Game News Video Games And Male Gaze

[Edward_R_Murrow]

They're not fully-realized characters of their own. How disturbing it is that every female character in Torment is either a prostitute, obsessed with TNO, or some incidental npc.

Not very, especially when you consider that basically describes every character in most cRPGs, just sub in lowlife for prostitute for most men. It's not sexism, it's a problem endemic to the medium. Characters are more a vessel for gameplay elements than being "fully-realized". Characterization is subservient to the needs of the gameplay. For instance, people tend to like relative permanence of party members so the story is rigged in a way to keep the party together. Of course most games don't even try to have the story act as fig-leaf for mechanics.

Plus, most secondary characters in all mediums are less than fully-realized and serve as objects for the protagonist to interact with. The way cRPGs like Torment are designed/played just probably makes this more readily apparent; what with the player character being seen from a more "subjective" perspective as opposed to a more objective one, making for a sharper contrast.

At least Chris eventually saw the error of his ways and stopped being problematic. I guess you can continue to remain in denial as long as the person actually doing the writing isn't shitty anymore.

I really wonder what sort of mental contortions you'd have to go through to justify this belief. If Torment is sexist, then I have no idea how KOTOR2, NWN2, Alpha Protocol, and Dungeon Siege aren't...so it's hard to say Avellone "stopped being problematic".

This should be good.

I recovered from Fallout, lost some weight, gained a social life, lost more weight, actually learned more about Orange County, all against the backdrop of Interplay’s death throes.

He may have been fat, but it doesn't sound like he's a sheltered virgin at the time. Sounds more like the "new guy" on a job not having the time to cultivate a social life in a new area (he went to college in Maryland, same place as Todd Howard, if I recall). Crunch time'll do that to you; ask any BIGLAW associates who may have been clean-cut, alpha-bro, life-of-the-party types. Not great evidence for your overarching narrative of "sexists" are all just fat neckbeard losers, but w/e.

 

[Roguey]

Except that almost no one faps to images of anorectic girls. That kind of deviancy is created by the fashion industry for girls, not for men's enjoyment. Fuck, even the alien creatures on fucking fashion drawings make me want to puke.

Fashion's about looking good, and what good is impressing other women/gay men if it completely alienates the people you're trying to attract? No one would do that.

How do they dare have fun and be happy! They should be thinking about -the struggle-! (of ugly girls and ugly guys no one wants to have relationships with facing off against the fun everyone else is having, I mean)
...
I am very sorry to inform you most of us want to sleep around, have fun, get the hot guy with the nice bod to walk him like a pet in front of all our friends, spend four hours a day in the gym and then dress like a slut a Kpop idol to show around the results, etc, instead. *shrug*

Sounds like someone who considers herself very desirable to men. You personally might find it gross, but there are clearly many others who don't.

Also, she said that she's too busy enjoying objectification of men in games to care about objectification of women. A point that you forget to take into account.

Just because she doesn't care doesn't mean it hasn't already affected her. This is childhood/cusp-of-adolesence shit.

 

[Twinkle]

I can't recall the last time we had a middle-aged+ protagonist

U lie bro.

 

[Roguey]

They're not fully-realized characters of their own. How disturbing it is that every female character in Torment is either a prostitute, obsessed with TNO, or some incidental npc.

Not very, especially when you consider that basically describes every character in most cRPGs, just sub in lowlife for prostitute for most men. It's not sexism, it's a problem endemic to the medium. Characters are more a vessel for gameplay elements than being "fully-realized". Characterization is subservient to the needs of the gameplay. For instance, people tend to like relative permanence of party members so the story is rigged in a way to keep the party together. Of course most games don't even try to have the story act as fig-leaf for mechanics.

Plus, most secondary characters in all mediums are less than fully-realized and serve as objects for the protagonist to interact with. The way cRPGs like Torment are designed/played just probably makes this more readily apparent; what with the player character being seen from a more "subjective" perspective as opposed to a more objective one, making for a sharper contrast.

Since Torment Avellone's written female characters who aren't prostitutes and whose existence don't totally revolve around the male player character. They have goals and personalities that make sense.

I really wonder what sort of mental contortions you'd have to go through to justify this belief. If Torment is sexist, then I have no idea how KOTOR2, NWN2, Alpha Protocol, and Dungeon Siege aren't...so it's hard to say Avellone "stopped being problematic".

This should be good.

