Damsel in Distress: Women in Video Games

[TL]

Right, seen as this is being discussed all over the place right now, most notably on another retro forum, I thought I would throw this out there for the folks here. We actually had a brilliant discussion about this in the chatbox this very evening which has prompted me to post this thread.

Below is the video that is causing all the controversy so I suggest you all watch it before commenting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 6p5AZp7r_Q

For me the presenter is talking utter nonsense through most of the video and trying to create an issue of sexism in video games that just isn't there. The story of the damsel in distress goes back centuries, as she actually kind of alludes to in this video. It is still used in films to this day without people moaning about it and is even used in novels and stories aimed at women! For many women the thought of being saved by hunky man is their ultimate fantasy, are they wrong to think this? And on the flip side what about the stereotype of the big hunky man? She doesn't mention that in her video or how that might make men feel inadequate!

At the end of the day there have been many strong females in gaming, which whether she likes it or not has always been a male dominated industry. Not just in who makes the games but also who plays them. How can she deny female characters such as Ms. Pacman, Tyris Flare from Golden Axe, Blaze Fielding from Streets Of Rage, Gauntlet's Valkyrie or Lara Croft?

I am sure we could all come up with many more examples too!

[Rogue Trooper]

For those who missed the chat Laird, Crusto+myself had earlier, few others that came up:

The Boss from MGS 3:Snake Eater, not only is she Snake's mentor, but gives her life to avoid the start of WW3 (ie Nuclear war).


The Hag from Cauldron on C64/Speccy, not a looker, but sets off to destroy the evil in 1st game, saves the day, get corrupted, is the evil force in the sequel.

Main character's in the following:

D (Saturn, 3DO, PSone), Parasite Eve(PSone, PSP), Heavenly Sword (PS3), Ada Wong (REs.Evil 4 sub missions), Maria (SH2 Born from A wish sub mission), Characters in Project Zero/Fatal Frame series (PS2/Xbox), Black Cop in Urban Chaos (DC/PSone/PC), Ripley in Alien 3 (SNES/MD), Tresspasser PC (sure you played as a woman), Palace Software's Barbarian 2-Choice of male or female character, as was in Death Trap Dungeon PS1 if my memory serves.Resident Evil series, Jill, Claire etc, Eternal Darkness on Gamecube.
Jade Empire, Starwars:Knights Of The Old Republic 2 (forget her name, but in my crew was a blind, woman character and bloody powerful she was too)

Killbot 'concerned' about gay's  putting people off games?- no-one mentioned Valkyria Chronicles on PS3 over on RG, mores the damn pity-Strong female characters, homosexual soliders, male+female, i played game to completition, found story gripping, powerful and moving, some of the scenes bleak as hell, subject matter of war, sacrifice etc superbly handled.

The sexuality aspects covered differed from my own personal view points in areas, yet i poured hours into the game as it was just that, a game, i did'nt stop and think, ohh should i really be playing this?, i'm not gay, never understood the whole homosexuality thing, but then never felt the need to, to me, it's like Fly Fishing, i know it goes on, has done for years, zero appeal to myself, so why worry about it?.




Plus, IF she wants to be 'picky', i've played as the living dead in:Stubbs The Zombie (Xbox), Medievil (PSone), Vampire in likes of Legacy Of Kain, Soul Reaver series etc as countless animals, droids, half-man/half beast creatures (Minters works plus Shadow Of The Beast), as a vegtable that knows kung-fu, as a mutant, as a baby,a tooth brush, some real out there shit and long may it continue.




If this woman is sooo concerned, why stop there? get that camera warmed up, you've the whole aspect of race, cruelty to animals, children etc etc yet to cover.....

The video gaming  industry is FAR from perfect, but compared to cinema, it's still very much in it's infancy and finding it's feet.

Things like her video and some of the claptrap in that RG thread are doing far more harm to the image of gaming and gamers than the games themselves.

Wish she and the media would stop trying to lay the evils of the world squarely at the feet of gaming, look to music, books, films, TV, the workplace rather than singling out gaming.


IF she want's to try some 'clever' gaming, may i suggest she tries Silent Hill 2, love to see what she makes of James, Killzone series, play 1-3 then i'll tell her just who the REAL bad guys were (answer, it side your playing as, they caused the Helgan war), Silent Hill:S.M and wait till she gets the ending.Turns things right around.

[nakamura]

I think this has been done to death for most of us on RG.

We are all gay, racist, sexist and homophobic.

[Rogue Trooper]

Honestly very surprised not to see David Cage's work mentioned on that RG thread.

