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FEMALE GAMES CHARACTERS: LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD? by Mr Biffo

24/11/2015

19 Comments

 
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For a long time, gaming was considered a male pursuit, but things aren't just changing on that front; they've changed.

According to a Pew Research Centre report into American tech ownership, 42% of female respondents owned a games console, compared to just 37% who identified as male.

​It's a slightly different picture according the Electronic Software Association, which found that 59% of males it polled identified as "gamers", against 41% of women.

Either way you look at it, there's a narrow gap there, and being a gamer is no longer just a thing that only boys do (if it ever was). 

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NEGATIVE DEPICTIONS
You don't need me to tell you that there's often a lot of talk about the negative depiction of females in video games.

And, indeed, if you're a misogynistic idiot, the negative impact of females in gaming.

It's fair enough though that women would feel poorly represented, or misrepresented. Traditionally, female game characters were damsels in distress, pink princesses, or identical to their male counterparts, but with bows on their heads. And when graphics got better, it was all about the chainmail bikinis and pendulous breasts.

Things are better, but not much better. Women are still often represented as eye candy: Koei Tecmo has just announced that Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 will feature "realistic tan lines" and bikini "malfunctions" alongside a refined version of its realistic breast physics software, Soft Engine 2.0.

It's shameless objectification of women, obviously, reinforcing all manner of dubious body fascism and social inequality (is Lara Croft really any better though? She somehow manages to keep her make-up on throughout Rise of the Tomb Raider...).


That said - speaking as someone who has never been a woman - I don't think any of us (male, female, straight, gay, trans, white, black, Asian, cats, dogs...) are particularly well represented by video games.

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JRR TOKEN EFFORTS
​There are more token efforts to offer female playable characters these days.

However, I'd argue that Lara Croft, that female Spartan in Halo 5, and the female versions of the male characters in Assassin's Creed Unity and CODBLOPS 3, don't do anything besides the same default video game character behaviour as their male counterparts.

Is that really what women want from their characters? Simply making them as equally unrealistic as male video game characters?


There's nothing about any of the characters mentioned above, beyond superficial elements, which suggest they're female. I don't get any insight into being a woman from them. In some respects, they're the very definition of the developers going "There - happy now?".

It seems that as far as video games go, making female and male characters equally capable and bloodthirsty is as deeps as it goes into exploring what it is to be a man or a woman. All you have to do is stick a bow on their head, and it'll shut up the feminists, right?

Obviously, there are exceptions. Ellie in The Last of Us, Kaitlin in Gone Home and Max from Life is Strange are all characters who are convincing in their female-ness (at least, they are to me - a man). But when it comes to most big, Triple-A action games, female characters are cyphers. Thing is, so are the male ones, and I'm not sure it necessarily matters one way or another.

​I'm no defender of male rights, or whatever they're calling it, but if we were to turn the tables, we'd all be labouring under the impression that being a man is about having enormous muscles and the biggest gun you can handle.

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MALE PRODUCTS
We're all a product of our environment, one way or another.

We're all shaped by what's around us, and I'm sure that growing up I absorbed video games' depiction of gender roles... along with those I witnessed in commercials, movies, TV shows, and my parents' and grandparents' relationships etc. etc.

As have we all.


That said, I've never really felt I needed a male role-model from my games - to me, a man, they're mostly just bland avatars and I pay little attention to what sex the character is - but if I was looking for one there are precious few examples to chose from.

Most male characters in games are muscle-bound, gun-toting, psychopaths. The closest I've ever come to identifying with one was naughty schoolboy Eric from 80s ZX Spectrum classic Skool Days, and - once again - Joel in The Last of Us. Joel is a dad, probably about my age, and striving to protect those he cares about. But he still runs around shooting people in the head. Because that's what the game demands.

Most video games are action-based, and for that you need an action hero, male or female. I don't necessarily need games to speak to me by featuring a character who's a middle-aged couch potato who goes on an adventure. 

Action games are escapism, and they're not the place for digging deep into a character's psyche. Do that, and you get this "ludonarrative dissonance" thing that's all the rage these days (basically, the conflict between story and gameplay, whereby one contradicts the other).

In extreme examples - such as in Rise of the Tomb Raider - it actually serves to damage the game as a whole, because they've gone too far during the cutscenes to create a rounded character.


Video game characters don't need to be deep, or realistic, but they do need to be consistent within their game worlds if we're going to buy into them. But at the same time, I'm curious to know whether simply levelling the playing field between male and female characters is what female gamers want from their avatars. Answers on a pink postcard.

