Rant on Sexism in Gaming

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Just look at this trailer for "Dead Or Alive: Xtreme 2": (it's the E3 2006 one, so if you've already seen it, no need to follow the link)

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php? ... ov&pl=game


The original was widely scorned for its lack of gameplay, and the way that one of its main selling points was well-rendered jiggly breasts. (There was no nudity in the game until a mod with it came out, however.) How they could make a sequel to a game that was so widely scorned as an "embaressment" to the industry is beyond me...but then, it did sell well, mostly because of moronic young men.

It's not like gaming hasn't been rampant with sexism in the past. I mean, practically every female character to appear in a game (excluding some unimportant NPC's in RPG's) has fit the media's idea of what is attractive: skinny as hell with huge tits. The faces of models and the bodies of pornstars. Even those with more realistic proportions, such as "Max Payne 2"'s deliberately-flat-chested Mona Sax, tend to be sex symbols in some way, even when they are given personalities. Mona is a great example of how sexy women can work in games--she's got a complex sense of right and wrong. She's definately got a personality, and her sexiness is attainable and realistic, and is due to her seductive behavior moreso than her base appearance. But the problem is, even with the personality, she still is a sex object--hell, even her NAME sounds vaguely like "moaning sex." So while she's a good example of a sexy female character, she's still a sexy female character in an industry where practically every female character IS sexy in some way, save perhaps the protagonists of the "Longest Journey" games. How many "token hot elf girls" and "Lara Croft, except maybe with rocket launchers and cyborg implants" types have we seen? So it's not like that's anything new. But still, that "Dead Or Alive: Xtreme 2" trailer is just degrating.

By having a game that basically comprises mainly of the gamer staring at boobs flap around unrealistically (especially with that tee-shirt), you're basically selling softcore porn pretending to be a game. Now, porn's rampant with sexism, too, that's a whole 'nother rant, but it's not like I'm really anti-porn or anything...I mean, I don't really get the incentive most of the time, but for those people that do, it's great because it's way better for horny adolescents to be watching people have sex or get naked than for them to do so themselves. (Masturbation's one of the best means for birth control IMO.) Rather, my problem is this: games are, by and large, basically taking the worst aspects of pornography, even though they strive so hard to cencore and remove any nudity or sex. I mean, that whole "GTA: San Andreas - Hot Coffee" scandle is so ridiculous. I've seen screenshots from the mod--the woman's even got a top on! And yet still that was enough to warrent an AO rating, even as the M-rated "Soldier of Fortune" games let you shoot off practically every appendege on the human body; cut off enemies' faces; and shoot enemies' bellies so that their guts pile out. Interesting how that's not enough to warrent AO but a sex scene that doesn't even have any nudity is.

Meanwhile, with DoA: Xtreme 2, you have a game that is essentially porn, but being sold as a game anyway, even though the actual product will probably be near-devoid of actual gameplay. Also, notice porn is degrating to both genders--I mean, those guys don't exactly have the most realistic proportions, either. You could say the same of game protagonists--many are so muscular that, in real life, puss could be spurting out of their necks in yellow gysers, and few have personalities. The women, again, are sex symbols, and little more, in both mediums. The dialogue and voice acting in nearly all games is typically on par with such found in pornography. But while pornography's use is to become a catalyst for masturbation and therefore birth control, the point of games is to entertain, and I don't like that the industry of one of my favorite hobbies has decided to take all the crappy aspects of pornography while avoiding its single good aspect.

My point here is that if games are going to emulate pornography, they should at least take the good aspects rather than the bad. People need to loosen up about sexuality in gaming, because some sex is beautiful. It's the creation of life. Violence is the ending of it, and yet violent games can go all the way. Sexual games can't even show a tit. However, it doesn't look like any of this is gonna change; so games are just gonna continue to have crappy writing and voice acting and rampant degredation of both genders.

It's no wonder there aren't a lot of girl gamers, and it's no wonder that so many of the ones that do exist just stick to "The Sims" and its sequel. See, that's all the more reason why "Heavy Rain" got my vote Best in Show in E3 2006: here you have a female character who, frankly, isn't outwardly sexy (hell, her voice makes her decidedly un-sexy), and yet is developed and seems to be a major character. That's something I can root for, even if the gameplay (like "Indigo Prophecy" before it) boils down to simon says minigames most of the time. Games can be better than this; it's time the medium was challenged by realistic and independant female characters that don't exist just to look sexy, or at the very least show a greater variety of beauty. Have some more goths, and not just in the few vampire games that come out. Not every woman in the world looks like she came from the pages of Playboy or Maxim or Hentai. We need more ugly female protagonists, too. Because, really...how many male protagonists have we seen with faces like bricks, even if they're muscular as hell?