The role of the Female very much a key part of his work:

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in USA), Heavy Rain, the Kara tech demo, upcoming Beyond:2 souls.


Then you've Naughty Dog with it's gun slinging, ass kicking females in the Uncharted series or their up and coming The Last Of Us.

[Crusto]

Reasoned debate is seemingly exclusive to RVG at this time. Hence the comparative lack of discussion over here. Trolling and the like generates more traffic unfortunately.

[Rogue Trooper]

Reasoned debate is seemingly exclusive to RVG at this time. Hence the comparative lack of discussion over here. Trolling and the like generates more traffic unfortunately.

I left for work just before 17:00 yesterday, thread was going along fine on RG (well, i say 'fine, more like SNAFU, but that's the norm for over there, last post i read was Clarance VS DC Rip, Clarances you'don't speak for the forum, came home this morning, just after 07:00, saw the thread had been locked and grown in pages and thought oh-oh....

Reading through the stuff i missed....ok then....Darran, IF your reading, hi, rember our chat few weeks back on here, about best thing RG forum could do with is total shutdown for 6 months, let things cool down, get technical issues sorted etc?.....hows that idea looking now?


:-).


Utter disbelief, Killbot is now the Terminator of posters in my eyes, he just cannot be reasoned with and is unstoppable, Killbot a series T-800 Model, upgrade from T-600, (has a thivk skin, not rubber), Infiltrator  class and like Arnie said....I'll be back, Killers certainly was, lol, the whole thread reminded me of the scene from Terminator where the T-800 has asked the Police SGT.about Sarah Connor, left the building saying 'Ill be back', desk SGT carries on scribbling away, next thing, BAM!!!! Police car driven through front of building, desk SGT crushed and the shit kicks off!


So much was covered surprised the topic of:Would you play a game made by a gay man? did'nt come up.

Answer from myself, yes, have done and continue to do so, some of his stuff has been fantastic, some of it very dissapointing.What does that make me?.

As for gay sex scenes, there was some bizzare back-door action in Killing Zoe, Shin Juku Triad Society and few other DVD's in my collection, i've never watched them in presence of a family member, my gran passed away years ago (and could'nt work the VCR, let alone the DVD player).

Any other boxes to tick that have no real connection to a thread title?.


Just trying to generate the site traffic RG gets.....:-).

[Greyfox]

WTF guys? WTF?...... just kidding 

carry on..no locking going on here...

@Rogue you should email Darren Jones that post you've just written..if anything it makes pure sense in all aspects of the troubles allowed to be carried on over there, it simply will be shut down permanently by IP Publishing, never to be re-opened thanks to the bunch of trolls with nothing better to do with there time, they probably don't even go out for fresh air. very sad..very sad and ohh yeah pathetic as well. Ruining it for everyone else, that actually likes to talk about there hobby.

[TL]

A comedy reply to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCPg0nflH9Y

[Greyfox]

and factual 

[Rogue Trooper]

WTF guys? WTF?...... just kidding 

carry on..no locking going on here...

@Rogue you should email Darren Jones that post you've just written..if anything it makes pure sense in all aspects of the troubles allowed to be carried on over there, it simply will be shut down permanently by IP Publishing, never to be re-opened thanks to the bunch of trolls with nothing better to do with there time, they probably don't even go out for fresh air. very sad..very sad and ohh yeah pathetic as well. Ruining it for everyone else, that actually likes to talk about there hobby.

It's honestly gone beyond the point of NO return over there.My earlier post? a mockery look at it, but in cold light of day...


What a massive waste of a golden example to show just how wrong claims by the media etc that gaming only portrays women in 1 way (as sex objects etc), so much scope there to show how gaming has evolved, how certain developers poured a real effort in to not only balance thinks out, but turn sterotypes on their head.Intelligent, strong, female characters, scarifice etc going undiscovered and so forth.


Instead we got another cringe-worthy display, all the old classics came out, reason went out the window, people asked to justify far more than the post's they made, thier beliefs, etc etc

And you know what? rather than close the site, i bet the 'suits' over there bloody loved it, word of mouth spread, flurry of site traffic, look what's being said etc etc, it drew people to it and yet all it's really done is shame the gaming industry even further as any non-gamer reading it must have thought:

OMG! Is this for real?.

F-ing great Golf clap, no seriousily, take a bloody bow, you've just helped further the belief by the media etc that gaming can never be viewed in same manner as films , books, TV shows etc as it still shows NO sign of growing up and has no fecking idea how to debate some very real issues.If the likes of sexism in gaming cannot even get an intelligent thread going and strayed wildly into what was basically a: are you homophobic? YES/NO/ borderline, please write 20,000 words to justify our previous answer... area, then god help us all.


