Video Games

[Kestrad]

There was a pretty apt comic on Kotaku a while back where someone just ran up to a group of Kotaku readers and said, "Women. Video games." and ran off again. In the last panel, the group of people had all turned into that troll face or otherwise looked furious and were running off after the person who'd spoken.

Honestly, I think that's the most apt representation of bringing up the subject of women and video games ever. You can't even make the smallest, most carefully worded remark about how maybe the video games industry doesn't always treat women as well as they could, and you'll get all manner of butthurt gamers making awful comments in response. A guy got all sorts of flak for saying he found it weird how often the word "Bitch" was directed at female characters in Arkham City. But this attitude isn't exclusive to video game culture; it's something you'll find in nerd culture as a whole. It's really problematic when you're dealing with a group of people who consider themselves "nice guys" but have an extremely sexist view towards women when actually dealing with them.

Also, I'm definitely not saying everyone into video games is like that! I've been super fortunate that all of my gamer friends are super respectful (and actually sometimes better at spotting problematic tropes at work than I am).


Somewhat relatedly, in the newest InFamous game (Second Son), it really bothered me how the big bad was a woman in power. Can we for once have a woman in power as an important character who isn't evil? I mean yes, the story tried to introduce some nuance for her, but most of the game was spent villainizing her, and after finishing the main game you pick up all these audiologs detailing the horrific things she's done...you're clearly not meant to think of her as anything other than ruthless and evil.

And the fact that you defeat her by punting her across the room while she's down, not once, but three times - and you have to fight her that way at least twice - felt extremely, extremely gratuitous and uncomfortable to me.

I'm still holding out for an Assassin's Creed game main title with a female protagonist. I remember being super annoyed when the devs said "we haven't considered it." And wanting to stab some necks when some guys commented how that would be unbelievable to them. I mean come on, Ezio frickin' runs down the street in an outfit with an Assassin symbol emblazoned across the front, armed to the teeth, climbing walls everywhere, and no one bats an eye, and he can sit down on a bench or stand next to some people and be instantly invisible! And none of that breaks suspension of disbelief, but a female character would?! ...Actually, that attitude is exactly why women were some of the best assassins and spies in the world.

[Leprapotilas]

Hmmm this is definitely an interesting subject! I think I'll post some opinions, especially so on women in video games ( since it's the thing I've done most research on yadda yadda yadda ).I think I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon of "female clothes in videogames" since it's what I know most about

When it comes to females in video games, what bothers me the most is the reasons they up with to make it seem plausible. As for an example, the new Metal Gear female.. whoever she was, had an extremely skimpy and laughable outfit because "her power is invisibility so she has to have skimpy clothes so she can be truly invisible11!!11". And that was the official statement of the makers.

Spoiler

Here you can see the wonderful image of her. Why would anyone think that someone would wear a costume like that and think it as an advantage in combat?

Another good example is the new Metroid. They gave our beloved protagonist high heels, saying that "yeah she uses them for jumping! Kinda like in portal!". What bothers me about it is, once again, the fact that they try to justify trying to make her look sexy in shoes like that by using them as "jump boots". I know most people don't agree with TomPreston ( an artist on dA ), but he does have some good stuff about women in video games. This image

Spoiler

portrays it perfectly. If they were for that purpose, they should be for both genders.. but can you honestly see any male character wearing them? Not really. And when it comes to "they're portal shoes!111", there's a huge difference - portal shoes are based on actual jumping shoes.

Same goes for female skimpy armor in general. I've heard everything from "it damages female body" to "it makes her faster" and so on. The fact that many people don't want to admit it's done for the sake of making her look sexy is sad. I mean historically speaking, many armors were so well-made that they weren't that hard to move in.. And if you want to move fast in a combat, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to put on a metal bikini when you can go for a leather armor. And women in history have worn armor and so have many today, without any real damages to their bodies.

