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[TheSpoiler]

I think we can reach a middle ground here. Games lack moms that do something other than serve as obvious plot points and background pieces, but it's not like we can't discuss the moms in gaming that are done right.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Have you been intentionally ignoring every instance of me in this very thread saying that the problem is very real and a few examples don't invalidate it?

And how that doesn't change the fact that Polygon is intentionally stirring the narrative away from the very few examples of games doing something about it?

Im just saying, just because the problem still exist, that doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate those who do it right.

Even Anita has a series celebrating games that do women right, does it invalidate the overwhelming majority of sexist portrayals? No, of course not, but it encourages people to cherish and follow the example of those who are making progress.

The subject of the article isn't about celebrating the few exceptions. The vast majority of instances skew toward the tropes in the OP/Article. It's not creating a narrative when it represents the sad reality.

 

[JetSetRadio]

A call to Ine-san is worth 90 bucks or whatever it was.

 

[RichyDevil]

The article, while bringing some interesting points to light, overall reads like a complain-y piece instead of an observatory one.

And, most of all, highlights why much of games media is just intolerable. Complaining instead of doing.

If it's a real problem, go out and do something about it. Make a game that does! It's so easy anymore, and members of the games media have more access to tools and resources than those who aren't.

Start a side project. Use Unity or, heck, RPG Maker. Create a simple story line. Pitch it to one of the 10,000 devs you've interviewed in the past few years. Make it happen. But stop complaining already.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

Isn't it partly the problem with there not being many older female characters to begin with? It's pretty hard to be a mother if you can't be older than 25. Oops, had a baby? Well, timeskip ahead and you're irrelevant now, because god forbid we get to play as a 40-year old woman.

 

[MixedBeverage]

My mom in Animal Crossing seems pretty cool. Maybe a bit detached, however.

 

[Crossing Eden]

The article, while bringing some interesting points to light, overall reads like a complain-y piece instead of an observatory one.

And, most of all, highlights why much of games media is just intolerable. Complaining instead of doing.

If it's a real problem, go out and do something about it. Make a game that does! It's so easy anymore, and members of the games media have more access to tools and resources than those who aren't.

Start a side project. Use Unity or, heck, RPG Maker. Create a simple story line. Pitch it to one of the 10,000 devs you've interviewed in the past few years. Make it happen. But stop complaining already.

It's game journalism, writing articles about it IS doing something about it, gaming wouldn't be where it is today without articles like this. As it's been stated many times in this thread and threads in the past, "stop whining" is not a valid excuse in anyway shape or form, in fact, it seems you're whining that someone noticed the current status quo and decided to point out it out and defaulted to the "do it yourself" rhetoric.

Isn't it partly the problem with there not being many older female characters to begin with? It's pretty hard to be a mother if you can't be older than 25. Oops, had a baby? Well, timeskip ahead and you're irrelevant now, because god forbid we get to play as a 40-year old woman.

I also agree that I wish we could play as more older women in games. Not just gruff older men. In AC:S we got to play as 40 year old Evie Frye for the vast majority of the dlc that takes place 20 years after the main game.

 

[Canklestank]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet:

Spoiler

I know this is a bad example.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Rosa is a bad ass Videogame mom.


https://youtu.be/6YhKeG9kBDc

 

[Shin-chan]

I guess the age of the medium, it's relative maturity in story telling, and the age and gender of many of its employees has framed the styles of stories we get at the moment. Cory explicitly said being a dad was a huge part of the change of direction of God of War.

There's obviously under representation for "tough mums" but while we're just getting to grips with compelling dads and can barely have a compelling female lead at all I don't think this is really a battle to have just yet. It's an interesting point though. It's likely that you could level the same criticism to many other mediums (I mean, there's a reason characters like Ripley and Sarah Connor stand out even now).

 

[Squire]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately - for years, actually. Industry dies such a piss poor job of portraying mothers and motherhood and how the presence or absence of it impacts not just the offspring, but the mothers themselves.

This perspective is a cornerstone of who we all are. What's taking so long?

 

[Manmademan]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet:

Spoiler

I know this is a bad example.

 

[Nere]

Are you saying that this isn't the situation in the vast majority of pokemon games?

While in most Pokemon games the father is non-existant but of course there are no complaints there. At least the mom exists.

