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[thesolidshark]

It's been said enough that whites being the majority is why

I'm not just signaling you out, but I'm trying to raise a side point: you can't have it both ways, to me that is just injecting opinion into the debate. The over arching argument is the call for more inclusion, more women-leads in gaming. You can't go in and cherry pick what counts and what does not count based on your perceived quality of that game. You will literally never be satisfied and are not open to the reality of the situation.

You might not like Liberation, but to dismiss it because you don't think it's AAA when the main character is clearly a black female hurts the entire side of the argument that is calling for more inclusion. She was a lead in Liberation and playable in Black Flag, don't dismiss that. CoL and Transistor might be "indie" (Ubisoft published one, mind you, so that's not independent), and not a $50mm budget, but I don't understand the dismissal because they are great examples of "inclusion." I even see people deriding Tomb Raider eclipse Lara is talking to a therapist in a teaser trailer. As if her being a person dealing with real issues like a real person makes her less of a woman lead.

I think the biggest thing hurting the argument is that there's no unified, singular positive side on this calling for inclusion - there's way too much personal preference popping up on both sides

Just want to say I very much like this post and agree with it.

because sarkeesian only looks at things from a western perspective.

I feel like I've seen or heard of elements of this, and wonder about it for her next videos, whenever they come.

I'm fairly happy with the seemingly increased representation of women in games at this E3, even if a lot of it falls under Nintendo. Rather than shaming Ubisoft and EA, why don't we celebrate what Nintendo and some others are doing?

We've "gone negative" for years. I think the only other solution is to go positive.

If Polygon is often talking about female representation in gaming, I'd hope they bring Nintendo up for some praise.

And I very much agree with the bolded.

I don't want anyone to feel alienated or marginalized. Everyone wants the same thing -- acceptance -- and fears the same thing -- rejection. So whatever their skin color, physical features, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, lifestyle, etc., they should feel accepted and cherished. So I'm all for diversity in games.

That being said, as a general rule of thumb, I'm wary about creative types feeling like they have to create something other than what they want to create, just to appease a perceived demand. I think it's good to show there's a demand for these things, and that we want to see these things. I'd just be wary of criminalizing them if/when they don't deliver, because for all we know, maybe what they give us is really the story they want to tell.

Then again, maybe some of these creative types really want to tell stories featuring black protagonists, female protagonists, gay protagonists, etc. Maybe they end up making white male protagonists because they're forced by the publisher to make something that will "sell."

But maybe they also just want to legitimately tell a story involving a white male.

Maybe that desire sometimes coincides with the creative type being a white male himself. In which case, perhaps if more blacks, women, gays, etc., went into game design and filled the positions that create these characters, we'd see more of them.

Or maybe they, too, would just make white men.

Or maybe they'd be forced to make white men.

My long-winded point here is I'm not sure at which level we end up getting what we get. Is it genuine creative choice? Is it a company mandate? Is it reflective of the people making the games? Some combination thereof? None of the above?

It's a good dialogue to have, and with a kind and constructive tone, could garner sympathizers and engender empathy.

In a way, it would be funny if a lot more minorities got into gaming and made games with white male protagonists based solely on their choice; in thinking about it, it's just easy to make that assumption, but I don't know.

 

[EMT0]

Creative vision being used as an all encompassing excuse for alienating minorities. That's fantastic. Art you say? Well art generally doesn't get altered constantly post release and doesn't have a big ol' sign that says pay us more after you've bought this piece.

Well I would love to try a game that lets you to play as a brown dude that isn't a create a character, but big surprise, they don't make those.

Are you sure you're not coming on strong with the word alienation? Because it sounds like you're really stretching here. If the game gives you a generic protagonist, then shit, you've got all the right in the world to complain if your race or sex weren't represented. But if the narrative of the game has been written with a predetermined protagonist in mind, then forcing your personal preference and deriding the status quo as alienation seems to be...I dunno what the right word would be in this case. I want to say counterproductive, with respect to making a cohesive game. Race and gender can and will alter context of things ingame, so I (personally) feel like it's a tradeoff not worth pursuing; that is deviating from a previously established narrative for the sake of inclusiveness.

I suppose the problem/frustration would arise when there's no way to determine that the hell is going on with video game writing, which has its own issues to work through. As other people in this thread pointed out, how video games are written and then altered by business interests is something almost none on GAF have an understanding of and all we can do is shout presumptions.

 

[Lord_Balkan]

Look at that variety

Niko is Serbian. The Balkans are under represented in media as well.

 

[……forgetit]

Real city women, country women, and women with family will all tell you that games are a waste of time. The girl who hates that her boyfriend still plays video games will tell you the same thing. It's at least a 40/60 margin. I don't know what city it is where you all see that, but okay.

I think my generation of girls is more excepting of games as a hobby, I've pretty much never met a girl who hated video games, and most of the ones I know who didn't really like them just put it in the same category as sports or whatever else their bf liked, if you don't mind me asking how old are you?