​FROM THE ARCHIVE:
GAMES JOURNALISM: WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE? by Mr Biffo
VIDEO GAMES: THEY'RE ALL BORING by Mr Biffo

LARA CROFT: THE FRAIL PSYCHOPATH by Mr Biffo
19 Comments
Craig Grannell link
24/11/2015 01:16:05 pm

I agree that it's rare people are generally well-represented in videogames, but if we zero in specifically on binary gender (i.e. men and women), there is a world of difference in the default stances of said representation. Male characters are mostly power trips. They are a kind of mindless aspirational tough guy model. Women in videogames, though, are also mostly designed purely with men in mind, as eye candy.

So although I too wonder if we want 'equality' by way of turning women in games into buff action heroes, we very much aren't starting from a level playing field anyway. And I'm not sure what the solution is, but part of me wonders whether every developer should toss a coin before assigning gender to a character. On mobile, it's astonishing how few female characters are available even in the simplest titles.

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Jim Miles link
24/11/2015 01:37:11 pm

What an excellent article.

I agree with much of what you say and have thought similarly myself in response to these discussions. It's nice when a well-written piece helps tie so much of it together.

In the spirit of not just gushing about this article, I was a little thrown by "is Lara Croft really any better though? She somehow manages to keep her make-up on throughout Rise of the Tomb Raider..."

I mean, firstly I think yes, Lara Croft really is "better though" than the Dead or Alive example you give in the preceding paragraph. The fact that Lara Croft appears to still have make up on throughout her game seems unarguably a lesser offence than Tecmo's lecherous antics, no?

And that's the second thing: how sure are we about this make up business in Tomb Raider anyway? Are we just saying "because she looks basically the same throughout the game, she must always be wearing make up AHAA"?

It seems an unclear point.

Perhaps Lara Croft just looks like that, starting the game without make up and continuing without it and so looking more or less the same.

That said (as naively as it was just said), I think "realistic deterioration of eyebrow definition and thickness" is a feature we can all agree would be great for the next Tomb Raider title.

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Chris
25/11/2015 12:24:06 pm

I'm looking forward the the Tomb Raider make-up side-quest/mini-game.

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Clive Peppard
24/11/2015 01:46:51 pm

You know who makes a great character? me. Fallout 4 gave me the option of gender, race, face, everything and 45 minutes later I had a (near) perfect representation of me. thats what games need, ego fluffing "you the man/woman/gender of your choice" moments where you are the hero du jour. (i may have an ego issue ofc) and the morality choices are mine as well, Bethesda essentially gave me a blank canvas and said "go for it, we dont actually care about teh protagonist at all" superb stuff

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Enigmatic Pete
24/11/2015 02:38:57 pm

And also you can now wear female clothing as a male character and vice versa as opposed to older Fallouts where the item of clothing would look different depending on your gender.

So I can now play as a transgender (but genetic male) who fights raiders in a sequinned ballgown - other developers take note!

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Thrills
24/11/2015 03:03:46 pm

Oh, completely.

A sturdy character create mode can make the difference between a good and bad game for me. Not super keen on the Saint's Row games in theory, but I had a great time playing as whatever jerk I felt like designing, be it a version of myself or some ludicrous hulking brute or whatever.

I would probably be much more likely to sit through Generic Decent Sandbox game like Assassin's Creed if I felt even slightly connected to the character. If you actively have to create the character, it gives you an immediate attachment.

That said, I welcome compelling leads created for the game by the designers, i just wish there were more.

I also wish more character create modes let all genders wear all costumes and also allowed for more hyper-muscular women etc.

Bah! BAH!



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Steve McRepresentation
24/11/2015 03:46:45 pm

Straight white male speaking here, but for what it's worth, it seems to me that gender representation has a chance at being somewhat better outside of the action genre, since the default action game character is something of a brutal psychopath regardless of gender, ending up with a situation where even when we end up with playable female leads, they're what some call a "Ms Male" character (though I suspect that this does to an extent occur as part of a conscious effort to not play too heavily on traditionally "feminine" character tropes that might be viewed as also creating a stereotype). But to an extent in the action game medium, this has to be the case for the game to not face some serious narrative dissonance - It's why the TR Legend series Lara Croft works better for me than her new incarnation. Action games are always going to be best at replicating fun pulp romps where characterisation is secondary to action, especially since one of their main means of interacting with the world is violence, no matter how you try to write them.

For better representation in gender (and other) terms, point-and-clicks in particular offer a chance to do slightly more believable protagonists in general, because they're a totally different pace and much more dialogue-heavy. It may be worth thinking harder about what formats suit diverse characterisation better rather than trying to shoehorn realistic people into a genre that is naturally more the equivalent of the pulp adventure novel or dumb action movie. (Not that I'm saying to give up on better representation in the action genre, but it's worth thinking about how far that formula can truly be pushed).