The Sith Lords: More of that annoying "love you more than my own life!" shit from Visas, but then you have Kreia who really has a fully-fleshed-out past, Mira who isn't even into you at all, and I don't remember anything problematic with Handmaiden. You fight several times, she puts on some robes, tells you her name and pledges to fight by your side.
NWN2: I hated almost everybody in this, so it's not worth analyzing. Everybody except Zhjaeve who was like a female Dak'kon and Shandra who had the absolute best line (the one about how the PC keeps fucking things up). Meh, moving on.
MotB: Best Female Characters: The Game. Avellone wrote Kaelyn, who was awesome and had goals of her own that just happened to overlap with yours (or not and you have to kill her if you take her along) and she doesn't fall in love with you. This was when the New Avellone finally shown through. And much respect for Ziets for Safiya and the Founder and... well not Gann's mother because she made that dungeon fucking annoying.
AP: Mina, Scarlet, and Sis were fine, Madison was a typical damsel in distress, but at least I know the guy responsible for Rome didn't like how she turned out either. Sie was a fantasy but the other characters aren't and that's what's important. In moderation heterosexual male fantasies in games are okay as long as they're not a large unavoidable part. AP does give Mike the option of making a rape joke in an email, and that bothered some people I know, but Avellone didn't write the emails, that was either Stout or MacLean.
DS: Some elements of the Lescanzi's attitudes and outfits are the only things that are gross, everyone else is solid.
Didn't mention but F:NV: Most inclusive game ever, gays, lesbians, people of color, and women all get fair representation. I didn't like Cass personally but only because I can't stand alcoholics. As a character she's fine.

He may have been fat, but it doesn't sound like he's a sheltered virgin at the time. Sounds more like the "new guy" on a job not having the time to cultivate a social life in a new area (he went to college in Maryland, same place as Todd Howard, if I recall). Crunch time'll do that to you; ask any BIGLAW associates who may have been clean-cut, alpha-bro, life-of-the-party types. Not great evidence for your overarching narrative of "sexists" are all just fat neckbeard losers, but w/e.

He details his history in the link:

Anyway, after that, things went pretty much downhill for my social life. I finally got a group of 3-4 guys together to play role-playing games (this grew to 7-8 during our Warhammer campaign in high school, which I am still most fond of). Girls remained a mystery to me with their strange curves, the fact they smelled nice, and strange way of behaving (I later learned this was courtesy), so me and my friends played the Temple of Elemental Evil for TWO years (no shit, longest campaign I ever ran, and we played weekly), then once we got bored of fantasy, we played a bunch of Superhero games (TWO more years of Superworld – thanks, Steve Perrin) and Hero Games, which seemed a little better thought-out rules-wise, and allowed for greater character customization. Throughout high school I sent a huge number of shitty submissions to Dragon magazine, Palladium, and GURPS that were sent back with generic form letters saying I needed to grow up. Even Hero Games did this, but I wore down the will of Monte Cook and Bruce Harlick (both of whom grew to hate the fact I kept submitting, and Monte even wrote me an angry mail to that effect, shortly before he capitulated). That is when I learned the most valuable lesson of my gaming career – persistence pays off.

I wrote a few supplements for Hero Games, discovered that I loved making characters for game worlds (Underworld Enemies for Hero Games had some of my favourite characters ever – including Ashtray Art, the pyrokinetic who was REALLY in love with fire and thought it was a real woman, the Hanged Man [no relation to the Fallout 3 character concept of the same name], the emotionally vampiric Saiettas Crime Family who didn’t care as much about the crimes they committed as they could feed on the misery it caused, and Mad Billy, who got stronger and tougher the more alcohol he drank – kind of like if the Hulk was fuelled by beer). All contributed to my social retardation, but my writing and design skills grew to level 3, and I added various Geeky Feats to my character until it was time to level up to Computer Game Designer Level One

Once at Interplay, I worked on a bunch of games. I made a lot of mistakes and a lot of friends. I got to meet Scott Bennie, who had worked at Hero Games before he levelled up. I met Steve Perrin, who had designed Superworld that our gaming group had played. I met Floyd Grubb and Bill Church, who took me to my first strip club.

 

[mondblut]

mondblut Brofists this.

interesting...

updated my mondblut.txt

If your mondblut.txt had previously somehow omitted the fact I am a supreme hedonist whose primary purposes in life are getting laid and wasted, it is seriously lacking.

