A Guy's Opinion on Female Characters in Video Games

So I was talking to my boyfriend, Jason, who is an avid videogamer, about my media class. I told him about our project and how we wanted to research gender differences in videogaming. An interesting aspect of that was brought up recently in posts previous to this was how female characters were portrayed in video games. I decided why not ask a guy's perspective on the sexualization of female characters. I then asked him what he thought about it and what it did for him while he was playing. He agreed that the female characters are sexualized on purpose to appeal to guys who are playing the videogames. There aren't that many positive images of female characters because naughty looking female characters are more interesting. Exaggerated body shapes are fantasized by guys and seeing that on the tv screen makes the videogaming experience worthwhile. It's something to look at while you're playing. He also said that people need to keep in mind that the target audience of majority of videogaming are for guys ages 13-26. My boyfriend says he is more indifferent towards seeing a sexualized female character because it does nothing for him. It is just a virtual world. Off the top of his head, he can only name 1 positively portrayed female character: Jade (Beyond Good & Evil). He says that she is portrayed positively because she has substance. She is a journalist, and isn't scantily clad. She is part of a game story where it isn't violent and she is aiming to help the unfortunate like an orphanage while trying to expose the corrupt side of the government. Whilst, there are many other negatively portrayed, sexualized female characters in games such as Blood Rayne. Here, you can see how disporportionate her body is. I feel like there is no need to exaggerate her chest size. Overall, Jason is interested in all genres of games (adventures, arcade, action) most of which are male lead characters. They don't feature any overly exaggerated females. However, if they were to be featured, Jason says that he'd be indifferent towards them.

The 50 Greatest Female Characters in Video Games

Here's a few of the top female characters..a list compiled by a male video gamer, Rob Wright. He claims, "A quick note about this list: it's for the greatest female characters, which means it's not a list of the "hottest video game chicks" or "top video game vixens." Sure, looks count. But these female characters have to make an impact beyond their appearance. To measure greatness, I looked at how each character made a significant impression on the game play or narrative, whether they are central characters, playable characters or supporting characters. How would the game have turned out if the character had been eliminated? Was the character distinguished as being a "first" such as Princess Daphne in Dragon's Lair? How many appearances has a particular character made in games as well as other media, such as movies? Do the character's story, narrative and voice acting elevate the game?" -50 Greatest Females in Video Games.

Whatever he claims, his pros and cons are filled with terms such as "easy on the eyes, nice outfit" or "outfit could use some work" aka less of it perhaps?

Sure, these female characters may be able to kick some butt but why does Lara Croft have to have a size double F chest? This topic has already been brought up on the blog by Brenda but I'd like to reiterate..what do female gamers think about these female characters? Let us know!

Are they really strong? What is your ideal female gaming character? What would she look like? Do? Act? Say? How would she be compelling?

Female Characters in Games

I found this Game Trailers video on Youtube that talk about their top ten women in gaming. In order to make the list “these ladies of the pixel had to be hot and empowering”. I guess you can’t break all stereotypes. As this clip shows, women characters in games has definitely changed from being the damsel in distress (though we still see this) to the independent strong woman who is just as powerful as any man. Yet while this clip portrays strong, independent female characters, most of these characters, with the exception of one or two, are scantily dresses and have voluptuous bodies. What kind of message do you think this gives to younger girls playing these games? They use to be exposed to the stereotype of the weak females but now that that stereotype is somewhat resolved, they are faced with this image of what it means to be an attractive woman. In my opinion, based on the characters I saw in the clip, there should be more characters like #3 on the list: AlyxVance (Half Life Two). “Alex’s charm lies not just in her looks but in her personality and intelligence. Alex is the whole package. She may not end up on the pages of Maxim but she ‘s one of the more empowering representation of women in video games.”