 

[Lucumo]

How many action films have a female lead?

Yep, and barely anyone complains about that.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I think my generation of girls is more excepting of games as a hobby, I've pretty much never met a girl who hated video games, and most of the ones I know who didn't really like them just put it in the same category as sports or whatever else their bf liked, if you don't mind me asking how old are you?

I'm in my upper 20s. I was a sophmore in HS when 9/11 happened.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

western games are usually at the fault of this

Cherry picked and rather disingenuous examples. I hope this pic is sarcastic because its point falls a bit flat to me.

It never ceases to amaze me how bringing up the representation of women, who make up approximately half the population of the planet, is met with jokes as if it were a completely unreasonable topic.

Yup. I think we can safely create a "gender/representation in gaming" bingo card at this point. Let's see, so far in this thread I've seen (I'll write "SWM" as short for "straight white males" henceforth, it's not derogatory, I'm just being lazy):

- It's where the money's at, games with SWMs sell better;
- SWMs make up the majority of the target audience;
- SWMs are those who make the games, and obviously it's too hard for them to write something other than SWMs, Anita/women should make games themselves instead of complaining;
- What about games featuring aliens, squids, or purple monkey dishwashers? LOLOL I'M SO CLEVER;
- As a SWM I don't care if my character is X so long as s/he/it's interesting (yet I post here to tell y'all that anyway);
- This is such a stupid topic, why do you care? First world problems!
- Stop trying to force PCness on the artists! They have a vision and aren't obligated to cater to you.
- Lookie here, <a bunch of games with multiple protags, including those with huge ensemble casts> all have many female playable characters!
- Feminists should watch <some shitty youtube video> and STFU;
- There are no barriers to females trying to get into the industry, look at Amy Hennig or Jade Raymond, sexism is over.
- Why does Anita focus on sexism instead of racism?
- Does Anita even like games?
- I like games with female protags because I can stare at their ass LOL;

I think we have enough for a Bingo card.

 

[SousedLouse]

Can I make an obnoxious bingo card about obnoxious post filler and flimsy reasoning, too, or have you called dibs on that?

 

[Vitacat]

Well, there are a lot of good reasons for that. Like poverty and racism in white dominated genres of music. A book could be written on it, if it hasn't already.

A simple way of saying it would be a mixture of things like poverty and oppression, much like Jazz and other genres. But there's a lot to say about it.

Good lord...

I didn't pose the question to get an actual answer. It was simply meant to be a foil to the topic question to possibly illustrate why some were rubbed the wrong way by it. I thought that would be obvious. Guess not.

 

[……forgetit]

I'm in my upper 20s. I was a sophmore in HS when 9/11 happened.

21, I was in third grad when 9/11 happened,the difference might be because gaming came into the mainstream when I a kid, everyone had a wii and in college we all share our high scores in flappy bird or candy crush, very few girls are actively against guys playing video games at my age, and those that are are hypocrites.

 

[Lizardus]

Cherry picked and rather disingenuous examples. I hope this pic is sarcastic because its point falls a bit flat to me.



Yup. I think we can safely create a "gender/representation in gaming" bingo card at this point. Let's see, so far in this thread I've seen (I'll write "SWM" as short for "straight white males" henceforth, it's not derogatory, I'm just being lazy):

- It's where the money's at, games with SWMs sell better;
- SWMs make up the majority of the target audience;
- SWMs are those who make the games, and obviously it's too hard for them to write something other than SWMs, Anita/women should make games themselves instead of complaining;
- What about games featuring aliens, squids, or purple monkey dishwashers? LOLOL I'M SO CLEVER;
- As a SWM I don't care if my character is X so long as s/he/it's interesting (yet I post here to tell y'all that anyway);
- This is such a stupid topic, why do you care? First world problems!
- Stop trying to force PCness on the artists! They have a vision and aren't obligated to cater to you.
- Lookie here, <a bunch of games with multiple protags, including those with huge ensemble casts> all have many female playable characters!
- Feminists should watch <some shitty youtube video> and STFU;
- There are no barriers to females trying to get into the industry, look at Amy Hennig or Jade Raymond, sexism is over.
- Why does Anita focus on sexism instead of racism?
- Does Anita even like games?
- I like games with female protags because I can stare at their ass LOL;

I think we have enough for a Bingo card.

Add another category ”anyone who doesn't agree with me is a straight white male ”

 

[Hypron]

Cherry picked and rather disingenuous examples. I hope this pic is sarcastic because its point falls a bit flat to me.

Yeah I like how they choose Wesker for Resident Evil when Chris could definitely fit in the left half of the picture.

 

[Orayn]

Yep, and barely anyone complains about that.

You're right, the complaints are on a much larger scale than just action movies.

