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nonesensedI've been reading reviews of Dragon Age II and...I have no words.
Seriously, I'm struck speechless by how utterly dense some individuals can be! Which is why I'm writing this, instead of screaming it at the top of my lungs at whoever would be unlucky enough to end up in my company.
Most Gamers Are Male is a Trope in real need of being discredited. Yes, there are still more guys who game than girls, but there ratio is closer to 2 to 3 than 1 to 10 in this day and age.
And as for what games we like to play...Half of my gamer friends are girls and no, we don't just play The Sims and Farmville – some of us love Portal, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Team Fortress and Assassins' Creed. Hell, some of us just like racing games or fighting games or fucking flower games! Girls are individuals, exactly like boys, which is why categorizing games as "aimed at girls" and "aimed at boys" rubs me the wrong way in all possible manners.
This said, most cultures on this planet where "gamer" is a word usually associate the word with a male person. Thus, most games are made to "appeal to a male audience" (you know, because all men like the exact same things...) and a heterosexual audience at that (gay, bi or asexual male gamers obviously don't exist or at least don't have enough money to matter).
How can we know the industry thinks like this? Well, have you played any non-family console games lately? Especially the ones from the US and Europe?
1. Protagonist is 90% (often caucasian, mute, fit and brown-haired) male. The 10% female protagonists have huge breasts and/or tight outfits. Examples: Half-Life, Deep Space, Red Dead Redemption, etc.
2. You can get “bonuses” in form of new outfits after completing games. If you have female characters who can get new outfits, these will be skimpy.
3. Characters whose sex can't be determined by just looking at them are assumed to be male. If the character turns out to be female this is a huge twist! Examples: Samus Is A Girl.
4. Your character is straight if he's a guy, but girls generally end up bisexual or at least beer queer because Girl On Girl Is Hot. Examples: Mass Effect (oh god, Mass Effect... I love you, but seriously.)
5. All male casts are common. All female casts is all about the female cast wearing skimpy outfits. Example: Dead or Alive: Beach Xtreme Volleyball.
6. Any attempts to challenge these "rules" by, say, making skimpy outfits for males as rewards, is met with small but loud fandom outrage.
And no, this list isn't really hard facts or real statistic proof, but it is the impression I've gotten from playing console games since the age of twelve. Make of that what you will.
Now, I can't really blame game developers for this list, not really. They want to make money and thus they make games designed to appeal to what's supposed to be their main demographic. It's actually a very efficient way to tell the good game makers from the bad ones – the ones who don't use the fallback plan of dumbed down sex appeal in the promotion of their game usually have something worth while in the game itself for you to play. Otherwise they rely on your hormones to guide you in your selection of games. Or explosions.
To that I say this: porn on the internet is free. PG-13 pixel porn is not worth all that money.
And I say dumbed down sex appeal because it is. Attractive people come in many shapes and sizes in real life, but only in one or two in media. Really look at “classically” sexy women portrayed in games today and they'll soon start to blend together (and I say this as someone who's attracted to women).
I'm not one to complain about sexy women. In fact, I greatly enjoy looking at sexy women (and more, but let's not get completely off track here). But when they all look and act the same it gets very boring, very quickly. Is a little variety too much to ask for? And I feel really sorry for the straight female gamers (and myself, partly, since I also find men attractive), because eye candy for them is a rare thing. In the world of the homophobic male gamer any display of male sexiness is disgusting (extra disgusting if it's gay male sexiness).
No, what I really want to complain about is the complaining. Ironic? Hypocritical? You decide.
Reviews of Dragon Age II seem unhealthily obsessed with the fact that OMG A GUY HIT ON ME AND I'M PLAYING A GUY???!!!1111eleven. Not all of them, but it's come up often enough to make me grit my teeth. No matter how politely put, it all ends up smacking of "it's okay to be gay, as long as we don't see it". Sadly this is nothing new and usually not something I can work up the steam to be enraged about. This said, the overreaction to the gay flirting here has reached toddler tantrum levels. It's just embarrassing at this point.
I honestly don't understand why this is such a huge crisis, but apparently getting flirted with by another guy has ruined the game or at least lowered its value to some players. Because clearly all games should be made for Stereotypical Homophobic Straight Men or otherwise given a warning label (I'm not even kidding, someone actually said this...minus the “stereotypical homophobe”-part)
Apparently this one thing that makes the game not completely aimed at them and them alone has lessened the games value. To you guys, I want to say this:
Imagine that you're a woman.