My how far we've come, never mind the great work say MGS3:Snake Eater does in with The Boss character (and there's sadism, homosexuality, manner more underlying themes in the other characters), hell no, lets take things back to the playground level of debate and let the media continue to falsely accuse gaming of a multitude of sins, post scaremongering stories with bare minium of reasearch.


The topic got flurry of posts, lot of site traffic, so no-wonder it's not closed down.Pathetic all round.


Close the forum, just seriousily close it, burn it, put the ashes in a lead-lined box, concrete over the box, blast box into the heart of the sun, gaming will never move on whilst 'debates' like that are allowed to thrive on forums like that.

If there's a car crash, police etc close road, only re-open when it's safe, on RG, road is closed (thread locked) new roads built ripe for more car crashes...

[Rogue Trooper]

The final irony on that there RG thread, and 1 i'm very surprised no-one has picked up on...


Correct me if i'm wrong but there was not 1 single post from a FEMALE gamer on there, despite the forum having some females on board.

I'd loved to have seen Helen or Riona put forward their viewpoints, but looking at what was being thrown around on there, i cannot blame them for steering well clear of that shitstorm.

Would'nt just have been brilliant for a few women gamers to post in there from their viewpoints and gaming experiences and what they want from the industry, how they feel they are being portrayed in games etc, a chance to get both sides of the coin, again, would really have taken the topic to further realms of discussion, instead it degenrated into paranoia etc.

[TL]

The final irony on that there RG thread, and 1 i'm very surprised no-one has picked up on...


Correct me if i'm wrong but there was not 1 single post from a FEMALE gamer on there, despite the forum having some females on board.

I'd loved to have seen Helen or Riona put forward their viewpoints, but looking at what was being thrown around on there, i cannot blame them for steering well clear of that shitstorm.

Would'nt just have been brilliant for a few women gamers to post in there from their viewpoints and gaming experiences and what they want from the industry, how they feel they are being portrayed in games etc, a chance to get both sides of the coin, again, would really have taken the topic to further realms of discussion, instead it degenrated into paranoia etc.

This is a great point actually, I am quite surprised that Rinoa did not post. I will have to ask her what she thought, she is a friend of mine.

[Rogue Trooper]

The final irony on that there RG thread, and 1 i'm very surprised no-one has picked up on...


Correct me if i'm wrong but there was not 1 single post from a FEMALE gamer on there, despite the forum having some females on board.

I'd loved to have seen Helen or Rinoa put forward their viewpoints, but looking at what was being thrown around on there, i cannot blame them for steering well clear of that shitstorm.

Would'nt just have been brilliant for a few women gamers to post in there from their viewpoints and gaming experiences and what they want from the industry, how they feel they are being portrayed in games etc, a chance to get both sides of the coin, again, would really have taken the topic to further realms of discussion, instead it degenrated into paranoia etc.

This is a great point actually, I am quite surprised that Rinoa did not post. I will have to ask her what she thought, she is a friend of mine.

I'd be interested to hear her views on the subject, see if you can get her to sign up on here, be fantastic to have her onboard here.

[TrekMD]

Well, I finally had a chance to watch the videos and read through this.  I haven't looked over in RG forum and I really don't want to anyway.  In any case, this type of video is absurd.  Clearly the fact that there are plenty of female lead characters in video games is being ignored by her.  The answer video makes good points and really acknowledges that what we are seeing are stereotypes that have existed for a very long time.  But there is yet one more thing I'd like to mention.  Some people just have too much free time in their hands to gripe about anything.  If this woman is so unhappy about how females are characterized in video games, how about her taking action by funding/supporting/initiating development of a female-centric game rather than whine about it on a video? 

[TL]

Well, I finally had a chance to watch the videos and read through this.  I haven't looked over in RG forum and I really don't want to anyway.  In any case, this type of video is absurd.  Clearly the fact that there are plenty of female lead characters in video games is being ignored by her.  The answer video makes good points and really acknowledges that what we are seeing are stereotypes that have existed for a very long time.  But there is yet one more thing I'd like to mention.  Some people just have too much free time in their hands to gripe about anything.  If this woman is so unhappy about how females are characterized in video games, how about her taking action by funding/supporting/initiating development of a female-centric game rather than whine about it on a video?

What makes it worse is that she raised $150,000 through Kickstarter to make these dellusional rants