Hmm I might be misremembering this and it's probably pretty old data. But isn't RPG:s one of the more popular genres among women?
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/
Actually, 26 % for Western RPGs, and 33 % for Japanese. Though this does depend on the game, for example Dragon Age Inquisition had a massively different %, with 48 % of the playerbase being women. But then it's made by BioWare, who is known to cater for women (and LGBT as well) during development. It was also their most sucessful launch of any of their games, so it worked well for them :)
IDK I member from the old place a bunch of stats of gender division among games
... Lots of them had mobile stuff included and wasn't there a recent switch statistic/survey that had like a 9 to 1 ratio on the game console.
Her? That's an idea she expressed.
I don't know the stats but there is quite a few famous female character designers in the Japanese industry who draw sexualized/objectified characters.
Ah thanks. If we would disregard mobile games, since that's not largely what this thread is about, RPG:s would be close to the top. Why aren't women playing strategy =/ Though that same question could be adressed to men.
The issue with that survey is that it's not a proper sample imho. (Cmiiw, i constantly do these nintendo surveys though)
It's a survey among switch owners, and more accurately, among those who have a nintendoID registered to their email.
Like, i can imagine the early adopters and "primary owners" of the consoles being mostly men, but i'd assume there's a high number of women and girls who also play with those consoles that weren't part of that survey because only one person per household was sent the link.
By no means would i claim it's anywhere close to 50 50, but that survey was imho misued by a bunch of people as some sort of "gotcha!", reinforcing their belief that gaming is and should be mostly a boys club
If the majority of the film industry was like Twilight I think you'd find similar complaints and criticism from men as the ones you are seeing from the women in this thread. And even without that, there were plenty of threads on male-centric places like GAF for example complaining about Twilight.
I liken it to the whole "whale" concept in mobile gaming, especially when it comes to Japanese games/anime. The money they can make selling peripheral merchandise (including in-game stuff like costumes) to a small hardcore well exceeds the money they could make by targeting a broader audience with less problematic designs - an audience not so eager to buy the associated merchandise.
Actually, there's 4 other categories that aren't mobile games that are higher than RPGs. Though I suppose you could include MMOs (Higher Fantasy) in the RPG bracket as they ussually are MMORPGs. Still 26 % and 33 % for RPGs is not a small segment of the market. It might not be the majority yet, but it's not something developers can ignore either. I would argue the consumers who want cheesecake designs would be much small percentage comparatively.
The point being this is not a thread discussing Anita but invoking her name tends to cause any thread to become all about discussing Anita and her validity as a spokesperson and I'd just like to see that nipped in the bud during this instance of the phenomenon.
It's always interesting to see how those people react to something like Ready, Player One, which, to paraphrase a friend of mine who forced herself to read it, "is like Twilight for male nerds".
Yup anecdotally, I would consider myself to be the owner of the console even as a kid/teen. I would probably be the one answering any surveys too. but still my mother played, my sister played and the girls from my neighborhood played on my consoles. And even still now over 20 years later, my sister plays her Wii a lot, my mother plays puzzle games and such on her laptop. But they definitely aren't answering any surveys anywhere. They aren't buying the newest consoles. They don't care about that, they just like to play some games.
True. There's already complaints that there's too much superhero movies =P Having majority of big releases be like Twilight would definitely cause an uproar.
I counted Match 3, Family/Farm sim and casual puzzle as mobile games. Since aren't those the most prevalent genres in Facebook? And yeah MMO:s are traditionally RPG:s, from my experience atleast.
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Anything that targets women is given unfair derision. More examples would be The Fifty Shades of Grey novels and films, which, really, are just the female equivalent of male-gaze hypersexualization, and the recent Tomb Raider, which is a series that attempt to push towards an equal positive gender representation in gaming.
Speaking of which, and I'm sorry because this is off-topic, but I think it's interesting that people often bring up Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey as examples of media that pander to women because both of those are also extremely misogynistic and demeaning.
No, but there have been a lot of people attempting to misuse a statistic about enthusiasm to become an equivalent to ownership.
There's something to be said about both of those franchises being written by women and primarily consumed by women. I've read all of the Twilight novels in my youth and watched the 50 Shades film with my friends several months, and they're okay. They function as female sexual fantasies even though some portions of them are kind of backwards, given that Bella seems to literally give her entire identity up to Edward and the entire unequal sexual relationship explored in 50 Shades.
