An example of an obstacle: Stuff like this.
Ways to address it: Few and difficult, because coming forward could easily cost you your job. There are bound to be plenty of cases like this that we never hear about for this exact reason.
Why are there still so many white men in video games
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An example of an obstacle: Stuff like this.
Ways to address it: Few and difficult, because coming forward could easily cost you your job. There are bound to be plenty of cases like this that we never hear about for this exact reason.
cm osi
Member
ehhh with the Indie scene there are virtually no obstacle.
those guys
sure they don't look AAA in this photo and they didn't have Unity, kickstarter and such.
grab you keyboard women and work your ass on those engines
That's a very unfortunate incident. An outsider might point to her and say, "Why didn't she just say, 'Stop,'" but when you're the victim that's sometimes easier said than done.
RE: whether this deters women from the industry, I'm sure it doesn't help. But I don't think women should stop trying. Clearly there are many women who enjoy this hobby just as much as men. I just hope more and more of them stand their ground against those who would intimidate them and try to become content creators themselves.
Men can certainly do their part to improve the situation, being more welcoming to women and trying to represent them in games. But I think the most meaningful change will occur once women (or gays, or blacks, or whoever the underrepresented minority is) actively pursue these content creation roles themselves.
And what if the developers dont care? What if they just brush it off like (according to this thread) they have been doing.
Geee, I wonder... Does this mean we are all doomed? Who will come and save us?!?!
Will someone step up and save the day and finally create a game that caters to non-whites and females??
WHO COULD THAT BE?????
There are a lot of game developers out there. Like, maybe even a hundred of them. It's not as if you can easily reach them all with just one attempt. Maybe continued efforts are necessary to get more the attention of more people in the industry.
Shit, what if people could even change their minds? That might mean someone could hear about this stuff more than once and not respond in the same way every time! Fuck, this is complicated.
ehhh with the Indie scene there are virtually no obstacle.
those guys
sure they don't look AAA in this photo and they didn't have Unity, kickstarter and such.
grab you keyboard women and work your ass on those engines
You do know you are patronizing women right?
You two are butting heads with each other, each focusing on one side, but again, why does it have to be an either/or?
Men should be more inclusive, and try to do more to better represent women (and other "minorities").
But women (and other minorities) should also try to get involved in the industry, as well.
Now hold on a second...constant sarcasm and blatantly offensive racist/sexist stabs at the lack of diversity in the gaming industry FOR OVER 20 YEARS is ok, but labeling the inculcation of hyper self idealization to the point of arguable self-worship as such is not allowed? Certainly I would take your point IF we talking about year 5 into the video games, but not 20+ years after the inception of video games.
Do you not see the obvious bias or is it something you're just not interested questioning in your own mind?
cm osi
Member
i'm just saying there are more way than before to join the industry and it's easier than ever. am i wrong?
Schobeleth
Member
This is what I REALLY want to see. It's one of the major things I've been wondering with people injecting their agenda into a medium they really don't seem to care about other than when it pertains to their agenda.
There's also the whole question of whether or not she actually plays video games, or played the video games she got all that money for, (and later stole let's play footage from people and never credited them), but I digress.
I'd love to see her write a legitimate review of a game and see how she analyzes them.
I agree with you that more women getting involved in the industry will help make things better, I just don't like it when people emphasize the "MAKE YOUR OWN GAMES THEN AND LEAVE US ALONE" angle.
Hamster Plugin
Member
White men are also overrepresented as killable enemies in games. Even some positive examples of female protagonists listed in this thread like Tomb Raider and Remember Me are guilty of this one.
I love Saints Row 3 so much for making a gender neutral world - it's the only game I can think of with killable enemies both male and female, and not set in a fantasy world with magic. The main character in that is fully customizable including gender.
I love Saints Row 3 so much for making a gender neutral world - it's the only game I can think of with killable enemies both male and female, and not set in a fantasy world with magic. The main character in that is fully customizable including gender.
It seems to me that there's pretty obvious value in awareness-raising of this sort.
