I'll be honest: I like scantily-clad women in my games, running around in a bikini made of stainless steel and Kevlar just as much as the next guy. I'm not the kind of guy who will buy Tomb Raider or Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 just because I want to see some digital jugs, but I do appreciate the time and effort that my artistic brethren put into the characters in games I play, like Guild Wars. Still, I can't help but find it amusing at how women are portrayed in games, and the debate surrounding the issue.

Let's get the obvious out of the way right now - women are usually overly sexual in games because most people who play games are male. More importantly, they are teenage / college-age males... you know, the kind of males who really like polygons formed into vaguely female shapes. So naturally, in order to make this target audience want to buy, developers feel the need to pepper their games with this sort of thing. I guess I can't blame them though, because it works, even if it gives gaming a distinctly bad taste for women who feel adventurous enough to give it a try.

So where does that leave the socially conscious developer? If I want to include a female character in a game, should she be uber-sexy? Would it be more tasteful or real to include a not-so-shapely female character? If the rest of the characters in my game are war-scarred, trash-talking heavyweights, doesn't it follow that any female characters I throw into the mix should be the same? And would anyone (even the ladies out there) really want to see an overweight, scorched and scarred, trash-talking woman running around in the typical spandex armor, shooting people?

I should mention that I also enjoy female characters with real stories, who seem more real than the typical ladies of electronica, like Jade (Beyond Good & Evil) or April Ryan (the Longest Journey). But I still find the debate over the sexiness of women in games amusing at times... Because, despite all the grit and grime that usually covers the male heroes of our games, aren't they too usually physically perfect specimens?

Thanks for voicing people's opinions for them. In other words, not me. It looks disturbing and silly, unrealistic when you think about how their "armor" barely even classifies as clothing, and only proves further how low the developer will go to sell (same with stereotyped men). Saki and Airan, thank you - bet you never thought that pants and striped sweatshirts, weird hair, and not much of an attempt not to look clumsy in battle would make a polygonal guy and girl look appealing.

No, because that's not the western female ideal, it's the male. Unless you noticed in games like Gears of War, the female ideal is to be the good-looking, weak, helpless second character, not someone who engages in "manly" stuff like heavy weapons and killing. Though Lucy and Angel in Quake 3 are an example of heavyweight, scarred, trash-talking armored killers accepted as peers. I never thought I'd see a playable woman of that size in a game - in fact, they're the only ones I can think of.

Yes indeed. Who ever said men aren't sterotyped too? Just look at this typical game image:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/images/wallpapers/bloodelves/bloodelves-800x.jpg
Here we have a large, well-built and confident man with pronounced features, along with a slim, smooth-skinned, busty woman who admires him. Also note that the man is active while the woman is passive. They have to look like this if Blizzard wants to promote their game successfully - who'd want to play as an ugly, disgusting undead? Oh wait, you can do that too - but I haven't seen them in any advertisements, only pictures like that.

Objectification and young people feeling bad about themselves (to begin with) is a real problem. It's not something you simply toss aside, just because some people happen to care about it. Thank you for your reading and imminent obligatory trashing of my opinions - I'm used to it.

Hehe, well i didn't mean to make myself sound superficial - like I said, I really don't care for games that have women in them just for the sake of digital boobs...  I do think it's funny that you mentioned World of Warcraft though, because that is exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote this piece.  The entire game (well, as long as you play alliance) is a bunch of beautiful people, prancing around in beautiful places!

I was also shocked that you remembered Lucy and Angel from QIII, as they were exactly what I had in mind.  The whole idea behind this article actually stemmed from a discussion I saw on the GameFAQs forums the other day, where a girl was claiming she was being discriminated against because there were no playable women characters in Gears of War.  It got me thinking, because the only type of woman I could think of who would really fit in with the rest of the characters would be one like Lucy or Angel - a bulky woman, with large-ish armor, and not a lot of what would typically be described as female characteristics in games.  The oft used, spunky, skinny young girl who had all the right moves and all the witty remarks just wouldn't fit in with this game.

One thing to note however - the only female in Gears of War, Anya, does fit the weak, secondary frame you mention, but she also gives orders to the troops throughout the game...  :o

I'll admit, self-image is a definite problem amongst youngsters these days.  I do think though that other forms of media, like movies and TV, are far more affective in harming a child's self esteem, since these outlets feature actual people who consistently look larger than life, and more pretty than anyone could ever hope to be.

Studies have shown that the average gamer is 33 years old. Here's a good read: http://www.theesa.com/archives/files/Essential%20Facts%202006.pdf A great amount of adult gamers are female, too.



Of course you're going to aim at consistency in your characters.

If most of them are "are war-scarred, trash-talking heavyweights", I think it wouldn't balance to have a top-model, clean lady in there. She could still be sexy yet share similarities with the men (she could be dirty from fixing her car, like to have a beer after a hard day of work, be simple-minded, wear jeans, etc.)

I may be throwing opinion-influenced ideas here, but simply remember that balance is key. Now now, can we be given more than 350 characters worth of an opinion? The message textbox allows for much more just by looking at its size, so it's kind of allogical to have it this way.