 

[timetokill]

Have to hit the road right now, but anybody wanna explain Lufia 2?

 

[meerak]

Deep dives into the obvious are more interesting than I would assume.. Nice collection of info here, between the story an this thread. One of those things I know, but with little depth/details.

If you look at action movies and fantasy books you will find a similar tendency, if not extremity, I think. As for why? Some Freud student can probably tell us. Something something mother's personality our identity.

This is random / not a great example but the 10 second scene with Cloud's mom in FFVII always reminded me of my own. He has no dad as I recall. Aeris' adoptive mother + the story she tells about finding her is really touching actually.

 

[sviri]

Binding of Isaac portrays mom as a pill-popping, couch-ridden "jesus on the TV" worshippper; an absolutely horrible parent. It serves the theme of game's items and world perfectly.

 

[I-hate-u]

Sombra is coming, and judging from what we know she is up there in terms of importance in the OG Overwatch squad. I wouldn't be surprised if she was second in command after 76.

 

[Syntax]

I guess the age of the medium, it's relative maturity in story telling, and the age and gender of many of its employees has framed the styles of stories we get at the moment. Cory explicitly said being a dad was a huge part of the change of direction of God of War.

There's obviously under representation for "tough mums" but while we're just getting to grips with compelling dads and can barely have a compelling female lead at all I don't think this is really a battle to have just yet. It's an interesting point though. It's likely that you could level the same criticism to many other mediums (I mean, there's a reason characters like Ripley and Sarah Connor stand out even now).

Agreed with your post overall but I don't think waiting for the right time is the way to go. No harm is done with asking for more playable moms and good writing/depiction overall.

As to the actual topic, yeah there's definitely a shortage of PC moms but it's not as though PC dads are in abundance either.

 

[RedSwirl]

This is part of another issue discussed earlier about how playable female characters seemingly can't be older than 30, usually not even 25, especially in Japanese games. A lot of them seem to just disappear from the story after a time skip or whatever.

Yeah, that was awesome and the one example I thought of too. It was really neat she was a party member.

Spoiler

It's still such a shame she leaves the party. The game takes a hit for it too as it's not as good once she does. Though I guess atleast she doesn't just die in order to leave the party.

I was just about to bring this up. She's arguably the most likable character in the game.

"Interestingly, positive mothers are often not actually mothers at all. In The Witcher 3, Geralt love-interest Yennefer of Vengerberg is ward to special child Ciri, and a highly capable sorcerer."
This positive mom is an abusive weirdo (towards both Ciri and Geralt) who seemed to do everything in her power to make Ciri hate her. I don't think anyone would consider her a positive influence if she existed in world whose characters weren't driven and defined by their irrational obsessions.

"Catherine Halsey is the chief scientist in the Halo series. Tough and uncompromising, she is a mother figure to the Spartan warriors who have been in her charge since childhood. She is also a quasi-mother to her AI offspring Cortana, though they have a difficult relationship. Arguably, she is a war criminal."
And this positive mom got an evil government organization to kidnap her 'children' and swap them with faulty clones with short expiration dates. Those war crimes are inseparable from her role as a minor mother figure.

Still, that was a fascinating, eye-opening article. Living, well-adjusted mothers might actually be the rarest breed in video games. Unicorns probably outnumber moms 1000:1 in Video Game Land.

I'm a bit surprised they didn't mention The Boss when making this point.

 

[Shredderi]

Agreed. This is something I've wanted to see more of for yaers now. I like to "design" games as thought exercises and It's always interesting to make the protag someone who is a mother. It's interesting simply because there is so little of it.

 

[Disgraced]

It would be cool if there were more playable older women/mothers as there are fathers. And while it's true Yennefer and the Boss aren't biological mothers nor are they playable (which I can see as a growing trope), they are great characters that defy many [other] stereotypes—Yen subtly and Boss overtly.

I wish Koji made that Boss prequel.

 

[Wonko_C]

First thing that came to mind was Blood of The Werewolf. It's a sidescroller platformer where you play as the mother of a werewolf baby, who was kidnapped by a mad scientist (He also killed her husband). So not only you play as a cool crossbow-wielding mom, she also turns into a badass wolf whenever there is moonlight in the background.

