Why Video Game Designers Are Missing The Mark With Women

[oneself]

snip

Who is the 2nd chick? She looks hot (well the right wrist looks a little ackward).

joan of arc/jeanne d'Arc.

 

[Drakron]

That Armored Princess cover is just if you select the sorceress class, the other choices (Paladin and Knight) are much more dressed.

Also sex sells,just look at women magazine covers ... those are certainly not targeted at men.

And a slight fun fact.

Kenshin (Rance) managed to place 1st in a popularity poll of some Japanese magazine with Saber (F/SN) placing 2nd.

(I know that because someone posts that in /jp/ ... it usually stays for a while due to replies as Sakura not even geting a place but Rider goes).

 

[visions]

Sexy preiestesses being the norm is just boggling

Priestesses in fantasy settings do not need to resemble christian clergy. I'd rather see sexual priestesses belonging to promiscuous fertility cults than another pseudo-christian interpretation of holiness.

Some of the temples in Daggerfall and the cult of Geshtianna in Arcanum were cool in that respect.

 

[Quilty]

Objectification of women falls in the same category as violence in games. If you have been brought up to know right from wrong, seeing a woman in a thong being beaten with a dildo will not convince you that it's the correct way to treat a woman. You'll kill twenty hookers in a game, jerk off on their faces, drive a car off a cliff, die in an explosion, then "log off" and still be able to function like a normal person if you possess the bare minimum of intelligence to know that what you just experienced was a fucking video game and not a life guide.

 

[BethesdaLove]

Unrelated observation:

Strong woman characters in books, films, games - I like.
But in real life its really hard to cope with them. It feels as if I cant let my guard down like with men...

In all seriousness, go there. You won't EVER want to go back. Strong women - and I mean genuinely emotional strong women, not women who just get aggressive due to emotional problems and hence quickly turn weak and sulky or tantrumy if you don't play ball - make the best girlfriends, wives and even the best one-night-stands. They're the girls who have thought long and hard about how much sex they want to be having, so they aren't feeling guilty while having it. They're also MUCH more likely to be sufficiently comfortable with their sexuality to look up porn and masturbate. That means much more kinky sex, and a girl who orgasms more easily. A girl that orgasms more easily means that you're getting laid a LOT more often - probably at every opportunity she gets if you're both around 17-21.

As a girlfriend, they're less likely to have emotional hangups about who they want to be. Which means no sudden personality swapping next time they meet a new group of friends or change uni courses, It also means that there's much less time with them crying about their insecurities and much more time with them calling up asking 'hey, you up for going to the pub and getting drunk / going raving / having sex all night?'

As a wife, they're still likely to be more stable and have thought through the whole thinkg of whether they want to get married, They aren't married because they simply expected to one day, or because it was their life's dream to walk down the isle (and now that it's over they're feeling rather hollow with what to do next - trust me, I've seen this with friend's wives). No, they're likely to be with you through thick and thin because they married out of a conscious decision that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives living with and fucking only you. They made that choice knowing they had other options, and so they aren't going to suddenly wake up to those optoins 10 years in (again, I've seen that disaster in friends' marriages). They're also MUCH more likely to be earning good money, supporting your gaming habit, and demanding good sex, which means having lots more sex.

Trust me, breaking your aversion to strong women will be one of the best things you will EVER do.

Brah, I trust you as one can only trust internet people. That being said, you are generalizing like there is no tomorrow. Including anecdotal evidence and an overly long text.

First. Strong and weak are not binary in the real world. I am weak sometimes.

Second. I knew 2 strong women. Both are neutral chaotic. Thats as low as a human being can get, like me. If they are intelligent to boot, there is no fucking with them.

Third. Sex has abso-fucking-lutely no correlation with an emotional stable character whatsoever.

Last. Even if they are "super-strong", they wont go with you through thick and thin if they decide not to. Mistakes are made sometimes. And nobody wants to fuck the same dude their whole life. From my anecdotal experience, long lasting marriages are about loyalty and comfort. Strong character doesnt help there. It makes them independent.

I remember you being super awesomely married with a super woman. I also remember you earning less than her. No wonder that you have written that post about her...
... and gambling habits...

 

[Melcar]

In conclusion, women are whores.

 

[oldmanpaco]

And I like my video game woman like l like my real life women. Objectified with daddy issues.

