jakonovski
Member
47% of gamers are female as of 2012. Are you really arguing that female gamers deserve to be marginalized and otherwise treated badly because of that 3pp gap?
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
RPS ambushes Blizzard director for objectification of women in Heroes of the Storm
- Thread starter usea
- Start date
47% of gamers are female as of 2012. Are you really arguing that female gamers deserve to be marginalized and otherwise treated badly because of that 3pp gap?
Obviously, one should have a balance of both, "sexy" and more toned down models.
The split of how people chose to make their characters look suggest, that maybe the "sexy" characters aren't universally hated by the female audience (considering the gender split playing WOW is about 50/50)?
Obviously those things are different on a game by game basis. It's the generalisations on both sides of the argument that irk me.
maniac-kun
Member
I think WoW / Blizzard is equaly exagerating the sexulaisation for both genders. So where does the controversy come from? Its always like people get raging when a female is diplayed in such a way but there was an equal amount of hyper sexualized men at the same time and nobody seems to care about it.
Well Dota 2 borrows heavily from Blizzard art but its a good example:
Well Dota 2 borrows heavily from Blizzard art but its a good example:
Even if you're right, so what? That isn't an excuse for the industry to sit on its collective hands.
I'm fairly sure there are more options than simply "sexy" and "unsexy," but I generally agree.
You're just restating what you said before in a different way. What's your point? Standing alone, this fact would prove essentially nothing vis-a-vis whether these depictions are problematic regarding sex and gender issues.
Are you trying to argue that 100% of female gamers feel marginalized by a little skin showing?
For some women being sexy IS empowerment, why should we only cater to the tight asses who are so deadly afraid of sex?
I wonder how the 47% figure is ever a good argument. if the gaming environment was soooo sexist, why is 47% of those gaming women?
I wonder how the 47% figure is ever a good argument. if the gaming environment was soooo sexist, why is 47% of those gaming women?
What is the criteria towards these depictions being problematic?
If the men and women playing the games have no (few) issues with how the characters look, how is their depiction problematic? Especially considering millions played WOW, it's not a niche product, it's was the biggest videogame around during it's peak and it was well liked by both genders.
jakonovski
Member
Does it have to be 100%?
jakonovski
Member
That's an unsupported claim right there.
But assuming you're correct in a substantial way, why is that? Could it be because so much of core gaming is hostile towards women?
Can't argue with that. But isn't "sexy" a very subjective thing?
Finaika
Member
That's why 53% of women aren't gamers.
"Gamers" is a useless, broad name for that statistic. I'm specifically talking about Blizzard games (well, HotS in this case which we don't know the % yet)
That 47% number includes educational and iphone/android games. Completely unrelated to HotS. My mother plays farmville and cut the rope, and somehow she is part of blizzard female gamers?
I'd bet If you exclude the super casual facebook/iOS games, the percentage would drop by half or 3/4. I'm not trying to be tough or mean, just dispeling that decieving number. If you want to go further down the list, if you remove the best selling mass-market games, such as CoD, the female % will decrease also. I won't bother looking for statistics, but if you want to see the % of female starcraft gamers. It'll be far from 47%.
Look at League of Legends, it's doing just fine. It has so many "sex'd" up female characters, and all my female friends love them. One of my female colleagues plays female characters exclusively; to her they look cool, not "sexist".
She has the attitude most woman have, just like males think superman looks cool, not sexist.
If you wanted to, you'd find sex'd up males e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. In games, media, so on - just as much as you find curvy woman. Most of us just chose not to care, not to be over sensitive over a non-issue.
I don't see why female gamers are being marginalized. What I see is 2% of the female HotS playerbase whining for no reason, wanting to be upset.
Acquiescence
Member
The only time I hear of this site is literally on NeoGAF and nowhere else, and it usually involves some controversy that isn't a controversy at all, but amounts to little more than a storm in a teacup. They've taken the process of making a mountain out of a molehill and turned it into a bonafide artform. Browder's dismissive tone at the end is about the best response he could've given.
It is pretty mindblowing to me to see that World of Warcraft is under the assumption of "de-empowering females". It keeps doing the exact opposite, by providing meaningful depth and entertainment to to female gamers for almost a decade now.
1. You never ever see boobies, let us start with this
2. High Tier armors usually cover the full body on playable characters, and transmog allows you to make it look like how YOU want to look like
3. I can safely say that between the well-crafted, reassuring and relaxing backgrounds, huge variety of styles in pets, mounts, collectibles, interesting questlines, the ONLY thing that might be considered frustratingly "hypersexualized" is the look of the leaders/big NPC heroes. But that goes both ways: males and females as well are built around the idea of perfect body shape. In that regards, it is pure high-fantasy.
It is not even close to the insanity that is Dragon's Crown - and that gets defended around here as pure fun, style, and of course it gets a pass since it treats males and females equally. Well, WoW does just like that, without the exaggeration, and with much more modesty.