But, they're just that. They aren't particularly marketed as feminist works for a good reason and they share nearly the same space as hypersexualized media targeted towards men.
I always found the Hunger Games (original novel, that is) horrendously misogynistic, yet it always gets brought up as an example of female empowerment :S
Well who the hell is the target demographic for these. For men they are too "girly" and for women they are misogynistic. Personally I'd consider them trash, but those have still made a bank at the box office.
Well, I think the fact that misogynistic trash like that is, indeed, made by and for women speaks to the terrible internalized misogyny that plagues most of us. It's pretty sad.
I haven't read it but that's a shame to hear since so many young girls adore it :/
Studies that exclude mobile games generally put the divide at about 60/40. 42% of adults that own a console are women. 42% of Xbox One owners are women. 41% of computer and video game buyers are women.
Even older, pre-smartphone reports found a pretty similar divide. ESA's 2004 demographics report found that 39% of game players were women. In 1999, the ISDA actually found that more women bought console games than men (51% to 49%).
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So we should never discuss her ideas? She has a large following and more specifically a large academic following. She's extremely relevant to the discussion.
They have female authors and female audiences which pokes a big hole into the idea that women will naturally just write stories that fit a feminist narrative or that female audiences overall reject such content. Clearly raunchy and sexist content has popularity among women. Perhaps this is the same for gaming?
Basically, all female characters, excluding the protagonist's cute little sister and the girl who reminds her of said sister, are portrayed as negative stereotypes, while the male characters are given more range - and actual names. Also, Katniss is a complete sociopath.
Huh. I recently read the fist book for a book club (have not seen the movies) and nothing struck me that way at all. It was dehumanizing but that was the point. This isn't the place to analyze Hunger Games but if you'd PM me I'd be interested in knowing why you thought it was misogynistic.
Haven't read Hunger Games, but I don't see that as a negative. Those are always the most interesting characters.
And they
both die
Female sociopaths and anti-heroes can indeed be quite interesting. They are fairly rare as major protagonists, unfortunately.
That said, haven't read it either and can't comment on Katniss' case in particular.
Joe Abercrombie has been writing really good female anti-heroes lately. Monza Murcatto, Shy South, and Thorn Bathu are fantastic lead characters. It's crazy how far he's come since the relatively tepid Ferro from his earlier works (which were still good, but female representation was not particularly impressive -- not bad, just... meh).
Having only seen the movie, what's misogynistic about hunger games?
Family/Farm Sim would include The Sims franchise which is a large AAA game. As well as Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley. Likely Animal Crossing too/ They are the traditional PC/console games. But yeah I'd count Match 3 and Casual Puzzle as mostly mobile market.
Hell, I'd extend that to antagonists as well. My favorite villain ever is a female sociopath.
Female anti-heroes and villain protagonists certainly aren't rare in the mediums I consume, but they generally aren't sociopaths for the most part. Though there are a few good ones I can think of off the top of my head like the protagonist of Murcielago or Black Lagoon.
She's really bland though, her sociopathic tendancies are the most characterisation she gets and she's still not interesting. But then I'm pretty sure she was made to be a self-insert anyway.
Ideas that are relevant to the discussion are ideas that are relevant to the discussion regardless of where those ideas originated. The point, again, is to not turn the discussion into a critique of the person who originated the ideas if the discussion is not about that person. I don't know how many other ways I can rephrase this concept to make it clearer. You can discuss a concept without invoking the person who popularized it.
Ah yeah, how the hell did I forget Sims. Used to play the first one a lot myself too. I did consider Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, but thought that those are still quite niche compared to something like Farmville.
In my experience, they are a bit more common in literature, but rarer in film, rarer still in genre film, and almost non-existent in video games.
I've not read it in five years, and can hardly remember the names of the characters, so any arguments I have would be rather broad and have, I imagine, been made better elsewhere XD
I'd agree with you, if it wasn't for the whole female role model thing that resulted. "Praise up the men in your life, pour scorn on the women" isn't really a constructive lesson for young girls IMO.
Thorn Bathu is great! Joe Abercrombie is usually a bit too gritty for my tastes, but I really enjoyed Half the World.
Since we're talking about media that panders to women, what about the Magic Mike movies? Those movies, at least the first film, did pretty well at the BO, didn't it? It's about male strippers which I know get a different perception than female ones, but it's still pretty much just "Eye Candy: The Movie", and every girl I know who went to see it did it for that reason. I think it was kind of the novelty aspect of it that caused it to be a success. A mainstream movie about male strippers? That's a once in a lifetime thing lol.