 

[SCO]

She never actually killed anyone you know. Purely a commander.

 

[SCO]

Objectification of women falls in the same category as violence in games. If you have been brought up to know right from wrong, seeing a woman in a thong being beaten with a dildo will not convince you that it's the correct way to treat a woman. You'll kill twenty hookers in a game, jerk off on their faces, drive a car off a cliff, die in an explosion, then "log off" and still be able to function like a normal person if you possess the bare minimum of intelligence to know that what you just experienced was a fucking video game and not a life guide.

Decline of the west in action.

 

[SCO]

Ps: fuck you relativist whore.

 

[gc051360]

But girls love to dress like whores. Go anywhere on Halloween.

That's their whole deal. Schopenhauer explains why.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

And I like my video game woman like l like my real life women. Objectified with daddy issues.

 

[Loriac]

I hate the whole treating women like sluts thingie in some cRPGs.
I hate armour that exposes as much of body as possible because it kills the point of having armour in the first place.
I hate that often it's impossible to actually play a slut. Just look as a slut. It's not like the game world reacts to it.

Also being able to roleplay as a conservative woman. Sexy preiestesses being the norm is just boggling

Historically in the real world, most female led religious cults / traditions were basically prostitution cults.

 

[Loriac]

Unrelated observation:

Strong woman characters in books, films, games - I like.
But in real life its really hard to cope with them. It feels as if I cant let my guard down like with men...

In all seriousness, go there. You won't EVER want to go back. Strong women - and I mean genuinely emotional strong women, not women who just get aggressive due to emotional problems and hence quickly turn weak and sulky or tantrumy if you don't play ball - make the best girlfriends, wives and even the best one-night-stands. They're the girls who have thought long and hard about how much sex they want to be having, so they aren't feeling guilty while having it. They're also MUCH more likely to be sufficiently comfortable with their sexuality to look up porn and masturbate. That means much more kinky sex, and a girl who orgasms more easily. A girl that orgasms more easily means that you're getting laid a LOT more often - probably at every opportunity she gets if you're both around 17-21.

As a girlfriend, they're less likely to have emotional hangups about who they want to be. Which means no sudden personality swapping next time they meet a new group of friends or change uni courses, It also means that there's much less time with them crying about their insecurities and much more time with them calling up asking 'hey, you up for going to the pub and getting drunk / going raving / having sex all night?'

As a wife, they're still likely to be more stable and have thought through the whole thinkg of whether they want to get married, They aren't married because they simply expected to one day, or because it was their life's dream to walk down the isle (and now that it's over they're feeling rather hollow with what to do next - trust me, I've seen this with friend's wives). No, they're likely to be with you through thick and thin because they married out of a conscious decision that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives living with and fucking only you. They made that choice knowing they had other options, and so they aren't going to suddenly wake up to those optoins 10 years in (again, I've seen that disaster in friends' marriages). They're also MUCH more likely to be earning good money, supporting your gaming habit, and demanding good sex, which means having lots more sex.

Trust me, breaking your aversion to strong women will be one of the best things you will EVER do.

Divorced man walking...

 

[Loriac]

The crux of this discussion misses one very real issue. Any media that becomes feminized is no longer attractive to straight boys or men.

Most tv these days has become feminized (think crap like twilight or the syfy channel) and as a consequence males just don't watch it anymore.

Computer games are probably the last major bastion of male entertainment left. If publishers try to make mainstream games more 'inclusive' they will over time lose their male audience. I would guess that they are aware of that, which is why large studios continue to make games aimed at teenage males.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

To be honest, Biwhore games are already pretty feminized.

Also, the problem of slutty female characters isn't really connected to gender or sexual preferences of the audience.
A lot of game males doesn't like the slutty female characters and a lot of female gamers like slutty female characters.

Hell, most of people who wear in sexually provocative clothes in RL and wear make-up and thingies and stuffies like that are females, not teenage boys.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Unrelated observation:

Strong woman characters in books, films, games - I like.
But in real life its really hard to cope with them. It feels as if I cant let my guard down like with men...

