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[Neonivek]

I go out of my way to buy games with female leads.

You need to start getting into point and clicks... and not Daedelic point and clicks either.

May I suggest Blackwell Legacy

---

Also What REALLY!?!

Dragons Crown is the #11 best selling game off 2013? Do people have no taste?

I honestly thought that game would be a cult game given how dumb it looks. I mean I know the company and person who made it makes great games bu... ohh that is probably why.

[UltraValican]

Have you never played , they're pretty fun. And the art is beautiful.

[Neonivek]

Have you never played , they're pretty fun. And the art is beautiful.

Yeah I edited my post too late. Though I thought the SUPER sexualization would turn people off.

But apparently not.

[Graknorke]

Okay so since all the cool kids are counting up:

Male: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (28)
Female: IIIIII (6)
Both/customisable/variable: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (30)
Unknown/unspecified: IIIIIIIIIIIII (13)
N/A: IIIIIIIIIIIIII (14)

That's only out of games I have playtime on, but still. Bit lacking in female player characters, though male PCs aren't in the majority either, not even the largest group.

[TamerVirus]

Have you never played , they're pretty fun. And the art is beautiful.

Yeah I edited my post too late. Though I thought the SUPER sexualization would turn people off.

But apparently not.

If anything the super sexualization and resulting inflammatory articles on various gaming websites helped boost what was supposed to be a niche game's expose to great levels. Sometimes "there is no such thing as bad publicity"

[Neonivek]

The interesting thing is that some games have a male lead (or rather male playable character) but where the female is the real character.

Bioshock Infinite, you might have a story but you are basically a non-entity, the true main character is the female one.

I am trying to think of a game where you have a female playable lead, but where someone else is the main character.

Other M! There we go! Holy cow is Other M the worst train wreck of a story period... but yeah Samus is a non-character in her own game.

[Graknorke]

The interesting thing is that some games have a male lead (or rather male playable character) but where the female is the real character.

Bioshock Infinite, you might have a story but you are basically a non-entity, the true main character is the female one.

I am trying to think of a game where you have a female playable lead, but where someone else is the main character.

Portal 2 is mostly about Aperture Science as an entity and then GLaDOS and Wheatley. Not so much on Chell.

[Neonivek]

So we have Portal 2 and Other M

(Ok Other M needs explaining. Simply put if you remove Samus from Other M the game would be unchanged.)

[Vector]

May I suggest Blackwell Legacy

It's on the list already, check it out.

The interesting thing is that some games have a male lead (or rather male playable character) but where the female is the real character.

This is a common viewpoint trope in literary fiction in general--see also MGS2, where it's really blatant, or stuff like Moby Dick and Wuthering Heights.

[Neonivek]

I'd put the Void into the list... except honestly "What the void is" is the major question the game presents you with. The female characters really could be different parts of yourself with the male and female aspects simply being metaphor. Though you are outright told you are male, but not a brother.

It is the greatest videogame I can't play for the life of me. (and is the game I use as a "art game" that isn't just raw pretension)

[sal880612m]

I was on a forum once and someone took the standpoint that how women are represented in videogames is a syptom of a larger problem in reality. I tend to take this view on it, you want women to change in video games you need women in reality or at least the perception of women in reality to change. The problem dates back well before video games and making video games or television the crux or pretending it is the cause is a load of bullshit. I know this comes across as jerkish and I get that that is the intention behind trying to get games to change but changing games may have an affect in making young females make the choice to be different than what is expected, but it does little or nothing about the current situation. Trying to create change does now and always has come with risk attached. I am sure someone more versed in history can put together a list of historical figures assassinated for trying to change things, or a list of wars fought against change. I do believe the change would be for the better and is worth doing but it isn't and can't be my fight.
 
It is a problem that is furthered because there is no clear cut acceptable female character to the point that I can't think of a single female character that has zero chance of offending someone. You make a female character a badass but keep her cleavage reasonable and cloth her fully you are saying women can only be competent if they aren't sexy, you make her sexy you are sexualizing female characters. If you make her badass, keep her clothed but up her chest size you are pandering to the male audience. Personally I wouldn't want to try and design a female character because there is no way to win.

Nothing is going to have as lasting an impact on how a child will come to view a group of people as seeing them in real life.

