Did that happen when punk was still really fucking popular, and people claimed it was over because other people were listening to the music? Was it while you still had a large percentage of [del]YouTube[/del]TV shows devoted to your subculture on all the popular networks, and the most popular ones were also about punk? Was it while the appropriate companies (music and fashion, I assume) were still directly appealing to you?
There’s nothing wrong with saying something is dead when it really is dead. It would be a whole other thing if people were telling you “You shouldn’t call yourself ‘punk’ because punks are all misogynist assholes. Punk is dead!”
First of all, piracy is not as big a problem in the console realm, which is where most 15 year olds do their gaming. Second of all, the ESA’s “average gamer” is not the same kind of gamer who spends money on games. We’ve hit on it a bit before, but a lot of women do their gaming on their phones. The majority of people shelling out $60 for Call of Duty 18 are actually teenagers. They get the money from their parents, yes, but they’re the ones playing.
No, I don’t have any way to prove this. But a quick peek at the monthly top ten is all you need to see that the under-20 set is who is buying the majority of console games.
I don’t think the industry is catering “mostly to stupid teenagers”. There’s more AAA titles that push story such as Last of Us or Bioshock Infinite. Looking at the ESA’s Top 20 list from your link, 25% of them are “kiddie” titles (Skylander, Disney, Lego, Pokemon).
I don’t understand the push to deny that most female gaming is taking place on mobile devices, Facebook-style games and other casual stuff. I don’t care if someone wants to call them “gamers” or not but that is where most of the growth in their numbers comes from.
Women are gaming largely on mobile devices and there’s a ton of mobile device games catered to women. The segment isn’t being ignored, it’s being marketed to via the devices that they actually own and use to play games.
As I said, not even worth having the debate over since it raises the number of such titles in the ESA’s Top 20 list from one to two. A far cry from defining the industry.
Maybe it’s a problem. If so, it’s a different problem than games are made for “oversexed 15-year olds”. Also, missing from your list is a minor, unmarketed title called Titanfall. Also, apparently Call of Duty, Halo & Gears of Wars have playable female models for multiplayer play (I don’t play any of those so am going off the article), Left 4 Dead/L4D2, Dead Island, Velvet Assassin, Far Cry 4 will have female multiplayer players… not saying they’re as well represented as men but your list was a bit sparse. And I left out first-person games that weren’t strict pew-pew shooters such as Portal/Portal 2, Mirror’s Edge/ME2 or the just released Alien: Isolation.
I should probably state that none of what I said means that I’m opposed to seeing more women characters in games (and obviously not in Kevlar bikinis). I’m all for it. Give me a good FPS with a female protagonist and I’ll play the shit out of that – I’m playing a female Courier in Fallout: New Vegas as we speak. I just don’t agree with the baseline argument that the game industry, in particular the console/PC games industry, revolves primarily around “oversexed 15-year olds”.
Of course you aren’t. Neither am I. Quite the opposite - I’d love to play games written by women, from the point of view of women, speaking to women. It would be a breath of fresh air.
That’s my point, though : these games just aren’t being made, much less financed, in large part because of expressions of gamer culture on the one hand, and assumptions made by game publishers on their public and its composition+sensibilities on the other hand. Which is one reason the gamergater’s vociferous response to female critics noting this kind of details and asking if maybe perhaps that isn’t a little bit noxious as fuck is aggravating, as it’s likely to cement this kind of attitude and notions of what gamers “are about” among content providers.
One in six online FPS player is a girl. If you get into MMOs or strat games there’s nigh parity.
Girls don’t “just play Farmville” FFS.
[QUOTE=Justin Bailey]
First of all, piracy is not as big a problem in the console realm, which is where most 15 year olds do their gaming.
[/QUOTE]
True enough - there the scourge is second-hand games. Which from the devs’ and publishers’ point of view is exactly the same end result as piracy. Except in that case someone else is making a ton of cash, adding insult to injury :p.
But you do understand that they DO play “Farmville” (and a crapton of other mobile/Facebook game) in great numbers, right? That this is, in fact, a booming part of the current games industry and has women as its primary demographic? And that this segment makes up the majority of the growth in the whole “women as gamers” demographic? I have no idea why you’re pushing back so hard against this. If you’re going to use stats like “55% of gamers are women!” then at least be willing to accept the entire stat instead of just the part you think best supports your argument.