Rockband Interview Part I

I went to a videogaming event on Saturday, April 11th at the Bentley Student Center Pub. I decided to go because it would be good research for our media project. And plus, maybe I could play too. I came ready with a digital camera and a tape recorder, ready to interview any girls that I see playing. However, I half expected it to be an all guys party, with the girls only there to watch their boyfriends playing. When I got there, the pub was already filled with a majority of guys who frequently come to the pub to participate in events held by the Bentley Gaming Organization. I only saw one girl who was interested in playing. After I approached her and asked her permission to interview, we sat down and started talking about gender differences. Caitlin had decided to come to the pub tonight and play Rock Band. Her response was that she had nothing to do that night and plus she loved playing Rock Band. She loves Rock Band because it's a good way to socialize with her friends and it was a fun game to play. Caitlin described herself as an amateur player, someone who doesn't play more than one time a week. She also believed that there is a difference in skill level between female videogamers and male videogamers. Male videogamers according to her, are more skilled and more likely to play videogames because videogames are geared towards guys. I brought up the Xbox controllers and asked her if she ever had difficulty using them. She agreed that she did have frustrations playing Xbox because the two joysticks were hard to swivel and control. Often, she’d stop playing an Xbox game because the controllers were too hard to think about and still focus on the game. An example of this is Halo 3 where she’d have to use one joystick to control walking and another joystick to control the angle of the perspective. Overall, she enjoyed playing games but felt that guys and girls were on different levels. This is due to guys being able to play a lot more.

I was hoping to find a female videogamer who considered herself intermediate to advanced. I wanted to get a variety and get their perspectives on gender differences. However, the interview from Caitlin reaffirmed my theory that there is a gender difference in videogaming. What she said followed what I thought about videogaming as well. See previous post (http://mc399v2.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-favorite-games.html ).

I will upload the audio from the recorded interview on our website later on.

Benefits of Gaming from a Girl's POV

For me, games help put me on an even playing field with boys. I'm 4'9" and when I compete with guys, it is normally intellectually. You won't see me wrestling or lifting or running against any guy..and winning. Games are a medium in which I can sit in front of an interface and despite any physical weakness or lack or height, I can compete with a guy. I may not be any good, but with enough practice and playing I could potentially win.

More on this issue later.

Some Benefits of Gaming

Videogames are a positive influence not only on society but on physiology too. I’m going to start with the physiology. There have been a few scientists that had done research on how videogames affect “visuomotor skills.” They showed that videogames resist distraction better, more sensitive to the information in peripheral vision, and ability to take in information and analyze it quicker. They said that action games are good training material because you don’t focus on just one object; you have to focus on multiple things happening at the same time.

Videogames for society are a positive because they are pieces of art. There are games awards for graphics, story, game play, and other categories. They are becoming more like film. Most of the people that you see on the credits for a game are those that you would see in film; cast, producer, music supervisor, art director, casting director, et cetera. Many games are basically interactive movies that might take in upwards of 20 hours to complete.

Also videogames can help people learn. They can enhance problem solving, like Tetris. People can pick up and play at any level of skill, but it takes time to master. There have been many books that have been written on the subject of videogames and learning. One such book, written by James Paul Lee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, talks of how we need to tap into videogames to help teach our children. He says, “We don't often think about video games as relevant to education reform, but maybe we should. Game designers don't often think of themselves as learning theorists. Maybe they should. Kids often say it doesn't feel like learning when they're gaming - they're much too focused on playing. If kids were to say that about a science lesson, our country's education problems would be solved.” In a nut shell we need to utilize videogames not only for entertainment, but for education too.

Wikipedia
What Video Games Have to Teach Us....

Public Sphere with Sports Video Games

Sports video games have been both positive and negative within the public sphere. 

With a growing attention to video games amongst younger generations and away from traditional textbook and learning, many educational institutions and software makers are finding ways in way to link interactive video games and education. Here is a link to an abstract form of educating young people ways to reduce the risk of having a concussion in hockey. There are also research theories upon this topic because there is a huge issue with generation Z veering away from education and sucking themselves into education.

However there also have been cons within sports video games with new technology. Now there are video game consoles that also imbed a network of online gamers. Video gamers can now go online and play against other gamers such as Madden 08 competition where a gamer sides with a team and plays head on against another represented team. However this creates more polarization as individuals separate themselves towards one particular identity and instead benefit the better good.

Men vs. Women

An article in the NY Times (posted on brandnoise.typepad.com) talks about a study that was done explaining why men are more addicted and enjoy video games more than women. The study involved 11 males and 11 females who where asked to play a simple video game, requiring that they click the image of a ball as they saw it, while and MRI machine scanned their brain. Results showed that the "part of the brain involved in feelings of reward and addiction becomes much more activated [in men] than it does in women". This helps to bring a new argument to gender in gaming and provides some type of scientific evidence as to why the stereotypes of gamers exist and why men are much more represented in gaming. This somewhat is beneficial as it helps to educate us and helps us to realize that it isn't just men excluding women from the gaming environment, but theres more reason behind it. Though we may not be able to trust the study completely, since the number of participants in the study is pretty small, it's still important to keep the study in consideration.