In all seriousness, go there. You won't EVER want to go back. Strong women - and I mean genuinely emotional strong women, not women who just get aggressive due to emotional problems and hence quickly turn weak and sulky or tantrumy if you don't play ball - make the best girlfriends, wives and even the best one-night-stands. They're the girls who have thought long and hard about how much sex they want to be having, so they aren't feeling guilty while having it. They're also MUCH more likely to be sufficiently comfortable with their sexuality to look up porn and masturbate. That means much more kinky sex, and a girl who orgasms more easily. A girl that orgasms more easily means that you're getting laid a LOT more often - probably at every opportunity she gets if you're both around 17-21.

As a girlfriend, they're less likely to have emotional hangups about who they want to be. Which means no sudden personality swapping next time they meet a new group of friends or change uni courses, It also means that there's much less time with them crying about their insecurities and much more time with them calling up asking 'hey, you up for going to the pub and getting drunk / going raving / having sex all night?'

As a wife, they're still likely to be more stable and have thought through the whole thinkg of whether they want to get married, They aren't married because they simply expected to one day, or because it was their life's dream to walk down the isle (and now that it's over they're feeling rather hollow with what to do next - trust me, I've seen this with friend's wives). No, they're likely to be with you through thick and thin because they married out of a conscious decision that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives living with and fucking only you. They made that choice knowing they had other options, and so they aren't going to suddenly wake up to those optoins 10 years in (again, I've seen that disaster in friends' marriages). They're also MUCH more likely to be earning good money, supporting your gaming habit, and demanding good sex, which means having lots more sex.

Trust me, breaking your aversion to strong women will be one of the best things you will EVER do.

Brah, I trust you as one can only trust internet people. That being said, you are generalizing like there is no tomorrow. Including anecdotal evidence and an overly long text.

First. Strong and weak are not binary in the real world. I am weak sometimes.

Second. I knew 2 strong women. Both are neutral chaotic. Thats as low as a human being can get, like me. If they are intelligent to boot, there is no fucking with them.

Third. Sex has abso-fucking-lutely no correlation with an emotional stable character whatsoever.

Last. Even if they are "super-strong", they wont go with you through thick and thin if they decide not to. Mistakes are made sometimes. And nobody wants to fuck the same dude their whole life. From my anecdotal experience, long lasting marriages are about loyalty and comfort. Strong character doesnt help there. It makes them independent.

I remember you being super awesomely married with a super woman. I also remember you earning less than her. No wonder that you have written that post about her...
... and gambling habits...

Gaming habits, not gambling habits.

And of course it's a fucking opinion piece backed by purely anectodal and generalised claims - it's a fucking internet forum you douche, not an academic journal. It's just a piece of advice based purely on personal experience. Other folks' personal experience may differ. By all means share if that is the case and we can all be the richer for it. I personally, am happy being having constantly dated strong, confident individuals and eventually married one. Maybe you've been burnt doing the same. By all means tell me your story if that's what your want. Doesn't negate mine, just like mine doesn't negate yours. I'm not slamming anyone for not following my advice - just giving it because it's worked for me. Just like I'd advise young folks going to uni to do a double degree if possible, making one something with a clear and guaranteed career, and the other something generalised in the humanities, sciences or business. Doesn't mean it's the only fucking path to success, nor that I think it will work for everyone. But I'm really fucking glad I did it, and so I'd recommend the same to others.

Oddly enough, I don't tend to have quite so dogmatic views about games here either. I enjoyed FO and Deus Ex, so I'd recommend them to folks. But I'm not going to crucify them for liking Street Fighter and Quake instead, nor for playing Deus Ex and hating it. I guess that's the difference between us.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

 

[BethesdaLove]

Oh shit. Gaming habtis... I am projecting.
:brofist:

 

[mondblut]

Then make sure the job is woman friendly: provide childcare access (if you're a small firm, do a deal with other small firms and a private child care centre), good pregrnancy leave...

hold them to the same expectations/standards as the guys, etc.

Guys don't drop out for a couple of years to procreate, let alone expect some "leave" for that. So much for "same expectations". If a female worker desires to be treated as a male worker, she'd best forget about suddenly being treated very specially due to getting infected with an intravaginal parasite.

