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[Fniff]

Here's an idea for a videogame that I've had for a while. I've worked on some art assets for a while, but I'm still wondering if it's a good idea for a game and whether or not it's not just going to turn out to be another iteration of Tomb Raider.
You play as a girl who is stuck on a tropical island that is undergoing a government collapse, similar to Somalia. The gameplay is meant to be asymmetrical; you are up against armed soldiers and (due to the fact you're a 12 year old) have to use a combination of stealth, traps, and plain ol' leaping onto someone's back and stabbing them in the neck until they die. As the story goes on, the increasing horror of the situation starts cracking the protagonist up while also making her tougher and tougher.

Let's say you were a developer working from this premise. What would be the best way to ensure that this game isn't sexist? You can imagine it in whatever format you like (3D, topdown, sidescrolling, etc).
Note: I was thinking of posting this somewhere else, but I think it would be appropriate here since it's on-topic and it would work best as a thought experiment since I might not even complete this game.

[Urist Tilaturist]

A 12 year old girl (or boy) would just get wrecked in that situation unless she had some adult friends to help. The massive strength, fitness, and most importantly maturity disparity between a 12 year old girl and a load of adult soldiers makes survival nearly impossible if she fights instead of fleeing. While she could easily be capable of hacking a man's head off or accurately shooting an assault rifle, the skills necessary to be a guerilla fighter do not come naturally to children without training and some discipline.

If she is a child soldier fighting for a resistance movement, it makes much more sense that she could deal with the enemy. The extent to which her adult supervisors are a bunch of rapist child abusers who drug her and force her to serve them is up to you.

[Fniff]

Well, if you consider it, a lot of protagonists are screwed in the situations they're in.
Take an average FPS game. Chances are you aren't going to get through the whole game without dying once then reloading. If you consider it, protagonists die in most timelines and often survive through tremendous luck (AKA their players getting so used to dying they know where every enemy soldier is).
It would be interesting forcing the player to strike a balance between fleeing and fighting.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Knowing where every enemy soldier is should not really be possible. The game should not be scripted in that way. Single player FPS should be like multiplayer FPS in that way; the player can learn enemies' patterns, but not predict absolutely everything.

[Fniff]

Well, then most FPS games are scripted badly. Often the only way I get through some games isn't through being good at shooting but by rote memorization.

[Urist Tilaturist]

The focus of most FPS is multiplayer, where this is not possible. Single player is usually secondary to that. Why should multiplayer be about skills, but single player just about rote memorisation? Single player should be a training ground for multiplayer, getting the player good enough against bots so he will not be too overwhelmed against players.

Yes, most single player FPS are scripted badly.

[Fniff]

Welcome to an age where it's generally assumed that you'll go into multiplayer immediately rather then even glancing at singleplayer.
And yet also an age where it's generally assumed that every game has to have an extremely spectacular singleplayer.
Welcome to the Age of Inconsistency.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Not spectacular, just a decent training ground. I never said it had to be spectacular, just that it needed to get the player good enough at the game to face other players without being too terrible and annoying his teammates. That will not happen if everything is scripted - the player will not learn the tricks of the game and will be shocked if he plunges into even a typical pub server.

Every age is one of inconsistency.

[Glowcat]

Let's say you were a developer working from this premise. What would be the best way to ensure that this game isn't sexist? You can imagine it in whatever format you like (3D, topdown, sidescrolling, etc).

Well, my first concern there would be racism more than sexism, though if she's local or disassociated from the western cultural sphere then I think that won't be much of an issue.

From there I personally think the only thing that needs to be done is: avoid reliance on sexual assault or other trauma to build her strength (use other sources of psychological discomfort), avoid needlessly sexual attire (doubly because she's supposed to be 12 O_O), don't have her become too reliant on male characters (or rather, if there is a reliance, make it not overwhelmingly go one way and be more of a partnership)*, and once she's passed the terrified->capable summit, avoid making her seem pitiable if she's injured or dies. Though before that I personally think it makes in-world logical sense for her to not be a super badass, and contrasting prior vulnerability to the sort of action-survival heroine with psychological baggage she's supposed to end up as.