Girl Gamers

I have been trying to search for articles that wrote about gender in gaming and came across one on boston.com titled, “Girl Gamers want respect in Virtual Man’s world” by Nicholas Groom. Although it was written about a year and a half ago, the contents of the article still apply today. The article talked about how gamers aren’t just “geeky boys in dark basements” anymore. There are a lot of all-women gaming teams that are demanding respect and want the respect of game makers who typically create games geared towards male players. Female gaming teams mentioned in the article is PMS Clan, Frag Doll, and Girlz of Destruction. These teams compete in various tournaments and have placed themselves in the rankings. Frag Dolls, as mentioned in the article, breaks the stereotype that female gamers are “ugly and huge”, since all their members are young and pretty.

At the moment I’ve only really looked into the PMS Clan. Their members range from age 9 to 59 and it doesn’t matter what their skill set is for gaming. The team is more focused on building a community and encourages everyone to play, win or lose. This reminded me a lot of “Stitch’nBitch” and how a community was created connecting women to technology, which is pretty much the same thing as women and gaming since games evolve with technology.

The articles I read also talked about how there isn’t really any representation of strong female characters in games and that’s if the game has any female characters at all. This reminded me Jeff Gomez and what he told our class about refusing to do a project unless a female was introduced as one of the race car drivers. I’m not much of a gamer but I’ve noticed the lack of strong female characters. For those gamers who play frequently, do the games you play have female characters? If so, how are they portrayed?

Rock Band

I'm obsessed.
We are having another event in the PUB featuring Rock Band. The Bentley Gaming Society has been trying to get Harmonix to come. I'm still crossing my fingers.

We as a group, are really trying hard to get someone from Harmonix to let us interview them..*cross fingers*

I've been reading some articles about Gender and Video Gaming recently and hopefully that will make it's way to the surface of this blog more frequently the more we, as a group, explore it. Susie, has been getting into really hardcore games like World of Warcraft and so she will probably be providing a lot of great insight into that game.

I recently watched a film called Run Lola Run by Tim Tykwer. It is a German film but it reminded me a lot of The Matrix in the whole, 'game interface'/real vs. illusion kind of world. It was really interesting and I'll be posting a blurb about what I wrote about in my paper in regards to the 'gaming look' in movies and look into what kind of movies have been games first and what audiences they attract in relation to the kind of audience the original game attracted.

Going on 19 years...

I've been playing games for 18+ years. The first video game I ever played was Duckhunt. Of course, only being 2 years old I was the one to cheat (take the light gun and go up to the screen and shoot). Since Super Mario Bros. was on the same cartridge I soon played that. It was funny, the console and games were my dad's but I ended up playing them more than him, and beating him in every facet. He ended up just saying that it was mine.
I got more and more games, becoming more proficient. Asking for the new consoles when they came out. I didn't get many toys, I got games. Currently the consoles I have and play are; PS2, Wii, and DS. Since these consoles are also backward compatible I also play PS, GameCube, and GBA games, as well as the Virtual Console on the Wii.
I'm more of a Nintendo fanboy, as people in the industry say. I prefer Nintendo games because they have great gameplay, feel, and nostalgia. The genres I play most are adventure, role playing games (RPGs), and sports games. Now to list the difficult task of my top 5 favorite games of all time.
Top 5 games:
1. Super Mario Bros. 3
2. Final Fantasy X
3. Super Smash Bros. series (can't narrow it down)
4. Kingdom Hearts
5 (tie). Final Fantasy VII and Super Mario Galaxy

My next post I am going to go more in depth into the industry and the future of it.

Tetris and the Stereotype of Male Gamers

The very first video game I was given to play was Tetris when my parents gave me an old school Game Boy. It was very simple, one-dimensional with very few distinctions with graphics, yet at that time it was a phenomenon. Then came Duck Hunt, games were becoming more interactive with gamers, giving a more "realistic" feel that attracts gamers to such subconscious fantasies.

