I’ve been playing games for a long time (with about a decade break when my PC wasn’t powerful enough to play contemporary games and I didn’t have money for a new one) and I recall when a game having a female lead character was, if not controversial, then at least out of the ordinary. However the fact that the Portal games have a female lead character seems to have passed without comment, a good thing. And appear to be equally popular with males and females.
I believe historically this was partly on the stereotype that computer games were a ‘boys’ hobby but now they’re both considered more acceptable for girls and adults of both genders to play. I imagine part of the scarcity of female characters were that the powers that be assumed boys wouldn’t want to ‘play as’ female characters (not that implausible I once lent a sci-fi book to a friend and he handed it back unread, after some questioning he admitted that it was because the main character was female and he couldn’t ‘relate’, which is a depressing comment and worthy of a thread in itself).
So basically I’m wondering at what point having a female lead character became generally accepted and not out of the ordinary.
Great games btw I’m kicking myself for admitting defeat in one particular puzzle in Portal 2 and checking the solution online, of course the solution was annoyingly obvious when it was pointed out, apart from that I figured the rest out myself (I really shouldn’t be proud of that but I am!)
I’d say years ago, to be honest. I remember a number of 3rd person shooters from my old Playstation days with female leads (Tomb Raider, various Resident Evils, Parasite Eve, etc).
I do admit though that its notable that Chell wasn’t sexualized which isn’t something you can say about most previous female leads.
Zoey in Left4Dead was unremarkable and not sexualized at all. Females have always been big players in RPGs though they have traditionally been quite attractive and immodestly dressed.
judging by the clamour for the female version of the lead character to have her own intro video in Mass Effect 3, having a female lead is not just accepted but is in fact popular too. that and the unnaturally high amount of female toons in World of Warcraft.
going by memory, i think Tomb Raider got the most hype for [del] having the biggest boobs[/del] being the female lead.
This. It’s been a LONG TIME (WELL more than a decade, IMHO) since seeing a female lead was “out of the ordinary” - it’s not difficult for me to name titles from as early as the NES era that featured female leads, and they’ve been growing in frequency ever since.
It does seem to be the case that western games were a little slow on the uptake here though, probably due to some cultural differences.
Differences in the gamer culture, or in the game developer culture though; that’s the question. One thing I’ve noticed is that the entertainment industry in general tends to regard its audience as significantly more sexist/homophobic/etc than it really is. Not that such attitudes don’t exist of course; but since at least the 60’s* they’ve consistently overestimated how common and extreme such attitudes are. They’ve always dragged their feet on the “first female X”, “the first black Y”, “the first interracial Z”, and the result always seems to be an anticlimax when the general waves of outrage they seem to expect don’t materialize. I think that the developers “just knew” that gamers wouldn’t accept female protagonists.
As a Star Trek fan I’m familiar with some of the exaggerated fears that impacted the show; from fears Spock would be thought Satanic to fears over the reaction to Kirk kissing Uhura.
I once read an interview with Terry Pratchett where he refers to that (if I recall correctly) he was in discussions with Hollywood producers about making a movie of his book Mort, in which Death has a prominent role, the developers liked the book but believed that the American public wasn’t ready to accept a movie with Death as a sympathetic character. Later that year Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey was released and who was one of the most popular characters? Yep, Death.
He is also quoted as stating (and again I’m mangling the quote), “Americans aren’t stupid, movie producers just think the American public is stupid…”
But I suppose executives have to justify their position somehow!
If I had to go out on a limb, I’d guess it was a difference in gamer culture, recognized by developers, but it’s rather chicken and egg to speculate on.
Portal is peculiar among FPSes, though, in that you do often actually see your character in the game. And you don’t need any fancy portal-aiming to check out Chell’s ass; it’s her face that’s a bit more difficult.
One other stroke of genius in the character design was the high-fall boots/prosthetics. Some guys like to see women in high heels, while others like to see them wearing more practical footwear. But they managed to do both at once on Chell. Yeah, she’s not wearing a bikini or skin-tight nudesuit, but make no mistake that they did make her sexy (just practical sexy, not pure-fanservice).
The original Chell (Portal) is on the left. Sexy is in the eye of the beholder but I ain’t beholding it.
The concept art of her for Portal II is on the right and they definitely made her more attractive. Didn’t make her ridiculous but she’s no longer the nondescript frump from the first game.
A bit of both, I think. And it’s a bit cyclical - there’s minor resistance to female protags who aren’t all sexed up, which the developers think is more than it is, so they make few of them, so potential gamers who would like them (both male and female) are driven away from the genres where it matters, reenforcing the fact that the resistance exists in the community, so…