Yup. I think we can safely create a "gender/representation in gaming" bingo card at this point. Let's see, so far in this thread I've seen (I'll write "SWM" as short for "straight white males" henceforth, it's not derogatory, I'm just being lazy):

Excuse me, but reducing the Straight White Male community to a series of letters is heterophobic anti-white misandry and I will not stand for it. You are literally worse than ten clones of Hitler for doing this.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Can I make an obnoxious bingo card about obnoxious post filler and flimsy reasoning, too, or have you called dibs on that?

What flimsy reasoning is that, exactly?

Add another category &#8221;anyone who doesn't agree with me is a straight white male &#8221;

I know you're trying to be cute, but all the "arguments" in the list have actually been made in this thread, and not sarcastically either. No, they haven't all been made by straight white males but since I haven't said that, you're implying a bit of a strawman here.

Excuse me, but reducing the Straight White Male community to a series of letters is heterophobic anti-white misandry and I will not stand for it. You are literally worse than ten clones of Hitler for doing this.

Sorry. I'll go replay Gears of War 2 a few times to repent.

 

[faceless007]

- It's where the money's at, games with SWMs sell better;
- Stop trying to force PCness on the artists! They have a vision and aren't obligated to cater to you.

I especially love it when the same person uses these two at the same time.

 

[Authority]

Because white males are the predominant group who play AAA video games, and the making of AAA video games is predominantly a role occupied by white males, and that marketing a white male lead is as inoffensive(and by that I mean least likely to turn away potential buyers) as you can get when trying to sell a video game?

The point made is that the number of male characters greatly exceed the female ones.

That has been her point since start. It was never about why white males exist in video games or why many of them are white. What is irritating is that you know what she is saying but you want to pigeonhole it with the number arguments which was never ever the case. You want to make her argument sound as if she hates white men, she hates white people or she hates men in general or all of them together. You then go on about knowing what white men want. I keep asking what do you know about white men and apparently no one knows shit because no shit sherlock. It is amusing that you pretend what white men know as if you know what white men want like the palm of your hand.

We are not fucking asking why Japan got only Japanese people but that is the only way you see it because that is how entertaining you find this whole thing or that is the most convenient way of arguing about it. You look at it as an issue of 1x1=1 because all factors are 1 (white males and white gamers). I hope this thread does not turn into goalposts like the Assthread where we moved from "technical issues" being debunked to "forcing developers" the typical guilt-trip-on-the-mass to "in my opinion" to then recycled material.

You have got absolutely no evidence that white men only want to play white males yet you go on about it like a broken record where gender swapping studies have significantly supported the opposite. If that was true, if white men only want to play white males you would not have most men playing female characters when the customization option is available. You would have had men customizing their characters as mostly men and mostly bad-ass-looking men.

The argument that they are catering to white male gamers is flawed let along wrong. White men are not a fixed entity and the market is constantly changing. If again that was true, you would have not seen the gaming industry making more steps in an attempt to include more diversity and more female participation either through multi-player mode, co-existing with the other male lead character or be available as a supportive role through the story.

If that was the case, we would only have white males playing only white male characters. Yet the same white males you are pioneering as your "targeting fixed group", the "predominant group" are the ones in collaboration with other groups (females and minorities) pushing for a change and making companies respond and clarifying things. If we go way back, companies like EA or Ubisoft would not have given a shit about any social concern. Yet they do and in fact they respond back because they do know there is an issue and they do know that the issue effects everyone, even the dominant group of white gamers.

That still does not solve the issue which is wanting to have more games with female protagonists such as Lara Croft but it is a good start.

 

[fedexpeon]

People need to realize that the narrative and the story outweigh, and fundamentally underline how everything in the game will take place.
Sometime, it is impossible to have the main character as the female.
I am sorry, but it is the truth.
Story/narrative>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>your gender preference.
If the devs believe that a male leading role is important, then yeah, you can't force them to change everything for gender equality.
We have AC Aveline, TR Lara, Portal Chell, Metroid Samus for examples on how the game is built for them.
However, some can't have female lead for the same reason:

FF series:
FF4 wouldn't work if we play as Rosa.
She is a strong-willed female, but the game can't revolve around her at all since the story is about Cecil's journey for redemption.
However, that doesn't apply to games like X-2 and FF13.
This time around, you need to play as the female counterpart.

MGS series:
The series can do any spinoff of all their awesome female characters. But in the end, they can't because the foundation has been built for Big Boss/Snake in mind.
You need to play as him in the upcoming MG: PP, if you ask for the story to revolve around Quiet...then I don't know what to tell you, you just need to find another game then.

CoD/BF series:
Let's be honest here, the MC will be male BY DEFAULT. Until the Army/Marine/Navy/Air Force rewrite their code of engagement, this will never change.
The gaming media need to stop asking for a female MC for these type of series.
They can add female option in for MP, but SP, it isn't possible.

So yeah, if the devs want to create more IP with more female/black/asian/whatever, then yeah go ahead.
But you guys need to understand that they are also trying to create other IP that will still need a leading male character, and if it is a white male, you just have to accept it if that what the market is asking them for.
It doesn't mean that the devs are doing this out of social injustice or something. It is still a business.