Since the mid-1990s, the gaming industry has become a multi-billion dollar industry with game developers creating more sophisticated gamers who thirsted for more "hardcore" (more realism) games where they could feel more entranced. However, I never really got into the gaming industry addiction. My parents never promoted me to play video games because they did not see any economic value added to my personal growth. Vice versa, they thought this would interfere with my studies. However I was given a Playstation (the original) in middle school and ultimately developed into computer games in high school. Starcraft and Counterstrike ruled the high school years where GUI were more interactive - ability to control mini-armies, ability to control actions in first-person viewpoint, multiple commands to choose from - and objectives became more challenging. More to come on video games...

My Top 5:
1. Duck Hunt
2. Counterstrike
3. The Sims
4. Halo
5. NBA Live series

Some things to look forward to:
- Video game developers
- Video game academia (possibility)
- Interviews with aspiring video game developer

Losing to a Five Year Old

I'm not much of a gamer. If you catch me playing games it's probably because my five year old nephew, Daymian, forced me to play with him. For the past few weekends, I've played hours of Rock Band with him alternating between being the guitarist and the drummer. His role is always singer, though he can't read, yet he somehow manages to go on without failing. Mai has a pretty good description of the game below. I do find myself getting more addicted to the game. It isn't so much my nephew forcing me to play anymore but more of me trying to see if he wants to play. Occasionally he'll stop and kick me out of the band because he wants to play solo.

But before Rock Band, I played alot of Wii Sports with the nephew. Bowling, tennis, golf, etc. I guess I like games that don't use the traditional remote control. I've never been able to maneuver the joystick and some remotes have two, which is crazy. My nephew, on the other hand, has no problems playing with those remote controls at all. It amazes me! I think my inability to play video games comes as a result of not being exposed to it much when I was younger, as opposed to Daymian who has almost every game system out there and the games to go with them. Besides that I've pretty much played every game in my nephews enormous collection and yes I lose to him in most of them, not even on purpose. It's sad, I know.

Another Girl's Interpretation on Gaming

As a girl, it's pretty difficult to be a gamer. I'm not used to gaming on a regular basis or even being good at it. My first experience gaming was with the Sega, Genesis, possibly the oldest game system. I was about 10 years old and I played simple games like Sonic the Hedgehog. It required less manipulation of controls compared with today. I loved playing those games because they were simple to understand and play.

Now, I don't play videogames as much because of many reasons. I don't have the money to buy the systems but not only that, some of the games are really complicated! For example, Xbox controllers have two swivel controls to angle your perspective and move around. there are also buttons to press on both the top of the controllers and on the right side. All these buttons just confuse me and I spend most of my time during videogaming trying to decide what button does what. My most recent experience has been Halo 3. I've become interested in Halo 3 because my neighbor has it and I go over sometimes to play it. This is probably the hardest game for me for some of the reasons I listed before, with the manipulation of many buttons. My guy friend makes fun of me when he sees me play because I often die before I can hit a button. My reaction time is pretty slow because I try to figure out what button to push. However, it is addicting because I like interacting with other players. My skill level has still been pretty low, even after playing a couple of times, but I'm sure I can improve once I get more play time.

More updates as I play!

Rock Band

I played my first video game in years this weekend!!
Rock band is this crazy new phenomenon that I've just discovered through a Gaming Night event I held at my School's PUB. Pretty interesting, because all the hardcore gamers came out to play Rock Band & Super Mario Smashbrothers I think it is called? Honestly, I was really bad at the guitar but it was really fun and the more I tried, the more I got the hang of it AND the more addicted I got. Rock band works on a team play element as you have a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer and a singer and together you form a band and you all have to perform as a team or you FAIL. Lots of pressure! If one of the teammates fails, like I did in the first 5 minutes of playing, another teammate can get you back in.
There were definitely pros but I really felt like nobody was judging me even though I was horrible! After the third try I got the hang of it and the next event is April 19th! It will sure to be a packed event and I can't wait to try 'gaming' again.

Do real gamers consider Rock band a legitimate video game?

Welcome to our blog

We are a group of students who are studying video game developers and the people who play games. Our team of researchers are different levels of gamers:

Me (Mai): Novice
Justin: Pro/Frequent (We'll list his fave games soon)
Susie: Amateur/Occasional player (We'll list her fave games soon)
Brenda: Amateur/Occasional player (We'll list her fave games soon)
Adrian: Intermediate/Frequent (We'll list his fave games soon)

Why do people play video games? How has video games evolved in the past decade? How has user interface been altered and how do different levels of gamers feel about the interaction. How important are graphics to the video gamers to the different levels of players.

Stay Tuned for more.
-Mai