I saw a forum post. Some unintentionally brilliant fellow asked, how were women portrayed in the last two games you played? Overwhelmingly the responses were: equally portrayed with a smattering of "no women" "gender insignificant" (for simple games) So overwhelmingly that there were only one or two other responses among hundreds. A couple were "legitimate sexism in the game" (Saints Row 2, Bayonetta) but one or two said this "All girls have miniskirts - ugh, not equal" (GuildWars 2) and "Scantily clad, but chosen for abilities anyway" (League of Legends)
Said Forum: The-Roles-Females-Play-in-The-Last-Two-Games-Youve-Played
Let me just copy some of the responses since I have no idea how long that thread will be around.
On this website I see quite often people who say women are generally represented badly in gaming, so my question is: How are female characters treated in the last two games you played? 1. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, No females in the game. 2.Smite, In this game females are just as powerful as male characters.
1. Star Ocean: The Last Hope Depends on the level you get them to, but all the characters have their own strengths and weaknesses anyway. So technically anyone can be weaker, equal to, or stronger than anyone else. 2. Spec Ops: The Line There are female civilians, I believe with one being tortured to get another character to talk. However, there are male civilians and a male is also tortured as well I believe.
Dragon Age Origins: Pretty much equal in everything, with multiple, powerful female characters. Dungeons of Dredmor: Only difference is the sprite (but she still has huge eyebrows). Yeah, seems pretty equal.
Pokemon Crystal: As fair as you can really be Blood: Gender doesn't really come into that game...
1. Dragon Quest 4 DS remake. The main character of the 2nd chapter is female. Ironically she is physically stronger than my other 2 male party members. 2. Final Fantasy 13. Grinding adamantoise using Vanielle to cast death. Wouldn't be possible without her in the party.
Persona 4: Females are strong and each of the main female characters defies female stereotypes in their own way. Guild Wars 2: Can't really say as I haven't had much time with the game yet. The leader of the Sylvari is female as far as I can tell so there's that.
I just single handedly killed Caesar and his guards with my female character in Fallout New Vegas. The Legion. Declares woman as useless, and are treated like property. Gets destroyed by a woman. I love it :D The second game is Skyrim, in which women seem represented rather well :D
LoL: Plenty of female characters who can be as powerful as the males depending on the skill of the player. Minecraft: None.
Guild Wars 2: Playable and equal to male characters. Hard to make them not pretty when playing Human or Norn though. Can't remember the game before that, it's been a while since I played anything since Guild Wars 2, so I'll go with what I'll play next: New Vegas. Again, playable, mostly equal, and a fair amount of good female NPCs.
Wild ARMs 2: We have a fairly typical Squishy Mage (though there's a male Squishy Mage (even squishier, in fact) to balance her out). But we've also got a badass cyborg bounty hunter who is hands-doown the best non-main-character melee fighter in the game, and a weird vampire girl who's sot of a Blue Mage with decent physical strength. The party's equally divided between males and females if you've recruited Marivel. Chrono Cross: Interesting array of female playable characters, including a mad scientist, a mermaid, a thief, a jester, a dancer, a cavegirl, an annoying kid, and others I haven't even seen.
Skyrim: Males and females are pretty much equal in the game universe and the MC can be either male or female. League of legends: Pretty much the same as any MOBA, has strong female characters who are represented equally but some of their attire is a bit.......yeah......
Borderlands: One of the four main characters is a female, and the single most powerful playable character in the game (in fact, miles ahead of the other three). Other than that females are enemies, mad scientists, bosses, and a couple of kick-ass allies. Counter Strike GO: No women here.
KotOR: Bastilla, Mission and Juhani (potentiall also Revan though it isn't cannon, sadly for Carth). Bastilla and Mission are enjoyable companions (showing a complete oposite end of the personality spectrum), Juhani is pretty bland (Wookiepedia does claim that about half of her intended dialogue written never made it into the game) but credit to her for being the first lesbian I encountered in the Star Wars universe. As for importance to the plot well Mission and Juhani importance is mostly focused around the time they are introduced but Bastilla is one of the main driving forces behind the plot. LoL: The dress code that some of the female characters abide by is...well certainly well aware of what the primary demographic is, but at the end of the day the reason that any champion gets played is for their viability or enjoyability and in that case there is no significant difference.
Devil May Cry 3: One woman in the game who, while kinda badass, doesn't do anything that Dante couldn't have done three times faster, except have a boss fight that is both annoying and awesome at the same time (I mean, the battle is fun and all, but how the hell does a normal human with very little training dodge bullets by rolling?) Devil May Cry 4: Three women in the game. One exists purely to look pretty while wearing not a lot and to mess everything up simply because she found it funny. One is there to extort money from Dante and give tiny rewards whenever he does something huge for her. And one is there to sing and get kidnapped.
Battlefield 3: There's one woman in the US military, and she's a pilot. I find this unrealistic and offensive. Guild Wars 2: There's a lot of women and they all wear mini skirts. I find this unrealistic and offensive. Any questions?
Persona 4 -They feel human, like every other character in the game. The four female main characters will fight with the male half of the cast and they kick as much ass as the guys. Plus, Chie is one of the best characters in the game. 'Dat Galactic Punt... Animal Crossing DS -Well, it's Animal Crossing. No characters (Male or Female) really have any redeeming factors or do anything important. Except for that bastard Tom Nook.
1. Dead Space So a dead girlfriend and a undercover government operative 2.Saint's Row 2 Ummm... yah
League of Legends--lots of powerful females like Leona, Ashe, Sivir, Irelia, Sona, and Ezreal asciiVANIA--You're a letter in the alphabet... no genders at all
Lego Batman 2: probably under-represented a little bit, two of the most useful female characters (Supergirl, Black Canary) are much harder to acquire than their male counterparts (Superman and Man-Bat). Beat Hazard: N/A Bayonetta: Whole can of worms. I'm on the side of positive portrayal, but that's hardly unanimous.
1.Dead space The women in that is a engineer and the only person in that game who is sane. 2.Bioshock The women are pretty much equal to men read they run around trying to kill you. Except for the one that has something to do with the little sisters. On a side note I just realized how many of my games have only three people who say anything of consequence.
Guild Wars 2 - strong female NPC's (protagonists and antagonists) all around, they were obviously aiming for 50/50. Battlefield 3 - No females here.
Soulstorm There is an entire army made up of women in power armor that literally use fire to kill everything. Warriors Orochi 3 I'd make a comment about some of the women wearing outfits that are impractical for going into battle, except a lot of the men aren't much better.
After the double post about Guildwars and LoL and beginning reading expecting only to find "discriminated, discriminated, discriminated" I understood better why women are so objectified, stereotyped and generally ill-portrayed. Guys don't notice or care about how women appear, are treated, or behave when it comes to worth and equality. To them what matters is what they do and are capable of doing. Your worth comes from your utility and there is no inequality left after that. Anyone can get put down, what matters is your own ability. Besides, in a perfect world everyone would be beautiful and show off, so what's the problem? In short, guys think girls are shown equally! Why? Because they are just as powerful!
Girls define worth more about how they appear, how they behave, and act. Not as much what they contribute. They see women as weak for giving in to wearing revealing clothes and strong for not relying on appearances. Girls return that it can be social weakness, even if they are beautiful especially paired with the other women's social cues in games. Women completely ignore power as an indicator of equality and worth and instead notice their social position, posturing, and appearance (treatment) Basically how they appear and are seen in this fantasy world (and ours,) socially speaking.
So who's right? Both. I think women are lacking in dimension still, but I didn't realize how far they had come and how right guys are that it matters a lot that they are already just as powerful as the guys in videogames.
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