 

[Wulfram]

The issue of parents being evil, absent, dead or doomed honestly seems to apply to both genders. I mean, the article mentions a whole bunch of Bioware mothers, but the fathers almost without exception fit into those categories. Like, you're definitely more likely to have some evil near-deity father plotting your destruction than to have some guy who actually stuck around to raise you and isn't about to die.

The difference, and it certainly is a big difference, is that we sometimes, particularly recently, get to play a largely positive father figure, whereas female protagonists, particularly older ones, are rare.

 

[Disgraced]

METROID: OTHER M

 

[BreezyLimbo]

...Heather from Silent Hill 3?

 

[joe2187]

METROID: OTHER M

Did you know OTHER M is an anagram?

It means "Fuck this game"

 

[SixMachine]

People are posting straight up fighting game characters as examples of moms in gaming when usually their children have nothing to do with the actual game itself besides having a thin backstory for a fighting game character. You absolutely cannot deny that when it comes to parents in games, let alone playing as them, that it most definitely most of the time involves a male, typically with a beard.

I'm late to the party on this one but the only fighting game character in this thread who has an irrelevant child is C. Viper from Street Fighter, unless I glanced over some. The Mishimas are the basic core, Justice is the big bad Gear who is one of the reasons the plot gets kicked off, Bloody Roar has a lot to do with Uranus (Uriko being a clone of her and Chronos being her son), while Mitsuko raised Uriko. All these characters have family members who are in the core cast that are important to the plot.

Though most of these characters are willing to beat the crap out of their kids, but they basically are filling in the role of final boss type of characters like M. Bison and Rugal, they're not gonna play nice. Plus if you had a family like the Mishimas, you might want to throw them in a volcano too.

 

[Manmademan]

...Heather from Silent Hill 3?

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

edit: here's another one

 

[Crossing Eden]

While in most Pokemon games the father is non-existant but of course there are no complaints there. At least the mom exists.

But gaming has so far failed to offer a range of perspectives on motherhood, that sit far outside issues of absence or neglectfulness.

Meanwhile, game developers often celebrate fathers as strong, powerful and morally upstanding, while also offering a broader range of adult male characters that take in the entire spectrum of hero, anti-hero, incompetent and villain.

Part of the point.

 

[Iva Demilcol]

Let's be honest guys: Parents in general are underrepresented in games because they being absent is less problematic when it comes to what the protagonists have to do in games. I mean, if I had a kid he or she wouldn't be a kid hero/heroine at all. They would be studying instead!!

I'm not going to give any clicks to polygon, so I'm just going to mention two awesome moms in videogames:

Sophitia from Soul Calibur: She's the main character in Soul Edge, got married to a blacksmith, gave birth to two children, and fought to "save them" from being taken by the soul edge. Then SCV happened and they erased all characters from the previous games

Your mom in Fable: She was a member of the guild of heroes. She would slay balverines and go back home at night for dinner. The attack to Oakvale (the village were you lived) by bandits was an excuse to try to kill her. At the end she's captured by Jack of blades and tortured for years to get an ancient magic from her. Her back story is just revealed when you finally meet her again, though.

 

[Already Torn]

Not a good topic to start when Pokémon is already on everyone's minds. Outside of that... Earthbound?

 

[Fuchsdh]

Huh, the "not mom" bit seems to tread pretty heavily into "if you aren't a biological mom, you don't count", which seems pretty damn disrespectful. The other points I take as-is, and the link between middle-aged dads making video games and the content of those video games seems pretty clear-cut.

Let's be honest guys: Parents in general are underrepresented in games because they being absent is less problematic when it comes to what the protagonists have to do in games. I mean, if I had a kid he or she wouldn't be a kid hero/heroine at all. They would be studying instead!!

Yeah I feel like this is the conceit with most RPGs in general, JRPGS in particular. Parents have to be out of the way/dead/something for either an inciting incident or for no one to care about children doing dangerous things. Replaying Golden Sun the other day I was still amazed at how everyone agrees "the big magic rock told these kids about the dangers, that means it's up to them to travel the world, fight monsters, and save us all. We'll just stay back here."

 

[Manmademan]

Part of the point.

Sorry, I can't really see this as an issue. MOST of your mainstream games (and I'm aware indies exist, let's set them aside for a moment) lean heavily towards the "action" end of the spectrum, because "killing enemies" is an ancient trope that provides immediate gratification and feedback for the player.

