The subject of the portrayal of women
in the fictional media is one that's coming up a lot at the moment in
various contexts. Nowhere, however, is that debate engendering a more
bitter battle than in the field of video games. Change in other areas
is slow – due to a lack of will to change from an existing
profitable formula to a more enlightened one and a simple blindness
to issues obvious to insightful commentators. However, the process of
change within video games is one that some people are actually
fighting viciously to stop. In this article, I'll be looking at why.
It's easy to prove that historically
female video game characters have been thinner on the ground than
their male counterparts. Even today, a flat majority of playable
protagonists are male. In fact, the situation is so bad that when a
video for the 'No Right Answer' column at the end of August decided
to debate the identity of the 'Strongest Female Video Game Lead Ever'
both of their short-listed choices were NPCs. There are many
criticisms I could make of the video, but the fact that some gamers
are unclear on the concept of what a 'female lead character' actually
is really speaks for itself.
An increasing number of games permit
the player to select their own gender, but story-led games of this
type often presume a male when any kind of default canon is
established for tie-in fiction. When playing the generally very good
Dragon's Dogma, it was extremely noticeable to my gamer wife that all
of the plot-critical female characters seemed physically attracted to
her female PC as well as my own male (to the point of hilarious
soft-focus jingly cut-scenes). Whilst games like Dragon Age II have
embraced widespread bisexuality for inclusiveness and player choice,
we really didn't notice the other men swooning over my character very
much – leaving a distinct feeling of 'we assumed you'd pick a male
character..' in the game with the best custom creation I've ever
seen.
Beyond this, video game characters
display the same kind of physical 'ideal' as comic book characters.
The default body type of the majority of female characters still
approaches porn-star extremes. As far as costume is concerned female
armour in video games is notorious, being seemingly constructed to
expose as much of the body as possible.
It's generally pointed out that male
characters are idealised to the same degree. This is broadly true, except that the males owe more to what
men want than what women do. Whilst there are a lot of young males
who genuinely seem to think that having breasts the size of her head
is the last word in sexy, I'm not sure there is the same female
consensus regarding biceps wider than your face. In any case, male
characters do not often flaunt their bodies in the same way in terms
of demeanour and clothing. Male characters as a whole also display a
lot more physical variety, if only because there are more of them. To
quote Bob Chipman, the most popular male video game character of all
time is 'a short, fat, hairy guy with an unglamorous blue collar
job'.
Ladies.
Mostly, the traditional logic behind
these design choices has been 'gamers are young males'. However, I
suspect that another important argument in favour has simply been
'why not?' A sexy female character gives male gamers a better
experience than a non-sexy one. If you're going to have a female
character either way, why not give a portion of your audience the
extra pleasure in a medium that exists almost entirely to please?
The answer to this can be seen if we
change around the demographics concerned a bit. Imagine if it was an
omnipresent convention that all male video game protagonists express
homosexual interest in another male at least once during a game. I'm
not saying that all those straight romance sub-plots are thrown out,
just that some brief peripheral bisexual reference is made that has
no real bearing on the wider game. Would this be regarded as a little
bonus for the gay male gamer that had no bearing on anyone else's
play experience?
The results are very much already in on this one. Some time ago, a straight male gamer on Bioware's forums expressed great displeasure that at one point in Dragon Age II a male NPC makes a romantic advance on your protagonist, even if you are playing a man. He felt that including such content was 'neglecting' the straight male gamer demographic by including something that made them uncomfortable (in an 18-rated dark fantasy game, incidentally). This is far from the only protest about forward gay NPCs in the Dragon Age series and unfortunately it has had some effect. Even when responding to the absurd post, the developer who did so admitted that he doubted he'd do it again – despite having previously adopted the logic that it made no sense for all romantic interest to be up to the protagonist to initiate.
An even more extreme example can be seen in the story of the more recent game Remember Me. Not only did some publishers refuse to consider the game simply because the main character was female, but others baulked at the idea that she would initiate heterosexual romantic contact with NPCs because “you can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game.” There's so much wrong with this that it's just not funny. I strongly considered buying the game (which looks pretty cool, despite reportedly mediocre implementation of some of the ideas) if only to vindicate the publisher who finally did take a shot with it. I failed to do so only because of a typically eye-watering release price combined with a reputedly small completion time – a problem that Christmas has now fixed.
The bottom line is that including
content designed to appeal to sexual demographics outside the
straight male leaves straight males feeling 'this is not for me'. The
fact that this causes them to think 'therefore it should not exist'
is a BIG problem, but if all games triggered that feeling they'd be
quite legitimate in asking the question 'why is nothing for me?'
Now flick back to female characters.
