I, like millions of other women, love video games. In fact, 38% of all gamers are women. Admittedly, most female gamers do not share my love of blowing shit up, and tend away from games like Resident Evil 5, but we are still a huge portion of the market. Also, the average age of gamers is 33.That being the case, why are developers like Capcom still designing female characters to fuel the fantasies of 13 year old boys? Sheva, the woman pictured above, is a professional mercenary, a soldier for hire. She's damn good at it, too. So why, whywhywhy, would she go on a mission to intercept weapons being sold to terrorists while dressed for clubbing? Did she get all girly that morning and forget that she was headed to central Africa rather than downtown LA? Is she under the impression that terrorists don't shoot at busty brunettes? Does she not understand that bulletproof vests provide more protection than bustiers?
Just a suggestion, asshats at Capcom: go find some female soldiers and see how they dress at work. The above isn't it. I would even suggest hanging out with Cliffy B. The female characters in the Gears of War series are few and far between (mostly King Raven pilots and Centaur drivers), but the ones we do see are covered from head to toe and do not look like Playboy bunnies. (Now if we could just convince Cliffy to give Anya a gun . . .)
Well, Capcom is a Japanese company catering to the fantasies of the Japanese male of many ages. And really, its a terrible cliche, but sex sells.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the developers have the fantasies of 13 year old boys?
ReplyDelete"In fact, 38% of all gamers are women...why are developers like Capcom still designing female characters to fuel the fantasies of 13 year old boys?"
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go out on a limb here and answer:
Because 62% of gamers are male. And because even older males like scantily clad women :).
So stupid its multibillion dollar industry. They might be misogynistic and forwarding stereotypes, but I don't think I'd use the term stupid here.
ReplyDeleteit might be successful, but it's still stupid. they are not mutually exclusive terms, as people like ray comfort prove every time they open their mouths.
ReplyDeleteOh have you unlocked all of her outfits yet? It only gets worse.
ReplyDeleteyes, the gold lame skirt was disturbing for a variety of reasons.
ReplyDeletealso, i am uncomfortable shooting black people in the face, even if they are virtual and zombified.
i hope that capcom just didn't consider the issue of how a USian might feel about that, because they are a japanese company.
The gold lame skirt was supposed to be Beyonce's outfit from Goldmember. Her tribal outfit is disturbing to me.
ReplyDeleteThe complaints, to me seemed exaggerated. The game takes place in West Africa, so there should be a lot of Africans. There were several white characters in the game too.
also, i am uncomfortable shooting black people in the face, even if they are virtual and zombified.You do realize that we will never truly overcome racism until we are comfortable shooting people of all creeds and colors and nationalities in the face.
ReplyDeleteI blame Lara Croft.
ReplyDeleteWait, did I say 'blame'? ;)
well, hey, if shooting people in the face brings about world peace, i guess i'll shoot one for the team . . .
ReplyDeletemy 60 year old boss just loves tomb raider. finding that out put me in giggles for an entire day.
What timing. There was an article in the Guardian about sex in video games last week!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to go out on a limb here and answer:
Because 62% of gamers are male. And because even older males like scantily clad women :).You know what they like even better than scantily clad women? Good games. And they'll buy good games whether the women in them are scantily clad or not (aside from some great games that get unfairly overlooked, grr). And strangely enough, they don't buy bad games just because the women are scantily clad, either. It's almost as if the scanty clothes are all but irrelevant....
You do realize that we will never truly overcome racism until we are comfortable shooting people of all creeds and colors and nationalities in the face.We'll also never truly overcome racism until we are comfortable identifying with people of all creeds and colors and nationalities as the heroes/heroines of the story as well, but that doesn't seem to be taking off any time soon- still the same old "white male American saves the day" thing going on. Nice to see that we've fully embraced the use of brown-skinned people as enemies for the heroic white man, though. [/sarcasm]
Well I'd hit it ... twice ;-)
ReplyDeletePersonally I like the scantily clad women. Sorry to disappoint. Also, I know many people who buy games because of the women. And games like Tomb Raider, which is popular, there is almost no reason to buy except for the scantily clad main character. Any one heard of Dead or Alive???
ReplyDeleteI don't play either of these games and I don't buy games for the women, but when they are there, I am always appreciative.
hi
ReplyDeleteis totally unfair that women will be discriminated in video games universe, is always the same if they don't be only the sexy character are the second character, and in the worst case they are used as sacrifice to some infernal monster.
ReplyDelete