As to games I think the only games I currently play where your characters gender is decided are old favourites (Chrono Trigger, FF6-8, Suikoden series) and a Zelda game on the 3DS. All the rest you choose your gender in or are like Dwarf Fortress in that gender in no way matters.

Edit: red text is altered statement, missed a word and found better/less offensive-seeming to me wording

[UltraValican]

Alright so I looked through my immediate physical collection that I have on hand and easily access to.
Here's the count
Choose Your own: 17(18?)
Female Protag: 2(3?)
Male Protagonist:23
Revolves around a group of people with no "main" individual": 3
And if you expect me to look through my steam library and every game I have installed on my PC, well fuck you. I'll be doing that all night.
The question mark is for Soul Nomad. You can choose your characters gender BUT Revya(the female) is the closest to a canon protagonist. She's the one featured in promotional materials and cameos. Think male Shepard.

Also, you might want to take a look at this Vector. I don't support going out of the way to buy a game because of something like that, its relevant

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Although My World, My Way is actually fucking sexist. Not in the "women are whering skimpy outfits buzzword" kind of sexist but in the "the game is literally about whining till the laws of reality bend to your will because your a girl" sort of sexist.

[Rolepgeek]

I call BS on "Dogs have all the thoughts a person would," unless you're trying to inform me that there are now dogs that can create great art and do calculus

And how many women create great works of art and do calculus, How many anyone do? though I like that your objection amounts to "but we are smarter". So congratulations "But they could be replaced by a dumb person".

Having a character be able to be replaced with a dog in a narrative sense doesn't instantly make it negative. Your example ONLY works if we assumed the character was being treated like a dog before hand, but they weren't. So it doesn't work.

You are taking Anita's example where the Damsel is replaced by a dog as a symbol that the woman was being disrespected somehow without understanding what it means to be able to be replaced by a dog.

Which I'll just give away. A dog is basically a "object of affection" without any importance on the dog beyond what the main character projects onto it. Yet why doesn't it exactly work? because a dog can easily be a 3-dimensional character, and often is. So it doesn't work as an example unless I eliminate everything a dog is and just apply the worst case scenario.

But I'll put it this way. Crono from Crono Trigger could be replaced with a dog. Samus from Metroid could be replaced with a dog. Mario from Marioland could be replaced by a dog. Cloud could be replaced by a dog. Ryu could be replaced by a dog. Megaman X could be replaced by a dog. ALL NPCS could be replaced with a dog. All the Bystandards in Grand theft auto could be replaced by dogs. The mooks in videogames could be replaced by a dog.

So when 99.9% of all characters could be replaced by dogs and lose nothing. What the heck are you getting at?

I've played games with "dog" characters. They aren't all Rinoa's dog (whatever his name is).

What? Wait. WHAT?!?

That made just about zero sense. You don't seem to be getting what they're saying. You're saying 'well, dogs can be characters too'. No. Not really. Yes, in Dragon Age: Origins one of the party members is a dog. How much depth is there to the dog? What are it's goals, it's dreams, it's ambitions? Cloud and Crono both have those. So does Samus, to a degree(Mario could certainly be replaced by a dog, for most of the games). The dog? The dog just has 'protect the master, get food'. If you aren't able to tell the difference between a narrative character, and a narrative dog, well...that's your own problem, but don't allow sexism to perpetuate just because of that.

How would you feel about playing a bare-chested male model

Extremely common.

Really? How 'extremely common'? I bet that if you made a list of games/series where the main character was bare-chested and very pretty/handsome constantly(females included, since, you know, they'll never do that outside of porn; Hulk and the like doesn't count since he's monstrous), and compared it to a list of games/series where the main character was a hyper-sexualised woman, that one of two things would happen. Either A: Similar numbers because of how many more games there are with male main characters, or B. More hyper-sexualised women.

with a 12-inch cock (with its own physics modeling team to get all the veiny details) in every single game you played?

Can you list the game where the female character's private area is on display?

That's rather difficult, due to the large numbers of them. It's making the analogy of penis to breasts, in which case I can say Laura Croft, right off the bat. Whether it's out and flailing or not isn't the issue. The issue is that, how do you like being forced to, during every cutscene, where the artwork and character design is meant to draw attention to it, have your eyes drawn to a bulging erection in the man's skintight pants?