And now, let us look at its competitors. Let us look at the "fuckdolls(tm)" in Aion, in Tera, in almost every other f2p-mmo. Let us look at those.
That being said, the blonde ghost's looks and behavior in the Heroes of the Storm trailer was frustrating to watch and endure. But that is not WoW.
1. You never ever see boobies, let us start with this
2. High Tier armors usually cover the full body on playable characters, and transmog allows you to make it look like how YOU want to look like
3. I can safely say that between the well-crafted, reassuring and relaxing backgrounds, huge variety of styles in pets, mounts, collectibles, interesting questlines, the ONLY thing that might be considered frustratingly "hypersexualized" is the look of the leaders/big NPC heroes. But that goes both ways: males and females as well are built around the idea of perfect body shape. In that regards, it is pure high-fantasy.
It is not even close to the insanity that is Dragon's Crown - and that gets defended around here as pure fun, style, and of course it gets a pass since it treats males and females equally. Well, WoW does just like that, without the exaggeration, and with much more modesty.
And now, let us look at its competitors. Let us look at the "fuckdolls(tm)" in Aion, in Tera, in almost every other f2p-mmo. Let us look at those.
That being said, the blonde ghost's looks and behavior in the Heroes of the Storm trailer was frustrating to watch and endure. But that is not WoW.
jakonovski
Member
Blizzard is actually one of the companies that mostly gets it. WoW's success was deserved. Their MOBA however seems like they took a look at the cesspool that is MOBA communities, and decided there's no way to market this shit to anyone but troglodytes.
Or it more socially acceptable to be male gamer than a female gamer because the hobby started off as a male driven activity.
jakonovski
Member
So does the male number, you innumerate.
No, they just don't care about gaming as much as men.
Just as most men care about sports, not make-up.
There are always exceptions - not rare exceptions at that, I know very few people of my age (20-25) who care about football, but my country is crazy over it - I simply can't deny that just because my small group of people I know doesn't care about it.
For starters, whether they reinforce negative stereotypes regarding sex and gender?
Applying the same logic to a different situation: In the 1950's, nobody in the United States had issues with smoking. Ergo, the prevalence and popularity of smoking was not a problem.
Wiktor
Member
Why are you assuming that female gamers have exactly the same taste as male ones and the only reason why they prefer casual games is because core gaming is hostile towards them? Have you ever considered that maybe a lot of them simply prefer casual genres over core ones?
That 47% is not of all women (durr) but of all gamers, thus very balanced.
EDIT: Corrected that post for clarity/bad wording.
Dat balance
Mostly, yeah. But a 1% variation in that statistic (ALL gamers) translates to a big % variation in core, niche games. If you do your research you'll find that in nearly all niche games, male gamers outnumber female gamers 7, 8 and even 9 to 1. It's really not rare to find that discrepancy.
Also, the insult is welcome, thank you
Pleased to have a nice conversation with youIt almost feel like you guys never played World of Warcraft in a moderately sized or big guilds. TONS of women play this game, and they can be just as hardcore in it as males. And the game's aspect of collecting pets and mounts is especially appealing to some of them.
The negative effects of smoking are far easier to quantify than any supposed 'harm' sexy female characters in games do.
Yeah, lots of females in WoW. Hell, WoW is one of the few games my wife has ever gotten into. She seriously into it for over three years.
Ah, well fair enough. But either way, I think the new models are great.
The artstyle in Blizzard games has always been totally oversexualized. Both male and female characters are extreme caricatures of maleness and femaleness. The problem, however, is that the female characters are always a lot closer to actual women. The male caricatures are more outlandish and extreme.
WoW and other Blizzard games have a huge female audience, and also a lot of very young players. I think it's quite an established fact that oversexualized images of gender roles can have a bad impact on many young people (especially girls), so I think RPS is absolutely right to pressure Browder on this matter. Simply put; why do almost all the women in Blizzard games have to be half naked sex icons? Why are female armor pieces in Blizzard games so extremely sexual and revealing? Who cares if other games does the same thing, that's not an excuse.
WoW and other Blizzard games have a huge female audience, and also a lot of very young players. I think it's quite an established fact that oversexualized images of gender roles can have a bad impact on many young people (especially girls), so I think RPS is absolutely right to pressure Browder on this matter. Simply put; why do almost all the women in Blizzard games have to be half naked sex icons? Why are female armor pieces in Blizzard games so extremely sexual and revealing? Who cares if other games does the same thing, that's not an excuse.
About as much as violence in video games, i.e. nothing.
I'm not trying to compare the two in any substantive fashion. I'm trying to illustrate a flaw in his logic.
WOW doesn't enforce any stereotype characterwise, since every player character can do the same things, and gets the same rewards. You'll have to point me towards those negative stereotypes in the lore, since i don't see them there either.
the clothing is something the players can pick themselves too.
