Gender Inequality in Vid Games industry

[Neon Ignition]

I might be wrong, but I get the sense that where this thread might have gone off track a little in the discussion about all this is that it's (naturally) begun to stray into bigger aspects than just the videogame angle that it started out on and as people are trying to make points they're also actively trying to keep talk on point even when it isn't entirely relevant to the original debate. If we opened the discussion up it would quickly spiral into the horrific global representations that exist (and treatment of women) that severely compound the issues many women face on a daily basis but it would also cover the flip side of feminist movements which (not always) can be that they are sometime more focused on reversing the male/female dynamic than creating true equality which is why such points from them dry up as soon as it involves balancing preferences away from women such as giving equal entitlements and rights to fathers over their children. As the videos that started this debate off are victim to, the issue is that it's a much more complex and wider issue than gaming which means focusing on one element leads to messy results

[Resonance]

According to a U.S. national survey done in 2004 by the Entertainment Software Association, 25 percent of console players and 39 percent of PC game players were women.

Even though this is a good statistic, why is the visible participation of women in gaming so minimal compared to men? How come this forum is mostly male. If it were due to online harassment why are there no active female online forums? More importantly than the percentage of people who play games, who does the most active spending on games? While women may play games on a similar scale to men, I would bet that the majority of the spending on new blockbuster games is done by men and that is why games such as COD/Assassins Creed target men, not because game companies hate women.

If they found a way to get women to open up their wallets and spend as much as men, they would take it in a heartbeat. The Wii, PS Move and Kinnect are all examples of game companies being willing to expand their market to make more profit. Anita gave an example of a game that had a female lead but was reskinned to be a Star Fox game and her implication was that it was a hatred for women that caused that.... WHAT??? Why would they make the game at all if that were the case. Wouldn't it be that having a successful IP attached to a game would just make it sell more?

The difference comes with computers and some of the stuff that surrounded them. Those women who would've got into gaming and computing at the time were often victims of social pressure (from other women, as well as men) to not take that interest further, as it was heavily focused on computer assembly (an important part of computing at the time) which wasn't so much seen as masculine but rather un-feminine.

Can you prove that? Because I seriously doubt that is true. This was the late 20th century, not the early 1900s. Can you really tell me that mum and dad walk in the room when Suzy is building her first computer and tell her to stop it and play with a Barbie? How come young women manage to do all the other stuff that people don't want them to like doing drugs, underage sex, getting pregnant, alcohol, wearing revealing clothing, excessive piercings, dating bad boys etc... But when it comes to building computers, they suddenly listen.

As someone that has been part of the education system at various levels, you notice that boys and girls on average just have different tempraments. They on average like different stuff, act in different ways and make different choices. Each has it's benefits and drawbacks, none is better than the other. But could the reason that girls did not get in to gaming early just be that they did not find building things interesting or that they wanted to fit in with their friends?

Fast-forward a few years, and the industry hit on a formula for selling video games to a specific demographic - males aged 12-18, which eventually widened to 18-and-up, and they stuck to it fairly well, with the only games that were particularly gender-neutral being those for younger children.

Are you trying to tell me that the industry, if it knew how to sell games to young women/girls would just ignore it and avoid the money because they don't like women? Could'nt the reason that the games that are made for young men, is that they are mostly made *by* young men who make the games they want to play?

Throughout the history of gaming, there have been prolific female contributors to the field who've worked at various levels. Just to pluck one example out of the air, at one point, the UK's highest-paid woman was the CEO of Gremlin Interactive. Often the contribution of these women was glossed over, though, because it was advantageous for companies to maintain the male-dominated image for their own PR.

We're now in a very different situation, where we have women who've grown up in a different social climate, who have a greater freedom to be the people they want to be. Many of them are into video games, but are put off because arguably the biggest entertainment industry is still very much pitched toward men (except on iOS).