Call of Duty. Dark Souls. Street Fighter. Metal Gear. Uncharted. Halo. Zelda. Metroid. Infamous. The Last of Us. Dead Space. Far Cry. Arkham Asylum. Deus Ex. Dead Rising.

you see where I'm going with this.

The kind of entertainment these games are aiming for doesn't really lend itself to shoehorning "roles about motherhood" into the primary narrative any more than they lend themselves into turning into romantic comedies. You may as well be complaining that 80s action blockbusters or 70s kung fu flicks don't have enough mothers in the lead role either.

You know what "Commando" and "Five Deadly Venoms" REALLY needed? More moms! Said nobody, ever.

Even in JRPGs which tend to be the most narrative heavy out of your standard genres almost always are targeting teens and preteens as their target audience, beating the "hero's journey" trope into the ground for the billionth time. Persona in particular seems to be handcuffed to a high school setting no matter how many entries it has. Moms and Dads will show up as supporting cast or narrative devices, but virtually NEVER as a playable character- unless you're talking something going the "Cast of Thousands" route like Chrono Cross or Suikoden. I can't speak for WRPGs, but the ones I have dipped my toes into like Fallout or Skyrim go the "faceless protagonist" route to emphasize player choice.

The kind of games that publishers aim at the mass market aren't dissimilar at all from your typical mindless summer blockbuster, and every now and then it's ok to take a step back and say this is fine. We don't need to ram heavy handed social messages into every marvel movie or godzilla flick, and we don't need Grand Theft Auto V to teach young girls that motherhood is worth aspiring to. Are there some games that might work better for this? Sure- I could see narrative heavy games like the games telltale puts out working well here, as well as the odd indie game but those are never going to be more than a small fraction of the total market.

Obviously it goes without saying that having a broad range of roles for women is a good thing, just as it is a good thing to have appropriate minority representation within games. Broadening the average protagonist age also wouldn't hurt, but Japan seems to be guilty of this one more than anyone else. Gamers of all ages benefit from seeing anyone and everyone be able to take a lead role and not just 18 year old white guys. But saying devs and publishers are responsible for promoting specific roles for women as mothers within interactive media seems inappropriate here.

 

[True Fire]

The article, while bringing some interesting points to light, overall reads like a complain-y piece instead of an observatory one.

And, most of all, highlights why much of games media is just intolerable. Complaining instead of doing.

If it's a real problem, go out and do something about it. Make a game that does! It's so easy anymore, and members of the games media have more access to tools and resources than those who aren't.

Start a side project. Use Unity or, heck, RPG Maker. Create a simple story line. Pitch it to one of the 10,000 devs you've interviewed in the past few years. Make it happen. But stop complaining already.

This is a horrible post.

Journalists are just going to go out and make AAA games. OK then.

They are inspiring change by using the most influential means available to journalists -- journalism. *gasp*

 

[geordiemp]

But what about Grandads and Grandmas while we are at it.

Hell why stop there, Batgran vs Jokernan....where will it end ?

People should be careful what they wish for.....

To be fair the dead mother, dead parents story line is used so much in film...but it works well in the narrative. Good observations by the article.

 

[patapuf]

Yeah I feel like this is the conceit with most RPGs in general, JRPGS in particular. Parents have to be out of the way/dead/something for either an inciting incident or for no one to care about children doing dangerous things. Replaying Golden Sun the other day I was still amazed at how everyone agrees "the big magic rock told these kids about the dangers, that means it's up to them to travel the world, fight monsters, and save us all. We'll just stay back here."

It's matter of target audience more than anything really, if your audience skews younger than 25, parenthood isn't particularly high on the list of themes you explore. You tell more coming of age stories. Which is why most moms (and dads) are background characters or obstacles and fulfill supporting roles.

 

[Arnie7]

Just like Christopher Nolan films.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Oh uh

Final Fantasy 8 has Edea who served as a mother-figure to the main group of protagonists. She's also an antagonist, albeit a controlled one. But she's a mother figure.

Then there's Raine, Raine takes care of Ellone.

 

[Zekes!]

More moms in games would be cool

Miranda being a party member for a decent chunk of Grandia III was cool as hell

 

[Disgraced]

Interestingly, positive mothers are often not actually mothers at all.

