# Women in their portrayal in video games.



## Marcus588 (May 4, 2014)

Now I am not sure how many women here play video games but there is a fairly popular feminist on YT that makes videos regarding the portrayal of women in media and last year she started what is known as a kickstarter campaign to raise money to make a series of YT videos specifically regarding their portrayal of video games. She managed to get $158,922 for it. 

Her most recent video is called "Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games"

Link: Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games - YouTube

She has gotten lots of flack for it for things such as not being truthful/accurate in her views. So I am curious for those who do play or even don't play video games what your thoughts are.

For the record I like her for the most part and do think she brings up some good points, however she does misrepresent some things which bug me. 

You can find the rest of her videos to her series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn4ob_5_ttEaA_vc8F3fjzE62esf9yP61

Funny enough, when my ex gf would play the Grand Theft Auto games killing hookers was one of her favorite things to do lol.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Sorry but her views remind me of the whole FOX news episode with ME1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKzF173GqTU
:slap:


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## hawx20 (Jan 10, 2013)

Most games are geared towards males. These females are meant to be a fantasy. Who do you think a guy wants to stare at? A flat chested, flat butt, non attractive female model or one with a big boobs, big butt, pretty face, and a small waist?

Heck, even the men in games are usually model quality faces with ridiculous bodies. Basically, male gamers want to look like male character models and want to look at the female models in game. Its no secret. 

There will always be those games where the warrior chick has on a ridiculous armor piece that exposes everything but her privates, but for the most part its changing.

Halo Reach had the bad ass female spartan. Not incredibly pretty, but she could kick your ass. Call of Duty introduced female characters into multiplayer that are dressed just like the males. Even the gaming icon Lara Croft made a huge change. Her first game on the PS1 had her with ridiculous proportions to her breasts, waist, and butt. The latest entry has a much more realistic version of her which is a hundred times better.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

hawx20 said:


> There will always be those games where the warrior chick has on a ridiculous armor piece that exposes everything but her privates, but for the most part its changing.


Oh, it's not only restricted to games or movies:


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## ScarletBegonias (Jun 26, 2012)

I've played several games where women are portrayed as powerful and smart...if you choose to play as a female your character is treated exactly the same as if you had chosen a male character. 

Saints Row series comes to mind first. 
The Elder Scrolls series too.

There are many,many others. Can we say Tomb Raider?? lol

The men are all portrayed as muscular with chiseled features and the ladies are portrayed with big boobs and strong bodies. 



I will admit I do NOT like games that don't let you choose which sex to be.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

^How can you possibly forget femshepard?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZMw9nW2Obk


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## ocotillo (Oct 17, 2011)

I think most are familiar with Tomb Raider. I was surprised after a few minutes of Portal to discover that the character you play as is female. (You don't have a choice) There was also a Nintendo franchise that my kids played where the action hero character was female. (I think it was called Metroid but I might be wrong.)


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## Lordhavok (Mar 14, 2012)

RandomDude said:


> Oh, it's not only restricted to games or movies:


Louis Royo is awesome. 
Tomb raider, yeah, I remember reading about production stuff on the second or third one. The design team was under pressure from the boss about "if your going to stare at a female character for 30 hours or so, it just as well be an attractive one".
Metroid, yes, Samus Aran is a female.


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

Back in the early 90's I was a gamer.

Back then the popular games were Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct.

My favorite game character in Street Fighter was a female fighter named Sonya Blade. She had a mean kick combo that was hard to beat.
In Mortal Kombat however, the more powerful fighters were male.


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## Racer (Sep 24, 2009)

ScarletBegonias said:


> There are many,many others. Can we say Tomb Raider?? lol.


The last Tomb Raider is a great game... And you can't change characters. She's the strong one... 

Screenshot..


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## Racer (Sep 24, 2009)

Also, anymore a lot of games have a character creation screen... So you decide what your toon will look like. You can choose your own sex, build, muscle tone, tattoo's, skin tone, and morph around facial features like haircuts, eybrows, lips, eyes, nose, etc.

So even some of those raunchy ones like Saint's Row, you can make your character look anyway you want from super-sized boobs to just super-sized...