You would have to be an idiot to think that there were many industries where women had not made a contribution. That is not the point. The point is that the majority of the contribution to gaming has been from men. The next time you complete a game, look at the credits and count the number of men and women. I just completed Bioshock Inifinite and the I would say 90% of the tech positions were male, and around 70% of the art positions were male. To say that women and men have contributed evenly to gaming is simply false.. I studied Engineering at university and while there are subsidies for women to study engineering the classes are still mostly male and the ones that do often graduate and change careers in to more social parts of the industry despite being good at what they do.

This leads onto the comment about romance novels - you know that the romance novel industry IS well-staffed with men, right? You think those authors with female names are all actually women? Plus plenty work in publishing. Also, you're right in that if romance novels were as massive as the video games industry, people would probably scrutinise them more - but they aren't.

Regardless of who worked the particular industry, a genre of entertainment that has been built to cater to the needs of a particular group and has thrived based on that groups spending of money on that product cannot be then criticised for only catering to that group. Romance novels cater to women, they spend the money that makes the industry. I cannot then complain and once the industry takes off say "Why don't you cater to me???" when I am not part of the group that made that particular niche a success especially when the response to efforts to cater to me fell flat.

Whenever I go clothes shopping, the store is 70% womens clothes, with the mens section tucked away at the back or on the 4th floor. Do these people hate men? No, they are just catering to the people that spend the most money in their stores.

I'm not trying to claim that videogame development has always been split evenly among the genders; all I'm trying to say is that there have been a good proportion of female gamers and game developers for as long as the industry has been an industry, and this isn't about some woman, who's hated video games all her life, turning round and now trying to spoil your fun, now that they're "kind of a big deal". It's a totally different, nuanced situation.

Well that is quite literally what is happening. I really don't care if the next Gears/Uncharted/TLoU/GTA 5/COD is lead by a woman. I really don't. I just want to have fun when I play. However, this SJW crowd is doing everything is can to conflate online sexist trolls, with the game industry and then spuriously link their behaviour to game content when in fact anyone that gets online and says anything about something people love, gets abuse. Do feminist ever mention how they ran the woman that created the first women's shelter out of England for daring to say that the majority of the women that came in were from mutually violent relationships? How they sent her death threats and killed her dog? They are giving the impresssion that gaming uniquely hates women so that they can strong arm the changes they want in to the industry. Or the Amazing Atheist or Thunderf00t who recieve death threats and have had their whereabouts posted online.

Instead, it's about accepting that if the industry wants to grow, it needs to try and be more inclusive and appeal to new consumers. There's no reason to stop making BulletShootSexBMXVengeance 5, or whatever - just that doesn't have to be the mainstay of the industry.

Who is going to make these games? Will they be profitable? Will women buy them? Can you stand up infront of a board of investors and prove that if Gears of War 4 was lead by a woman sales will go up and not down? Why should they take the risk? Why change the formula when they are making lots of money? And why change your artistic vision just because someone who does not even play wants to be included? Should the next Fifa/COD be all female?

Also why aren't any female developers making games for women and cleaning up financially in the same way the Wii tapped in to the casual crowd? If this is some huge untapped market, why don't the Sarkeesian crowd lead the way and build these amazing IPs for women? isn't $160,000 enough to build the next female Minecraft? Even if they cant compete on the same scale as the long established gaming community, where are the female led iOS games like flappy bird, Candy Crush, TrainYard.

I would like more gender/racial/etc diversity in gaming. Whenever I have kids, I would like some cool female characters for my daughter to look up to. Thanks to Anita's video I am a bit more aware of the damsel in distress plot device and do find it tiring now when before it was filler story, but the rest is complete BS. Making developers aware of how they represent women is great but going that step further and seeing misogyny in everything even the idea that strong female characters are too masculine is absolute crap. The real change will be when women start financially responding like men do and start making their own games.