I mean in the end, a heroic character still has that characteristics that you would view yourself to want right?
It doesn't matter about the race or the gender.
I am not white, but I would love to be a just and good person like the white heroes that I played as. I am not a female, but I would love to be as brave as them.

People just need to be more open minded imo, and just view characters as a sub-element to the story.
More male, less female? Who cares.
Characters are just devices created to help bring out the characteristics of human.

 

[HolyBaikal]

Good lord...

I'm sorry. I thought it wasn't serious, but I wasn't sure what you meant.

Sorry...
I was a little confused by what you said because I don't think the comparison quite fits.
I think that the two questions would probably bother people for very different reasons. They're kind of similar but also very different questions. And what's offensive about them would depend on the social context. And I think that the social context for the two questions is kinda different...

But maybe that's just me.

 

[PaulloDEC]

Nothing new under the sun:

While I understand the point these images are making, I feel like they do the industry a bit of a disservice. I decided to make one that used some protagonists I really liked from the last few years:

If you step outside the mainstream shooter market, things look a lot less bleak.

 

[SousedLouse]

What flimsy reasoning is that, exactly?

The whole bingo list. It's a sampling of the flimsy, redundant or tone-deaf arguments that get trotted out by other posters everytime a thread about inclusiveness or social critiques is posted, right? Granted, sometimes they're fleshed out a little bit, but by and large they're knee-jerk posts.

I'm not saying the bingo list is flimsy, mind. Believe me, I lurk enough of these threads to know that posts like those are a dime a dozen. Something about posting about a figurative bingo list, though...I don't know why, but the snark just gets to me.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Sometime, it is impossible to have the main character as the female.
I am sorry, but it is the truth.
Story/narrative>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>your gender preference.

This is honestly a copout when the average videogame narrative is akin to the average porn films; a loose justification to show the next bit of action.

CoD/BF series:
Let's be honest here, the MC will be male BY DEFAULT.

There are female soldiers.

This gets even more ridiculous as an explanation the further into the future you travel where you would expect more social progress to have occurred, not less.

 

[King Mac of Furry Frog]

Actually there's a female character on The Division.

 

[Dice//]

I don't really have much to add to a conversation so far in, but I'd love more diverse representation in general. And hell yes, more African and Asian characters (of all nations therein). I hate that idea of a "token character" to "fill up a spot"; spotlighting a token character makes it that much more 'a thing'... Just include a diverse cast, what's the harm?

FF series:
FF4 wouldn't work if we play as Rosa.
She is a strong-willed female, but the game can't revolve around her at all since the story is about Cecil's journey for redemption.
However, that doesn't apply to games like X-2 and FF13.
This time around, you need to play as the female counterpart.

Im gonna snowball in Tales of Xillia as a somewhat stronger example.
Dual-protagonist approach brought the series' first ever female lead... sharing the spotlight with a male one. While this isn't a bad thing on its own; plot-wise the fella was almost an insignificant player in the main story (literally kinda giving it the "push" in the right direction from time to time). FF12 as well; Vaan was angled as the more everyday-Joe[?] and featured as the hero.... Ashe was clearly the leading lady... or hell, just about everyone *but* Vaan most of the time; he just got swept up in things and stuck with it.

 

[MrJoe]

I think the real reason for this is obvious, and could perhaps be an "elephant in the room" if you will. demographics indicate the largest single group of gamers are 18-34 year old males. this is reflected by the main characters in games.

they all look like 18-34 year old males to me. of course there are exceptions like Rayman, but they aren't nearly as prevalent as the 18-34 year old male. this is simple market research; identify who your target audience is and design the experience with them in mind. duh.

 

[HolyBaikal]

I could have just made this one post. Sorry, this is kind of like a double post.
You can delete this or something. I made a little bit of a mistake and I'm sorry.

 

[Shyakugaun]

Would love to see more Black Lead Male Characters, instead of always being a side or Role Character, but at this point, i realize this will probably never change, as most gamers are probably White & Male, doesn't really effect my love of a Game or Gaming in General tbh, but Diversity never hurts. Has there ever been a AAA game that sold a lot of copies, with a Black lead Character?

Edit: Not named CJ ? lol

 

[EMT0]

That has been her point since start. It was never about why white males exist in video games or why many of them are white. What is irritating is that you know what she is saying but you want to pigeonhole it with the number arguments which was never ever the case. You want to make her argument sound as if she hates white men, she hates white people or she hates men in general or all of them together. You then go on about knowing what white men want. I keep asking what do you know about white men and apparently no one knows shit because no shit sherlock. It is amusing that you pretend what white men know as if you know what white men want like the palm of your hand.