Huh, the "not mom" bit seems to tread pretty heavily into "if you aren't a biological mom, you don't count", which seems pretty damn disrespectful. The other points I take as-is, and the link between middle-aged dads making video games and the content of those video games seems pretty clear-cut.

Strongly agreed. Yennefer and Geralt are patently Ciri's parents in all but biology and vocabulary. In my opinion, if anything devalues the example it's that they are not only characters based on a novel but straight continuation and that expanded context is substantial.

In other words, they're not really gaming characters.

Although, I will reiterate I could see making characters non-biologically parents as a growing trope used regressively. As in, creators or their managers being apprehensive to commit to explicit character ties and traits like that in the same way comics editors have been afraid of marriage (which there's reasonable history to, I might add). I think implicit character ties are easier to work with since there's more room for interpretation and less for offense.

 

[John Kowalski]

Arianna's story was so depressing.

 

[Nere]

Part of the point.

That still doesn't answer my point. Almost every single Pokemon game has a mother to the character. In pokemon black I think? she is also a contest champion so she is important while on only 1 pokemon game (ruby) the character has a father. The father is never mentioned even. These guys just find excuses for everything while they don't address the issues.

 

[patapuf]

Sorry, I can't really see this as an issue. MOST of your mainstream games (and I'm aware indies exist, let's set them aside for a moment) lean heavily towards the "action" end of the spectrum, because "killing enemies" is an ancient trope that provides immediate gratification and feedback for the player.

Call of Duty. Dark Souls. Street Fighter. Metal Gear. Uncharted. Halo. Zelda. Metroid. Infamous. The Last of Us. Dead Space. Far Cry. Arkham Asylum. Deus Ex. Dead Rising.

you see where I'm going with this.

The kind of entertainment these games are aiming for doesn't really lend itself to shoehorning "roles about motherhood" into the primary narrative any more than they lend themselves into turning into romantic comedies. You may as well be complaining that 80s action blockbusters or 70s kung fu flicks don't have enough mothers in the lead role either.

You know what "Commando" and "Five Deadly Venoms" REALLY needed? More moms! Said nobody, ever.

Even in JRPGs which tend to be the most narrative heavy out of your standard genres almost always are targeting teens and preteens as their target audience, beating the "hero's journey" trope into the ground for the billionth time. Persona in particular seems to be handcuffed to a high school setting no matter how many entries it has. Moms and Dads will show up as supporting cast or narrative devices, but virtually NEVER as a playable character- unless you're talking something going the "Cast of Thousands" route like Chrono Cross or Suikoden. I can't speak for WRPGs, but the ones I have dipped my toes into like Fallout or Skyrim go the "faceless protagonist" route to emphasize player choice.

The kind of games that publishers aim at the mass market aren't dissimilar at all from your typical mindless summer blockbuster, and every now and then it's ok to take a step back and say this is fine. We don't need to ram heavy handed social messages into every marvel movie or godzilla flick, and we don't need Grand Theft Auto V to teach young girls that motherhood is worth aspiring to. Are there some games that might work better for this? Sure- I could see narrative heavy games like the games telltale puts out working well here, as well as the odd indie game but those are never going to be more than a small fraction of the total market.

Obviously it goes without saying that having a broad range of roles for women is a good thing, just as it is a good thing to have appropriate minority representation within games. Broadening the average protagonist age also wouldn't hurt, but Japan seems to be guilty of this one more than anyone else. Gamers of all ages benefit from seeing anyone and everyone be able to take a lead role and not just 18 year old white guys. But saying devs and publishers are responsible for promoting specific roles for women as mothers within interactive media seems inappropriate here.

We've recently had action games with fathers that were highly regarded (Bioshock Infinite, the last of us, the witcher). And i think these games were better with the fatherhood component as it gave the narrative dimensions beyond "shoot the bad guy" and "the protagonist is badass. With some writing around you could have had mothers as protagonists in these world (Yennefer or Tess would have worked for example). Or if Metroid's attempt hadn't been so botched you could have had an Alien like approach to motherhood there.

The success of above mentioned games also shows that by now you can sometimes aim a bit older in terms of target audience.

I'd say the struggle for a Mother as protagonist is more that there's still not too many female protagonists in general and most of them are young.




Oh and boo on the article for saying Yennefer wants to make Ciri hate her. What nonsense. Way to dismiss one of the few motherfigures that doesn't fall into the "doting and gentle" archetype.

