I agree with you that game marketing is only one drop in the ocean of bad marketing, but I think it’s worth trying to make it better. We need to to fight the smaller battles that we have some chance of winning. I’m not going to flatter myself that there’s any way I stand a chance having any perceptible impact on the problem in the media as a whole. I might (if I’m lucky and diligent) have some small impact on the very small market of gaming and through that some minuscule impact on dragging the whole towards the goals I see as better for society.

And yea, you’re totally right that marketing and the media in general can really suck when they only look at things skin (or name, as you say) deep. I try really hard to keep in mind that they aren’t nameless, faceless masses though. On average both groups are made up of normal people who are just trying to do the best they can at their boring every day jobs. If I want them to do better I need to tell them that I’m not happy with the choices they’re making now.

As kind of an aside, I think the paragraph you quoted from Alan was meant sarcastically towards some of the other folks earlier in the conversation.

Also, I think it’s neat that you’ve brought up the idea of a double standard, since that’s pretty much exactly what I think is going on in the portrayal of attractive women vs attractive men in media (and sort of what many of our arguments so far have been dancing around). I feel like some where along the line mainstream media got the idea that to be attractive a woman needs to be thin, buxom, and darn near naked (or at least wearing very tight clothing or showing a LOT of skin) while a man just needs to be athletic (in any of several body types) and flatteringly dressed.

Also, it’s sometimes frustrating for creators too that their work is represented differently to their intentions in marketing materials. I recently saw a really saddening example of this regarding Cannon Fodder, a game with a very clear anti-war message, but a title which apparently is open to misinterpretation (in tone) by marketing copywriters.

Thank you for clarifying your position on the games/narrative stuff.

Alan:

“I never assumed and certainly never said that “making characters aesthetically pleasing has to be sexually motivated.””

“Every single fighting game is full of bad ass women who can kick your ass while wearing sexy, inplausible outfits. Oh, and Lara Croft is totally sexy, confident, sexy, powerful, and sexy. And she manages it all while still remaining sexy.”

I guess I just didn’t like what this was insinuating.

Regarding the whole ‘no sexy men’ thing, I think there’s kind of a double standard going on there. Or at least, that equating masculine sexual exploitation to naked biceps is a bit narrow, but I guess that was Erik’s mistake. Kratos, Leon S. Kennedy, Dante, Vega, Solid Snake = arguably sexy game men?

However, I would like to defend myself from a few things that are simply wrong.

I never assumed and certainly never said that “making characters aesthetically pleasing has to be sexually motivated.”

I never said GladOS was a positive role model. I just brought up Shodan because you did. I had in fact forgotten that GladOS had been discussed earlier. GladOS and Shodan are nearly identical. Of course, I don’t really see either one was meaningfully “female.”

I did not “selectively choose” male examples. They’re who sprang to mind. Thinking a bit more about games I’ve played, let’s see: the anonymous protagonist in Crackdown: another heavily armored tank. Niko from GTA4: hardly the Chippendale dancer Erik suggested. The entire Call of Duty series and Medal of Honor series: reasonably dressed men. The Prince of Persia seris, finally a game with a moderately sexualized character! He’s occasionally running around shirtless. Of course, he loses a few points when you compare him to his opponents. I’m thinking as hard as I can (but remaining too lazy to actually get up and look at my video games. , and the Prince from Prince of Persia is as sexy as the men are getting. My original point, that Erik was silly suggest games have significant numbers of Chippendales dancers running around.

To tell you the truth I’m not inherently offended by this sort of marketing, but I do think it has all sorts of affects on people psychologically that we really ought to acknowledge. (Yes, I know games are not, by far, the worst offenders in trying to sell things with sex, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t complain.) Our society has so many problems with body image and self esteem that I just don’t think we really need to add more by having yet another aspect of our media that pushes unrealistic physical body type images on people every day. We could do so much better and still show plenty of beautiful and strong women in our games.

When I brought up standards of beauty I was not attempting to say that everything in every game is built to the same standard (please don’t try to put words in my mouth). I was attempting to say that your dig against Alan related to aesthetics was not very fair. What you see as aesthetically pleasing he may see as offensively exaggerated and vice versa. Everyone has different standards and I don’t think you’re allowing for that in your judgment of others’ opinions.

So… as far as your last two paragraphs go, I think you’re veering off into extremely misunderstanding me. I said nothing about how characters have to behave in a game, since I think this is generally not related to how they look. I do have strong feelings on this topic but I don’t really think they’re relevant to the current argument and to be honest they mostly have to do with my frustration with bad dialog (which can be entirely independent of any gender issues).

As far as the idea that games “*need* a character-driven cinema-aping story”, you are putting words in my mouth again. When I mentioned games with more highly developed characters I was speaking specifically to your point about characters as playing pieces. I suppose I can see how you may have confused some of my last paragraph, but my point there was not to say that most games suck. I was still trying to speak to the idea of innovatively interactive and highly developed characters being rare. Big companies usually don’t try to make them, because they are _hard_. I think this is sad, but I’m resigned to the fact that it is how things are and is not likely to change a lot.

