Though they are technically giant sweat glands on our chests, its like we have four armpits.
Okay, okay, not a great mental image, but it's true. But that's utterly besides the point.
I'm attempting to be serious for once and talk about women in games. No I'm not going to go batshit about women being scantily clad. It's been touched on so much that it's just god damn redundant to even spare more then a paragraph to it. Especially since that isn't entirely apart of the issue. It's just something that distracts from the whole thing. It's a sub issue really.
I'm mostly going to talk about the gender lines drawn in the industry along with the fact there even has to be a line at all.
(The two dudes reading this have now ran away in utter terror.)
What do I mean you may ask?
Well, to make it clear, I think gendering games is pretty stupid. True some games tend to learn towards a male perspective (Halo, Gears of War, any game where the lead female is even more scantily clad then usual) but it doesn't mean a girl can't get into it. Hell, almost all of my fellow female friends talk about playing games. I've somehow convinced a friend of mine to pick up Bioshock since the story interests her! We can enjoy games even with the male perspective being slapped down upon it.
Like everything in media, we tend to make things fit in with peoples fantasies, the fantasy the game industry seems to believe the men have is based on spare marines and epic battles. Though in reality its mostly based on a few men's need to be bigger then what they actually are. It's a fantasy, everyone craves some form of escapism. It's apart of the video games appeal, its apart of all entertainments appeal, some form of awayness from the mundane deary every day drag we go through. Everyone needs escapism on occasion.
It's why women can get into Halo, Gears of War, D&D, etc. They know its fantasy. They can ignore the gender lines and have fun some of the time. Its been proven women can deal with cheesecake and still enjoy a game. The only time it really earns more ire then the usual is when it pushes our personal boundaries. Every person is different. We each have something that pushes our buttons, makes us feel repulsed or unhappy.
As an example of my own boundaries: I can deal with Soul Calibur and its odd costuming choices. I can make jokes about it. It's purely for eye candy.
(Remember what I said earlier about the four armpits? Enjoy the mental image of those floppy things covered in hair sweating up a storm while she fights.)
I know it's how the game gets a larger audience, beyond its reputation as a fighting game it uses sexual tidbits to lure in buyers. Its the hook, their sterling reputation of being a solid fighting game selling it. I can accept that begrudgingly, I know that's how our society works at large. Women are Subconsciously considered objects. Its a frustrating thing, one we can fight, but that's off topic to this. I'm trying to make some kind of point. It'll be made EVENTUALLY. Maybe.
Back to the point:
What I cannot stand is when women are demeaned into nothing. Usually I can take some sexualization if the story doesn't make the female characters useless and nothing BUT eye candy. If the game is relatively 'harmless' sexualization is okay, sex does sell, it garners attention. But if the women are rendered useless in the story, made into nothing but attractive meat puppets, that's when I can get pissed and my buttons are smashed. That's when many women's buttons are whalloped.
Some over react, some who aren't gamers become less likely to pick up a game with angry mumbles about how testosterone filled the games are.
(An example of someone overreacting to a game)
That's our problem, the common misthought that games are only for men. It gets worse when we try to gender the games and divy it up so women can be enticed to join in. Doing so only alienates the actual female gamers and draws in women who are less likely to partake in a good one on one in a Street Fighter Tournament at your local game store.
Sure it can convert women into gamers, but only into the ever 'dreaded' casual gamers.
(Again that is another issue, one Professor Doctor tapped into on his own blog. http://www.pixelpoppers.com/2010/01/status-and-signals-why-hardcore-gamers.html Check the vonderbar link here~)
These lines we're continually drawing are what are pushing women away, along with a few bullheaded men who develop games with nothing but sexualiztion as their main goal instead of trying to make a good and FUN game. The industries problem is the fact they're trying to gender games instead of focusing on the story, focusing on what you WANT to make. Yes, I know most publishers pander to their apparent target audience, but its still no excuse to use the easy way out.
Use your story over sex, make a story you know will sell, that you want to make. Sometimes you need to take risks to get places. The space marine and macho man trend can only last so long. I know its popular, but its flooding the market, making people lose interest. It's why there are so many sequels over anything new. New I.P's rarely if ever sell these days. It's why people go to the easy outs over trying something different.
It's another reason why gendering is certain developers answer to pulling in a female audience, they'd rather stick with stereotypes of 'what women like' over actually using their imaginations to figure out what kind of story would appeal to a wider audience over 15-20 year old male demographic that are primarily aimed for now.
(You can JUST tell she's having fun huh?)
In conclusion, one way to pull in a more 'female' audience is to actually consult some women in the industry, actually break away from the cliches we've grown so used to in the game market. (e.g - Space Marines, soldiers, fighting games, tie in games, overly controversial games and sequels.)
Take some more chances instead of relying on the usual tropes that they know will sell well to ONE audience in particular. Pandering to a signal audience is what killed the comic industry once upon a time, we don't need it here. Erase the gender lines slowly and you'll draw more people in, open the gates to those who hadn't thought of gaming until now. Let them in, don't frustrate them by trying to 'girlifying' things to try and make it appealing. Just break the mold and they'll come to you.
(Gasp, the Shiva of gaming!)