Anyway, I don't actually know what point I want to make here. I suppose it's that notable female-pandering media is so few and far between and, except for rare instances, tend to be rather niche. So when we get movies like Magic Mike, it's kind of a big deal just for that reason. And other types of female-oriented media like can 50 Shades come with their own host of misogynistic issues.
Meanwhile, in regards to male gaze, we have tons of "Magic Mikes" everywhere even in stuff where it makes no contextual sense. Female characters looking like strippers when they're in the middle of battle. I imagine that a lot of straight guys would quite quickly get fed up if male characters were suddenly all stripper-esque in every movie or game. Yet that's what women have to deal with all the time.
Anyway, I don't actually know what point I want to make here. I suppose it's that notable female-pandering media is so few and far between and, except for rare instances, tend to be rather niche. So when we get movies like Magic Mike, it's kind of a big deal just for that reason. And other types of female-oriented media like can 50 Shades come with their own host of misogynistic issues.
Meanwhile, in regards to male gaze, we have tons of "Magic Mikes" everywhere even in stuff where it makes no contextual sense. Female characters looking like strippers when they're in the middle of battle. I imagine that a lot of straight guys would quite quickly get fed up if male characters were suddenly all stripper-esque in every movie or game. Yet that's what women have to deal with all the time.
And like, if that statistic was correct, shouldn't that be concerning rather than used as a celebration? Nintendo has a lot of franchises that has a prominent female fanbase and if women aren't buying the Switch, that could mean lower software sales for their games, which is surprisingly bad for the company. It should be a measure of worry than a cause for celebration but as usual, so many people cannot see the forest for the trees.
I enjoyed that trilogy too- mainly because it's aimed at young adults but doesn't pander to them. It's fast paced and relatively simple compared to his other books, with some great world building and characters you view in a different light as the tale unfolds.
Well, I can't forget The Sims because I've been a simmer since the first one - so I guess I'm varely stereotypical? It did not go well when I played Sims 1, I was a bit too young at the time, and my poor sim's life was a mess - unemployed, had spend last of money on designer clothes and couldn't afford food, and the dog had peed everywhere. So good times!
Um, no. Internalized misogyny manifests in a completely different way than male misogyny.
Haha, Sims kinda broke my brain because I played it so much. I still remember going from playing Sims to Watching TV and I tried to speed up the time, just like I have been doing with Sims =D Though I was never that interested in the life of Sims, just loved building and decorating the houses.
Kimishima himself said last year that they need to do better to get more women interested. Big companies absolutely want to widen their audience, it's only a positive to them.
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The problem is that sexualized media sells and is in high demand both for males and females.
When Shades of Grey is the best selling novel of basically all time in most western countries that sends a signal to publishers who create media.
Nintendo wouldn't have dreamed about releasing Fire Emblem or Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in the US or Europe in the 90's but sales trends have showed them that this is what the audience wants.
Because the moment they redesigned Fire Emblem and put the emphasis on the cool looking slightly edgy characters the sales went through the roof.
The creators of most media have really nailed down how to pander all audiences. I've known girls who played Assassins Creed 2 only because Ezio was so 'hot' and guys who play obscure JRPG's because of the girls on display.
Movies like The Hunt for Red October were simply about a US navy officer and a Russian defector. Had it been made today the Russian defector probably happened to smuggle his hot Russian wife aboard his ship that the US navy guy has to save shirtless in the end for no reason.
If you don't include such scenes in your movies you even get criticism. Like in Dunkirk Christopher Nolan showed how utterly fucked the British boys send to fight in France were and all he got back was: "Why weren't there any blacks/hispanics/asians etc. or women in this movie?"
Most people don't want to see regular folks in their movies and games. They interact with normal people on a daily basis. In their fantasies and entertainment they want super models and well their fantasies on display - not reality.
So creators of media just go down the list
- Some eye candy for guys ✔
- Some guy who's an asshole but turns out he's actually all right in the end and looks pretty hot ✔
- A strong female character that stands up for herself ✔
- A seemingly boring good guy that betrays everyone in the end ✔
etc.
So if you want to change all this you will have to get people to give up their fantasies which is never going to happen. What you can do is remove the excesses and stuff that wouldn't fly if it was in the latest Star Wars movie.
