Gender & Sexuality In Gaming

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Kaito-kun
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Post by Kaito-kun »

Reknoc wrote:The industry still shys away from female lead characters. Sexuality probably shouldn't even be considered while publishers can even sort out gender equality.
The only three female leads that really jump to my mind would be old Lara Croft, Samus Aran and Chell from Portal.

When you think about it, the original Portal doesn't feature any male characters at all which I think's pretty interesting. (Unless you count Rattman)

Makes you realised how male dominated this industry is. It's a shame; I sometimes prefer playing as female characters.
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Post by Dr Shaneman »

Are we talking just western games here?
As in a lot of Japanese games I've played they've all been female leads.
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Kaito-kun
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Post by Kaito-kun »

Dr Shaneman wrote:Are we talking just western games here?
As in a lot of Japanese games I've played they've all been female leads.
I was talking about all games.

Although, games featuring large breasted moeblobs spouting phrases involving "onii-chan" don't really count.
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Post by Dr Shaneman »

Kaito-kun wrote:I was talking about all games.

Although, games featuring large breasted moeblobs spouting phrases involving "onii-chan" don't really count.
I wasn't talking about moeblob games either.
There's quite a few JRPGs and 2D fighting games which feature female leads.
There's puzzle games with story modes too but I don't know if you're counting those.
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Post by Crow »

I can honestly only think of two lesbian characters in games and they're Specialist Traynor in Mass Effect 3 and Dallas in Valkyria Chronicles (which you may recall I mentioned in a post about favourite Sega games)

But like I said in my "Romance in Space!" blog entry, I felt as though Traynor's sexuality wasn't handled very well. She only implied her sexuality with a comment about EDI's voice (EDI is the ship's AI for those not familiar with the Mass Effect series)

She never actually said that she's a lesbian. You kinda had to work it out yourself.

I guess it's a bit like me, now that I think about it. No one works out that I'm a lesbian; rather, I just tell them up front. Well not so much up front as such, since the only friends I have are online... The only people who know in the real world are my family and they couldn't care less! I think my brother always knew that I was a lesbian though, because of the comments I'd make about women.

Anyway, I think Mass Effect is a decent example of sexuality in gaming. Why? Because none of the characters are stereotypes! You know how gay men are often portrayed as being flamboyant and how lesbians are ugly, overweight women trying to be men? You won't see that in Mass Effect.

As for Dallas, go look at her profile in the game and you'll see that she hates men and likes women. It's more obvious in-game though, as she prefers being around the female squad members and gets a little frustrated when placed near males. But since she's an Engineer, I don't think her accuracy getting lowered is even a big deal. Then there's her potential, "Alicia lover"... I think it's pretty self explanatory.
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Reknoc
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Post by Reknoc »

Kaito-kun wrote:The only three female leads that really jump to my mind would be old Lara Croft, Samus Aran and Chell from Portal.

When you think about it, the original Portal doesn't feature any male characters at all which I think's pretty interesting. (Unless you count Rattman)

Makes you realised how male dominated this industry is. It's a shame; I sometimes prefer playing as female characters.
Chell and Samus are pretty much non-characters and could be any gender really. Though I'd say they're a lot better than characters like Bayonetta and Juliet Starling.

Of course, what made me bring it up in the first place is a tweet a while back from one of the costume quest designers who said the game originally only had a girl character but publishers said they had to have a male one as well.

Going back to sexuality though, both "areas" seems to have troubles with it but for different reasons. Western devs will likely probably try and make a strong homosexual character, but then undermine everything by drawing too much attention to it. It's like the "game guuurl" effect where they just seem like attention seekers. Meanwhile Japan will just make them characatures.

Although I say that I think Atlus probably came the closest to having a well written and mature story arc about sexuality with Kanji in Persona 4. And then they fucked it up at the end by not giving it any resolution and just saying maybe he likes both? Oh but the reason he thought he was gay was because he fancied a boy, but it's alright because the boy is just a girl dressed like a boy.
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Kaito-kun
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Post by Kaito-kun »

Reknoc wrote:Though I'd say they're a lot better than characters like Bayonetta and Juliet Starling.
Yeah, there was no way in hell I was going to count characters like those; yes they're female leads, however, they're overly sexualised male fantasies that are a negative when it comes to positive female lead roles.
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Post by Killer French Bread »

so basically, what i can gather from this topic is intelligent gamers don't want any of these sexy sassy women clogging up their screens, no instead they are all eagerly awaiting the day gaming grows up and this auspicious day will finally be heralded by the release of none other than Anne Widdecombe: The Videogame.
Tic Tac, sir?
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Post by TCB »

Killer French Bread wrote:so basically, what i can gather from this topic is intelligent gamers don't want any of these sexy sassy women clogging up their screens, no instead they are all eagerly awaiting the day gaming grows up and this auspicious day will finally be heralded by the release of none other than Anne Widdecombe: The Videogame.
Good interpretation.

And suuuuuuuuuch a day one buy.
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Post by Kaito-kun »

Killer French Bread wrote:so basically, what i can gather from this topic is intelligent gamers don't want any of these sexy sassy women clogging up their screens, no instead they are all eagerly awaiting the day gaming grows up and this auspicious day will finally be heralded by the release of none other than Anne Widdecombe: The Videogame.
I never said there's anything wrong with an occasional guilty pleasure: I thoroughly enjoyed Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. But we can't all want it all the time, can we? And there's an iffy ratio when it comes to female characters in games at the moment.
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