 

[tunguska]

There is a name for strong women: men. I like dating women who seem like women. Not just who look and sound like women, but who act the part. It's hard to explain in words what the difference is. I guess you just know it when you see it. That's one problem with living in the US currently. Women are becoming more and more like men. Not physically, but in terms of their overall personalities. American women are apparently known for this. Although I think it's only a small percentage who seem like men as described above. But the overall trend of women becoming masculinized is disturbing. As the article shows a lot of American women like to whine about trivialities. So there are still some differences.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Then make sure the job is woman friendly: provide childcare access (if you're a small firm, do a deal with other small firms and a private child care centre), good pregrnancy leave...

hold them to the same expectations/standards as the guys, etc.

Guys don't drop out for a couple of years to procreate, let alone expect some "leave" for that. So much for "same expectations". If a female worker desires to be treated as a male worker, she'd best forget about suddenly being treated very specially due to getting infected with an intravaginal parasite.

Well the commercial payoff is that the company gets to retain female talent and is then at an advantage when it comes to making products that sell to women. 50% of the market is a little bit too big to just forego because of the inconveniences of managing employee leave.

But yes, I agree completely that leave should be equal. In most first world nations, leave can either be taken by father or mother, and often by both. It's one of those things that is (a) unfair but (b) good for the economy. It's unfair because working class folks subsidise the children of wealthier professionals. It's good for the economy and society because it lessens the skewing of birthrate towards the impoverished - in many countries there's a serious problem wherein the only folk having lots of kids are those who are too poor and illeducated to afford them. Parental leave alleviates that. You can throw free university education (or cheap and massively subsidised loans that get built into your income tax, as in Australia) - it sure as hell isn't fair for brickies and cleaners to pay for middle class kiddies to go to uni or trade school to earn an even BIGGER income gap. But it's really good for the economy and standard of living so we do it anyway.

Incentives for female workers aren't there because they deserve special treatment. It's because they help the company, and hence the economy. Shit, a law firm invests around $200,000 into the professional education of a young lawyer - formal ongoing education, time wasted teaching them how to draft common contracts, supervising them and holding their hand through cases that are really basic but that they think are ultra complex....you have to do it for every single articled clerk and rp you hire, no matter what. 60% of law students over here are women - if you want to hire the best young lawyers, you're going to be hiring a lot of women. Do you REALLY want to be flushing all that money down the toilet by having them leave their careers when they have kids? No way - not when the costs of a few months parental leave and a child care centre are pretty much petty cash compared to the amount you're spending training them, and the amount that they'll be earning for you if they then stick with you for the next 20 years out of loyalty. And if you can get the rep as 'the best place for female lawyers to work' there's huge financial rewards to be had, as you can take your pick of the best law grads without having to compete on salary.

I've seen it with my female friends in a number of professions. If they're worth keeping, firms will bend over backwards to carry them through childbirth, because it's good for the firm. The only industries where it doesn't happen are those which are so forcused around art or mechanical production or something other than selling product that they don't structure themselves with profit first and foremost in mind. I suspect gaming falls into that latter category.

Now think about gaming where you've got a huge untapped female market. On top of that, whilst your law firm's clients have pretty much the same needs regardless of whether their CEO is male or female, we simply don't know whether girl gamers are going to want the same things as guys in the long run. Not saynig they don't - just saying we don't know yet. Yeah, there's money to be had by enticing female designers and keeping them post childbearing.That's a different matter to pregnancy leave.

I also think there might be a US/Aust skewing here in terms of how much leave is significant. Over in Australia, young professionals take off to tour the world as backpackers for a year or so all the fucking time. By comparison, a woman who lost 6 months working experience due to pregnancy isn't at all disadvantaged when it comes to professional experience. When I did my backpacking sojourn, the Americans I ran into were always weirded out by the Aussies and Germans travelling for 6-12months, as they couldn't get more than a few weeks of travelling without it being seen as wasting time that should be spent getting commercial experience. I can see how that might make preganancy leave less practical.

 

[Loriac]

To be honest, Biwhore games are already pretty feminized.

I think you have a fair point here, particularly in relation to the crappy romances that seem to infest their games. One thing I've noticed is that I find the storylines more and more tedious in their games over time, and I suspect a large part of it is their rampant political correctness.

Also, the problem of slutty female characters isn't really connected to gender or sexual preferences of the audience.
A lot of game males doesn't like the slutty female characters

bullshit. only manginas who think they will gain approval from females on some interwebs board post this kind of drivel. Or the guy is gay.

and a lot of female gamers like slutty female characters.