 

[SCO]

I can't recall the last time we had a middle-aged+ protagonist

U lie bro.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. I ain't gonna play that after seeing the movie by accident. Anyway! I remembered the last (didn't play either - consoles, horrible creatures).
It was solid snake - old parody edition.
See, this is interesting because it was Kojima fucking with the fans - what did he choose? To make snake old and half-blind and with terminal lung cancer.
Now apparently he is trying a transgender ninja or something
Not that it matters, MGS fans are still traumatized by their sniper wolf waifu tragic death after they pumped her full of bullets.

Anyway i just remembered a popular test used frequently to test for 'token' female characters (done by a lesbian, how ironic)

1. It includes at least two women
2. who have at least one conversation,
3. about something other than a man or men

Try to fit that in on torment (where it should be easy since ravel and annah and ffg all talk to each other). Hell, try to fit it in that shooter you just pictured.
I wonder if ME (male main char) with their PC obsession passes? Lollipop chainsaw may pass - i can probably imagine a 'conversation' about 'clothes' there.

Obviously i'm not only pointing out that narrative games tend to be sexist because their audience couldn't give less of a shit or enjoys that sort of thing.
I'm also saying that is bad for narratives and bad for 'taking gaming as a artform' as you kids love to whine about because that kind of formulaic cynicism is horrible for art. And it's not only booty-calls obviously. Take ME and it's xeno-fucking fetishist audience pandering. Do the Asari REALLY make sense? Does the obligatory (for the grunt sidekick bro) 'grunt' race being important for a space war make sense - i read here they were uplifted for 'soldier duty' - who would give a shit when you have androids and true AI? When physical strength is a no-issue on the kinds of war being waged and with all the powered armour around?

 

[laclongquan]

The Nameless One is scarred as shit. He looks like a cadaver on the game's cover is not a coincidence.

Also he's middle aged. Disregarding his real age, it's his behaviour make him middle-aged.

 

[SCO]

Maybe. TNO is undoubtedly competent as any main character is in game-logic-land (few games make the player a fool (or make him laugh last) - arcanum did it with the gnome quest). TNO rarely misunderstands something - and even when lied and doesn't detect it immediately, normally takes revenge. But this tends to apply to all main characters - it's a empowering strategy so that gamers don't abandon your game because they got hurt feelings.

And he is certainly the 'adult' of the sad parade of misfits he leads around, that are always looking for him for meaning in their lives.

Psychological characterization is harder of course (but much more worthwhile).

 

[Renegen]

Fuck why did this become another BC thread.

 

[circ]

The Sith Lords: More of that annoying "love you more than my own life!" shit from Visas, but then you have Kreia who really has a fully-fleshed-out past, Mira who isn't even into you at all, and I don't remember anything problematic with Handmaiden. You fight several times, she puts on some robes, tells you her name and pledges to fight by your side.

Mira, if I recall correctly, when asked about romance options thinks the PC is too old. I wouldn't call that amazing characterization or anything. If your PC is female and evil I don't remember there being any talk like that with the wookiee. If you were going after Carth 2.0 as a female, ignoring the whiny shit, it seemed to progress a lot more logically than Visas or Handmaiden. Don't remember if you could romance Soldier guy. Handmaiden has you fight her 5 times, learning a special libido move and next thing you know you're banging her just like Visas Mar. Typical juvenile romance writing there.

AP: Mina, Scarlet, and Sis were fine, Madison was a typical damsel in distress, but at least I know the guy responsible for Rome didn't like how she turned out either. Sie was a fantasy but the other characters aren't and that's what's important. In moderation heterosexual male fantasies in games are okay as long as they're not a large unavoidable part. AP does give Mike the option of making a rape joke in an email, and that bothered some people I know, but Avellone didn't write the emails, that was either Stout or MacLean.

I thought even Madison was fine. I've met plenty of women that made you go 'what the fuck now?' when trying to hold a conversation.

DS: Some elements of the Lescanzi's attitudes and outfits are the only things that are gross, everyone else is solid.

Who were the Lescanzi? The gypsies that gungirl belonged to? Or were there any gypsies? I forget. Not unusual gypsy attitudes by any means and it was a medieval setting, in terms of attitudes, that wouldn't explain the titty clothing.

 

[Sceptic]

I can't recall the last time we had a middle-aged+ protagonist.

Laguna in Final Fantasy VIII

There are quite a few where it would make sense for the protagonist to be not-so-young but the game doesn't really tell you, such as in PST or Daggerfall. But as for the ones clearly established as at least over 30, off the top of my head: Tex Murphy, Anachronox, The Dig, Wing Commander (at least by 3), Sin, King's Quest 5 (and 7 if you count Valanice), Gemini Rue... oh and Leisure Suit Larry

Yeah come to think of it none of them is a recent game except for GR...