We are not fucking asking why Japan got only Japanese people but that is the only way you see it because that is how entertaining you find this whole thing or that is the most convenient way of arguing about it. You look at it as an issue of 1x1=1 because all factors are 1 (white males and white gamers). I hope this thread does not turn into goalposts like the Assthread where we moved from "technical issues" being debunked to "forcing developers" the typical guilt-trip-on-the-mass to "in my opinion" to then recycled material.

You have got absolutely no evidence that white men only want to play white males yet you go on about it like a broken record where gender swapping studies have significantly supported the opposite. If that was true, if white men only want to play white males you would not have most men playing female characters when the customization option is available. You would have had men customizing their characters as mostly men and mostly bad-ass-looking men.

The argument that they are catering to white male gamers is flawed let along wrong. White men are not a fixed entity and the market is constantly changing. If again that was true, you would have not seen the gaming industry making more steps in an attempt to include more diversity and more female participation either through multi-player mode, co-existing with the other male lead character or be available as a supportive role through the story.

If that was the case, we would only have white males playing only white male characters. Yet the same white males you are pioneering as your "targeting fixed group", the "predominant group" are the ones in collaboration with other groups (females and minorities) pushing for a change and making companies respond and clarifying things. If we go way back, companies like EA or Ubisoft would not have given a shit about any social concern. Yet they do and in fact they respond back because they do know there is an issue and they do know that the issue effects everyone, even the dominant group of white gamers.

That still does not solve the issue which is wanting to have more games with female protagonists such as Lara Croft but it is a good start.

Way to ignore the rest of my post there in your rant. Firstly, I'm not white, so I'm not exactly speaking of behalf of all white gamers over here. Sure, I'm straight and male, but I should hope that none of these factors are being held against me. But if you want to accuse me of presumptions, it's called marketing, and it's not run off of presumptions and '1x1=1' logic, as you describe an excerpt from my post. Simply put, if what you're saying is true(and I don't doubt that there's at least some truth to what you say), then why aren't female protagonists widely used in marketing? Why are most protagonist white? Especially so when marketing a game that has customizable characters(see Mass Effect and Skyrim)? I don't think publishers are fools; they have to know what they're doing, right? EA has a history of being one of the most gay-friendly corporations in the world, and Ubisoft has openly been creating female protagonists since the days of No One Lives Forever and Beyond Good and Evil, if not before then, I honestly don't know.

This is the point where I start openly speculating. I'd say it's because AAA games rely on amassing as many sales as they can, and generally speaking, this means casual gamers that are likely to buy CoD, that are the ones that bought Watch Dogs, that are likely to pick up Destiny once it hits. They need to keep these games in the forefront of casual gamer's minds, so (I imagine) they do everything in their power to market their games at these potential customers, maximizing what they do with their advertising. If that means casting white, straight, male protagonists, then I imagine that's what their marketing research has indicated, and that if the case were different, then their marketing would reflect that. The majority of the developed world is white, and those that are not white in the developed world generally tend to be poorer than those that are. Honestly, it makes sense. As a Hispanic I may not like this fact of life, but it is what it is. Do I want things to change, both in society and in video game development? Of course. But I don't think getting upset and blaming developers will change a thing, and that the necessity/business justifications for doing these things does not lie solely with developers and publishers. As Bayonetta and Mirror's Edge have demonstrated, having a female protagonist can be a risk with casual gamers. I really liked Mirror's Edge, and I think it unjust that it's sales weren't higher. I wouldn't want Faith changed in any way. But I get why publishers and developers may be risk-averse; aside from Tomb Raider acting as an anomaly, most games starring a sole female lead that is displayed prominently don't seem to be financially successful. And I think that's because the AAA demographic sadly isn't ready for female leads. Developers have demonstrated that they're ready and willing, but the audience simply isn't there or is too (either consciously or unconsciously) biased against games starring female leads. 4X% of gamers may be women, but we all know that statistic is being very generous in its inclusion of who they define as a gamer, as well as the difference between male and female gamers becoming wider with respect to AAA games. What I'm saying is that I don't think it's fair to ask for developers, especially AAA developers where budgets and survival are already issues they face at the moment, and ask them to go out on a limb and risk their financial security.

But as I mentioned in another post of mine in this thread, unless you're creating an incredibly story-heavy game such as The Last Of Us, I feel like there isn't a strong excuse for not including a playable female protagonist as an option. Assassin's Creed Unity, for example, is a game where I actually think there would have been a good idea to having had a female protagonist, as a sole lead, if not at least as an option.

Before jumping down my throat because I appear sympathetic to developers not creating female leads, here's the tl;dr version: I'm explaining what I see occurring in the AAA space, not praising or approving of it. But I think the problem isn't the developers, but rather, the audience.

 

[joecanada]

Useless without population statistics. What percentage of the population is white and what percentage of game characters are also.... Without this, pointless tweet

 

[Sakura]

So, what do my fellow GAFfers think of all that? Should it stay as it is or do you think that the game industry should introduce more female characters?

I don't think the industry should do anything. It's not like they have an obligation to have just as many female or none white protags as white male protags or something. People should be able to make whatever story and characters they want.

