It's so true, female video game characters are so crappy in general

Chell disagrees with you.

But yeah, especially Japanese-y games have pretty stereotypical female characters it seems.
 
hey um. I hate to break this to you, but that's a dude. Go look it up :")

Please tell me you didn't..nvm I don't wanna know.
 
Mass Effect games disagree with you but I think you're right 99 percent of the time. When it comes to Japanese games , women are 99.9999 percent of the time portrayed as innocent Japanese school girls or something of the like. Sexism in Japan is incredibly high. So its not really surprising (even remotely so) that this continues to be the trend. Japan will have some of the greatest growing pains in this regard.

However its a male dominated industry , if more women got into development/publishing positions then they would have a greater say in its content. And the more women game and start to get into gaming in general the greater the odds of them seeking out career opportunities in game development.

But games are just exploiting what is being exploited nearly by every form media , sex sells and well at that. I'd love to see more games developed by women that give a damn about gaming. More originality and input is always a good thing.
 
Valve games tend to have non-offensive female characters:

- Chell
- Alyx
- Zoey
- Rochelle
- Pyro...

Other games with non-terrible (i.e. overly sexualized) female leads: Dreamfall / The Longest Journey, Beyond Good and Evil, Borderlands
 
Sensationalist troll talks with sensationalist drama queen & deduces that all female characters in games are lacking. These very games are overly violent & sexist (including characterless puzzle games!).

This is profound logic & I must comply with it. :rolleyes:

What I don't get is how an art director can give such a strong opinion if she really hasn't done any gaming at all? Without knowing what some games have in terms of female characters, her view is extremely narrow & generalized. Hell... seems like gaming is too complex for her personal tastes.
 
well, if they cared more about thier product, they wouldnt have to "bounce" things around you know, something that is missing for the last few years is general polish behind what the devs want to puh out there, more worried about high tech graphics and the newest "fads" like they do with the movies. They should just be more concerned with natural beauty of thier art, thier story telling, and generally more concerned with pushing the best game they can, even though they and we know there will be some bugs and some problems.

3 games that come to mind recently Civ 5, TES Skyrim, Red Orchestra 2. All excellent made games in my opinion, laid back visuals in a certain aspect but plenty nice enough to enjoy the game. Sure they have thier bugs, but I will gladly deal with them for the games that they are. I actually find it disgracefull that I have more fun with some older $10 games such as Killing Floor that I do not agro as much vs a game that cost $60+ like BF3 which in so many ways lost its way cause of devs to focused on "keeping up with the jonses" instead of focusing on pushing the best they can do with what they have experience in.

Goes to show sex and hollywood graphics may sell, but in the end, they simply do not outweigh the "fun factor" lower tech games tend to offer, not to mention, simplicity is a selling point, one that has never changed :)
 
maybe he should just get over it. It's just as much females fault as men's fault. I'll leave you with this quote "Sex sells because it isn't free"
 
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But in all honesty, There are more and more unique and interesting female characters showing up in gaming, however we do still have the sexist stigma within the industry. I don't think the problem is anyone's 'fault' so much as it is a cause and effect of society at large. Take for instance: You'll find more sexism (by an order of magnitude) in the top-ten music video list at any given time than in interactive arts, showing that it's not a gaming issue, but a societal trend. If you ask me, I think the Games Industry is pushing forward in that respect.
 
This thread made me think of this Avengers poster, where an artist redrew the poster with the male Avengers doing "female poses" and Black Widow doing a classic male pose.

Original:
parody-original.jpg


Re-done:
malke-avengers-do-brokeback-pose.jpg
 
While this is some what true but the point is also somewhat lost in the fact that most women in real life are in fact crappy in general.

They get better with age but when was the last time you saw an attractive, educated, intelligent woman who was about more than celeberty gossip, parting, and talking shit of face book?

But I still get your point. and along that point Male characters aren't any better in both fiction and non fiction.
 
stevedave said:
While this is some what true but the point is also somewhat lost in the fact that most women in real life are in fact crappy in general.

They get better with age but when was the last time you saw an attractive, educated, intelligent woman who was about more than celeberty gossip, parting, and talking shit of face book?
Click to expand...

This quote shows game makers are just catering to their audience, obviously. :p (And you should get out more!)
 
Komskies said:
This thread made me think of this Avengers poster, where an artist redrew the poster with the male Avengers doing "female poses" and Black Widow doing a classic male pose.

Original:
parody-original.jpg


Re-done:
malke-avengers-do-brokeback-pose.jpg
Click to expand...

fixed
 
TwistedAegis said:
This quote shows game makers are just catering to their audience, obviously. :p (And you should get out more!)
Click to expand...

No way I'm staying in way too many Snookie Monsters outside. That caterer sure isn't catering to me that's for sure.
 
who doesnt want something pretty to look at? would u rather have a ugly ai character or a pretty one.
 
Games need conflict to be interesting. Doesn't have to be gore fest, but conflict is needed. If you don't want conflict, go play sims or second life.

Many games that give the choice of being male/female (like Fallout or Oblivion) aren't overly sexualized either. Actually there are a lot of RPGs that don't have things like chainmail bikinis and such. Maybe have your friend play Hydrophobia prophesy. That doesn't really fit the stereotype.
 
