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It doesn't help that there are only a handful of good true "writers" in the gaming world. many people in the industry learned to write for games, not to write in general and then how to adapt to writing games. so people settle on tropes and stock characters to tell stories, just like has been used for thousands of years. but the creation of stock characters knows no sexism except that of its audience. a common character is a female who wants to be equal to the males in some male dominated area, they go on to work hard, failing at first due to lack of familiarity with the topic and then go on to usually surpass the males in the field, and then they get found out and punished for it.
there is nothing sexist about the storyline, the storyline exists in a sexist setting, but not sexism by the writers, but by the community that punished her for excelling. People used to think you couldn't write about evil people without being creepy, or that you couldn't write about love without being in love, but thats not true. there are only bad writers who can't relate a stock character in the way it was intended in their stories.
a Damsel in distress, doesn't mean the woman is helpless or useless outside of the situation or even a woman. but its someone powerless to control their fate who needs rescuing from a usually insurmountable foe. but in the hands of a bad writer, its a girl who can't do anything for herself and needs a man to come save her from an easily defeated foe.
More importantly: whats everyones setup for the world cup. i've got a keg of beer and a lot of snack supplies on the ready and a couch to myself and glory.
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My Roommates and I are meeting up at the bar Monday Afternoon for the US game (We have almost no chance to make it out of group but the games are still going to be good.) This is also the one time I'm allowed to use one of the Flat Screens in the Monitoring office for something non workrelated. It's going to be a good month.
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On June 12 2014 19:59 Dandel Ion wrote:
Really?
I can remember a couple off the top of my head which means there would be even more if I thought about it.
newest Tomb Raider, remember me, portal series, mirrors edge
first two are pretty recent games last two i replayed recently.
imo the main reason for female "underrepresentation" is that game makers are usually male across the board, so they feel more comfortable writing men, and coincidentially guys play more games than women (unless it's facebook games i guess) so male protags happen to have a bigger target audience
Well Portal and Mirrors edge suffer from the same thing most games suffer from. Dust particles have more character than their protagonists lol. Guess if you look at it like that you realize there's hardly any real protagonists in gaming. Just a bunch of cardboard boxes. I think PX is right in that it's not an issue about more male gamers or female gamers wanting something different. It's a case of there being a serious lack of writing talent in gaming. There could be talent in there that just isn't allowed to flourish due to the way the production cycle works but either way it ends with the same result.
As for what someone else mentioned about woman liking romance/drama more than men, that seems rather sexist lol. The tiny limited sample size of women I know leads me to the inverse conclusions. I think I read/watch more romance than my mother and female friends. They all like mystery/detective stuff. I don't really think you can draw conclusions on what genders may prefer when it's really just about the individual.
@PX - Too true. The books I'm reading now I'm pretty sure the author either hates men or wants me to hate men. Look at one of the most popular shows currently airing in GoT. Even if I think Martin's a bit overrated it still contains a lot of "taboo" type material yet is insanely popular. I think that's largely due to how the characters deal with it in that setting that makes it interesting.
@World Cup - Games start at 10pm here it seems so not sure how many I'll be able to watch. Didn't even realize it was starting now
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On June 12 2014 19:27 Numy wrote:
Is it weird that I never play male characters if given the choice since they all look like giant bulldozers?
Not at all. Ridiculously bulging muscles aren't a turn on or attractive, take it from me. 
Pool Party Graves is the upper limit for it, I'd say. Go past that, and you hit parody.
also games wouldn't be so male-centric if there was a significant female demographic to make games for... why would a guy want to play a leading female character over a male unless it's to stare at her ass? gaming is lot about escapism and vicariously experiencing things. it's inherently not easy for the typical male gamer to connect with and empathize with a female character.
