Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine No Female Heroes

Activision says female heroes don\'t sell.

Didn't Tomb Raider have a female lead?

And Metroid. Dragon Age gives you a choice. (It did pretty well for and RPG.)

Blood Rayne, too.

http://accomics.com/accomics/accentral/images_accentral/FEMFORCE_152.jpg

FEMFORCE is up to 152 issues so far (not counting many, many specials)!

There. Fixed it.

that's just BS.

I don't buy games, but would gladly lend moral support to a boycott.

It's up to the gaming community to prove them wrong.

It would be hard to prove them wrong if they don't use a female lead.

Uhhhh...

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...Gaming Industry
Not Meeting Our Needs

Despite the growing female market, the gaming industry is not meeting women's needs. The ratio of male to female characters appearing in games is abysmal. When females do appear, they are often portrayed in sexist and overtly misogynistic ways. Although video game companies have started to include more female characters in their games, many of these female characters continue to be created according to traditional gender stereotypes. Violent games with hypermasculine themes that are devoid of positive representations of women continue to dominate the market. When we go online searching for game-related fun and information, we find that the majority of gaming websites cater to a young male population, and are just more of the same testosterone-driven environments. There are a few gender-neutral and female-focused gaming sites, which are an important part of the gaming community. However, most existing gaming sites focus on action and role-playing games, thereby leaving a large portion of the female gaming market out of the loop. It is currently very difficult to find information, recommendations, and discussion of all game genres online....

-- via WomenGamers.Com

I hear complaints like this from women gamers quite often. Men behaving like boors both in the business itself and in the gaming communities proper, despite the fact that something like 43% of gamers are women.

Bigwigs in the industry produce patronizing crap about shoe shopping and such, because they figure that's appropriately "girly," or they produce T&A for other men. Then they claim it's not their fault if it doesn't sell-- chicks just don't like games because games are "a guy thing!!"

Hmmm... kind of reminds me of the comics industry, just a little...

:rolleyes:

Not if other games that do sell.

There is nothing incorrect about the above statement, nor was it meant to suggest that I agree with Activision.

I guess I'm not too clear on what you're saying then, OM. According to the article, Activision's bigwigs pretty much ignored both its own creative people and the fact that there are high-selling games available that are already quite popular with consumers.

Aside from avoiding the company's products, what more can the community do at this point?

If that's the route they choose, then they have to make it clear why they are doing so. Letters and e-mails to the company are then a necessity.

And it has to be from gamers, because anybody outside that community is going to be written off as a "professional protestor" with an axe to grind looking for an excuse to grind it.

Blood Rayne & Tomb Raider are T&A shows for teenaged boys.

It's a chicken/egg problem at this point. 'Gamer games' can cost 20-50 million to produce. No one is going to risk that kind of money on a female lead. No female protagonists means that there will never be a chance to change the situation.


My brother is in the business. He just launched a new venture that does games in the mobile games arena. Most of his customers are girls in the tween to late teen category. In talking to him, I'd say the perception is that most girls are in the 'casual games' segment. I'd say that women play a lot of RPGs as well from my online forum travels.

But 'gamer games' are what Activision is talking about. Unfortunately these are the big budget high profile games with high production values, much like the big budget Hollywood movies they get all the press.

They are correct when they say female character driven games of this type haven't sold well. "Beyond Good and Evil" will forever be the case study. Where were all the female gamers when they had a chance to buy a game starring a feminist newspaper reporter who didn't bounce her DDDDs with every step? That game's failure in the marketplace pretty much relegated female protagonists to the lead character in Diner Dash and Sally's Spa which actually sell. RPGs with a generic player character excluded of course.

If you want more female characters, my only advice is for women to buy Beyond Good & Evil 2 if it ever gets produced. I have doubts that the project is real at this point.

[snip]

As a reader of the When Fangirls Attack! feeds when I can spare the time and/or stomach, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody did organize this.

Although I also wouldn't be surprised if TPTB in places like Activision used exactly the "professional protester" dismissal to avoid having to take seriously anything that they don't wish to take seriously.

Just an observation I'm making based on other interactions among Teh Boyz in various pop culture echelons over the years.

[snip]

Originally posted by Tamper Lad

Quote

...They are correct when they say female character driven games of this type haven't sold well. "Beyond Good and Evil" will forever be the case study. Where were all the female gamers when they had a chance to buy a game starring a feminist newspaper reporter who didn't bounce her DDDDs with every step?

I don't know anything about this particular game, granted. But did the company make a sincere effort to promote this thing over the long-term, or to build a long-term relationship with the people they presumably intended to reach with it? Because it seems to me again and again that in situations of this type, companies start out with the assumption that they're promoting not a mainstream product but something that's "special interest;" which ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy...

And FWIW, I do run into fans of Tomb Raider on other fan sites who are grown women, not teenaged boys, though I don't game myself.

Given the lead designer's (Michel Ancel's) stature within Ubi and the industry (and the fact they didn't fire him) I would say they gave it their best shot. The game failed in the market despite positive reaction in the gaming media, and amongst may who played it. Its considered one of the better games of the previous generation of game consoles.

I can't play Tomb Raider anymore, (though they are usually pretty good). Since Angelina played Lara in the movie I find it's a bit embarrassing to shake Lara's ass all over the screen in polite company.

Also games aren't something you promote over the long term. Like the movie box-office, you know within the first 3-4 weeks whether you'll end up in the black.

Games that launch poorly fade into the bargain bin fast.

Ah, okay. Thanks for the info. I still find it disconcerting that the first thought would be, "Well, it failed because there was a woman in it and she didn't have gigantic breasts." As if there could be no other possible explanation.

But, you know, I've had forty-four years and counting to cultivate my cynicism regarding show biz and marketing and the "well-meaning" dudes therein-- usually at the local level. Don't mind me.

Have we not advanced at all since Ms. Pac-Man blazed a trail??

I guess not.

Those missions are just too dangerous for a girl...

Run, rickshaw...run!