 

[Disgraced]

Oh and boo on the article for saying Yennefer wants to make Ciri hate her. What nonsense. Way to dismiss one of the few motherfigures that doesn't fall into the "doting and gentle" archetype.

Yeah, in the author's defense (and at the risk of me sounding [more] pretentious), I've noticed a lot of people don't seem to understand that relationship (and Yen's character in general) and to the fault of the game, while everything is made clear in it the additional context of the novels helps a little too much (if that makes sense).

 

[GinoFelino]

Seth Balmore from Lost Odyssey.

 

[Khezu]

Mortal Kombat has some.

Sindel since the 1995 game, as Kitana's mother. She comitted suicide to protect the Earthrealm, but was resurrected by Shao Kahn as an excuse to invade Earth. In the original timeline she recovered her memories and joined Kitana and the others to defeat Shao Kahn. In the 2011 reboot and new timeline, she remained evil as Shao Kahn fused Shang Tsung's escense to her makig her unstoppable, and kills basically everyone. She remains evil in X.

Sonya became a mother to Cassie Cage, after the 2011 game during the new timeline. The later outcome and a bit of obsession to return the revenants to the good side, make for her to be quite strict to her daughter and sometimes ignore her; which Cassie in turns joins the Special Forces to serve under her.

Vera Briggs is Jax's wife and mother of Jacqui in the X game/new timeline. While she's not shown in the game, it is alluded that she basically is the one keeping Jax under control after he was turned back to human, but the memories of the people that he killed as revenant still haunt him.

Then there was Takeda's mom along with Kenshi, but she was killed. Takeda blames Kenshi for that at first as Kenshi was a no show during his childhood.

How Johnny and Sonya turned out as Parents is still amusing to me.
Johnny being the good nurturing parent was the only logical outcome, and Sonya being... well Sonya.

Shame Liu Kang and Kitana are infertile zombie people, their kid could have been super interesting.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Sorry, I can't really see this as an issue. MOST of your mainstream games (and I'm aware indies exist, let's set them aside for a moment) lean heavily towards the "action" end of the spectrum, because "killing enemies" is an ancient trope that provides immediate gratification and feedback for the player.

Yes but even games with violence are becoming dad simulators. That's part of the point, while game devs are perfectly keen telling every kind of story involving a male protagonist you never see older women let alone mothers teaching their kids how to survive like Kratos in the new GoW game.

The kind of entertainment these games are aiming for doesn't really lend itself to shoehorning "roles about motherhood" into the primary narrative any more than they lend themselves into turning into romantic comedies.

Yet it's perfectly fine to have stories about fatherhood in these games that are supposedly too violent.

You may as well be complaining that 80s action blockbusters or 70s kung fu flicks don't have enough mothers in the lead role either.

Except these games aren't typically like 80s action blockbusters, the majority try to be like action adventure films.

Even in JRPGs which tend to be the most narrative heavy out of your standard genres almost always are targeting teens and preteens as their target audience, beating the "hero's journey" trope into the ground for the billionth time. Persona in particular seems to be handcuffed to a high school setting no matter how many entries it has. Moms and Dads will show up as supporting cast or narrative devices, but virtually NEVER as a playable character- unless you're talking something going the "Cast of Thousands" route like Chrono Cross or Suikoden. I can't speak for WRPGs, but the ones I have dipped my toes into like Fallout or Skyrim go the "faceless protagonist" route to emphasize player choice.

The kind of games that publishers aim at the mass market aren't dissimilar at all from your typical mindless summer blockbuster, and every now and then it's ok to take a step back and say this is fine. We don't need to ram heavy handed social messages into every marvel movie or godzilla flick, and we don't need Grand Theft Auto V to teach young girls that motherhood is worth aspiring to. Are there some games that might work better for this? Sure- I could see narrative heavy games like the games telltale puts out working well here, as well as the odd indie game but those are never going to be more than a small fraction of the total market.

Well one it seems you don't play a lot of western rpgs, since a lot of them have stories with fully voiced protagonist atm, and two, you're acting like a story about a mother taking care of her child isn't possible in videogames while unironically stating that the only kind of games are violent when it's been proved time and time again that
a)violent video games can also tell stories
b)not every game has to be violent, including mass market games
It's absolutely worth talking about social issues as well.