I totally 100% agree that females in games are almost always portayed in the light your mentioned, however the gaming companies seem to know their audience and know what they want. If it sells then they make it....@_@

In the USA, that is. Not the whole world. It seems that in the USA, nudity and sexuality are seen as bad, while violence is seen as good. Altho' it is not quite as simple as that because there is plenty of hypocrisy involved as well.

You can thank the religious crazies in the US for the mentally disturbed idea that nudity is wrong. Yet another example of the harm that religion does to society.

If religion was somehow able to get realistic females in video gaming- although I don't know how- I personally would be all for it.

Yes, most females in games are portrayed unrealistically. If women played games, they would have much less problem putting them in less sexist settings. Until then, this is capitalism for you.

I have mixed feelings on this.

Because although I don't like sexism, sexuality is part of what it means to be human.

I've thought about this a bit, because this is something that bothers me as well. It seems like there are pretty much two options for 'strong' female characters. Either they're heavily sexualized, or they're filling in for a 'male' role. Frequently the two get mixed.

But then again, I'd say this is better then just pretending women don't have a sexuality and/or that they are weak and need men.


There's always the option of where the use of female characters is something that is just incidental. And that actually happens a fair amount. In the way that you don't particularly notice if there is a male character.


You also see a lot of shirtless muscle bound freaks blowing up things, which is itself also sexist. I mean if you think about it, there aren't a lot of games which focus on conflict resolution (I've played enough games to know that many do involve non violent conflict resolution, but for most games which do involve conflict, it tends to be violent)


So yeah. My problem isn't with sex in video games, but sexism. And as I see it, the only way to avoid sexism, and stereotypes to begin with is with a lot of character depth.

It's kinda different thou. Historically, men have been the ones oppressing women. Yes, technically I agree with you, however once you take the history into account, men shouldn't be as sensitive as women when it comes to this topic as men haven't been the ones oppressed.

We're long overdue for sexism. It's like that volcano under Yellowstone. Just because it hasn't happened in a while doesn't mean it couldn't be right around the corner.

To me how sensitive one is, based on what a group one has been associated with isn't an issue. At the very least, 'right' and 'wrong' aren't things that can really be measured.


Women having to put up with a lot of crap to me doesn't mean neither that men aren't allowed to say when sexism affects them, nor that they should have to go through the same thing.

(I mean, this is the kind of thinking that causes war. It's the same thing, but on a different scale)


Of course, as with female sexism, a lot of the problem comes from the same group, and oneself. (You're not a real man/woman if you don't <arbitary thing here>)


And I'm not going to say that they're the same thing. Because they're not. They are however more similar than not.

I agree with Xuincherguixe; the problem is not so much about sexism as it is about rampant stereotyping. And this goes for both sexes, and other population groups.

Personally, I believe the past actions of major actions of groups in the past do affect sensitivity of people currently. Could you explain why you don't argee? I always like to hear other people's point of view on important issues like this.

To Xuincherguixe and Enigmatic Oddity:

I know what you guys mean...it just kind of spilled out there. I still think games are taking the worst aspects of porn and ignoring the single good aspect, though at least game developers don't get AIDs for their trade.


Emp:

Yeah, this was mainly directed towards the American gaming industry, but I still see the same in a lot of European and Asian games.

Game developers aren't entirely responsible for the content of games, anyway. The majority of the buying public are more likely to buy a game with sex appeal, so it makes perfect sense for developers to put sexually provocative content in their games. And there's probably a large number of developers out there who could benefit from putting this stuff into their products, but they don't and they get less sales as a result.

Even though some of us may dislike sexism and stereotyping, we're only a few people. In the end it's all about giving people what they want, and given that the majority of gamers are young horny males, that mainly means sex.

Most men are sexist. Most video gamers are desparate. Most graphics are damn near realistic. 2 and 2 and 2 makes 6. Capitalism breeds this kind of thing at an incredible rate. If the FCC weren't around FOX would be showing hard core porn by now and ESPN would be showing Secratariat vs. Drederick Tatum(obscure Simpsons reference).

Oh, very well put. Couldn't agree more. Guess this is one of those quoted for truth.

But the thing is, games don't have sex. Just sexism towards both genders, poor acting, poor scripting, etc., all the crappy aspects of pornography. Yet whenever anything remotely resembling nudity is involved, then gaming publishers want nothing to do with it. I wouldn't have such a problem with it if some games actually had some slightly more sexual content, because then they'd at least provide a mastrubatory outlet like pornography does, rather than just taking all the bad aspects of porn. Of course, the best thing would be if they actually dropped the terrible trends they have now and actually focused on having great writing and acting and plot and characters, and on actually having artistically appealing graphics rather than just technologically groundbreaking ones that, despite the somewhat cool effects, are actually kind of quite ugly. (Look at FEAR (one of my current poster children for everything wrong with the gaming industry): Ugly grey corridor after ugly grey corridor.)