[Dogg Thang]

equal entitlements and rights to fathers over their children

Yes, you're right that it would become a sprawling behemoth of a thread if it wandered into all equality territories but, seeing as you've brought them up, I should say that these are MASSIVE issues for me, especially the rights of fathers. And that absolutely ties into equality. Thing is though, I don't believe it's a case of "points from them dry up" like most of them don't want true equality. It's more that it is exactly as you say - a huge topic. Each person in it has their own particular focus or thing that rubs them up the wrong way. In the case here, it's about gaming although as some have pointed out on both sides this is across all media representation and is not specific to gaming - it's just that the people talked about are discussing gaming. But like I was saying about the male cannon fodder (which in itself is valid), if you address equality these things would come from that. The more equal things get, the more the anomalies (like the rights of fathers) will stand out as strange and unacceptable.

For the messy results reasons you mention, it's probably best this is kept to gaming or at least general media but it is all connected. Media comes from our society but also feeds into our society. Positive change should happen on both ends and each one will influence the other positively as long as we're not desperately trying to reject it.

[Guts]

But again, how would you say that translates to real life. I don't think I or any other bloke I know has ever been regarded as cannon fodder.

Welcome to Finland where it's mandatory armed service for all young men (6-12 months) or civil service (12 months). Don't want to do either, you go to the prison as punishment, or you have to go cry to a shrink to get a release based on mental illness.

Young women don't have to do any kind of service.

In the case of an actual war (which might not be that far off based on the rising tensions between Russia and NATO), it's men based on their sex alone that will be dying.

[Golgo]

I'm seeing no solutions here - to the specifically videogame problem - so I'd like to offer a modest proposal: if it would keep Sarkessian et al. happy and allow us to move on I'd be content to see Ms. Pacman having her lipstick, lashes and pretty bow taken away and rendered gender neutral, and Mr. Pacman given a beard, chest hair and a facial scar to distinguish him as badass. I'm fairly sure it wouldn't bother most of the male population either. Every single videogame character I've ever encountered has never been anything more than an indifferent and forgettable cypher for the gameplay and control systems that lie behind it. In fact, the blander the better (Link). Certainly nothing to identify myself 'with' or 'against', or to feel aggrieved about: "Why do they assume all males must have the physique and sexual prowess of Kratos?!" Pah.

[Guts]

How dare you imply that women aren't just as good at growing beards, chest hair and getting badass scars as men, you vile swine!

[Golgo]

Aaaaaarrggh!!!!

[randombs]

But most women are rubbish at growing beards and chest hair!

@Golgo: She'll probably argue that you've just taken Pacman and removed some things from him to make him female. You may as well chop his willy off and call him Ms. Pacman.

I propose we just refer to Pacman as Mr. Pacman from now on. Then Pacman becomes his surname rather than his super hero moniker. Like Hugh Jackman or John Goodman.

Then we turn Ms. Pacman into Mrs. Pacman because it'll annoy some femtrolls.

[nakamura]

Hairy women in games...hmmm.

['Press Start']

In the case of an actual war (which might not be that far off based on the rising tensions between Russia and NATO), it's men based on their sex alone that will be dying.

Men's power is used to fight wars to extend men's power......seems apt.

[randombs]

Hairy women in games...hmmm.

Ninja Theory would need at least two SPUs to model that...

[Tobal]

Men's power is used to fight wars to extend men's power......seems apt.

Those fighting and dying won't be benefiting from this "power", are you throwing the average solider under the same bus as our powermakers and the rich boardrooms of the various industries making the killing machines or farming natural resources.

['Press Start']

Those fighting and dying won't be benefiting from this "power", are you throwing the average solider under the same bus as our powermakers and the rich boardrooms of the various industries making the killing machines or farming natural resources.

My comment could be taken that way but it was not meant so, it was a bit flippant so sorry about that.

My point was disposable men are being sent to war by powerful men, not women. I know of no powerful, elite female groups sending men off to die to further their agenda.

[randombs]

This thread's turning into an MGS cutscene.

[bash]

I actually thought this would have descended into complete anarchy by now but hats off to the main contributors for keeping their cool and actually thinking before they type . . . .