Of course the age makes a lot of these lesser issues in the first place since audiences will already be put off if you either sexualize or brutally murder a kid (which eliminates a lot of the vaguely sexual brutality which might receive tentative criticism). If you're really concerned I'd fly the game by people who've done gender studies or otherwise familiarized themselves with gender in media and might be better equipped to identify potential issues.

* complicated by being a young character at the start, though this could establish some of that "toughness" by having people who offer her help try using her for child-labor or otherwise abusing her in a way that doesn't rely on the first point since it is overplayed, and the point is to escape from that rut.

[penguinofhonor]

Well, but surely there are some behaviors that you frown upon but don't want a law against? Cheating on your significant other? Being an ass to serving staff at the restaurant? Wrongly using the word "selfie" to refer to any photograph? Calling for censorship of violence against women in video games?

Well when you're saying the thing is invariably bad for society then it's make sense to have that same society prohibit it. Like people in this thread saying that representations of women in games leads to depression and rapists and stuff.

I'm one of the people who would most likely be in favor of laws against various sexist things, but implying on the internet that you'd give up any amount of free speech for any reason is a risky move.

In any argument on sexist games you can find plenty of people knee-jerking and going "What? You want to censor games?" when it hasn't even been mentioned. Saying something people misinterpret as censorship usually angers people enough that some will jump into the thread just to yell at you. I'd be afraid of the response to actually supporting it.

[Quartz_Mace]

On the subject of game ratings(and censorship in general), do they even doing anything? Isn't censoring the world fundamentally worse than preparing youth to face it's truths?

Exposing kids to sex too early can really screw their development.  Just look at pedophilia victims.
The same may be true of exposure to violent themes, I dunno.  Seems like a likely derail topic.

But some concepts really shouldn't be examined until a person is mature enough to handle them healthily...  Maybe some countries are too careful these days, but the principle is sound.

Besides, game ratings aren't censorship (except for cases like unrated games in Australia).  For the US, I don't think even Adults Only actually carries any weight.  They're just guidelines that stores tend to follow.

Though I'm pretty sure it's illegal for stores or parents or anyone to allow pornography to minors...  That's different from the Adults Only rating though.  I don't know the details really.

But yes, content restrictions can serve a important purpose.

Jew is both a race AND religion.

Yeah, not all Jews are Jewish.  Heh.

Forgive my ignorance on that matter. It is just that if your were rascist against the Jewish race, you wouldn't discriminate against any Jews of non-Jewsih descent, like converts. I think I'm taking a stupid accusation too seriously.

On the subject of censorship, by no means should you expect to help a child's development by making them watch sex when their six. I'm sorry I was a bit vague on the matter.

What I was proposing was to remove age labels on "censorable" media, and just list what the content includes because everyone matures individually, and it should be the parents' descision wether or not a child is ready to handle something yet.*

Also, yes. Kids who have been exposed to pedophiles and sexually abused will definitely have issues with mental development. That's a lot different from simply having a sexual education class at an early age.

I guess rating laws really aren't too bad in the U.S., although I'm not familiar with those in other countries.

*This is less of a problem in countries where they act as guidelines and parents' decisions override ratings

[Rolan7]

I only skimmed the last few posts, but did anyone actually advocate censorship? It seems that discussions on females in games (or any social analysis of games) seems to bring with it a discussion of censorship.

Smeep was advocating stopping the depiction of violence against females in games iirc.

I would honestly say that this is the wrong attitude to take, and probably taking her words a bit out of context. I would say that the current type of violence against women usually shown in video games is bad, usually making them a victim, rather than a combatant. Now, that's still fine, as long as it carries the weight and gravity that it would in real life.

I agree with this.  I definitely want more female mooks, like some of the freedom fighters in Far Cry 4 (but on the enemy side too).  I guess the way Half Life 1 did it, with the only female enemies being nimble deadly assassins, was cool...  Though they were a bit fetishized.  But it's a shame they were cut altogether from HL2.