Bit of a chicken or the egg scenario here. But in general, the history of video games has been one of gratuitous oversexualization of women, and there's still a pretty big stigma of it, despite slow but steady changes. I'll just link the Extra Credit episodes on this issue because they explain it well enough:
+ Show Spoiler +
As for what someone else mentioned about woman liking romance/drama more than men, that seems rather sexist lol. The tiny limited sample size of women I know leads me to the inverse conclusions. I think I read/watch more romance than my mother and female friends. They all like mystery/detective stuff. I don't really think you can draw conclusions on what genders may prefer when it's really just about the individual.
Hidden Object Games.
I gotcha covered :p
It does depend on what you consider "games", but I digress.
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On June 12 2014 20:47 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2014 19:59 Dandel Ion wrote:
Really?
I can remember a couple off the top of my head which means there would be even more if I thought about it.
newest Tomb Raider, remember me, portal series, mirrors edge
first two are pretty recent games last two i replayed recently.
imo the main reason for female "underrepresentation" is that game makers are usually male across the board, so they feel more comfortable writing men, and coincidentially guys play more games than women (unless it's facebook games i guess) so male protags happen to have a bigger target audience Well Portal and Mirrors edge suffer from the same thing most games suffer from. Dust particles have more character than their protagonists lol. Guess if you look at it like that you realize there's hardly any real protagonists in gaming. Just a bunch of cardboard boxes. I think PX is right in that it's not an issue about more male gamers or female gamers wanting something different. It's a case of there being a serious lack of writing talent in gaming. There could be talent in there that just isn't allowed to flourish due to the way the production cycle works but either way it ends with the same result. As for what someone else mentioned about woman liking romance/drama more than men, that seems rather sexist lol. The tiny limited sample size of women I know leads me to the inverse conclusions. I think I read/watch more romance than my mother and female friends. They all like mystery/detective stuff. I don't really think you can draw conclusions on what genders may prefer when it's really just about the individual. @PX - Too true. The books I'm reading now I'm pretty sure the author either hates men or wants me to hate men. Look at one of the most popular shows currently airing in GoT. Even if I think Martin's a bit overrated it still contains a lot of "taboo" type material yet is insanely popular. I think that's largely due to how the characters deal with it in that setting that makes it interesting. @World Cup - Games start at 10pm here it seems so not sure how many I'll be able to watch. Didn't even realize it was starting now
Just going by what seems to sell the most. IE movies/books marketed towards women in general. I suppose the media that sell to both women and men don't have slanted marketing.
On the World Cup: Just going to watch the games with the house.
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Lol sorry Alaric
I keep listening to that song though. Watsky so gud
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There's a 40k "mini-league" running at my local GW, just a place for people to sign up and get matched together to get used to the new rules. I really want to join but my schedule is so crazy right now T.T
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
I wish videogames had good characters
even in fire emblem like 95% of the characters are reduced to like 1-2 gimmicks that can be summed up in one sentence. Gonzales is the kind giant, Orson is necrophiliac, Seth would hit it, Innes thinks he's in elo hell, Deghinsea will not move, Haar is sleepy, Ilyiana is hungry, Oscar can cook, Lucius is pretty, Garcia is too old for this shit, Boyd thinks he's stronger than Ike, Marth wishes Ken was playing in your stead, Karel is a beast, Karla wishes she was, Joshua likes gambling, L'Arachel is retarded and Eirika wants Lyon's dick
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I thought Blazing Sword did a good job wrt that. Bunch of lore hidden in the support conversations ('sup Renault, Canas), and generally enjoyable yet not one-dimensional characters (Matthew, Legault, Serra, Hector, Lucius, etc.).
+ Show Spoiler [music] +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUDqOIBY9FA
Hadn't listened to that one in months. Neat and upbeat, I should have a look at UFO's extra one of these days, if only for the change of atmosphere between Romance in the Night Sky and Heian Alien.
Hey, guys! Play Touhou! The whole cast is only women so you'll end up finding one you think well-written anyway!