 

[circ]

Are we talking any game or specific genres? Or games with some semblence of realism?

Listing off some recent stuff I've played or have installed at the moment:
Batman AC and AA - I think Batman is past 30. Just Cause 2, pretty sure Rico or whatshisname is past 30. Dawn of War 2 - Retribution, the commander guy, probably 50s, sergeant 40s, was there a third guy? inquisitor should be past 30 atleast.

 

[DwarvenFood]

For a moment there I read topic as Jeff Vogel and the Male Gaze..

 

[Zed]

JE Sawyer chips in:

Jacques Lacan developed theories around the concept of "gaze", that the act of looking is driven by our desires. Many years later, Laura Mulvey proposed that much of cinema was driven by the "male gaze". Put briefly, she opined that a great deal of what what wound up in the final imagery of the film (character design, posing, camera position, shot transitions) was driven by heterosexual male desires. This is not too surprising upon examination since "western" society, in which cinema developed rapidly, was dominated by men.

Though many societies continue to be dominated by men, they are (in my opinion) not dominated by men as much. However you want to quantify it, the power of women relative to men in "western liberal" societies has increased since, say, 1975, when Laura Mulvey's essay was published (more or less -- in some ways American women had more power in the 80s than now). Despite this, a lot (but certainly not all) of our popular media continues to be designed almost unconsciously for the male gaze. This is probably most obvious in comic books, but video games are also clearly oriented in similar ways.

Women make up an increasing percentage of gamers. They also, traditionally, have had a significant presence among RPG gamers. Because of this, I think it's important to consider not just how much the average male gamer likes a character design, but to consider if that design will be *disliked* by the average female gamer. A design should be appealing, but some designs go so far in a particular direction that another portion of the audience is alienated.

A big part of design -- game design or otherwise -- is consideration of how the audience will react to what we show them. Often designers, and artists, design things off of a traditional basis. There's nothing inherently wrong with this unless the traditional basis no longer serves the role it once did.

On F:NV, Veronica and Cass were designed to look like they fit in with the rest of the wasteland. Were there immediately PC mods to make them look like pornstars? Sure. No surprises there, but I don't think that the game would have sold more copies if they looked like that in the shipped game. Given the number of women who played F:NV, I'd guess that a fair number of them would be pretty put off by those designs. I want women AND men to play the games I make, so I don't want to push some of them into the "will not buy" category because of character designs.

If you want to make a game that intentionally appeals to a specific market, you can make choices to exclude the people you don't care about. Dr. Pepper Ten is marketed this way. Fine. But often what I see are not thoughtful choices, but thoughtless parroting of old ideas. In my experience, when asked, most developers will say that they're not trying to put off female gamers, but they are seemingly unaware of (or in denial about) how their choices do just that. Essays, presentations, video blogs, etc. that break down these processes for analysis help us consider why we make the choices we make. Even when we disagree, it puts our minds into a self-critical mode, which is where I always prefer to be.​

 

[Oriebam]

mondblut Brofists this.

interesting...

updated my mondblut.txt

If your mondblut.txt had previously somehow omitted the fact I am a supreme hedonist whose primary purposes in life are getting laid and wasted, it is seriously lacking.

the sympathy was surprising, it's like you want everyone to be hedonists



oh

 

[mondblut]

the sympathy was surprising, it's like you want everyone to be hedonists

oh

It is absolutely in my interests when an average female is an easy-going slut out after cocks rather than a disgusting closet tranny prude dreaming of growing a cock of her own. That much should be obvious.

Also, The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

JE Sawyer chips in:

On F:NV, Veronica and Cass were designed to look like they fit in with the rest of the wasteland.​

Too bad Veronica wasn't also written to fit in with the rest of the wasteland: she came across as a modern day hs/college geek girl. Was she really designed as the product of a traumatic BoS upbringing in a post apoc nevada desert or as something the stereotypical female gamer could identify with?

 

[Roguey]

Mira, if I recall correctly, when asked about romance options thinks the PC is too old. I wouldn't call that amazing characterization or anything.

Old as in "you've seen some shit" not physically old. And why does that even matter? I'm just saying her character is less sexist than anyone from Torment's.

If your PC is female and evil I don't remember there being any talk like that with the wookiee.

This matters why?

If you were going after Carth 2.0 as a female, ignoring the whiny shit, it seemed to progress a lot more logically than Visas or Handmaiden. Don't remember if you could romance Soldier guy. Handmaiden has you fight her 5 times, learning a special libido move and next thing you know you're banging her just like Visas Mar. Typical juvenile romance writing there.

