Also, relevant:
Bottom left Texas one has me cracking up
You do understand these are basically written porn, right?
Are you saying that video games don't need diversity in characters because they amount to nothing but porn?
Apparently there are a lot of women who have a thing for some what ugly scarred guys. I never even knew! Maybe I should get hacked across the face leaving that scar over eye thing that Kratos has going.
Those types of novels aren't anywhere near porn levels. I could link to some written porn to show you the difference. Well, it does basically contradict the notion that males aren't objectified in games partly to appeal to the female audience. Those types of novels are directly targeted at a female audience (i doubt many guys would buy that for their girlfriend), and they clearly display the same type of objectification as seen in games and movies, for both genders. What it might indicate is that the objectification itself isn't the
primary thing preventing lots of women playing action games. Romance novels use quite similar artwork in terms of body proportions etc, and sell an absolutely enormous quantity of stock directly to female audience. Sure, there are some women who say they'd play more of these types of games if there was less objectification, but of course, we need quantitative data rather that single-point anecdotes. Being a touchy subject doesn't revoke a requirement to ask for a complete data set, e.g. representative surveys of women, both gamers, and non-gamers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_gamesDifferences between the genders
Some differences between gamers may also have to do with fundamental taste differences between the sexes, and a few game genres have traditionally seen higher female gamer percentages than the others. There has been persistent female interest, for example, in action-adventure games. This has more recently translated into an interest in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Second Life. Women have also been shown to prefer role-playing game to first-person shooters. While male audiences prefer fast-paced explosive action and combat, women tend to prefer in-game communication[8] and interpersonal relationships (character development and plot dynamics). In-game activities may also differ between the sexes in games with less linear plots such as the Grand Theft Auto series. It has been suggested that developers can learn what girls want in a game by observing similarities in how different girl teams will react to and modify a game if given the opportunity.
Regardless of how this difference occurs, it makes sense to make more games that appeal to different demographics, rather than the other option of trying to force all existing products to be "gender neutral". That second option will only shrink the overall market by reducing the scope of games (all games produced will need to be shoe-horned into gender-neutral rather than having a wide palette to choose from). So, the answer is more diversity in the market between different products, rather than trying to destroy, ban or neuter existing products. The studies quoted above imply that a mere facelift and female-friendly protagonist isn't going to make a large number of women play any edition of Call Of Duty for example. By the time you've made the changes needed to make it have 50/50 gender appeal you'd basically be better of just making a totally different game.