Women in games

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Chaos-Shaman
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Re: Women in games

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

:lol: hahahaha, right Zed. it's up to the designer to do what ever they want. for me i'll try and stick to realism, like gravity still works, the grass is green and brown, rocks are hard, small characters have less strength, large muscles have lots of strength, a wizzard cast spells, etc. you have caught my attention with the speedo though :lol: it reminds me of doom when it came out, thee were a few bikini pics in it, looked like hell anyway.
if the party runs across characters that you can see have a 6 foot sword, you better be ready to get cut up, if they have a staff then be ready to be spell blasted, if they are beautiful then expect CHARM and SEDUCTION, however the small dagger hidden under their beautiful appearance can be deadly.

to each their own, fantasy is great, it can also be real.
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Ameena
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Re: Women in games

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You can be small and still kick arse physically, though. You don't need to be some hulking mass of muscles in order to kick a hole in the wall if you can focus the energy of your strikes into one point (especially if said point is a weak one). Being smaller tends to also help with manoeuvrability and agility and stuff, though large people can move fast as well. Just probably not in the same way as a smaller, more flexible person. In an RPG setting, though, the tanks tend to be the larger guys just because the game is designed that way, and if someone small and lightweight is wielding a melée weapon, it's likely to be a dagger or something else small and lightweight because they're probably a Rogue (or that setting's equivalent) and will be trying to sneak up and stab you ;).
I like settings where, for example, a woman could be a muscular tank-type while a bloke could be weedy and throwing spells...actually, the latter happens anyway, now I think about it - you get blokes in all kinds of builds filling all kinds of roles and wearing suitable gear as applicable, but if a woman is any kind of melée fighter she nearly always seems to be scantily-clad and showing off her thighs and stuff. Or wearing a downright dangerous "breastplate with boobs". Still, I suppose it goes back to what's been mentioned before - the fact that a lot of stuff is designed for men, by men, and they think that having lots of exposed female flesh to look at will make their game sell. Maybe it does but it also makes them look rather sexist.
It's an opposite of this kind of stuff which has been noted in a superhero-based co-operative card game that I play - of the playable female characters there's one who's a renowned scientist, one who's about 21 and the head of her family's very wealthy company (by day, and a sort of Batman-esque superheroine by night, leaping across buildings and chucking knives and stuff at the bad guys), one who taught herself how to use pretty much every type of gun because she wanted to prove she could be something (I think) after her superpowered mum (who thinks anyone without superpowers is basically a lower form of life and that the superpowred people should be in charge of them) found out she didn't have superpowers and they had a bit of a falling out resulting in the loss of an eye (which doesn't affect her ability to shoot ;)). And other stuff. And there's people of varying sexualities and nationalities and mental/physical conditions and all sorts, and generally it only really gets mentioned off-handedly in their backstory (which you don't even have to read) and no big thing is made of it because it's just another aspect of a character's personality or background or whatever.
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Wizard Zedd
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Re: Women in games

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I think the big thing here is having the choice on what your characters look like. If you want a huge Xena-like woman, go for it. If you want a smaller women with other skills, do it. Same goes for the men...I personally like to choose based on their attributes and skills vs what they look like. If I want to see scantily clad people geez there is a million places to them :) But, again, what sells? Compared to earlier games we now have a much more diverse choice of characters...will only keep improving I am sure.
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Re: Women in games

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsyt__ybb8M

A recent video by my favourite Canadian internet comedy troupe (thoose are descriptors not qualifiers), playfully inspired by the whole Assassin's Creed thing. Just for fun not commentery!
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cowsmanaut
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Re: Women in games

Post by cowsmanaut »

that was splendid.. :D
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Re: Women in games

Post by Ameena »

Thought this might be relevant...a member of the Yogscast (a popular, gaming-related collection of YouTube channels) interviewing Sigourney Weaver(!!) about some kind of new Aliens-related game. They talk about women in films and stuff, starting from around 5:07 in the video if anyone is interested :).
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Wizard Zedd
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Re: Women in games

Post by Wizard Zedd »