But yeah. Maybe that's enough of female armors / clothes in games! Hahah it's what makes me personally most angry when it comes to games - that women are just eye candy and not real, reasonable characters the same way many men of the game are.. I won't go into the matter of female character portrayal on games or women in game communities since that would make me produce a wall of text --

And now to game age ratings. I'm putting it under a spoiler warning since I don't want to take up too much space aahahahah --

Spoiler

As a person who begun to play games very early on - when I was about 8 I played my first real game ( it was rated M or so on? Or at least +16 ), so it's very hard for me to talk about youngsters playing games without being a total hypocrite. When it comes to age ratings, I think that the wisest path would be to revalue the maturity level of kids. I don't necessarily think that kids should, like I did, play games that are rated M when they're like 8 or so, but I think that it shouldn't be so strict.. Since maturity is a pretty hard thing to rate.

Kids these days are a lot more mature than their predecessors - the society of today makes them grow up a lot quicker. These days I can't imagine anyone having a deep conversation with me when I was like 12, but I, myself, can have rather deep conversations about games with my mother's friend's kid who is 12. This goes for many kids, tbh - they grow up so quickly it's ridiculous.

And even individually, maturity is super hard to rate. Some people are super mature very early on, some people never really grow up the same way. Though realistically speaking, I do understand why the game ratings are black and white - it's because despite people are individuals and times change, it's impossible to go through everyone's maturity individually. So I think the best path would be to just think the game ratings through.. again. And for parents themselves think more about what games they buy for their kids - as someone earlier said, I think parents should be better informed on the game ratings.

BUT at the same time, can we think that the reason kids are growing up so fast is because of games? I live in a neighbourhood with lots of kids, and when I sit on the balcony I can hear boys talking about how they killed stuff in games and how GTA is cool and etc.. They're around 10-12 years of age. Of course games aren't really "to blame", but I'm wondering if it's the main cause / an important cause for the way some kids have become so.. cruel. I mean we do have some f***ked up things happening because of the violence in games and movies etc. - some kids seem to be super cruel because they've played violent games or seen violent movies. After all, kids are very easily influenced.

[Silenxia]

There is Assassin's Creed Liberation, that has a female character but you need a certain platform to play it which is phooey when you consider how many things you can get the other games (with male main characters). It's almost like it is intended.

Some games show balance with female characters, others don't. Okami is a good game because the main player is a female Celestial wolf, but the games clearly has its flaws. The one I been having problems with is Rao who is supposed to be Himiko's friend. A priestess...is supposed to be a holy being, especially one who has close ties to the monarch. But Rao...She's fully clothed except for her chest which shows quite a bit of cleavage. She is meant to look like a very attractive character;

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2010 ... 46/Rao.jpg When you compare her to the Queen, there's an obvious difference. http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2011 ... Himiko.jpg

That is a very poor factor. The Queen is a high being and being dressed like that would been very improper. It's just not right and it seems more women characters are being portrays as kickbutt beauties in the action games. It doesn't happen in the more simple games.
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For the case of violence, I found it interesting. Assassin's Creed is listed as M, but it wasn't quite as violent as the second game. You kill people, but there is fairly little blood. On the contrary to AC II where there squirts of blood when doing certain moves. I think the M should be separated into two categories, the games that have heavy violence like GTA and the games that have some violence, but nothing completely bad.

I sometimes lets my grandma's kids watch me when I play. I try to limit which games I let them watch, the AC games tend to be risky, but they are fairly young where they probably don't understand. Lately I been playing Okami which is generally more...suitable. Sometimes scenes I run through but not all of them.

It's really up to the parent or adult to decide where their limits lie. Some adults are perfectly okay with letting their kids play games with higher ratings and may event buy them games like that. Others will not do that. I don't think we can pass laws to control this because the choice really falls on the parent or guardian. Of course sometimes kids go places to play them, like a friend's house, but...

It's a back and forth thing and I think it depends on the person.