Imagine that you're a woman and you like playing console games. When you do so and pick a game, any console game, you will have a 90% chance of seeing other women in very revealing, very skimpy outfits. Usually illogically skimpy (example: most armor shrinks two sizes when you put it on a woman, yet magically protects as well as the male counterpart).
You can't avoid these women, because they're on display. Hell, occasionally you get a reward which results in said women wearing even skimpier outfits, because you're expected to like that sort of thing. Or you're actually playing a woman, which means you're still in the impractical and quite silly outfit, plus you'll most likely get hit on by other characters of either gender and levels of attractiveness, depending on the imagination of the developers.
In short, you'll play through that one moment of awkwardness that many homophobic gamers seem to have experienced by being hit on by one fictional guy, and you'll play through it over and over and over again, every time you decide to play a game that's slightly mainstream.
I'm not going to pretend female gamers don't complain about this. We do. Because it's annoying as all hell. But the difference between complaining and whining is "there's nothing for me, could you please make me feel more included?" and "they added one option made to appeal to someone that isn't me, make it go away!". Dragon Age II didn't remove the heterosexual options, it simply added gays ones. There is a huge difference, in case you didn't notice.
Valid, mature points I've seen made on Dragon Age II concern the story and character development and other gameplay features that weren't up to par. And you know what, the freak-outs over the gay flirting could actually be voiced without making you look dumb as a rock. Watch:
If one formulated one's complaint on the gay flirting as: “I have no wish to romance this character and him hitting on me forces me to enter a discussion of romance with him, if only to turn him down. And turning him down affects the friendship I have with him, which gives me less bonus points.”
See, not in the least homophobic and addresses a fault in the gameplay mechanic that takes away from your enjoyment and freedom in the game. Is it just me, or did that formulation sound way more adult than "A guy hit on me and that gives me the creeps, stop it!"?
I personally agree that having a romance option character be the one to take the first step isn't such a good idea. Not all players will want to romance all character you can flirt with, so for the sake of choice it should be left out completely. However, when the argument becomes “getting hit on by an NPC sucks because he's a guy” you imply that it would be okay to have it, if it was a hot girl hitting on the main character... Double Standards, anyone?
And yes, you're a homophobe even if you "just think getting hit on by another guy is icky and therefore it shouldn't be in games I play". There are degrees of homophobia just as there are degrees of racism, but it still falls under the same category. I mean, are you really open minded if you say "I've got nothing against the Chinese, I just wish they could warn me if they include them in games I'm thinking of buying"?
(For the insecure: the correct answer is no).
You can't demand not to be called a homophobe while still expressing homophobic opinions. Sorry, but in this universe, logic doesn't work that way.
The lack of female gamers is no surprise to me, seeing as so few games, from the very start, have been aimed at us. This said, to use the lack of female gamers as a reason for why mainstream games shouldn't try to be more inclusive is stupid. Very, very stupid.
As I said before, people who make games want to sell them. Women are not the minority some would like to think, and these days not even gamer girls are that few, so logically you will sell more games by including more options aimed at said women, than you will lose gamer guys so insecure about themselves that they will freak and drop a game as soon as it contains something that isn't exclusively aimed at them.
According to this summary (from 2009) of a survey made by the Entertainment Software Association 38% of all gamers are girl and 44 % online gamers are girls. As in biologically. And there's more joining our ranks every day.
Same goes for gay, bi and asexual people. You'd be surprised how many of us there are out there. The percentage of humanity who aren't heterosexual might be "only 5-10%" (numbers vary greatly) but that's 5-10% of 6 billion people. Yes, we are everywhere. Even kicking your ass on Xbox Live.
Think about that the next time you bring up the argument that "most gamers are straight guys and thus all mainstream games are ours". Please. It will make you look much less stupid.
Side note: I'm also greatly amused by the complaints of the lack of female characters, seeing as Dragon Age II has more than many of the games on the market. Apparently a lack of women in games is only a problem to some when it's a lack of women you can fuck.
And no, all reviews haven't addressed or whined about this. I'm just frustrated with the ones that felt the need to point out the "gay flirting" as a flaw. Most gamers are very nice, sane people, thank the stars.