Both the link from cowsmanaut and the interview mentioned by Ameena were great - obviously in very different ways :) Sigourney Weaver hit the nail on the head by stating that the character of Ripley could have been played by either a male or female and that they decided to go with female as it was unexpected. Ripley was not the normal female lead and still not many have followed that are as strong.
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cowsmanaut
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Re: Women in games

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It's true that strong female hero's and characters exist in movies. I think one of the main differences is that they are portrayed by real human beings who put effort into making the role work with personality. Some actors and actresses take great pains to understand and build backstory and "ticks" for a given character they are going to portray, things they assume of the character, but that is not expressly stated in the script. This bleeds through in their performance. They also need to do fairly practical things without breasts flying everywhere and gouging open their knees and so on.. so they do more practical actions, wear more practical clothing, and deliver more believable performances. HOWEVER, when you switch to gaming world, a women may be called in to grunt, scream, and groan into a mic and that's about it.. or they may read a few lines, but then are animated, written, modeled and textured by a mainly male dominated industry.. yes women work in game creation, but they are still a small percentage. The key difference here is that you don't have any assurance that someone with a vested interest in making a real female hero, driving the the performance. Polygons don't object to how they are dressed.. And are often voiced by women who may never see the final design, or if they do, are not famous enough to object.

Games like "Beyond two souls" shows the potential of hiring higher end actresses to play a character. However, the freedom of 3D has still shown the potential for it to get away from that actress as shown from her false nudes made by the artists who created a complete nude body for her, and from the gamers who hacked control of the camera to see that constructed nude. While it wasn't their intent for this to happen (I hope at least) this IS what happened.. If not for her personality type going away from conflict, she would have sued them I think. So there is still, potential.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now. It's something I've been thinking about a lot over the past while.. Why it was that females and TV have it and games.. not so much. Ripley is a great example of that real female hero/human who is not so young anymore.. I think there is a lot of great effort in Aliens to create real characters.. some things which are perhaps by accident. For example Ripley's response to having to hold and use guns.. the grim distaste comes from the actress's very real hatred of guns. It comes out in her body language and expression when she has to handle one. The actors went through simulated boot camp, and were asked to take their equipment with them and live with it, write whatever they wanted on it. actually build up their own backstories.
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Re: Women in games

Post by cowsmanaut »

This is also a nice article (if anyone stumbles across more, post them here. Ameena I hunted down that video, it was decent)

http://thedissolve.com/features/exposit ... ers-to-tr/

As she says, there are exceptions to each rule.. and I noted that I just finished seeing one such exception recently in Stargate SG1 with her #7.. the cool person who never needed to be saved before now needs saving.. This is often done with some sort of weaker character who happens to be in the right place at the right time. So while the hero has indeed been caught, we could save them without demeaning them. They could also be saved by someone who can not fight, but might be the high tech person who knows their way through computer systems or maybe a master lockpicker with some acrobatic skills.. just not a fighter.. There are so many character types (some in essence just cut outs) that can be male or female.. I think if it devolves there, it's not a sexist thing, it's just bad writing..
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Re: Women in games

Post by Ameena »

Wow, I didn't realise I forgot to post the link - I went to the page and copied it and everything, just forgot to paste it into the message. D'oh! Here you go...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azzZzetXUWo&
In my defence, I think I was about to head off for work so may have rushed it a bit or something ;).
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Nymeriaa
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Re: Women in games

Post by Nymeriaa »

There are so many sides and aspects to this discussion that its hard to really pick a definitive way for how things "should" be. It is all relative and especially over the past several years sexuality and gender association has been questioned more than ever before. What is masculine? What is feminine? What makes a man a man or a woman a woman?

I have played video games all of my life, and have obviously noticed how women are sexualized, where beauty and revealing clothing are favoured over muscles and plate armour. But I think that is the way it is in all media - movies, TV, music, commercials, even in the books I read. Its unfortunate and not realistic to what real life is actually like - but hey SEX SELLS! And making money is often more favourable for people and companies than maintaining a sense of realism or integrity.