 

[akira28]

Useless without population statistics. What percentage of the population is white and what percentage of game characters are also.... Without this, pointless tweet

regionally or globally?

 

[fedexpeon]

There are female soldiers.

This gets even more ridiculous as an explanation the further into the future you travel where you would expect more social progress to have occurred, not less.

I don't mind playing as a female that much except for one exception, and that is war game.
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't want to play a female as a MC due to how much I respect and love the brotherhood these men stare in combat.
The only reason I even play games like BF or CoD is due to the sense of brotherhood between the characters in those games.
The brothers in arms concept is the reason why I read, play, and watch war stories.
I don't care about the action, I care how these men love each others and want to bring each others home.
And this is the only time I can't project that feeling with a female MC.

I don't think you can change this centuries old ideal about men and war.
No matter how much society will progress in the future, the notation of brotherhood will still be there due to the historical background.

 

[mkenyon]

I don't mind playing as a female that much except for one exception, and that is war game.
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't want to play a female as a MC due to how much I respect and love the brotherhood these men stare in combat.
The only reason I even play games like BF or CoD is due to the sense of brotherhood between the characters in those games.
The brothers in arms concept is the reason why I read, play, and watch war stories.
I don't care about the action, I care how these men love each others and want to bring each others home.
And this is the only time I can't project that feeling with a female MC.

I don't think you can change this centuries old ideal about men and war.
No matter how much society will progress in the future, the notation of brotherhood will still be there due to the historical background.

Israel says hi.

 

[Guerrilla]

I would actually love to know the real number of women that play AAA console games. All those high percentages of female gamers mean little if they just played dance central or sing star on a party a couple of times, or play some smart phone games.

I'm from germany, 29 and have a pretty big circle of friends and acquaintances and not a single one of the females play AAA console games. 2 of them play a shitload of WOW on PC (multiple maxed out chars) and almost all of them game on their smart phones (mostly quiz games and such). At least in my age demographic in germany it is apparently still strange for a woman to play video games.

I talked to many women about this (friends, acquaintances and coworkers) and most of the time I get the answer that they see it as kind of a waste of time and some even admit that they would deem it weird if some girl they knew would play games like the guys.

Many of them played gameboy back in the day, my girlfriend even loved zelda back when she was around 10-12 and played through it multiple times. But as they grew older games were somehow deemed unfit for them.

We've been together for nearly 7 years now and I'm still trying to light that spark of the 10-12 year old girl in her again, with no luck I had such high hopes for a link between worlds, but I can't even get her to try it out...

So I think the fault doesn't lie with the publishers/game designers that try to make a buck, but with the public perception of female gamers. I know I'm just putting out anecdotal evidence here, but I can't help but not trust the numbers at wiki or other sites, since by their definition my girlfriend would count as a gamer for playing quiz duel and sing star occassionally...

 

[Boxcar Overkill]

I don't mind playing as a female that much except for one exception, and that is war game.
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't want to play a female as a MC due to how much I respect and love the brotherhood these men stare in combat.
The only reason I even play games like BF or CoD is due to the sense of brotherhood between the characters in those games.
The brothers in arms concept is the reason why I read, play, and watch war stories.
I don't care about the action, I care how these men love each others and want to bring each others home.
And this is the only time I can't project that feeling with a female MC.

I don't think you can change this centuries old ideal about men and war.
No matter how much society will progress in the future, the notation of brotherhood will still be there due to the historical background.

You know they have opened up combat positions to women in the American military now.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/11/27/army-eyes-new-standards-for-women-in-combat.html

 

[RooMHM]

The thread title reeks of racism but it s ok apparently.

 

[Rubius]

Like always I think it's simple. The majority of players are from Europe and North America, where the majority are white. And the majority of players in those regions are Male at around a 75/25 ratio.
So if you want to attract a person for a game, making the protagonist a white male is the best way to make your main demographic comfortable. With the growth of the hispanic community in America and the growth of the Arab community in Europe, I think we might see more hispanic and middle eastern characters, and with the growth of female players, we will see more female characters.

Once the indian market open, we will see a quick raise in indian characters too. So yeah, it's only due to marketing purposes. If women played video games more than mens right now, we would have female characters everywhere and mens would ask where are the men protagonist. What if Link was a guy?

 

[HolyBaikal]

The thread title reeks of racism but it s ok apparently.

I don't really think that's racism. It's more of an observation of a disparity.

I know that people have different definitions of racism. But whether you mean systematic oppression or just being mean and inconsiderate. It isn't very hostile towards white people. I think it's a good question that looks at the privileges white men have.
And I don't mean that in a hostile way.

 

[Mandoric]

FF series:
FF4 wouldn't work if we play as Rosa.
She is a strong-willed female, but the game can't revolve around her at all since the story is about Cecil's journey for redemption.
However, that doesn't apply to games like X-2 and FF13.
This time around, you need to play as the female counterpart.

