Pre-amble: Just explaining here, no accusations.
Bytes wrote:sinewav wrote:Bytes wrote:First off, there are many male targeted games where the hero is a muscular guy in skimpy clothes.
This is in line with the "I'm not racist I have black friends" argument, and it misses Z-Man's point. In those games there is probably only one choice. You can be Conan the Barbarian or not play.
I have yet to meet someone with black friends who is racist, kind of defeats the point. (So long as it's an anti-black racism, but I imagine that argument just translates to whatever accusation they're defending). Just saying that as arguments go, it seems a reasonably solid one to me. Please correct me if this is in fact some kind of 'classic' argument which is in fact a code phrase for something different.
The classic exchange goes like this:
User 1: You dirty digger!
User 2: Umm, racist much?
User 1: What? No, far from it! In fact, I'm friends with a black guy and he is totally cool if I call him digger!
(**** forum censorship in this case)
Faulty because a) it's just one guy and b) even in the remote case that User 1 has no racist thought whatsoever, he still is promoting racist language.
In this case, the parallel would be mostly a); yes, there are some games where the male hero wears less than he probably should be wearing, but those are vastly outnumbered by sensibly armored guys and less sensibly dressed women. And at least Conan is wearing good boots and trousers; I was more thinking along the lines of a male stripper. Add a cowboy hat, if you will.
Bytes wrote:I'm not sure what you're trying to say about there being only one choice, could you please clarify the point you're making here. What does there only being one hero choice, like most games, have to do with the point I made?
Having the two choices, "want to be like them" male and "want to **** them" female characters, next to each other amplifies the silliness. Having just one character of any kind can more easily be justified by artistic freedom, "that is the main character, and we want to tell his/her story". There are limits to that excuse, obviously.
Bytes wrote:So you say sorry, then seem to be trying to accuse me with the same thing again?
No, I was just trying to explain how I got to the conclusion you were saying what I thought you were.
Bytes wrote:Regardless, I feel like we're trying to achieve the same thing here anyway, but are just coming at it from two different angles. We both want games to me made available that are more suited to female players.
Yes. I was under the impression you wanted to segregate women gamers into some corner. Here, play your Bejeweled and Horse Adventures and Menstruation Simulator 2015 and leave us doing manly man stuff. Which would be bad.
Bytes wrote:You suggest the standardisation of all games to be gender non-biased.
Not quite; I want diversification. Manly man games are allowed to exist, and Mario is still allowed to always save the Princess, because trope-y as it is, that's what he does, and neither are really characters in the first place. But I'd like game developers to include believable female characters instead of the pinups they so often choose. Alyx Vance? More of that, please (sans the little maybe-love-interest vibe). Or heroes who just happen to be female and no big deal is made of it, like Jade from Beyond Good and Evil.
Bayonetta and Lollipop Chainsaw are also allowed to exist (haven't played either yet), by the way, and they are more on the positive side: at least, both are empowered.