Izo
Tranny Chaser
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Indeed. Instead of your ridiculous frame, consider something a bit more nuanced, perhaps?
Random google on the subject - I'm sure she's a blue haired sjw of sorts that noone can ever respect. Regardless, she has valid points. I took note of her portrayal, specifically females as rewards or sexy villains, not often as protagonists worth exploring or playing.
Just read the conclusion, y'all.https://www.researchgate.net/project/The-evolution-of-the-representation-of-female-characters-in-console-video-games said:May 12, 2021
Veranika Lindarenka
added an update
Added new information on the topic. The whole research was updated.
Hi, this is my report for the Game Design module at London Metropolitan University. I created it in 2015, therefore there can be some outdated information. I hope that this won't prevent you from learning more about female characters and their evolution in video-games. I promise I'll update it as soon as I start playing video games on PS, but for now here what I have on this topic.
Introduction
Despite the existence of a common belief that video games are in the main played by males who are under the age of 18, the official statistic represents a completely opposite data. In accordance with the annual research conducted by Ipsos MediaCT for ESA in 2015, nearly half (44%) of all the video gamers are female players.
Moreover, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys aged 18 or younger (15%) (ESA, 2015a).
Thus, currently, a significant part of the entire gaming audience is non-traditional with a large percentage of females represented by players, developers, and game characters. The growth of female audiences has occurred gradually throughout the history of video games. It became possible due to the greater accessibility of gaming devices, the creation of new game genres, the increasing amount of leisure time, and the gradual involvement of female specialists in the game industry to name the least.
However, the most remarkable changes have occurred only with female players whose percentage has increased particularly in recent years. For instance, in the USA the percentage of female players has changed from 38% to 44% within the last 9 years (ESA, 2015b). In 2019, according to Christina Gough's research, the percentage of US women playing video games was 46%.
Screenshot "Distribution of computer and video gamers in the United States from 2006 to 2019, by gender," taken on Statista
Though, the number of women involved in the development of video games remains small, thus, in the UK which totaled 620 game studios in 2013 (TIGA, 2015) only 15% of all game development industry employees were female (TIGA, Aon, 2015). The same percentage was observed in the representation of women in video games in 2014. Moreover, only 4% of the protagonists “in the 2013 top 25 selling video games were female”(Gittleson, 2014).
Nevertheless, the growth of female characters is an important quantitative shift in the game industry if to take into account the fact that most of the time it was male-dominated and the first games didn’t include any female characters at all (Yasmin et al., 2008). Also, some qualitative changes with female characters have taken place in video games as well. Now, they play not only supportive roles but also the main ones and often depicted as brave and attractive characters. Here is a good video that shows how the female characters turned from victims who are rescued to female strong characters who can save others.
In this report, I would like to focus on the alterations in the representation of women in console video games. I will analyze how the frequency, playability, role and the appearance of female characters have changed during the entire period of the existence of console video games and how a female character has enhanced within one video game by the example of Lara Croft and other similar modern female characters.
Changes in the frequency and playability of female characters
When the first human-like game characters (Dig Dug, Mr.Do, Mario) appeared in video games most of them (60%) were male and only 2 percent were female (Braun and Giroux, 1989). It could be explained by the fact that initially the game industry was male-dominated both “in terms of consumption and production” (Nielsen, Smith, and Tosca, 2008).
Super Mario Bros 2 Nintendo Game
However, in the course of time to attract the female gaming audience, game publishers commenced introducing the representatives of women into video games. As a result, later research of 100 arcade games implemented by Provenzo in 1991 has shown a slight increase in the number of female characters (from 2% to 8%), but this was nothing compared to the percentage of male characters in video games of that time.
Flash Gal from Flash Gal
In 1998 the number of female players remained almost the same. In accordance with the research of 33 console games implemented by Dietz, 30% of the games were female-absent. If the game contained a female character, 21% of them were depicted in a submissive position and only 15% possessed a status of hero (Jansz, Martis, 2007).
Sakura Character from Street Fighter
Almost all further researches that analyzed the representation of gender in video games carried out by Beasley and Standley (2002), by Ramírez and his team, and by Smith have shown a similar ratio between male and female characters: the majority of them was male while the minority was female. And if there was a female character, very often she wasn’t playable.