FF as a series is actually a really good counterexample to "there needs to be a straight-as-in-sexuality, straight-as-in-culture, white, 30something, protective male" (and the problem that cuts the deepest is that AAA in particular drills down to that particular mindset in order to go for the instinctive visceral feels - i can't speak for everyone, obviously, but there are a lot of "straight white male" characters that not many people are interested in pegging as a problem, because the games they're in don't demand that they inject themselves fully in that western societal role.

Of the FF games from 4 through 12, discounting 11, conflict with and eventual surpassing of an older sibling, father, or mother is a key element in the game's narrative. Cecil strives to outdo Golbez and seal away the evils of great-uncle-nth-removed Zemus. Bartz, Lenna, Faris, and Krile all finish the job that their fathers (or grandfathers) couldn't. Terra seeks a more permanent union between human and Esper that Maduin failed to achieve, while Celes rights the sins of her creche-brother Kefka. Cloud, while not blood-related to Zack, adores him so deeply that he subsumes his own identity, and once he recovers it his mission is to stop another member of the gene-splicing experiment. Edea is both a mother and an ersatz mother-in-law to Squall, and is the antagonist for the first half of the game, while Ultimecia's manipulation of time to accrue herself power is a blatant reference to Japan's burgeoning lost generation of the '90s who lived a far more insecure life than their parents who held on to their riches even if she is nominally timeflow-born-later. Kuja is a flawed prototype, Zidane is the perfected version, and behind him if he falls stands a Leia-figure who could be called to the same mission; Garnet is as much a protag as he is and claims her stepmother's throne during the course of the game, returning Alexandria to its glory.. Tidus is less of a hero and more a lens to watch Yuna's journey through, and his final losable battle is to prove himself against his father's measure. And FF12 spent much of its development as a struggle between Basch and Gabranth; when Vaan was shoehorned in as a viewpoint he acquired his OWN brother issues through the hasty Reks plotline (while Ashe became the heroine as the plot goes).

This mixed respect and envy for older relatives is a core human theme. Almost everyone who's neurotypical goes through it in their teens, and depending on family pressure can remain driven by it for years after. The weak point is that not everyone still feels it or is in the mood to relive it without some sort of facelift (SF "progenitor races" are a common one.)

On the other hand, the protags we're typically talking about here - your Drakes, your endlessly-reskinned and always-hapless Desmonds, your Joels, your nameless Battlefield or Call of Duty soldiers - strike a much deeper connection with a narrower class of player. The one who fights for their family's honor? Nathanielle Drake would be tens of generations deep in Nathanielle Something-Elses and records of an African-American Drake's 16th-century family or even nation would have been lost when the slavers came. Desmond follows ancestral destiny to his death in a way only those who have felt the hand of time could appreciate. Joel protects a lost image of an ideal society through a surrogate daughter, hoping that someday the clock will wind back to his youth. And American soldiers fighting plausible wars is seen, in general, much more positively by men than women in opinion polls, while until last year the dream of an American woman who did want to to take up a rifle for her nation was banned by federal law.

This doesn't mean that they're bad protags. Forming a deep emotional connection with a character and letting it be your extension in the virtual world rather than a toy to slide around a table is something a lot of people appreciate. But there's a very strong focus on a character archetype that the shrinking hardcore console market identifies with 100% as compared to a range of characters who many players can find some relation to, and likewise an emphasis on building engagement and "rewarding" the player through doling out more of this relation rather than exposing gamey elements.
It's some sort of twisted design equivalent of ordering Hawaiian pizza for an office of 50 when 30 wanted Hawaiian and 20 wanted pepperoni. And then ordering Hawaiian in perpetuity because one Friday you tried a single surprise pepperoni, but it didn't get eaten because everyone who preferred it had already bought a bag lunch.

 

[RockTurtle]

I don't really think that's racism. It's more of an observation of a disparity.

I know that people have different definitions of racism. But whether you mean systematic oppression or just being mean and inconsiderate. It isn't very hostile towards white people. I think it's a good question that looks at the privileges white men have.
And I don't mean that in a hostile way.

yeah the title/OP is more of a query or observation. it's definitely a discussion topic, even if some find it overbearing. now THIS is a tad more questionable

Just looking at the responses to this post tells you why...white men have a self worship issue.


(Worship at the alter of self or your idealized self and everything will be fine and dandy)

 

[ScatheZombie]

I'm surprised this is even still a question that needs answering.

Why are there still so many white men in video games?

Well, for starters, if you step outside of mainstream AAA action/shooters, this actually isn't true. But, obviously mainstream AAA action/shooters are an enormous market and get an enormous amount of press and sometimes it can seem like they're the only things out there. I'm not being sarcastic or facetious with that. If you were outside the gaming community looking in on something like E3, you'd see predominately violent action/shooters with white male protagonists (those almost always get the most coverage, especially outside of traditional gaming media). Of course, inside the gaming community, we're far more versed in non-AAA, non-mainstream games and have a much larger catalog of titles that we can hold up that break the mold. It's relatively easy for me to pull up my 2500+ game library and point out dozens of games with female and/or non-white-male protagonists. So, given that, the question should really be ... Why are there so many white men in mainstream AAA action/shooters?