If you want some examples of games that are more abstract (as in not visually realistic) or plot-light that I like, how about Okami (they weren’t shooting for realism), Katamari-damashi (it’s really both), or Mario 64 (I mean come on, the plot is like tissue paper thin…)? I certainly do think that you can make very good games which are not cinema-like or character-driven and over the years I’ve lost nearly all my taste for long RPGs.

Regarding standards of physical beauty, this again sounds too much like generalisation to me. Not every female character in every game is unrealistically proportioned or scantily clad, not anything like. Games where avatar customisation has been deemed important enough to be offered (RPGs, etc.) typically do offer the full spectrum of body shapes and sizes.

Maybe I didn’t make my point clear regarding ‘playing pieces’, as it shouldn’t be construed as belittling games. What I mean is that, even in games with a significant narrative/dramatic component, the characters must still serve game functions in addition to their roles in the story. A brilliantly written ally who routinely wanders into your line of fire is going to result in more annoyance than emotional investment.

Conversely, I take extreme offense at the idea that games that don’t *need* a character-driven cinema-aping story are somehow less valid. That’s not the only way that games communicate.

To be very clear, I don’t think any of us are saying you need to make characters hideous to make them realistic, but in part we _are_ talking about standards of beauty. I don’t need to be a 105 pound DD cup to be considered attractive in _real life_ so why the hell should I need to go to that extreme in a game? (Why should that be the only option I’m even offered?)

Please keep in mind that what is “aesthetically pleasing” always has been and always will be very subjective. I don’t personally find extreme body types in games and art inherently offensive, but I want the option of realism and I want at least some of the npcs in the world (in a non-massively multiplayer game) to be more normal. I’m not really interested in playing in a Hollywood fantasy land unless there’s actually a point for it in the game (and I mean like social commentary). I can rent big budget films any time I like if that’s what I want to see on the screen.

Also, I deeply object with your comment about characters in games being no more than playing pieces. This is akin to Ebert saying that games aren’t Art in my mind. I think 1) you are treating a subset of popular games as “the only kind of games that can or will ever be” and 2) have probably not played a number of very good but not highly publicized small games that do have three dimensional characters and well developed plots.

Big game makers don’t take risks, but that doesn’t mean that the medium can’t convey more than what they’re using it for. Or to state it differently, because 90% of everything is mediocre doesn’t mean you have to conclude that excellence is impossible.

Obviously all media would be better off with better realised characters regardless of gender, ethnicity or whatever else. Anybody who watches The Wire and laments the lack of other TV drama even trying to meet that standard can attest to this.

This doesn’t alter the fact that characters in games do not perform the same function as characters in drama. They are playing pieces, action figures, embodiments of specific feelings or traits, archetypes, with a few edge cases being called upon to perform any significant dramatic function. Failing to make this distinction skews the statistics (not that the lazy guesses made in the article are backed with concrete numbers, of course). Fighting game characters do not explore complex issues because they’re designed to look good kicking each other in the face.

I didn’t think there were many people still sufficiently isolated from games to fall into the trap of assuming that gamers leer over Lara Croft or look up to Duke Nukem. That’s not what these characters are designed to achieve, in any context. By the way, how is Shodan any less of a positive role model than GlaDOS, Alan De Smet? Good work on selectively choosing male characters to fit your argument too! Except I’m somewhat confused that you think the Gears of War characters are something other than ludicrously sexualised caricatures. We may be burly seven-foot-tall square-jawed hunks, but most people who buy games aren’t so lucky.

The assumption that games are exclusively made by or for heterosexual males is laughable and insulting, as is the fantasy scenario that women are frightened away from games that don’t treat their delicate sensibilities with kid gloves. Women play games about sexy elves and space marines too, and not through gritted teeth, or to make some kind of empowered ‘grrl!’ statement, but for the same reasons than men do.

If you want to vent your frustrations about unequal gender representation, why not address the root of the problem, an education system that fails to encourage women to pursue technical subjects, taking them out of the system entirely regardless of how rewarding games actually may be to them.

With the shift in how computers are integrated into society in the last decade, I would hope that things are getting better on that front.

P.S. If it’s inappropriate for me to post a link in my comment to you, please feel free to delete it. Thanks!

I still agree with Rosepixie that we need more non-insane NPCs, but that is a whole different issue.

I also think that folks are ignoring a pool of games that are marketed towards the general audience and towards women. The Wii has created quite a large interest in making games that are gender neutral and marketed more heavily to women but not quite so heavily tied to gender roles. Wii Fit is the most glaring example, but I’m sure you can all think of some others.

The fact that the Wii is bringing “average” women and men into the gaming population is a huge step forward, I think, since it will encourage companies to start/continue producing these much less sexuality and gender role bound games. Anywhere you put an incentive of money the industry will follow and the Wii is putting it in the right place. It makes me all warm and fuzzy thinking about it.