Look, Ubisoft is taking shit for not having a female option in co-op for the new AC game. This is something they've been pressed on by games media. They're being criticized by other developers. They've felt the need to do damage control and offer some reasons why there's not a female option. So I think it's way premature to say that just making noise about the issue is unlikely to do anything. Surely Ubisoft is much more likely now to offer a female option in the next game's co-op, and at least somewhat more likely to have the protagonist of the next console AC be female. The backlash they've just seen is going to come up when they're having planning meetings.
So part of the point of this is to convince other people in positions to do something to act. But another purpose is to subtly change where the money is. One way to address the issue of female under-representation, to the extent that it is due to women making up less of the market than men, is to convince men to also care about female under-representation such that a game having a female protagonist is something they see as a reason to be interested in a game. Or you could (at the same time) convince female gamers to bias their purchasing more towards games with female protagonists than they otherwise would. Lots of people are persuaded to change their buying habits out of a sense of social responsibility, and it's not even a hardship for many people once they're convinced that there's actually a problem - they don't want to be part of the problem.
The complaints that I find really confusing are the ones directed against the people complaining about female under-representation. I mean, what's the point? Maybe if you want people to stop complaining you should get into game design and make games with female characters.
MrCunningham
Member
western games are usually at the fault of this
Everything on the western side is current, and also The Evil Within was made entirely by a Japanese team... while on the Eastern side it is listing games and characters that are 15-30 years old to showcase more diversity. When was the last original Klonoa game? 2003-5? Yeah, that is a pretty even comparison.
Personally, I think Maddox makes some valid points in the second half of his video after you get past the whole: "Yeah, no shit" sentiment at the beginning.
There is nothing wrong. No one said it is wrong. No one is telling you that you should feel guilty about being a white man wanting to play as a white man but at the same time you should acknowledge the rise of women video games and should acknowledge that in the near future gender should be the norm option (whenever it is possible) or more games with better representations with women should be made.
BioShock Infinite had female enemies you could kill. They were sometimes masked, so it wasn't always immediately obviously, but they were definitely female.
But yeah, seems like games with women you can kill are a minority.
But we do expect to see more Christian churches as a result right? Like I don't expect to find the Church of Hera in the US. Nor would I expect Christians to build Buddhist shrines (outside of being good neighbors). While Christians are forced to server groups they find distasteful, they are allowed within reason to serve and cater to their own interests. A Christian church might have to open up to every one, but Jesus is still the centerpiece instead of Mohammed, Buddha and so forth.
I agree with your conclusion but not so much your example.
Well, of course there should be more Christian churches. That's like food - a church serves some finite number of people. And if men and women both prefer protagonists of their own gender, I expect more games with male protagonists to be sold if the market is majority male. That's not unfair to anybody. What's unfair is when individuals have substantially different qualities of options.
Saint's Row 3 and 4 are generally great in that aspect. They even made it so that if you play as a male character you can make out with the male part of the crew. I think the same goes vice versa but I haven't played a female character in Saints Row so I can't confirm that.
Schweinehund
Member
Personally before I buy or play a game I make sure the protagonist is white and research his genealogy to ensure he is both Irish and Polish.
I wish there were more women in CompSci 
Personally before I buy or play a game I make sure the protagonist is white and research his genealogy to ensure he is both Irish and Polish.
.I wish there were more women in CompSci
Makes sense to me...
Bayonetta and Wonderful 101 are pretty new though.
And Battlefield and the like are already 10+ old.
I understand why people are upset. As a black male, I completely understand. But someone has to pave the way. It isn't going to happen overnight...
When I say "go make your own games", I'm not trying to be rude.
There is interest in it, at least for me, because this means more games for me to buy. I am hoping females, Hispanics, blacks, homosexuals, (whatever you are).. get pissed enough to wake up one day and say...
"I really don't like where the industry is headed... I'm gonna do something about this." Hopefully this doesn't mean venting on a forum one day and then forgetting about it until next time where it is eventually brought up again.
When I say "go make your own games", I'm not trying to be rude.
There is interest in it, at least for me, because this means more games for me to buy. I am hoping females, Hispanics, blacks, homosexuals, (whatever you are).. get pissed enough to wake up one day and say...