Speaking of the divide between action and non-action games, I'm also aiming to get to Life Is Strange soon. Dontnod's Remember Me was a very interesting game with a beautiful visual style and a great location, an interesting story, reasonably diverse protagonist, and great puzzle gimmick sadly made utterly and painfully tedious by a deeply un-fun combat system (never finished it, but I am sometimes tempted). I'm hoping that without combat, their ideas shine through a bit more.

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Steve McRepresentation
24/11/2015 06:07:29 pm

Wow, interesting timing for this article. It looks like DOA Xtreme 3 won't be bothering anyone in the West anyway. Tecmo Koei have declared that it won't be ported, as it isn't worth the hassle in the West.

It didn't look like a particularly good game, but this will no doubt spark some debate.

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James T
24/11/2015 10:09:02 pm

I think the DoAX situation is less to do with the current climate of the industry and more to do with KoeiTecmo as a business - their western publishing arm lives and dies off of incredibly niche titles. As long as there's a guarantee of an audience, they'll likely publish it over here. DoAX, while having a fanbase in the west, has never really been a big enough fanbase to justify a boxed, physical release - to my knowledge, the first two games sold considerably below Tecmo's (this is pre-merger) expectations.

Now, those fans who -do- want the game? The Asian version of the game includes English text and VAs - they can just import. KT still gets their money without taking a massive business risk, and the fans can get their dumb fanservice spin-off game. A similar route was taken by Compile Heart for a PS Vita game called Moero Chronicles; and I can see the practice becoming normalised for niche Japanese publishers worried about the business prospects of their games in the western market.

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Steve McRepresentation
24/11/2015 10:37:06 pm

Interesting. I had actually wondered if it was a deliberate stunt to drive a "localise this game" fan campaign and prove there was a market for it, but that makes sense. That said, it's interesting that they even suggested that the current climate was an issue for them at all, as most companies would simply hide from that whole topic unless absolutely forced to engage on it (one particularly memorable and awkward Kotaku interview has Ubisoft actively recoiling from a question about women in AC Unity after that whole fiasco happened), and here is Tecmo Koei actively raising it. Quite a gamble from a PR perspective, but clearly they feel they have nothing to lose from this anyway.

This game was never on my "must play" list, or even my "be seen within 500 feet of" list, but hopefully the actual DoA titles will continue to get UK releases. Much as the story and characterisation is utter tripe and the titillation aspect is kind of embarrassing (though that's mainly sold via DLC now) it actually has a really solid fighting system. It's no Street Fighter III, but it's surprisingly deep for a game that looks so shallow.

Ben
24/11/2015 07:17:25 pm

I totally agree that humanity as a whole is done a terrible disservice by games in general (with the odd, rule proving exception) and that, in all likelihood, if sentient beings are out there somewhere, in the cosmos, judging our species by how we are (mis)represented in videogames, we should probably expect to be nuked from a safe orbit any day now (here's hoping they don't also read the papers or I might not make it home and that train ticket would have been a massive waste of money).

This may be a bit tangential, but honestly, I think that a lot of this is symptomatic of a medium at odds with itself, not knowing what it is or what its strengths are. Ludonarrative dissonance is a big problem when you treat a medium fundamentally at odds with the conceits and requirements of conventional narrative form as though it's gods *all new* gift to storytelling. There's a reason most games still rely on cutscenes (or periods of non-interaction) to tell stories, those bits can't be affected by player agency and stories kind of depend on that.

What bothers me and it's something I think you kind of allude to in your piece is why does any of this matter? Personally I think at some point, games, and particularly big, AAA games went down the wrong path. In the early days games were far, far more abstract and having them reflect real life was neither technically possible nor creatively desirable. This was way back, when videogames were a brave, bold new medium, forging their own, uniquely 'gamey' language and trying to communicate on their own terms; back when 'rounded characterisation' was yellow and ate ghosts. This was before people were forced to scrutinise them through the lens of conventional narrative media like literature or film, which do an infinitely better job of doing that non-interactive thing they do. Why do avatars even have to be people? Why do interactions need to be mostly violent? what purpose does any of that serve? It's an aesthetic choice and I think my jaded, cynical self knows the miserable answer and it's probably an entirely different issue, but if making games culturally acceptable and as commercially appealing to as many people as possible boils down to having believable characters doing believable things in believable worlds, and creators relentlessly and remorsely apeing the conventions of traditional, purely narrative media for self validation, ultimately, in my view, at the expense of this lovely, unique thing we have, then I'm done with it really.

Games could be so much more wonderful without all that baggage.

Harrumph.

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Dave
24/11/2015 09:08:17 pm

I believe Yahtzee said it best regarding this with female and male protagonists in games:

" I do think it's true that games could use more diversity. But when I say that, I mean diversity of ideas, thoughtfulness, and perspectives. And that takes a whole lot more than just numerically equalizing the ham sandwiches to the sausage rolls."

