Can the sexism in these types of games stop?

[Cuyir]

I had a long response towards solarn that I lost because the thread was closed buuuuuut summing it up quickly:

There's a massive difference between real feminists and the pseudo feminists who scream sexism and misogyny at everything (see OP). Pseudo feminists are shit stirrers, add nothing to the actual issues, want MORE rights than men, argue about non issues and generally make the real feminists look bad.

As for privileges you can't say that women aren't treated better in a court of law. In the USA divorce courts tend to side with the mother and give her the kids instead of the father, regardless of who is the better parent.

That's gender inequality towards men.

I understand why people will never let anyone forget how women were treated before, and that's a great thing, we should never forget how reprehensible those times were, but by doing this people often forget that men also go through their issues against inequality. I'm not saying to make a big fuss about men's issues, which aren't as numerous as the shit women had to go through but you can't talk about gender inequality and only look and focus at one of them.

There are double standards in society and till people learn to recognize them and fairly discuss them we won't get anywhere with gender equality. And because this hasn't happened, what we've seen is a lot of politically correct mainstream trains of thought that miss the issues and just reinforce said double standards.

[Kein]

There should be a word for when someone deliberately attempts to derail a thread by introducing irrational accusations of sexism. Like Godwin for any mention of Hitler.

[MyRedNeptune]

I'm seeing a really common misconception in this thread, to which, unfortunately, the OP didn't seem to direct much effort in preventing.

The perception of feminists as conspiracy theorists is the most common, and sad, feminism-related straw man. Sexism, in its most common form, rarely stems from hatred, deliberate exclusion, alienation, or what have you, but rather the assumptions that we have accumulated in our minds from observing the world around us as we grew up. Therefore, sexism is actually a very natural state of mind.

The conclusion this leads us to is that popular stereotypes, by their very nature, are self-sustaining. A person who grew up reading about, watching, and playing as mostly male characters will continue to expect and replicate the same tropes. When the entirety of society is doing this, you get the exact same environment which had lead to this collective bias in the first place.

Thus it is the job of the feminist movement to break this cycle by raising awareness, placing pressure on the media, and, what's even more important, producing enough hype to provoke a desire in individual people to do something about it themselves. I bolded that because that is actually a surprisingly difficult point. Pretty much everyone is aware of gender issues. But you have tens of millions, or even the majority of your country saying that they are not knowledgeable, influential, or involved enough to do something about it, and what you get is stagnation or even regression.

I won't diminish Frictional Games' reasoning behind their lack of motivation for creating female characters. But they also don't have the grounds to deny that they are part of the gender under-representation problem. Which is also fine, if you simply couldn't care less about it.

[amnesiapuzzles]

Can a female please state her opinion on this?

I am a female, and I love the FG games. AAMFP is a story of a person, who was a 19th century industrialist—a man was much more likely to be one at that time.

If FG (or TCR, in this case) feel that it was easier for them to create a male protagonist, in order to make him convincing, I'm perfectly fine with it. I'd prefer to play as a believable male protagonist, than an unreliable and weak portrayal of a female. (At this point, I must mention that Justine was a very interesting, yet terrifying character to relate to, and you guys certainly did not fail. )

As a player, I love the aspect of being put in a fictitious character's shoes. Both males, females, their different gender roles and personalities. I knew what the game was gonna be all about, if I hadn't liked it, I would've never bought it.

You're either a troll, or just looking for a needle in a haystack. Thinking that far, I could draw conclusions like: 'AAMFP is a sexist game, because it tells you that all men are likely to be bad and losers like Mandus, because they're all driven by fame, wealth, or are arrogant, trying to do sth for the greater good. So GURL POWAAAH FOR REAL!!!11oneone'. Which is pure nonsense, just like FG nad TCR being sexist for the fact of having male protagonists. They're working their asses off to entertain us—if you don't like it, don't buy the game, don't spread the news about it, play games with strong girls instead.

Alice: Madness Returns (I know it's not a horror game) also portrays a

Spoiler below!

strong female, fighting for her sanity and finally succeeding in it, and the evil, stereotypical male antagonist, who gets what he deserves

yet I never noticed any male players complain about the fact, that 'a guy in here is portrayed here as a bad man, this is sexist blah blah...'

