Gamerisms

pizzaforpresident:

Youtube’s response to the trailer for Remember Me, a game in which players assume the role of a woman named Nilin (voiced by Kezia Burrows), an amnesiac ‘memory hunter’, through the streets of Neo-Paris in the year 2084. 

When asked on a message board why there weren’t any female soldiers in the game Chivalry: Medievil Warfare, developer Steve “Tiberius” Pigget gave an unexpectedly strange answer:

This is a tough one, I actually think that adding female characters to a game like this would make it appeal less to females. Which at first sounds strange, but from my experience of the general maturity level of the internet and the unfortunately male dominated FPS market… I don’t think that it would add to the experience for women or men given the actions that would likely occur.

Hopefully that helps you understand why we decided not to go that route… I am totally fine with women fighting, but its the fact that it would probably overall harm the way the community would play the game that has me concerned.

Basically, Pigget argues that women will be turned off by the brutal violent exhibited inChivalryand so they are not even going to bother, and that even if they were to include women, men who play this game might react negatively. These assertions, of course, are downright confusing in many ways.

First of all, there is no basis to suggest that only women, and women as a groupwill be turned off by this game’s violence if there were women involved. Yet, he does acknowledge that there arewomen who would buy this type of game. Now, those women would probably buy it because of the complex fighting mechanics and the violence exhibited. The women who wouldn’t buy this game wouldn’t because some people, yes men included, just don’t like brutal violence, or hey. But his suggestion that women won’t buy a game that feature women committing violence and or receiving violence implies that women can’t handle violence against women at all. Now in the abstract, I understand this argument because violence against women is an oft-used trope that can be disrespectful. However, violence is just not a sensible enough reason for excluding in-game women when this is a game about armies fighting other armies and would therefore avoid the violence against women trope if he included women as soldiers.

Plus, when have women ever complained about being able to be soldiers and warriors  in? I’m sure there is no argument in me saying that if we were to ask women who play video games if they are against having the option to play a woman, we would hear a resounding “no.”

Now, he also addresses maturity level of the male-dominated FPS body and implies that men might mistreat the option of being able to play a woman and seeing others play a woman. Indeed, as a woman who plays games online with a lot of men, sexism can definitely discourage me from games. However, the answer to the way men might handle female soldiers is not to erase them. Instead, it is imperative to have more women as playable characters, and powerful characters, to build a foundation that promotes positive representation of women in games.

And, regardless of whether this game would have a huge female audience at all, women are still entitled to be represented in media. There isn’t an argument against the representation of women in a way that does not at least imply that women are just not important enough to be featured.

Of course, I’ve read men’s arguments that having female soldiers ruin the “historical accuracy” of the game, yet we should also note that not only are there no female soldiers in the game, there are no female characters at all. No female peasants even to run away when there is danger afoot! Women are quite literally nonexistent in this game. And this is a problem in many games like this, in which the absence of women as soldiers or warriors should not have to translate in an absence of women in their entirety. Even if they aren’t soldiers, you can still depict women in some capacity that promotes some kind of positive representation. You can find a way to  The absence of any women from the world of a game does not show concern for historical accuracy, but laziness having half of the world represented.

- Aria

Sexual Dimorphism in World of Warcraft.

The term sexual dimorphism refers to differences between males and females of the same species.  Some animals are highly sexually dimorphic. Male elephant seals outweigh females by more than 2,500 pounds; peacocks put on a color show that peahens couldn’t mimic in their wildest dreams; and a male anglerfish’s whole life involves finding a female, latching on, and dissolving until there’s nothing left but his testicles (yes, really).

On the spectrum of very high to very low dimorphism, humans are on the low end.  We’re just not that kind of species.  Remove the gendered clothing styles, make up, and hair differences and we’d look more alike than we think we do.

Because we’re invested in men and women being different, however, we tend to be pleased by exaggerated portrayals of human sexual dimorphism (for example, in Tangled). Game designer-in-training Andrea Rubenstein has shown us that we extend this ideal to non-human fantasy as well.  She points to a striking dimorphism (mimicking Western ideals) in World of Warcraft creatures.

Annalee Newitz at Wired writes:

[Rubenstein] points out that these female bodies embody the “feminine ideal” of the supermodel, which seems a rather out-of-place aesthetic in a world of monsters. Supermodelly Taurens wouldn’t be so odd if gamers had the choice to make their girl creatures big and muscley, but they don’t. Even if you wanted to have a female troll with tusks, you couldn’t. Which seems especially bizarre given that this game is supposed to be all about fantasy, and turning yourself into whatever you want to be.

It appears that the supermodel-like females weren’t part of the original design of the game.  Instead, the Alpha version included a lot less dimorphism, among the Taurens and the Trolls for example.

Newitz says that the female figures were changed in response to player feedback:

Apparently there were many complaints about the women of both races being “ugly” and so the developers changed them into their current incarnations.

The dimorphism in WoW is a great example of how gender difference is, in part, an ideology.  It’s a desire that we impose onto the world, not reality in itself.  We make even our fantasy selves conform to it.  Interestingly, when people stray from affirming the ideology, they can face pressure to align themselves with its defenders.  It appears that this is exactly what happened in WoW.

rebloggable by request

Anon: specialsnowflakesyndrome. tumblr. com/post/20354624027/steam-gamer-girls-the-master-post <- why people often get mad when a girl mentions she is a gamer. Not saying all girl gamers are like this, just explaining away the guys who say “IM A GURL GAMER DONT HIT ON ME SILLY BOIZ.”

Reply: I…actually see nothing wrong with the people featured in that post.

So what if a woman wants to tell the gaming community who she is?

Lord knows they don’t get enough exposure as is, when the stereotype is that men play games and women don’t, when a woman is vilely attacked for daring to point out sexism in games, when the worst insults thrown around on XBL relate to stereotypically female anatomy.

I have no problem with women calling themselves “girl gamers” and trumpeting the fact that they are a girl and play video games. Because you know what? Most of the gaming industry DOES seem to have a problem with it.

 - Taylor