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On June 12 2014 23:13 Scip wrote:
I wish videogames had good characters
even in fire emblem like 95% of the characters are reduced to like 1-2 gimmicks that can be summed up in one sentence. Gonzales is the kind giant, Orson is necrophiliac, Seth would hit it, Innes thinks he's in elo hell, Dheginsea will not move, Haar is sleepy, Ilyiana is hungry, Oscar can cook, Lucius is pretty, Garcia is too old for this shit, Boyd thinks he's stronger than Ike, Marth wishes Ken was playing in your stead, Karel is a beast, Karla wishes she was, Joshua likes gambling, L'Arachel is retarded and Eirika wants Lyon's dick
Good characters require good writing and good writing requires time. I think the way games are made now there's almost no time put aside for the actual writing and storytelling components of the game. All the money is just rushed into content/gimmicks and the story is merely a tool used to show us those gimmicks.
I guess the only ones to blame are the consumers at the end of the day. People still buy the GTAs, Watchdogs and Call of Duty's. The former just throws content at you hoping it hits more than it misses and the latter relies on hype to make up all it's faults.
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United States47024 Posts
The thing is that the gaming industry doesn't select well for good writers. Good writing is very rarely an aspect of the game that really drives its commercial success. Hell, even in the RPG genre, which intuitively should be very writing-driven, there are a lot of commercially successful studios that have writing teams that range from mediocre to downright bad (Bioware and Bethesda are arguably the two most commercially successful western CRPG developers and both have absolutely awful writing teams).
Bad writing is just something that rarely damages your sales figures enough to be a big concern. For the average gamer, I would guess that the RPG genre is more about the power fantasy and character building, so as long as the writing is passable to keep the power fantasy intact, beyond that most people don't care.
EDIT: I'm keeping away from games not first developed in English here mostly because writing is something that's very language-sensitive and I think it's hard to properly evaluate a translated game because how "good" the writing is in that case is like 1/3 the original writing, 1/3 the quality of the translation, and 1/3 how "translatable" the source material is in the first place given cultural nuances/etc.
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There's nothing inherently wrong with games like GTA, Watchdogs, or CoD, but videogame stories aren't the greatest I have to agree. I don't think any of the writers on a game studio really get to tell the story they conceived, they almost always have to twist it in someway to further some gameplay element.
I doubt even teams like Telltale get to do that.
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On June 12 2014 23:13 Scip wrote:
I wish videogames had good characters
even in fire emblem like 95% of the characters are reduced to like 1-2 gimmicks that can be summed up in one sentence. Gonzales is the kind giant, Orson is necrophiliac, Seth would hit it, Innes thinks he's in elo hell, Deghinsea will not move, Haar is sleepy, Ilyiana is hungry, Oscar can cook, Lucius is pretty, Garcia is too old for this shit, Boyd thinks he's stronger than Ike, Marth wishes Ken was playing in your stead, Karel is a beast, Karla wishes she was, Joshua likes gambling, L'Arachel is retarded and Eirika wants Lyon's dick
L'Arachel is retarded? I disagree. She is awesome. There is a super hero vibe to her.
I totally agree with Eirika though.
Althouh if I were writing the story I would make it a bit different.
+ Show Spoiler +the first encounter Lyon would trick Eirikia to give up the Sacred Stone.
The second encounter Eirika gets tricked again. Lyon tries kill her, Seth blocks the attack and dies. Eirika is enraged and tries to kill Lyon and almost suceeds. Lyon escapes.
The demon in Lyon takes total control of him after the wound Eirika inflicted. Eirika encounters him a final time to clash with him to save the world as well as for personal revenge. Eirika suceeds this time to release the demon from Lyon's body.
What is left is the demon's shell. Eirika knows the pain and death the demon has inflicted onto this world and vows to stop him at all cost. <insert epic battle here>. Eirika stabs the demon in his heart with her Sacred blade, but the Demon draws his last breath to blast miasma at her, rendering her permanently blind for the rest of her life.
Peace is restored, but at what cost?
