Gamers, feminists, or people who just want to help, should help the gamers who want the video game industry and community to be more inclusive and appealing to everyone.
Throughout my whole life, I’ve noticed how video games were seen as an activity that boys were more likely to do than girls. I think a huge part of why video games are thought of this way is because of how they are marketed. Many commercials and other advertisements make it clear of who they’re trying to sell their product to, and it seems like video game marketers are aiming mainly towards males. Video game marketers should include their female consumers into their advertisements to make everyone feel included.
So why are video games mainly targeted to males? In the article “No Girls Allowed,” Tracey Lien explains how males are more heavily targeted than females. When video games were coming out, there wasn’t a specific gender that they were targeting. Although, like the present, the industry and gamers were male dominated. The video game market crashed but made a come back in the 90s, and that’s when they decided to focus on males. When marketing a product, it makes more sense to focus on a certain population because it is safe. Since more males played video games, that was their reliable target.
Focusing on a certain population, gender, or age seems to work because the video game industry made it’s comeback and is still growing. This method is very obvious and effective, but it leads to stereotypes that we are dealing with at the moment.
More Than Just a Design!
Many gamers complain about how there isn’t enough strong female characters, or that female character designs are unrealistic and sexualized. I understand where those arguments are coming from, but strong female characters are underrepresented because they fall behind the shadow of their designs. Whenever I try to find a source about female characters, the article ends up being about their design and about how people are upset by it.
I’m glad that there are articles about female characters, but they should go into depth about their character instead of staying at their designs. Focusing on character designs makes it seem that is all there is to the female character.
A very famous female protagonist is Samus Aran from the game Metroid. At first, many people thought she was male because of her armor, until later on she was shown without her suit.
She has strength and independence, and she also fights off many enemies. Even though she’s so powerful, once she takes off her suit she becomes only a sexualized female character. She’s still the same character with those great characteristics, so there shouldn’t be a problem.
One of my favorite characters who isn’t just a design, is Muffy. She is from one of my favorite game series called Harvest Moon. Muffy is a green eyed blonde, who wears a red dress that shows some cleavage and curves. Even though she has that kind of design, she has a personality and character development. What I love about this game is the variety of their character designs and their backgrounds given to them, which is what I focus on about games.
If a female character is designed to have some sex appeal, I think that it’s fine as long as they have good personalities that show their human qualities. The main focus should be keeping female characters from being portrayed as objects.
Males Aren’t the Only Ones Who Buy Video Games
In the video game industry, the people who they are trying to cater to is pretty obvious when you look at the designs of female characters. Who could they be trying to pull in with their male protagonists, or females with a huge bust and small clothing? The answer is obviously heterosexual males. It seems to work too, since the gaming industry and community seem male dominated due to women being uncomfortable about female designs and their portrayal as objects.
This keeps video games categorized as a male hobby/profession because of those certain characteristics. In the article “The Male Domain: Exclusion of Women in Video Games,” Kayleigh Conner states, “women are still excluded today from mainstream games because current gameplay limits their options to customize their female character in non-gendered, non-demeaning ways”(Conner). Since the gaming industry is mainly catering to the heterosexual male, females are very limited and unsatisfied by their options. Females aren’t able to relate to the video games they are playing because most video games are male dominated. The protagonist is either male, or female characters lack design variety. The problem is also more than just the gaming industry, other sources also market video games as male dominated.
When I watch television, certain commercials that include video games catch my attention. For example, a pizza snack commercial shows a group of guys playing video games, “bro-ing” out playing video games. Another commercial I’ve noticed that was mostly males was a Gamefly commercial. Most of the people who were upset about a bad game in the commercial were male. There was one female and she was with her boyfriend, I would assume.
Through other video game commercials, the gaming industry also tells women that its only acceptable to play certain games and only with friends. For example, we can play dancing games or we can play children’s games because the games seem more cute and colorful. Games that have action and adventure are made clear by commercials that the gameplay is mainly for a male single player, or for a couple dudes that want to hang out.
The gaming industry needs to put in more of an effort to cater to their female consumers because there are almost as much as male consumers. It would bring more females and good business for them. The industry needs to stop putting a gender where it doesn’t belong.
Girl in the Gaming Community? You Might Want to Hide
Online harassment unfortunately happens everywhere and to many people online. It is known for women in the video game community to be harassed. Anita Sarkeesian claims to be feminist and she has a video web series called ‘Feminist Frequency.’ One of her web series is called ‘Tropes vs Women in Video Games,’ where she talks about the portrayal of women in video games. Even though I do not agree with some of her arguments, I can respect them. Unfortunately not everyone who watched her videos were able to let it go. Soon after her videos about women in video games were published, she was attacked online. She has received many threats that are terrifying and upsetting to hear about.