Either way, by assuming: 'oh, and it's men who say it, so typical' thing.' you're attacking guys in here because they're guys, which automatically makes them bad if they disagree.

[Tombcool]

I am not a troll, and a lot of you are misunderstanding what I am saying and over-thinking it.

I am not JUST talking about Amnesia, there is no General Gaming section of this forum so I didn't know where to put it.

I am talking about the entire video game industry with a focus on horror.

A lot of people are mentioning, "Oh, why don't you look a DECADE ago and play Eternal Darkness."

That pretty much proves my point that female protagonists are dying in this industry.

But I can pretty much say that after Eternal Darkness we had another 200 games with male protagonists, and then the odd female here and there.

Do none of you find it wrong that there hundreds of video games out there with male playable characters and practically only three or four with female playable characters? And the fact that has gotten worse in the past few years....

[felixmole]

I am talking about the entire video game industry with a focus on first-person horror.

Only the first-person horror games? Far from it, many mainstream games suffer that problem.

[Tombcool]

=
Only the first-person horror games? Far from it, many mainstream games suffer that problem.

Yeah, you are right, doesn't anyone remember the fiasco that started with the game, Remember Me?

The fact the publishers did not want to publish it because it had a female protagonist and they thought it was not going to do well because of that?

Again, my point is proven about the industry.

And in case anyone is wondering, I am not a female, I am a male.

[MonkEsquire]

Take it back to reddit. Nobody gives a shit that the protagonist is male.

[Placeable]

=
Only the first-person horror games? Far from it, many mainstream games suffer that problem.

Yeah, you are right, doesn't anyone remember the fiasco that started with the game, Remember Me?

The fact the publishers did not want to publish it because it had a female protagonist and they thought it was not going to do well because of that?

Again, my point is proven about the industry.

And in case anyone is wondering, I am not a female, I am a male.

Your point is not "proven" it is a fact. It is well known that the gaming industry is mostly dominated by males. And yes most games have a male protagonist but there are still a lot of games out there with a female protagonist. Heck just look at the vast majority of RPG games where you create your own character, gender selection is common.

But to be fair focusing on the gaming industry is to avoid the real issue. Discrimination is still a big problem around the world but its getting better. And I am sure the gaming industry will change in time as well. And I would even go so far as saying it is getting better, even more so than 10 years ago. A lot of companies are showing interest in the female audience and, unlike popular opinion, a lot of women actually do enjoy playing video games as much as men. So why not? If there is $$$ to be made and there is a target group for it then it will most likely be made.

Personally I don't care either way. A female protagonist works as well as a male one. As long as the actual game is good. Then we can argue that certain genres of gaming lack a female lead more so than others. But perhaps that would picking straws.

But if you want to play Survival Horror/Horror games with female leads here's a few examples of games for the last decade:

* Resident Evil 5 (1 female playable character)
* Resident Evil 6 (3 campaigns, 2 female characters to play)
* Gone Home (More of a mystery game but has a female lead, great game btw)
* Obscure 1 & 2
* Slenderman The Arrival
* The Path (All female leads)
* Amy
* Alice: Madness Returns
* Hydrophobia

These are just a few from the top of my head. I am sure there are plenty more. And these are just horror games. If you really look there are a lot of games with female protagonists. Not just horror.

If anything Horror and Adventure Games do have a lot of female leads in their games.

[Cuyir]

With Remember Me they never said what publishers didn't want to publish their game because of those reasons and then the developers dropped it.They never brought it up again. That smells of bullshit so they can make it into the gaming radar, seeing how Remember Me had issues of not being thought of (which I find amusing). And it worked...for a while.

Are there more male protagonists in games?

Yeah.

Do female protagonists still exist?

Yeah.

What's the issue here then, Mr. White Knight?

I would love more games with female characters but i'm not complaining that there are more male characters in games. It doesn't really bother me. Female protagonists aren't ''dying'' in the industry, you're just focusing on this non issue and ignoring female protags. But hey, that's what your type does.