The only exception in this study was the research by Ramírez and his team who analyzed the covers of 87 PC-games in addition to a set of 79 console games. They have found a significant change in the number of female characters: “50% of them were portrayed in a dominant position, which is far more than the small group of female characters Dietz documented” (Jansz and Martis, 2007).
However, Nielsen criticized all the above-mentioned studies as their results were not confirmed by any empirical material. From his perspective, some investigations based their conclusions about unequal position of a female character in games by analyzing only their covers or trailers, which couldn’t allow them to explore the whole game itself (Nielsen, Smith, and Tosca, 2008, p.163)
Nevertheless, the situation has been gradually improving. The research made by EEDAR in 2012 that analyzed 669 action, shooter, and RPG games discovered that only 4% of them included a female protagonist while 45% allowed selecting either a female or male character. The reason for such a small number of female characters was explained by the fact game publishers think that “it’s hard to sell a mass-market game that’s a female-only protagonist in a core genre” (Chambers, 2012).
All in all, despite the slight fluctuations and even growth in the number of female characters found in the researches carried out in different times, in general, “studies have consistently shown that at least since the 1990s, the percentage of female characters in videogames has remained steady at around 15%”(Gittleson, 2014).
Alterations in physical appearance and roles of female characters
Due to the fact that in the early years of video games graphics technologies were rather limited, the first female characters had few bases of gender. For instance, to distinguish Ms. Pac-Man from Pac-Man the publishers have added a bow on her head and made her lips red while the designers of Frogger colored a female frog pink for the same aims.
With the dissemination of laserdisc technologies in the market of arcade games, it became possible to create well-animated interactive movies with a clear distinction between male and female characters (Graner Ray, 2004, p.18–19). However, this opportunity to illustrate female characters in details has largely resulted in their sexual objectification and sexualization (Burgess, et l., 2007). Thus, in Dragon’s Lair a female character Daphne wears a little black low-cut dress and high heel shoes.
One of the first female roles in video games was “damsel in distress”, which was a good motivation for a male player to move the plot forward (Cassell and Jenkins, 1998, p. 7–8)
Later females were also represented as protagonists, members of a team, and antagonists. For instance, Leather Goddess of Phobos allowed playing either on behalf of a male or female character. Still, their physical appearance was based on common gender stereotypes and cliche (Graner Ray, 2004, p. 21–22).
At that time April Ryan in The Longest Journey was the only good attempt to create a well-balanced strong female character with normal proportions and not provocative clothes. However, since the beginning of the Tomb Raider era, the industry started to produce the clones of Lara Croft with female characters dressed in slinky clothes and armed with big guns (Graner Ray, 2004, p. 34–35).
Within the last five years the representation of women in console video games has considerably enhanced. First of all, female characters have begun to look and behave in a realistic manner. For instance, one of the main characters in Beyond Two Souls Jodie “is played by a motion-captured Ellen Page” (Andrews, 2013). She is represented as a real heroine who on the one hand fearlessly defends herself and her friends but at the same time hesitates and feels lonely (Kim, 2014).
Furthermore, female characters have got the real voices of famous actresses as well as the main roles in the games that were male-dominated in the previous versions (Metal Gear Solid 5 or FallOut 4). Some games even made their stories gender-neutral. Jason Blundell, the campaign director for Black Ops III, considers that “a strong character can be a strong character without the world around them bending to accommodate their gender” (Watters, 2015).
However, these games with female protagonists contain shortcomings in the representation of women. For instance, Jodie’s world is controlled by men and her power partially depends on the entity Aiden who according to the story is her deceased twin brother. Moreover, all other supportive female characters in-game are a damsel in distress (Kim, 2014). In Assassin’s Creed: Liberation a female protagonist Evie has 50% fewer missions than her brother does.
While the above-mentioned games are great attempts to develop a well-balanced female character, other modern games still include a lot of half-naked weak female characters who chuckle and sigh, like in Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. In addition, in these gender-unbalanced games like in GTA many female characters are exposed to violence without even trying to protect themselves.
Additionally, a small number of reviews consider the games with female characters. According to Ivory’s (2006) research on video game reviews “75%…of the reviews mentioned male characters, only 42%…mentioned female characters in any capacity” (p. 109).