The death and rape threats she has received should make a person cringe. People who disagree with her have also taken the harassment to another level. In the article “Anita Sarkeesian interview: The word “troll” feels too childish. This is abuse,” Jessica Valenti mentions, “some detractors have manipulated images of Sarkeesian to make them appear pornographic, or depicted images of her being raped by video game characters. All because a woman wanted to make a YouTube series about video games(Valenti). Sarkeesian is only putting her opinions and observations about women in video games, she isn’t harming anyone in any way. They’ve also made a video game that beats up Sarkeesian until she is bleeding. No one should ever have to go through this sort of harassment. It is upsetting to see a women who is trying to bring support to a group in the video game community get attacked because of her opinions of the sexism in video games.
It is scary to see how far harassment can go, people have even tried to hack into her account to stop her funding for her videos. The people in the gaming community seem to have a problem when a women speaks her mind about video games. Not every opinion is meant to be liked because we all have our own, but no one should be receiving death and rape threats. Those people who put those threats out there reflect on the community, and it makes it seem like an unfriendly place for a woman and someone who wants to speak freely.
Sometimes harassment doesn’t always need opinions, sometimes only your gender is what sets people off. As I mentioned before, a friend of mine changed her online persona to a 12 year old boy because she didn’t want inappropriate comments being made towards her. Making others feel welcomed is definitely something that the gaming community needs to work on. Most of the harassment is sexual because that is how many women are portrayed in video games and the community. The only way for women to be accepted is by being sexual objects, which brings these issues into gaming.
More Strong Female Protagonists in Video Games!
An issue of women in the video game culture is their character design and what they represent. Some people argue that women are portrayed as prizes, and that their designs are over sexualized. In an article from the Huffington Post called “Women are Prizes in Video Games— and That Should Bother You” by Damon Beres, it focuses on this topic. While I do see some points in their arguments, I believe that as long if they’re important and strong character in the game I am okay with the character. I try to be open minded with this because there are many ways to view this.
The article makes women seem like they are below men. One extremely famous game series we all know is Mario. In the games, Princess Peach is kidnapped by Bowser and Mario comes to her rescue. In the article, Beres states, “it all reinforces the idea that men are supposed to — even entitled to — claim women after overcoming some challenge.” Princess Peach is a damsel in distress, like in many of our old fairy tales. This does make her seem powerless since she is always getting kidnapped and rescued. Other games display this sort of plot where the female in the game needs to be rescued and then rewards the male protagonist once she is saved. I understand that the females can’t do anything to save herself but wait for her knight in shining armor is a problem, but there are video games where it’s a female who is the protagonist. They are strong characters who a very important to not push aside.
What I am trying to say is, while we acknowledge female characters being portrayed as objects, we should also think about the strong female protagonists because not all games are like that. We should be pushing on more female protagonists instead of focusing on what is already done. I see many people talk about how females in video games are defenseless damsel in distress objects, but that can only do so much.
Intro to dontsaygirlgamer
The first game I ever played was Sonic 2 for the Sega Genesis, which is a very old game. Video games have been in my life for a very long time and I got my interest in video games from my older sister and my best friend. They have had a great influence in my love for video games, and I am considering having a career involving video games. I mentioned my sister and best friend because they are both females and I would like to focus on the females in the gaming community, like the lack of females in the industry and the lack of respect, and their roles in video games.
I am interested in this topic because I would like other females and myself to feel comfortable about gaming. I understand that not all males harass women, and that not all females are victims. As more females are getting into video games, it would be nice to see them get more involved in the community online and in careers.
This topic was brought to my attention again when I was tabling with an officer from the gaming guild and someone wanted to take a picture of us with our sign. As he was taking the picture he mentioned how it was cool that we’re both girls that are running the booth for the gaming guild. I also thought of this when the class was guessing who the vice president of the gaming club was, and all of the guesses were male names. I know that the gaming community is dominated by males, but females are rising up too and should be given more credit.
Most females are uncomfortable in the gaming community. As I became more aware of the gaming community, I have stayed away because of what I have seen and heard from others about the problems females deal with. A close friend of mine told me that her online persona is a 12 year old boy. She decided to hide behind a 12 year old boy because while she was playing online, some guys mentioned that she was a girl. Soon after, other guys chimed in by asking to her to add them and asking for inappropriate pictures. I found it funny that she hides behind that, but also sad because she doesn’t feel safe enough to be herself online which is a problem.
I found out that many females have done similar camouflage online from the Washington Post in the article called “More women play video games than boys, and other surprising facts lost in the mess of Gamergate” by Drew Harwell. Harwell states, “about 70 percent of female gamers said they played as male characters online in hopes of sidestepping sexual harassment.” Gamers who are female hide behind the ‘safe’ gender online, because they know they will be harassed by other gamers because they are female. This is only one of the problems that females face in the gaming community. I hope to inform others that video games have no gender, and that video games are for everyone.
dontsaygirlgamer 