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

[Neil]

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.

Yeah, you know as well as I do that the ESA iincluding people playing PopCap games, Angry Birds and Words with Friends in there.  That's awesome, but it doesn't really have much bearing on the conversation.  Games without characters rarely cause people to discuss gender in game characters, and games without stories seldom have characters in a meaningful sense.

Given unlimited resources and storage in game production, I would say that it's a good decision to include as much content as possible to try and cast a wide net.  But given that we live in the real world, at some point you have to ask the question 'Who do I think is likely to buy my game, and how can I appeal to them as much as possible'.  If you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men.  Sure, you could absolutely include the option to play a female, especially for certain types of games.  You just can't put tons of resources into it, and that sometimes results in people getting mad at a 'tacked on' feeling.  That can be counterproductive.  It's a complex issue.

[Valmy]

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 will never understand why EQ is so special to you.  It struck me as pretty similar to the other MMORPGs and CRPGs that I have played.

[Valmy]

If you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men.

What exactly is considered a AAA title?  I have a feeling I have not played one in a long time.

[Neil]

If you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men.

What exactly is considered a AAA title?  I have a feeling I have not played one in a long time.

A title developed by a large studio, with a budget in the tens of millions, which is being made in the hopes of selling millions of copies.  They're usually shooters, and they are almost always for consoles first and foremost.  If you've seen a commercial for a game during a major sporting event, it's a AAA title.

[Valmy]

So would Dragon Age count?  Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one

[Barrister]

So would Dragon Age count?  Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one

Yes.

[The Larch]

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.

It is mentioned in the OP's article that it wasn't developed as a game by the studio, but was a hack done by some students that only afterwards was adopted.

[Razgovory]

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.

Political correctness is letting you serve in the army.

[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.

It is mentioned in the OP's article that it wasn't developed as a game by the studio, but was a hack done by some students that only afterwards was adopted.

Assuming the detail in the Wiki article is correct, that detail is misleading.

Ms. Pac-Man was originally conceived as an enhancement kit for Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, created by programmers employed at the General Computer Corporation (GCC).[4]

While Crazy Otto was under development, GCC settled a lawsuit with Atari over their Missile Command conversion kit Super Missile Attack. Part of the settlement terms barred GCC from selling future conversion kits without consent from the original game manufacturer. Rather than scrapping Crazy Otto entirely, the programmers decided to show it to Midway, Namco's American distributor of the original game. Midway had become impatient in waiting for Namco to release its next Pac-Man game (which would be Super Pac-Man), and were enthusiastic that such a game had come to their attention. They bought the rights to Crazy Otto, changed the sprites to fit the Pac-Man universe, renamed the game Ms. Pac-Man, and released it into arcades.[5] Shortly before release, Stan Jarocki of Midway stated that Ms. Pac-Man was conceived in response to the original Pac-Man being "the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players" and that it is "our way of thanking all those lady arcaders who have played and enjoyed Pac-Man."[6] The game was later awarded the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year at the 1982 Arcade Awards held in January 1983.[7]

After the game became wildly popular, Midway and GCC undertook a brief legal battle concerning royalties. The Killer List of Videogames notes that the game was accomplished without Namco's consent, causing both companies to eventually turn over the rights of Ms. Pac-Man to Namco. Ms. Pac-Man was reportedly the first of a series of unauthorized sequels that eventually led to the termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway.[4] GCC co-founder Doug Macrae has disputed stories that the game was manufactured without Namco's blessing, claiming that then-Namco president Masaya Nakamura had even provided feedback over character artwork during the game's development.[5]

Ms. Pac-Man was later released on the third Namco Museum game; however, there is no mention of it in Namco's official archives (including the archives on all of the Namco Museum releases).

In 2001, Namco released an arcade board featuring both Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga in honor of the 20th anniversary of both games with the subtitle "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981". It also features Pac-Man as a hidden bonus game. The later 25th Anniversary Edition allows all three games to be selected at the main menu.[citation needed]

The original "hack" was a game called "Crazy Otto", which wasn't a female-gendered game. Only when Midway got the game, having bought the rights to "Crazy Otto" did they change the sprites to female ane rename it "Ms. Pac-Man".

