Fans Take Videogame Damsels Out of Distress, Put Them in Charge

[Valmy]

Japanese make sexist games.  I playes as females all the time when I was a kid in proper Western games.   The only western Super Mariio, granted an adoption of a Japanese game, Super Mario2 you could be the Princess and she was the best character anyway.

Ok I am mostly kidding about the Japanese, but I found it striking all their examples were Japanese games.  Weird.

I think my issue with this controversy is it seems to entirely involve games and genres I do not play.  I mean in Adventure and RPGs I have had since the 80s I have rescuing dudes with ladies forever.

[merithyn]

If Lara Croft were a man:


More here, Meri
http://www.cnet.com.au/meet-larry-croft-if-lara-was-a-man-339344728.htm

Oh.... my....

[merithyn]

Typical feminist nonsense.  They want to enter areas that are predominantly male, and then try and ruin it.

Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.

Serious question: how would having strong female protagonists in games "ruin it"? I know you're trolling, but I've actually heard this before, and it confuses me. No one is asking that ALL games be about women or that girls have a character that saves the boys in every game. Only that there are SOME games that have that option.

It's like a girl setting up a sandbox next to a boy's and him claiming that she's ruined the entire playground. I don't get it. 

[merithyn]

Given this pic, I agree with garbon. Besides, he looks like he's an 18-year-old boy in this.

[Jacob]

Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.

That depends on what you mean by "predominantly". If you think a 55% male, 45% female split means "predominantly", then you're correct but personally I'd not agree: http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp

Now, there are definitely certain types of games that tend to attract a predominantly male audience and those games do tend to have male protagonists, but the causality could go either way here. Maybe if there were some better female characters in those genres, more women would play those games. Personally I see it not in terms of ruining anything, or social justice, or media images or whatever; I see it as potential market opportunities.

[Malthus]

Don't most games these days in fact have female protagonist characters as a choice? 

Mind you, I'm pretty limited in the games I actually play.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Don't most games these days in fact have female protagonist characters as a choice? 

Mind you, I'm pretty limited in the games I actually play.

That would be the case in the games I play. I'm either playing games like EU3, Victoria2 etc....where you play a nation, or MMOs where you get to choose your characters sex 

[Siege]

Are you fukin kidding me?
Are we really going down this road of political correctness?

You know what? I'm gonna stay home with my baby boy, and send my wife to deploy as an infnatry squad leader and save the fukin world.

[Valmy]

Are you fukin kidding me?
Are we really going down this road of political correctness?

You know what? I'm gonna stay home with my baby boy, and send my wife to deploy as an infnatry squad leader and save the fukin world.

Does she meet the fitness requirements? :

[Valmy]

Typical feminist nonsense.  They want to enter areas that are predominantly male, and then try and ruin it.

Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.

I find it bizarre that you are saying this considering Bioware caters to female gamers pretty extensively

[Admiral Yi]

Jacob has the right attitude.  If there's money to be made in games with female protagonists, they will be made. 

[Valmy]

Jacob has the right attitude.  If there's money to be made in games with female protagonists, they will be made. 

Those games have been made and they have sold, since for as long as computer games have been made.  It is kind of weird why more of them are not made but that video I posted in the Games HQ sort of speaks a bit to that.  That puzzle, that those games were made and did well but did not seem to lead to anything, is the weird part.

[Neil]

Typical feminist nonsense.  They want to enter areas that are predominantly male, and then try and ruin it.

Gamers are men and boys, and therefore the main characters in games tend to be men and boys.

Serious question: how would having strong female protagonists in games "ruin it"? I know you're trolling, but I've actually heard this before, and it confuses me. No one is asking that ALL games be about women or that girls have a character that saves the boys in every game. Only that there are SOME games that have that option.

It's like a girl setting up a sandbox next to a boy's and him claiming that she's ruined the entire playground. I don't get it.

It wouldn't necessarily ruin it.  After all, there are all kinds of games that can be fun with a woman protagonist.  I'm just saying that feminists want to ruin it, by eliminating strong men and masculinity from gaming.  Mainly because they're bad people.

And while personally I have a hard time enjoying a game with a female main character, I know that plenty of other people don't feel that way.  I just don't feel that every game should have both a male and female character.  That way lies identity-politics madness.

[Malthus]

Going back in history, apparently "Ms. Pac Man" was the most popular American-made arcade video game of all time, and one of the most popular video games ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Illinois-based Midway Manufacturing corporation. It was released one year after the company's Pac-Man arcade game. Ms. Pac-Man was released in North America in 1981[1] and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licensor Namco as an official title. The game introduced a female protagonist, new maze designs, and several other gameplay changes over the original game. It became the most successful American-produced arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.

So a game with a female protagonist always could make money, and they did exist, right back to the beginning of video games.

[merithyn]

To be honest, I don't play many video games because there aren't many that I enjoy. I was a huge EQer - which I loved - and I really enjoyed Myst. I loved Wurm Online until it became all about the PvP. I've played Tale in the Desert, though I get bored with it fairly quickly. Beyond that, not a whole lot that I find fun. But then, I'm totally not anyone's target audience.

I have no idea what games are out there, or whether or not they're geared toward boys, girls, adults, kids... no clue. I just thought the article was interesting.