"I really don't like where the industry is headed... I'm gonna do something about this." Hopefully this doesn't mean venting on a forum one day and then forgetting about it until next time where it is eventually brought up again.
Atraveller
Banned
There are three Starkillers in there, Hawke and Shepard are customizable, and Geralt doesn't even belong to the generic male protagonist list.Nothing new under the sun:
SolidSnakex
Member
I think there's a lot of truth it to though. Japanese devs seem to be far more likely to develop a game with a female lead. And that goes for big budget games as well. FFXIII gets a lot of shit, but it's still Square's biggest franchise and it had a female lead. By comparison look at western devs when they make RPG's where you can select the gender of the lead. I can't think of a single one where a female character is the default. The one used in all the trailers, screenshots, and on the boxart. It's always a guy.
activatethesmile
Member
At least get your fact straight: it's not based off a manga, but a light novel. The manga itself is based on the light novel, and the movie poster itself explicitly stated that it is based on the novel.
Also, I disagree about the "forced romance" part, but this is off topic.
I am really not sure where you are going with this. Give me one example. Treat me like a five year old.
No you are not wrong but with this
why would you assume that women do not do that already or have the assumption that women do not know that already? It really comes off to me as "Women should do this".
Don't know. It doesn't read well with me. Probably I am wrong again. Anyhow.
Equally, you can't tell people not to complain about people complaining. That's just silly.
But rolling up their sleeves is certainly a very obvious and direct solution to the problem. It isn't a very quick one, nor is it easy. But it is real.
/Thread.
maverickjs
Neo Member
Came to post exactly this. Most games are made in USA, Europe or Japan, all of which are predominately white (I've always considered characters in Japanese games as being white, at least in older generations where it wasn't as easy to differentiate). If I were in the industry, I would be most interested in making games that reflected things that I like and/or find interesting, and that doesn't include being female, personally. If a developer has made a decision to make a single strong lead character, it makes sense that a majority of the time the character will be representative of them or their strongest audience.
That being said, there are tons of games with customizable characters that allow you to play female characters (RPG's and some shooters now), there are tons of games with strong female characters (like the Uncharted series), and there are some games with female leads. This is also true of minority characters.
As women grow up and get into the industry, I believe there will be more and more represented in games, however, I don't expect it to ever be a 50/50 type situation. I have 3 sisters, one of which has never touched a video game to the best of my knowledge, the others may play some Mario kart every once in a while. My 3 brothers and I all game to this day, so it just makes sense to please the people that are most likely to play your games. My girlfriend btw is a gamer, and she's told me she couldn't care less about playing a female, so go figure.
More options and increased freedom is awesome. That's one of the reasons I still go back to a MUD I've played off and on since 1998.
How do you do that in a AAA cinematic game though? Seems like the choice is either binary or then the budget balloons even more. Is the market there to reward that kind of risk?
Can't speak for women, but until we get more hispanic/black/asian people in gaming, keep us the fuck out of video games.
They just make us walking stereotypes. Shit, in some cases we're not even worthy of getting a voice actor from our race (James Vega being played by Freddy Prinze Jr)
They just make us walking stereotypes. Shit, in some cases we're not even worthy of getting a voice actor from our race (James Vega being played by Freddy Prinze Jr)
Plenty of people who enjoy games but want change are adults who already have careers. Having a larger variety of people going into the industry won't have a noticeable effect for probably five years or so and that's if those people end up in positions where they get to make the decisions about what types of games are made. Indies are also great but very few of them are successful or will ever get the notice that a AAA game will which means most people yearning for something different will miss these games if they aren't highlighted by bigger publishers.
Complaining about and to companies making larger games now means we can have a more immediate effect on the people who are currently being paid to make games and those who are providing the funding for it. Casually complaining on the internet doesn't accomplish much but regular discussions on many forums that lead to ever more articles by games journalist mean that the conversation doesn't get buried and companies have to take notice of the desire for inclusion and change.
Of All Trades
Member
Battlefield 4 is a raceless, faceless protagonist. I don't think you even see ungloved hands. It's like saying Saints Row 4 is a white male when you create your own charact... oh wait that image did just that.
I just want to know why a mod is browsing this thread and doesn't find something like this ban worthy:
othersteve
Member
Because the largest demographic of gamers is the white male.
