Sweetleaf wrote:
[It's a problem in every community...because its a larger problem in society. Also lots of people play video games, all different kinds of people, people with professional careers even. And I suppose if imagery in a game bothers me I wont play that game...but I don't really care if other people do. Also we can't exactly just force more females into gaming if they don't enjoy it...I mean it certainly should not be discouraged for them to play but you can't force a higher demographic of a group. So it also should be looked at how many don't play video games because they feel social pressure not to, where the social pressure comes from, or if it's a lack of interest in which case all developers could really do is attempt to make games that are more appealing to females...even a lot of girls prefer female characters that look 'attractive' so they can't tone them down too much. But I don't think forcing already existing games to alter their characters and change their story-lines is the right approach.
Yeah, so it is a problem, and nothing is going to change unless someone does it, and what better than the medium that lets you literally control anyone as your avatar? Problems currently really may not be obvious, just things that subtly reaffirm biases. Bias was stronger before where video games were thought of be the boy thing while you hear a number of stories gamer girls wrestled the games away from their brothers, that they too could be interested.
And this is not quite a situation of forcing women to become game designers, but allowing them to be, things are getting good, but from what I hear there could still be a bit of a club mentality going on, companies thinking that the big games have had to be games aimed at men. It is wrong really, women are certainly interested but there are large parts of the community that are kind of hostile about it. Watch a video that talks about there being a problem via YouTube, read the comments, and you males slagging off that games is the men's thing. And part of the problem influencing these thoughts is that a number of big games feel like they are only catering to men.
A game series I heard did pretty well with the female demographic has been The Witcher, hey you get a hot guy who can be shown without a shirt. But take a look at
this thread thread, a honest topic of asking if female gamers were enjoying the recent game (Witcher 3), and it viciously devolves into men attacking the idea that women can and or should like the game, a number of people saying that women have "privileges" that mean that they don't play games. While the games themselves are not the big problem, it is the community that is twisted, but really you may be kind of seeing that games have subtle effects of reinforcing these ideas about the rest of the community, and the only way to change it might be to show them that women too enjoy this genre.
The answers are simple in terms of this thread's topic, make either the male characters just as attractive to the female audience, or make female characters as respectable as the male characters. Do we have to pull apart every game franchise to make them equal to both genders, maybe not, but then we have to embrace new franchises will do. But the reboot of Lara Croft was kind of awesome, and it was that her sex object image was turned down and was made into a relatable woman.
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Through dream I travel, at lantern's call
To consume the flames of a kingdom's fall
18 Aug 2015, 9:00 pm