Dressing like a hooker is a choice (or so the designers who dress
these characters tell us). Acting in a manner designed to provoke
everyone in the vicinity (most of whom appear to be beyond the fourth
wall at any given moment) is a choice. In the real world, these are
not choices that everyone makes – and many who don't do not regard
them as aspirational fantasies or embodiments of the heroic ideal.
Factor in body image fantasies that are more about what men want to
see than what women want to have and a lot of female gamers are going
to be left thinking that the character is explicitly not intended for
them. When EVERY female character evokes that feeling, female gamers
get left asking 'why is nothing for me?'
In the early days, individual female
gamers wrote that they played games and were sure others did too, so
could they have games for them please? Nowadays female gamers have
read enough such articles from others like themselves to point out
that they are obviously a large demographic - and that continuing to
build games on the basis of 'gamers are young males' is to build them
on a provable fallacy. Female gamers are getting louder within the
gaming community and we're starting to see signs that change can
happen. The reaction to these signs from some male gamers has not
been pretty.
Almost any time a female commentator
talks about the direction that games should take or the problems in
attitude of the current content, there is a torrent of abuse directed
at them from certain sections of the gamer community. When a player
within an online game is identified as female, sexist abuse and
harassment are frequently directed toward them.
While this kind of behaviour isn't
present in all sections of gaming and such backlashes are sometimes
suffered by male commentators too, there is a definite undercurrent
of 'fighting for a cause' where women are concerned. Some gamers have
claimed that sexist abuse and harassment are part of the 'culture' of
the gaming community (which is odd, since they probably don't
consider the presence of women a traditional part of that culture)
and that wiping it out would diminish that culture. Gamers have
lashed out at negative reactions to the above-described portrayal of
women in modern games, claiming that such criticism threatens to
'neuter' future game production. As indefensible as it would still
have been, Anita Sarkeesian didn't receive that infamous torrent of
abuse because her attackers were too angry at what she said to remain
civil. The whole thing happened before her disappointingly
over-laboured first video even hit the web. The point of the attack
was to silence her before she spoke, out of fear that if she was
heard something might change.
A far more subtle undercurrent of this
attitude can be seen in the recent savaging of game critic Carolyn
Petit, who awarded GTA V a mere 9 out of 10. The principle flaws? 'An
unnecessary strain of misogynistic nastiness' and 'serious issues
with women'. Before the related comment threads were overwhelmed with
back and forth about whether calling the transgendered reviewer 'she'
was appropriate or not, there was a lot of complaint that the lowered
score was unfair because Petit's discomfort with those issues didn't
affect the quality of the game.
On the surface, one can have a certain
amount of sympathy with the complaints. Marking down GTA for a lack
of political correctness does feel like raising the bar at missing
the point. On the other hand, a reviewer's assigned score has no
meaning whatsoever except 'this is how much I recommend you play it'.
Surely, therefore, it makes sense that anything which dents a
player's enjoyment ought to lower the rating they assign.
Is saying 'marking down GTA for
misogyny is unfair' the same as saying 'misogyny is not a valid thing
to call out as a flaw'? Is saying 'marking down GTA because you
didn't enjoy it is unfair' the same as saying 'the success of a video
game shouldn't be judged by its ability to please gamers called
Carolyn'? I fear the answer is yes to both questions.
I'm not saying that all those who
argued against Petit's objections are the same type of people that
send hateful threats, but the outcry seems to be based upon the same
fear – that lowered reviews based on objections of this type will
cause developers to alter future production,Therefore, such things
can't be allowed to pass unchallenged.
Faced with such a campaign, it's no
surprise that some people have attempted to calm the rabid fears
driving these actions. One of the popular arguments is simply that
whatever happens to future games, no one is going to take away the
ones you already own.
On the surface, this is fair point. The
ambition of software distributors to make continued use of
single-player content dependant on an internet umbilical to their
expensively-maintained servers HAS made spontaneous game loss a
reasonable worry in another context, but it really doesn't apply
here. No amount of change in ideas will result in people coming to
your home to confiscate your hard copies, nor is it likely to result
in the termination of the 'service' of server-linked games. So why
worry?
Unfortunately, the ability of a game to
engage with us on a purely visual level is severely tied to its level
of technology. Movie special effects that looked 'real' when we first
saw them are now so outmoded that we can see the flaws and their
spectacle suffers gravely as a result. Video games are the same and
their technology is galloping along just as fast as cinematic magic.
Whip-wielding teacher Quistis is theoretically a desirable character
– certainly belonging alongside Tifa and Lulu on the list of
'characters the Final Fantasy protagonist SHOULD have romanced'.