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Andy
25/11/2015 02:05:55 am

Well, so far, a wholly male lineup of commenters (which I'm afraid I will do nothing to rebalance). For what my view is worth, though, I think there are two related but not identical issues here. It is one thing to feel that characters with whom you share membership of a group (such as gender) are not very representative of you personally (or indeed most people). It is quite another to simply find that there are virtually no characters with whom you *do* share membership of those groups. You (Biffo) are quite right to say that just plonking an apparently female action hero cypher into a game is not the pinnacle of what better and more diverse characters in games could be, but I don't think anyone ever said it was.

We shouldn't forget that it isn't long ago that having the option to play as a female character in a game was a rarity. My impression is that it is still the exception rather than the rule. As men, we have had many joyous years of being able to play as male characters who weren't very well characterised, and certainly didn't seem much like us as people. But women haven't even had that. "Is that really what women want from their characters? Simply making them as equally unrealistic as male video game characters?", you ask. Well no, it's not, but since that is such a low bar to be setting, it is surely all the more ridiculous that the games industry has predominantly not managed even that.

As someone who has (rightly) commented on other aspects of the way games are made being "unwelcoming", I would have thought you would also appreciate how unwelcoming it feels that the industry simply doesn't seem to think that providing female playable characters is all that important, to anyone who happens to be female. If the general standard of characters is low, well, yes, that's a thing. But it's a whole other thing that those boring, sub-standard characters are mostly male. The two things are only arguably related if it is the very perfunctoriness of the characters which might lead to them typically being male, because their creators (perhaps subconsciously) see male as the "default" gender.

So yes, of course, more diverse and better characterised female (and male) characters, please, but I think people can be allowed to be a little bit pleased to just have games which have at least bothered to provide dreary female cyphers as well as dreary male ones.

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Superbeast 37
25/11/2015 07:35:34 am

Unfortunately this article is based on stats that were deliberately misrepresented by the media.

In AAA gaming (what I assume we are discussing here) the actual ratio figures are around 90:10.

Even in games that make great attempt to tailor to a female audience the figures are low.

According to Bioware, in Mass Effect only 18% of players play as femshep despite that being widely regarded as the superior option.

Surveys of players suggested that the gender ratio of the ME players themselves was around 14% female.

This is why developers chasing female money are all concentrated in the market segments women prefer such as mobile/puzzle and those hidden object picture games and why AAA devs like Ubisoft often coldly analyse the ROI of creating a second female option (with all the cost of employing an actress for voice/motion and each scene has to be recorded twice) and the calculator says it ain't worth it.

That's why Bioware use the male performance capture for the female option and is quite obvious when watching cutscenes as my character moves like a man.


Also there is nothing shameless about showing off the female form for the pleasure of a male audience just as there would be nothing shameless about doing the reverse for a game targeted at females (or steroid pumped male strippers at a hen do). It is perfectly healthy and natural.

Horses for courses. Different products for different people.

There is no credible evidence that it is "reinforcing all manner of dubious body fascism and social inequality".

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Steve McRepresentative
25/11/2015 10:31:37 am

I'm no statistics expert, but looking at the methodology of the Pew one, it excludes players under 18 from the data analysis, while it appears that the ESA's survey shows that 15% of players are teenage boys. Even factoring in teenage girls, and that might go some way towards explaining the variance.

That said, the ESA one is more of a marketing document, so we can't really tell we how rigorous their figures are or how they sourced them. It would be interesting to know.

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Serge
25/11/2015 12:57:01 pm

Is there any credible evidence that the surveys referenced were "deliberately represented by the media" though?

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Chris
25/11/2015 12:36:25 pm

Just to add another side to this, I'm a man but in Bloodborne and Fantasy Life I've designed my avatar to be female. And, no, not an attractive busty female in either case, but an imperfect, scarred, similar build to me kick-ass redhead.

Why?

Well, if I'm going to be spending time looking at this character I'd like it to be visually appealing but not unrealistic. A muscular man or an accurate representation of myself is not what I want to be staring at for 100 hours or however long games are these days.

An online avatar is a different matter and I'd pick something more me-like. But if it's just for me, I'll pick something I like at the point I choose the character. And that might be a man, woman, non-gender-specific alien or a green dinosaur.

Often games don't give you any choice at all, and you have to play as an inexplicably male egg with arms and legs.

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Steve McRepresentation
25/11/2015 02:45:51 pm

As someone who isn't an egg, I've had it up to here with the Oliver Twins' rampant non-eggism.

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Tara
29/11/2015 08:10:53 am

ROFL 😂

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