Women are overwhelmingly cast as NPCs (objects), very seldom as PCs (humans)

I would argue based on genre. Lets not "Shooters are the only genre that exists" in this conversation.

For example there are very few RPGs where there are no female characters. Point and Clicks have near 50/50 female to male lead ratio. Platformers and adventure games have a lot of female leads. and horror games have a majority female lead (for a negative reason).

The point isn't 'oh there are no female characters'. The point is; how many female characters are there, versus how many male characters? What is their role in the game? Are they established physical characters, or are they eye-candy? And yes, they can be eye-candy and established corporeal narrative characters at the same time, but they don't need to be, all the time, which is the current trend.


I'm not even going to respond to half of UltraValican's posts, because they piss me off too much to think rationally around.

[palsch]

This one.
I just don't think that the ability to recognise anagrams is going to be affected by the theme of the games you're playing (unless it's edutainment I suppose).

So... basically you think they faked the results?

Here's the thing. Any character you encounter in a video-game, has absolutely zero agency.

Within the context of the game's story? Nonsense.

To use an extreme example, take nearly any female follower from the Mass Effect games. The depth of the characters in those games made them seem like something other than an achievement to tick off or a purely mechanical set of stats and abilities to round out a party for any given mission. They were all sexual characters, even sexualised to a degree, but each demonstrated considerable agency as a character within the universe of the game. They all had their own goals and motivations, independent of the main character and interwoven with the main plot.

Now not every game is that type of game, so you won't have that sort of depth universally. But I just wanted to make the point that characters can have agency within the context of the game they are in, in much the same way that characters in TV, films and books can have agency as well. It's a question of writing rather than medium.

I was on a forum once and someone took the standpoint that how women are represented in videogames is a syptom of a larger problem in reality. I tend to take this view on it, you want women to change in video games you need women in reality or at least the perception of women in reality to change.

Well, yes, except it's people in reality, not women. Right on perceptions though. It's pretty obvious that this is about changing culture and attitudes towards women at large.

Video games are an aspect of culture and influence it in turn. You can't separate the two. But sometimes some aspects of culture are easier to change than others. Video games being a relatively young and accessible industry it might be easier to impact them than other, larger, more established aspects.

I know this comes across as jerkish and I get that that is the intention behind trying to get games to change but changing games may have an affect in making young females make the choice to be different than what is expected, but it does little or nothing about the current situation.

I think you are viewing this as an attempt at social engineering through video games. That's not it at all. I'd say that these are the main desirable goals;

1) Make video games an equal playing field where men and women are both welcome, as players, developers, critics, whatever.

2) Increase awareness of harmful sexist stereotypes and tropes present in all media by exploring them in video games.

3) Hope that this maybe results in a reduction in their use in mainstream games.

Spoiler: DISCLAIMER (click to show/hide)

"harmful tropes" is purely my term, not attributable to anyone else. I use it because I view the thoughtless use of said tropes as encouraging depictions of women in games that can be harmful in ways related through the various studies both linked in the recent reference links and in various others I've posted/read in the past.

[UltraValican]

Really? How 'extremely common'? I bet that if you made a list of games/series where the main character was bare-chested and very pretty/handsome constantly(females included, since, you know, they'll never do that outside of porn; Hulk and the like doesn't count since he's monstrous), and compared it to a list of games/series where the main character was a hyper-sexualised woman, that one of two things would happen. Either A: Similar numbers because of how many more games there are with male main characters, or B. More hyper-sexualised women.

Bare Chested male leads

Laharl(Disgaea)
Ryu(Street Fighter)
Dwarf(Dragon's Crown)
Vaan(Final Fantasy)
Tidus(Final Fanasy)
Billy and Jimmy Lee(Double Dragon)
Contra
Jin Kazama(Tekken)
Kratos(God of War)
Nameless One (Planscape)
Demifiend(SMT Nocturne)
Countless Warcraft characters, no real Main Character though. Unless we count Orcish Abraham.
Kain (Legacy of Kain)
Dante(Devil May Cry)
Donte(DMC)
Nier(Nier)
Lord Zetta(Makai Kingdom. He's a book most of the time. But he's bare chested in his originalform)
Almost any game where you play as a barbarian.

I'll compose a list of females when you give me a definition of what I should consider "hyper sexual".