Sexism and Sexuality In Games from Bioware Writer David Gaider

[Freya]

There's an interesting video from Bioware's David Gaider about sexuality and sexism in games. Now it isn't so much "girls play omg" and more of "what kind of games are we making? Who are we targeting?" It's a presentation from 2013 GDC.

Anyway, check it out.

"There's a difference of being sexy and sexualized. And it's not difficult to see who in games is most often sexualized and thus to whom those images are meant to appeal. By doing so you've made things blatantly clear." Then he goes on to say they too fall into that with characters such as isabella but explains things. It's good.

Mostly it's about how we can change games to factor in other demographics rather than getting rid of it all and restarting.

[Jinx]

Say what you will, but being able to choose Lightning's outfit looks faaaaaaaaabulooooooous.

[Freya]

You didn't watch it did you xD

[Jinx]

You didn't watch it did you xD

[Mercen-X]

Can't even access it

[Denmark]

Wii Fit Trainer

that is all

[Quindiana Jones]

This is something I've noticed in female characters across all medias. When creating a male character, writers have no problem just making someone. What does he look like? What does he think like? What's his history? How has that affected him? etc. Simple, effective questions for making a unique and interesting character. When it comes to women, they often feel obligated to throw in so many "Why?"s. What does she look like? She's ugly. But whyyyy? Women aren't supposed to be ugly! And then we end up with really contrived backstories a lot of the time.

Regarding the men and women I know, most of them a pretty good looking. Some of them are very sexy. Some are normal looking, and some are ugly as a pig's shaved arse. Game developers often only consider the first two as options for some reason. When it comes to men, they have to look like grizzled, manly men (unless there is a reason not to, like being a scientist or a librarian), and women have to look like semi-naked hourglasses (unless there is a reason not to, like... umm... nevermind).

Dunno where I'm going with this. Just an observation, really.

[Shauna]

This is something I've noticed in female characters across all medias. When creating a male character, writers have no problem just making someone. What does he look like? What does he think like? What's his history? How has that affected him? etc. Simple, effective questions for making a unique and interesting character. When it comes to women, they often feel obligated to throw in so many "Why?"s. What does she look like? She's ugly. But whyyyy? Women aren't supposed to be ugly! And then we end up with really contrived backstories a lot of the time.

I imagine this has a lot to do with the pressure they feel to write "good female characters", when really they should be looking to write "good characters, who happen to be female". I'm sure every writer knows that there are a lack of interesting female characters in the media, so they try extra hard to write a "good female character", which never comes across as well. If they just wrote a character and then that character just happened to be female, they'd probably seem less contrived.

When it comes to men, they have to look like grizzled, manly men (unless there is a reason not to, like being a scientist or a librarian), and women have to look like semi-naked hourglasses (unless there is a reason not to, like... umm... nevermind).

Eh, I feel that there's more of a spectrum for male characters. Just having a look at my games, we have a range from Alan Wake (a writer who is crap at running) to Marcus Fenix (that grizzled manly man archetype you were referring to) to Nier (the ugliest man in video games). All these things are allowed! When it comes to female characters though, there's the conventionally attractive badass and the conventionally attractive damsel in distress.

I don't know where I'm going with this either. xD

[Loony BoB]

First up: Haven't seen the video, can't as I'm at work.

While I agree with the sentiments I imagine I'll find in the video, I can't help but look at how we rarely if ever have a big, fat male lead character either. I mean, sure, sometimes the male characters will be rugged, sometimes they will be scarred and have an eye missing, sometimes they'll be old. But, and here's the kicker, people will still be attracted to them in one way or another - even the ones coated in scars and with one eye missing. It won't be a sexual attraction, but there is definitely an audience for these characters. I know of a few people who would happily play as them. It should also be noted that even the scarred, one eyes fellas will still probably be fairly buff. I've yet to see a completely unattractive male.

Can females get away with that as well? I'm not so sure. There's also the simple viewpoint that the female body tends to be more attractive by mere default. I don't know about you guys, but if I saw some of the girls I see in video games walk down the street I'd not really be chasing after them. They just seem normal. Sure, they aren't fat, but beyond that I'd say it's more of a simple case of people looking at the females in these games and saying "if not fat, must be attractive!" Maybe they need to pluck out an eye and coat their faces with scars or something, but really these girls are just normal girls I'd see in the street and not bat an eyelid in many cases. I'm thinking of the girls in Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Mass Effect here - not Final Fantasy. Both genders in FF games look rather bonkers more often than not. >=P

So yeah. I think there's a lot to be said for how characters are sexualised and I don't think it's always the intention of the developers or character designers. I think that's just sometimes how it ends up. Are the girls often well toned? Yes. Are the guys often well toned? Yes. This is what happens when you get a character and make them into a fighting, acrobatic machine and send then running around from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep. xD As for faces, perhaps we'll see less 'perfect' faces in the future generation of gaming, but I'll quickly point out that less 'perfect' faces on a guy is often seen as attractive, so really guys are just as attractive as girls in these games. There's also "the eye of the beholder" - I never found Jack to be sexy in the ME series, but I know a lot of others did. So even when they make a character unattractive to some, they'll still be sexualised by others. When I say 'others' - I mean the players, not the creators. It just so happens that girls are more often sexualised by people than guys are. They could put Brad Pitt and Jo Brand in a video game and, somehow, more players would find a way to sexualise Jo than Brad. Sometimes people are just weird like that.

[Quindiana Jones]

Eh, I feel that there's more of a spectrum for male characters. Just having a look at my games, we have a range from Alan Wake (a writer who is crap at running) to Marcus Fenix (that grizzled manly man archetype you were referring to) to Nier (the ugliest man in video games). All these things are allowed! When it comes to female characters though, there's the conventionally attractive badass and the conventionally attractive damsel in distress.

I don't know where I'm going with this either. xD

Don't forget the ugly woman who is manly because she's too ugly to be a proper woman.

[NeoCracker]

I will slightly counter BoB here by recalling an article in an old game informer from an itnerview with the Gearbox guys after Boarderlands launched. They spoke about how there was more pressure on them trying to make females physically attractive. So for some developers, there is an active goal to do so.

They basically said that when dealing with men they have a lot more leeway with design, where they were afraid if their female was unnatractive it would reflect badly on the character.

Mind you, it is hard to say how much of the pressure they felt was justified. It's kind of like the female leads in games issue, where they don't get the same level of marketing or sales other games do. We don't see them marketed as highly, and generally undersell compared to others. Is this due to marketing not being there, or is it due to a female lead not selling well regardless of marketing? Since we hadn't really seen many games at all with females be heavily marketed, it's almost impossible to determine. (Well, now we have Tomb Raider hitting the 3.4Mil mark in sales, a great number regardless of Squares inability to judge their demand properly, so it may well be more on the heads of the publishers in this case. The issues behind Remember Me's developement tending in that direction as well I think. VG charts did show 40K sales on the 8th, a day after release in NA, for what it's worth. Not sure of the current number.)

[Shauna]

I don't know if I have a game with that type of character in it. Maybe the Gears lady! Or uh, the woman from Bulletstorm!

[Quindiana Jones]

Remember Me really is a great game.

[NeoCracker]

I wish there was a more up to date sales on it rather then just first week so we can see how well it did.

[Shauna]

According to VGCharts, it's sitting at ~70K.