But hey, it's wiki. Maybe its totally wrong.

[The Larch]

Yeah, it's more or less what it says on the article:

One of the most famous videogame heroines actually grew out of a gender hack. In 1981, after the popularity of Namco Ltd.'s "Pac-Man," a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students made unauthorized modifications to create a game called "Crazy Otto." It featured a Pac-Man-like figure navigating mazes who, during intermissions, would meet a girl, fall in love and have a child.

The company with the rights to Pac-Man struck a licensing deal with the students, but wanted the game to be focused on the girl.

"They said make it really look female with hair and a bow and a beauty mark and lipstick," says Steve Golson, now 54, who was one of the MIT students. Eventually, they settled on a name: "Ms. Pac-Man."

[Neil]

So would Dragon Age count?  Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one

Yeah, although it was somewhat niche.  The real bigtime is stuff like Call of Duty or Gears of War.

[Jacob]

Yeah, you know as well as I do that the ESA iincluding people playing PopCap games, Angry Birds and Words with Friends in there.  That's awesome, but it doesn't really have much bearing on the conversation.  Games without characters rarely cause people to discuss gender in game characters, and games without stories seldom have characters in a meaningful sense.

Given unlimited resources and storage in game production, I would say that it's a good decision to include as much content as possible to try and cast a wide net.  But given that we live in the real world, at some point you have to ask the question 'Who do I think is likely to buy my game, and how can I appeal to them as much as possible'.  If you're making a AAA title, you're making games for young men.  Sure, you could absolutely include the option to play a female, especially for certain types of games.  You just can't put tons of resources into it, and that sometimes results in people getting mad at a 'tacked on' feeling.  That can be counterproductive.  It's a complex issue.

Not much to disagree with there.

I mean there's a cycle there, of making AAA games for men because men buy AAA games because they're made for men. Personally, I think it's perfectly fine to challenge and critique that, though it doesn't change the facts on the ground or the decisions you face when managing your resources. Like you say, it's a complex issue.

[Malthus]

Yeah, it's more or less what it says on the article:

One of the most famous videogame heroines actually grew out of a gender hack. In 1981, after the popularity of Namco Ltd.'s "Pac-Man," a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students made unauthorized modifications to create a game called "Crazy Otto." It featured a Pac-Man-like figure navigating mazes who, during intermissions, would meet a girl, fall in love and have a child.

The company with the rights to Pac-Man struck a licensing deal with the students, but wanted the game to be focused on the girl.

"They said make it really look female with hair and a bow and a beauty mark and lipstick," says Steve Golson, now 54, who was one of the MIT students. Eventually, they settled on a name: "Ms. Pac-Man."

It's not a "gender hack" by some students, though. It was the company's decision to deliberately change the gender of the character. Hence my point about the article being somewhat misleading.

Normally, when I read that a "gender hack" that created a wildly popular character, I'd assume that the students, bravely facing down the patriarchal indifference to everything female, had broken the envelope by making a character that was originally male into one that was female. The article more or less tells us that's what a "gender hack" is: unauthorized "female" versions of games made "male" by the companies. 

The teaser earlier in the article says:

In the original Super Mario Bros. game Mario saves Princess Peach.

Even the lipstick-lined Ms. Pac-Man started as a hack of the popular arcade game about her male counterpart.

The hackers do the gender switch by tapping into code from the games. They tend to focus on older titles because the programming and graphics are simpler than modern ones.

But in the case of Ms. Pac-Man, that's not what happened at all. It isn't a "hack" if the company with the rights to the title does it deliberately as part of its marketing. By that logic, every time a company comes out with a female version of a character originally male, it's a "gender hack". 

[Jacob]

So would Dragon Age count?  Seems like I saw some fancy ads for that one

Yeah, although it was somewhat niche.  The real bigtime is stuff like Call of Duty or Gears of War.

I'd add your GTA, FIFA, Rockband/Guitar Hero (when they were around), your Drake's, Assassin's Creed. Not just shooters, at least not the way I use the word.

But yeah, if you see substantial advertising in major markets then it's AAA.

[Siege]

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

Ok, I'm sold.
If there is money to be made, I'm all for it.