That being said, I obviously know that beautiful voluptuous women are not necessarily the realistic choice for a warrior or champion, yet when I played WoW or even Elder Scrolls online, I found myself (along with almost everyone else) choosing the human/elf races and making them in the image I thought was most beautiful... Rarely did I ever see any female dwarf characters running around in WoW, and when I did they were mainly all played by men as a joke. I think Wizard Zedd was onto something with the idea of making characters in the image we wished we looked like, or wished our ideal partner would look like. WoW (or Blizzard in general actually) is notorious for their curvaceous female characters, at least in Elder Scrolls Online you can adjust every detail of a person's physique... even then most female characters I see are shorter and curvy and most male characters are tall and muscular, because that's what people like to look at. It isn't necessarily the "right" way to for people to be, but I think that is just the way we are generally hard-wired, we like pretty things and pretty people because beauty often means healthy.

I certainly like the idea of making women strong and muscular if they are going to be swinging large swords (it doesn't really make much sense for a gnome or small man or woman to be using a two-handed sword), or men perhaps smaller and less muscular if they spend all of their time reading books and learning spells. Where do you draw the line though.. maybe the spellcaster can find spells to make his muscles stronger, maybe naturally large woman doesn't want to fist fight but wants to heal her party members instead... how do you utilize people's natural physical and/or gender oriented strengths in a game without putting them in pre-determined roles they may not necessarily want? Hmmm... tough questions.

Anyway, on a lighter note - I saw this video a couple of years ago and immediately thought of it when I saw this thread. It is similar to the other video (which was quite funny btw!) in that is pokes fun at and brings to light the ridiculousness of scantly clad women in a lot of video games. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTGh0EMmMC8
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Wizard Zedd
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Re: Women in games

Post by Wizard Zedd »

You make very good points Nymeriaa. We will always have handsome/beautiful characters because that's what people in general want to look at & that will never change.

Just watched the video and it fits perfectly into this discussion :)
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Chaos-Shaman
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Re: Women in games

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

heh, now that's reality :lol:
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Nymeriaa
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Re: Women in games

Post by Nymeriaa »

I am glad you like the video I posted Wizard Zedd! Maybe everyone else liked it so much they became speechless lol... that or I killed the thread :O Lets hope its the former!
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Re: Women in games

Post by oh_brother »

Just saw the video now - very funny, but surprisingly accurate! I guess the age profile of the typical gamer (at least in the past) would make chain mail bikinis a good selling point.

Hopefully it is not quite so bad these days. Thinking of games I have played recently, I think it is at least less overt than it used be.
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Re: Women in games

Post by Ameena »

I forgot to check it out before but based on the name I thought I knew what it was gonna be - just remembered to look at it now and yep, I'd seen it before :). The trope name for this stuff is even called "Chainmail Bikini". Between that and breastplates-with-boobs, it's like they're trying to get females killed in combat! :O
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Chaos-Shaman
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Re: Women in games

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

why does a female have to look ugly to be a warrior, can' they be beautiful too, do they have to look\dress and act like a man to be manly enough for the job. it seems a man can be even more handsome with big muscles but I beg to differ if it does the same for a women. there have been so many cartoons and movies where the women have taken control and the men are smaller. I think women can do the job against other women, but put in the battlefield arena I think we'll see the difference regardless of armor, of course that is realistic in nature. is there such thing as an alpha female?
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Wizard Zedd
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Re: Women in games

Post by Wizard Zedd »

Chaos-Shaman...I did a little search and found some definitions of Alpha Female on the Urban Dictionary site (link below) - be warned some strong language there :)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... pha+Female

Also found out that there is a female German wrestler that goes by the name Alpha Female :)
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Re: Women in games

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

HA HA HA HA, nice one Wizz. seems every point I was trying to make is there, thanks :) so they use their beauty if they have it, take advantage of men in every way with sex, and yet they still fall in love with alpha males. that was an excellent read. I hope it puts to rest the idea of women in games being everything a man can be by way of looks, strength and personality. not afraid to use the advantage she has on males. this was a real real good read. thanks.
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Re: Women in games

Post by Wizard Zedd »

You're welcome :)
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