Skyrim isn't overly sexualized, either. Unless you count the mods...that's something else altogether. :eek:
 
TwistedAegis said:
Skyrim isn't overly sexualized, either. Unless you count the mods...that's something else altogether. :eek:
Click to expand...

Bethesda one of the few games makers that are more concerned doing the best they can and not worrying about popular trends or overdoing anything, I like thier games, so many mods and such one can do to bring about the "appeal" boost graphics or whatever.

But I do kind of agree, why are we getting bombarded by hot chicks in games and such, the way they act in games, and what is in real life are far to different, they really should tone it back, least younger players get the wrong image of what "women" are or need to be treated like. Should the game be filled with ugly women hell no, but there truly is no need for game makers like Bioware to put more focus on making a characters "assets" more appealing to draw attention away from possibly thier "overdone" graphics or lack of a good game.

Sex sells, but isnt this what pron or red light districts are for?
 
OP, your coworker is a hag. Tell her to grab you a bottle of whisky and get to bakin some pies. FFS
 
There's more to sexiness than pixelated boobs. A great character personality with great voice acting is real nice. Sassy/witty sarcasm or similar such.
 
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AmberClad said:
Valve games tend to have non-offensive female characters:

- Chell
- Alyx
- Zoey
- Rochelle
- Pyro...

Other games with non-terrible (i.e. overly sexualized) female leads: Dreamfall / The Longest Journey, Beyond Good and Evil, Borderlands
Click to expand...

I think Alyx Vance is the sexiest character to ever exist. Book, Comic, Videogame, Movie. I really do think she's my favorite female character.

Edit: I should say that second place, in my book, goes to Tali.
 
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Godmachine said:
Mass Effect games disagree with you but I think you're right 99 percent of the time. When it comes to Japanese games , women are 99.9999 percent of the time portrayed as innocent Japanese school girls or something of the like. Sexism in Japan is incredibly high. So its not really surprising (even remotely so) that this continues to be the trend. Japan will have some of the greatest growing pains in this regard.

However its a male dominated industry , if more women got into development/publishing positions then they would have a greater say in its content. And the more women game and start to get into gaming in general the greater the odds of them seeking out career opportunities in game development.

But games are just exploiting what is being exploited nearly by every form media , sex sells and well at that. I'd love to see more games developed by women that give a damn about gaming. More originality and input is always a good thing.
Click to expand...

Mass Effect is a weird case for a number of reasons. Female Shepard behaves almost exactly like male Shepard about 99% of the time. There are some differences in how lines are delivered, because you have a male vs. female actors and they each do the lines slightly differently while trying to be more or less the same person. Though I've noticed Mass Effect 3 changes this up a bit with female Shepard's personality and dialog coming across more feminine than she was in the past. But essentially all ass kicking girls in games, movies, TV shows etc. are all pretty much the same. Mass Effect is different in that Shepard is one way, minus your own choices and the gender makes little difference in the behavior of the character.

Of course Mass Effect also disagrees in that their female characters are more diverse. Some are closer to the stereo typical female ass kickers, and others are quite a bit different. I don't want to get overly specific, but there is a world of difference between say Ashley Williams and Liara T'Soni. Beyond their species, their personalities are radically different. In fact Ashley is closer to Kaiden Alenko than any one else. Not so much in the first game, but in ME2, Kaiden is largely a stand in for Ashley with the comparisons between them being slightly more like female Shepard vs. male Shepard. Pretty much the same person, but one is female and the other is male. This of course shifted back in ME3 with them being a bit different. They still end up in pretty much the same situations as the other, but there is more variance in their personalities this time around. But despite Liara and Samara both being the same species, they are radically different characters. Jack is nothing like Miranda, or Tali. The list goes on and on as Mass Effect's split between males and females is unusually close to being even.

Bomo said:
I think Alyx Vance is the sexiest character to ever exist. Book, Comic, Videogame, Movie. I really do think she's my favorite female character.

Edit: I should say that second place, in my book, goes to Tali.
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I've never understood this. Her dialog in the game is minor compared to female characters in other games and while she's fairly attractive, she isn't gorgeous or anything. But to me nothing really stands out about her. Tali is interesting in that you really don't get to see her for the most part, but she's still appealing. Her personality is weird because she's like a school girl with a crush but then she can kick ass whenever she needs to and she's strong enough to handle all kinds of shit. Her father dying, getting shot at and seeing a lot of messed up crap. (Like people being processed into meat paste.) Personally, I prefer Liara over all other female characters in Mass Effect. Not that she's necessarily my favorite fictional chick, as that would be something I'd have to seriously think about.
 
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The trend now, at least with AAA titles, has been a departure from the stereotypical portrayal of women in games. Like many have said, Mass Effect is a good example, but you can take it even further. I remeber when Bulletstorm was coming out one of the developers at Epic was commenting on how Epic likes to make their female characters attractive but not over the top. The new Tomb Raider appears to even be taking a step back from the classic look of Lara to a more realistic style.
 
Lunar said:
The new Tomb Raider appears to even be taking a step back from the classic look of Lara to a more realistic style.
Click to expand...

The new Lara is a whole lot more attractive to me. :) Kudos to Eidos for being smart about the new design.
 
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