I fail to see the significance of the main character's gender, unless it relates directly to the story in some way (i.e., being male/female affects their social standing).
It strikes me as silly that so many people raise hell over a detail that should be meaningless.
It shouldn't have an effect, and doesn't, at least to people who see video games as being told a story.
However many many people see video games as inserting themselves into a story and if the main character is sufficiently different from themselves this simply does not work well, so they avoid games with protagonists that have certain traits (gender, age and more), which creates financial pressure on game companies to target the most profitable demographics, which in turn often has the result of excluding less profitable demographics.
Thus the struggle between companies trying to make a living and under-represented audiences trying to become represented.
It's relevant for at least two reasons, in my opinion. The first is that video games, like novels, are stories told through the the protagonist/s. If this character is always male, you miss out on a whole class of stories which are women's stories. Just as literature rarely told women's stories upon a time, video games up to the present time rarely tell women's stories.
The second reason is that having a female protagonist changes the entire meaning of the story. Consider Pierre Menard, author of Quixote (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the...), which discusses how the particular context of the author effects the meaning of the work.
> 60% of girls but only 39% of boys preferred to play a character of their own gender, and 28% of girls as opposed to 20% of boys said that they were more likely to play a game based on the character's gender.
So it may not matter to some people, but it matters greatly to others.
Agreed, but it also kind of assumes stories are actually important and integral to the video game. Most stories in the current dominant video games follow the John Carmack mantra of "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."
To go deeper into the problems of story telling in games, see Jonathan Blow's Conflicts in Game Design Talk.
But as for actual story telling games with female protagonists, go back to King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella. Designer Roberta Williams said a lot of interesting things about it, like how it was more uncomfortable designing deaths for her, and how she was worried there would be a fan backlash to playing a female character (but never happened).
Hell, since I mentioned both Jonathan Blow and King's Quest, somebody just did a big ass Sierra retrospective applying Blow's talk to Sierra games, examining both why Sierra was able to successfully do story telling games for 20 years and how they differ from modern adventure games. Highly recommended.
I find these sorts of articles misleading, since there were quite a few old school games with female main characters that rather conveniently get forgotten about when making arguments like this.
Like Dixie Kong and Tiny Kong from the Donkey Kong Country series. It's funny how many people ignore franchices like that for their political screeds because the casts aren't human.
Heck, you could say Super Mario Bros 2 had a 'female hero', because it was the first game to have Peach go from being a damsel in distress to playable character.
Or the numerous games where you choose the gender (and general appearance) of the main character. It's pretty common in Western made RPGS, and it's getting about as common in Eastern ones (Pokemon has this since gen 2). How about games where there's a party of people and some/most of them are female?
I find this attitude that female characters are somehow a 'new' thing for gaming being rather unfair, and find the attempts of trying to then mix in crap like 'gaming's war on women' as even worse.
Not sure why you're down votes. But I know what kind of people are doing it though.
You're right. Female protagonists isn't a new thing. This is overblown. No one would give two shits if it was Gabrielle Freeman or Gordon. A good game is a good game.
And a shitty game with a female main is still a shit game. No down votes will actually change they. That's the satisfying part.
Oh great more dumb identity politics. Adding more 'underrepresented' (really there have been plenty of female protagonists in games, people who don't play games point out Lara Croft because she's the most popular) peoples to appeal to the loud minority of people who often don't even play games and white knights sure has made games so much better. My fear is that we're quickly shifting from a society based on merit to a society that places more emphasis on the color of your skin, the beliefs you hold and gender than merit and how hard you work. This is really a step backwards, MLK wasn't fighting for a society were blacks were better than whites, he was fighting for a society were blacks were equal to whites.
Surprised they don't mention Life is Strange or Heavy Rain in their examples of female protagonists. They pushed that angle quite a bit when they were released. I also liked Remember Me from Capcom quite a bit, even though it wasn't a commercial success.
Personally I usually prefer playing female characters, even though I'm a guy. Currently rockin' a female character in Sunset Overdrive right now. I was always a fan of the novelty (to me) and the different approach female characters often had to the gameplay (like lightning-fast kicks with Chun Li in Street Fighter II, for example).
9 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 31.5 ms ] threadHowever many many people see video games as inserting themselves into a story and if the main character is sufficiently different from themselves this simply does not work well, so they avoid games with protagonists that have certain traits (gender, age and more), which creates financial pressure on game companies to target the most profitable demographics, which in turn often has the result of excluding less profitable demographics.
Thus the struggle between companies trying to make a living and under-represented audiences trying to become represented.
Further reading:
http://www.itinthed.com/16328/what-taking-my-daughter-to-a-c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier_(video_game)#Development (second paragraph)
The second reason is that having a female protagonist changes the entire meaning of the story. Consider Pierre Menard, author of Quixote (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the...), which discusses how the particular context of the author effects the meaning of the work.
Wikipedia had an excellent article about gender representation in video games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_representation_in_vid... . One part of the article notes:
> 60% of girls but only 39% of boys preferred to play a character of their own gender, and 28% of girls as opposed to 20% of boys said that they were more likely to play a game based on the character's gender.
So it may not matter to some people, but it matters greatly to others.
To go deeper into the problems of story telling in games, see Jonathan Blow's Conflicts in Game Design Talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTV8qLbBWE
But as for actual story telling games with female protagonists, go back to King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella. Designer Roberta Williams said a lot of interesting things about it, like how it was more uncomfortable designing deaths for her, and how she was worried there would be a fan backlash to playing a female character (but never happened).
Hell, since I mentioned both Jonathan Blow and King's Quest, somebody just did a big ass Sierra retrospective applying Blow's talk to Sierra games, examining both why Sierra was able to successfully do story telling games for 20 years and how they differ from modern adventure games. Highly recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wua96SI6SBE&list=PLPAVYgFfed...
Like Dixie Kong and Tiny Kong from the Donkey Kong Country series. It's funny how many people ignore franchices like that for their political screeds because the casts aren't human.
Heck, you could say Super Mario Bros 2 had a 'female hero', because it was the first game to have Peach go from being a damsel in distress to playable character.
Or the numerous games where you choose the gender (and general appearance) of the main character. It's pretty common in Western made RPGS, and it's getting about as common in Eastern ones (Pokemon has this since gen 2). How about games where there's a party of people and some/most of them are female?
I find this attitude that female characters are somehow a 'new' thing for gaming being rather unfair, and find the attempts of trying to then mix in crap like 'gaming's war on women' as even worse.
You're right. Female protagonists isn't a new thing. This is overblown. No one would give two shits if it was Gabrielle Freeman or Gordon. A good game is a good game.
And a shitty game with a female main is still a shit game. No down votes will actually change they. That's the satisfying part.
Personally I usually prefer playing female characters, even though I'm a guy. Currently rockin' a female character in Sunset Overdrive right now. I was always a fan of the novelty (to me) and the different approach female characters often had to the gameplay (like lightning-fast kicks with Chun Li in Street Fighter II, for example).
Samus Aran - Metroid
Joanna Dark - Perfect Dark
Jill Valentine - Resident Evil
Rayne - BloodRayne
Tifa Lockhart - FF7
Yuna - Final Fantasy X
Elizabeth - Bioshock
Bayonetta - Bayonetta
[Range of Characters like Marta, Presea, Shina, Colette] - Tales Of ____ Series
And this is a pitiful list I came up with in a minute.