Like underage love interests.
It's funny how these trends change over the years. In the movies of the 80's it was all about guys setting aside love interests and not being tempted to enter relationships in order not to get distracted from their missions and goals.
In the 90's it was mostly young guys hooking up with slightly older women (most of the time their supervisors or bosses).
From 2010 or so forward it's mostly older guys hooking up with much younger love interests. Old guys probably became a trend because women decided that George Clooney was the most attractive man.
When Shades of Grey is the best selling novel of basically all time in most western countries that sends a signal to publishers who create media.
Nintendo wouldn't have dreamed about releasing Fire Emblem or Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in the US or Europe in the 90's but sales trends have showed them that this is what the audience wants.
Because the moment they redesigned Fire Emblem and put the emphasis on the cool looking slightly edgy characters the sales went through the roof.
Like how in every super hero movie the bulkiest guy has to remove his shirt to show his muscles or fulfill a 'save a helpless innocent girl' fantasy at least once in his story arc? The pandering is included to get viewers from all genders to the cinema.
The creators of most media have really nailed down how to pander all audiences. I've known girls who played Assassins Creed 2 only because Ezio was so 'hot' and guys who play obscure JRPG's because of the girls on display.
Movies like The Hunt for Red October were simply about a US navy officer and a Russian defector. Had it been made today the Russian defector probably happened to smuggle his hot Russian wife aboard his ship that the US navy guy has to save shirtless in the end for no reason.
If you don't include such scenes in your movies you even get criticism. Like in Dunkirk Christopher Nolan showed how utterly fucked the British boys send to fight in France were and all he got back was: "Why weren't there any blacks/hispanics/asians etc. or women in this movie?"
Most people don't want to see regular folks in their movies and games. They interact with normal people on a daily basis. In their fantasies and entertainment they want super models and well their fantasies on display - not reality.
So creators of media just go down the list
- Some eye candy for guys ✔
- Some guy who's an asshole but turns out he's actually all right in the end and looks pretty hot ✔
- A strong female character that stands up for herself ✔
- A seemingly boring good guy that betrays everyone in the end ✔
etc.
So if you want to change all this you will have to get people to give up their fantasies which is never going to happen. What you can do is remove the excesses and stuff that wouldn't fly if it was in the latest Star Wars movie.
Like underage love interests.
It's funny how these trends change over the years. In the movies of the 80's it was all about guys setting aside love interests and not being tempted to enter relationships in order not to get distracted from their missions and goals.
In the 90's it was mostly young guys hooking up with slightly older women (most of the time their supervisors or bosses).
From 2010 or so forward it's mostly older guys hooking up with much younger love interests. Old guys probably became a trend because women decided that George Clooney was the most attractive man.
I was talking more about the fans who used the skewed male to shut down conversation.
And when do you think we get the first equilevant of Fifty Shades of Gray from a big publisher. Will it be from EA, Ubi?
Damsel in distress is exactly something that women (and men too) constantly criticize.
It does sadden me that there are so many people like that. But I don't think it's the most or atleast by wide margin, I can't believe that majority of people in the world are that shallow. And casting the heroes as handsome white guys while casting villains to be unattractive or a part of ethnic minority even what happens/happened a lot does cause a lot of harmful stereotypes, especially if it's very prevalent.
This doesn't sound like a high quality media if it just follows these checkmarks. They should shake it up.
Sure, but then they also are trying to shut down Kimishima. I ment to enforce your point.
Ubi is a safe bet or an indie developer.
Yet it's the most popular story arc based on the list of the most popular movies.
Most people have the same fantasies, so there's a lot of people like that. Proven by the sales numbers.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided and Prey don't sell, PUBG and Call of Duty do. Because folks are that shallow you have page 3 nudity in British newspapers and cheap looking ads for terrible mobile games on every website.
Why? Because a few thousand people on a message board say they should? The sales numbers tell publishers that this is what the audience wants.
People get what they pay for. If Nintendo changed Fire Emblem Heroes tomorrow into a game starring bland ordinary people instead of hot anime women/dudes the sales would crater.
It sends the same message to publishers 'sex sells'.
Some like it written, some like it visual but it sells.
And someone that likes and defends big titted anime women will say the same thing. That their fantasy is different from standard Hollywood eye candy or erotic novels because the girl has a backstory as to why she has such large breasts involving robots and magic.
That's give or take 99% of all comic book super hero movies.
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