Seriously, I'm struck speechless by how utterly dense some individuals can be! Which is why I'm writing this, instead of screaming it at the top of my lungs at whoever would be unlucky enough to end up in my company.
Most Gamers Are Male is a Trope in real need of being discredited. Yes, there are still more guys who game than girls, but there ratio is closer to 2 to 3 than 1 to 10 in this day and age.
And as for what games we like to play...Half of my gamer friends are girls and no, we don't just play The Sims and Farmville – some of us love Portal, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Team Fortress and Assassins' Creed. Hell, some of us just like racing games or fighting games or fucking flower games! Girls are individuals, exactly like boys, which is why categorizing games as "aimed at girls" and "aimed at boys" rubs me the wrong way in all possible manners.
This said, most cultures on this planet where "gamer" is a word usually associate the word with a male person. Thus, most games are made to "appeal to a male audience" (you know, because all men like the exact same things...) and a heterosexual audience at that (gay, bi or asexual male gamers obviously don't exist or at least don't have enough money to matter).
How can we know the industry thinks like this? Well, have you played any non-family console games lately? Especially the ones from the US and Europe?
1. Protagonist is 90% (often caucasian, mute, fit and brown-haired) male. The 10% female protagonists have huge breasts and/or tight outfits. Examples: Half-Life, Deep Space, Red Dead Redemption, etc.
2. You can get “bonuses” in form of new outfits after completing games. If you have female characters who can get new outfits, these will be skimpy.
3. Characters whose sex can't be determined by just looking at them are assumed to be male. If the character turns out to be female this is a huge twist! Examples: Samus Is A Girl.
4. Your character is straight if he's a guy, but girls generally end up bisexual or at least beer queer because Girl On Girl Is Hot. Examples: Mass Effect (oh god, Mass Effect... I love you, but seriously.)
5. All male casts are common. All female casts is all about the female cast wearing skimpy outfits. Example: Dead or Alive: Beach Xtreme Volleyball.
6. Any attempts to challenge these "rules" by, say, making skimpy outfits for males as rewards, is met with small but loud fandom outrage.
And no, this list isn't really hard facts or real statistic proof, but it is the impression I've gotten from playing console games since the age of twelve. Make of that what you will.
Now, I can't really blame game developers for this list, not really. They want to make money and thus they make games designed to appeal to what's supposed to be their main demographic. It's actually a very efficient way to tell the good game makers from the bad ones – the ones who don't use the fallback plan of dumbed down sex appeal in the promotion of their game usually have something worth while in the game itself for you to play. Otherwise they rely on your hormones to guide you in your selection of games. Or explosions.
To that I say this: porn on the internet is free. PG-13 pixel porn is not worth all that money.
And I say dumbed down sex appeal because it is. Attractive people come in many shapes and sizes in real life, but only in one or two in media. Really look at “classically” sexy women portrayed in games today and they'll soon start to blend together (and I say this as someone who's attracted to women).
I'm not one to complain about sexy women. In fact, I greatly enjoy looking at sexy women (and more, but let's not get completely off track here). But when they all look and act the same it gets very boring, very quickly. Is a little variety too much to ask for? And I feel really sorry for the straight female gamers (and myself, partly, since I also find men attractive), because eye candy for them is a rare thing. In the world of the homophobic male gamer any display of male sexiness is disgusting (extra disgusting if it's gay male sexiness).
No, what I really want to complain about is the complaining. Ironic? Hypocritical? You decide.
Reviews of Dragon Age II seem unhealthily obsessed with the fact that OMG A GUY HIT ON ME AND I'M PLAYING A GUY???!!!1111eleven. Not all of them, but it's come up often enough to make me grit my teeth. No matter how politely put, it all ends up smacking of "it's okay to be gay, as long as we don't see it". Sadly this is nothing new and usually not something I can work up the steam to be enraged about. This said, the overreaction to the gay flirting here has reached toddler tantrum levels. It's just embarrassing at this point.
I honestly don't understand why this is such a huge crisis, but apparently getting flirted with by another guy has ruined the game or at least lowered its value to some players. Because clearly all games should be made for Stereotypical Homophobic Straight Men or otherwise given a warning label (I'm not even kidding, someone actually said this...minus the “stereotypical homophobe”-part)
Apparently this one thing that makes the game not completely aimed at them and them alone has lessened the games value. To you guys, I want to say this:
Imagine that you're a woman.