MMOs and Strategy games are largely a non-issue because every MMO allows you to create your own character (as does perennial women gamer favorite The Sims) and, in games like Civilization or Sim City, there’s no real character to be had.
In the end though, I just don’t think that the evidence supports your prior assertion that the gaming industry is being held back or locked in place by catering to oversexed 15-year old boys. I think there’s more going on than ever and that the lists of best selling games supports this. That’s not even touching the indie games market.
Really, I just want to play good games. I don’t give a shit who made them. If some guy makes a great gaming experience around a female character, I’m all for it. If a woman programmed it instead, I’m going to feel exactly the same about it. I’ll play Tomb Raider 2012 a hundred times before playing Remember Me again because, despite both being 3rd person action games with puzzle elements and female lead characters kicking people’s asses, Tomb Raider was fun and Remember Me was a clunky piece of shit. The fact that Remember Me had a female lead developer doesn’t factor into it.
One of the “Gamers are Dead” style columns had the eyeroll-inducing remark that we needed to stop seeing “fun” as the ultimate mark of a game’s worth and instead start judging it on how it was socially responsible or edifying or, God help me, “healing”. Sorry, I play for fun. I’m happy to see games expand to fit other people’s criteria for fun as well but just give me fun games to play and I’ll be happy.
That’s true and the bunches of Korean based F2P games doesn’t help if you’re trying to argue that women get equal clothing coverage in MMORPGs. I took to calling Tera Online “Elf Panties Online” because that’s all I saw when my elf would run across the landscape with her skirt flipping up over her ass with every step.
On the other hand, I think Western MMORPGs are getting better about non-embarassingly dressed female characters based on games like Elder Scrolls Online or the Everquest Next concept art. Heck, even the original Everquest wasn’t bad about it except for the dark elves.
But I also don’t think that there’s no place for sexy female characters in games. When I played City of Heroes and hung out in the costume creation threads, women players were MUCH more likely to create sexy costumes for their female characters than men creating female characters. I won’t speak for the men as a whole but there’s definitely women who, given a bunch of options, still enjoy making their characters sexual and hot. I think a good MMORPG should provide both options.
I had no idea and my apologies (not that she’ll read this) for the error and my own assumptions. I think I based my assumption off the whole “In this part she’s almost raped – wait, no, I never said that” kerfluffle and the males spokesperson.
There ya go then. I like good games with female protagonists and dislike bad games with female protagonists no matter who leads the development
You can say that, but the fact is that women have had a hard time breaking into the industry in proportionate numbers and at least part of it is a perception of a boys club atmosphere in the inside.
It’s very much like the movie industry in which women argue that there is a market for a wider range of genres to feature female protagonists but movie studios being conservative are afraid of alienating the young male demographic.
Add to that numerous anecdotes of an industry insider culture that’s hostile to women.
But things are changing. And there are a lot of well-known women working in the game industry. Things might not be moving as fast as some people would like, but change is coming.
It’s changing in part because there are people publicly criticizing the industry, pushing for change, exposing hostile workplaces, criticizing portrayals of women in games, etc. It’s all a thing.
I’d take this thread seriously if the people wetting their tampons over “mean talk” weren’t casually tossing out comments about fat, diabetic, losers with small penises who will never be loved as “gamers.”
…I just did a search in this thread for “diabetic”, then waited 120 seconds and searched for “penises” and the only person in this thread who used those words are you.
So you are full of shit. And you haven’t read the thread, and you don’t know what we are talking about. So take the time to go read the thread, then come back and criticise us for what we have said and not what you have imagined we have said.
You do realize that when you say, “I’d agree with you but I don’t like your tone,” the takeaway is “You’re right and I’m too small to admit it.”, right?
What gamergate has done has been to reveal just how toxic becoming part of the gaming industry can be. When guys like Anil Dash (who is not even part of the gaming industry) get targeted by the gamergate mob there is something seriously wrong.
Is change coming? If gamergate generates any positives at all, it will be driving the toxic elements out of the industry for good. There are many other things the industry need to fix. But the gamergate crowd want change and are pushing for change as well. If you want a more diverse gaming industry then now is the time to make your voice heard.