The evolution of a female character within a video game
The “evolution of Lara Croft’s character development — both physical design and story depth”– indicates the positive changes in the way people see and display women in pop culture and society over the last two decades (Hall-Stigerts, 2013).
Tomb Raider was one of the first video games that stepped beyond the “damsel in distress” concept. Its main female character Lara Croft was a successful attempt to appeal to the players of both genders since on the one hand, she was an “attractive role model for game-playing girls” and, on the other hand, a desirable “figure for the male market”(Cassel, Jenkins, 1998).
The first transformations of Lara’s appearance basically concerned aesthetics aspects that were implemented thanks to the enhanced computer graphics. Nevertheless, more significant changes have taken place in Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation where Lara “transformed from an adventure babe to a character with a truly dramatic story”. In 2006, though, Lara got even more unrealistic body proportions, her movements became smoother and fluid. In addition to this, the plot of this sequel was focused not only on the adventure but on the relationships between Lara and her mother. The next chapter Tomb Raider: Underworld made Lara’s movements more natural with the help of using motion-capture technology. Tomb Raider 2013 made an emphasis on the depth of Lara's character instead of her physique (Hall-Stigerts, 2013). In Rise of the Tomb Raider Lara is “no longer a haughty superhero, she is an untested and inexperienced ordinary woman placed in extraordinary circumstances” (Morales, 2013).
To trace the evolution of female characters within video games, it is important to consider other representatives of women who are similar to Lara Croft in their innovativeness and continuous development.
In the Mirror’s Edge, the female protagonist Faith Connors was a kind of novelty in the first-person shooter genre. The same as Lara, Faith is a physically strong and determined character designed to appeal to both males and females but in contrast to Croft, she is non-sexualized (Meagan, 2009). In Mirror’s Edge Catalist Faith has become more realistic due to the use of motion capture. Moreover, game designers tried to make her look more approachable and minimalistic (Ashcraft, 2013).
One more strong female character who has matured between the first game and the sequel is Elena Fisher from Uncharted. In the first game she was illustrated as a naive woman who wasn’t afraid of any difficulties, while in the second game, after seeing murders and adventures she became “a little bit more hesitant, a little more cynical” (D’Alonzo, 2009).
Though, in the above-mentioned games, female characters have significantly evolved changing from glassy-eyed dolls or extensions of the main male character to believable women, “there are still questionable depictions and roles of females in a lot of contemporary games” (Pooley, 2014)
Often female character acts as a reward “for player actions in video games. For instance, Final Fantasy 13–2 offered a revealing “beachwear costume” for the game’s protagonist that can be unlocked for 2 dollars and 99 cents (Sarkeesian, 2014).
Furthermore, some female characters can’t be recognized as females since they wear a full high-tech suit that covers her from head-to-toe and doesn’t leave much room for speculating gender.
However, many early Lara Croft prototypes currently exist. They are strong protagonists illustrated to attract the attention of male players by their dresses and unrealistic body proportions like Rayne of the BloodRayne series.
Additionally, plenty of female characters are “secondary to the male heroes” or simply a female version of a pre-existing male character like Nariko from Heavenly Sword.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that a female character in console video games has gone through many positive changes, evolved from a circle with a bow to a real looking female protagonist, a vast majority of video games do not represent women at all. In addition, if a game contains a female character, often she is either a damsel in distress, or a reward, or an eroticized villain.
More and more console video games include specifically crafted female protagonists, but a great number of these characters are depicted with oversexualized figures that pander to the wish-fulfillment needs of teenage boys.
Hartup and Reed think that the situation with an unbalanced female hero stems from the fact that the vast majority of game developers are men who either too concentrated on their masculinity, or consider including female character too difficult and time-consuming. (Hartup and Reed, 2015).
In this way, a core challenge for a new generation of video game specialists is to create games that are based on gender equity. Many steps have already been done in this direction but lots of efforts need to be taken to turn into a widely used rule. Both male and female preferences should be taken into account at the stage of developing a game idea, which on the one hand will attract new females into the gaming world and, on the other hand, will appeal to the affiliated female gamers. Further, by “giving women an active… role in the story and their part of it won’t just improve gaming’s problem with representation, it will likely make a game more interesting and engaging” (Hosking, 2014).
I consider that this aim can be achieved by attracting more female designers and developers in the game industry as well as by carrying out efficient marketing researches of audience preferences.
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