Actually, I couldn't find anything specifically saying that Civil Protection don't recruit women as police officers.  They all have voice modulators specifically to hide their identities (from the citizens they often chose to betray).  Since there are already female cops IRL, and the Combine rule seems obsessed with *removing* gender roles, it's reasonable to assume that about half the police are female.  And if they get "promoted" to being transhuman Overwatch soldiers, well, they become asexual anyway:
http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Overwatch_Soldier?file=Stripped_combine_soldier.jpg

Equal opportunity for horrific semi-voluntary betrayal and excision of humanity!  I love it.  Maybe this is (or can be) true for other games with fully-masked mook enemies.

This is the same reason why I would be OK with rape scenes in games under very specific circumstances. (Dealt with maturely, important to the plot, not too gratuitous, warning somewhere on the box or in the game, etc.)

Fallout: New Vegas dared to depict victims of rape, though not the act itself.  I think it did a great job with a touchy subject.  One of the NCR soldiers was a victim.  She tries to pretend she's okay, but her squadmates are worried and you can convince her that counseling isn't a sign of weakness.  If I recall correctly you can kill the perpetrator, but in a surprisingly realistic twist that doesn't undo her psychological damage.

There's also the treatment of women by Caesar's Legion...  All the Legion's slaves are systematically broken psychologically, and all their women are slaves.  It's far more disturbing than the prostitutes on the strip, who mostly seem happy and well-off (there's an exception, but that's due to a particular evil mobster) (also there are male strippers, which makes sense when the NCR army is half women) (I love Fallout New Vegas). 

This policy toward women is only shown to weaken the Legion.  The woman who mixes herbs in the NCR camp wastes huge amounts of resources because she has no education or interest in her work, just avoiding punishment.  The NCR soldiers never doubt that the Legion must be stopped.  It's shown as evil, and basically self-defeating evil.

I'd like to give the new Tomb Raider as an example of how not to depict violence against women. Let's compare this game to, say, Uncharted. How come when Nathan Drake gets beaten up, shot, and otherwise pummeled, we can brush it off, but when Lara Croft goes through the same stuff, it seems horrible and wrong? It's not just because Nate is a man and Lara is a woman. It's because Nate goes through it all with a wry sense of humor and witty one-liners. Lara, on the other hand, stays deathly serious through it all. Her attitude makes her a victim, and we empathize with her.
Now, that's not to say that it's the only problem with how that stuff is portrayed, but it's a big issue. I guarantee you that if Lara went through that entire game cracking jokes, there would have been a lot less outcry. That, and making the death scenes a bit less gratuitous. (I mean, seriously, it's pretty gorram brutal when you fail a QTE in that game.)

I don't actually have a problem with the new Tomb Raider (besides the name...  Grrr, how do modern installments of things get away with these ambiguous names.  Just call it Tomb Raider Zero Mission or something.)

The deaths are disturbing, and Lara is emotionally frail at times, but that's pretty reasonable considering the story.  I don't mean that it's realistic, but that it makes sense in the narrative.  This is a story of a wealthy history nerd who transforms into a badass adventurer.  It's supposed to be traumatic and kinda horrifying.  But Lara finds the strength to overcomes her fear in order to save her friends (well, sorta) and fight back.

It's very similar to Far Cry 3, where a spoiled party guy with no prospects gets dumped on an island full of vicious pirates and has to save his friends.  In both cases the hero overcomes their coddled background and learns to solve problems with violence, perhaps enjoying it to a disturbing degree.

Tomb Raider did a much better job of showing the process though, in my opinion.  Jason Brody is almost immediately fine, even excited about killing.  Which might be intentional, it's like he was always a psychopath but never realized it.  Or a "warrior" as the games cutscenes describe it.