The answer is actually extremely simple. Most game designers are actually not that creative. There's only a handful of truly creative minds in the entire god damn industry. And everyone else is pretty much designing by what they already know, what they already like, what's already been done and works, and what their competition is doing (even if it doesn't work). So, what does a large group of unimaginative, 20-40 something, predominately white men already know and already like? Themselves. You want to know why the mainstream shootbang leads are mostly 20-40 year old white guys with short hair and facial stubble? Because if you put together a group of pictures of all of the senior or higher designers on any given mainsteam shootbang you'd see ... predominately 20-40 year old white guys with short hair and facial stubble.

Mystery solved.

And guess what? That's never going to change until the industry has more non 20-40 year old white guys with short hair and facial stubble working at a high level. And that's only going to happen over a very long time as the industry, as a whole, matures. Which, being the games industry, has historically taken a ridiculously long time.

 

[fedexpeon]

You know they have opened up combat positions to women in the American military now.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/11/27/army-eyes-new-standards-for-women-in-combat.html

Knew about it ages ago since it was all over the news about the upcoming changes that will break the gender barrier in the US military.
It still doesn't change the fact that I prefer brothers in arms war stories due to the sense of brotherhood that transcended across time.

 

[Mandoric]

Oh, and to chip in on the "let creatives be creative" argument: there's a lot more evidence of creative struggling to push a female lead by execs in pop culture than women being forced on anyone. Speaking for my own industry, there's a man with Miyamoto-level prestige and responsibility for propelling the company from a bit player to an international household name; at one point he attempted to (gasp) star a woman, and all of his pull couldn't buy him better results than an explicitly male character with gender-ambiguous name played by an actress.

 

[Toparaman]

I have no problem playing as white dudes, so my initial reaction to thread topic was "what's the big deal?"

But then I look at how aggressively defensive so many people are of the white male norm, and I have to wonder whether these people would have a problem playing as a non-white female.

The "white males are the majority audience, so deal with it" argument is particularly bothersome. We already are dealing with it just fine. We want to see if you can deal with it when the tables are turned.

 

[daviyoung]

- It's where the money's at, games with SWMs sell better;
- SWMs make up the majority of the target audience;
- SWMs are those who make the games, and obviously it's too hard for them to write something other than SWMs, Anita/women should make games themselves instead of complaining;
- What about games featuring aliens, squids, or purple monkey dishwashers? LOLOL I'M SO CLEVER;
- As a SWM I don't care if my character is X so long as s/he/it's interesting (yet I post here to tell y'all that anyway);
- This is such a stupid topic, why do you care? First world problems!
- Stop trying to force PCness on the artists! They have a vision and aren't obligated to cater to you.
- Lookie here, <a bunch of games with multiple protags, including those with huge ensemble casts> all have many female playable characters!
- Feminists should watch <some shitty youtube video> and STFU;
- There are no barriers to females trying to get into the industry, look at Amy Hennig or Jade Raymond, sexism is over.
- Why does Anita focus on sexism instead of racism?
- Does Anita even like games?
- I like games with female protags because I can stare at their ass LOL;

lol, don't forget "developers are inherently racist" and "developers only make games about what they know"

 

[The Spoony Hou]

That would be true, but I don't think some of you realize how much research goes into planning a game for demographic targeting.

Do they go to Hollywood and sit inside movie studios and ask the directors their thoughts? There's probably been a worse depiction in the movie business.

People may try to be diverse, but most of those in the business seem to have little experience with, well, non-white males I guess, and as much as they might try to be diverse they'll fall into stereotypes and/or forget certain demographics.

 

[SodiumChloride]

The western game industry takes after Hollywood.

White men, white men and more white men + token Black/Asian dude (mostly likely to die halfway through the film).

White women? Only in chick flicks which the game industry doesn't have an equivalent.

You have a few out-liners like Denzel Washington and Will Smith, but that's it - and the latter planned his career to a "t", playing it very safe.

Doubt it's going to change. You want your protagonist to be relatable and to the industry that means white dude - or dude that isn't really white but gets taken as white by the public anyway.

 

[Sapphire Dreams]

western games are usually at the fault of this

Saints Row have character creation for crying out loud...

 

[Johnny]

No. I would call them sexist if they had an increasingly non-female audience, yet they still only catered to women.

Games don't only cater to men.

 

[nateeasy]

I think there would be a fear of being called racist if you portrayed the character wrong.

 

[TatteredHat]

Games have become a lot more diverse as the years have gone by, it's just that most of this diversity popped up in not block-buster franchises. It sort of feels like people won't be satisfied with that until there's a female lead in CoD, GTA or something like that.