I don't see the equivalency with the health problems of smoking that weren't known in the 1950's.
Pick a different example then, putting something quantifiable vs something unquantifiable is always a bad comparison.
Uh, oh, doh, what?
Seriously? Come on guys, did you even play WoW?
I did. I played in 4 guilds over about 4 years and have NEVER seen a guild that wasn't pre-dominantly male.
And somebody even did a research on it:
http://uclue.com/?xq=5363
True enough, but players obviously don't have complete control in choosing their characters' appearances. And I think the way that the majority of the female models are designed evoke certain issues regarding gender and sex, particularly the extent to which women are defined by how "sexy" they are perceived to be.
There isn't any. I was attempting to show that your argument was essentially an appeal to popularity and thus meaningless.
This design is not based on sexualizing a male, it is male power fantasy. This is a mistake I think a lot of people make. The design shows strength that many males desire in themselves, the lack of clothing is there to show that.I think WoW / Blizzard is equaly exagerating the sexulaisation for both genders. So where does the controversy come from? Its always like people get raging when a female is diplayed in such a way but there was an equal amount of hyper sexualized men at the same time and nobody seems to care about it.
Well Dota 2 borrows heavily from Blizzard art but its a good example:
I don't disagree with you. WoW belongs to mass-market games such as CoD and LoL. A lot of females play those also. But even there the male playerbase is bigger. My argument is twofold :
1) that the more niche a game is, less females play it. Mechwarrior, Dragon's Dogma, SMT:SJ, etc. Take that however you want, I'm stating a simple fact.
2) We can't use ourselves as an example for such a broad percentage. If you visit tumblr a lot you'd think sexism in games in the worst issue in the world right now. If you have no female friends, you'd think no girls play LoL . If your guild is 70% female you think the female % in WoW is a lot bigger (not saying you do, just an example), etc etc etc
I love cooking and none of my female friends care about it. I don't care about the clothes I wear and yet I see a lot of fashionable guys at my university. And yet a lot of cooking and fashion shows target women. I'm not going to be pissed about it.
It's clear that RPS jornalist is in a bubble and thinks the female designs of HotS and comic books are a big issue.
You'll have to explain that one to me. How are these characters defined by how sexy they are?
They are either part of the lore (and the females in the lore are much more than just sexy windowdressing) or player characters.
I've read that figure (50/50) quite a few times. It may be wrong of course, i'll try to look it up.
jakonovski
Member
The only numbers I can find in there are from 2005. Do you have anything newer?
Well, the Wired article linked earlier talked about how the design decisions for female PCs in WoW were informed by complaints that the alpha models, which showed much less differentiation between the sexes of various races, were "too ugly."
Moreover, I don't think I'm going out on a limb to suggest that we have a larger societal preoccupation with categorizing and snap judging females based on physical attractiveness which is both reinforced by and reflected in media like WoW, unconsciously or otherwise. It's certainly not a problem any one person or group could or should attempt to solve on their own, but we should still acknowledge that it's there.
IHaveCandy
Banned
They are accountable to who exactly?
With the amount of guns, explosions and general violence in video games? That generally isn't their thing.
I've been a guild leader in many MMO's and got to know a lot of players personally. Women -generally- gravitate towards support roles like healing, crowd control and tradeskilling. Males tend to gravitate towards melee centric roles like warriors, tanks, off-tanks. There are exceptions to this rule of course, but when my raid officer invited a new female High Elf enchanter into my guild, or a Barbarian warrior, I could guess the persons sex who played those characters and 95% of the time I was right.
Outside of MMO's I really don't know who does what, but I suspect these traits carry over into other genres. However, because there generally isn't much call for tradeskilling roles in the majority of single player games, women don't find those games as inviting.
Its not always the character you've got to choose from that would be off-putting, its the role thats on offer. Produce more games that offer such roles, and you'll get more women playing video games. 47% of women play video games? Ok I'll buy that. But they're not playing core games, and its not because of hyper sexualism. I wonder how many guys here have girlfriends or wives that don't really like video games but love The Sims? Its not because of hyper sexualism, its because Halo doesn't offer them what The Sims offers.
jakonovski
Member
I dig the violence argument, and there's nothing wrong with making violent games for men to play.
But the existence of violent games does not nullify negative gender stereotypes. They still exist and drive away some women and are a general black mark on the games industry.
While I don't disagree with this statement, It does beg the question.
What makes gaming so different from television, film, music, and literature?
I only ask this because it always feels like gaming is constantly under attack, while many other forms of media are given free passes. Lil Wayne has some of the vilest shit under the sun about women but he's worshipped as a god. Meanwhile we're having this intense discussion over possible clothing choices in a goofy MOBA.
What's worse is that its actually tame for MOBA standards. League of Legends has a huge female following and there's not a single woman character in either a tanktop/bikini top and/or heels.