Imagine that you're a woman and you like playing console games. When you do so and pick a game, any console game, you will have a 90% chance of seeing other women in very revealing, very skimpy outfits. Usually illogically skimpy (example: most armor shrinks two sizes when you put it on a woman, yet magically protects as well as the male counterpart).
You can't avoid these women, because they're on display. Hell, occasionally you get a reward which results in said women wearing even skimpier outfits, because you're expected to like that sort of thing. Or you're actually playing a woman, which means you're still in the impractical and quite silly outfit, plus you'll most likely get hit on by other characters of either gender and levels of attractiveness, depending on the imagination of the developers.
In short, you'll play through that one moment of awkwardness that many homophobic gamers seem to have experienced by being hit on by one fictional guy, and you'll play through it over and over and over again, every time you decide to play a game that's slightly mainstream.
I'm not going to pretend female gamers don't complain about this. We do. Because it's annoying as all hell. But the difference between complaining and whining is "there's nothing for me, could you please make me feel more included?" and "they added one option made to appeal to someone that isn't me, make it go away!". Dragon Age II didn't remove the heterosexual options, it simply added gays ones. There is a huge difference, in case you didn't notice.
Valid, mature points I've seen made on Dragon Age II concern the story and character development and other gameplay features that weren't up to par. And you know what, the freak-outs over the gay flirting could actually be voiced without making you look dumb as a rock. Watch:
If one formulated one's complaint on the gay flirting as: “I have no wish to romance this character and him hitting on me forces me to enter a discussion of romance with him, if only to turn him down. And turning him down affects the friendship I have with him, which gives me less bonus points.”
See, not in the least homophobic and addresses a fault in the gameplay mechanic that takes away from your enjoyment and freedom in the game. Is it just me, or did that formulation sound way more adult than "A guy hit on me and that gives me the creeps, stop it!"?
I personally agree that having a romance option character be the one to take the first step isn't such a good idea. Not all players will want to romance all character you can flirt with, so for the sake of choice it should be left out completely. However, when the argument becomes “getting hit on by an NPC sucks because he's a guy” you imply that it would be okay to have it, if it was a hot girl hitting on the main character... Double Standards, anyone?
And yes, you're a homophobe even if you "just think getting hit on by another guy is icky and therefore it shouldn't be in games I play". There are degrees of homophobia just as there are degrees of racism, but it still falls under the same category. I mean, are you really open minded if you say "I've got nothing against the Chinese, I just wish they could warn me if they include them in games I'm thinking of buying"?
(For the insecure: the correct answer is no).
You can't demand not to be called a homophobe while still expressing homophobic opinions. Sorry, but in this universe, logic doesn't work that way.
The lack of female gamers is no surprise to me, seeing as so few games, from the very start, have been aimed at us. This said, to use the lack of female gamers as a reason for why mainstream games shouldn't try to be more inclusive is stupid. Very, very stupid.
As I said before, people who make games want to sell them. Women are not the minority some would like to think, and these days not even gamer girls are that few, so logically you will sell more games by including more options aimed at said women, than you will lose gamer guys so insecure about themselves that they will freak and drop a game as soon as it contains something that isn't exclusively aimed at them.
According to this summary (from 2009) of a survey made by the Entertainment Software Association 38% of all gamers are girl and 44 % online gamers are girls. As in biologically. And there's more joining our ranks every day.
Same goes for gay, bi and asexual people. You'd be surprised how many of us there are out there. The percentage of humanity who aren't heterosexual might be "only 5-10%" (numbers vary greatly) but that's 5-10% of 6 billion people. Yes, we are everywhere. Even kicking your ass on Xbox Live.
Think about that the next time you bring up the argument that "most gamers are straight guys and thus all mainstream games are ours". Please. It will make you look much less stupid.
Side note: I'm also greatly amused by the complaints of the lack of female characters, seeing as Dragon Age II has more than many of the games on the market. Apparently a lack of women in games is only a problem to some when it's a lack of women you can fuck.
And no, all reviews haven't addressed or whined about this. I'm just frustrated with the ones that felt the need to point out the "gay flirting" as a flaw. Most gamers are very nice, sane people, thank the stars.
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