[AmayaElls]

Here in Australia Ratings was a major source of controversy. You see we didn't have an R rating for games until very recently. This wasn't great, they don't acknowledge the adult gamers, but you can't immediately see the main issue. You see even though we didn't have an R rating only two games were ever refused classification in Australia. Therefore games that should have been rated R were given a rating of M meaning that anyone over the age of 15 could buy them.

I was so happy when they finally got the R rating in, not just because it acknowledges adult gamers but because it protects children.

[Silenxia]

How odd, here the M is the highest one mainly for 17 and older, although we do have an Adult rating (A I believe) but that's a rare thing that I have not seen and probably there are good reasons. But I could tell why it would be a big problem, if that rating wasn't there then who knows what could the kids be seeing.

Did the people who sold the games give warnings? I seen several cases where the clerk warns about the content of a game, kind of to parents who have to give their permission.

[AmayaElls]

How odd, here the M is the highest one mainly for 17 and older, although we do have an Adult rating (A I believe) but that's a rare thing that I have not seen and probably there are good reasons. But I could tell why it would be a big problem, if that rating wasn't there then who knows what could the kids be seeing.

Did the people who sold the games give warnings? I seen several cases where the clerk warns about the content of a game, kind of to parents who have to give their permission.

Here M is 15 non-strict and MA is restricted to 15+ so this makes it really easy for younger teenagers to pick up games that should be rated for adults only. As for warnings, it depends always on the person serving, and sadly more often then not, the server is not well informed or not paying enough attention to give a warning.

[Silenxia]

That tends to happen, but not all the time. A few times there was questions about my age, but by this time I was old enough to play the games and thus it was alright. But I did observe a case of that in a video game store, a clerk asked the mother and she studied the games and made her choice. It depends on the clerk, but also the parents. Some parents don't care while others would.

Yesterday I completed Okami and I still support Amaterasu and Oki as a couple. True the other is a jerk most of the time, but I feel he seems to understand and changes and somehow he would be worth for Ammy. I like the Oina village the most and do wish that we got more time to explore. My favorite has to be Tuskle (in wolf form).

But I like the style for Okami. It was very unique and no other game has ever went to its level. You have the love the game that has good graphics, though one part of the world nearly blinded me with how bright it was. I'm going to try the second game.

To smooth things out...Is there a game that you want but just haven't been able to find? I know there is a lot of games out there, but some are no longer in rotation. It's frustrating at times.

[Blazen749]

I had to do an essay on video games as an educational tool, and found that while it is possible to make an educational video game without violence, it had a tendency to lose the interest of the player. Adding "Cartoon Violence" like Pokemon really worked well fr the Prodigy Math Game

[Sourikus]

Googling 'sexism in videogames' will keep you interested for hours. Just promise me you won't read the comments!

Normally I could go on long rants about this - and do, at parties, where it's least appropriate (you should hear me on Doctor Who!) - but it's late, so yes, one good thing to look up would be the 'tropes against women in gaming' documentary, as well as the backlash it received.

I think the violence isn't as bad because it's not so normalised in our culture - you don't walk down the street and expect to punch somebody for no reason - but you DO walk down the street and see scantily clad women sexualised on billboards!

There was this video by feminist frequency talking about the "Damsel in distress" video game trope, it has 3 parts. The speaker proceeds to discuss the origins and implications of this trope as well as sexism in video games: "dudes in distress" is not wrong, "damsel in distress" is. Within the video are games which use it/poke fun at it/turn it on its head. Glad someone has noticed (not just me).

There is also a segment in the video about violence against female characters being used unnecessarily and for fun, highlighting the problem of sexism. Anyway I think violence is wrong. There's a BIIIIIIIIG difference between getting nailed by a flying blue shell in Mario Kart, and, say, someone getting stabbed through the chest. Big difference. The problem is that people do not realise the implications of these until it's too late and some psychopath emulates this and murders somebody. It would be too late.

