Frezgle said:
Video games are more often catered to men because there are more men that play video games. It's been that way from the beginning (actually, I would say back then it was more MORE polarized than it is now). It's not any matter of a total lack of games that would appeal to girls, because a large number of popular game franchises are rather neutral in their approach, particularly Nintendo IPs such as Mario, Pokemon, Kirby, etc. Girls simply, in general, are less likely to enjoy gaming. As an industry, you don't waste time pouring money into products that aren't for your majority demographic.
Inb4 "But I'm a girl and I play games!!": I know. So am I. Take note of the use of "in general" up there.
You are right, back in the day, girls did played fewer videogames than boys, I think it had more to do with how men are more competitive (a large amount of games were 2 player or arcades) and at certain age, girls came to see that, and by extension, videogames, as childish. When and where I grew up, no girls played pokemon; it
was a craze, and many watched the series, but the games were mostly boys's territory (mostly).
Those franchises you mentioned are neutral, yes, but no one should have to divide games into "for girls", "neutral" and "for boys" and choose what to play based on that distinction. Many games have great stories, gameplay and messages, regardless of the demographic. Actually, a big chunk of the games that do have all that, would fall into the "for boys" category, and it's sad for great works of storytelling like MGS, mass effect, or portal to be put on the same place as call of duty 1335, FIFA or dead or alive beach volleyball, because games like those are probably a pretty big cause of women's rejection of the medium.
Delta said:
...Metal Gear Rising has Raiden as the main character. Change it to a female character and nothing really has changed and it' still crazy badass...
How exactly would making raiden a female and nothing changing (being still crazy badass) be good? If you have a character and the gender it is doesn't affect in the slightest the story it is involved in, it's interactions with the world, or with other characters, is it even a good character? That might be OK in an RPG where you can choose your character's gender, but in RPGs the point is precisely that, a character as a blank sheet for the player to inmerse itself in.
When you have a character driven story, where something as huge as changing the character's gender doesn't affect anything, at all, then you don't have a character driven story, you have a bad story. A character's gender determines more than what little armor they can wear, or the size, or lack, of boobs: it implies a worldview, a mindset, a way to approach situations, a way to relate. Describing a female character as just "badass" just objectifies them, puts them is the same place, the same stereotype a a male character would be, the same situation as in saying a male character is delicate, or a meow (a meow? seriously? I'm trying to have an adult conversation here, for crying out loud!
A meow?), in that case it would be stereotyping to the other side, to put them in the place of a common female stereotype.
There's nothing wrong with females being badasses or males being lots of meowing (C'MON!)
You yourself named metal gear. The Boss is a female, so is Meryl, so is M********* Sniper Wolf, or Olga, and they all kick enormous amounts of ass, but they don't do it as males, they have
their motivations,
their personalities, all that drives them and makes them great is
because they are females, not "in spite of" nor "whatever, just make it a girl", they are well written, and they
would not be the same if they were men.
Otacon could be described as a meow, right? he is pretty coward, when faced with the god damn cyborg ninja the guy locks himself in a locker and pisses himself, hides for all the rest of the game, never sees action, has a
quite interesting relationship with snake (they are the best of friends for me, though. Not for others). Would his character be the same if he were a girl? What about mei ling? or naomi? are they lots of meowing too? or badasses?
And here I come full circle with what frezgle said and what I now ask to delta:
For VG writers, not being sexist is usually "empowering the female" and nothing else, with no thought behind it.
"Why do you complain about lara croft being sexist? she's badass! and, well, the twins are in there for the boys to have fun, you understand." That's what they ask when you question them, and the gamers usually learn the same lesson.
When the tomb raider reboot came people raised their voices about its treatment of females for the violence lara was subjected to, for her having second thoughts about the stuff she was forced to do and for other stuff. But, she was excellently written, she was a badass, and she was a woman, she killed, but she felt too, and she was treated by the story the exact same way a man would have been treated. She was hitted, slapped, shot, mauled, broke bones, got punctured by branches, gave up, came back and kicked ass,
and she never stopped being her.
But, most girls will never play that excellent game, with so much to teach them because "oh, you shoot things? that's for men." and that's so incredibly sad, since it's a self-perpetuating circle, an ouroboros, so to speak.
Go ahead and PM me when his 'secret reason' is revealed and we'll talk. I really don't know why people are freaking out though, this is not new.