Economics.
/thread
Economics.
/thread
I don't follow. This sounds rather like "your commitment to tolerance requires you to tolerate intolerance". I'm not making a general argument that complaining is always okay. I'm saying that complaining that some products are not, in general, as you would like them to be, especially when your complaints are grounded in reasons much stronger than mere preference (and most of us think that wanting something to be inclusive of women is not on the same level as wanting games to use brighter colors), is a legitimate thing to do. So necessarily I'm saying that it's silly to complain about those complaints. I'm asserting that the complaints are justified and legitimate.
But, sure, one could always go about trying to fix the problem oneself, directly. Of course, the people complaining about the complaints could also do that - it's an obvious and direct solution to their problem too. But then, it is obvious. Really obvious. So obvious that it's kind of weird that people seem to think they're adding something to the conversation by suggesting it.
I think part of the problem is that games aren't considered art by most people. The talented people that are seriously interested in writing and design end up going into the more established fields: magazines, photography, books, movies, TV, etc. I mean in gaming we have a hack like David Cage that considers himself a visionary story teller and publishers fund his games for that reason alone. I think that as long as the situation sits like this, things like this topic will just be terrible. Even if there were many more female leads, you'd still end up looking at the dreadful story these characters would exist in and the topic would shift to how there are so many men with boobs.
More women in development would certainly help the situation, but we are in a chicken or the egg cycle. Gaming won't be taken more seriously until we are past topics like this one, but without the talent entering the field the quality will not improve. AAA game development has a particularly rough road ahead of it. It seems like the fresh gaming talent that would help raise the level of quality for AAA games have gone into indie gaming instead.
More women in development would certainly help the situation, but we are in a chicken or the egg cycle. Gaming won't be taken more seriously until we are past topics like this one, but without the talent entering the field the quality will not improve. AAA game development has a particularly rough road ahead of it. It seems like the fresh gaming talent that would help raise the level of quality for AAA games have gone into indie gaming instead.
Boxcar Overkill
Banned
I'm not a woman, but since females account for only about 12% of the CS/CE degrees awarded each year, that would probably be one big obstacle.
http://archive.cra.org/info/taulbee/women.html
Women have a higher graduation rate from college but don't usually get CS/CE degrees and instead choose majors such as elementary education.
http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2009/12/do-men-or-women-choose-majors-to-maximize-income
Fahrenheit
Banned
You mean most video games cater to the biggest demographic? Color me shocked. If women want more video games with females then get out and program some video games. The Ubi stuff over E3 made me sick.
Explain to me what both of you know about white men.
Explain to me as well how you know that white men only want to play white men.
Lets say this is true, it isn't, how much sense does it make to ignore the black, hispanics, asians, women, with other words the much bigger part of the market?
Also, read this
http://thegrio.com/2011/11/11/blacks-play-games-but-dont-design-them/
This awful dismissal of how hard it is to successfully enter the industry seen in posts like yours really needs to stop.
At what point do the developers take responsibility? Because according to posts like yours, suck it up and make your own game is the only solution.
Alright, then I guess these forums shouldn't exist. We shouldn't discuss gameplay or DLC or any changes because hey, suck it up and make your own game, right?
MrCunningham
Member
Well true, but a lot of Japanese games with female leads still cater to a male audience by using fetishes and fan service in their designs. Still designed to target the same demographics, but in different ways. I'm not saying that this is 100% the case, but I still think it makes up a large portion of it. Granted, there's the opposite effect too with male characters designed to appeal to female tastes, so it is not all one sided.
Yeah that's true for Bayo and W101. But Battlefield 4... the original games were WW2 multiplayer games. The single player campaigns for BF 3 and 4 were pretty much tacked on with forgettable characters and shallow experiences that are over shadowed by the mutiplayer component.
This argument is really annoying and very troubling. It's a good way to place the responsibility of the issue on the ones getting the short end of the stick instead of the ones in the positions to make a difference.
foxuzamaki
Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
Xenoblade X
It always fascinates me how much troubled/ not bothered/ sickened/ annoyed you guys are, by the simple wish of gamers of representation. How come?
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