Sorry for taking off 2 minutes of your life, here's a line of rotating emotes:

[punyama]

Alright, I'm going to be brief as possible because I'm very torn about this topic. I, obviously, don't enjoy seeing women characters only used as sexual objects in video games, pertaining only to the male gaze, having them be blatantly stupid and defenseless, or the damsel in distress trope.

Those all suck. But I actually like how women are dressed in certain games. For example, the women in Fire Emblem Awakening, pretty much, all are wearing armor that's ill-fitted for battle (breast cups, leggings, having exposed skin where it's definitely not recommended during field battle) but I love it. I think their outfits are cute and these women are strong in the game. That, within itself, feels empowering to me. Within this argument, there is another that exist. Women who possess more active and stronger roles in video games often get coined that they are more "masculine." Y'know, more coverage, less make up, whatever. That's fine and I can attest to that, obviously. But I feel that more "feminine" attributes are looked down regardless if the woman has an active role or not, or whatever she is strong or not. I mean, using Fire Emblem Awakening as my example, you have women in the game such as Kjelle, who is completely covered in armor, and then you have women such as Nowi, who is near naked. Both of these characters, to me, hold the same amount of importance to me because they are strong. They aren't just characters for the male gaze. I like that I can appreciate and even relate to both of these characters. Video games exist as an entertainment, a fantasy we can delved into, and in that, I understand that armor can be problematic, but because it is in a fantasy world, I suspend my disbelief and I enjoy it to an extent. More so if that women, obviously, are drawn out to be actually "people" with personalities that reinforce their "choices." I mean, my strongest character in Fire Emblem was Cynthia, a little girl with a skirt on. And she freakin' ripped people to shreds. She was metal as f. And it best thing is? She's a "girly-girl." I love that.

Obviously there is a line to be drawn, like as Leprapotilas pointed out, that some outfits are absolutely ridiculous and clearly only exist for the male gaze. Those are the problematic ones. Those types of characters clearly exist only for one purpose. There are many examples of this, and it'd be draining to point out. I don't find those types of characters empowering to me. I almost feel turned-off and disgusted?

However, Samus's heels? I love it. Samus is my lady, first off. I love her, in and out of her suit. Zero Suit Samus is actually one of my mains in Smash. I love that she's wearing heels. And again, I understand that it's problematic and would be a disadvantage in combat, but to me, maybe because I realize that a video game is essentially, a "fantasy", it's empowering. She kicks ass and she looks hella good while doing it. Why can't I be like her?!

Thing is, if women exist only to be a support character of the white male main character, it's problematic. I know that, and I hate that.These women aren't fleshed out, and they don't have personalities, and are dependant of the male main. That's garbage to me. But I feel empowered when women with an active role are dressed up cute, sexy, or "masculine", because I can see myself in that character. I can say, "oh damn, she cute...AND STRONG?! I LOVE IT." Strong, obviously pertaining to both actual function and personality to the game, and "cuteness" factor relating to aesthetics, not just outfit-wise.

In Borderlands, there is a character named Ellie, unlike any other character in a video I've seen, she is obese, masculine (mechanic), but at the same time, feminine, and sexual. People argue that she's problematic, but I celebrate her. I don't know. My outlook on things are different than others, but I think Ellie is a strong female character that transcends many boundaries that other games wouldn't even think of touching. While I guess people wouldn't think she is "cute," I think she is, 100%. She leaves her mother, Mad Moxxi, because she kept getting on Ellie's case with her weight. So Ellie just got up and left, and lives in a place in the middle of a clan war. Ellie don't curr. She's independent and living how she wants to. And to that, I applaud her. She sexual because she wants to be, and she can be. Love love it. I'm not sure if this relates to any of what I'm saying, but it feels important that I should point that out.

I do wish that there were more people aware of the issues of videogames and women, but I also hope that I convinced some of you that some of the women's outfits aren't necessarily bad, misogynistic, or anti-feminist, or what have you. To me it's empowering, if it's done in the right manner.