Obviously it goes without saying that having a broad range of roles for women is a good thing, just as it is a good thing to have appropriate minority representation within games. Broadening the average protagonist age also wouldn't hurt, but Japan seems to be guilty of this one more than anyone else. Gamers of all ages benefit from seeing anyone and everyone be able to take a lead role and not just 18 year old white guys. But saying devs and publishers are responsible for promoting specific roles for women as mothers within interactive media seems inappropriate here.

It's nowhere near inappropriate to suggest that publishers need to branch out and be more inclusive when it comes to the roles of the protagonist and stories being told in gaming. Especially when it comes to women.

That still doesn't answer my point. Almost every single Pokemon game has a mother to the character. In pokemon black I think? she is also a contest champion so she is important while on only 1 pokemon game (ruby) the character has a father. The father is never mentioned even. These guys just find excuses for everything while they don't address the issues.

The article mentions the tropes the vast majority of pokemon mothers fall into. This "but men aren't there too" rhetoric is sounding very similar to the "men are sexualized in games too." kind of rhetoric.

 

[TheSpoiler]

I'm late to the party on this one but the only fighting game character in this thread who has an irrelevant child is C. Viper from Street Fighter, unless I glanced over some. The Mishimas are the basic core, Justice is the big bad Gear who is one of the reasons the plot gets kicked off, Bloody Roar has a lot to do with Uranus (Uriko being a clone of her and Chronos being her son), while Mitsuko raised Uriko. All these characters have family members who are in the core cast that are important to the plot.

Though most of these characters are willing to beat the crap out of their kids, but they basically are filling in the role of final boss type of characters like M. Bison and Rugal, they're not gonna play nice. Plus if you had a family like the Mishimas, you might want to throw them in a volcano too.

The C. Viper thing isn't completely irrelevant. Her child just isn't in the games because the kid isn't fighting, but it's still very much apparent that she's a mom. Her win quotes indicate it, her ending and storyline indicate it, etc.

Like, people KNOW Viper is a mom. It's not hidden knowledge. It's very much in the open. She doesn't have a direct relationship shown on screen besides her endings because she's doing her job, but you can very much tell within the paperthin meat of SF4's story that she's torn between doing her duties and being with her child.

It'd be better if that relationship was more out in the open, definitely, but it's nice that Viper isn't fighting for some generic ass reason like "MY KID IS KIDNAPPED" or whatever. She's doing her job and would rather be home with her kid because she feels like she's missing out on quality family time.

 

[Nere]

The article mentions the tropes the vast majority of pokemon mothers fall into. This "but men aren't there too" rhetoric is sounding very similar to the "men are sexualized in games too." kind of rhetoric.

I never said "men aren't there too" Fathers don't exist at all in Pokemon games why don't you try to address that and you completely ignore it? I am not following any rhetoric here I just think the article is biased on many games. They mention the mother in Ocarina of Time that she is used in some kind of inspiration for Link but they forget to mention that the father again doesn't exist.

 

[Evilkazzz]

Well "where are all the video game moms" is quite the strange title as the author named many examples as to where each many mothers in video games end up. They certainly exist.

So where are the heroic moms?

Gotcha. The actual title.

Though an easy answer as to why mothers seem to get the short stick in terms of representation would probably be because a mother is arguably most important to the upbringing of a child (at least to a certain point). Killing them off, or having them sit in the background mean ties to your homeland/home. Many video games involve characters going far away from their homes and since there is a far higher number of stay at home mothers as there are fathers (though I haven't a single shred of evidence, so I guess it's an assumption), leaving the mother out of the picture seems to be a type of breaking away for protagonists or experiencing something new. This point of view doesn't include orphaned protags since that usually effects mothers and fathers the same way.

Obviously there are exceptions as I'm sure have been posted, I'm just providing what I feel to be the general reasoning for tropes like these to exist/be popular. Still video games have writers and writers dictate the roles of characters in games so I agree:

Game companies are overwhelmingly staffed by men. Despite the recent splurge of hero parents at E3, there's little sign of mothers getting a fair portrayal.

But as gaming becomes increasingly diverse, perhaps we'll see improvement in the years ahead.

I'm sure more representation is on the way. We only just recently got more fairly in depth fatherly stories in games with TLoU and Nier to an extent. The new GoW looks like it might handle it well.