Whereas Lara is really reluctant and apologetic about defending herself for the first third or so of the game, saying things like "Get away from me" and telling her friends she doesn't think she can handle it.  Because *nobody* could handle it.  If Jason Brody wasn't a repressed bloodthirsty monster set loose on a color-coded murder buffet, he would have been saying the same things.  (Not actually a criticism of Far Cry 3, I *love* playing as that monster)

It's kind of eerie how vicious Lara gets towards the end, though.  I know Lara had to become the cool emotionless badass of the Tomb Raider franchise, but as much as the island built her up, I think it broke her emotionally.  Which is a really interesting story, and not really dependent on her gender.

Equality isn't just about including more females in games. It's about how we portray them. I honestly don't think it would be that hard to make another character like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Someone who can kick just as much, if not more ass than the male characters, while still being feminine and able to like girly stuff. Basically, we need a Buffy for gamers.

inb4 someone takes my quote about rape scenes entirely out of context...

I would be OK with rape scenes in games

Spoiler: A little off topic, but since I brought up Buffy... (click to show/hide)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs#t=163
"So, why do you write these strong female characters?"
"Because you're still asking me that question."

Sounds tough to do well in a game, but it can happen.  Jade was a nurturing character in Beyond Good and Evil, taking care of a bunch of orphans and fighting to make the world safe for them.  Maternal behaviors can work as well as the paternal ones we've seen more recently.

(Even the maternal themes in Metroid were interesting until Other M ruined everything was ignored forever.  I got really emotional at the end of Super Metroid)

As for non-maternal women, I guess there's Bleed.  The protagonist is cute, spiteful and emotive...  It's a silly game, but it kinda works.
They Bleed Pixels (no relation to Bleed) is a good depiction too.  The protagonist is a gothic (catholic) schoolgirl who starts turning into a demon due to occult rituals.  It's a neat power fantasy, relying highly on environmental damage and speed rather than brute force or heavy weapons.  And unlike so many games and animes where the little gothic girl is sexualized to be "more disturbing", that doesn't happen whatsoever.  She's just a little girl who dresses in black, likes books, and starts having amazing nightmares.

Cool thanks for the reply.  I was posting at 3AM out of boredom so don't take anything I said seriously 

[Vector]

Leaving this here.

[EnigmaticHat]

Leaving this here.

That's a very smart article.

I especially liked the part about how gaming communities "need tighter moderation".  Bay12 FTW

I'd say in the end its talking about the same old "you could be the white dude behind Master Chief's mask!" thing that every pure FPS ever goes for, but instead of describing it its describing WHY it happens.  Which is a pretty good explanation, in the end.  It would explain why the two console games most famous (in the US) for their mass appeal are Madden and CoD, as those games are easy to play and allow players to become football players and soldiers respectively, two huge role models for masculinity.

[Reelya]

Leaving this here.

It was an interesting read, but I think the author is off-base when he wrote:

Masculinity loses its status and many of the related perks, if gamers allow games where conquest and conflict, objectification of women, and rugged male protagonists are not prominent to be accepted in the gaming space. …if they allow games that are not about male performance to stand.

The masculine performers don’t reflect that well on why they feel threatened, but lash out in response nonetheless. They scream fake geek, collusion, corruption, SJW agenda, whenever any non-masculine performance or performer gets any traction or whenever their devices to perform masculinity are criticized.

How do games like Beyond Good and Evil, Mirror's Edge or Thief fit into that narrative. Mirror's Edge / Beyond good and Evil have a female protagonist, and aren't violent. Thief on the expert difficulty emphasizes non-violent solutions. I'd say games like those challenge what the author is talking about. I've never seen anyone attack games like that for not being macho enough, in fact they're widely praised. Almost all the troll attacks have been reactionary - in defense of particular games they like, rather than attacking specific games for being non-macho.

There are really countless games that go against what he is saying that have widespread praise, and are not being torn down, which really invalidates everything he's saying. The idea that the misogynist trolls go around trying to stomp out games that don't fit the cis white male protag violence agenda doesn't seen to be in line with reality.