However, the odds of her appearance exciting a modern player are
somewhat reduced by the fact that she apparently consists of about
ten polygons. There was a time when FFVIII blew audiences away with
its stunning visuals, but that time has long past. Gamers who want
these kind of portrayals don't want to be playing the same games in
five or ten years time. They want to be playing the latest triple A
game using cutting edge graphical wonders – just as long as it uses
them to do exactly the same thing as all of its predecessors.
Another argument is that as long as a
market exists for these games, there's no reason they won't still be
made - they just won't be the only thing being made any more. If more
women are coming into gaming and men aren't leaving, that means more
games are being sold – so more should get made. If the same number
of men are still willing to buy the same number of games, they should
still get the same number being pitched at them – right?
Sadly, game publishing history has
given little reason for confidence in this argument. There is hardly
any sign that the corporate meetings of the big-money publishers
contain ideas like 'our market research shows 60% male and 40%
female, so let's get 3 games aimed at men and 2 games aimed at women
out this year'. To all outward appearances, the meeting goes more
like this: 'our market research shows that most gamers are male, so
let's make sure all 5 of our big launches this year specifically
target that demographic'. This is even true with the genres and play
types being funded, as more and more games start to try and emulate
Call of Duty.
Only a handful of game producers have
figured out the secret formula that unites almost all gamers –
their love of playing a really good game. I don't classify myself as
a wild fan of tower defence or point-and-click adventures, but I
definitely made time for Plants Vs. Zombies and The Walking Dead. In
fact, a love of really good games is the only logical reason that
female gamers exist so widely in a medium that stubbornly refuses any
conscious attempt to appeal to them.
Unfortunately, a widespread realisation
of this simple fact has yet to occur. It would be nice to think that
absorption of a changed attitude to the presentation of female
characters will lead to diversification – but it's a perfectly
reasonable fear that it will instead lead to an absolute change in
the ubiquitous paradigm. If these figures fall out of vogue, they may
rapidly become practically extinct.
I'm not actually sure that an argument exists that can calm the fears of those who are fighting to prevent any change to the representation of women in games. In a sense, they are correct – something that they enjoy really might get taken away because other people disapprove of it. The benefits of the accompanying artistic growth might be clear to most, but they don't necessarily care about that. If the game industry starts catering for everyone who pays it money, it really will become slightly less indulgent for those who formerly were the sole focus of all the attention.
Sadly, having a stake in what happens
doesn't mean that no-one but you should be considered. The notion
that being the greatest numerical group gives you the democratic
right to be the sole focus of decisions is a highly toxic one that is
seen in too many contexts. In any case, vile attacks on those that
desire change cannot be condoned. Using intimidation to oppress or
drive out a growing minority is again something widely seen – as
those who think being the majority gives them all rights to all
things cannot bear the thought of actually ceasing to be the majority
(or of having the pre-existing fact that they are not get recognised).
At its heart, these attempts are
nothing more than an effort to ensure that all art produced within
this medium conforms to a single style and message. Beneath the
veneer of defending a dating kind of pleasure, it is possible that
the true motive for all of it is that the message in question is
'everything is for men'. A physical shift within gaming to pander
less exclusively to males would merely represent a far more
terrifying (for them) decay of the unquestioned idea that male
privilege was the proper order of things.
Disturbingly, this isn't just happening
at consumer level either. Some publishers are in on it too. According
to one anonymous account I read whilst reading up on this issue, an
attempt by a male-to-female transgender game developer to give a
female character a major part in an upcoming game was rejected - for
the stated reason that “you just want everyone to be a woman don’t
you, well some of us like the fact we’re men and don’t want our
games brainwashing people into thinking they need to be like you.”
This would be inexcusable even if the
character was transgender, but as far as I can tell that wasn't the
case. Not only did the person in question (who sadly isn't named)
presume all gamers were male, he consciously believed that exposure
to the idea that women can be aspirational figures would be
devastating to their sense of gender identity. He understood full
well that games can have a cultural and intellectual impact upon
'people' (meaning young males) and considered that inviting them to
put themselves in a woman's place or see her as a pivotal figure in
the virtual world were poisonous notions to be kept out of gaming.
Of course, not all male gamers are part
of some massive conspiracy to uphold the foundations of male
privilege. In fact, a great many are encouraging of the idea that
representation of women in games should improve and diversify and
almost all are deeply opposed to the horrible abuse a minority of
gamers throw out. What is important is that male gamers who feel this
way stand up and say so. Those championing the status quo will
readily claim to be speaking for the entire male gamer segment, which
most of the industry still regards as the sizeable majority. If their
words are the only ones heard, it gives the impression that our
silence endorses their statements. Once it is made clear that the
male gamer demographic is almost entirely opposed to such attitudes,
the raging of these people will make far fewer headlines and draw far
less attention.
