues here;

1) If 90% of everything is crap but 90% of all protagonists are male, you still have the number of good male characters vastly outnumbering the number of good female characters. That's before getting into that female characters are less likely than male characters to be well written because of the lack of female input at the writing/development level.

Thanks, this is what I was trying to say earlier but got distracted.

2) The use of tired tropes about women and constant sexualisation of female characters further reduces the attractiveness of those characters to women. A poorly written male character can still fit male escapist fantasies quite well. Female characters are less likely to do the same for women.

Plus almost every badass heroine who could serve as a female power fantasy is also distractingly oversexualized.  Male heroes are ripped, yes, but far more likely to have realistic armor and clothing (helmet not withstanding).  I'm not saying that the men are less sexualized, just that it's generally done without sacrificing the style of the game.

There are male heroes who dress ridiculously.  That's fine - it's fine that there are female heroes like that too.  Sometimes.  The problem is that it's done systematically and corrupts otherwise strong characters.  Krystal, Lara Croft, and even Samus have been reduced to vulnerable sex objects.  Other heroines like Bloodrayne and Bayonetta are still strong, for now, but must remain excessively sexy at all times.

My point is that it's hard to find strong female heroines.  Of those you find, most are half dressed and poorly written.  Those that aren't tend to be emotionally vulnerable, fulfilling a different male fetish.  There are *very few* games with healthy, believable female characters.

The invisible hand doesn't treat you as a man or a woman, black or white, young or old. To it we are all just wallets. If there was money to be made in making games for women, the niche wouldn't go unfilled for long. Hell, if you think it's just a matter of nobody thinking of it before, you should sell all your worldly possession and invest in it, investors who get into untapped markets first tend to reap 100-fold profits.

On the other hand, it just might be that overall, women are just not into gaming, just like they're not into hunting. It's why nobody is investing millions into romantic comedies that have men as the main target audience.

The "invisible hand" is unwilling to take risks, and is perpetuating existing stereotypes as a result.  The new Lara Croft's main features are emotional vulnerability and ground-breakingly beautiful hair and wet skin effects.  It's part of the 90%.  What if it's also a really fun game?  The invisible hand can't tell if I buy it for the beautiful triple-A scenery that only a major studio can fund, the fight mechanics, or the wet boobies.  So I'm stuck with boycotting 90% of the very best games that are released.  Most gamers don't do that.

This is so typical for the games industry that the games media and online gaming communities naturally perpetuate it.  Of course the women who do stay in these communities hide their gender, or they'll be treated like and compared to these absurd caricatures which are supposedly their role models.  That's if they can stand to stay at all.

And so when the invisible hand bothers to do market research, what it hears is "This is great, a little less clothing please!"  More seriously: "Women don't play video games!"  Which just isn't the case.  Women play video games, they just don't dare say so out loud.

[DJ]

Of course, I wouldn't expect a giant like EA to take chances. It's something startups do, and if it's successful which it ought to be if there really is such a huge untapped market it'll grow into a giant. It's basically how every huge corporation was born.

[Vector]

There are a lot of scenes that are actually shot like rape scenes (looking at the fight between Liquid and Old Snake in MGS4, Act 3 in particular)

What?

?  You can find the video over at Chip and Ironicus' LPs; I think it's either "MY SOUL" or "BANG" in the MGS4 tab.