You never actually have sex. This is offensive, pandering shit:

"Why is it sexist pandering shit" you ask? Because, like with Torment, there's no "Where the fuck did your self-esteem go?" dialogue option. Codependent shit presented as if there's nothing wrong with it. Now Handmaiden's romance climax on the other hand:

This is fine. You could gender flip it and it wouldn't seem extremely wrong, unlike the above example.

Too bad Veronica wasn't also written to fit in with the rest of the wasteland: she came across as a modern day hs/college geek girl. Was she really designed as the product of a traumatic BoS upbringing in a post apoc nevada desert or as something the stereotypical female gamer could identify with?

What's so traumatic about living with the BoS? It's post-post-apocalyptic. The other people in the BoS bunker didn't come across as traumatized. Vree from Fallout wasn't unhappy ("Yes, I guess you could say I know 'stuff'"). You're letting your dislike of Felicia Day rot your brain.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Since Torment Avellone's written female characters who aren't prostitutes and whose existence don't totally revolve around the male player character. They have goals and personalities that make sense.

Grace, Annah, Deionarra, Ravel, and such all "make sense" within the story. I'd venture a guess that you just don't seem to like their portrayal because it "reinforces oppressive patriarchal sex roles" and then ignore the plot of the game, or how male party members of TNO are just as slavishly devoted on account of his curse (Dak'kon and Morte especially) to make some argument about how it's sexist. Hell, when the curse is broken and you talk to all of your party members at the end, I'm pretty sure Annah is ambivalent, treating you just like a teenage girl would a fun fling*, and Grace is only following TNO because he's the holy grail of Sensates; a being who has experienced thousands of lifetimes.

So yeah, curse/story, not sexism.

He details his history in the link:

Hmmm...interesting. Guess I was wrong. Normally people don't radically change themselves that late in life barring big events, but I guess the answer to Ravel's question is really "Quitting Interplay".


*I don't honestly remember. Annah was just a bad character without any of the interesting elements of the rest of the cast.

 

[Sceptic]

This is fine. You could gender flip it and it wouldn't seem extremely wrong, unlike the above example.

I agree with this... but it makes your criticisms of PST even weirder, as the gender flips are already there in the game, as Edward pointed out. I also don't why you're so intent on seeing sexism in the PST females. I mean sure Annah's outfit is stripperific, but it fits her aggressive and manipulative (at least when you meet her) attitude perfectly, and she's certainly not defined by that outfit. Grace's existence hardly revolves around TNO (though she does own a brothel...), and there's nothing sexual about their relationship for obvious reasons; and when push comes to shove, it's obvious during her conversation with TTO that she's a fully self-confident woman who knows exactly what she wants and who isn't going to let anyone tell her what to do. Both are certainly protrayed as less attached to TNO than Morte and Dak'kon both of whom are literally slaves to his whim. Deionarra's the only one that I could see as a more typically-written female, especially with the way she gets treated by Practical... except that throughout the game, and particularly when it concerns Deionarra, Practical is portrayed like an utter, utter asshole, so again I don't see how this segment can be conceived as sexist.

Of course you could claim that the game is sexist anyway because the protagonist is male and the women need rescuing, but that's as asinine as claiming that Hand of Fate is sexist because the protagonist is a woman and all the men in that game are useless.

The little history on MCA is interesting, but hardly relevant.

 

[laclongquan]

Well, Fall-From-Grace's presence is too big a weight to counter.

Deionarra could do it, but she's stuck in that point in the Morgue.

Ravel is too hideous, and many-faces to stand a proper counterpoint.

So Annah has to do it. Classic gutter-girl rogue versus clerical nobility.

FFG trump her with the "succubus in a priestess's gab" psychological factor, since "fiery demonic blood when turned on" cant Score better. Prolly daddy-girl combined with that can counter it, but the dev didnt develop deeper .

 

[Kane]

Codependent shit presented as if there's nothing wrong with it.

Maybe that's because there's nothing wrong with it?

 

[DwarvenFood]

Hey Doc Savage, whose alt are you, you seem too Butthurt to be a true newfag.

 

[Grunker]

Hey Doc Savage, whose alt are you, you seem too Butthurt to be a true newfag.

It's Drog, apparantly.

 

[GarfunkeL]

What a surprise. Drogs gone even worse than before, then. Instead of just bitching about Troika, he's gone full derp shitposter.