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Racer said:


> The last Tomb Raider is a great game... And you can't change characters. She's the strong one...












https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM3UT0KxVEc

This scene inspired to wanna climb radio towers for real!


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## CuddleBug (Nov 26, 2012)

I like the fact I can chose which sex I want to play, mainly male characters for me, so it should be the same for the lady gamers. All the current games I have give the option for male or female characters and many guys even chose female characters, but back in the day, it was mainly male characters.

When I was young, at the corner gas station, video game amusement parks and home gaming systems like Atari, Coleco Vision, Nintendo, etc. us guys would play all the time but our girlfriends would not be interested in gaming and do other things.

Sex sells and the majority of gamers are guys, so that's why you see sexy lady characters. If the ladies gamed the same or more than us guys, I'm sure the gaming industry would have sexy guys in the backgrounds too. Gaming industry is going to cater to what makes them the most money and nothing else.

If the ladies did most of the gaming and us guys didn't game nearly as much, you would see mainly female characters and sexy guys in the backgrounds, male strippers, etc.

If the gaming industry catered to the minority, they wouldn't have their great profits or lasted as long as they have.

Sex sells. Just the way it is and always will be.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

> When I was young, at the corner gas station, video game amusement parks and home gaming systems like Atari, Coleco Vision, Nintendo, etc. us guys would play all the time but our girlfriends would not be interested in gaming and do other things.


Man I still remember the times in the arcades! Street fighter FTW!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ajGbl11q-Y










lol

Anyways, in my generation and especially the younger ones gaming is becoming more unisex.


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## CuddleBug (Nov 26, 2012)

RandomDude said:


> Man I still remember the times in the arcades! Street fighter FTW!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ajGbl11q-Y
> 
> ...



hehe Totally.

Or remember AfterBurner? First game that you sat inside and flew the jet fighter? That game was the bomb at that time.:smthumbup:

I think as time goes on, the ladies may game more to the point its almost 50/50 for gamers and you will see sexy guys and characters like there are sexy ladies and female characters. But if that never happens, sales aren't there, it will be as it is today.


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## manticore (Sep 3, 2013)

I call this BS.

many of my favorite games have female leads, who are not sexualized or put barely dressed in the games.

as yuna in final fantazy X-2 the priestess that saved the world and her man from destruction (in fact the man was sort the damsel in distress.




















Kerrigan queen of blades, that after losing her humanity and becoming the queen of zergs still helped her old human crush when the human federation was about to rule a dictatorship goverment.










and lastly and more important the one that shows that women have been depicted as kick ass characters from the biginning of times in video games, my favorite nintendo game when I was a kid.

Metroid which lead character is Samus Aran, that if anything made that many boys of my generation think af women
as possible kick ass warriors.

I dare anyone to find the explotation of females as objects in this game



















again, this is why I think extreme feminists are just 
unbearable.


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## CuddleBug (Nov 26, 2012)

Agreed. What do I want to see in games? A dude or a hot female character? Duh 

Feminism today is not needed anymore. This is not the 1960's.

If the ladies want to be single, they are single.

If they want to get educated, they get educated.

Whatever field they want to pursue, they can pursue.

They can be stay at home mom's and have a career after the kids are in high school or they don't need to have kids at all.

To me, today, women are equals in whatever they want to do in life.

But when the feminists run out of things to complain about, they will try and find more.....


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

Queen b--tch of the universe is most definitely one of the most kick ass characters in gaming history!


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

I think the women are hot.

As long as they are a$$ kicking along side the men, I'm all for it.


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## unbelievable (Aug 20, 2010)

If feminists want to design video games with homely female characters they are free to do so. They might even sell a couple.


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

Feminists and homely?

I think the women should be kicking A$$ and looking like goddesses. 

Then again, girls turn me on, so there's that.


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## Lordhavok (Mar 14, 2012)

Louis Royo does some awsome stuff showing women of power


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## CharlieParker (Aug 15, 2012)

You can be a female assassin in Sunset Overdrive (but not in Assassin's Creed) - Eurogamer.net


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## Lordhavok (Mar 14, 2012)

The lovely and psychotic "Harley Quinn"


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