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On June 12 2014 23:50 Nos- wrote:
There's nothing inherently wrong with games like GTA, Watchdogs, or CoD, but videogame stories aren't the greatest I have to agree. I don't think any of the writers on a game studio really get to tell the story they conceived, they almost always have to twist it in someway to further some gameplay element.
I doubt even teams like Telltale get to do that.
I didn't mean to suggest there's anything inherently wrong with those games. I just think the huge difference in sales between those games and others is a bit wrong compared to the actual quality of the games.
On June 12 2014 23:48 TheYango wrote:
The thing is that the gaming industry doesn't select well for good writers. Good writing is very rarely an aspect of the game that really drives its commercial success. Hell, even in the RPG genre, which intuitively should be very writing-driven, there are a lot of commercially successful studios that have writing teams that range from mediocre to downright bad (Bioware and Bethesda are arguably the two most commercially successful western CRPG developers and both have absolutely awful writing teams).
Bad writing is just something that rarely damages your sales figures enough to be a big concern. For the average gamer, I would guess that the RPG genre is more about the power fantasy and character building, so as long as the writing is passable to keep the power fantasy intact, beyond that most people don't care.
EDIT: I'm keeping away from games not first developed in English here mostly because writing is something that's very language-sensitive and I think it's hard to properly evaluate a translated game because how "good" the writing is in that case is like 1/3 the original writing, 1/3 the quality of the translation, and 1/3 how "translatable" the source material is in the first place given cultural nuances/etc.
All I got from this is we should praise our lord and savior Obsidian so they may one day release a game without bugs.
edit: Now for some real music + Show Spoiler +
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The Elder Scrolls franchise is kind of like a sandbox game anyway. It is like saying Minecraft's stoey sucks.
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For the most part I play games because of the gameplay and not because of the story.
Ain't no time to worry about female protagonists in a rousing game of Battleship.
VNs are pretty unique in the gaming genre, don't know if I'd really count them.
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Obsidian also tends to hire outside writing firms to do their writing, because they both value and devalue writers. certain projects that carry the expectation they hire a firm, others they inhouse it with programmers who have taken a class one time in college.
On June 12 2014 23:57 kainzero wrote:
For the most part I play games because of the gameplay and not because of the story.
Ain't no time to worry about female protagonists in a rousing game of Battleship.
VNs are pretty unique in the gaming genre, don't know if I'd really count them.
and thats totally acceptable, but criticizing a games story for it inherent sexism/flaws or anything is like criticizing a guy's community college paper like it's a published novel. a lot of the stories are there because the guys couldn't do any better. you can complain about the industry not providing good enough stories anymore, but thats about it. people who buy games for gameplay aren't wrong. its just different draws for different people.
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United States47024 Posts
On June 12 2014 23:56 Sufficiency wrote:
The Elder Scrolls franchise is kind of like a sandbox game anyway. It is like saying Minecraft's stoey sucks.
You're misunderstanding. I'm not saying that the story sucks. I'm saying the WRITING sucks.
You can have a shallow/superficial story in a game because it doesn't interact heavily with the gameplay. That's fine. That doesn't excuse the game from being poorly written.
To raise an analogy--a summer blockbuster that's all guns and explosions can be excused for having a weak story because that's the nature of the movie, but can still be criticized for weak writing or poor delivery of the lines.
On June 12 2014 23:58 PrinceXizor wrote:
Obsidian also tends to hire outside writing firms to do their writing, because they both value and devalue writers. certain projects that carry the expectation they hire a firm, others they inhouse it with programmers who have taken a class one time in college.
That's only half-true. A large amount of the writing is still done in-house and the studio's well known writers from the Black Isle era (e.g. Chris Avellone) still have very direct involvement in their writing, even though they are credited with more design/management positions nowadays.
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Or you can play witcher :>
I'm surprised yango hates Bioware so hard though, I really liked Mass Effect for its characters and dialogue.
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EPT