How many female gamers liked the sex cards in the the witcher? Female gamers are turned off by various things that males are amused by. the slutty female characters thing I can understand though, its a way to attention whore in an mmo. My experience of MMOs (i've not played them in a few years now however) is that the real women playing them are grade a attention whores.

Hell, most of people who wear in sexually provocative clothes in RL and wear make-up and thingies and stuffies like that are females, not teenage boys.

see point above about attention whoring.

 

[Loriac]

Unrelated observation:

Strong woman characters in books, films, games - I like.
But in real life its really hard to cope with them. It feels as if I cant let my guard down like with men...

In all seriousness, go there. You won't EVER want to go back. Strong women - and I mean genuinely emotional strong women, not women who just get aggressive due to emotional problems and hence quickly turn weak and sulky or tantrumy if you don't play ball - make the best girlfriends, wives and even the best one-night-stands. They're the girls who have thought long and hard about how much sex they want to be having, so they aren't feeling guilty while having it. They're also MUCH more likely to be sufficiently comfortable with their sexuality to look up porn and masturbate. That means much more kinky sex, and a girl who orgasms more easily. A girl that orgasms more easily means that you're getting laid a LOT more often - probably at every opportunity she gets if you're both around 17-21.

As a girlfriend, they're less likely to have emotional hangups about who they want to be. Which means no sudden personality swapping next time they meet a new group of friends or change uni courses, It also means that there's much less time with them crying about their insecurities and much more time with them calling up asking 'hey, you up for going to the pub and getting drunk / going raving / having sex all night?'

As a wife, they're still likely to be more stable and have thought through the whole thinkg of whether they want to get married, They aren't married because they simply expected to one day, or because it was their life's dream to walk down the isle (and now that it's over they're feeling rather hollow with what to do next - trust me, I've seen this with friend's wives). No, they're likely to be with you through thick and thin because they married out of a conscious decision that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives living with and fucking only you. They made that choice knowing they had other options, and so they aren't going to suddenly wake up to those optoins 10 years in (again, I've seen that disaster in friends' marriages). They're also MUCH more likely to be earning good money, supporting your gaming habit, and demanding good sex, which means having lots more sex.

Trust me, breaking your aversion to strong women will be one of the best things you will EVER do.

Brah, I trust you as one can only trust internet people. That being said, you are generalizing like there is no tomorrow. Including anecdotal evidence and an overly long text.

First. Strong and weak are not binary in the real world. I am weak sometimes.

Second. I knew 2 strong women. Both are neutral chaotic. Thats as low as a human being can get, like me. If they are intelligent to boot, there is no fucking with them.

Third. Sex has abso-fucking-lutely no correlation with an emotional stable character whatsoever.

Last. Even if they are "super-strong", they wont go with you through thick and thin if they decide not to. Mistakes are made sometimes. And nobody wants to fuck the same dude their whole life. From my anecdotal experience, long lasting marriages are about loyalty and comfort. Strong character doesnt help there. It makes them independent.

I remember you being super awesomely married with a super woman. I also remember you earning less than her. No wonder that you have written that post about her...
... and gambling habits...

Gaming habits, not gambling habits.

And of course it's a fucking opinion piece backed by purely anectodal and generalised claims - it's a fucking internet forum you douche, not an academic journal. It's just a piece of advice based purely on personal experience. Other folks' personal experience may differ. By all means share if that is the case and we can all be the richer for it. I personally, am happy being having constantly dated strong, confident individuals and eventually married one. Maybe you've been burnt doing the same. By all means tell me your story if that's what your want. Doesn't negate mine, just like mine doesn't negate yours. I'm not slamming anyone for not following my advice - just giving it because it's worked for me. Just like I'd advise young folks going to uni to do a double degree if possible, making one something with a clear and guaranteed career, and the other something generalised in the humanities, sciences or business. Doesn't mean it's the only fucking path to success, nor that I think it will work for everyone. But I'm really fucking glad I did it, and so I'd recommend the same to others.

Oddly enough, I don't tend to have quite so dogmatic views about games here either. I enjoyed FO and Deus Ex, so I'd recommend them to folks. But I'm not going to crucify them for liking Street Fighter and Quake instead, nor for playing Deus Ex and hating it. I guess that's the difference between us.

When your advice is fucking useless it deserves to be mocked, your 'personal experiences' and 'feelings' notwithstanding.

 

[Redshirt #42]